News from the New Party

North Korea raises the stakes

To describe the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as a basket case would be an unwarranted slur upon baskets.  North Korea's communist government has drawn wide condemnation for its latest stunts, and for the statement that it no longer regards itself as bound by the 1953 ceasefire that marked the end of the Korean War.

So what does it all mean and what should the rest of the world, and in particular the West, do about it? 

The first thing to be said is that the North Korean national sport is bravado.  Pyongyang generates a lot of noise and issues plenty of threats designed to frighten the rest of the world, and in particular South Korea (and to some extent Japan).  The main pay-off that North Korea expects from this behaviour is some kind of appeasement.  It's not just North Korean belligerence that the rest of the world fears: the communist state has a fragile infrastructure (ignoring the military) and a starving, enslaved population.  The implication is that the collapse of the North Korean regime should scare us almost as much as their nuclear missiles.

The second point - already alluded to above - is that North Korea is protected above all by geography.  It is one thing for the United States to invade Iraq, but quite another to invade North Korea; not because it is militarily impossible, but because it is impossible without North Korea wreaking massive destruction in South Korea and Japan.

The only consideration that will restrain the North Korean regime is the understanding that if it exercises its nuclear capability to destroy its neighbours, it will bring the same destruction upon itself.  This, of course, assumes that the North Korean regime retains some sense of reason.  Thus far, thankfully, they have shown themselves to be remarkably good poker players, as communists go.