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The Triumph of Hope over Experience

Posts Tagged North Korea

Togo with a Chemistry Set

Oct 14

Posted by Sean Murphy in International Politics | No Comments

A great article on North Korea “nuclear test” in the Times Online by Gerald Baker (emphasis added) The price of shillyshallying

Stripped of the grandiose claims by Kim’s minions, the objective scientific evidence for a nuclear explosion is sketchy. The explosive yield, according to military analysts, was something less than a kiloton. A plutonium device such as that first used by the US in 1945 produces a yield in the range of 20 kilotons. Some warheads in the US nuclear arsenal now can deliver an impact about 1,000 times that of Hiroshima. Remember too that in July, the Koreans launched an “intercontinental” ballistic missile that fell into the sea about a minute into its flight and you have a sense of the truly exiguous scale of the country’s capabilities. If the Soviet Union was memorably nicknamed Upper Volta with Rockets, it’s probably fair to think of North Korea as Togo with a Chemistry Set. So why worry? Here’s why. Unlike all previous nuclear nativities, North Korea’s efforts this week have truly propelled the world into a new and much more dangerous age. There’s no good strategic reason for Pyongyang even to claim to have a nuclear weapon, as China, Israel, Pakistan and India had.

It will be the first nuclear power to be headed by a crazed monomaniac who boasts of his commercial interest in shipping nuclear weapons to terrorist groups. The sheer unpredictability of North Korea terrifies everyone in its neighbourhood in a way that none of those other countries ever did. Its actions this week will almost certainly escalate into a nuclear arms race.

  • truly exiguous scale of the country’s capabilities: I had to look tihs one up, exiguous means “scant, meagre.”
  • Upper Volta With Rockets: according to Wikipedia, the phrase “Upper Volta With Rockets” was used to describe the Soviet Union (in quotes, but with no attribution) in a survey on the Soviet economy in The Economist on April 9, 1988. The Economist on-line archive only goes back to 1997 so until I can figure out how to grep dead trees I will take their word for it.
  • Togo With a Chemistry Set Togo is south of Burkina Faso (the modern name for Upper Volta)
  • nuclear nativities is currently a GoogleWhack (I guess until this post makes it into the cache). Another great turn of phrase in an insightful article.

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One On One With Kim Jong-Il

Oct 11

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Current Events, International Politics, National Politics | No Comments

Yes, this is going around so you can find it all over, and yes, it really is unfair to Madeleine Albright, but after She Who Must Be Obeyed opened her mouth, I couldn’t resist.

A less funny, more traditional rebuttal was provided by Sen. John McCain. McQ delivers a fisking. Personally, I can’t fault either administration too much because North Korea under Kim Jong-Il was simply going to try and develop nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them no matter what anyone said. It was worth giving talk a chance, but once it becomes clear that’s a waste of time, why continue? Now we need to talk to the North Korea’s neighbors about what we are going to do, not talk to Kim.

And another thing, why is it the same people who criticize President Bush for acting unilaterally, or for the US acting like a bully, demand that the talks with North Korea only be with the United States? It’s just more dead horse beating.

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Burn Me Once

Sep 19

Posted by Kevin Murphy in International Politics | No Comments

North Korea has agreed to give up its nukes,in exchange for aid. Again. Let’s hope that this time, they mean it. And President Bush seems to have updated Ronald Reagans’ slogan from the eighties: Trust, but verify. Now its just verify.

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Diplomacy?

May 10

Posted by Kevin Murphy in International Politics | No Comments

I have to like the diplomatic style of tinpot dictatorships even as I loathe the dictatorships themselves. No “nice doggy” while you pick up a rock for them. It’s mainly in your face personal invective. North Korea insulted President Bush in language considered tame in MoveOn.org circles, calling him Hitler, Jr. So what brought on this tired tirade? Why, we said that we would hold direct talks as part of 6 party talks. What would their response have been if President bush had wrapped a tie around his head, pumped up, oiled down, and slurred into the camera Little Kimmie … I’m coming for you”?

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Was It About Oil? Not According To Wolfowitz

Jun 4

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Media Criticism | 3 Comments

Yes, I know that the Guardian is claiming that Paul Wolfowitz let the cat out of the bag, and in response to a question about the difference in handling of North Korea and Iraq, said it was all about oil:

“Asked why a nuclear power such as North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, where hardly any weapons of mass destruction had been found, the deputy defence minister said: “Let’s look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil.”

The problem is, he didn’t say that. Sad to say, you can’t believe everything you read in the paper. Here’s the actual question and answer, from the DOD transcript:

“Q: What I meant is that essentially North Korea is being taken more seriously because it has become a nuclear power by its own admission, whether or not that’s true, and that the lesson that people will have is that in the case of Iraq it became imperative to confront Iraq militarily because it had banned weapons systems and posed a danger to the region. In the case of North Korea, which has nuclear weapons as well as other banned weapons of mass destruction, apparently it is imperative not to confront, to persuade and to essentially maintain a regime that is just as appalling as the Iraqi regime in place, for the sake of the stability of the region. To other countries of the world this is a very mixed message to be sending out.

Wolfowitz: The concern about implosion is not primarily at all a matter of the weapons that North Korea has, but a fear particularly by South Korea and also to some extent China of what the larger implications are for them of having 20 million people on their borders in a state of potential collapse and anarchy. It’s is also a question of whether, if one wants to persuade the regime to change, whether you have to find — and I think you do — some kind of outcome that is acceptable to them. But that outcome has to be acceptable to us, and it has to include meeting our non-proliferation goals.

Look, the primarily difference — to put it a little too simply — between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq. The problems in both cases have some similarities but the solutions have got to be tailored to the circumstances which are very different.”

I suppose something can be lost in translating from english into german and then back again, since the Guardian was relying on the reporting of a couple of German newspapers. Since I don’t read german, I have no idea if the fault lies with the german papers (Der Tagesspiegel and Die Welt), the Guardian, or somewhere in between.

So what Wolfowitz said was, to put it in soviet terms, in Iraq the correlation of military forces was heavily in our favor while the correlation of ecomonic forces wasn’t too good; thus, the military option was used. In North Korea, the opposite balance obtains, so we are pursuing the economic option over the military. Why this is so hard for some people to grasp is beyond me – it isn’t exactly rocket science.

UPDATE: The Guardian admits it was wrong:

“A report which was posted on our website on June 4 under the heading “Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil” misconstrued remarks made by the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, making it appear that he had said that oil was the main reason for going to war in Iraq. He did not say that. He said, according to the department of defence website, “The … difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq.” The sense was clearly that the US had no economic options by means of which to achieve its objectives, not that the economic value of the oil motivated the war. The report appeared only on the website and has now been removed.”

Next question is, will all those sites that ran with this story come out and tell you that it has been retracted? I’m not holding my breath.

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North Korea Diplomacy

Jan 15

Posted by Kevin Murphy in International Politics | No Comments

I’m sure you’ve seen this article by Orson Scott Card on Korea – it’s all over the blogosphere, although I found it via Glenn Reynolds. I think it’s a pretty good analysis, although I don’t think China is going to publicly put North Korea under its nuclear umbrella. I’m not sure what form the guarantee will take, but I think it will more likely be a treaty or agreement that includes China. The important thing to remember, as this article points out, not everything that happens happens in public, and not everything that can be said should be (or is) said in public. 

I thought this article (in the NYT of all places) makes a fine companion piece. North Korea is a drain on China — it exports refuges and imports food, money, and resources. South Korea is an asset to China – both as a market (third largest trading partner)and as a source of investment (fifth largest foreign investor), and I’m sure that comes with some technology transfer. In a sense, both South Korea and China would just as soon North Korea disappeared from the map, or failing that, the status quo is just fine, thank you very much. I doubt South Korea wants to try to unify with the North after the example of German reunification, and China is stuck for reasons of history and status with being its protector. So for the Chinese, any problems North Korea causes the US is OK with them; to the extent North Korea causes them problems, well, now something has to be done.

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Where’s the UN?

Dec 23

Posted by Kevin Murphy in International Politics | No Comments

North Korea has removed the seals and disabled the monitoring cameras the IAEA placed upon nuclear facilities as part of the 1994 agreement to abandon its nuclear weapon program (which North Korea now admits it secretly violated). The only point in doing so is to reprocess the spent fuel into plutonium based nuclear bombs. What’s the UN response? It deplores the action. No word on what it’s going to do about it. Of course, all eyes are on Washington DC to find out what George Bush is going to do about it, not on Kofi Annan. Why would they be – without a real military to back it up, the UN is limited to making tut-tut noises and issuing bland statements. Heck, the new President of South Korea said that his country might remain neutral in a conflict between the US and North Korea – which I guess means he’d be happy for the US to eliminate the crazy dictator to the North, he just prefer that North Korea not kill any of South Koreans in the process.

We’re assured by many people reluctant or opposed to attacking Iraq that what we need there is clear evidence that Iraq is intending to build weapons of mass destruction in violation of agreements and binding UN resolutions, and then they would support a war. Will they support war as an option against North Korea, which we believe to already possess two nuclear bombs and is trying to build more in violation of UN monitored agreements?

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North Korea: Still Not Pardoned

Oct 24

Posted by Kevin Murphy in International Politics | No Comments

AP reports that the five kidnapped Japanese will stay in Japan and not return to North Korea as originally planned. A member of the Japanese Government announced that they wouldn’t be returning, and went on to say that it was indispensable and urgent that North Korea return the children of those kidnapped as well. The North Korean Foreign Ministry is apparently a bit miffed that the Japanese are taking them at their word (don’t they know it’s no good?) that the abductees and their children can return permanently to Japan if they choose. I hope Japan holds onto their outrage over the kidnapping long enough to reunite the families, and that Jimmy Carter doesn’t butt his nose in.

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North Korea, Newest Member Of The Nuclear Club

Oct 17

Posted by Kevin Murphy in International Politics | No Comments

North Korea made the front page today with its admission that they ignored the 1994 agreement brokered by Jimmy Carter not to try to build a nuclear bomb in return for nuclear power and other aid. And they also let slip that they don’t feel bound by the agreement anymore — although they don’t seem to ever have felt bound by it — and they have a more powerful weapons, some exotic yet extra potent form of kimchi I suppose. 

Telling us now is no accident. They’re letting us know before we invade, or even threaten them – we can’t be deterred if we don’t know as pointed out in Dr. Strangelove – that they have nuclear and biological weapons. Either they have these weapons of mass destruction, or they’re close to having them or they are simply bluffing. What country is willing to find out the hard way? The Carter legacy just continues to give and give.

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North Korea, Unpardonable Country

Oct 16

Posted by Kevin Murphy in International Politics | No Comments

I’m surprised this story hasn’t gotten more play in the US. In 1978, North Korea decided that they needed Japanese tutors for their spies, so they kidnapped Japanese off beaches in Japan and took them to North Korea. North Korea denied the kidnappings until Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi visited North Korea, whereupon Kim Jong Il admitted that they had kidnapped 13 Japanese, but 8 of them died. Officially, Japan says 15 people were kidnapped, but some relatives claim the number is more like 50 to 60. Five of the survivors are visiting Japan, but not with their children who remained in North Korea. North Korea says the children aren’t hostages, oh my of course not, they just didn’t want to leave their beloved homeland. 

Prime Minister Koizumi said on national television “Certainly North Korea is an unpardonable country. It abducts, takes away and kills.” Well, why should the North Korean government act any differently towards the Japanese people than its own? President Bush was right to call this regime evil – there’s no other description that fits. Jimmy Carter, who didn’t like President Bush’s characterization, said of Kim Jong Il’s daddy, Kim Il Sung, and the perpetrator of the abductions and murders, “I find him to be vigorous, intelligent, surprisingly well informed about the technical issues, and in charge of the decisions about this country” and “I don’t see that they [the North Koreans] are an outlaw nation.” Like a certain news channel, we report, you decide which president is right.

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