North Korea: Out to Launch

Yesterday's blog was about Fidel Castro, and the plans that the USA are putting in place for the government of Cuba once Castro is dead. Today's blog is about another communist icon...Kim Jong-il...the leader of the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea. This man inherited his position from his father, who founded North Korea in 1948. Like many Stalinist regimes, the leaders tend to rule by force, coersion, and fear. Kim has absolute control over every aspect of life in North Korea and news from the outside world is strictly forbidden. Propaganda, indeed the whole of the media of North Korea, is controlled by the communist party...which is under the complete control of Kim.



Yesterday this icon of totalitarianism test-launched a few missiles, mostly aimed towards Japan. He did this against the express wishes of the whole world. But North Korea is Kim's, and nobody can tell him what to do. Internal issues, such as sovereignty and security, are his to define and he answers to no higher authority (Not unlike some other world leaders I could mention). Like Fidel Castro, whose brinksmanship with nuclear weaponry almost started WWIII, Kim seems determined to rattle his little sabre and defy the diplomatic world. Also, like Castro, he seems indifferent to the fact that his people are doomed to isolation and poverty as a result of his singular vision. In fact, not unlike the Cubans, the North Korean people's endurance of the effects of isolation have been turned into virtues. The problems incurred are attributed to the beseigers and not the beseiged.

China and Russia, long time supporters of the Kim dynasty, are reluctant to agree to economic and political sanctions against North Korea. They will almost certainly not agree to any military options that the USA might put to the United Nations. But just how much of a threat to world peace is North Korea? Not too much...in my opinion. Their missiles are faulty and limited. Their nuclear capability is also limited and their defenses against any sort of nuclear attack is nil. Will China or Russia go to war in defense of Kim? I think not.

But North Korea is a nation under seige. The diplomatic world is agreed that Kim's government is rogue. But, inside the gates of the beseiged state, there is a military build-up. Like a paranoid madman in a house filled with guns and booby traps, the insane leader waits for the sound of a twig breaking in the dark of night.