Day: November 1, 2013
The other North Korean challenge
I don’t write much about North Korea, because I don’t know a lot about it. But I’m convinced it poses a potentially enormous challenge on two fronts:
- as a nuclear power
- as a collapsed state
Bruce Bennett’s presentation on the second challenge at Heritage Foundation October 17 strikes me as generally well-informed, even if might quarrel on details (I don’t much like the idea of airdropping humanitarian assistance, for example). So I’m posting it here, along with a link to his RAND study on Preparing for the Possibility of a North Korean Collapse. Those who think the United States doesn’t need a capacity to plan for and deal with weak, fragile or collapsed states–in this case in cooperation with South Korea–should take note:
As Bennett points out, the issue is not whether we would want to intervene, but whether we would have to in order to avoid serious risks to our own national security as a result of North Korean collapse. It is clear that any intervention would have to be a combined military/civilian operation.
I am hoping to have a post up soon on the UN-mandated Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Public Hearing, held here at SAIS this week. Human rights violations are a clear warning sign of state collapse.
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My morning mail from Belgrade
My morning mail brought this from the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies in Belgrade, in reference to the upcoming municipal elections in Kosovo, including for the first time under Pristina authority in the north:
CEAS POLICY BRIEF
YOUR FACE SOUNDS FAMILIAR
REGARDING THE USE OF PUBLIC PROPERTY IN THE “CLEANSING” OF NORTHERN KOSOVO OF ELECTION MATERIAL, AND SOME OTHER SECURITY CHALLENGES AND THREATS TO THE UPCOMING LOCAL ELECTIONS IN KOSOVO
CENTER FOR EURO – ATLANTIC STUDIES, NOVEMBER 2013.
The Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies (CEAS) calls upon Serbian officials to pay attention and state their position on the use of public property in the action of “cleansing Northern Kosovo” from election materials for the upcoming local elections in Kosovo, which has been carried out on October 28, 2013 by “self-organized citizens”, as stated in the video available now for a couple of days already on the internet channel YouTube:
In the video, among other, the use of cranes for trimming trees and repairing traffic lights is obvious, both of which are hardly private property. The speed and professionalism in which individuals in the video are painting over the election materials with spray paint is also worrying. Read more
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