The United States and South Korea wrapped up four days of “war games” in the Yellow Sea yesterday – in what can only be described as an accidental response to North Korea’s manic shelling of a fishing village and military base in the South on November 23.
I dismiss it as accidental because these games were scheduled long before this (latest) North Korean attack, which killed two civilians and two military personnel. In fact, the U.S. and South Korea routinely play these games pursuant to the 1953 Mutual Self Defense Treaty, which obligates the U.S. to defend South Korea.
More to the point, though, North Korea can be forgiven for regarding their war games as nothing more than feckless saber rattling given that the U.S. and South Korea reacted with nothing more than hollow threats after North Korea torpedoed a South Korean naval ship earlier this year (on March 26), killing 46 sailors.
Even worse, it has now developed a perverse incentive to continue this form of shotgun diplomacy because, instead of punishment, these countries have invariably rewarded it with everything from fuel to food and even cold hard cash.
Of course North Korea has made it demonstrably clear that it is certifiably insane. Therefore, I wonder if it occurs to the U.S. and South Korea that occasional shelling and torpedoing of South Korean targets might just be the North’s version of war games…?
In any case, we’re being entertained again by all manner of talk about getting tough with the North – complete with the U.S. calling on China to finally discipline its adopted problem child.
Yet all indications are that no country is going to do anything to check North Korea’s reckless and deadly behavior until it launches an attack so large in scale that it threatens the very existence of South Korea. Then we’ll be talking full-scale nuclear war….
But I warned it would be thus. Here, for example, is the sober note I sounded last year when North Korea was provoking none other than the mighty USA:
Pay no mind to all of the talk about President Obama taking military action (like interdicting North Korean ships on the high seas), putting pressure on China to intervene, or turning Japan into a nuclear power to check North Korea’s now-patented nuclear gamesmanship.
After all, if this country’s provocations with nuclear weapons did not compel Bush to deploy any of these enhanced tactics, it’s plainly disingenuous for anyone to suggest that its kidnapping of two [American] women will compel Obama to do so. And this is hardly a Somali-pirate situation where Navy Seals can fire a few shots and end it….
(North Korea adds kidnapping to its diplomatic arsenal, The iPINIONS Journal, June 8, 2009)
And so this doomsday clock continues to tick….
Related commentaries:
North Korea adds kidnapping…
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