5/28/2009

Kim Jong-il Strikes Again


In the past week, North Korea has detonated a nuclear devise and launch 5 ballistic missiles. All of these actions are in direct defiance of the United Nations’ Security Councils “strongly worded” presidential statement of April 5. In response to the news of this “strongly worded” presidential statement, I said on April 7 that the UN is not effective in dealing with madmen who are heads of state. I also asked the question “how many times does the United Nations have to fail to act before the Obama Administration will realize that it is nothing more than a failed anti-American organization?” Apparently, the answer is more than twice, because that’s how many times North Korea has defied the UN since President Obama took office.

If the Western allies, and, unfortunately, by extension, the UN fails to take strong and decisive actions against North Korea for it’s most recent round of belligerent behavior, the message to all Third World dictators who aspire to obtain nuclear weapons will be clear – “Go ahead and get them. We will do nothing!”

It is imperative for the security of the world that, at minimum, strong and effective sanctions be imposed on North Korea. China and Russia must be active participants. Both of those countries must abide by the sanctions and must use their militaries to enforce them. We can no longer accept a wink and a nod from the Chinese as they promise to veto sanction regime after sanction regime. Especially because North Korea is extremely vulnerable to sanctions. The North Koreans import almost all of their energy and they cannot produce enough food to feed their citizens.

The question becomes how do we force the Chinese to finally agree to punish their communist ally. This is not easy. The Chinese are extremely worried that an effective sanctions regime will cause a flood of North Korean refugees across its borders. Beijing also is known to have a soft spot for other Asian communist dictatorships.

The single greatest pressure point to use against China is it’s historic rival, Japan. If the Chinese fail to cause the North Koreans to cease their nuclear program and their ballistic missile development, the United States must assist Japan in obtaining nuclear weapons. It is not unheard of for the United States to assist an ally with its nuclear program. We have been doing that with the United Kingdom since 1958. This will require Japan to change its constitution and defense posture, but it may very well be the only thing that will force China to act.

China wants nothing less than a nuclear armed Japan. If the Chinese leadership believes that the Japanese are serious in their desires to counter the North Korean nuclear threat by arming themselves with nuclear weapons, China may very well take actions against North Korea just to avoid the prospect of a Japanese nuclear program.

Since Kim Jong-il has once again proven that “strongly worded” statements from the United Nations have no effect on his behavior, it is time that we move on to something else. The time for saying “Stop or I’ll say ‘stop’ again” is over. The time for President Obama’s UN Ambassador, Susan Rice, telling the Today Show that “we really mean business this time” has come and gone. President Obama spent Memorial Day looking like a deer in the headlights as he said that the UN would take up the issue of North Korea very soon. As I’ve been saying since January, the President must stop showing weakness to those who would kill us. Strong and decisive action is need now.

It is unfortunate that an arms race in Asia may be the only thing that can stop a nuclear armed madman. But, it may just be the thing needed to show China and North Korea that we mean business. If not, maybe President Obama should rethink his cuts in our missile defense system.

3 comments:

The Conservative Soldier said...

That Kim is one handsome man, no?

Anonymous said...

North Korea is a minimal threat to the US. We ought to live up to the agreements we have made with them. We should also remove our troops from South Korea. It is completely hypocritical of us to foam at the mouth about North Korea's weapons program and support Israel's program.

The Daily Pander said...

DPRK poses a threat to nations under our nuclear umbrella so by extension it's a threat to us. Israel, for all its faults, has an elected government, civilian control of the military, rule of law and an independent judiciary. DPRK has none of those which make its hands on nuclear weapons, to put it charitably, problematic.

Rolling back nuclear stockpiles is an outstanding aspiration. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks otherwise. But the first task is to stop proliferation. Leading by example is a fool's errand, if for no other reason than because there's no room to be wrong.

Relativism is a luxury that runs out of usefulness when the first armed missile heads toward Tokyo.