I don’t know if this blithe ignorance or intentional self-deception, but either way I am awed at the expansiveness of it. Amazing!
Stranger
He has an entire country. A country that your OP values at > US$10 billion. It’s full of slaves, weapons, pussy, food, drink, and fun. Why would he sell?
That’s one aspect. The other is the remarkable (to me) degree to which outsiders discount any possibility the Kim dynasty might see upside from here as rulers. They aren’t necessarily just trying to hang on as rulers of NK, they might actually believe they have a bigger future role in a United Korea. That would again be a better explanation why they are willing to undergo painful sanctions to gain a capability to hit the US with nuclear weapons. Just hanging onto food, drink etc they were able to do without that capability, for decades.
IMO the idea that the NK nuke program is only defensive, in the NK leaderships’ minds, is based on
a) focusing too much on the US, either its politics (among Americans) or the US as source of all the world’s problems (a habit of non-US anti-Americans, and some Americans)
b) that it’s a very unsettling thought that it might not be, and people prefer happier thoughts. Even when angrily criticizing their political enemies, people often prefer to think situations are easily solvable and it’s just the stupidity and/or mendacity of their political enemies which prevents it.
I like the bribe idea in theory, but the problem is as you suggest though perhaps even worse. What’s in it for them to sell when they rule a soon to be operational nuke ICBM capable country? At the very least the buyout price should rise substantially once they are 100% to that capability.
The biggest problem I see is with the plan is this part:
Do people believe South Korea wants to be responsible for 25 million starving and brainwashed North Koreans?
I don’t know. Some people asked similar questions about West Germany uniting with East Germany. Granted, the difference in Korea is more stark. I reckon they could make it work (if both sides wanted it)
My impression is that neither side wants to.
If they do that, Un knows that eventually he will be hunted down by the international community. The US went into Pakistan to get Bin Laden. Un knows eventually Japan, South Korea, the US, etc. will send elite commando teams after him if fighting to get him extradited fail.
Also money isn’t everything. Kim Jong Un can do things due to his power that he can’t do due to just money. He can say to anyone in North Korea ‘do XYZ’ and they will do it. Even Bill Gates can’t do that. Money is nice, but money + power is better. Ask Vladimir Putin sometime. Plus power leads to unlimited money (more or less). Putin and Gaddafi are/were both worth $200 billion.
Plus money is kind of moot after a while. Un will never know want or lack of funds, so 10 billion dollars is just a cognitive exercise to a man who has never lacked funds in his personal life. People can’t tell the difference between 1 billion and 100 billion. You can buy anything you want with either amount.
To me, the solution to North Korea is to encourage China to organize a coup, overthrow the Kim family regime and turn North Korea into China’s 24th province. China gets North Korea’s cheap labor and mineral rights, and the people see their quality of life go up. Plus the nuclear proliferation threat goes away. Win for everyone.
Well, we wouldn’t do it because it wouldn’t work…they would (rightfully) laugh in our faces. You’d be better off offering a general bounty on Kim’s head…$10 billion for anyone who kills him. Of course, then we’d just get the next iteration, but at least they wouldn’t laugh at us and point.
I know we’re supposed to have a policy against this sort of thing, but I find the idea rather appealing, even in its futility.
ETA: How many Kims do you think we’d have to pay to have knocked off like this before they started behaving?
Well, off the top of my head I know he has a sister who was also groomed for the mantle, though being a woman was down the list. I don’t know of any other direct children, though there are some additional half brothers and such. I know Kimmy v3.0 whacked one of his uncles and I think had another killed as well, but there are probably a few more laying about here and there.
It’s nice fantasy but probably won’t work, as anyone who COULD benefit is also so beholden to the system that they wouldn’t risk it because if the wheels came off they would probably be killed and eaten with all the other elites. And no poor peasant or worker is going to be in any position to even know about the bounty, much less do anything about it. I expect that Kimmy et al would react rather badly to the announcement as well, and might do something…precipitous. :eek:
It is a nice thought though…
If one begins with the awesomely expansive assumption that the USA is the only decent and civilized nation on the planet and holds steadfastly to it regardless of any evidence to the contrary, it is not surprising that one considers any disagreement as blithe ignorance or intentional self-deception.
Back to the main point: Why on earth do we need to “beat” North Korea?
One does not need to be an uncritical cheerleader of all things American to recognize that Russia, as currently constitiuted, is objectively not a nation that is remotely as free, safe, or prosperous as the United States or any of a large number of nations. For instance, the Reporters Without Borders 2017 Freedom of Press Index has Russia at 148 out of 180 nations surveyed, behind such luminaries of personal liberty as Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and South Sudan. Or Freedom House’s evaluation of Russia as “Not Free”, scoring a 6.5 of a possible 7 in repression.
This is an excellent question, as save for the hijacking of the USS Pueblo in 1968 and some conflicts in the 38th Parallel DMZ the regime had not made direct threat or act against the United States until the recent unpleasantness with the tweeting hemerrhoid currently occupying the White House Presidential Toilet. Even the ostensible nuclear threat North Korea could theoretically prevent should be negated by the over $40B Ground-Based Midcourse Defense anti-ballistic missile system and of course the strategic deterrent offered by the nuclear triad of Minuteman, Trident, and strategic bomber fleets which could respond to whatever limited attack North Korea could engage in with overwhelming destructive capability. The South Koreans have the border well secured, and the Chinese and Russians are certainly not going to indulge any enthusiasms for annexation on their respective borders, so North Korea isn’t going anywhere. Normalizing relations and flooding the country with inexpensive Western goods and popular media would likely cause the regime to collapse, or at least radically moderate, at a fraction of the cost of any military campaign, notwithstanding a much reduced potential for death and destruction.
Buying off Kim Jong-un personally, however, is not really in the cards. Unless you are going to invite him to a game of poker and reward him with black aces and eights.
Stranger
You mean they aren’t already?
Sounds like someone already has!
Actually offering a way out for dictators has been tossed around before.
But the OP plan lacks a major point. It has to be more than money in the offer. You have to play to their egos and passions.
For example, Kim’s father was reported to be a big movie fan. So what if we offered him a chance to leave and tossed in a job as a Hollywood movie director?
For Saddam Hussein, he looked at himself as a man of the world so my idea for him was to offer him a job as a professor of international relations at some big university like Harvard.
Along with the dream retirement job we also offer him a mansion, a big income, and full protection form their enemies.
Granted both my ideas would be damn difficult BUT, if we started with the concept of appealing to their egos and make them an offer of their dreams, maybe they would take it?
Maybe he could have been offered the Cotton Mather Chair.
Before we come up with plans to “beat” North Korea, can we please determine; a) what does “beat” mean; b) why do we care about N. Korea; and c) are we prepared to put the resources in to fixing N. Korea once we remove its current government?
For me, what I want from N. Korea is for it to be a stable actor on the global stage and it would be nice if it started treating its people better. To achieve that end, I think we have to give N. Korea what it has always wanted: a place at the adults’ table of international relations. I think we have to acknowledge that by building a nuclear arsenal N. Korea now has the clout to drop its pariah status. In so doing, we can hope that “adulthood” for N. Korea will have a calming effect and reforms are possible. Having spent 2.5 years in Iraq trying to stabilize a nation the last time we “beat” a dictator has led me to believe that the last thing we want if for there to be sudden regime change in N Korea.
I think a lot would change in NK if just the ordinary citizens were allowed to communicate, do business with, and travel to the west.
I look at countries like Iran and Vietnam. Once closed off but now as their younger generation works with the west we are seeing a change. Vietnam changed long ago and Iran is starting to change.
That is why North Korea is so hostile to even the slightest economic or social reforms. They are terrified that if they let in even small reforms, they will steamroll until the people are up in arms and can’t be intimidated anymore because they know how much better life is outside of North Korea.
Even with that, everytime China develops a new technology all their old technology ends up in North Korea (when China started getting DVDs, their VHS tapes ended up in North Korea for example). Supposedly there are a lot of multimedia players in North Korea, a lot of ereaders full of books, and a lot of radios. So that is a start.
Because there are millions of North Koreans living in the most desperate situation possible. It is the humanitarian crisis of our day and to ignore it is to lose some of our humanity.
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In the meantime, there are sanctions and the reality is that sanctions aren’t going to help the people we’re concerned about – any and all economic activity will be used to feed the military and essential people in the government. That’s how authoritarians respond to sanctions.
Sanctions will work in situations where there are possible deals to be made and with people who feel confident they’re in a position to make them. Iran, for instance, was willing to suspend its nuclear weapons program in exchange for starting the process of easing sanctions. Contrary to what is often mentioned in our press, however, Iran is actually interested in normalized relations with other countries and its problems with Israel and Gulf States aside, doesn’t want to be viewed as a pariah state. Iran is not on total perpetual lock-down the way that North Korea is. Iranians do business and study abroad. They even have a form of democracy, however imperfect it might seem to the West. None of those conditions in North Korea.
Perhaps the best outcome we can hope for is a North Korean state that at least agrees not to threaten and harass South Korea and Japan and limits its nuclear capacity in exchange for the gradual lifting of sanctions (perhaps replaced with some actual trade). Even in the best case scenario, it’s going to be hard to get North Korea to transition from its current pariah status into something like China or Vietnam. It’s a cult of personality state that, in part, depends on people believing a lie in order for it to exist. Nevertheless, China was once led by the likes of Chairman Mao, so anything’s possible I suppose.