…and I’m more concerned about the nascent hockey season.
Well, that’s not quite true — I’m concerned enough about their nukes (if nukes they are… now some people are saying the explosion might’ve been merely conventional) to blog a little. First I’d like to point out these two posts on Barry Eisler’s delightful blog:
I tend toward the argument (from the first post) that Kim Jong-Il just wants some international attention after all this kerfuffle with Iran’s nuclear programme, al-Quaeda, the civil war in Iraq, and so forth. I prefer this theory to the idea of the DPRK trying to influence American mid-term elections or Abe’s talks in Seoul because it’s by far the simplest alternative, and I have no real reason to prefer any other.
What I get out of the second post is that dealing with North Korea — whether it actually has nukes or just wants nukes really bad — has to be local. (This fits with what Thomas Barnett says — no big surprise, as I found about Barnett’s blog from Eisler.) It makes a lot of sense — the US has been estranging itself from most of the international community, and is tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan (does anyone remember Afghanistan any more?), whereas the PRC has a tremendously strong economy, lots of local influence — and, oh yeah, the world’s largest army and a few dozen nukes of its own. It’s also right on the border, which is a plus.
Eisler’s “calculus of hostages” from the second post makes me uncomfortable. I think it’s worth pointing out that a similar balance of embargo, foreign aid, and starvation happened in post-1990 Iraq (hey, remember “no-fly zones”? Those sure worked well), which casts doubt upon the idea of dealing with asshole nations (I like the term “asshole nation” much better than “rogue state”) with embargoes whilst simultaneously trying to provide humanitarian aid.
Next — and this has nothing to do with North Korea — I want to point out this hysterically funny parody on tdaxp:
Delightful.
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