Tag: Japan
North Korean winter: stability or discontent?
As regular readers will know, North Korea is not my thing, even if I have a good deal of experience on nuclear nonproliferation issues. The last time I posted a piece devoted to it was more than a year ago, though I’ve mentioned it more often as an American priority. In the wake of Kim Jong-il’s death, the best I can do is offer a summary of what I think obvious.
North Korea is a priority for the U.S. because of the risks its nuclear weapons program poses, both for proliferation and for targeting America and its allies in South Korea and Japan. Kim Jong-il’s regime managed to test something like nuclear weapons twice (in 2006 and 2009), was developing longer-range missiles and is thought to be on the verge of acquiring substantial quantities of enriched uranium. North Korea has already been involved in murky missile and nuclear technology trade with Pakistan and Iran.
The first American concern will be short-term stability. The Obama Administration is quite rightly indicating that it is watching the situation and consulting with Seoul and Tokyo, but it would be a mistake to say or do anything that could provoke military action by Pyongyang, which readily perceives threats and uses attacks on the South both to rally internal support and to extract assistance from the international community.
This will put Washington for the moment on the same wavelength with Beijing and Moscow, which fear instability. China in particular is concerned about millions of refugees crossing its border. It will also worry that the Americans intend to take advantage of Kim Jong-il’s death to liberate North Korea and reunify it with the South. That is something Seoul says it wants and the Americans would be hard put not to support, but the process by which it happens could be dramatically problematic as well as costly. China does not want a reunified, Western-oriented, strong Korea on its border.
A great deal now depends on what happens inside North Korea. The New York Times quotes an unnamed American military source:
Anyone who tells you they understand what is going to happen is either lying or deceiving himself.
I would be deceiving myself. So I won’t try to tell you I understand what is going to happen. Things to watch for? Whether calm prevails for the next week or so, whether the funeral comes off on December 28 without signs of tension in or with the army, whether the succession to Kim Jong-un is orderly, whether food prices remain more or less stable, whether there are military maneuvers against the South. So far, the announcements out of the North suggest things are under control.
Past the next few weeks, Washington will need to decide what to do. In a remarkable but little remarked shift of policy, the Americans–who had said they would not meet with North Korea bilaterally unless it gave up its nuclear weapons programs–began meeting bilaterally with the North Koreans in 2006 as soon as they tested a nuclear weapon. Now they say they won’t return to the six-party talks (involving China, Russia, Japan, and the Koreas) unless than the talks are substantial (which means progress can be made on nuclear issues).
My guess is that we’ll see talks, but with a few months delay. North Korea is not as desperate as once it was. It will not want to rush into international talks before settling its domestic situation. The regime will want to reconsolidate itself and bargain with the five other parties from a position of strength, which likely means continuation of the nuclear and missile programs in the interim.
The wild card could be the North Koreans themselves. If protests start, the regime will crack down hard. There are signs the security forces are deploying to prevent trouble. Markets are closed. North Korea is a brutal dictatorship far beyond the imagination of Tunisia or Egypt, where protests have felled long-ruling presidents. Could this be the winter of discontents?
PS: Written before Kim Jong-un became the designated successor, but still of interest: Preparing for Sudden Change in North Korea – Council on Foreign Relations.
PPS: Just imagine what these people will do the day they are free to do as they like:
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Why I skipped Veterans’ Day
I skipped a Veterans’ Day post, as I find it difficult to imagine what I could say in tribute to the troops that hasn’t been said by others. But this from ThinkProgress has provoked me:
The speaker is Tennessee State Representative Womick, yes speaking on Veterans’ Day.
Womick is following in a long tradition. As California Attorney General Earle Warren (yes, the one who was later Chief Justice) put it when he advocated internment of Japanese Americans during World War II:
The Japanese situation as it exists in this state today may well be the Achilles heel of the entire civilian defense effort.
Japanese Americans went on to fight courageously for the United States in World War II, including many whose families were interned. The Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team was highly decorated regiment, including 21 Medal of Honor recipients.
Womick’s sentiments are not uniquely American. Bashar al Assad feels the same way about protesters against his regime (as Qaddafi did), though admittedly torturing and killing them is worse than expelling them from the U.S. Army or interning them.
Worse, but only in degree. The underlying sentiment is the same: distrust of people because of who they are, no matter what they do (or do not do). This is gross intolerance, and it is far more pervasive today than we like to admit.
I’m sure Mr. Womick gives a rousing Veterans’ Day speech. I was glad not to post it.
PS: As luck(?) would have it, someone sent me this today:
I repeat: gross intolerance, far more pervasive today than we like to admit. Here is the antidote:
In case there is doubt, I am referring to the first minute or two of this clip, not the endorsement of Barack Obama in the last minute or so.
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Bad gets worse
Think things couldn’t get worse? Think again:
- One or more of Japan’s nuclear plants now looks sure to melt down, with at least one breaching the reactor containment vessel and spewing radioactive material. How much attention do we think Arab revolutions will get after that happens?
- Gaddafi’s forces are at the outskirts of Benghazi. We can hope that the rebels will succeed in cutting his now long supply lines, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
- The crackdown has gotten brutal in Bahrain, with the Saudi and UAE forces seeming to remain in the background guarding the royals while the King’s forces enforce martial law with tanks and machine guns.
- Yemen is at least as bad, with firing on demonstrators and no sign of serious negotiations yet.
Yes, they are still discussing a no fly zone at the Security Council, thus preventing anything else meaningful from getting through that august body.
Also notable: the European Union, freshly equipped with reforms that were supposed to unify its foreign policy, has rarely sounded less coherent or less effective: UK and France want a no fly zone, Germany doesn’t and Italy does and doesn’t.
Nor are the Americans sounding much more coherent and effective. Still in listening mode, which means not ready to do anything.
Don’t forget: Egypt votes on constitutional amendments Saturday. If they approve, a good deal of the old regime can hope to survive; if they don’t, things will again be up in the air. I might vote for up in the air, but I don’t live in Cairo.
I know you all prefer it when I post those funny videos, but this morning is hard to take lightly. I’ll look for some this afternoon.
PS: I should have mentioned it earlier but forgot: one of the consequences of Saudi/UAE intervention in Bahrain is a sharp rise in sectarian tensions, reflected in statements by Iraq’s Prime Minister Maliki and Grand Ayatollah Sistani but also felt in Iran. That does not bode well.
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Doom and gloom
A world that was looking hopeful two weeks ago has taken a sharp turn southwards:
- The earthquake in Japan has not only caused upwards of 10,000 deaths and untold destruction, it has also put in doubt nuclear programs worldwide, not to mention what the prospect of further radiation leaks will do to stock markets today and the economic recovery in the future.
- Counter revolution is on the march in Libya, Bahrain and Yemen–in all three countries repression is winning the day, with the help of hesitation in Europe and the U.S. and Saudi and UAE security forces in Manama.
- Egypt votes in a constitutional referendum Saturday to either approve amendments prepared behind closed doors that would leave its regime largely intact, or disapprove, sending the country into uncertainty once again.
- Violence in Sudan is rising, with local south/south conflicts and tension in Abyei overshadowed for the moment by the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement claim that the north is planning a coup intended to prevent independence in July.
- Iran is succeeding in repressing its Green Movement opposition and in neutering anyone else who might dare to challenge President Ahmedinejad.
- Kurdish and Arab leaders in Iraq are competing to see who can claim Kirkuk is their Jerusalem most convincingly, while their respective military forces face off in the contested town.
It is telling that today’s testimony in Congress by General Petraeus on the situation in Afghanistan, which is expected to be relatively upbeat, is the only good news, though experienced wags will see it as just the latest in a long string of turning points in a war that has never turned.
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