Can’t we just forget about North Korea?
Sorry… perhaps I should say the "Democratic People’s Republic of Korea", as we’re forced to do in Chinese state-run media. (Likewise, South Korea is the ROK.)
Richard Spencer, who also writes a wonderful blog, has an article in today’s Daily Telegraph about North Korea’s test firing a series of short-range missiles into the Sea of Japan. It’s not the first time North Korea has been rattling its sabres, of course. After repeated warnings from Washington to suspend development of a nuclear weapon, North Korea (oops… DPRK!) went ahead and built one anyway. Then after promises of "grave consequences" if North Korea went ahead with a nuclear test, it did it anyway. Now this, from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe:
"We have been saying that our patience has come to its limit."
He also warned of a response if North Korea did not begin dismantling the nuclear reactor soon.
Hmm… "warned" of a "response". You mean, like Japan did prior to the completion of the weapons program? Like it did prior to the nuclear test? And what exactly is the response? Pyongyang has been calling Japan and America’s bluff for a while now.
I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for North Korea. It’s a basket-case regime that is crying out for attention — any kind of attention. It presses ahead with a nuclear weapons program despite warnings, then tests a weapon despite warnings, then goes ahead and fires missles into the Sea of Japan. Still, the most the established powers can come up with as a "response" is their "patience has come to its limit." In fact, if the Six Party Agreement comes into effect, Kim Jong Il can probably credit his nuclear program with fending off the United States.
Kim’s regime must figure the western establishment is pretty spineless. Nothing but empty warnings, rhetoric, and threats. The best way to handle North Korea may be to just forget about it, because it’s highly unlikely Kim, the head of a poverty-ridden country, will do anything (like send missiles into downtown Seoul or Tokyo) to destabilize his hold on power. And I think the US has isolated the DPRK enough to keep tabs on any possible weapons or technology that Kim may try and send to other rogue regimes.
Scott Feschuk is a humerous Canadian writer, and has two short blurbs on North Korea here and here. They are a bit dated, but still worth checking out.
