The Korea Policy Institute‘s Christine Ahn, a favorite of OFK’s Joshua Stanton, has an op-ed in the NYT.
Not surprisingly, she doesn’t like the Korea—US naval drills, doesn’t like new sanctions on North Korea, and thinks we should sign a peace treaty with North Korea.
A taste:
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced last week during a visit to the demilitarized zone that the United States plans to impose greater sanctions on North Korea. Although Secretary Clinton asserts that “[t]hese measures are not directed at the people of North Korea,” it is in fact the North Korean people who will suffer from U.S. sanctions.
The freezing of North Korean assets, in particular, restricts the country’s ability to purchase the materials it needs to meet the basic food, healthcare, sanitation and educational needs of its people. Moreover, sanctions have not succeeded in pressuring North Korea to disarm. To the contrary, North Korea considers economic sanctions to be an act of war, and has responded by accelerating its nuclear weapons program.
Yes, food, medicine, sanitation and school books — all priority budget items for North Korea, I’m sure. Of course, I have to agree with Ms. Ahn that North Korea considers economic sanctions an act of war, which is sort of odd, considering that it seems to think open seas piracy, dispatching commando teams to kill South Korean leaders, blowing up civilian airliners, bombing the South Korean cabinet in a third country capital, kidnapping Japanese and South Korean nationals and sinking South Korean warships aren’t.
(HT to reader)
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
Who was the two-faced coward that gave our host a thumbs-down?
Granted that US and South Korean governments aren’t always on the side of the angels in most regards, compared to the Nork Regime, they’ve been “freakin’” spotless!!! (imagine this with a Jack Nicholson accent for full effect)…
This is another person that should go live in North Korea (quoting Yu Myungwhan)…
How people can rationalize and justify the unjustifiable is beyond me since it requires one to selectively ignore facts and embrace others without critical thought. I suppose she makes sense in the bizzaro universe.
Shame on the New York Times. She should go die in North Korea and show her professed concern for the food situation there by become prison camp meat.
oops, becoming.
Wiith the economic recession getting worse in the States thanks to the man from Mars now in charge of things she is no doubt desperate for cash…..hope the Norks pay her well fror her Norkop-ed!…
I always knew, and said several times on this blog that the questionable appointment of Hilary Clinton to Obama in the position of the Secretary of Defense (a life-hardened woman with a husband who cannot keep it in his pants) would be a Colin Powell to George Dubya in the opposite chiral universe.
Nice addition to the vocabulary, yuna!
Ahn is speaking purely from academic point of view and doesn’t take the harsh realities behind North Korea’s actual state.
North Korea is analogous to a crazy dog. A crazy dog cannot listen to reason and therefore, any dialogue aimed at bringing rational solutions is futile. North Korea is not a country that can be reasoned with. It’s always an agressor, and understandably so due to the fact that behind the rhetorics and sabre rattling, North Korea is conventionally a very weak nation.
So let me ask Ahn, how can you possibly negotiate a truce or come to a solution that only works for countries that is able to act on a sane level ? You don’t, destruction of North Korea is the ONLY solution. You don’t reason with a crazy dog, you put it out of misery before it can do further damage.
Follow the Marmot’s links to One Free Korea’s spectacular fiskings of Ahn. She is not an academic or any kind of expert on North Korea. She appears to do some worthy food bank activities in the Bay Area. The think tank she’s affiliated with is a joke (based on what they’ve published) that almost makes the Hankyoreh seem clear-eyed and hard-headed on North Korea.
On behalf of all liberals, I’d like to apologize for Ms. Ahn’s learned stupidity – she clearly doesn’t understand the horror that is the North Korean government.
I think we should draw a bright line between liberal and delusional, parallel-universe-dwelling left.
I detest liberals with no sense of geopolitics and IR in much the same way that Chris Rock detests irresponsible black people.
Christine Ahn: you bringin’ us all down.
I think Ahn is completely misguided and as most here know I entirely blame the Pyongyang posse for the nightmare that is North Korea today. With Ahn and her ilk, I often find myself wondering if they really believe North Korea’s government exists at all (since they never seem to mention it).
That said, I’ve also found myself wondering if broader (vs tightly targeted) sanctions aren’t counter-productive or even unethical. It’s a very difficult question with North Korea since the regime is so adept at diverting everything good for the people toward its own malevolent uses. What I can say is that US policy should certainly be to prop up the people while putting down the regime, and sanctions and other actions should constantly be taken with that goal in mind. Supporting the people and their individual trade should be a top priority whenever possible. The question is how to do it. (And then, when you have an idea, where to air it and how to act on it.)
In most geopolitical circumstances I find that broad sanctions misfire: they have a tendency to weaken the people more than the regime, even if they weaken both in absolute terms, because of a govt’s monopoly on violence. For example I have a hard time believing that Cuba would still exist in current form without US sanctions and embargo. So in a comprehensive sense, what should sanctions on the DPRK look like vs the current reality? Is there a way to guide them toward hurting the regime while helping the people?
Robin — But that regime subsists on remaining hermetically sealed and blaming all its problems on the hostility from the United States. Isn’t there at least an argument to be made that lifting sanctions and signing a peace treaty takes away most of the excuses?
Of course, my preferred course would be to start bombing today. But since that’s not and never will be an option for some reason, why not kick out the chair?
Let me follow up, please, by saying that I’m in favor of hunting down DPRK regime money and seizing it, am generally in favor of the latest round of sanctions, and am adamantly opposed to the Kim regime. All I’m saying is that the US and other powers have made big mistakes with sanctions is the past, so I’d like to see them used better. Hopefully they will be in this case.
Brendon, yes, I believe that taking away the excuses is at least one of the better ways if not the best way. Signing a peace treaty, strengthening the ROK defenses and moving troops to Japan (carefully), these can remove most excuses. We agree on everything it seems except the bombings. And why not invade and be done with it? For one, because war doesn’t tend to work out as planned and a million or at least hundreds of thousands could die, in the South as well as the North.
I actually don’t think Pyongyang would let us sign a peace treaty; they’d probably play their cards to increase tensions yet again, as is in their interest. That said a strategy of removing the US from blame makes a lot of sense in my view and is really a lot of what I’ve been advocating. A question is how politically to make diplomatic moves to get to a peace treaty while the DPRK is still up to its many domestic and international crimes.
Robin — There’s no way a million people would die in a war with North Korea. Remember that in 1950 North Korea got rolled up to the Yalu River in a little over a month from the Incheon landings.
Now the power disparity between South Korea and North Korea is quite dramatically reversed, the ideological rot in North Korea has become quite profound, and American arms approach the realm of magic. Add the likely neutralization of both the Soviet Union (Russia) and PRC — all of that portends a quick disintegration of North Korea.
Also, aren’t we arguing that millions starve to death slowly in North Korea? Why is certain starvation preferable to potentially dying in a war?
Well I certainly agree that the power disparity is hugely reversed. That said, from a purely military perspective, and in a vacuum at that, I don’t yet see a solution for the DPRK artillery — the “sea of fire” stuff. About ideological rot, yes, it’s substantial and very welcome, but most North Koreans still seem to buy that the US is their enemy. Bombs probably won’t change their minds…
As far as the neutralization of the PRC, I’m not sure I understand what you mean. And in fact another fear about war as a regime change strategy is that it could bring about a new cold war and turn China into an enemy. Also, I don’t see how the South Koreans could ever go for it. And if they didn’t then how would it be possible? Economic fallout could also be quite dire. Seems to me all in all that it’s a bad idea, though I certainly understand the wish for a nice quick ending to the nightmare.
As for millions starving, I think it’s more like millions are perpetually almost starving.
Anyway, what about the artillery? How quickly do you think it could be neutralized? How could a lower-risk war be fought? How to do it without radicalizing China?
I wouldn’t say the sanctions are getting broader, at least in terms that affect ordinary subjects’ welfare in the North. They’re getting smarter, better focused and more complete.
Two points:
I would totally be in favor of dropping sanctions and signing a peace treaty with North Korea, if I thought for one moment it would change the North’s stance towards the US. I don’t see that happening. The regime needs the US as an enemy more than it needs sacks of rice. There is no amount of goodwill the US can show to the North that their propoganda can’t spin. They believe Americans are an inherently flawed and corrupt sub-species. They will never see the US as friendly. Hell, look at what South Koreans say about the US, and they’re allies.
The phrase “a million casualties” gets thrown around alot when people talk about what the North could do to Seoul. I’ve never seen the exact numbers, but I know they were enough to deter George Dubya. The North may only have military tech decades behind South Korea and the USA, but they really don’t need to pulverize a highly populated area so close to their border. Put simply, South Korea does not have the stomach for that. Their resolve would not survive the first salvo.
I truly believe – and not because I am some kind of hawk – that NK would never actually sign a peace treaty with the US and/or SK. Or, if it did sign something, it would not broadcast it to its people and would not stand down its military lined up along the DMZ. Why? That brings us to…
Exactly! The Kims are good students of Orwell. Keep things in a permanent state of war and its keeps the people focused in the enemy without, not the rotten core within the nation.
A TRUE peace between NK and the US would mean imminent death for KJI and his regime. What possibly legitimacy would they have left? Why should NK remain extant as a separate Korea?
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