Extortion, Pure and Simple

Why do the North Koreans threaten other nations? The Washington Post’s Blaine Harden gets some surprisingly direct answers from them:

Last year, the new South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, ended his predecessors’ “sunshine policy” toward the isolated North. For nearly a decade, that policy had soothed nerves on the Korean Peninsula by giving the truculent but poor government of Kim Jong Il large amounts of food, fertilizer and trade concessions, all without conditions and without asking questions about nuclear weapons, missile proliferation or human rights abuses. [….]

“Ignoring North Korea is very dangerous,” said So Chung On, director of the international affairs bureau for Chosen Soren, a Japan-based North Korean group that has close ties to Pyongyang and has often spoken for the government there. “If Obama ignores North Korea, maybe the Korean Peninsula will be tense.”

He said North Korea wants the Obama administration to instruct South Korea that it should honor commitments — on trade and food aid — made by Lee’s predecessors, Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung. [….]

“Our military is very angry that South Korea is not abiding by the agreements made at those summits,” So said. “Neglect of this is not so wise. The United States should send a message to Lee.” [Washington Post, Blaine Harden]

I swear they have a word for this sort of thing.

Former President Bush removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on June 26, 2008. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Harden rounds up a fairly representative spectrum of speculation about what North Korea will do next. But the use of a long-range missile as the central prop in this new act of theater tells us that the real target here is indeed the United States. The North knows that provoking a fight with Lee Myung Bak may well result in a serious, humiliating, and even destabilizing military defeat. On the other hand, the North Koreans — fairly or not — assessed Obama as an easy mark. Let’s hope they misjudged:

“One would have thought that North Korea would have been more patient for Washington’s policies to become evident,” said Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation who specializes in East Asia politics.

“But there are indications that Obama’s policies might not be as conciliatory as expected. The administration has indicated that it will not accept North Korea as a nuclear state and that it must follow through with a complete and verifiable denuclearization.”

North Korean officials, Klingner said, “must be insulted and believe they need to respond.” [L.A. Times, John M. Glionna]