North Korea, our new friend

Here's a very interesting story in South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper. The first paragraph says it all:

North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan reportedly told North Korea specialists in the United States that China is “only trying to use” North Korea. Kim was in the U.S. for talks on normalizing bilateral ties.

This is exactly what I've been saying. North Korea feels insecure, with a crumbling economy and an increasingly unfriendly China on their north border, and they want the U.S. to prop them up. The entire nuclear program - complete with failed nuclear test - has just been a way to get the United States' attention, at a time when America was focused on the Middle East.

So should we prop them up? Of course we should.

The way to get dictatorships to change is to be their friend, not their enemy. If you try to hammer a "rogue state" into submission, chances are that it will just grit its teeth and bear whatever sanctions or pressure you put on it. It's not just a matter of pride - it's a matter of regime survival. A dictator's main threat is not economic sanctions, it's internal opposition - if the top generals sense that a dictator is weak, they'll overthrow him in a heartbeat. That's why a dictator can (almost) never cave in to foreign pressure.

But a dictator can certainly bow to the wishes of a powerful patron, because doing so is seen as a way to strengthen the country's security. That's why Taiwan and South Korea and Indonesia are democracies today, while Burma is still mired in fascism - we supported the former, and simply scolded the latter. If we want Kim Jong-Il to get rid of his concentration camps, there's no quicker or surer way to do it than to guarantee his country's security.

Also, making an alliance with North Korea would finally end the Korean War. It would allow the 2 million troops lined up along the DMZ to go home to their families and work productively. And it would set the two countries on the path toward peaceful reunification.

Last but not least, taking North Korea under our wing would improve our awful image in the world, while gaining us an important ally in East Asia at a time of increasing instability in that region.

North Korea has backed itself into a strategic corner over the years. Now it's looking for a way out, and America is the only option available. If we deny them that way out, it means instability, nuclear proliferation, continued horrible human rights abuses, an increase in China's regional power, and eventual catastrophe when North Korea collapses utterly.

Let's take the wise approach for once.


PS - One caveat to this, of course, is that we put sufficient pressure on our undemocratic allies to reform. Sometimes we fail to do that, such as in the case of Saudi Arabia, which recently sentenced a gang-rape victim to 90 lashes (her crime: meeting a man who is not a family member). Nice. Of course, North Korea as a client state would probably be a lot more dependent on us than Saudi Arabia is...