On February 29th North Korea announced
it would suspend nuclear weapons tests and uranium enrichment, as well as allow
inspectors to monitor its main nuclear facility. In turn United States agreed to give the
county tons of desperately needed food aid.
Approximately one minute after its
Friday the 13th launch, North Korea’s Kwangmyongsong (Bright Shining
Light) exploded,
with debris falling back to earth and landing in the Yellow Sea. Amidst the post-launch hype of North Korea’s
failed “weather satellite” the United States announced it will suspend food aid
shipments and Russia,
China, and India agreed that the attempted launch violated UNSC sanctions. Of course South Korea and Japan haven’t
missed the opportunity to condemn North Korea for spending hundreds of millions
of dollars developing this rocket while its citizens are impoverished and malnourished.
But was anyone really expecting this latest
kerfuffle to play out any differently?
This was North Korea’s 3rd failed “satellite” launch, though
it is the first they have admitted to the North Korean public. (North Koreans are told that the other two
satellites were launched into space and are broadcasting songs and information
to the rest of the world.) North Korea
has also preformed two nuclear weapons tests in 2006 and 2009, and numerous
long range missile tests. All of these are
in violation of UNSC sanctions and prompted condemnation and the freezing of
foreign aid.
Every time the North Korean government
has suckered the international community into sending them food aid, they have
subsequently reneged on their side of the deal or otherwise violated international
sanctions, prompting foreign aid to freeze.
The Cartoon
of the Week for April 13, 2012 sums my sentiments up pretty well, or at
least the look on the face of the reporter in the bottom right of the
image.
Why
Do We Keep Setting Ourselves Up For Disappointment?
This time I believe it was primarily because
this was the first such agreement with North Korea under the rule of Kim Jong-Un. International leaders simply couldn’t refuse the
chance to kick the tires on the new leader, hoping that his upbringing in
Switzerland, as opposed to in North Korea under his father, would mean the
apple did in fact fall very far from the tree.
Hindsight being 20/20, that wishful thinking proved nothing more than a
dream.
Is
There a Right Answer?
Two years from now when North Korea
comes back to the table promising to freeze its nuclear weapons program and
stop testing missiles in exchange for food aid, what should we do? Should we refuse, knowing they weren’t going
to hold up their end anyway? Or should
we agree, and console ourselves with the fact that we saved thousands of North
Koreans from starvation.
By agreeing to North Korea’s deals we
are continuing down the same path of appeasement, which has proven useless in persuading
North Korean leaders to abandon their nuclear weapon and missile programs. Unfortunately the facts on the ground mean refusing
to send North Korea food aid will result in North Korean children going hungry,
and dying from starvation.
Clearly the root problem is North Korean
leadership, which would rather spend $200 million on a missile instead of
spending the money on planting crops. But
sanctions with proving ineffective at influencing North Korean policies, what
other options are there for the world to exert soft power over North Korean
leadership?
Again, the reality of the situation is
that while North Korea has nuclear weapons pointed at Seoul and Tokyo there is
little the world can do to strong arm Pyongyang, worst of all, they know
that.
