Does not the various opinions of experts on the North Korea v South Korea relationship yet again testify to the fact that making predictions between these neighbors is as hazardous as asking economists to read the tea-leaves at the bottom of their cup to forecast economic trajectories? Because all too often, like economists, these experts get their "analyses" wrong or are way off the mark.
Baby-face Kim is -- to put it politely -- a nut-case, just as Donald Trump is a hardcore nut-job. And they probably deserve each other as Xi Jinping deserves Vladimir Putin. And maybe even Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. The most we can say about North-South relations at the present time is that Kim is rattling the cage or behaving like a rattle snake on heat. There is always a timing with his rants and innate stupidities but these usually amount to nothing in the end. Sure he has developed new missiles and probably deadlier nukes but, like Putin or his nutty chum Xi, would he use them? Really use them? So what is his point: To show that North Korea has joined the nuclear weapons age but then what?
And the South Koreans are no better. They panic every time Kim jumps up and down like Rumpelstiltskin. And this serves their own purposes. It hardens public opinion against the North even as they see themselves as brothers and sisters and cousins and affirms their belief that, like the Americans who want to save the world, that the South can save the North from self-destruction. It's a crazy notion, to be sure, because it merely consolidates US policy to keep its nearly 30,000 troops in the South, helps the South and the US military industrial complex continue developing and manufacturing more and more sophisticated and deadlier weapons, compel Washington to continue with its military aid policy to the South while the Seoul continues to expand its old export-oriented growth policy under the, again, old postwar geopolitical regional political economy while sanctioning the North. But these sanctions do not work because there are rogue state like China furnishing nuclear material and technology to Kim and failed states like Pakistan and Iran aiding and abetting Kim.
It's like a broken record. What did the vile ogre Donald Trump achieve after he met Kim in Singapore? Bupkis. What will he do now, if he wins the presidency a second time, if the suggestion is that Kim's rattle-snake antics are designed to help propel Trump to his second presidency? Bupkis.
So, please: take a deep breath, my dear analysts.
South Korean K-pop "culture" being exported is laughable, to say the least. The irony of the claim, that suggests that the export of it is "successful, is bizarre for its irony. The irony is that South Korea's K-pop "culture -- whatever the hell culture is supposed to mean -- and acts a soft diplomacy (another nutty idea), has seen two North Korean youth jailed for 12 years. Now, define for me "success"!
Agree with some of your premise but disagree that North and South are equivalent in any way; for one thing, the South and its allies are so far ahead of N. Korea in terms of worldwide diplomacy and military might, it's ridiculous. The sanctions *are* working; relying on China and Pakistan is an absolute admission of utter failure; it certainly won't stop another famine.
And small things like "soft power" are often the initial tipping points for more rebellion, especially amongst youth that have seen forbidden fruit that seem forever out of reach.
It's not just physical starvation that's important; the North is also obviously suffering a deficit in terms of diverse mental and social 'entertainment', the little things that makes life more fun and bearable - constantly aware of the effervescent cultural landscape (superficial as it may be) of the South.
Thanks for your comment. First, I think you took my "equivalence" of North and South Korea far too literally. I used them in relatively terms, not in absolute terms as most pundits tend to do, because power between two states is not absolute but relational. That's quite unlike power in North Korea, which is absolute for the brutal bloodymindedness of the despot Kim (the entire Kim dynasty of despots, in fact). Again, on "military might", this also rests on relativism than absolutism. If it weren't, we would have had a second Korean war much more horrendously devastating than the first one was. But one must remember that South Korea's military might, although more advanced, is highly dependent on the US military might in South Korea, which, to all intents and purposes, and as such acts as deterrence against North Korea military showoffishness by way of blasting nuclear missiles on the eastern side of the South Korea peninsula. It's no different, really, in the standoff between China and Taiwan and the countervailing force of the US in and around Taiwan, and how much Taiwan's sovereignty and security depends on the US security umbrella. Incidentally, I have never scoffed at the real famines and hunger that happen in North Korea but I suggest Western sanctions do contribute to these conditions (just as the West withdrawing funding to UNRWA will worsen the potential of hunger, famine, diseases and death in Palestine.
The sanctions work only to an extent. The ones who suffer the most are the people. The ones who are not really affected by the sanctions are the bloodyminded despotic Kims, the military, who has to be well fed to quash any of its own ambition of military-led rebellion against the Kim regime. To this extent the Kim regime is unstable, but also because Kim himself is mentally unstable (like Donald Trump). There are some small uprisings here and there but not "rebellions" of any notable scale; these uprisings are easily put down through beatings or shootings and the outside world -- except China -- will know anything about it. But China is the foil against the Kim regime's collapse. It is in Beijing's interest to provide regime maintenance, to keep not so much the South Koreans on their toes but to let the Americans there, in Japan and in Taiwan know the existence of the giant panda in their midst and geopolitical challenges.
On the idea of "soft power" using "culture": First, explain to me what culture means and explain to me how "culture" in the South will or can lead to a mass uprising against the Kim regime. Frankly I have no idea what "culture" means other than think that, like the nonsense of religions, "culture" propels mindless conformism. Frankly, it is not new, except for the likes of Joseph Nye, to advance the mundane prospects of "soft power" when "hard power" has failed in places like the Middle East, Afghanistan, even Pakistan and is hard-pressed in Northeast and Southeast Asia. How is the "effervescent cultural landscape", which is highly superficial and driven not but anything but money accumulation and populism, different to Africans facing crunching poverty looking north towards Europe for escape, of Guatemalans looking to the US for escape of Guatemalan autocracy, poverty and joblessness? And if the West and South Korea think their sanctions will bring the Kim regime to its knees, then this is delusional thinking. Because right on its doorstep is China ...
Does not the various opinions of experts on the North Korea v South Korea relationship yet again testify to the fact that making predictions between these neighbors is as hazardous as asking economists to read the tea-leaves at the bottom of their cup to forecast economic trajectories? Because all too often, like economists, these experts get their "analyses" wrong or are way off the mark.
Baby-face Kim is -- to put it politely -- a nut-case, just as Donald Trump is a hardcore nut-job. And they probably deserve each other as Xi Jinping deserves Vladimir Putin. And maybe even Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. The most we can say about North-South relations at the present time is that Kim is rattling the cage or behaving like a rattle snake on heat. There is always a timing with his rants and innate stupidities but these usually amount to nothing in the end. Sure he has developed new missiles and probably deadlier nukes but, like Putin or his nutty chum Xi, would he use them? Really use them? So what is his point: To show that North Korea has joined the nuclear weapons age but then what?
And the South Koreans are no better. They panic every time Kim jumps up and down like Rumpelstiltskin. And this serves their own purposes. It hardens public opinion against the North even as they see themselves as brothers and sisters and cousins and affirms their belief that, like the Americans who want to save the world, that the South can save the North from self-destruction. It's a crazy notion, to be sure, because it merely consolidates US policy to keep its nearly 30,000 troops in the South, helps the South and the US military industrial complex continue developing and manufacturing more and more sophisticated and deadlier weapons, compel Washington to continue with its military aid policy to the South while the Seoul continues to expand its old export-oriented growth policy under the, again, old postwar geopolitical regional political economy while sanctioning the North. But these sanctions do not work because there are rogue state like China furnishing nuclear material and technology to Kim and failed states like Pakistan and Iran aiding and abetting Kim.
It's like a broken record. What did the vile ogre Donald Trump achieve after he met Kim in Singapore? Bupkis. What will he do now, if he wins the presidency a second time, if the suggestion is that Kim's rattle-snake antics are designed to help propel Trump to his second presidency? Bupkis.
So, please: take a deep breath, my dear analysts.
South Korean K-pop "culture" being exported is laughable, to say the least. The irony of the claim, that suggests that the export of it is "successful, is bizarre for its irony. The irony is that South Korea's K-pop "culture -- whatever the hell culture is supposed to mean -- and acts a soft diplomacy (another nutty idea), has seen two North Korean youth jailed for 12 years. Now, define for me "success"!
Agree with some of your premise but disagree that North and South are equivalent in any way; for one thing, the South and its allies are so far ahead of N. Korea in terms of worldwide diplomacy and military might, it's ridiculous. The sanctions *are* working; relying on China and Pakistan is an absolute admission of utter failure; it certainly won't stop another famine.
And small things like "soft power" are often the initial tipping points for more rebellion, especially amongst youth that have seen forbidden fruit that seem forever out of reach.
It's not just physical starvation that's important; the North is also obviously suffering a deficit in terms of diverse mental and social 'entertainment', the little things that makes life more fun and bearable - constantly aware of the effervescent cultural landscape (superficial as it may be) of the South.
Thanks for your comment. First, I think you took my "equivalence" of North and South Korea far too literally. I used them in relatively terms, not in absolute terms as most pundits tend to do, because power between two states is not absolute but relational. That's quite unlike power in North Korea, which is absolute for the brutal bloodymindedness of the despot Kim (the entire Kim dynasty of despots, in fact). Again, on "military might", this also rests on relativism than absolutism. If it weren't, we would have had a second Korean war much more horrendously devastating than the first one was. But one must remember that South Korea's military might, although more advanced, is highly dependent on the US military might in South Korea, which, to all intents and purposes, and as such acts as deterrence against North Korea military showoffishness by way of blasting nuclear missiles on the eastern side of the South Korea peninsula. It's no different, really, in the standoff between China and Taiwan and the countervailing force of the US in and around Taiwan, and how much Taiwan's sovereignty and security depends on the US security umbrella. Incidentally, I have never scoffed at the real famines and hunger that happen in North Korea but I suggest Western sanctions do contribute to these conditions (just as the West withdrawing funding to UNRWA will worsen the potential of hunger, famine, diseases and death in Palestine.
The sanctions work only to an extent. The ones who suffer the most are the people. The ones who are not really affected by the sanctions are the bloodyminded despotic Kims, the military, who has to be well fed to quash any of its own ambition of military-led rebellion against the Kim regime. To this extent the Kim regime is unstable, but also because Kim himself is mentally unstable (like Donald Trump). There are some small uprisings here and there but not "rebellions" of any notable scale; these uprisings are easily put down through beatings or shootings and the outside world -- except China -- will know anything about it. But China is the foil against the Kim regime's collapse. It is in Beijing's interest to provide regime maintenance, to keep not so much the South Koreans on their toes but to let the Americans there, in Japan and in Taiwan know the existence of the giant panda in their midst and geopolitical challenges.
On the idea of "soft power" using "culture": First, explain to me what culture means and explain to me how "culture" in the South will or can lead to a mass uprising against the Kim regime. Frankly I have no idea what "culture" means other than think that, like the nonsense of religions, "culture" propels mindless conformism. Frankly, it is not new, except for the likes of Joseph Nye, to advance the mundane prospects of "soft power" when "hard power" has failed in places like the Middle East, Afghanistan, even Pakistan and is hard-pressed in Northeast and Southeast Asia. How is the "effervescent cultural landscape", which is highly superficial and driven not but anything but money accumulation and populism, different to Africans facing crunching poverty looking north towards Europe for escape, of Guatemalans looking to the US for escape of Guatemalan autocracy, poverty and joblessness? And if the West and South Korea think their sanctions will bring the Kim regime to its knees, then this is delusional thinking. Because right on its doorstep is China ...