links for 2006-10-11

• Foreign Policy In Focus | Pyongyang 1, Bush 0
  "With such a miserable track record in inducing behavior change, why has the United States continued to speak loudly and wield a big stick against a hornet's nest like North Korea? "
  (tags: NKorea u.s.policy)

Comments

[mahathir_fan]

A lot of American viewpoints seem to address the issue in black and white. You are either Pro-DPRK or Pro-American including this article.

It seems to have ignored the Pro-Korean camp.

I think the biggest hurdle for the US to take any military action even if Mr. Macho Man wasn't stuck in Iraq, is that the Korean population especially those in the South are too intelligent to feed into war propaganda.

It is difficult to see how the US can "persuade" the South Koreans to fight another Korean war or War against American agression in Korea (Kang Mei Yuan Chao) depending on your viewpoint. AT this time, even if such a war could result in a casualty of just a few hundred people, I'm not sure if the South Koreans will sign up. And if the US decides to go unilateral, I think they will get booted right out of South Korea. The was a recent film out, called Hanbando starring some of Korea's best actors and you can see from the movie the current perception of Koreans against foreign powers. In that movie, they were about to open the new railway that connects South Korea to Pyong yang and all foreign diplomats boycotted the ceremony. After many twists and turns, Japan was about to launch an attack on South Korea and the Americans decide to not protect South Korea leaving South Koreans to protect their own nation themselves. There are interesting parallels to the events that happened in Korea 110 years shown in th e movie.

Do remember that in the original Korean war, many of the big shots in the South were former pro-Japanese conspirators. Many who were disgusted that the USMGK retained these traitors turned to help the North. When the people finally got power, their first South Korean President had to flee the country and live out his life in exile. But they didn't really get democracy until the 90s. With that, we also see a rise of the Korean patriotism. It is like an independence movement.

With this nuclear test, DPRK is also asserting its independence, this time from China.

Koreans today are very well educated in their history. They realized how in the past, many of their kingdoms only came into existence because they kissed up to the higher powers. For example, Silla practically annilated all the other competiting kingdoms because it kissed up to China. So they killed off the Koguryo and Paekche kingdom in the name of unification of Korea, and the result was the entire Korean peninsular became a vassal state of China. Koguryo was actually a very strong kingdom, quite independent and not subordinated by China.

It doesn't take a genius to be able to draw the parallels to the potential future based on history: South Korea aided by the United States annilate North Korea - and the entire Korean peninsular becomes a vassal state of the US much like Silla vs Koguryo.

It would be interested to do a poll today, to ask present day Koreans, if they were alive again 2000 years ago, and Silla(aided by China) was fighting a war with Koguryo, who would they have sided with?

In North Korean history for example, it refuses to acknowledge Silla as the first unified kingdom of Korea beacuse it was subordinated by China.

And the problem for the US is that the poll will show that most Koreans will support Koguryo against Silla(if a war is inevitable). And that is the problem with US military intervention.

Sorry for being so long winded but my bottomline is that this is ultimately a Korean problem and the US policy ought to be to help South Korea chart its desired course on how to deal with the North and not dictate on its own and expect South Korea to tag along and show support to American decisions. The more America tries to dictate, the more South Korea appears like a puppet state to the North Koreans.