What is North Korea's game plan ?
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Yannick -Ed
May 28, 2009, 5:47:41 AM5/28/09
to 110east
SOURCE : http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/8068567.stm
What is North Korea's game plan?
By Aidan Foster-Carter, honorary senior research fellow in sociology
and modern Korea at Leeds University.
Even by its own shrill standards, North Korea's recent behaviour is
hyper-militant.
But why?
Last month's launch of a long-range dual-use rocket (maybe a
satellite, certainly a potential missile) prompted censure by the UN
Security Council.
North Korea must have expected this, having been similarly rebuked
twice for missile and nuclear launches in 2006. Yet Pyongyang
professed high dudgeon at what was in truth mild UN Security Council
remonstrance: just a statement, not a full resolution.
On this flimsy pretext, in a fine show of pique it repudiated the six-
party talks and said it would resume its nuclear programme.
Monday's nuclear test showed this to be no idle threat.
But why?
Why now?
What is really going on?
Less well known is that four separate high-level US delegations -
nominally private but including Stephen Bosworth, now the Obama
administration's point man on North Korea - visited Pyongyang earlier
this year.
All got a frosty reception. Their hosts professed no interest in full
relations with the US, long regarded as the ultimate prize sought by
Kim Jong-il.
So how does this latest North Korean jigsaw - with too few and
misshapen pieces, as always - fit together?
Stringing along :
There are two broad possibilities and variants within either of
those.
What message is Kim Jong-il trying to send, and to whom? Getting
Obama's attention is one widely-touted suggestion. Yet on closer
inspection this hardly adds up.
“ Barking louder than ever may be their way of scaring us off while
they effect a delicate transition ”
Everyone knew, because he told us, that Barack Obama was ready to
engage with America's foes. He means it, and he is doing it. With Cuba
and others, change is already under way.
So surely this is the US President Kim Jong-il has been waiting for?
True, Obama is busy with the Middle East and the financial crisis. But
his door, and mind, are open.
It did not need a bomb or rocket to blast a way in and get a hearing
in Washington. To the contrary, these were bound to backfire.
There have to be more Security Council resolutions and maybe
sanctions, however ineffectual, when a rogue state makes a mockery of
international law.
Kim Jong-il is no fool. So we must conclude, definitively now, that he
has no intention of emulating Libya's Colonel Gaddafi and ever giving
up his weapons of mass destruction.
The six long years of the six-party talks were just stringing us
along. Without nuclear weapons, North Korea would be just another
miserable tyranny. With them, it commands attention - if not respect.
Or maybe Kim Jong-il would have made peace, but hardliners used his
illness last year to seize the helm and batten down the hatches.
Yet abandoning diplomacy altogether is hardly a serious long-term
option, for a failed state reliant on Chinese aid to feed its hungry
people.
Provoking Beijing is a risky game. A patient patron hitherto, China
may finally snap and pull the plug on so tiresome a client - as Moscow
did in 1991, devastating the North's economy.
Is the new turn merely tactical? If so, it is a dire miscalculation.
Mr Kim's old game of militant mendicancy - doing bad things, to be
paid to stop - will no longer wash. Everyone is fed up.
More exactly, the Dear Leader could have cleaned up if (and only if)
he stuck with the six-party talks.
Peace and real disarmament would bring North Korea huge financial
rewards: $10bn (£6.3bn) for full relations with Japan, and surely much
more from a relieved Seoul.
One faint hope is that they may not really mean all this. That brings
us to the second broad hypothesis.
Succession plan ?
Rather than being any kind of odd signal to the wider world, North
Korea's new militancy might be primarily driven by internal events,
largely invisible to outside eyes.
Perverse as it sounds, barking louder than ever may be their way of
scaring us off while they effect a delicate transition.
This could be a smokescreen behind which, not before time, one of
Kim's mysterious and untried sons is being wheeled into place as his
eventual successor.
If so, we may get more sense out of Pyongyang once such internal
ructions settle down. But to speculate thus may be clutching at
straws.
The view that North Korea is a rational actor - if only we are patient
and avoid upsetting them - looks, let's face it, increasingly
threadbare.
My fear is that defining itself against the world is hardwired into
North Korea's outlook.
For over a decade, Bill Clinton, former South Korean President Kim Dae-
jung, China, Russia and others strove to lead this most stubborn and
suspicious of mules to water. But none could make it drink, beyond a
few sips.
A toe in the water is as far as Kim Jong-il will ever go, on economic
reform and peace alike. When it comes to the crunch, he refuses the
fence.
At the risk of flogging equine metaphors to death, some blame the
likes of George W Bush - before his U-turn to engagement - for
frightening the horses with "axis of evil" rhetoric, so reinforcing
Pyongyang's paranoia.
But ultimately, the choice and fault is Kim's. China and Vietnam show
there is another way - the only way. North Korea is on a road to
nowhere.
---END---
What is North Korea's game plan?
By Aidan Foster-Carter, honorary senior research fellow in sociology
and modern Korea at Leeds University.
Even by its own shrill standards, North Korea's recent behaviour is
hyper-militant.
But why?
Last month's launch of a long-range dual-use rocket (maybe a
satellite, certainly a potential missile) prompted censure by the UN
Security Council.
North Korea must have expected this, having been similarly rebuked
twice for missile and nuclear launches in 2006. Yet Pyongyang
professed high dudgeon at what was in truth mild UN Security Council
remonstrance: just a statement, not a full resolution.
On this flimsy pretext, in a fine show of pique it repudiated the six-
party talks and said it would resume its nuclear programme.
Monday's nuclear test showed this to be no idle threat.
But why?
Why now?
What is really going on?
Less well known is that four separate high-level US delegations -
nominally private but including Stephen Bosworth, now the Obama
administration's point man on North Korea - visited Pyongyang earlier
this year.
All got a frosty reception. Their hosts professed no interest in full
relations with the US, long regarded as the ultimate prize sought by
Kim Jong-il.
So how does this latest North Korean jigsaw - with too few and
misshapen pieces, as always - fit together?
Stringing along :
There are two broad possibilities and variants within either of
those.
What message is Kim Jong-il trying to send, and to whom? Getting
Obama's attention is one widely-touted suggestion. Yet on closer
inspection this hardly adds up.
“ Barking louder than ever may be their way of scaring us off while
they effect a delicate transition ”
Everyone knew, because he told us, that Barack Obama was ready to
engage with America's foes. He means it, and he is doing it. With Cuba
and others, change is already under way.
So surely this is the US President Kim Jong-il has been waiting for?
True, Obama is busy with the Middle East and the financial crisis. But
his door, and mind, are open.
It did not need a bomb or rocket to blast a way in and get a hearing
in Washington. To the contrary, these were bound to backfire.
There have to be more Security Council resolutions and maybe
sanctions, however ineffectual, when a rogue state makes a mockery of
international law.
Kim Jong-il is no fool. So we must conclude, definitively now, that he
has no intention of emulating Libya's Colonel Gaddafi and ever giving
up his weapons of mass destruction.
The six long years of the six-party talks were just stringing us
along. Without nuclear weapons, North Korea would be just another
miserable tyranny. With them, it commands attention - if not respect.
Or maybe Kim Jong-il would have made peace, but hardliners used his
illness last year to seize the helm and batten down the hatches.
Yet abandoning diplomacy altogether is hardly a serious long-term
option, for a failed state reliant on Chinese aid to feed its hungry
people.
Provoking Beijing is a risky game. A patient patron hitherto, China
may finally snap and pull the plug on so tiresome a client - as Moscow
did in 1991, devastating the North's economy.
Is the new turn merely tactical? If so, it is a dire miscalculation.
Mr Kim's old game of militant mendicancy - doing bad things, to be
paid to stop - will no longer wash. Everyone is fed up.
More exactly, the Dear Leader could have cleaned up if (and only if)
he stuck with the six-party talks.
Peace and real disarmament would bring North Korea huge financial
rewards: $10bn (£6.3bn) for full relations with Japan, and surely much
more from a relieved Seoul.
One faint hope is that they may not really mean all this. That brings
us to the second broad hypothesis.
Succession plan ?
Rather than being any kind of odd signal to the wider world, North
Korea's new militancy might be primarily driven by internal events,
largely invisible to outside eyes.
Perverse as it sounds, barking louder than ever may be their way of
scaring us off while they effect a delicate transition.
This could be a smokescreen behind which, not before time, one of
Kim's mysterious and untried sons is being wheeled into place as his
eventual successor.
If so, we may get more sense out of Pyongyang once such internal
ructions settle down. But to speculate thus may be clutching at
straws.
The view that North Korea is a rational actor - if only we are patient
and avoid upsetting them - looks, let's face it, increasingly
threadbare.
My fear is that defining itself against the world is hardwired into
North Korea's outlook.
For over a decade, Bill Clinton, former South Korean President Kim Dae-
jung, China, Russia and others strove to lead this most stubborn and
suspicious of mules to water. But none could make it drink, beyond a
few sips.
A toe in the water is as far as Kim Jong-il will ever go, on economic
reform and peace alike. When it comes to the crunch, he refuses the
fence.
At the risk of flogging equine metaphors to death, some blame the
likes of George W Bush - before his U-turn to engagement - for
frightening the horses with "axis of evil" rhetoric, so reinforcing
Pyongyang's paranoia.
But ultimately, the choice and fault is Kim's. China and Vietnam show
there is another way - the only way. North Korea is on a road to
nowhere.
---END---
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