So, North Korea is playing the same game again, which they have used so successfully in the past:
-make offers to negotiate
-back off and demand oil, food, etc. from USA, Japan
-make threats about building long range missiles, enriching uranium
-back off from negotiations
-demand food, oil, money, etc.
So , having fallen for this during the Clinton/Allbright years, why do it again? We keep hearing how Kim-Il Juong is “unstable”, c
“crazy”, etc., but he seems to manage to do two things:
-(1) extort food oil and money from the West
-(2) Preserve his ace in the hole (his unknown nuclear capability
Meanwhile, the Chinse could stop this guy in a heartbeat…does it suit China’s purposes to have this irritant to japan and the US?
Or should Bush call his bluff, and let Japan deal with this? If the N. Korean population is truly on the verge of starvation, let the Chinese cough up the food this time. Why give Kim the recognition he wants, and feed hm at the same time?
If Kim-Il Juong does indeed have nuclear capability as an ace in the whole, it wouldn’t suit China’s purposes to stop him. If Kim has nuclear weapons and China attacks, it can be assumed he will use them in the most devastating way against China.
The phrase “crazy like a fox” comes to mind.
Tell a guy with nukes to fuck off? You sure that’s a good strategy?
What do you mean “if?” And Kim isn’t the one starving, Ralph, he’ll be well-fed until he dies. It’s everybody who’s NOT Kim or the country’s leadership who’s in trouble. I’m not sure how your suggestion to let somebody else handle it helps solve anything.
So does the phrase “crazy like a fox with rabies.”
Good point.
“perfectly logical” is a stretch, but I don’t buy crazy either. Kim’s held power too long, and manipulated South Korea, China, Japan and the US too well for him to qualify for a room at the funny farm.
Here’s a current South Korean take on him: Veteran manipulator or bluff artist?
Obviously translated from the Korean, the article contains many of the same sort of english oddities that people point to as showing Kim to be crazy.
With regard to threatening China, Kim’d have to be crazy to try that. He could fire all his nukes and still be pounded into paste the next day. China knows this, Kim knows this. It’s in both their interests to avoid escalating threats. IIRC, China messed around with electrical power transmissions to North Korea last year in order to get Kim back to the 6 party talks. Without a strong incentive, that’s probably as rough as the Chinese are willing to play.
North Korea wins another round, US loses:
So the US loses when China can’t read it’s own reports ?
The US loses when we fail in our plan to get China to force North Korea back to the table in six party talks.
I’d say China, South Korea, Japan, and Russia are the losers in this game. The US is on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
How are China, Russia losers? WE (the USA pay for S. Korea’s defense …and Japan’s). WE also get to pay the extortion demanded by Kim-Il Juong. So he’s winning again! Why don’t we just tell the little twerp that henforth, we will give him NOTHING (unless his reactors are dismatled). If he keeps up with the threats, tell the Japanese to “deal with it”.
They are losers because if anything bad happens, it happens in THEIR back yard…not ours. As for paying for the defense of Japan and S Korea, we’d be doing that anyway…and HAVE been doing that for over 50 years now. Finally, as far as I know, WE aren’t currently paying to appease him this round…at least not yet. Perhaps I’m behind the times on this, but I have seen the US giving food, oil or money to Kim to buy him off…did I miss it? This is a serious question btw…I really don’t know the answer.
As to telling the Japanese to ‘deal with it’, how do you propose they DO deal with it? Japan doesn’t have an offensive military at all…strickly a local defense force last time I looked. Better off telling the nation that SHOULD be dealing with this crisis…China. They want to play with the big boys, they need to step up to the plate on this issue. Problem is, China, as always, wants it all…they want their cake and eat it too. They want to be big players internationally, while essentially doing nothing in their own region. They want the US to solve the problem and take the political heat, while getting credit for that solution. They want to make the US happy, but they don’t want North Korea to be unhappy with them (and not because of the treat of NK’s nukes btw…thats ridiculous). Its up to the US to find the pressure to bring to bear on China to MAKE them deal with this situation and resolve it. It certainly shouldn’t be the US’s sole responsibility to fix this mess.
Finally, with reguard to the OP…it makes perfect logical sense for lil’ Kimmy to play this game. It worked for him under Clinton after all, and before that…why not stick with what works? I’ve said before in other threads on this topic that Kim will keep doing this as long as it works…and it almost always WILL work. Just act a bit crazy, foam a bit at the mouth and get that look in your eye…all while starving your own population to death (to show your ‘resolve’) and with the possibility of nukes to back you up. Who cares if you only have a few and if everyone else can glaze your country several times over if it comes to that…if you SEEM resolved, even eager to use them no one else will want to mess with you. And in fact, they will WANT to appease you, which will allow you to keep bumping along, enjoying your harem of women and growing even more plump. Its great to be the king after all…
-XT
Japan and South Korea (along with Germany, Italy, and Saudi Arabia) pay the US billions of dollars every year for the upkeep of the American troops stationed in their countries.
If this is true does it come close to what the cost to the US is?
The percentage varies from around 40 to 80% of the costs. But keep in mind that they’re paying the costs and we own the troops - so a certain discount is reasonable.
A professor of mine in grad school joked that the US actually came out ahead on the deal, at least with Japan. Now, that’s not actually true, but consider this: that the US would abandon a military presence in the Asia Pacific is simply inconceivable. Japan offers various incentives worth billions per year to ease the US cost of our presence there. The two points taken together means that we are basically making out like a bandit. (I’m not 100% sure on this, but my recollection is that Japan pays nearly all construction and utility costs for US bases. I’ll have to look that up later.)
And the guy’s name is KIM JONG-IL. I’ll let one or two misspellings go by, but the third was starting to irritate me.
And ralph, I’d like you to put some more options on the table than (a) trying to reach a diplomatic solution, which may or may not involve carrots as well as sticks; or (b) war. If you have any bright ideas, I’m betting that there’s an ambassadorship waiting for you. Seriously.
I don’t seewhy the USA need get involved. My original premise is that we’ve been had before, by Kim-Jong-Il and his antics. He’s played us like a violin, and gotten everything he wanted. What we have to do is make clear to him that he won’t get a dime out of us, and if he thinks he will blackmail us, we will retaliate.
As I say, the guy has played us off against China, and Japan has been hoodwinked too.
However, should this psychopath fling another missile over japan, then we should encourage the japanese to reply in kind. But for us…stay away…its not in our interests to get involved.
The thing is ralph if we don’t get involved somebody else will. If we tell South Korea and Japan that they’re on their own, they’ll be forced to find new allies. Which in this case will be China. China would force North Korea to back down and Japan and South Korea will toe the Chinese line on other issues (like Taiwan or China Sea oil rights or maybe trade issues with the US). Meanwhile the US will find that having abandoned two long-term allies its diplomatic situation in other areas is weakened. Why should Europe or Israel believe we will stand by them in a crisis if we abandoned East Asia?
Why are we afraid of China? WE hold all the cards! China has been allowed (by the US Congress) to devastate our industries, and we are running an 120 $ billion trade deficit with them). So , we could lock them out, and they would be the ones hurt. China has been getting everything, and giving nothing…why dowe put up with this?