Originally posted by GigaShadow
Hyper making excuses for Kim Jong Il, go figure :rolleyes:
Who is next? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
As for the no massive refugee assertion - not true.
The reason he hasn\'t been assassinated is due to the "personality cult" he has created - dictators do that quite frequently. Hitler is good example. You can be smart and crazy at the same time.
Lastly, how is North Korea\'s existance at stake? The US has no plans to invade NK and SK just loves them and is looking to reunify which they have been talking about. The thing is - old Kim thinks that if reunification took place Korea would be modeled on the DPKR. Crazy? I think so.
Again, this is typical of one who refuses to research the facts.
North Korea has legitimate security concerns. Why?
1) The Korean War ended in an armistice. A written non-aggression pact was never signed. This means that the US and North Korea are technically still at war.
2) North Korea faces a significant conventional and nuclear threat from the United States. There are 37,000 US troops stationed in South Korea and an equal number in Japan. The US also maintains hundreds of Lance-tipped nuclear missiles in South Korea.
3) North Korea is constantly exposed to hawkish rhetoric from top US circles. Bush has identifed North Korea as a part of the "Axis of Evil." The majority of US officials state that "regime change" is the top policy goal regarding North Korea.
4) The gap in military strength between the two Koreas is now insurmountable. The North Korean economy is 1/20 the size of the South Korean economy. This means that for about two decades, the ROK has spent enormously more on its military. The DPRK army has more in numbers, but its weaponry is overwhelmingly 1950s vintage. Because the DPRK faces massive fuel shortages and a flagging infrastructure, it would run into enormous logistics problems in the advent of war.
5) The North has lost the support of Russia and China, its two main patrons. Both Russia and China normalized ties with South Korea more than a decade ago. Thus, the DPRK has no allies to turn to in the advent of war.
6) The Asian region as a whole has one over-arching goal when it comes to North Korea - regime change.
7) What are the visible signs of North Korean insecurity? A significant example is Team Spirit. The US and the ROK held Team Spirit annually as a joint military exercise off the Korean coast. The purpose was to practice tactics, such as amphibious landing, that would be required in the advent of a second Korean War. Although the US and the ROK claimed the exercise was merely for practice, North Korea would mobilise its entire army and place the whole nation under red alert for preparation of a real war. This was because the DPRK could not trust US claims that the exercise was only for practice. Do you see how perceptions differ? Even if we claim that our intentions are benign, the DPRK still sees a threat because of the precarious situation it is in.
Crazy, for me, implies an inability to make rational policy choices. This is not true in the case of the DPRK. Given the situation that the DPRK is in - a failing military, withering US pressure, loss of significant allies - it has done exactly what any other country would do. It has pursued a nuclear deterrent and has been careful to avoid actions that could provoke a direct US military response (such as invading the South or transferring nuclear technology to terrorists). Kim Jong-Il has cut off societal contact with the outside world and pursued a personality cult to maintain power. He has also allowed dramatic economic reforms to reverse his country\'s negative economic growth, even though these reforms contradict his
juche philosophy and could potentially undermine his legitimacy. Crazy? No. Rational and dangerous? Yes.
I am not defending the North. All South Koreans want reunification, and I am no exception. Labelling the North as crazy and refusing to accept the fact it has legitimate security concerns, however, leads to dangerous policy making by unnecessarily provoking the North. Instead of regime change, the US should soften its stance and pursue engagement, both economically and politically, to bring the DPRK to a soft landing.
