World
impotent as North Korea
shoots By Andrei Lankov
In mid-March, North Korea released a
statement which many observers expected since last
year - that in mid-April North Korea will launch
what Pyongyang official media describes as the
third North Korean satellite.
Actually,
neither the first nor the second attempt (in 1998
and 2009) actually succeeded, since both rockets
failed. This failure has never been admitted by
the North to its people. Therefore, the North
Korean public is expected to believe that two
North Korean satellites have already been into
orbit around the earth.
This statement was
not exactly welcomed with enthusiasm by the
international community. The outrage of the US was
expected, but this time even China, notoriously
eager to soft pedal when it comes to pressing
Pyongyang, expressed its sincere displeasure.
This is understandable: satellite
technology is not that much
different from long-range
ballistic missile technology, which the North
Korean state has been expending so much time and
resources trying to master for the past few
decades. Hence, the coming launch should be seen
as an important step towards acquiring long-range
missile launch capacity.
The international
community's consternation notwithstanding, there
is virtually no chance that the North Korean
government will cancel the launch. The North
Korean state-controlled media have already made a
big issue out of the hostile international
reaction, which it has portrayed as a malicious
attempt to deprive North Korea of peaceful space
exploration opportunities. Under such
circumstances, canceling the launch would be
unthinkable as it would mean a tremendous loss of
face, both domestically and internationally.
The North Korea decision-makers know that
in order to survive, they should appear tough and
uncompromising.
Therefore we can be pretty
certain that the launch will take place and will
be declared a success, unless the missile explodes
on the launch pad in front of invited
international observers and cameras (and if this
were to happen, North Korean internal propaganda
will surely put it down to US Central Intelligence
Agency sabotage).
But here comes the next
question: what can and what will the international
community do after things take such a turn? The
honest answer is - pretty much nothing. Surely,
diplomats of many countries are not likely to
accept such a realistic - not to say pessimistic -
conclusion. After all, we have heard many times
recently that the international community "will
not tolerate" such a blatant violation of the
existing sanctions regime, which explicitly forbid
North Korea from acquiring and testing ballistic
missile technology.
Frankly, such rhetoric
is not new. Before the North Korean nuclear tests
of 2006 and 2009, the world was frequently told
that possible North Korean nuclear tests 'would
not be tolerated'. The tests happened anyway, and
such words had zero impact. With good reason, one
has to admit: the international community has no
effective way either to punish the bad behavior of
Pyongyang (it is sometimes possible to reward its
good behavior, but this is not that easy either).
There are at least two important reasons
why Pyongyang is remarkably impervious to
international sanctions.
The first reason
is the position of China. China is almost
certainly sincere in its condemnation of North
Korea's nuclear program and ballistic missile
tests, but at the end of the day, China needs
stability in the North. This is a fair and
rational choice. From China's point of view, a
nuclear but stable North is better than a
denuclearized, but collapsing and unstable North
(and, arguably, better than a Korea unified under
the auspices of Seoul). Therefore, China is likely
to block all measures that seriously threat the
internal stability of the North. In other words,
China will accept sanctions, but will make sure
they will not bite too harsh.
That said,
even if China did choose to participate properly
in the sanctions regime (an unlikely probability),
sanctions are unlikely to be effective in the
particular case of North Korea. Normally,
sanctions work by undermining the economic
wellbeing of the target country's population.
Sanctions make the lives of the people harsher, so
they start to demand that the government revise
the policy which led to the imposition of the
sanctions regime. If the government is persistent
with the problematic policies, a coup, revolution
or, in more permissive regimes, electoral defeat
is likely.
This is mechanism is hardly
applicable to North Korea whose population has
virtually no influence over the policy making
process. Even if international sanctions lead to a
dramatic decline in economic conditions and even
another famine, North Koreans are unlikely to
challenge the government. They will probably do
what they did during the Great Famine of 1996-9 -
die in droves without creating much political
trouble for the existing regime.
There is
little doubt that we will hear more talk of
sanctions after the coming launch, in the end of
April, and we might even see some toughing of the
existing regime by the UN security council and
other bodies. For governments involved, it will be
a good way to show their citizenry that they are
doing something about North Korea. But impartial
observers should not fool themselves: in the real
world, sanctions will produce little, if any,
result.
If sticks don't work well, what
about carrots? Indeed, it does appear that the
North Korean state is less likely to annoy the
international community when it gets regular and
hefty 'pay checks' as aid grants or technical
assistance. This is one of many reasons why the
present author supports the idea of engagement and
negotiations with the North. However, one should
keep in mind that this policy has its own
limitations as well - and does not always work
perfectly.
First, the North Korean
government does not merely need foreign aid: it
needs only aid whose distribution and consumption
it can fully control. Aid is acceptable as long as
it is given to government agencies that distribute
it to the general populace according to the
regime's political priorities, and with little
intervention from the donors.
Second, we
have seen cases where the North Korean regime has
ignored a seemingly attractive "pay check" and did
something which undermined its chances of
acquiring aid. For example, its decision to
conduct the second nuclear test in 2009 took place
when the US was generally inclined to provide the
North with generous aid. Obviously, North Korea's
political elite bowed to the pressure of the
military engineers, who might have needed a second
test to check that their nuclear technology worked
(the first test of 2006 seems to have been a
partial failure). Therefore, the government
decided to sacrifice the likely US aid for the
sake of military efficiency.
We have seen
a similar event very recently. In late February,
the "Leap Day Agreement" (signed in Beijing on
February 29) envisioned that North Korea would
receive 240,000 tons of US food aid, as a reward
for its professed willingness to freeze its
nuclear and missile programs.
The deal was
broken by the North Korean side in merely 16 days.
The reason is still uncertain, and likely to
remain unknown for a while. It may have been the
result of some far sighted plans and
considerations, but it may also be a manifestation
of bureaucratic inefficiency and/or leadership
problems. At any rate, the premature demise of the
"Leap Day Agreement" again demonstrated that
carrots do not necessarily work when dealing with
North Korea - even though sticks seem to be even
less effective.
If the experience of the
past few decades is any guide to the future, any
reasonable realist has to be pessimistic. Whatever
the international community says and does, North
Korea will launch a missile in the next couple of
weeks. This will likely incur a lot of tough talk
and perhaps sanctions but these sanction have
virtually no chance of succeeding.
This
might be a rather sorry state of affairs but it is
not new. Such a state of affairs has existed for
decades and is likely to continue for a while.
Like it or not, the outside world - including the
stronger states in the world - is without a lever
when it comes to controlling or moderating North
Korean behavior.
Andrei Lankov
is an associate professor at Kookmin University in
Seoul, and adjunct research fellow at the Research
School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian
National University. He graduated from Leningrad
State University with a PhD in Far Eastern history
and China, with emphasis on Korea. He has
published books and articles on Korea and North
Asia.
(Copyright 2012 Asia Times
Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
