By Nathan Tankus, a student and research assistant at the University of Ottawa. You can follow him on Twitter at @NathanTankus (https://twitter.com/NathanTankus)
Sometimes debates that surround a country’s policies are about whether that country’s officials are taking the correct course of action. Other times, however, when a country is perceived as a virulent enemy, the attitude forms that their actions aren’t just wrong, they are irrational and crazy (it’s telling that in a society obsessed with rationality and the “rationality” of the market, our worst insult is “irrational”). As a result, it is radical and disreputable to argue that these countries are pursing their objectives in rational manner. North Korea is one of the best examples of this dynamic the post-war period has to offer. As such, I think it’s time to offer a disreputable opinion of North Korea.
One of the little-discussed elements of war and international military infrastructure is their balance of payment implications, namely: they often require massive amounts of imports. The Korean war was no different. The difference was the existence of the Betton Woods system which required the treatment of dollars as equivalent to gold and thus the “reserve currency” of the non-Soviet world. As such, the U.S was able to expand its balance of payments deficits as needed, especially in the 1950’s when the world was starved for dollars. This did come at a cost however, that cost being the eventual destabilization and destruction of the Bretton Woods system. This would come about because, given continued balance of payment deficits, eventually other countries would question the dollar’s convertibility to gold (see Michael Hudson’s account in Superimperialism) and destroy the peg which the system was founded on.
As a result, U.S officials started becoming wary of their overseas spending. An important example comes from a September 1956 national security council meeting. In that meeting, the members (including president Eisenhower) discuss the need to reduce spending in Korea. As Governor Harold Stassen puts it, “The Free World was greatly in need of some of our gold back in 1953. It was now, however, getting too much of a claim on it and it was time to reverse directions”. Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson states in the same meeting that “there was no real way to cut U.S. expenses except by reducing the size of the armed forces of South Korea. Secretary Wilson also believed that we should try to get more of our own U.S. forces out of Korea although we should probably have to leave one U.S. division there.” The problem was, how could they reduce spending on Korea without compromising their security interest in the area? Their solution, as was often the solution in mid-twentieth century America, was nuclear weapons. By January 1958 (“at the latest”) the U.S had placed nuclear weapons in South Korea.
Note how this turns the present on its head. It has become a cliché in modern times to demonize the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for building nuclear weapons “instead” of feeding their people. In reality however, their policy appears as a rational (if dangerous) strategy to reduce military spending just as the United States did when arming South Korea and putting South Korea under its “nuclear umbrella”. Neither form of support was given the North Koreans from the Soviet Union or China. Mutually Assured Destruction only protects an area if there is a country committed to bombing back (this asymmetry is crucial to understanding North Korea’s policy agenda and mindset). This reason for their nuclear program isn’t exactly a secret, indeed it’s in the official (and yes, propagandistic) statements of their state news agency: “The DPRK’s intention to build up a nuclear deterrent force is not aimed to threaten and blackmail others but reduce conventional weapons under a long-term plan and channel manpower resources and funds into economic construction and the betterment of people’s living.”
It should go without saying (but unfortunately doesn’t) that I think the actions of North Korea’s oligarchs are in their own interests. However, that doesn’t mean their actions are the malevolent insanity they are portrayed as in the west. Nor does that mean the DPRK’s attempts to secure it’s regime are completely against the interests of their population. The U.S ended the Korean war with the threat of an atomic strike. In 1994, when the U.S nearly started a war over North Korea’s nuclear reactors, the Pentagon predicted casualties from a possible war at a minimum of one million people. Unilateral disarmament wouldn’t protect those interests much better, as Iraq so vividly illustrated a decade ago. Given all this context, does North Korea’s actions with regard to its military expenditure and focus on nuclear weapons really seem all that illogical? As I stated at the beginning of this piece, the disreputable opinion I’m presenting is not that North Korea’s actions are right or just, but simply that they are rational. It is a somewhat dark irony that our fervent belief that their actions are irrational and have no historical grounding impedes our ability to respond to them rationally.
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About demonizing North Korea, you may also want to check this timeline of US agression against NK in the face of the current rules: http://www.moonofalabama.org/2013/03/whos-provocative-action.html
One would hope that our war leaders are shrewder than they let on in their state-sanctioned propaganda outlets (the MSM). But I’m not holding my breath. The credibility trap and lack of maneuvering room created by all the claims of irrationality coupled with the virulent warmongering on the right in the US could easily lead us into a very dangerous place vis a vis North Korea similar to the sabre-rattling against that other “crazy” state Iran. Obama has avoided insane foreign policy so far (I know that’s not saying much), but one wonders if his flagging poll numbers and near lame-duck status might not make a mad man out of him yet. He has definitely shown us that he can be ruthless and cruel…
Don’t put your faith in our “war” leaders. Grant was a drunk who was out of the army who rose to the top when the peter principle had to be put into action. He didn’t get the top job because he was well connected. He rose to the top because he succeed while everyone else was failing miserably even West Point’s greatest non-Lee graduate. The Civil War demonstrated that marching well and roughing up inferior armies means nothing when the playing field is even.
As far as policy, doubling down in Afghanistan was insane. Dragging out Iraq was insane. Libya was insane (not only did we flood North Africa with top flight weapons, we undermined one of the only foreign policy victories of the 21st century which is disarmament of nastier weapons and undermined our own credibility). Our continuing aggressive nature towards Iran. Murdering civilians left and right behind a computer screen isn’t going to have many pay offs in the long run. Obama has a broken army which can’t get into a real fight anymore, so he is limited. Even the craziest officer will recognize that.
Nathan Tankus should be nominated for the Moron of the year award.
awww. you’re so sweet. any particular reason, or just because?
Because nuclear ICBMs?
there is no such thing as bad PR.
monetize it!
I’m just annoyed I’m merely being nominated. I want an endorsement!
Nathan,
you appear to be in a battle of wits with unarmed men who also have dis-information superority. (sic)
If you buy the media and our government’s attempts to sell N.Korea as a threat to us, then I’d say you’re the one deserving of such consideration. In that NK has hit upon the ruthless strategy of threatening its neighbors to ensure economic and agricultural aid it’s a greater “danger” than Iran has ever been, but it’s still a small, poor country firmly on China’s leash which has inexplicably found itself the “enemy” of the world’s only super power since the fall of the USSR. That they are pricks doesn’t make us any less the bully here.
Interesting perspective! It seems to make sense.
Most normal people just ignore all this stuff and expect things will work out so the baseball season doesn’t get interrupted with bad news.
Most people secretly suspect nearly everybody in power anywhere in the world is a wacko of some kind. The wacko mind-fields flash and jump around but mostly neutralize each other safely, so normal people can go about their lives.
If there’s ever a big big flash on the horizon, that’s when you wonder if something happened. Hopefully it’s just a natural phenomenon.
Life is strange. Big problem Seoul has in 2013 is the N. Korea border is so close by that Seoul can be leveled in about 4 hours by conventional artillery and mortar fire.
A bigger problem than their artillery is their nukes as their artillery could be suppressed rather quickly with hyperbarics. The bigness of the problem is that the North Koreans have doubtless mused on that endlessly and being desperadoes tend to extremes.
You know, kind of like having emaciated soldiers in the background protecting their fatted leader in media presentations and being oblivious to the picture that presents to the world.
If neither side can afford a military that can physically invade and occupy the territory of the other, then the standoff is a bluff, fueled only by the bombs standing behind it. From this point we either continue on to the absurd Star Trek episode where the military attacks were imaginary but the compulsory deaths were real, or we demilitarize the peninsula.
Except that the analysis in this article fails. The NK leadership is desperate, not rational. They are not trying to rationalize military costs. Rather, they seek 1) to justify even greater irrational military costs and 2) to create political mega-drama to suppress internal dissent. The current bellicose posturing may well indicate that popular acceptance of Kim Joeng-un was not as strong as expected and that the military decided further detente with the south would soon lead to popular demands in NK for reunification or at least for democracy.
The NK leadership has a calculated policy of propping up Kim III through state-run agit-prop, but this does not make it a rational policy. Consider the hyper-al-Qaeda-style NK videos showing NK missles turning NYC to ashes while “We are the World” plays in the background. Most people in NK probably lost respect for the new regime when these desperate, idiotic videos were released. The NK people are not stupid, so it’s likely that crude appeals to external threats will have less and less appeal, causing NK leaders to become more and more irrational as it becomes harder to find scary threats.
What is probably driving the NK leadership is palpable fear of being executed the way certain leaders were in Eastern Europe. The clock is ticking, and NK doesn’t have that many years left as a nation. Truly, the NK people are not dumb, and in their honest moments the present leaders surely know that.
The only rationality visible at the moment in NK might be the desire of the leadership to sell small-scale nuclear arms and technology to terrorists in various parts of the world. However, in the long run that is not a rational policy for many obvious reasons.
Interesting point. Are nuclear weapons a more cost effective way to get what you want? Conventional forces do cost a lot of resources and may not have a reliable loyalty. Humm.
I think the idea is not so much that nuclear weapons are the way to get what you want, but to keep what you have.
Let’s be very clear about who the 1000 lb. gorilla is, and it sure ain’t North Korea.
Agressors always use barrels of ink trying to portray their victims as the agressors. Every war is a defensive war. This goes back to the formulations of Francisco de Vitoria (1483-1546), the most influential thinker in the history of Spain, whose ideas about what constitutes “just” or “legitimate” war laid the foundation for modern International Law.
Hannah Arendt, for instance, in Eichmann in Jerusalem notes:
Adam Curtis calls it “the power of nightmares.” And as Gorbachev is reputed to have told Reagan in 1985: “We are going to present you Americans with a terrible dilemma. We are going to deprive you of an enemy.”
Of course it didn’t take Reagan and crew long to come up with a whole new host of nightmares. There was the enemey within: the gays, feminists and counterculture. There were drugs: code word for blacks, Hispanics and poor people. There was terror. And of course there was “The Axis of Evil” — Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.
I think Nathan is missing the forest for a few nuclear trees. Whether acquiring and deploying nuclear weapons makes sense for the DPRK in the light of its desire to defend its own regime is one question. But the much larger issue is that the DPRK is one of the poorest and most incompetently governed countries in the world. It is run by fanatical idiots who have spent decades pressing the country’s people down into miserable poverty and semi-slavery.
by what criteria are you making this judgement? North Korea is about the size of pennsylvania and about double it’s population. It has also been under heavy sanctions for over 60 years now. additionally, it has had an immense military real resource overhead to develop around (which is one of the reasons why they’ve developed nukes). mean while the real resource costs of South Korea’s military has been essentially paid by the rest of the world via America’s privileged balance of payments position. Under these conditions, how can you declaratively assert those claims as fact? how do you know? do you have any evidence another political regime could have developed significantly better under those constraints?
Nathan, it seems to me that North Korea could go in the direction of post-Mao China any time it wants. It could also go in the direction of its neighbor to the south. It could choose various paths in between. If it signaled a willingness to do any of these things, it would find a variety of willing economic partners for the transition. Now these steps might indeed undermine the power of the Kim dynasty itself. But that is no excuse for not taking them. The claim “We have to lock down our state in impoverished, regimented slavery because otherwise our enemies will undermine our absurd regime” is not a sufficient excuse. Yes, North Korea is the object of widespread international opprobrium and hostility. It deserves to be. It’s a monstrosity.
Suppose there is a guy in your neighborhood patrolling his property boundaries with heavy weaponry, and imagine the following conversation:
“Why is this guy marching around his property with guns and grenade launchers?”
“Well, it’s because he has his wife and children chained to the bedpost inside the house where he feeds them bugs and squirrel droppings, and the police want to get him out of there. So he is just defending himself.”
“But why is he chaining up his wife and children and feeding them them bugs and squirrel droppings?”
“Well since the police are out to get him, he can’t leave the house to get real food; and if he lets the wife and kids go, they might threaten his control of the house. So he’s doing the best he can under the circumstances.”
The defense here is absurd, right?
None of this is to attack the idea that it is important to understand a regime’s motivations in order formulate the best way to deal with it. Right now, the DPRK has a very young leader who thinks it is important to make a show of strident defiance in response to foreign probing, and maybe to act just a little bit crazy, since fear-of-crazy is about all that regime has going for it in the international sphere. Hopefully, the recent elevation of tensions will settle down, and with the loss-of-face issue out of the way China can then go back to prevailing upon the DPRK to loosen up and start taking care of its people.
again, do you have any evidence for this position? give me one piece of evidence that any economic “liberalization” would suddenly get crippling sanctions lifted. I don’t see the evidence. Second, look at what you’re saying? for all your bluster about “slavery”, you’re basically admitting that the only way to loosen the deathgrip on North Korea is for it to allow the U.S. to dictate it’s policies. so much for “sovereignty”…
China is a completely different situation and your lack of knowledge on how that transition was made is very telling. The U.S. opened relations with China because of it’s balance of payment issues and it’s desire to do business there well before they showed any sign of “liberalizing”.
Nathan, where did I say anything about the US and its dictates? The DPRK has bad relations with most of the countries in the world.
On the liberalization score, I think the DPRK could elevate its standard of living immensely simply by following the economic and geopolitical advice of its rapidly growing and more prosperous neighbor China, apart from any changes it might make in its relationship with the rest of the world. The DPRK has a country with a quarter of the world’s population on its border. It could have a much improved existence if it simply aped the Chinese model while trading with China and nobody else. If it went in this direction it would also undermine Washington’t ability to mobilize more strident opposition to the DPRK.
looks like they’re already following your advice! trading with China has increased a lot in recent years. beyond that, i don’t know what you think would make them more “competent” internally. do you really think privatizing factories is going to suddenly lead to a dramatic increase in production and living standards?
Considering the location of North Korea, most countries around the world don’t matter. Spanish/North Korean relations aren’t that big of a deal. Lets consider the relevant countries with a shared history:
-Japan; I wouldn’t trust the Japanese if I was a Korean North or South)
-Russia; Would you want the Russians around?
-The U.S.; Where is the United States located?
-China; They have supported the regime in the past and fought with North Korea when the U.S. army invaded China during Korean War.
Why do you think North Korea would have a similar experience to China? What do they have to offer? China had 800+ million people at the time of the end of the MAO era. They could and do offer cheap labor with no regulation. Do you understand China didn’t have to fear as much from rapacious global investors because they could always move back to the Soviet sphere?
So far your “thinking” seems to be “Economic Liberalization = success.” This is what we call “belief.” How is this going to work?
I guess you guys are right. Poor North Korea! They could have a decent society, if only the world were’t so full of meanies!
@ Dan Kervick
The “civilize ’em or kill ’em” — formerly know as “the cross or the sword” — doctrine does not have a good track record. What it typically boils down to is naked self-interest masquerading as some transcendent morality.
And surely the internal contradictions are not lost on anyone paying attention. If we define “rationality” as the classical and neoclassical economists do — maximization of individual utility or self-interest — then all this other-interested behavior certainly is not “rational.” That is, of course, unless there is some hidden self-serving agenda floating benearth the surface of all this other-interested concern.
Way to miss the argument, but the issue is with your argument of they could just copy China while ignoring China was in a different spot than North Korea. So far you haven’t even provided a process except to compare North Korea, a place surrounded by former aggressors, to the most populous country in the world.
@ Dan Kervick
Your deep concern for the ordinary North Korean is quite moving. However, I hope you realize that the argument you are making is the prototypical argument made by those who seek to justify empire, conquest and plunder. It comes right straight out of the imperialist’s playbook.
For example, take the arguments used to justify the Spanish conquistadores’ war on the American Indians. In 1547, the Spanish humanist and translator of Aristotle, Juan Gines de Sepúlveda, invoked the following points of “reason” to justify the war on the Indians in his infamous debate with the Catholic friar Bartolome de las Casas:
Sepúlveda fell back on secular natural law doctrine claimed that the Indians were not rational, and therefore
Sepúlveda continued his argument as follows:
He concluded that “nothing more healthy could have occurred to these barbarians than to be subjected to the empire of those [the Spaniards] whose prudence, virtue, and religion shall convert the barbarians, who hardly deserve the name of human beings, into civilized men, as far as they can become so.”
You are ranting incoherently in pursuit of an imperialist phantom of your imagination. Did I argue for “war against North Korea?” It’s perfectly possible to support a restrained, cautious, gradual approach to North Korea without falling into the hole of portraying North Korea as a rational but hapless state unfairly victimized by its oppressors. The fact that there are pushy imperialists in the world doesn’t mean that there are not also idiot punk tyrant bosses running family despotisms.
• Dan Kervick says:
An “imperialist phantom”? Are you seriously arguing that the United States is not an empire ruled by a reactionary right-wing which is intent upon world domination? Are you seriously arguing the United States has not militarized its energy and economic policy? Are you seriously arguing that the United States has not carried its instruments of state violence, both covert and overt, to every niche and corner of the planet?
• Dan Kervick says:
But does a “restrained, cautious, gradual approach” accurately describe the United States’ current foreign policy towards North Korea? Or does demonization, saber rattling and the constant beat of war drums describe our foreign policy toward North Korea?
• Dan Kervick says:
Whoever said there weren’t? Now you’re just straw manning.
The “imperialist phantom” is your earlier suggestion that I made an imperialist argument endorsing attacks on North Korea, analogous to earlier Spanish empire attacks in Latin America. Since I defended no such thing, it seems to me that you are just stretching your lungs and indulging your own preoccupations with me standing in the way.
I would say the global response to North Korea over the past several years has in fact been remarkably well-restrained and disciplined. In fact, rarely in the era since the end of WWII has the international community reacted with such coordination and near-unanimity. Hopefully this recent business will simmer down. We have a very young new leader who feels the need to stand on the border and wave his sword around.
THe defense isn’t “absurd” at all. It’s quite rational given that his choices are 1. armed patrol and 2. prison.
“Right now, the DPRK has a very young leader who thinks it is important to make a show of strident defiance in response to foreign probing, and maybe to act just a little bit crazy, since fear-of-crazy is about all that regime has going for it in the international sphere. Hopefully, the recent elevation of tensions will settle down, and with the loss-of-face issue out of the way China can then go back to prevailing upon the DPRK to loosen up and start taking care of its people.”
There are several analysts who believe the show of force is actually for internal consumption. The analysis goes like this:
In North Korean culture, two things are respected: age and military power. The current leader doesn’t have age going for him, so in order to beef up his legitimacy, he has to bluster militarily.
If this is the case, it is important for the US government to pretend to treat his bluster as serious, because if they don’t respond, then Kim will lose face, and will have to bluster even harder.
This may sound stupid, but it makes sense. The US should therefore react as if it takes the North Korean threats very seriously, but with an instruction to the troops saying “We don’t actually start firing under any circumstances, guys, even if fired at.”
Dan Kervick says:
That sounds like a pretty accurate description of the United States to me.
I just love it when two criminal states start vying for moral one-upmanship.
One sees this happen all the time between the governments of Mexico and the United States.
The logic seems to be that another’s sins makes ones own sins acceptable.
The United States is a monstrously unequal country dominated by a corporate plutocracy. And it has been going backward in most objective measures of social success for the past several decades. Nevertheless, it is obvious that it has delivered a much high per capita standard of living for its people than has DPRK. Even the poorest 10% of Americans have an average standard of living much higher than the average standard for the entire population of the DPRK. So these kinds of comparisons are absurd.
Dan Kervick says:
No, the United States is a monstrously unequal empire dominated by a corporate plutocracy that has as its primary goal the conquest and plunder of the entire world. There’s no secret about this. It’s variously called full spectrum dominance, world hegemony, the end of history, etc. by the very authors and acolytes of this doctrine.
Here’s how Andrew J. Bacevich describes the doctrine in The Limits of Power:
And you’re sure to hell not going to see me defending the North Korean regime.
But has it ever occurred to you that it takes somebody just as bat shit crazy as the US neoliberal-neocons to stand up to them?
Seriously ? I think that I prefer US version of Slavery to the PRK version.
Well again, implicit in these sorts of comparisons is the logic that another’s sins makes ones own sins acceptable.
I get your point Mexico , I just thought the original statement was hyperbole. In other words I am (admittedly guessing) that life in the US is far better for the vast majority than it is in PRK.
I personally don’t think that the US is in any way close to attacking Korea; the losses would be too severe for one thing. I do worry about the North going first though. The only thing that’s comforting is the hope that the Kim family believes that war means the end for them. That said, they might get asylum and their Swiss bank accounts in China postwar so who knows if they are worried.
If one ditches the positivism of liberalism and Marxism, and instead adopts a cyclical theory of history, a different view emerges than that evangelized by American propagandists.
Carroll Quigley in The Evolution of Civilizations does this. He argues civilizations rise and fall according to the following cycle:
When expansion, that is productive capacity, begins to slow, the “core area becomes increasingly static and legalistic” as the instruments of society become institutionalized. Valissa yesterday linked a nifty visual that illustrates this:
http://quantumpranx.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/chsmith-cyclebureaucracy.png
And as the Age of Conflict sets in, Quigley argues that “The vested interests encourage the growth of imperialist wars and irrationality because both serve to divert the discontent of the masses away from their vested interests.”
Is there not a great deal of empirical information to suggest that the United States now finds itself somewhere between stages #4 and #6? And if we want to take a larger view, such as Wallerstein does with his world systems theory, are there not significant indications that Western Civilization itself now finds itself in on the downside of the evolutionary cycle? Look at Europe, for instance.
The word “rational” has become so bastardized and has so many different meanings for so many different people that it really has no meaning at all any more. But, if we commit the sin of defining rationalism very narrowly as empiricism (acknowledging that traditionally empiricism has been held out to be the very opposite of rationalism), it appears to me that it is the US propagandists who are the ones who are irrational.
The US is well into #6. The “Universal Empire” is falling apart.
I just wonder how long it will take to get to #7. Can’t happen soon enough, unfortunately, probably not within my lifetime. Bit like the Roman Empire — it took hundreds of years before there was someone who could properly invade and get rid of it.
When North Korea utters threats it is irrational. Yet you’ll never hear the Jewish Taliban running Israel described as irrational.
I think it is perfectly rational to treat economic sanctions as an act of war. Perhaps not so clever to taunt the most powerful military nation in the world. Especially a nation which glorifies warmongering and is on a “let’s start a new war a year binge”.
However let’s not lose sight of the fact North Korea is the poster child for all anarchists and anti-government libertarians. One look at that basket case and one begins to wonder if all governments exist at the expense of the people under them.
I’d bet I’m not that much different than anyone in the debate here. I really don’t know a damned thing about North Korea’s inner workings than what the propaganda machine right here in the US tells me. I do however know that the same propaganda machine mixes lies with truth on a daily basis. They have no interest in justice at all, and are morally bankrupt. So why should I beleive a damn thing I hear about North Korea, being it surely isn’t the whole truth. Anyone who watched the stream of lies and deception leading up to Iraq should be ashamed to even think of jumping on any war bandwagon with this rotten bunch.
One of the local TV stations in the capital city of my home state often has the retired head of the state’s National Guard on the evening news show giving his opinion on this and that. I’ve seen him on twice recently and both times he said the US should preemptively attack NK. Talk about propaganda. I’m sure what he says plays well with the brainwashed, but it makes me shiver.
When it comes to discussions involvng nuclear weapons the word is not “irrational” actors, it is human “insanity”.
Well, we know that irrational regimes exist, and in particular that irrationally aggressive ones exist. From Charles XII of Sweden through Napoleon, Hitler…they really do exist. Think of the Iran Iraq war also. So if you like the prior probability that this is one is not negligible.
Then look at the way they behave. 4th largest army in the world. Is that either useful or necessary? Would it not be more effective to have a smaller, better trained and better equipped one? Can there be rational military reasons for one so large?
Then we have the rallies. Look at the picture, you see the absolute uniformity of movement and gesture on a truly massive scale. Where have we seen that before?
They may be pursuing their national interest in a rational way, but the author has not shown that. All he has shown is that there is a threat. How imminent it is? Not shown. Whether the current methods are meeting it effectively? Not shown.
I think the jury is out, but that there is a greater than 50% chance that they are out of control in the same way Germany was in 1938, and that they will attack the South with human wave attacks and missile launches. The military will do as told, the dictator will be out of touch with reality. This will be deeply irrational. But such irrationality is common enough in our species, and is one of the most worrying things about nuclear proliferation. Sooner or later some nutter will use the damn things. This could be the first.
Well, we know that irrational regimes exist, and in particular that irrationally aggressive ones exist. From Charles XII of Sweden through Napoleon, Hitler…they really do exist. Think of the US Iraq war also and Bush’s doctrine of preventative war. Bush and his neocon cohort took 500 years of what had traditionally constituted a just and legitimate war and turned it on its head. So if you like the prior probability that this is one is not negligible.
Then look at the way they behave. The US spends more than the next 13 nations combined. Here are some other graphs that show the enormous amounts of money the US spends on militarization:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/07/everything-chuck-hagel-needs-to-know-about-the-defense-budget-in-charts/
Is that either useful or necessary? Would it not be more effective to have a smaller, better trained and better equipped one? Can there be rational military reasons for one so large? If one puruses the linked graphs, one sees ordinary Americans certainly believe the US’s vast military expenditures need to be cut.
Then we have the MSM in the US. Look at the picture, you see the absolute uniformity of movement and gesture on a truly massive scale. Where have we seen that before?
They may be pursuing their national interest in a rational way, but that has never been shown. All that has been shown is that there is a “potential,” speculative, imagined threat. But it certainly is not a threat to the life of the nation. And how imminent it is? Not shown. Whether the current methods are meeting it effectively? Not shown.
I think the jury is out, but that there is a greater than 50% chance that they are out of control in the same way Germany was in 1938, and that they will attack North Korea with human wave attacks and missile launches. The military will do as told, the dictator Obama will be out of touch with reality. This will be deeply irrational. But such irrationality is common enough in our species, and is one of the most worrying things about nuclear proliferation. Sooner or later some nutter will use the damn things. This could be the first.
“Think of the Iran Iraq war also.”
Do you mean the conflict sponsored by the United States? What exactly was irrational about the conflict? Iraq seized disputed and high priced territory in the wake of the Iranian Revolution which the Shah had previously seized during the Baathist rise to power. Then of course the U.S. stepped in and intensified the war in the name of fighting commies and after Carter’s Monroe doctrine for the Middle East.
What was irrational about Napoleon? His mistake in Russia was assuming the Czar was a clown like the rest of Europe. Nicolas I had tried to warn European powers about Napoleon and spent a great deal of time preparing Russia for a scorched earth decentralized conflict. No one else had done that, and except for Wellington’s army, Napoleon’s armies were invincible. When Napoleon was defeated, Napoleonic reforms stayed. Why? Maybe because he wasn’t irrational. A conqueror, yes, but irrational?
And as far as the fourth largest army in the world, the United States has a massive military footprint through its nearest neighbor and entered into a war on the Korean Peninsula on the other side of the globe. Did Koreans bomb American territory? No, they did not. Did Koreans launch crippling sanctions against the U.S.? No, they can’t.
Lets not kid ourselves, the chief foreign policy maker in the U.S. thought he could win in Afghanistan because he’s special.
Do you remember what happened to relatively disarmed countries without WMDS who weren’t on the U.S.’s puppet list?
Iraq
Libya
Afghanistan
Syria, Iran, and North Korea haven’t faced U.S. bombs. Who is irrational?
lerouguetradeur you said;
“Sooner or later some nutter will use the damn things. This could be the first.”
I think you misread your talking points….. Some nutter let a couple go back at the end of world war II. But then maybe your ‘side’ couldn’t be considered ‘nutters’ no matter wtf they happenned to do, right?
I wasnt there, but Ive read plenty of accounts how your ‘side’ starved plenty of people right here on this continent. One army big shot when asked by aome peaceful sioux what their people were supposed to eat. They had their food supplies decimated and were sent to live on reservations. Part of their treaty called for food to be delivered to them. When no promised food had been delivered in a very long time, and extreme hunger set in, they dared ask the ‘man’ why. His repsonse was “Let them eat grass.” That statement touched off one of the last Indian wars and they found the army prick dead with his mouth stuffed full of grass. Sort of reminds me whats going on yet today….
This is a very one-sided article.
“It is a somewhat dark irony that our fervent belief that their actions are irrational and have no historical grounding impedes our ability to respond to them rationally.”
I’m not sure where to start regarding the above conclusion… The general MSM propaganda is that their behavior is irrational, and though I generally agree that we are awash in all kinds of propaganda, in this case I think it’s closer to the truth than this article is, and although it may impede the general public’s ability to respond to their threats rationally, I do not believe for a minute that it is impeding the U.S. State Dept. or U.S. Military, or China, or Russia from doing the same.
Tossing blame at the West for the reasons that the NK is very isolated does not account for NK’s extreme self-imposed-isolation or their own internal propaganda that elevates the “Great Leader” to god-like status. Their socio-political system is a near cult.
It does not take into account the extreme militarization of NK or their standing million man Army.
And it definitely does not take into account the NK’s strong threat of regional nuke warfare. There is no doubt in my mind that this is an irrational threat considering the no-pun-intended fallout, to include thier own ultimate demise.
I may not be a 21st Century Reasearch Assistant, but I did live in SK for over 2.5 years and took multiple college classes of the last 100 years or so of the history of the Korean Peninsula (as well as Korean language classes) and I personally see very little rationality regarding NK regarding both their internal or external relationships.
With that said, there is also little doubt in my mind that their actions are somewhat dependant on their view that the rest of the world does consider them a little crazy. They aren’t stupid, but that does not mean that they are in any way sophisticated regarding international relationship building.
First, minor typo, “multiple college classes of the last 100 years” should have been multiple college classes of the last 1100 years”
Second, although at times the whole world seems a little irrational nowadays and causes it’s own problems on an almost daily basis, in one regard the author of this article is correct; just as we understand that the homeless nut wandering down the street waving his arms and talking to himself is completely rational from within his own perspective, he just isn’t very rational from our perspective.
Does the actions of the primary actors really have to be boiled down to rational/irrational?
In lieu of the United States’ foreign policy it is very much in their self-interest to threaten the North Koreans right now. Particularly at a time when a new God-Emperor is taking the throne. Concurrently it’s in the self-interest of the North Koreans to deter such aggression to their new regime by being as menacing as possible.
Nathan, I think the DPRK is not acting in its own vital national interest, and by continuing to develop nuclear weapons, they are being an irrational actor.
What is the vital national interest of the DPRK? It’s the survival of the Kim Family Regime (not the nation-state, but the regime).
The regime: Juche -“Dear Leader Absolutism,” the cult of the Kim dynasty that since 1993, has taught North Koreans that to die for your country means you will achieve immortality. An ideology of triumphal survivalism, an ancestor cult and ultra-nationalism, popularly referred to as “Self Reliance” and summarized as: “Man rules all things; man resolves all things … the man being Kim Jong-un.
Juche, has allowed the Kim regime to establish a monopolistic control of the state’s coercive apparatus that since the 1960s has encompassed not just the military, but also the militia, public security (police), secret police, courts, and system of gulags. Additionally, the regime has an omnipresent degree of control of data, information and all forms of media, including cyber technology. A control the regime has used to ensure loyalty of elites, especially the allegiance of the Korean People’s Army (KPA); declaring in 1997 the “military first” policy; reflecting Kim’s most important position as chair of National Defense Commission and not the leader of the Korean Workers Party (KWP).
Further, it has complete control of a centralized economy, through which it commands most, if not all, economic activity. A centralized economy that is still in place, and functioning, despite a famine (the “Arduous March”) that wiped out 10% of the population in the 1990’s (the distortions and inefficiencies of a which are still being compensated for, overlooked or adapted – included tolerating private food markets and raising prices).
As a result, the Kim regime appears to be stable, not to be on the brink of collapse, has no discernible internal power struggles or factions; spanning some five decades – and surviving a generational leadership succession. It has no ‘real’ external threats, is visited by US secretaries of State, remains the world’s longest lasting totalitarian regime and the US and its allies will never commit to a conventional attack (it would be disastrous: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/02/north-korea-preparing-for-war.html#comment-1102115) and the DPRK, rationally, knows this.
So, there it is, the DKPR; healthy, well, and robust – a tightly knit patchwork of totalitarian merit badges, covering the chubby body of a ruddy-faced, despotic adolescent.
But, if all is safe, secure and the regime has everything under control, why does the DPRK want nuclear weapons?
Well, because, as the Wall St Journal tells us:
“…the DPRK believes that it needs its nuclear program as a necessary deterrent ….. lessons learned from Iraq and Libya.”
Moreover,
” the nuclear program has proved to be an extremely useful strategic tool in its diplomatic bag; resulting in political and economic concessions.”
Well, if true, and the US and its allies don’t want to pay extortion money anymore, and the DPRK moves ahead with its nuclear program, then the US and its allies will do everything possible to stop it from happening. And, this result makes the DPRK’s nuclear actions irrational.
Claudius says:
It all sounds terribly familiar, doesn’t it?
You think “the power of nightmares” doesn’t work just as effectively for the Kim regime as it does for the Bush, Blair or Obama regimes?
Agree with you entirely.
I think it works “brilliantly” for the North Korean regime; if there is the perfect example of what other totalitarian regimes ‘coulda, woulda, shoulda’ been; the DPRK has it all, why would they bust a straight flush by obtaining the ace of nukes.
However, what’s remarkable to me is that the American-Straussians came late to ‘appreciating’ that the emphasis on individual liberty was the undoing of the “grand plan” of a US global hegemony.
It’s only now (within the last twenty years or so) that they have set about restructuring the American psyche by attempting to uniting ‘the people ‘ against a common, mutable, mythical, evil enemy (one lacks either a wall or economy to brought down).
Now, if only they can implement a ‘three generations’ law, that should speed matter up a little.
It’s blatantly obvious that countries WITH nuclear programs don’t get attacked by the US (Iran, North Korea, Pakistan), while countries WITHOUT them do (Iraq, Afghanistan).
North Korea is therefore rational in trying to get nukes ASAP. It’s responding to an irrational actor in the form of the US.
(This is not to say that North Korea is rational in anything ELSE its government is doing, but getting nukes is certainly rational for them.)
Not sure, it is “blatantly is obvious.” Which is why Nathan posited the question?
Still, there are many countries without nuclear weapons that have not been attacked by the US or its allies; Switzerland is the first that comes to mind…… Conversely, the United States government has made hundreds of attacks on targets in northwest Pakistan since 2004 using drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) without Pakistan’s agreement.
But, don’t let my facetiousness stand in the way of the US Army’s own strategic assessment (http://www.iiss.org/publications/str…e-on-the-kore/), which among its many points includes:
• In theory, U.S. forces could carry out pre-emptive attacks to destroy known North Korean nuclear facilities and missile emplacements, but such attacks would likely provoke North Korean retaliation and trigger a general conflict.
• Moreover, Washington and Seoul cannot overthrow the Pyongyang regime by force or destroy its strategic military assets without risking devastating losses in the process.
My point is that by going nuclear, the North Korean regime simply increases the resolve of its foes. By keeping the status quo, it might remain in power for the next sixty years….
Now, if Switzerland were ruled by a totalitarian teenager with proclivity for military choreography…..
Most people dream about the plumber who 1) knows how things work and 2) will tell you that you can keep flushing the toilet as many times as you can count towards infinity, because you are the sovereign in your castle.
I think there is method in their madness. But why everyone isn’t doubled up laughing is the part I don’t understand. (Except for the remote possibility that Kim really will launch one – and one is the operative word here because one is all he’s got, one war head that is.) Who do they think they are kidding? My guess is they are kidding their own citizens. NK is afraid one day soon everybody will wake up and nobody will care about their insane politics anymore. For a very long time now NK and SK have been working toward reunification. Both sides want it. But SK holds all the cards – what will NK gain by unification? Nada. So they put on this asinine spectacle hoping to create a bargaining chip. And hoping to keep their exhausted people agitated enough to remain patriot-idiots a while longer. That spokeswoman – she’s straight out of central casting. She makes Hitler look reasonable. And Dennis Rodman? I mean really. Kim told Dennis to tell Obama to “call me.” That’s the funniest thing that has happened in international politics in a long time. It’s kinda like Rodman is the Jack Ruby of this whole mystery – he’s the clue that something besides nuclear war is going on here.
Part of the issue is North Korea is a net food importer, and with rising food prices, North Korea has a bit of a problem. Every time food prices spike, North Korea gets uppity because they know they have to feed their people or they are gone.
Would Kim Jong Un be able to abdicate and leave? What about the supporting state? A cabal colonels is still going to have the same situation. Kim Jong family’s departure won’t change this situation despite promises of globalization/liberalization saving everything.
Is the U.S. going to move in with massive food aid? Obama wants to starve seniors in this country. He blew up a bunch of kids this weekend. He doesn’t care. This is the situation.
The sane supporting actors within North Koreans know that getting out might not be easy. There are plenty of believers there who would think nothing of shooting any passenger planes flying out of Pyongyang. They remember what the U.S./NATO did to Qaddafi despite the mission to protect civilians.
The U.S. won’t conduct combat operations on the Korean Peninsula. Its a logistical nightmare, and the Chinese would swat us like flies if they thought we were getting too close. In the past, China has always lumbered to the table to help ease a transition. This is going through the sane NK actors’ heads.
Heres the last issue. Maybe, the North Koreans could win a fight. The U.S. army is not in good shape. The fleets are deployed. Special forces are deployed. Who would come if the North Koreans came South? Because North Korea is so cut off from various sanctions over the years, the threat to international trade may not worry the cadre that can’t just escape.
A predator drone may be able to handle guys in broken down pick up trucks, but a predator drone won’t do much against thousands of pieces of artillery firing.
Don’t seem like a whole lot of interest in feeding their own people…
I’m sure they’re well aware of our historical concern for the feeding of their people.
Next month will be the sixtieth anniversary of the US/UN bombing of the Toksan and adjacent dams, with the aim of wrecking the irrigation system for 3/4 of North Korea’s rice fields and with the timing calculated, according to a USAF study, to be “most effective psychologically when the arduous labor of rice transplanting had been completed but before the roots became firmly embedded.”
In a different context that might have been a war crime punishable by hanging. Whether it’s the race of the victims or the ultimate result of the war that’s the deciding factor determining when this is or isn’t a crime, I don’t think I’m competent to say. And it’s irrelevant to an assessment of the depth of Americans’ concern for the health of the North Korean people.
Really? They’ve exhorted food aid for years, and the army is fed. The guys with guns are accustomed to food. North Korea wouldn’t be the first country with bad policies, but food price shocks motivate people.
You keep focusing on the US. NK has a potentially bigger problem: China.
China is the puppetmaster for North Korea, and the real question is what China’s policies are.
Well, one thing is certainly clear:
When I have my hands around some poor schlub’s throat and his larynx is beginning to fracture under the pressure of my thumbs, it’s his own damn fault that he’s having trouble breathing. He could, after all, simply agree to do whatever I want and I’ll let him go.
Until the next time, anyway.
US leaders might go to the well one more time.
Nothing distracts from misery home better than war abroad.
Great article. Reminds me of Mike Chinoy’s book on the mishandling of the NK nuclear program, which did more to enrage me at the ididocy of GOP neocons than the whole middle east war.
Everyone is afraid that N. Korea under the Kims will do something stupid, and given their previous history of stupidity, venality and incompetence (allowing millions to starve in the ’90s, widespread malnutrition, money diverted to bloated military and Kims, no economic reform, etc.), this is a very real threat. Maybe they will blow up Seoul, or a nuclear missile or reactor will fizzle out and radiate the Korean peninsula.
The biggest threat is the possibility that 5-10 million impoverished N. Koreans will cross the borders into China or S. Korea. Right now China rounds up nearly all the defectors/immigrants and sends them back, because China can’t or doesn’t want to absorb them. Officially S. Korea says N. Koreans are allowed to become S. Korean citizens but in reality they don’t want any refugees and their economy would crash if millions crossed the border.
So China and S. Korea just want things to stay the same. It doesn’t matter who rules N. Korea or how poor and oppressed the 23 million N. Koreans are, so long as SK and China are not responsible for them.
East Asia feels a lot like Europe circa 1914, no need for war but one could easily happen, if it isn’t NK, it could be those islands that Japan and are fightiong over or another three for more things that could set off someone’s nationalist need to prove their manhood.
All the USG has to do is “nothing”. But the people who gave you campaign bribes errrr contributions can’t get their investment back from the taxpayer if your government does nothing. So it has to do something,…. anything… invariably homicidal to the civilians of another state. it has been that way since Eisenhower. The Democrats because they must ‘try to’ prove they are not weak and the Republicans because they believe in paying back bribes err contributions err investments. That’s the lesson.
“Everyone is afraid that N. Korea under the Kims will do something stupid, and given their previous history of stupidity, venality and incompetence (allowing millions to starve in the ’90s”
I cant believe it, does that line of thought really work for you? North Korea has had sanctions and a military blockade for a generation so how are they supposed to feed there people when they cant even import food yet they still have a higher GDP per capita than many countries like Haiti for example and there industrial output is higher than a whole lot of countries but none the less il never understand that logic of comparing there economy to anyone who has free trade.
Your argument is the perfect justification for U.S. imperialism, indeed, for any action that anyone decides to take to promote his/her self-interest.Without a moral premise, rationality is meaningless.
The US government, including its annex, the mass media, is so mendacious, lawless and reprehensible that those few enlightened Americans will sympathize with the Korean peoples. The “irrationality” charge is the new and socially acceptable expression of racism: those mongrel Asians, or Arabs, or sub-Saharans, are incapable of acting rationally by virtue of their genetic limitations. When Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust, he is effectively campaigning for the non-extermination of his people at the hands of contemporary Western eugenicists, in other words, in sympathy with European Jewry. The survival strategies of the neo-colonial peoples of this world are myriad and impressive. They know the risks. The US is utterly capable of mass murders at any moment.