Writer Sue Mi Terry, a former C.I.A. analyst, is a senior research scholar at Columbia University's Weatherhead East Asia Institute. This op-ed is adapted from an essay in the July/August 2014 issue of Foreign Affairs.
Interesting piece: let North Korea collapse runs counter to all the "conventional wisdom" which is that we have to prop up the Norks so as not to have a horrible death rattle from the regime followed by a terrible refugee problem. Ms. Terry wants to rip off the bandage all at once. Intriguing idea that we at the Burg have discussed, with some approval, in the past.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/19/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
They fear that its demise would be too destabilizing and that the peninsulas reunification would mean crippling economic and social costs for South Korea. But this is a blinkered view, because the long-term benefits of North Koreas collapse, both strategic and economic, far outweigh the short-term costs.
Only one of several nations for which we appear to suffer a "blinkered view." Not difficult at all to see why Ms. Terry is a... 'former' CIA analyst.
#2
Let's see... China saved them by intervening during the war; China supports them for 50 years by maintaining their outside access channel; China seems to be the one holding the leash, or at least, they're the ones who yank it when things get out of hand. China will also be the ones dealing with whatever refugee crisis.
I'd say it's China's problem, let them spend their money deal with the ramifications.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/19/2014 7:36 Comments ||
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The US, RoK and Japan also give the rabid dog hundreds of tons of rice annually, Ed.
#4
China will also be the ones dealing with whatever refugee crisis.
The ballyhooed refugee crisis is a crock of shit. China has a labor shortage. In part, this is how Chinese wages have crept from being just about dead last back in 1979, when it turned towards capitalism, to the top half of the pack today. China could easily absorb all 25m North Koreans in a heartbeat. If they are prepared to work, they'll eat. If they're not, China's crematoria and/or landfills are prepared to process all the famine dead. Famine deaths won't be a problem once refugees cross the border. North Korea's problem has nothing to do with a lack of work ethic. The Kim regime has diverted all of NK's economic surplus via cockamamie economic schemes and outright confiscation for both royalty and the Communist aristocrats who serve them.
In the long term, China probably sees North Korea as a vassal state to be absorbed like many of its other vassal states. That can't happen as long as the US is in South Korea. China can defeat North Korea and it can defeat South Korea. What it can't do is defeat the US. That is why, from a Chinese standpoint, North Korea needs to remain standing, until the US leaves the Korean peninsula. Because its collapse today would give South Korea an additional 25m citizens and hundreds of miles of additional strategic depth.
[BREITBART] The New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... has an interesting piece this morning on the runoff election between Sen. Thad Cochran and his Republican primary challenger, Chris McDaniel.
The piece reflects a general amazement at the way that citizens of Mississippi are voting for McDaniel in spite of all the federal spending that Cochran has brought to the district.
One liberal professor in particular is perplexed by the concept.
"It's the strangest thing I've ever seen," Professor Marty Wiseman tells the Times. "It defies logic or reason for somebody to not only run on cutting off the supply of federal money to Mississippi, but to actually be winning the race."
Mississippi residents quoted in the story share a common theme: Washington, D.C. stinks and Cochran is part of the problem.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/19/2014 00:00 ||
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"It's the strangest thing I've ever seen," Professor Marty Wiseman tells the Times. "It defies logic or reason for somebody to not only run on cutting off the supply of federal money to Mississippi, but to actually be winning the race."
#3
And as the kiss of death, Bloomberg just dropped a wad of money on him.
Business as usual ain't making it this year.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/19/2014 7:39 Comments ||
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And as the kiss of death.
"The North was viewed by many southerners as money-grubbing and corrupt, a place of rampant industrialization, big banks, mass immigration of and foreigners, and disregard for the traditions of America, and in favor of blind "progress."
[DAWN] HANDERY Masih, the Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... provincial assembly member who was rubbed out last Saturday, and his assassin, Ghulam Mohiuddin, of the Balochistan Levies, roughly represent the forces that are locked in a deadly combat, and the outcome will define tomorrow's Pakistain.
[DAWN] IT is not for nothing that they call him Tiger. Those who didn't know him until Tuesday have now seen that when he is in action, even the law enforcers can do little other than watch in apparent admiration. His workmanlike demolition of many vehicles during the ugly confrontation in Lahore is on record. Television footage shows a middle-aged man smashing cars as police look on in silence that has been interpreted as a sign of approval. There is more footage that actually shows some coppers in conversation with the angry man, who, news reports say is a PML-N worker. Rana Sanaullah, the Punjab law minister, disagrees with the identification, but even he, with his persuasive powers, has been unable to stem the bad coverage his party is getting in the media. A lot of people may be inclined to believe what the media is saying. People are all too aware of how the authority of a ruling party manifests itself in its workers' influence over the local thana and its close relationship with local coppers. This is how the system works beneath this ceaseless chorus of declarations about making the police people-friendly. The police are friendly with the people. At least, they are always friendly and cooperative with the 'right' people.
There has been plenty of talk about reforming the police culture. There has been some change. Despite that, overall, the old image of police officials playing the obliging minions to whosoever is in power persists. It is a serious issue whether the suspect in this case belongs to the ruling party or not, but even if the seemingly difficult task of disconnecting him from the PML-N is somehow achieved, the question of the police extending him patronage will linger. At the very least, the incident betrays a loose control over the forces of those with the avowed motto of good governance -- whereas good governance at the level of ordinary people cannot come without a thana that is truly independent.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/19/2014 00:00 ||
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h/t Gates of Vienna
The battle in Iraq consists of "Turkish-backed Sunni jihadis rebelling against an Iranian-backed Shi'ite-oriented central government," I wrote in a recent article.
Some readers question that the Republic of Turkey has supported the "Islamic State in Iraq and Syria," the main Sunni group fighting in Iraq. They point to ISIS attacks on Turkish interests, within Turkey, along its border with Syria, and in Mosul and a successful recent meeting of the Turkish and Iranian presidents. Good points, but they can be explained.
First, ISIS is willing to accept Turkish support even while seeing the Islamist prime minister and his countrymen as kafirs (infidels) who need to be shown true Islam.
Second, the presidential visit took place on one level while the fighting in Syria and Iraq took place on quite another; the two can occur simultaneously. Turkish-Iranian rivalry is on the rise and, as the distinguished Turkish journalist Burak Bekdil notes in the current issue of the Middle East Quarterly:
Recent years have often seen official language from the two countries about prospering bilateral trade and common anti-Israeli ideological solidarity. But mostly out of sight have been indications of rivalry, distrust, and mutual sectarian suspicion between the two Muslim countries.
Ankara may deny helping ISIS, but the evidence for this is overwhelming. "As we have the longest border with Syria," writes Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a Turkish newspaper columnist, "Turkey's support was vital for the jihadists in getting in and out of the country." Indeed, the ISIS strongholds not coincidentally cluster close to Turkey's frontiers.
Hat tip to the Puppy Blender. I'm not sure I buy the apocalyptic scenario either, but clearly Iraqi oil, particularly from the south near Basra, is important to world oil price stability. May be time to go nuclear (and thorium) in a big, big way in the developed world.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/19/2014 00:00 ||
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May be time to go nuclear (and thorium) in a big, big way in the developed world.
It has "been time" for that (and far more) for several decades now. Meanwhile my town is financing the replacement of an abandoned strip mall with - a new, improved strip mall, which will also be abandoned in a few more years.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
