And yet North Korea continues developing even longer-range nuclear weapons threatening even more countries with devastating destruction. They are doing so well that they are exporting weapons to Russia to attack Ukraine, or at least said they were going to. They manage to feed their populace and build submarines. They are threatening other countries and can carry out their threats. As was said, they don’t need to be in the UN, but it gives them credibility worldwide.
Before they became a nuclear threat, I agree it made sense to keep North Korea part of the club, and while possessing nukes doesn’t mean you can’t belong to the club, threatening to annihilate your neighbors breaks the charter and needs to be addressed somehow. Sanctions don’t seem to stop them from behaving badly.
How would kicking them out stop them from bad behavior? What do they lose by being kicked-out? ISTM we want them in the UN, so, as mentioned upthread, we have a way of communicating with them and asking them WTF? whenever they do one of their attention-seeking behaviors. If you kick them out, and all the sanctions are piled-up on them, what do they have to lose, then, with bad behavior? We cannot kick them off the planet.
If they were kicked out, China would still take care of them, as would Russia. Nothing would change for them except they wouldn’t be allowed to participate in a civilized United Nations because they can’t be civilized. That wouldn’t matter to them. They could nuke South Korea and Japan now if they wanted to. Why would kicking them out make any difference? The only other option is to destroy them first and remove the threat… but that’s never going to happen.
I think this is where we get our wires crossed. The UN is NOT the “civilized nations of the world club.” It’s the “all the reasonably non-disputed countries of the world, some of whom are decidedly uncivilized and shitty club.” In concept it is an attempt to ameliorate worldwide shittiness via international diplomacy. It has a piss-poor record on that, not least because of SC vetoes. But it is better than nothing. Kicking NK out (which, again, is practically impossible) would be nothing. Therefore better than nothing trumps nothing.
In my opinion, the United Nations should recognize the world the way it is not the way we wish it was.
To use South Ossetia as an example, Georgia may claim sovereignty over that territory but it doesn’t actually exercise it. South Ossetia is actually ruled by the government in Tskhinvali.
If other countries are really that upset by this reality, they should intervene and restore Georgian control over the territory. But until this is done, the world should recognize that South Ossetia is now an independent country. (Or perhaps a province of Russia.)
By that logic, the entire purpose of the UN is undermined, recognition of the world ‘the way it is’ rather than ‘the way we wish it was’ means the rule of law means nothing, might makes right and there is no point to the UN addressing international armed conflicts as the basis for international recognition is the right of conquest. Using the current conflict in Ukraine as an example of how this notion of yours would actually work is that the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics should have been seated in the UN in 2014, and international recognition of Ukrainian sovereignty over them revoked. The illegal Russian annexation of Crimea should be accepted by everyone in the UN regardless of any right or wrong in the situation, since it is de facto run by Russia, and via victus. The sham referendum held by Russia to annex the four oblasts just recently should be granted internally recognized status by the UN, at least for the parts that Russia can de facto exercise rule over that they achieved by what is now internationally condemned military force, since that’s the world the way it is.
Going further back, the UN should have done nothing about apartheid in South Africa, much less called for international condemnation of the practice and sanctions against South Africa as that wouldn’t be recognizing the world the way it is but rather the way we wanted it to be. For that matter, the North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950 should have been left for the North and the South to figure out for themselves, and to the victor goes the spoils, and Kuwait should have become Iraq’s 19th province in 1990 since those were the current facts on the ground. Or do they get exemptions because the UN condemned these actions? Because if that’s the case, your South Ossetian example has problems. Joint Statement by UN Security Council Members Following an AOB on Georgia
The below is a joint statement by UN Security Council Members Estonia, France, Ireland, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States, and incoming Security Council Member Albania.
This week marks 13 years since the beginning of the conflict between Russia and Georgia on 7 August 2008. We reaffirm our unwavering support for Georgia’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders. We regret that the territorial integrity of Georgia continues to be violated by the Russian Federation. We condemn Russia’s illegal military presence and exercising of control over Abkhazia and Tskhinvali Region/South Ossetia, integral parts of Georgia, and its steps toward annexation of these Georgian regions. Russia’s actions are in clear violation of international law.
We condemn Russia’s continuous provocations, which have continued despite the ongoing pandemic – reinforced military presence and military exercises on Georgia’s territory, intensified borderisation process, arbitrary detentions, kidnappings of members of the local population, restriction of freedom of movement and lengthy closures of the Administrative-Boundary Lines (ABL), discrimination against ethnic Georgians in Gali and Akhalgori districts, and prohibition on education in residents’ native language. We call for the immediate release of Irakli Bebua and other citizens of Georgia still unjustly held in detention.
No, saying that we recognize the world the way it is now does not mean we accept its current condition as unchanging or unchangeable. As I explicitly said, countries can intervene in situations they feel are unacceptable (as the United States and other countries are doing in Ukraine by supplying arms and other aid).
I fail to understand the purpose of the UN concerning international relations. Forget the Charter; that’s wishful thinking; forget humanitarian aid like UNICEF provided to impoverished children. The UN is about open communication between all countries so they can talk, talk, and talk some more. That sure beats war, but wars between UN countries happen all the time, and governments are free to speak to any other country anytime they want… nobody is stopping them. Do we honestly believe that having a UN in the 1930s would have avoided WWII? Do you think Hitler would have cared about sanctions? I get it, the alternative might be worse, and in theory, the UN was a good idea… it just doesn’t work that well in reality. I’ll get down from my soapbox now.
Do you understand what sanctions are? Here are a sample of some of the current sanctions against North Korea:
The UN imposed sanctions on North Korea primarily on economic cooperation. Here is a list of some of the prohibited activities
Opening bank branches and bank accounts in North Korea for the EU members.
Importing pretty much all of the luxurious goods.
Freezing the assets of people participating in the country’s nuclear program;
Trade machinery from military equipment to industrial machinery and vehicles.
Exporting minerals, electrical equipment, food, textiles, and wood.
Cooperating in terms of scientific and technical activities between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United Nations (UN).
Sanctions are actions taken by the UN and independently by some countries to penalize a country and specific individuals with economic, scientific, and material restrictions. NK can’t ignore sanctions. They can ignore resolutions criticizing them, but that has little to do with being in the UN. The penalties for ignoring those resolutions are the sanctions.
In addition, what benefits do you think being a member of the UN grants to a pariah country like NK? Nothing about being in the UN legitimizes the regime. Kicking them out wouldn’t penalize them in any way.
Have UN sanctions against North Korea stopped or even slowed their resolve to create a more extensive nuclear arsenal? Have UN sanctions against North Korea changed Pyongyang’s warmongering and aggressive attitude toward its neighbors? Have UN sanctions against North Korea improved the lives of those who live there?
According to your linked article. “North Korea maintains its economy for a long time as it carries the heavy burden of international sanctions. World powers have imposed economic and financial sanctions for more than a dozen years to force North Korea to disinfect nuclear weapons. These governments also imposed sanctions to punish the regime of cyberattacks, money laundering, and human rights violations.”
North Korea continues to mount cyber-attacks, continues to deny human rights, and continues to produce more powerful and precise nuclear weapons. Sanctions aren’t doing anything to improve the situation. Can you prove otherwise?
I’ll try this one more time. Sanctions, and any other form of indirect actions, cannot force any nation to change. It can make their efforts slower, more difficult, or impose consequences (lack of luxury goods for those at the top, minimal freedom to travel, etc) at the top.
This may seem simple, but the ramifications are anything but: to force change, you must use FORCE.
Sure, we could make NK comply, but it would require actual military force. Which against a nuclear equipped nation is almost certainly an expensive proposition.
You are correct that none of the sanctions used to date have stopped NK’s actions. Anymore than I can make a driver in the US with a suspended license stop driving a car short of going to his house and confiscating his vehicle, or throwing them in jail - both which require an actual physical intervention.
In short, do you support a forcible regime change in NK? With the assorted consequences for all involved, as China and Russia would have every reason to interfere?
It’s too late for forcible regime change. That needed to happen long before NK became such a formidable threat. That ship has sailed.
Now we’re faced with North Korea that has 30-40 nukes, and the ability to produce seven more each year. Certainly not a match for the 4,000 nukes that the NATO countries have, but enough to destroy Seoul and Tokyo for a start, assuming they’re not shot down.
It seems our only strategy is that sanctions eventually make it hard enough on the leaders of North Korea to persuade them to change course without making it so hard on them that they think a first strike, which would be suicide, is their only way out. Unfortunately, internal regime change seems unlikely.
I guess most people believe that sanctions will eventually make a difference. I have my doubts. Let’s hope I’m wrong.
In the 1990s North Korea endured a severe famine, caused by a combination of natural and manmade factors. Eventually, they asked for, and received aid from the international community. The USA contributed food via the UN.
Question: would you have withheld humanitarian aid in exchange for political consessions?
I would have traded food for transparency. If North Korea wants to hide from the world, that’s fine, but don’t come begging for aid while you’re eliminating anyone who disagrees with you. The food aid is cut off as soon as they get caught punishing innocent people. There have to be consequences for evil doing. No regime should get a free pass.
This doesn’t square with your initial statement that South Ossetia, Abkhazia and North Cyprus should be represented in the UN. They’re not seated in the UN because nobody other than the very states that backed their violent creation by ripping their territory from existing states regards them as legitimate nations. Countries intervened in these situations that they found unacceptable by declaring their creation to be illegitimate, violations of the UN charter, not recognizing them as legitimate nations and calling for the de facto situation to be restored to the internationally recognized de jure situation by the removal of Russian and Turkish militaries from the territories. The same thing that the UN as a collective is doing now with regards to the war in Ukraine.
Seating South Ossetia, Abkhazia and North Cyprus - and the DPR and LPR back in 2014 - would mean legitimizing them as nations, and again would mean either 1) the UN recognizing the territories to no longer be parts of Georgia, Cyprus, and Ukraine or 2) place the UN in the untenable situation of regarding territory to have more than one rightful owner.
That’s correct. If we have UN people on the ground providing food aid, and the regime is executing innocent people just trying to leave, for example, we withdraw the food and try to force change. If more Innocent people die as a result, that’s on the regime’s head. What other option is there that might lead to change? The regime can’t be allowed to win by behaving badly. They can’t have it both ways.
Sure, you can say that, but you are the one who has stopped providing food to the starving masses.
Do you think that that will lead to change? I’d think that the people seeing the UN coming in and giving them food would be more likely to get the people on the side of the UN then leaving the regime to tell the people that the UN has chosen to let them starve.
International diplomacy is hard, and there are rarely any “right” answers, and often not even any good ones.
No, it is not the same thing. We are actually doing something in Ukraine to help that country win the war.
Refusing to grant official recognition that a country exists is the equivalent of offering thoughts and prayers. It’s a meaningless gesture that doesn’t accomplish anything.