Lucia

de Vernai

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April 8, 2009

North Korea: Global Pain in the Ass

Whenever we hear of them, it’s because they just aimed another missile at the world’s second biggest economy, putting Russia’s melancholy of the good old days of the Cold War to shame. Most of the time, North Korea is busy holding on to economic policies that make Stalin look like a reasonable man. Central planning and over 30 percent of the GDP going to the military is not a good place to be, unless you really like eating rotting turnips. Even then, between two and three million people starved, although the hard labor camps and harsh winters probably contributed to that.

North Korea sends little over its borders besides technology that lands in the Pacific Ocean, so when they catch something that can give them leverage, it’s payback time. Little publicized in the U.S., their recent capture and arrest of two female American journalists making a documentary is one such attempt.  Hostage-taking did not yield the results expected, so North Korea did what it always does when feeling underappreciated. It launched a long-distance missile on Sunday, breaking a UN Security Council resolution.

Originality has never been a requirement for being a global pain in the ass, and another episode of world leaders teleconferencing about what to do is on. The global community may have run out of ideas for pawns – from Hennessy to the tons of American food aid Koreans refused as the country was nearing starvation. Represented by Sweden in Pyongyang, but with ever-vigilant forces right at the 38^th parallel, the U.S. has drawn enough lines in the sand with little to no change that negotiating has become creative to say the least.

Former President Bush tried to go after Kim Jong Il’s weak spots and ban the export of some of the dictator’s favorite American things – iPods, booze, jet skis and cars. When the Apple nano is a respectable piece in nuclear test negotiations, one starts to wonder if it’s time to change the rules of the game. Still, you play whatever cards you are dealt.

Hopefully all those Moscow-Washington-Tokyo long distance calls are going to get another response to Sunday’s launch besides “damnation.” A favorite euphemism for “slap on the wrist,” it ignores the fact that if Kim Jong Il was afraid of damnation, he wouldn’t starve his own people and repeatedly threaten global stability. 

The Obama Administration, not one for the slow, conservative approach, is urging that nothing is done rashly in the matter. That’s a good idea if in the meantime someone is preparing a response that’s more “f--- you” than “sir, we resent your conduct.” And none of that cut-off-his-Twitter-account-and-he’ll-be-sorry stuff. We don’t really think Kim Jong Il has the capacity, but we play along. He knows that there will be no real consequences, so what’s to stop the man from pouring a little cognac and play a drinking game of brinkmanship with Japan?

All-bark-no-bite North Korea can have world’s leaders running around panicking, inspiring one Security Council resolution after another.

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