Yesterday, North Korea showed off what CNN reported as “a bevy of new missiles and launchers at its annual military parade.” Since then, military pundits have been all over TV offering dire insights on how this parade portends “thermo-nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula.”
Except that there’s now a Groundhog-Day spectacle to North Korea’s military parades and missile tests. What’s more, they now trigger Pavlovian (tail-wagging-dog) reactions – from the United States to China and all countries in between.
Of course, the North Korean regime has an existential interest is performing this spectacle. For it survives on feeding its people the “big lie” that their lives of quiet desperation could have no greater purpose than sacrificing, evermore, to defend their country against ever-looming annihilation by the United States.
By contrast, the US government has a mostly mercenary interest. For it thrives on feeding its people all kinds of lies to justify appropriating the lion’s share of taxpayers’ dollars for the military industrial complex. As bogeymen in this context go, North Korea’s reckless and bellicose pursuit of nuclear weapons serves beyond measure, hence the applause.
Mind you, military pundits readily admit that many of the missiles North Korea shows off on parades are just elaborate floats – each packing the explosive power of a spud gun. In doing so, they unwittingly vindicate former president Dwight D. Eisenhower’s famous warning about warmongering pitches for budgetary dollars masquerading as military analyses for national security.
All the same, the hopelessly oppressed and isolated people of North Korea can be forgiven for playing along. But the purportedly liberated and informed people of the United States should be ashamed for doing so. After all, nothing betrays the folly of the “North Korean problem” quite like every president – from Bill Clinton to Donald Trump – mouthing the same warning about the clear and present danger it poses. One would be hard-pressed to say which country’s leaders are more venal in this context.
There’s no denying the nuisance North Korea causes with its apocalyptic rhetoric and military antics. Never mind that much of both seems scripted for an SNL sketch. But there’s also no denying that the only clear and present danger North Korea has ever posed stems from test firing missiles, each of which either landed harmlessly in the Sea of Japan or fizzled ignominiously upon take off.
As it happens, the latter was the case just yesterday, when North Korea punctuated its annual military parade with another missile test:
North Korea launched a ballistic missile Sunday morning from near its submarine base in Sinpo on its east coast, but the launch was the latest in a series of failures just after liftoff, according to American and South Korean military officials.
The timing was a deep embarrassment for the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, because the missile appeared to have been launched to show off his daring as a fleet of American warships approached his country to deter provocations.
(New York Times, April 15, 2017)
Frankly, it’s arguable that President Trump poses an even greater danger to the Korean Peninsula than Kim Jong-un. Trump has made a public show of vowing that — if China doesn’t “fix the problem” with economic sanctions — he will do so with “kinetic” action. But it’s only a matter of time before Jong-un calls his bluff, forcing Trump to back up his own reckless and bellicose rhetoric.
Meanwhile, I’m all too mindful that he won near-universal praise for launching cruise missiles at Syria and dropping a massive bomb on Afghanistan recently. I fear this might embolden the vainglorious Trump to seek even greater praise by bombing North Korea. This, of course, would be tantamount to swatting a fly and upsetting a hornet’s nest, respectively, and expecting them to react in similar fashion.
Instead, Trump should deal with the menace North Korea poses the way I urged Obama to in “North Korea to The World: Nuke Off!” December 13, 2012.
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[Trump] should convene a coalition of the willing among Asia-Pacific countries (APEC) to forge agreement on the following resolution, which, significantly, would not be subject to a UN-style veto by any country (namely, China or Russia):
APEC
- Recognizing that the United Nations is unable or unwilling to stop North Korea from violating its resolutions (most notably, res. 1718 against conducting nuclear tests or launching ballistic missiles) with impunity;
- Finding that these violations pose an untenable threat to the Asia-Pacific region;
Resolves that:
- Instead of continuing the feckless practice of bribing North Korea with cash, oil and food to get it to stop these violations, APEC shall henceforth impose the severest possible sanctions, unilaterally;
- If, either as a result of misfire or deliberate intent, any of North Korea’s missiles even threatens any APEC country, the United States shall lead the bombardment of all of its nuclear and missile facilities until they are incapable of even setting off firecrackers, let alone launching nuclear missiles.
All else is folly.
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NK: nuke off…
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