Where Do We Go Now? (Not to Pyongyang.)
October 9th, 2006Briefly, I’d like to redirect everyone to what will become Forgotten News under the shadow of North Korea. A Russian investigative journalist was shot to death in what was certainly a bid to censor. I’m considering journalism as a career, and I just thought this deserved mention as a reminder of what the rest of the world is like before we begin to criticize the American government too heavily for its government-press interactions.
Now, North Korea! North Korea! The Norks have tested nuclear weapons. The rest of the world, of course, is concerned about it and condemning the Norkean action. Some believe that this will lead to a Chinese intervention and change of heart, from backing the North Koreans unconditionally to becoming more wary of Kim Jung Il and his tendency to, ah, alarm everyone in the world. I’m not convinced that this will happen in the long-term, but I am certain that China is alarmed by this and will, now, make moves to at least publicly support the United States. But given China’s fear of the North Korean border opening so that refugees can leave and enter the overpopulated hellhole, I can easily imagine the Chinese standing by Korea in private or, at least, vowing to protect them from real punishment (which would be War, in the end).
Further, I think that this will lead Japan to remilitarize but in a limited sense. More airplanes; more bombers. That’s about it. I certainly don’t believe they’ll begin amassing a massive army and I’d be stunned if they went to work on their own nuclear weapons. The imagery, of course, of remilitarization (however limited) will remind people of the Second World War, but I don’t think this goes that far, not in reality, although it might in perception.
However, I’m not entirely sure that Japan will begin to remilitarize. I’d have guessed that their course of action in 1998 and, really, they didn’t then, and I don’t believe for sure that they will now. I think Japan will be prudent and restrained and ignore, on a military-level, the provocation of North Korea, and that this, too, shall pass. It’s in the, What should we do department that I find myself confused, because in North Korea, there are no good options. War will lead to the destruction of South Korea’s Seoul; anything short of that is unlikely to do anything about regime change and the Program.
Deterrence and containment seem to be the only options. All I know is, that it’d be disastrous to say, “Let’s go to Pyongyang and disarm them!” which means, of course, that Dick Cheney is talking that very option up right now in the White House.