Containing North Korea

The problem with sanctions is they end up hurting the people while doing little to dislodge a dictatorial government.

Former basketball star Dennis Rodman’s recent foray into freelance international negotiation would have been amusing were it not undertaken in a country where the situation is so fraught with deadly possibility. The Chicago Bulls player met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and declared him a friend who is popular with his own people. Rodman was either too ignorant to know or simply did not care that the leader of this totalitarian state is one of the biggest threats to the world who has little concern for his impoverished people. And as bad as the situation has been ever since the Korean War of the 1950s, Kim Jong Un has taken the sabre-rattling to new extremes over the last year.

The North Korean leader’s latest provocation was to unilaterally scrap the armistice which had been in effect since the end of the Korean War. Last year, he had moved a long-range rocket to a launching pad to coincide with a nuclear security summit in South Korea, although the rocket tamely fell to pieces and landed in the sea when it was tested. He has also threatened pre-emptive nuclear strikes against South Korea, boasted that his country’s missiles can reach the US and also refused to answer South Korean calls on a hotline phone. North Korea is obviously an enormous headache for its neighbour and the US but its nuclear capability essentially shields it from military attack and so, sanctions are the only weapon that can be used against it.

The problem, as always, with sanctions is that they end up hurting the people while doing very little to dislodge the dictatorial government from power. Negotiations have been tried countless times and any agreement has always been short-lived. Kim Jong Un is even more bellicose than his father and has shown no interest in giving up his nuclear capability in return for better relations and the possibility of aid from the US. The only way a dictator can feel safe is if he has the nuclear capability to deter an attack. This is a lesson North Korea seems to have taken to heart.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 13^th, 2013.