North Korea is far more of a threat to international security than Iraq. Its leaders have full diplomatic relations with China, the country whose markets are being exploited by US and European multi-nationals, making China more dependent on the US and Europe. China has the world’s largest army, and is a declared nuclear power. The diplomatic struggle last summer which accompanied the shooting down of Chinese planes by American pilots in disputed Chinese airspace and the subsequent hostage of those pilots on a Chinese island highlighted the enormous tension underlying relations between the worlds largest military and economic power, and the worlds largest population. It seems the cold war may not be necessarily dead after all. The big questioning over the ‘North Korea problem’ that was central to last months South Korean elections saw the candidate whose ‘Sunshine policy’ encouraged appeasement and diplomacy elected as president. The elections, the latest James Bond film ‘Die another Day’ with ‘imperialist’ connotations et al combined with N.K’s pulling out of the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty (NN-PT) has seen an upswell of anti-US and pro-N.K. sentiment in South Korea. Though the symbolism and optimism of the events that have marked this policy have yielded no concrete concessions from its totalitarian neighbours. Expect pressures in South Korea for unification and (in that foreseeably unlikely event) an integration process about a million times more painful than that in Germany since 1989. South Korea have taken the Japanese route of US-style high investment low-tax low-social provision capitalism. North Korea are easily the most secretive isolated most communist most oppressive and possibly the most hungry state/country in the world.
A unified Korea would threaten China’s dominance in the region, and it is in their interests to more-or-less maintain the status-quo.
North Korea’s state and people are very unusual. It is truly the last remaining outpost of Stalinist ‘Communism-in-one-country’ left in the world. Such ideology couldn’t allow even Russia with nearly 200 million people, vast natural resources and more land-mass than any other country any suggestion of self-sufficiency. Let alone a mountainous country in a difficult climate with 23 million people, roughly the size of Manchester.
Bush is more concerned by N.K. than Iraq, yet he is more capable of doing anything in Iraq and provoking opposition from within. Many of the North Korean people have been brainwashed by a powerful propaganda machine which turned the cult-of-personality into a device used more aggressively than by Stalin. I would suspect that many people in North Korea are fully aware of what is happening to their people. I cannot imagine a greater hell.
Bush and previous American administrations had successfully appeased N.K. with oil and fuel and food through the UN and World Food Programme. Hawkish confrontational noises from world leaders undo all that good work. Thankyou Bush. Give groups like the Tikriti establishment in Iraq or the Kim dynasty in N.K. any chance, any excuse, and they will find reasons to provoke the international community into a slanging match where the words used have suggestions, hints and implications of military conflict, and military solutions to complex problems. Bush has successfully, having declared N.K. as ‘evil’ and ‘wrongdoers’. done exactly what irresponsible world leaders do worst: provoke the pariah into show-stopping gestures and talk of conflict war and death. Republicans talk in this way in terms of ‘peace’, physically removing bad regimes in the name of peace. It is, of course, when it works, quicker than the slow-burning appeasement of a Clinton or Chiraq. The behaviour of the Bushs and Reagans of this world, also provoke populations in other countries into hating the US. This is the case in much of the Arab world and in South Korea no to mention much of the rest of the world. More care is needed. And this is where their strategy in internatinoal relations finds an irresolvable contradiction. Regime-change in order to bring peace freedom and democracy will provoke other democracies into pressuring their governments into opposing the USA. This has happened. Why do prefer to take this ‘quick’ military route to changing societies around the world for the better? Because natural and human resources are often available for MNC exploitation in these countries. War can generate patriotism in the US and change the political agenda so that to oppose the government is to oppose the concept of your nation. Such tactics do generate (in the long-term) internal dissent. This has happened in the US. I’m intrigued to see what will happen when the pacifists who look through not only their goverment, but their corporate/corporatist mass-media. Will it flick over the 50% mark as in 1991 after the war-on-Iraq-Part-I? Or is it always the state of the economy that matters?
Mistakes are being made by international governmental teams, Bush’s in particular. His current strategy with dealing with the Iraq or N.K. problems is putting international security and economic wellbeing (with our globalised interdependent world) all at risk.
Short-term political solutions for long-term economic gain? or Long-term political solutions for short-term economic gain? This is the question that the US administration has to answer, and so far answered wrongly.
As for your final questions, the Bush administration has chosen not to deal militarily with N.K. for four main reasons:
firstly, democratic demands within the US. Frightening a pacifist public into supporting one war is hard enough. Two? NO.
secondly, democratic demands around the world, Europe and Russia in particular. All dissent worries the US government. Their reputation as ‘imperialists’ or ‘bent policemen’ is well-established. If the US went to war without European or Russian support too often, there may come a point where the UN security council as a forum for discussion and compromise is bypassed, and the ‘dissenters’ start dissenting, almost certainly by sanctions, which in our increasingly globalised and interdependent world would almost certainly have catastrophic consequences for all, especially those reliant on American markets.
thirdly, they can’t! North Korea’s army is far stronger than Iraq’s police. They have a far greater hold on North Korean society than Iraqi forces, though that is not to underestimate the fear and tyranny in Iraqi society.
fourthly, N.K. has nuclear weapons. We can see the fuss the US administration is going to ensure that Iraq has none. When such a rogue state with unpredictable leaders do have nuclear weapons, you really have to tread carefully. But the US can after to go gung-ho on Iraq whilst the threat is not quite so distinct and obvious.
There may be more that I can’t quite think of for the moment, but those four reasons are enough to hold the Bush administration back from going for them as well. However, leading lights in that administration, including the vice-president and defence secretary, have made it clear to the North Korean leadership that they are more than capable of ‘fighting a war on two fronts’.
As for the UN, well we’re about to hear about N.K. from them. They plan to meet next week to discuss North Korea’s pulling out of the NN-PT. I expect all members to be pushing N.K. to change their mind.
If you’ve reached this far, you’re informed! These are tense times for the international community of political leaders. We need a strong principled moral rational considered performance from them all over the coming year, so as to avoid more economic uncertainty, ensure globalisation is managed for the good, and innocent lives are not unnecessarily lost.
Although you may find it a little biased, a good source to find some of the history behind the current conflict, as well as a good understanding of the North Korean state can be found be found with the BBC (all anti-BBC/CNN people, trust me, look through the bias, which isn’t too strong or distracting) at this site: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-p … 131421.stm