Behold the unique power of North Korea: A small, hopelessly isolated prison-state that suffers from perpetual food shortages, crushing poverty, Zimbabwe-style inflation, and a cartoonishly severe electricity problem, is nonetheless able to summon the rapt attention of the United States whenever it chooses. Pyongyang’s latest act of headline-grabbing belligerence was an unprovoked artillery assault on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, which is home to both a military base and a quiet fishing community. The attack killed four South Koreans, including two civilians. It came less than a week after the world learned of a new North Korean uranium-enrichment facility.
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Thus far, the responses from Washington and Beijing have been predictable. The U.S. has fiercely condemned the atrocity and is now conducting massive naval exercises with South Korea in the Yellow Sea; meanwhile, American officials are pushing to beef up sanctions against the North. China, by contrast, is refusing explicitly to blame Pyongyang for the incident and is urging a resumption of the futile six-party talks that collapsed in April 2009 when North Korea announced it would no longer attend the negotiations.
This all sounds grimly familiar. Once again, Pyongyang has resorted to barbarism in hopes of intimidating its neighbors and extracting economic concessions from the West. Once again, the U.S. is being urged to “do something” about the Korean threat. Once again, China is resisting further sanctions against its client state and is counseling restraint on all sides. And once again, America’s practical options are depressingly scarce.
Some conservatives have argued that the Yeonpyeong attack was a direct response to U.S. “weakness.” In fact, the Obama administration has been relatively tough on Pyongyang — much tougher than the Bush administration was during its final two years, when economic sanctions were loosened and North Korea was removed from the State Department’s list of terror sponsors. Go back and read secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s remarks at the July 2009 ASEAN Regional Forum in Thailand. A hawkish former Bush official describes that speech as “the best statement on North Korea strategy in the past 20 years.” The Obama team — led by Clinton, secretary of defense Robert Gates, and State Department Asia hand Kurt Campbell — has bolstered America’s alliance with South Korea and championed muscular sanctions aimed at squeezing Pyongyang’s finances. Just a few days before the Yeonpyeong attack, the U.S. Treasury Department froze the assets of Korea Daesong Bank and Korea Daesong General Trading Corporation, both of which have links to the North Korean government.
We applaud the new sanctions and encourage the Obama administration to strangle North Korea’s cashflows however possible. But we are under no illusion that sanctions will topple the dictatorship. For that matter, neither rigid sanctions nor generous concessions are likely to spur a real change in North Korea’s strategic thinking. Pyongyang conducted its first nuclear test in October 2006, after the Bush administration had started cutting it off from the world financial system with its ruling on $25 million in accounts at Banco Delta Asia. The eventual release of those assets — a reward for hollow North Korean disarmament promises — was followed by the Pyongyang’s second nuclear test, in May 2009. The lesson? Americans need to stop treating Pyongyang’s behavior as a function of U.S. policy.
The Kim Jong Il regime is not your typical aggressive autocracy. It is a cult-like gangster government that espouses a racist, totalitarian ideology and believes that nuclear weapons are the ultimate guarantor of its existence. Having ruined North Korea’s economy, it survives through Chinese aid and a host of illicit enterprises, such as drug trafficking, weapons proliferation, and counterfeiting. (The latest WikiLeaks document dump offers new evidence of Pyongyang’s missile sales to Iran.) It wants to bully the U.S. and its allies into providing economic assistance and accepting its status as a nuclear power.
Although our policy toward North Korea may be a little tougher, Obama's overall foreign policy is one of weakness, and that is not lost on North Korea and their Chinese puppet masters. In ~60 years, sanctions have not toppled the Castro regime(s) in Cuba. They have not toppled the "revolutionary" government of Iran. They did not topple Saddam Hussein. And they have not toppled the Kim regimes in North Korea. Of those despotic regimes the only one that no longer darkens the Earth with its presence is Saddam Hussein. Why is that? Oh, wait, we took military action to depose him. And no one around the world currently fears that Obama would do something along those lines.
Probably the only thing that has saved us from a resumption of full-scale hostilities on the Korean Peninsula is that China is not ready for a direct military confrontation with the US. But apparently, Wikileaks found documents indicating China may be willing to abandon the North. That would make North Korea extremely dangerous, and in their death throes they may strike out, perhaps with whatever small nuclear stockpile they have.
You sir appear to be seriously mistaken. The idea that the Obama administration's foreign policy has been weak is laughable. Obama ramped up operations in Afghanistan and continues to keep troops there despite strong resistance from his base. He has also conducted countless drone strikes in Pakistan. There are things to criticize the administration about, but foreign policy is not one of them. Your apparent solution to everything then is to invade all of these countries? That is by far the most idiotic response imaginable. We for one do not have the forces or the money. Secondly it would ruin our creditability internationally (much like Iraq). And third we would run into massive resistance. Iran is not Iraq, a military victory there would be followed by an intense insurgency. Cuba will soon fold in its own right and we should reopen dialogue between the countries. As for North Korea, they need a revolution from within. Outside help is not the answer. Think about repercussions before you declare war on everyone. I'm sure you have never even served in the arm forces, typical.
Sadly, there doesn't appear to be much that can be done about the DPRK.
For its own reasons China seems to like having a thugocracy close to hand and is willing to spend some money supporting it. Maybe it comes in handy for "covering" its own tracks when engaging in less than honourable activities.
This puts the Thug King in a control position as we and others can only react to his actions.
I'm no fan of Obama's approach to Foreign Policy in general but this one isn't his or his administration's fault.
The point wotan was making, one that can't be credibly argued, is that the THREAT of military action is off the table. Had Reagen been in charge, the perception no doubt would have been that military action was possible even if it wasn't any more likely then it is now. And that, a perception that there is a realistic threat of overwhelming military action is the only thing (besides actual military action) that can convince a regime like North Korea to back off.
And congratulating Obama on his foreign policy seems nothing short of insane. He eventually increased strength in Afghanistan, but only after a long delay, he didn't give the commanders the full request they asked for, and they were put on a timetable. And the predator strikes are hardly a sign of strength as seen from most of the worlds view. Destroying high value intelligence targets because you are afraid to put people in harms way to get it is not a strong position (which may or may not be right but it is the perception). And that doesn't even mention the bowing.
What matters most to these people is perception and the perception is that no matter what the provication, Obama will not respond forcefully.
Actually, I don't think I said anything about invading Cuba, or Iran, or even North Korea. I was pointing out that sanctions really don't seem to do anything to weaken despots. If anything, it seems to strengthen their position, at least as far as a domestic threat goes.
Iran came close to having a successful popular uprising last year, but it failed. Uprisings against Hussein failed when outside support was withdrawn.
Does anyone honestly think that Obama running around apologizing for America's actions, or presenting silly reset buttons, or snubbing important strategic allies gives us a position of strength when dealing with people who are simply evil? Evil does exist, and I would submit that the Kim regime is evil. If they believe us weak, and in particular if China is no longer restraining them, then I would think they are more likely to test us than they would have a few years ago.
In one word, China is the real danger and problem and life-threatening menace in the long term. Even the current headline-grabbing North Korea provocation, its root lies in the puppet’s master China. The ultimately ruthless and intractable, disingenuous and duplicitous, and what’s most horrifying, the already powerful enough yet getting increasingly and ceaselessly more powerful everyday thanks to the capital and technological subsidies continuously poured into China’s war chest from thirty years’ of non-stopping business investment and trade with that monster guided by misplaced free trade worship and ultra-selfish and myopic greed and inanity of the Western political and business community. China essentially is a Frankenstein of our own making, as it was never that powerful and potent to begin with begin with, despite its vastness in both land and population and of course in potential ambition as well. But now has been growing into an oversized hyper-power, implacable, insuperable and unmanageable.
We will live to see that day when the whole world is overrun and enslaved by China, placed under its iron hoofs, and live slavishly under its dictation. Just wait and see if we won’t wake up and be resolute to rid the world of this malicious grave threat by debunking and banishing those dragon-hugging China apologists in the West and throwing their unconditional and undifferentiating free trade mantra into dustbin where they belong to, and being willing to sustain temporary economic burdens of boycotting Chinese and buying American, to the benefit and wholesomeness of America in a long run. And I often wonder about the mentality of those shills who refuse to look at the problem of China squarely and address the real issue but choose to hide and run, to play ostrich and make balmy excuses with tricky and deceptive sophistry. How dare they so shamelessly call themselves conservatives, those pseudo-ones? How magnificent a gall and a chutzpa!
I suggest an active program of military harassment as a show of force. Let's start with several low level supersonic flyby's of Pyongyang and blow out some windows. How about two carriers in the Yellow Sea, well within the 200 mile zone. China should be notified that Korean unification is going to happen--we can offer the easy way or the hard way, their choice. My guess is they will opt for the easy way. A healthy Korea with a strong economy, a reduction of US presence on the peninsula, and a friendlier US and Japan to do business with.
NK has been displeased with the hard line taken by the ROK government since 2008 and the U.S. It deprives them of aid and makes them completely dependent on the Chinese. Hence their latest round of bad behavior: "Stop us before we do it again!"
Little can be done so long as Seoul is held hostage by NK's long range, hardened artillery. Therefore, the ROK should embark on a robust program to develop defenses around Seoul that can intercept and destroy artillery and short range rockets in flight. The technology for this available and a working system could probably be developed.
This, along with ballistic missile defenses to counter NK's limited nuclear threat, would restore the balance on the peninsula and give the ROK options short of war to manage NK misbehavior.
It is totally pointless and pathetic, not to mention traitorous, to only whine and lament at a growing and expanding China while sitting passively and doing nothing to slow, contain and weaken it while we can still do for fear of losing fat juicy profits for the stateless unpatriotic corporate world with utter disregard of the nation’s strategic interest and America people’s general well-being.
