In Esquire, Thomas P.M. Barnett explains why North Korea will forever be a pain in the world’s ass.
I usually enjoy Mr. Barnett, but frankly, I’m not sure what I think of this:
If no easy answers are to be found, then what do we have to look forward to, other than a ceaseless stream of chill-inducing segments on cable news?
The good news is this: In the grand scheme of things, not only do North Korea’s nukes have virtually no impact on global stability, the prospect of the regime’s sudden collapse no longer presents the possibility of triggering great-power war. The six-party talks that have brought together the United States, China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea (in addition to North Korea) over the past few years actually have served their underlying purpose: demystifying the collapse scenario to the point where none of the players envision conditions under which they’d fight one another over the rotting North Korean carcass.
And so long as we collectively keep South Korea’s crazy cousin effectively imprisoned in the upstairs attic, that’s all that really matters.
Having said all that, Pyongyang’s declaration yesterday that it’s tossing away the fifty-six-year-old armistice with South Korea makes clear that North Korea is freaked out enough over the Kim transition that it would consider re-engaging (or at least threaten to re-engage) the South in some military skirmish or even war. And it begs for an alternative solution: The West could call Kim’s bluff by proceeding with every “hostile act” that we know will push his buttons. If nothing else, direct hostile reactions might reveal the fraud that is North Korea’s decrepit military might, and — who knows — maybe they would actually tip things over into the regime-ending conclusion the whole world is looking for.
Unlike, say, Iran, North Korea is a completely fake state — the unnecessary tailbone still remaining from the Cold War — plus it’s truly totalitarian, meaning engagement is a fool’s errand. So let’s not pretend this is any test for America or our new president, because it’s not. This is an existential crisis for an artificial nation that’s survived long past its expiration date — and it shows. If there is one spot on the planet where President Obama could get away with aping Bush’s “bring it on” bravado, North Korea is it.
Mr. Barnett is taking North Korean threats a bit too seriously — North Korea is ALWAYS threatening to do something scary — and doesn’t take seriously enough the competition between South Korean and China over the “rotting North Korean carcass,” which may largely decide how the endgame is played out once it finally begins on its own accord.
Still, I suppose “pushing North Korea’s buttons” might be worth it — not so much because I think it will be effective in actually changing anything (I don’t), but just because I like sticking it to the North Koreans.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I go back in forth as to whether or not we should be “sticking it to the North Koreans.” I remain skeptical towards the idea that the North Koreans who most deserve being stuck are the ones who will be. Do our sanctions and “hostile acts” really hurt these people? Even though the Bush era sanctions supposedly targeted luxury goods, I am skeptical as to their efficacy. Also, I think we have to assume that the Hennesy-swilling elite have an escape plan in place, starting with Chinese human traffickers and ending in a cushy retirement in their African dictatorship of choice, all funded with offshore accounts fed by international heroin trade and counterfeiting operations. If there was some way we could really make these bastards pay, I’d be all for it. But I don’t see how.
Which just leaves the North Korean people themselves to pay the price, as they’ve been doing for the past sixty years. Here is where I really equivocate. Are the North Koreans victims that we should extend every humanitarian effort towards? Or are they a nation of cowards and fools who, as Max Brooks put it, would rather eat their own children than breathe a word of discontent against their Dear Leader?
NK is a front for China and Russia.
It is not a pain in the ass but a real threat. To SK and Japan.
And, maybe to Israel and the US.
NK will not die till China dies.
Get to the source of the problem.
North Korea is totalitarian, and that’s why engagement is NOT a fool’s errand.
Totalitarian states demand all from, and promise all to, their people. They want to be the sole interpreter of events both inside and outside the country. So long as the West imposes events (like sanctions and military strikes) from outside, and the North Korean regime is allowed to interpret these events as it wishes, the North Korean regime will have the upper hand.
The opposite of Totalitarianism is Irrelevance. If we want to destroy the North Korean regime, we must:
1. Make the NK government seem insignificant (by ignoring nuke tests, “declarations of war”, etc.), or out of its depth (by shooting down missiles, etc.).
2. Provide the people with more accurate information than they receive from official media. This does not mean broadcasts about the superiority of liberal democracy. It means weather reports, exchange rates, news about events in the North Korean countryside, etc. It means “edgy” humor about NK life. It means simple discussions of regional events that allow listeners to draw their own conclusions.
3. FLOOD North Korea with food aid. This is an economic point: If the West provides copious amounts of food, the price of food will drop dangerously, and the government will either have to buy up excess rice at enormous cost, or the North Korean farmers will simply refuse to farm. This can only increase their dependence, and our influence. By the way, food aid being diverted to the market is a GOOD thing; it means that the people will depend more on the market for their livelihoods, and less on the government.
4. Provide free college education to all defectors and their children, in both South Korea and the United States. We all know how much Koreans value education; let the parents dream of sending their kids abroad to have a better future. Once again, make the NK system irrelevant, and the NK people dependant on us.
5. Build colleges, factories, hospitals, etc. in North Korea. Make sure that whenever they think of a foreign facility, they think of professionalism and competence, instead of their own petty and incompetent government. Make sure that as many of them as possible have actual contact with the demonized foreigners, and are able to draw their own conclusions.
headline on today’s wsj was priceless…
A Korean Invasion Blindsides the U.S. Army
and it was merely about recruits seeking citizenship in the U.S.
The excellent B.R. Myers is in the IHT today with his thoughts on North Korea. Good reading.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/opinion/29iht-edmyers.html?_r=1&ref=global
Bravo eunsung! Excellent plan indeed.
eunsung:
I really like your basic premise: that we should undermine a totalitarian regime by bypassing it. I think your first two points are fantastic. I would love to see our leaders doing more of just that.
However, I think the practicality of your other points may be too difficult to overcome. Food aid in the past has just given the regime one more thing to horde and distribute as they see fit: in essence it gives them more power. Trying to go around the Party and distribute food directly hasn’t worked yet, and I don’t see any reason why it would start to work now. In addition, I think building the infrastructure you mention in the fifth point would again only give resources to the Nork government that they could exploit. They will not allow an institution to appear both foreign and superior.
Your fourth point is the most interesting to me. Andrei Lankov has argued, quite well, that such educational opportunities are vital to undermining the current North Korean government. I agree in theory. However, in practice, I am curious to see the reaction of South Korean mothers when they learn that their child, despite having superior test scores, cannot attend a certain university because that university must take so many North Korean refugees.
I think the US and Japan should move more strongly to establish diplomatic relations. It is the one thing they have not tried and it is what North Korea wants. All the other stuff can happen more easily one that is done.
I always enjoy Dr. Barnett’s strategic thinking (Pentagon’s New Map was stupendous), but I’m not sure why he sees China as benign based on its historical stance on its relationship with the Korean peninsula. If the DPRK, arguably, can be viewed as a vassal state of the PRC how can we expect Beijing would be pleased to see its management and reconstruction turned over to the South at some later stage? I just don’t buy that, based on Sino-Korean history.
http://chinamatters.blogspot.com/2009/05/groundhog-day-on-north-korea.html
Eunsung; great ideas that might actually work if implemented (you should check out “Plan B” of OFK for more along those lines). But it will never happen; our side will never do it, their side would not allow it.
As things actually are, engagement with the North Korean regime is a waste of time and resources. If “engagement” meant actually interacting with and influencing non-elite North Koreans, it’d be a different story. But it’s not.
Some of the same results you seek, however, are occurring as information does get into the country. It’ll take time, but it will happen.
NK will be freed when a leader like Gorbachev rises in China. And, he lets NK be free. Totally free.
This is how Poland got freed from the USSR’s grip.
Till then, NK is just a Chinese satellite. Making nukes and shooting missiles as Beijing tells it to do.
Soon, it may lob a missile to Japan and start a war.
All according to the Chinese plan of “World domination”.
NK is a very useful thug. To the Chinese, that is.
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