Last night North Korea tested a nuclear weapon again. It was much more successful that last time. I have previously indicated that I think we need to ignore North Korea. I still do. A Huffington Post article entitled “North Korea will Not Be Ignored” says, “Obama’s strategy of ignoring the country has failed.” That statement could not be more wrong.
When an angry child is screaming and thrashing, every parent knows you have to ignore him rather than reward this terrible, anti-social behavior. This nuclear test is North Korea’s temper tantrum. It didn’t hurt anyone. It hasn’t changed the world or its policies in any way. This is a big fat non-event. So, what should we do? Keep ignoring it.
The U.S. has nothing to offer except to give it aid and loosen sanctions just to have North Korea double back and do it all over again. We’ve been down that road, let’s not do it again. The only way this situation is going to be resolved is if we show China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea that we’re not going to bear the costs of this alone, and motivate them to use their legitimate sticks and carrots to effect change.
This is not our fight. Apparently, Admiral Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the The Early Show show that, “all of those things point to a country I think continues to destabilize that region and in the long term, should they continue to develop a nuclear weapons program, poses a grave threat to the United States.” He’s not wrong; it is a long-term threat. In the short term, however, it threatens other, local powers much more than it does us. We need to be at the table, but we need to allow countries that have bigger sticks and sweeter carrots to step up. According to Xinhua, “the Chinese government is resolutely opposed to [this test].”
I can assure you that if the U.S. doesn’t overplay this, North Korea’s neighbors will take action. This is a greater threat to them than it is to us. To refer again to Joe Cirincione’s HuffPost article, he says, “this represents President Obama’s first foreign policy failure.” This is not a failure. This is nothing new at all. This is a continuation of North Korea’s fifteen year strategy of throwing a temper tantrum in exchange for a cookie. How about we not give them a cookie this time?
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A NYT article has put forth the opinion that this nuclear test was more for internal than external comsumption, to show the public and especially the military that Kim Jong-il is, despite his stroke last year, still in command. The rumors are that Kim is doing pretty bad and wants to strengthen his hand before he turns over power to his third and youngest son, Kim Jong-un.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/world/asia/26northk.html?hp
Thanks for that, it is an interesting article. I’ve also heard that the military is the one pushing the test trying to flex its muscles in the coming transfer of power. Korean internal politics definitely come into play, but decades of isolation mean that very few people outside of the regime know what goes on inside it. It’s a legitimate point, but I don’t think anyone knows enough to say what exactly the point is. As that article puts it so succinctly, “trying to fathom this highly secretive government’s motives is an exercise in tea leaf-reading”
Good observations! I’ve linked to you here: http://xcalling-a-spade-a-spadex.blogspot.com/2009/05/spinning-around-axis-of-evil.html