New America Foundation fellow James Pinkerton saw Kwak Kyung-taek’s Clancy-esque action flic “Typhoon.” Aside from teaching him what we here have known all along—Koreans are, at best, ambivalent about their American allies—the film also sparked some serious thought about how the nuclear future will impact American foreign policy making:
Those few Americans who see “Typhoon” might come away with three political lessons, in addition to the Clancyesque storyline:
First, we should consider ourselves lucky, or blessed, that we dominate this continent, indeed, this hemisphere. The day that another great power emerges in the Americas will be the day that Yankees find themselves with much less freedom of action — and we’ll have to devote a lot more energy to learning Portuguese.
Second, if the spread of WMD continues — and South Korea is one of those countries on anyone’s nuclear-proliferation watchlist — then the US will have to learn new ways of operating in a world in which multiple actors can deliver apocalyptic damage on a chosen target. There’s no reason now to think that South Korea and the US will ever be enemies, but it’s clear enough, from this movie alone, that the South Koreans regard us with ambivalence today; one can only wonder what Korean-American relations will be like tomorrow. Skip ahead a half-century, and it’s certain that a united and nuclearized Korea will enjoy a new kind of relationship with the United States. The choices we make in between, in our dealings with Seoul, as well as with the other capitals of present and future great powers, will shape our fate in this nuke-bristling mid-century world.
Third, in that WMD-heavy world of the future, Americans will likely have learned to step carefully amidst an evermore dangerous planetary environment. That is, just as the Koreans today are conscious of maneuvering between the aforementioned quartet of China, Russia, Japan and the US — all the while watching such peer-states as Taiwan — so Americans tomorrow will have to negotiate their way through thickets of menacing countries. Oh, and by the way, we might not always be sure that our own government is entirely composed of white hats.
So the growth of foreign economies, militaries, and technologies could make the world a scarier place, even before we get to the most dangerous trend of all — the perpetual human tendency toward arrogance, violence, and dominance. In which case, we will know then what it’s like to be a South Korean now.
Read the rest on your own.
6 Comments
Many American still do not get the significance of the 9/11. They just dismiss it as the one time fluke with religious bent.
Well, that is not it. The US was the wealthiest country in the world and many countries, especially poor ones, hate America. It is the class warfare in international scale.
If the US pulls out troops from Korea and Iraq and sit pretty in the continental US, these attacks will continue. And, get more vicious.
One has to applaud President Bush’s attack on Iraq, not only for the present generation but also for future generations. America hit the terrorists where they lived! Terrorists will think twice before attacking the US.
When the doves take over the White House and sweet-talk these terrorists with financial help, these terrorists will only want more. President Carter tried. NK only has built more nuke weapons.
Only way for the US to maintain peace is to hit these problem nations early on. I applaud the present administration for passing the law to enable CIA to assassinate “evil” dictators. This is a good law. One evil person must die to spare thousands and millions of American lives.
Interfere in other countries’ internal affairs. And, eliminate bad seeds early on. Assassinate! Assassinate! Assassinate! Interfere,interfere, interfere! Complacency only brings disasters to the US. Be proactive!
baduk, I agree with you.
“It is the class warfare in international scale.”
More or less. But there are other reasons such as its foreign policies towards the middle east.
“America hit the terrorists where they lived! Terrorists will think twice before attacking the US.”
Someone should remind them that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are a few thousand miles away from Iraq.
“But there are other reasons such as its foreign policies towards the middle east.”
It has little to do with US policies in the Middle East, and everything to do with American support of Israel. Nothing short of repudiation and selling out of Israel to the Islamofascists would stop them from attacking the US.
Nuclear weaponry is old technology, outdated with the pepper and pray mentality — There’s a reason why M-16s don’t unload their entire clip, and fire in bursts of 3. With our technology base doubling every 3 to 5 years, there’s really no telling what the U.S. military arsenal possesses currently…
I think it’s naive to believe that traditional nuclear weapons are currently the most powerful weapon in the American arsenal. For example, laser-technologies are way more precise, and lethal IMO. Another example might be genetic-targeting of an enemy through air-borne, food-laced, or water-infused technology is way more feasible, lethal, and most definitely specific and severe.
Moreover, I seriously doubt that if any country were silly enough to initiate a traditional nuclear weapon launch it would be shot down immediately by an American military-grade 747 carrying laser-targeting technologies. And surely, any traditional or non-traditional (suitcase type for example) preemptive strike would be answered with an equally aggressive response from the U.S. and or its allies.
–Remort
I’d like to also add, that if the U.S. did detonate a traditional nuclear weapon, it wouldn’t be a toy like the ones that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki — modern nuclear weapons would slap the recipient back into the stone age.
–Remort
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[...] a pundit watches a movie and renders judgment on the character of an entire nation (h/t The Marmot’s Hole). Extreme suffering and privation have made the Koreans soulful, as well as cunning — hence their enormous artistic output. [...]