What is going on in North Korea?
Did you know that North Korea is smaller than the state of Mississippi? For a little bit of land, it sure makes a large ruckus on the world stage. In relation to recent current events, it’s all about nuclear weapons.
Yesterday (Friday, 5/29), Korea set off a short-range missile off its east coast -the sixth time they did it this week. In response, the joint command for South Korean and U.S. forces on the Korean Peninsula raised its alert to the second-highest level, called “Watch Condition II.” This joint command includes 655,000 troops from the South and 28,500 troops from the United States.
At the same time, North Korea announced that they are no longer going to respect the border in the Yellow Sea to the west (see map above), between themselves and China . That sent Chinese fishermen scuttling back towards their side of the Yellow Sea, just in case. Then, North Korea announced it was nullifying the ceasefire which brought the Korean War to an end in 1953. Stop the madness!
What can we do? The U.S. (in the person of Defense Secretary Bill Gates) said, “I don’t think there is a need for us to reinforce our military presence.” But South Korea (in the person of Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae) said, “Surveillance over the North will be stepped up, with more aircraft and personnel mobilized.” The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (these are the US, Britain, France, Russia, and China) joined with Japan and South Korea to draft a resolution condemning North Korea’s actions as “a flagrant violation” of their promise not to create nuclear weapons.
Experts are not quite sure why North Korea is doing this at this time. With each change in U.S. presidents, North Korea seems to “act up” and then to try re-negotiate the resolutions they had promised to adhere to in the past. Keep in mind that the North Korean nation itself is in flux, because its leader, Kim Jong-il, has recently suffered a stroke, and he – and the rest of North Korea – and the rest of the world – are worried about who will become his successor. So, he may be “acting up” as a way to distract people from the internal succession turmoil.
Only one thing is certain: this steps up the pressure on President Obama to limit members to the international nuclear power club. For example, does anyone want Iranian President Ahmadinejad with his happy little fingers poised over a nuclear button? Say no mo’, say no mo’…
(map image taken from http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/asia/north-korea/map.htm)
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Comments
From what I have read, the most effective “diplomatic” approach may be to pressure China to act. Apparently China is heavily involved with North Korea’s economy and could “bring the country to its knees.” Thus far, China has said that will not make threats involving this. The commander of the U.S. Army said we have enough resources to fight North Korea if necessary, which is contrary to the belief that we are already spread too thin with iraq and afghanistan. This is one situation where it seems clear that the rest of the world needs to act with us. I have a feeling they will sit back and watch to see was the U.S. does, let the U.S. take care of it, like usual.
Update 6/2/09: The Washington Post is reporting that the 67-year-old Kim Jong Il has named his Western-educated, 26-year-old third son, Kim Jong Un, as his successor. More details here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/01/AR2009060103750_2.html?hpid=topnews