The Marmot’s Hole

Over at Infidelworld, Joseph discusses some of the moves going on between North Korea and the US, and takes some time to direct a bit of well-thought criticism at some of the more conservative Korea bloggers (myself included, I would suppose). Read his entire post - as always, it’s a good one - but let me reprint the part I wish to discuss below:

I disagree with the drift of some conservative bloggers’ emphasis on Kim Jong-il (Flying Yangban comes to mind readily, here and here). The informality of blogging aside, personalizing the North Korean issue over-simplifies it for no clear advantage. Ambassador Han also expresses concern about an American attempt to overthrow Kim, and Stratfor raised the issue of a supposed coup attempt. If anything, we should hope Kim stays in power long enough to sign whatever agreement we can make him and, if the authority of his position can actually get results, then he’s a useful sonafabitch. Traditionally, Korean leaders are primum inter pares (whose power seldom extends beyond the bedchamber), and factional infighting is the norm. Washington needs not only to mind the substance of the document, but craft a document the right faction can support. Ambassador Han’s plea is a sign, that some faction in Pyongyang is nervous, and if Washington plays it right, the new power in Pyongyang just might owe the White House a favor.

Joseph raises some interesting points. Yes, it’s possible to overemphasize the importance of Kim Jong-il, although it should be pointed out that the structure of the North Korean state makes Kim’s role a pivotal one - state power, after all, is personified in the Kim Dynasty, and the North’s “unique style of socialism” is designed with the expressed goal of perpetuating that dynasty. Still, Kim doesn’t run North Korea alone - he’s dependent on groups and factions within North Korea’s ruling elite, and if that elite bears any resemblance at all to the ones that have generally been a bane on Korean existence for 5000 years, than it’s one that probably has its fair share of infighting and palace intrigue. The Infidel has been hinting toward some factional instability in Pyongyang, with North Korea’s recent changes in attitude a sign that something may be brewing within the North Korean power structure. All this may be true, but nobody can say for certain that is, and it’s not like North Korea doesn’t have a history of suddenly offering what seems to be a dramatic “concession” one moment, only to break the hearts of its negotiating partners the next. My personal take on this is that the North Koreans have decided that Bush has given in as far as he’s willing to go, so it’s best that they take what they can get now and start up a new and more profitable crisis at a later date.

What I take issue with, however, is Joseph’s cautioning us against seeking Kim’s removal. Unlike the Infidel, I do not see the utility of keeping Kim in power “long enough to sign whatever agreement we can make him.” To be blunt, Kim will never be a “useful sonafabitch,” but he’ll gladly be a perpetual pain-in-the-ass if we let him. Like his father, Kim has never shown us anything that would suggest that he views “agreements” with the West as anything other than temporary stop gap measures that are made to be broken at the North’s earliest convenience. By all accounts, the 1994 Agreed Framework was a good deal for Pyongyang, yet it began cheating on it as soon as it was signed. Why we should expect anything more from any future deals has yet to be made clear. Even assuming the Infidel is correct - and he may very well be - that one North Korean faction or the other is in trouble, and desperately needs a deal for domestic political reasons, that does not mean that the faction in question will honor said deal once its immediate political issues are resolved. One faction gets a deal with Washington, uses it to crush their political enemies, and then North Korean diplomatic tradition reasserts itself. Forgive me for taking a rather dim view of things, but my research of North Korean state behavior affords me no other.

Also questionable is Joseph’s assertion that “if Washington plays it right, the new power in Pyongyang just might owe the White House a favor.” On this point, one may wish to consult the Russians and the Chinese, who not only installed the Kim Dynasty (the Russians) and sacrificed thousands of young men (the Chinese) to rescue it at its darkest hour, but spent the Cold War subsidizing the North’s economy and providing the Kims with the massive arms outlays required by their armed forces, only to be repaid with scorn from Pyongyang. The North Koreans don’t owe favors - they demand them, and behave quite obstinately when said favors aren’t forthcoming. Heck, the Chinese have been nothing if not generous to Pyongyang since the end of the Cold War, and even they can’t get the North to do anything without implicit threats. If the Americans should have learned anything from their 58 year involvement on the Korean Peninsula, it’s that no matter what kind of services they render, the last thing they should expect in return is gratitude. The United States may offer a life preserver to a North Korean faction in need, but it should be prepared for that faction to turn around and bite the hand that literally feeds it.

The Infidel is right, however, to caution us against seeking Kim’s removal without knowing just how will be be taking over the reigns afterward. As I believe he pointed out in a previous post (at a blog which no longer exists, so I cannot provide a link), the North Korean officer corps may be even more off-the-wall than the Dear Leader himself - certainly not the kind of people you’d want overseeing a million man army and a potential arsenal of nuclear-tipped ICBMs. This is all true, but it doesn’t negate the fact that those officers are a product of a system that Kim’s father built, and he himself has overseen since 1994. The central problem is the North Korean regime, and as long as it exists, the Peninsula will lurch from one crisis to the next as the leadership in Pyongyang seeks to find ways out of the internal contradictions of the North Korean system. Eventually, regional leaders are going to have to find a way to move beyond the DPRK, because the only thing the status quo guarantees is the continuous threat of war.

UPDATE: The Yangban offers some thoughts on this as well.

UPDATE II: The Infidel continues along this thread.