- President Lee Myung-bak’s measured response to the Cheonan sinking (which earned South Korea a medal for “Courageous Restraint” from John Derbyshire) just got a lot more measured with the postponement of a joint naval drill.
- Well, at least North Korea knows how to enforce the damn border, with Chinese border patrol firing on a boat of Chinese smugglers trying to approach the North Korean city of Shinuiju, killing two and injuring one.
- Gotta give Kim Jong-nam some credit — at least he’s amusing.
- If you have time, you might find this BBC video on North Korea interesting. (HT to readers)
- The Korea Times might be shocked about spying in South Korea… but I’m not. Andy Jackson notes: “One of the things that I have long suspected is that there are a lot of people in Korea, including figures in government, the media and academics, who do not want to see the regime in Pyongyang fall because the subsequent opening of the regime’s files would reveal their status as agents or dupes for the North Koreans.“
- Was it Lenin who said the capitalists would sell the communists the rope? When you read stuff like this, you realize that while a decade of Sunshine might or might not have changed the North, it sure has created in the South classes of people with economic and political interests in keeping the North happy.
Odds and Ends: June 7, 2010
Previous post: Information Management — Chinese Style
Next post: And Going Into the ‘WTF’ File…
{ 31 comments… read them below or add one }
In the summer of 1939, as the Western Democracies vowed war over any violation of Polish sovereignty, Hitler remained unfazed, convinced by a decade of dithering, appeasement, and reticence that Britain, France, and their allies were too weak and impotent to put up any meaningful resistance.
The United States and South Korea have just committed a major geopolitical blunder. Sure, they are being praised now for their “patience” and “restraint” in dealing with North Korea, but history will prove this moment not much different from when Neville Chamberlain was praised for bringing “peace in our time.” But the fact is, as the South and its allies draw back from the brink, the 2010 Inter-Korean crisis is coming to a close and Pyongyang is the all-out winner. They have gotten away, scot-free, with a murderous terrorist attack, won support from allies like China, sowed discord among the South Korean populace, and rallied their domestic audience behind the regime. The world is a lot more dangerous than it was before March 26th, because Pyongyang knows South Korea and America have a seemingly endless tolerance for its provocative behavior. Even as evidence comes to light about growing nuclear ties between North Korea and Myanmar, Iran, and Syria, North Korean ship captains and bureaucrats can breathe a little easier knowing their nefarious cargoes will draw nothing more than verbal rebukes. It is only a matter of time before their growing hubris leads to a miscalculation of epic proportions.
It’s time to face reality. If we are not willing to take any serious action to subvert, contain, or punish the regime, and our leaders are too weak, spineless, and obsessed with short-term political gain to take decisive action, then maybe it’s time to start talking about surrender. At least if we’re on good terms with our new masters on Changwon-gori, then we’ll have nothing to fear from their ever-growing, ever-proliferating nuclear stockpile.
If I was a young man currently serving my time in the SK army, I would be none too pleased to know that if I was murdered in cold blood by the enemy my government would do nothing to avenge my death, other than try to appease the voters with empty threats until they no longer are angry and everyone has forgotten about me.
sulperman… are you suggesting that thousands if not millions of your fellow countrymen die in a war to avenge your death?
At least I would hope that they would stick to their guns on the balloons and loudspeakers. That isn’t going to lead to war, just more tension that will deflate over time. Is that tiny little bit of pretending to care too much to ask for?
Beatnix,
Proportional punishment of some form is required. The goal is to change North Korea’s strategic calculations so it sees there is a cost to committing these types of acts. If North Korea knows it will face sanctions or retaliation for its actions, then it makes it more “expensive” for North Korea to carry out such attacks and thus preserves the balance of the regional security environment. The Cheonan torpedoing was in many ways a test of the South’s resolve and tolerance for aggravation. By not responding, except verbally, the message sent is clear: the South is weak and willing to tolerate such acts. This drastically makes the security environment in Northeast Asia even more dangerous because it will lead the North into miscalculating and carrying out an even bigger, bolder attack, much as Hitler did with Poland. Inevitably, such a move could result in the deaths of “thousands if not millions of your fellow countrymen”
We are dealing with N.Korea and Kim Jong-Il here. Rationality does not play a part in a conversation with the north.
You would have better luck asking a retarded kid down the street to write you a 500 page paper on string theory.
balloons and speakers do nothing to the north.
Or so they would like you to think.
Milton…
What good are sanctions and a unified “tsk-tsk”, when China rewards N.Korea with 100,000 tons of food and $100,000.00 on the heels of Chonen disaster?
Robert…
Do you really think that N.Korean leadership is rational?
North Korea: “Playing the West like a violin since 1953.”
Beatnix: The death-camp-enjoying, family-separating slime buckets in charge up north are very rational and know exactly what they are doing, at least in terms of foreign policy (that recent currency reform maybe wasn’t too brilliant).
I sure do. They do what they do not because they’re loony, but because it works for them.
The real reason S.Korea doesn’t want a war with the north is because south honestly does not want to reunify. Ideologically it is a great prospect, but realistically it is not an attractive motivation for the south. Let’s say that south retaliates and a war breaks out. If south wins who will be responsible for the rebuilding of the two Koreas post war? How will S.Korea feed and house millions of N.Koreans refugees who are bound to flood to the south? How long will it take for N.Korea to develop to match the S.Korean economy? These are the realities of retaliations in Korea.
wedge..
Yeah… but they apparently killed the guy that came up with the idea… problem solved. ;D
Inquisition worked for Spain for almost 400 years… but looking back on it now it was a retarded idea.
hindsight is always 20/20.
More North Korean leadership changes to report, as North Korea holds an unprecedented mid-year SPA session. KJI was in attendance.
Yonhap reports that North Korea has just appointed Jang Song-taek, KJI’s brother-in-law and a rising star in the Pyongyang political establishment to Vice Chairman of the National Defense Commission. This comes just days after the reported death of his rival Ri Je-gang in a “car accident.” Some have suggested that Jang may in fact be KJI’s appointed successor, and he is undoubtedly the second most powerful man in North Korea.
Choi Young-rim has replaced Kim Young-il as Prime Minister. Choi is another octogenarian ex-Kim Il Sung bodyguard who was previously secretary general of the SPA.
For more on the ongoing leadership changes, see here:
http://nkleadershipwatch.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/personnel-shuffles-in-the-first-half-of-2010/
Even if China remains intransigent, there is still plenty that can be done unilaterally to punish the regime. For instance:
1) Freezing North Korea out of the international financial system, freezing their financial assets abroad, and punishing banks and companies that do business with North Korea and sanctioning companies that do business with banks that do business with North Korea.
2) Stepping up efforts to prevent North Korea from weapons exporting by actually enforcing the PSI.
3) Subverting the regime by giving more money to anti-North Korean groups, stepping up propaganda campaigns, and getting more information into North Korea, while reaching out to disaffected elite groups within the country.
4) Begin a Reagan-style arms race on the peninsula to get the North to overspend on the military while diverting funds from civilian use in an effort to bring about social instability.
These are just some ideas, and I’m sure there are plenty more. China and Russia will remain obstacles, but that doesn’t mean we are powerless.
It’s totally South Korea’s fault. South Korea has turned into a nation of spineless people. They fear war so much that they are unwittingly leading themselves to war later.
“One of the things that I have long suspected is that there are a lot of people in Korea, including figures in government, the media and academics, who do not want to see the regime in Pyongyang fall because the subsequent opening of the regime’s files would reveal their status as agents or dupes for the North Koreans.“
It doesn’t take much to figure who they are. Just read and watch the news. But you just insulted people like Yuna and theotherKorean. To them, you’re just another dupe of Lee Myung Bak administration backed by Jo-Jung-Dong media who are labeling everyone Commies.
First of all… China will never let N.Korea collapse. They see N.Korea as a buffer zone from the U.S. military based in S.Korea.
1)Freezing the regime’s accounts is kin to poking a cornered animal. You won’t know what they are capable of if you put them in a desperate situation.
2)We could try to stop the arms export but China and Russia would have to be on board too.
3)giving money to anti-north Korean groups to basically perform a coup d’état against a tightly controlled regime with a million plus military is a stretch to say the least.
4)arms race in the south won’t work because most S.Koreans wouldn’t allow nukes in their country but most importantly it would piss off China.
cm
As I stated earlier, it’s not about being spineless or some hidden files in N.Korea. It’s about the cost of rebuilding N.Korea. Koreans may say they would like to see a reunification but no one is willing to sacrifice what they have now to actually have it done.
A stern reaction! Like this? Almost as effective as a stern letter!
HT Wedge.
I think any comparison of North Korea to the unique evils of Nazi Germany is inapostate, as is the suggestion that South Korea’s measured response to North Korean provocations is somehow equivalent to Neville Chamberlain’s capitulation at Munich. (Isn’t there something called Godwin’s Law that says that the first person to use “Nazi” in an argument automatically loses?)
Rather, I suspect that 2MB is following the tradition laid down by his hardline predecessors Park Chung Hee, Chun Doo Hwan, and Roh Tae Woo of a Korean version of what Margaret Thatcher (in describing England’s policy toward the IRA) once termed “an acceptable level of violence.” None of these leaders were push-overs; all recognized the limits of a more robust response. There is plenty of precedent for 2MB’s decision to tempo down the rhetoric.
“Collective shrug” indeed.
DLB
DLB, when I wrote “spineless South Koreans”, I didn’t mean LMB and the ruling party.
#15,
I wouldn’t see too much into those changes. Old men get sick and die all the time.
#19,
3) The million man army is very much propaganda, a figure that’s been inflated by claims that all North Korean men serve in the military from their teens until they are middle-aged. In reality, few of these soldiers are battle ready. Most as these soldiers would serve as cannon fodder, a diversion for North Korean commandos and other saboteurs.
Oh, and 4)…
South Korea has won the arms race in on the peninsula. A couple of nuclear tests won’t change that, not that it matters. As I’ve suggested in my previous comment, the next Korean war would be one that is fought with non-conventional weapons (not that I think it would be a sustainable one as in Iraq or Afghanistan. There aren’t many militant pro-North Koreans around the world).
milton, I agree with you. But like some others, I think your Hitler analogy is a bit of a stretch. Also, I disapprove of your use of “terrorist.”
But aside from that, we’re in agreement. My question, however, is: would taking a strong stance against North Korea be tantamount to handing the country over to China?
any comparison of North Korea to the unique evils of Nazi Germany is inapostate…
So it’s in accord with infallible doctrine, then.
Better check the dictionary when you go for those multi-syllabic words.
just like I need to spell/html check. Bork, bork!
Spewer,
Oh, my pride! It must have been my lapsed religiosity finding its way through my subconscious. And yet, somehow I’m just certain that you and I both know I meant inapposite, which for some reason my computer marks as misspelled.
Or as Mike Meyers joked in a slightly different vein, “Don’t put the wrong emPHASis on the wrong sylLAble.”
Cheers,
DLB
It’s totally South Korea’s fault. South Korea has turned into a nation of spineless people. They fear war so much that they are unwittingly leading themselves to war later.
I don’t think S. Korea is the only nation in the world that has a population of “spineless people.” Besides, cm, I don’t see you doing anything about it and me thinks you won’t be putting on the uniform of the S.Korean military if things get hot. Which clearly puts you in the “spineless” category.
With regard to claims that SK’s reponse amounts to no more than huffing and puffing, take a look at this quote from the NYT ; (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/asia/10koreans.html?hp)
“Citing aerial photos of plumeless smokestacks, economists say roughly three of every four North Korean factories are idle. The economy has been staggering badly since 2006, when Kim Jong-il pulled out of multinational talks aimed at ending his nuclear weapons program. The sinking of the Cheonan will further damage the economy: South Korea has suspended nearly all trade, depriving the North of $333 million a year from seafood sales and other exports. ”
I’d say that’s a bit of a wrench in their rusty wheels.
You must log in to post a comment.