North Korean Belligerence
There is never a good time to start a senseless military conflict that results in thousands of people killed or injured, but as far as North Korea is concerned, it’s now or never. Let’s just hope that strategic and tactical realities will prevent this country’s isolated and brainwashed state apparatus from crossing a dangerous line. Already responsible for a successful nuclear weapons program as well as attempts to share it with other totalitarian regimes, this ideologically warped dictatorship recently sank a South Korean vessel and killed 46 sailors before throwing a diplomatic temper tantrum about being caught red handed. Pyongyang then successfully intimidated the United Nations into watering down its condemnation of the sinking by not naming North Korea as the perpetrator when all investigations consistently pointed north.
In reaction to the diluted UN condemnation, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laid blame for the sinking of the South Korean vessel squarely on North Korean naval forces. Also helping to stir the pot is a four day joint military exercise scheduled to begin today (July 25-28), which is ruffling Pyongyang’s feathers to no end. For some reason, this nation of starving missile makers above the 38th parallel has been particularly sensitive and belligerent towards any action that could be remotely perceived as hostile. Claiming that any condemnation of the sinking that named North Korea would be considered an act of war, they succeeded in making the UN blink, though it’s usually the Chinese and Russian diplomats doing the blinking. (Or are they winking…at Kim Jong Il?) Unfortunately, the pitiful drama at the UN matters little now as the democratically elected South Korean government prepares to defend its people from a horror they remember all too well. Yet the Northern government continues to scream foul, declaring the upcoming joint military training an unacceptable provocation that cannot be tolerated by the Korean People’s Army. This brings us back to the question that still lingers. Just what do these guys want? Are they simply crazy or is something else going on?
Well, yes. They are crazy, but there’s more to it then that. A power struggle is going on in Pyongyang because Kim Jong Il’s long term health is uncertain. We shouldn’t be surprised by what is possible in the name of this power struggle because the morality of North Korea’s culture has been festering in isolation for sixty years. The North Korean leaders rattling sabers today all grew up in a culture of blind obedience underlined by the constant threat of merciless execution. This means we have no conception of what these guys are capable of, especially the children of Kim Jong Il.
Besides internal power struggles and lost morality, this fiery belligerence is also being stoked by North Korea’s belief that this may be the best time to play brinkmanship with Uncle Sam. North Koreans see a majority of the United States armed forces pinned down in Iraq and Afghanistan, the current US administration mired in a complex stand off with Iran, an American born recession that won’t end and the American people more divided than they‘ve been in 150 years. All these factors may convince enough people in Pyongyang to do something drastic, but their urgency belies the fact that North Korea is quickly becoming an anachronistic exception to the democratic rule that dominates our geopolitical world. A democratic ideal that has slowly and painfully spread across the globe to leave only a few more hold outs of tyranny and ideological rot. The same democratic ideals that just pulled our country through one of the most exceptional elections in history is at the core of how democracy continues to spread. This is one of those moments in history when who is in the oval office doesn‘t matter. All that matters right now is that the United States of America is the only country prepared to stand up to North Korea.
