What to do with North Korea?

Wait...if a second Korea War starts...won't China be involved too this time? This is such a pain in the neck. Is North Korea doing this so other country would 'recognize' it?

Just FYI - short of using nuclear weapons, blackening the sky with bombers won't actually do very much against the DPRK. They've been entrenching themselves in the mountains for more than fifty years. This is a cold war enemy, not one of our "contemporary" targets. Bombers would be effective at destroying cities full of citizens and perhaps damaging some of the military infrastructure. But the only long term air asset will be aircraft carrier based and long range aircraft from Guam. All of the airbases in the ROK will become NBC contaminated and somewhat useless after a few hours.

I think North Korea's nuclear development provides America with as many opportunities as it does dangers. Allow me to explain - in the first place I don't think the possession of a nuclear weapon affords North Korea any significant advantages. We might think that having the bomb helps North Korea in that they have now given the Western world strong reason not to invade. That may be true, but I don't think anyone has really proposed invading North Korea anyway. That kind of campaign is not militarily feasible right now, nor would it really help the situation. The only other physical advantage North Korea gains from its nuclear d'ebutant is if they were to employ the weapon through non-statist actors (e.g. give the bomb to al Qaeda or something like that). Their threats of firing nuclear missiles, by contrast, amount to very little. What would happen if North Korea launched a missile at the US or Japan? They would be annihilated. They know this. The only reason they speak of firing nuclear missiles is to prey on the fears of a generation of world leaders who grew up with a manic fear of nuclear weapons due to the constant refrain that the US and the Soviet Union were going to blow up the earth.

So, why does North Korea want the bomb? For one, I think they actually fear a US invasion no matter how improbable I find that scenario. Secondly, having a nuclear bomb gives North Korea fear-leverage totally out of proportion to their actual ability to apply force. They seek this fear-leverage because North Korea only exists because the civilized world pays them to behave. We offer them financial packages, food, and help developing their power stations. In effect North Korea is acting like the steppe peoples that used to raid China. These barbarians (be they Uighurs, Xiongnu, Mongols, etc) rarely had the intention of actually conquering China. Instead these nomadic peoples would attack into China, cause havoc and the retreat back into the inhospitable steppe. From there they would demand a payment of tribute from the Chinese emperor in order that they not repeat their incursions. Over the centuries of Chinese history this developed into a cycle whereby the Chinese emperor (this spanned several dynasties) would simply pay off the barbarians to keep them at bay. They did this because attacking into the steppe was very risky and rarely a successful endeavor. And if ever the Chinese emperor thought to stop his payments, the affected nomadic tribe would gather its forces and make threats of war, or mount raids to remind the Chinese why paying them was important.

I think this provides an excellent historical parallel for what North Korea has been doing for some time now. Each year the North Koreans stomp about and bray, telling the world that they will do such and such if they are not granted aid in some form or fashion. The world, not knowing how to deal with this backward country of apparent lunatics, simply buys them off by acceding to their demands for 'tribute.' Once they have their money/food/technological help the North Koreans return to their hovels and wait for the next year when they will repeat the process all over again.

This system has functioned remarkably well for them. During the 90s America slackened its trade sanctions with North Korea as American diplomacy surmised that it could come to some understanding with this regime. This reinforced the North Korean belief that their system of fear blackmail worked. Then, however, they ran into a snag. The new American president, George Bush, didn't want to play along. Despite their bluster, Bush did not make concessions and took an increasingly hard line towards North Korea. My speculation is that North Korea, at that point, had two options. 1) Admit their system was a failure and abandon communism so that their people could eat; or 2) recognize that the old saber-rattling wouldn't work anymore, and thus up the ante.

It's now obvious that they chose option #2. North Korea has taken a huge gamble by detonating a nuclear device. China, the country that has propped up North Korea for decades now, is very much annoyed that its client state has thumbed its nose at big brother. American diplomacy has a golden opportunity to drive a wedge between North Korea and China. One need only point out to China that North Korea's actions, taken against Chinese urgings, have resulted in a significant loss of face for China.

If the Western world can exploit this opportunity and get Russia to play along, there exists a chance to finally put the sick man of Korea out of his misery. Were China to halt its supply of goods and money to North Korea that regime would surely fail. The issue at the point, of course, is what will replace the decrepit North Korean communists. It is unlikely that China will sit idly back and watch the North Korean government fall apart to be replaced by a democracy that might be friendly to the US. Were that scenario to develop, we would probably see Chinese intervention in the peninsula to install a more China-like communist government.

I think, therefore, that US diplomacy in this situation should press for hard sanctions against North Korea. If China and Russia can be brought on board, these sanctions could create a situation in which the North Korean regime wavers. If this happens the US should not press hard for North Korea to develop a Western style democracy. Instead the US should hope for and support a nebulous North Korean government, one that will not goad China into direct action. In time this government would likely morph into one like South Korea, but to push for it at once would probably make China upset. In either event, the world would be free of the North Korean rogue state.

Still, there is another darker path we could take. If North Korea is hit with serious sanctions they will determine their gambit has not paid off because of its lack of credibility (i.e. they won't actually fire a nuclear missile because that would be suicidal, or the dubious nature of their test leaves the viability of their nuclear program in doubt). In this case North Korea once again faces that same decision - 1) give up the ghost; or 2) up the ante. I suspect they might try #2 again. This, in my estimation, leaves them with one course. Their nuclear program only has a serious deterrent effect if we believe that North Korea would give that technology to a terrorist group (e.g. al Qaeda). To get their way and in an act of desperation, they might just try this. I don't think this is a danger yet, mostly because I think North Korea's nuclear program is still pretty shoddy. As it stands now, they're unlikely to export a bomb that they can hardly get working themselves. We'll see though. If this happens, the US will be in the unenviable situation of having to employ some definite realpolitik, e.g. an Eisenhowerian type threat, perhaps something along the lines of "if we find that you have given a nuclear device to a terrorist group, we will unhesitatingly wipe out Pyongyang."

As a way of ending my wandering essay on North Korea, I think I'll return to the historical parallel I mentioned earlier. I find it very interesting that China for centuries found it more practical to simply pay off the steppe raiders. They did this primarily because it was far cheaper than trying to mount a huge expedition against people groups that could always just break camp and ride away. In essence, the difficulties were military and logistical (much like today). This cycle of raiding followed by payment continued until the Qing Dynasty, aided by gunpowder and modern transport, finally subdued the wily steppe. The lesson, it would seem, is that what cannot be helped must be tolerated. If the US can't get China and Russia to back a comprehensive plan for sanctions against North Korea, American may just have to tolerate a nuclear DPRK.

People are too worried about North korea. lighten up.

Looks like NK really didn't have a nuke after all. They probabbly packed some bunker complex full of hundreds of tons of dynamite to simulate the explosion.