American officials and commentators often say it will be “suicide” if Kim Jong Un tries something. That something is usually unclear but at the rate Kim is launching missiles he appears to think he’s got plenty of leeway before he does something suicidal.
The North Koreans wouldn’t be the first to miscalculate what suicidal is.
It was suicidal for the Japanese to attack the Americans and British in 1941, in retrospect, at least. But at the time, it seemed like a reasonable idea.
It was suicidal for Hitler to attack Russia, especially when over half the German invasion force’s transport was horse-drawn. But at the time it didn’t seem so.
The United States invading Iraq without a plan for what to do once Baghdad was captured? It might not have been suicidal, but was at least the equivalent of jumping off a three-story building onto an asphalt parking lot, repeatedly.
So consider things from Kim’s perspective as he looks over the last 30 years. No matter what he and his father and grandfather have done they’ve never been painfully punished.
So consider things from Kim’s perspective as he looks over the last 30 years. No matter what he and his father and grandfather did they’ve never been painfully punished.
At various times, the Americans, Japanese, South Koreans and others have given the Kim’s food, money, oil, and atomic reactors – all in exchange for a promise to talk or behave better. Keeping the promises was optional.
And when the Kim regime has acted out – blowing up the South Korean cabinet in Rangoon, torpedoing a South Korean Navy ship, kidnapping Japanese citizens, launching missiles, building and testing nuclear weapons, poisoning a half-brother in broad daylight in a crowded airport terminal?
Why … nothing much happened.
After the South Korean vessel was sunk the Americans even pressured Seoul to do nothing. And China helpfully insisted at the UN that it was unclear who fired the torpedo.
China – the one country that can economically “turn off” North Korea – has kept the Kim’s afloat, protected them politically, and helped with their nuclear and missile programs.
This continues and includes pressuring South Korea over its THAAD missile defense system and strong-arming South Korean companies operating in China. But it’s not just Beijing.
The Kim regime maintains a gulag that a Korean Solzhenitsyn will someday write about. Yet 164 nations have diplomatic relations with North Korea.
The Kim regime maintains a gulag that a Korean Solzhenitsyn will someday write about. Yet 164 nations have diplomatic relations with North Korea.
And a number of them accept North Korean “forced” labor and allow the regime’s licit and illicit money making operations to continue.
The United States has had a curious approach towards North Korea. It maintains military forces on the peninsular and is committed to defending South Korea – while often displaying naivety and incompetence on the diplomatic front.
When the North’s nuclear program gathered speed in the early 1990’s, Jimmy Carter dropped by and declared Kim Il Sung a “good man who you can do business with.” (He added that an excellent harvest is coming – as “an old peanut farmer” knows, which was shortly before famine killed a million or two North Koreans.)
This writer was in the audience at the US Embassy in Tokyo in 1994 when Mr. Carter came back after reprising Neville Chamberlain’s role in Pyongyang. Jimmy Carter is still around, recently calling for talking things out with North Korea.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright dropped by in 2000 and hobnobbed – double handshake and beaming smiles – with Kim Jong Il. To no avail.
And the State Department’s point man on North Korea, Christopher Hill, was repeatedly bamboozled by North Korean negotiators during the mid-2000’s. He also shut down US officials calling for a harsh approach to North Korea – just when financial sanctions were biting.
The jury is still out on the Trump Administration. But North Korea returns a soon-to-die American student, threatens Guam, and fires in-your-face missiles, including over Japanese territory. And it faces nothing more than angry Tweets and “this time we mean it…really we do” sanctions from the United Nations.
Looking at all this from Kim’s perspective, North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs have progressed nicely over the years despite whatever punishment and sanctions the United States and the United Nations threw at it.
Kim just might think that short of dropping a missile into Washington, DC, there’s not much the Americans will do. And perhaps some distance will eventually appear between South Korea and the United States.
At that point, attacking southwards and reunifying the peninsula may not seem suicidal to Kim – if it does even now.
Given this history, maybe the US can’t change Kim’s mind. But it might change China’s mind about what is suicidal and what isn’t for the Kim family regime. And they can pass the message along to their ally in Pyongyang.
What to tell Beijing? In short, once Americans (or their allies) start dying because of North Korea, it will not be business as usual between the United States and China.
China has a choice now, rein in North Korea or face a complete severing of US economic and financial ties once the shooting starts. (Suspending the Bank of China from the global US dollar system for six months will give a nice sense of things.)
And the Chinese Communist Party elite’s properties and bank accounts in the US will be frozen, and family members’ green cards revoked.
The communist party’s main claim to rule over 1.3 billion Chinese is the economic progress made once it stopped brutalizing its citizens. Interrupt the economy and the party is in trouble.
Continuing to protect the Kim regime may not be suicidal for China’s ruling class, but the Americans can make it the equivalent of jumping off a six-story building – without cushions in the parking lot.
Then, China might finally get serious about North Korea.
This is a particularly good time for the US to impose sancions on Bank of China and to start revoking green cards issued to the families of rich Chinese because China starts hosting the BRIC Conference this week and Xi is holding a Party Conference in October to consolidate his power. By setting off a huge nuclear device today Kim has directly caused Xi to lose face. Trump needs to move on China immediately and let Xi take care of Kim, which would take him all of 5 minutes.
Michael Klopman israel is annoying but they’re clearly not as dominant as they were in american middle east policy. obama took them down from that. trump is too dumb to follow up but our policy there should be to bring iran back into the western orbit.
Ken Nguyen they attacked pearl to keep us from interfering as they took over the western pacific. it was not a preliminary to invading the us. yamamoto even said it was a disaster–when he found out the atack on pearl hadn’t sunk the aircraft carriers he said japan had lost the war.
the ussr did not enter the war in the pacific until august 1945.
the china that was invited into the un securfity council was the kuomintang, not the communists who put up the resistance.
do you think gadadafi having nukes and chemical weapons would have saved him?
I think (as usual) Mr Newsham is confused about the word suicidal——–the North Koreans with the help of the Chinese just love playing with the Americans——-since Nixon to the present they have played the Americans for fools so why should they stop now. Let us not forget the words of the great General Sun Tzu, 544 BC-496 BC "The opportunity to seure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself."
Let me guess. Does ARG stand for "All Russian Guys"?
kim has got the clap
Rogelio Raphael Rodriguez
Why did Japan occupy Guam and destroy its Pacific fleet if not to prepare to invafe US?
News Sham, the only reason NK not been severely punished as you say, is because no matter how unpleasant Beijing might feel about porky kim, it is still a preferable buffer zone to having a SK(US leashed) unified Korea with American military (nuclear) at China’s door. (Seoul talk of having own nuclear capability is wishful thinking of delusional sovereignty ). As to suspending China from global dollar system for 6 months as leverage to bring China to its senses. Rest assured that Beijing is hard at work on that and not for just 6 months. The author can’t think past his own exceptionalism and no surprise based on his curriculum.
Japan had in fact hoped Russia could negociate with the Americans on their behalf.
Very interesting twist or twisting of history. Russia done absolutly nothing against Japan before Germany surrendered. Russia done absolutly nothing to help China either. China and Russia both recieved a substantial amount of aid over very dangerous supply lines. British and American merchant convoys braved cold waters and Geman submarines to deliver desperatly needed supplies to Murmansk Russia. China received supplies from India delivered by American pilots flying over the Himalaya Mtns an equaly dangerous feat. Japan could have never invaded the US. We were then as we are now a nation of armed citizens. Not that they would have ever made it to the US coast. While we rebuilt the Navy we were also cranking out thousands of aircraft a month and building tanks like cars. Only a Germany armed with nuclear weapons could have ended the war on anywhere near favorable terms. Sheer fantasy. Yes millions of Russian and Chinese died in the war a tragedy eclipsed only by killing millions of their own citizens during and after the war.
First let us get the historical facts right. Japan main army was bogged down in China by fierce resistance. Tibetans and Mongolians were also active and part of the chinese forces. You can trace the history in the folk songs of this era.
Japan had taken Guam and the American Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbour had been crippled. USA was next but the main Japanese army had its hands full. USA had time to rebuild its Pacific fleet . Japan ran short of oil and its navy was defeated.
Russia cooperated with China against Japanese forces in the far east. It was able to divert most of its forces towards the west against the Germans as it saw that the Japanese forces were held down The invading German main armies were defeated.
Millions of Chinese and Russians died to defeat the Axis powers. The ‘天伦歌 – The Philosophical Song (see Youtube)" is a tribute and advice to the millions of Chinese and Japanese settlers children orphans to get on with life, forget and avoid hatred.
History was changed and China (despite being a poor, backward country then) was included as a UN security member by the grateful Allies.
Japan lost the Kuril Islands to Russia and had to return all islands in the South China Sea to China.
Mark John
Reading Comp One for you.
The poster said that Israel fears NK nukes going to Iran. This is true.
And the US Congress is in fact Izzy-occupied territory. It’s also been a warren of warmongers for a long time now. Maybe just a coincidence, but doubtful.
Regime change = reunification = US army at China border
Why is it when there is a problem anywhere in the world it is right away the fault of Israel?
Mr. Kim is fighting for what he perceives is the best for North Korea. Mr. Kim does not appreciate all the exercise/simulations the US/Japan/South Korea do to invade North Korea. He knows the North Korean people suffered a LOT during the Korean war and the following sanctions. That is way he wants to have these nuclear missiles.
Israel is scared North Korea will sell nukes to Iran. Israel and its very influential lobby in Washington has made it clear the US most do something. Vladimir Putin is deeply concerned about the tension. Putin has probably a lot of signal intelligence from FSB/GRU giving him this concern.
South Korea has 24 nuclear powerplants, an attack on these with even conventional weapons would be devastating. The big question will be; What is the main US objective to attack North Korea? Protect the US bases, South Korea or Israel? I am afraid the US will attack to protect Israel and the US bases, and throw South Korea under the bus.
Mr. Kim strategy might be suicidal, but the US strategy is GENOCIDAL.
Wishful thinking…
In that if there are no people on the planet then people have no problems, then yes.
Nuking China will solve everything