Inaction’s terrible cost
A growing number of people are getting convinced the only way to deal with the North Korean problem is through diplomacy and dialogue. The military option, which of course remains open, has reached a point where the consequences have become too terrifying to even contemplate. In fact, it is so terrifying, Kim Jong-un himself is not likely to consider it as well, that is if he wants to stay alive through all this.
Kim will eventually opt for diplomacy and dialogue. But not now. All the calculated risks he has taken are geared toward achieving a position of strength from which he will be able to wangle a desirable bargain. And he has not achieved that position yet. Such position will be achieved when North Korea becomes a full-fledged nuclear power.
And quite frankly, there is no stopping Kim and North Korea from becoming one. The world, or at least the world powers who determine where and when the world should turn, have pussyfooted on the Hermit Kingdom for too long. They relied too much on sanctions and diplomacy at a time when it should have been the military option that promised the best results at the least human cost.
Clearly the world grossly misappreciated the capacity of Kim to be suicidally obstinate. More importantly, the world failed to see that taking away a bowl of soup does not mean anything to an already impoverished and miserable country like North Korea. Prospects of hunger and deprivation only scare countries like the United States who have never known hunger and want. In the words of a great Bob Dylan song, “when you have nothing, you have nothing to lose.”
Besides, Kim knows he has the number of all the relevant world leaders. A pariah perfectly understands his isolation. He does not expect other leaders to act the way he does. If he threatens to blow up the world, he expects the other leaders to take the opposite side. They think he is crazy, so they will never share his thoughts. And as a crazy man, he knows they will have to treat him gingerly. He is the delicate rose with the thorns.
And so, as the world waited in vain for the sanctions to work, they allowed Kim to buy all the time he needed to build up his nuclear arsenal. And even as he spooked the world with his nuclear ambitions, Kim succeeded in quietly positioning his conventional weapons to where they can threaten his neighbors with annihilation even without resorting to his nukes.
In other words, the world played right into Kim’s designs, making it now very succinctly clear that Kim is not as crazy as most leaders think he is. Indeed, he could be this generation’s genius. A bit reckless perhaps, but a genius nonetheless. He plotted everything precisely right from the start. He knew the world feared a nuclear holocaust, ironically a prospect of their own creation (North Korea did not became nuclear-capable until now), and so he fed those
‘The world should have bombed North Korea into submission at a time when it was less costly to do so,
and when its few allies and sympathizers were in no position to do anything
about it.’
fears relentlessly.
And now the world is seeing the dire consequences of procrastination and making the wrong turn. The world should have bombed North Korea into submission at a time when it was less costly to do so, and when its few allies and sympathizers were in no position to do anything about it. Now North Korea is a nuclear power, or at least very close to it. And its pal China has become a country even the United States can no longer mess around with. Diplomacy and dialogue? More like pleading to me.