2008 Woodie Awards
If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em
Christopher Skeet
Issue date: 10/16/06 Section: Opinions
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And the hits just keep on comin'. In defiance of international pressure, the North Korean government recently tested a small nuclear weapon. But don't worry, folks. The United Nations is on top of things. Ready to display the same urgency it gave Darfur, the Security Council is going to establish a timeline, a deadline, a timeline for the deadline, and a subcommittee to form an operational assessment team to forge a roadmap to determine whether or not a deadline would offend Kim Jong-Il's cultural sensitivities. We should have an answer by 2094.
While we wait for whatever Nuke-For-Food program will emerge, what are our options in dealing with North Korea? Unfortunately, nothing looks good. Governments are talking tough now, but Jong-Il understands the process of U.N. diplomacy much better than western diplomats. There will be no military strikes. Any international sanctions will be ineffective. A year from now, the world will have grudgingly accepted a nuclear North Korea.
But though Pyongyang has trumpeted its military threats and advancements as
loudly as possible, it's keeping quiet about other reforms creeping slowly north of the 53rd Parallel. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent famine in North Korea showed Jong-Il what his father had admitted privately in 1969 - that socialism, state-run centralized economies and anti-market policies had failed.
In 1995, North Korea's public rationing system collapsed, and some 600,000 North Koreans starved to death as a result. That same year, secret police uncovered a coup being planned by military officers. Ironically, a massive and sustained influx of aid from neighboring countries and the United States propped the Stalinist regime back up and kept it limping along.
But Jong-Il has seen the writing on the wall. His power rests on the continued support of the military, which explains why he pours half his country's meager GDP into it (like Hugo Chavez, his crazed theories of an American invasion are simply smokescreens). Jong-Il also knew that his country's economic system was unsustainable, and winning international
While we wait for whatever Nuke-For-Food program will emerge, what are our options in dealing with North Korea? Unfortunately, nothing looks good. Governments are talking tough now, but Jong-Il understands the process of U.N. diplomacy much better than western diplomats. There will be no military strikes. Any international sanctions will be ineffective. A year from now, the world will have grudgingly accepted a nuclear North Korea.
But though Pyongyang has trumpeted its military threats and advancements as
loudly as possible, it's keeping quiet about other reforms creeping slowly north of the 53rd Parallel. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent famine in North Korea showed Jong-Il what his father had admitted privately in 1969 - that socialism, state-run centralized economies and anti-market policies had failed.
In 1995, North Korea's public rationing system collapsed, and some 600,000 North Koreans starved to death as a result. That same year, secret police uncovered a coup being planned by military officers. Ironically, a massive and sustained influx of aid from neighboring countries and the United States propped the Stalinist regime back up and kept it limping along.
But Jong-Il has seen the writing on the wall. His power rests on the continued support of the military, which explains why he pours half his country's meager GDP into it (like Hugo Chavez, his crazed theories of an American invasion are simply smokescreens). Jong-Il also knew that his country's economic system was unsustainable, and winning international
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