The Pyongyang Panic - It's

The Pyongyang Panic - It's been interesting, and a little depressing, listening to a lot of liberals - and not a few conservatives - flying into their respective lathers over the North Korea crisis. Conservatives worry about mushroom clouds over LA and Seattle - not without some justification, of course. Liberals hold up North Korea as a sign that the President's moves against Iraq are misguided.

I've been wanting to write coherently about the North Korea situation for weeks. The BBC went and beat me to it with this excellent piece.

Decoding North Korea is not easy at the best of times. That in itself is a Pyongyang ploy. An aura of mystery and a reputation for unpredictability are useful - they keep the world guessing, and nervous of provoking such a maverick state.

Blood-curdling rhetoric too is par for the course, making it hard to know when the North Koreans really mean it.

But all too many in America take it all at face value - left, right and media. One can not view the happenings of the past few weeks in isolation from the fact that this is the same North Korea that periodically lands commandos in the South, that has its navy muscle ROK and Japanese fishing boats, and to fire on the South's navy, that sends the odd mortar shell over the DMZ at the 38th Parallel just to liven things up. This is a regime that thrives on brinksmanship - as the BBC explains:

Brinkmanship is also a tried and tested tactic. North Korea tends to take an extreme stance before entering talks, so that that any slight concession is seized on by its interlocutors as a sign of progress.

In other words, Kim Jong-Il should have been a divorce lawyer.

Another key thing to watch - while Kim leads an immense personality cult supported by an Orwellian, nearly-airtight police state, he's not the sole arbiter of power in the North:

Nor, despite appearances, should we view Pyongyang as united behind the will of its leader, Kim Jong-il.

Earlier this year, North Korea showed signs of reaching out to the outside world.

But now North Korean diplomats are seeing those efforts in tatters - the EU is suspending aid and Australia has shelved plans to open an embassy.

This suggests that, as indeed they whisper, the real power lies with a benighted and inbred military, who have much to lose if peace breaks out.

For that matter, Kim Jong-il may himself be in thrall to his generals. Or again, creating a crisis could be a bid to stave off unrest at home, as hunger continues to bite.

Not unlike dealing with the Soviet Politburo in the late eighties.

Sun-Tzu said "keeping your opponents guessing" is a key part of the art of war. Kim Jong-Il knows this - and so, blessedly, does the Bush Administration, which has exhibited its own crafty use of disinformation on the world stage.

So, to liberals who point to North Korea as sign of the President's supposed pusillanimity, note this:

• North Korea is playing politics its own way. This "nuke scare" is nothing new.
• Not to make light of the situation, but lest one wonder: the North might have a nuke or two. We have hundreds. Kim could level part of Seoul - a city that, unlike any American city, would likely be ready for it - at the cost of his entire nation.
• Conquering Iraq gives us something we need to fight the entire war on terrorism, throughout the Gulf, Southwest Asia and North Africa - bases we don't currently have. From Iraq, US Central Command would be in position to squeeze Iran and Syria, plus leave the Saudis no doubt who was in charge in the region. This would give us immense strategic leverage against all the terror-supporting powers in the region - in chess terms, it's thinking a few moves ahead. North Korea, on the other hand, is already in a corner. It gets along with China and Russia as it needs to, and we already have bases in Japan and South Korea that give us a crushing advantage against their huge but obsolescent military.

In other words - stay the course.

Posted by Mitch at January 7, 2003 03:17 PM