North Korea Speaks Loudly but Hits with a Small Stick. So Far.
Posted by PITHOCRATES - November 23rd, 2010
FDR Gave Joseph Stalin Eastern Europe
How did we get this North Korean problem?
After World War II, the Soviets tried to spread communism. And Roosevelt helped. He gave Joseph Stalin Eastern Europe. The German capital, Berlin, was inside East Germany. The Allies partitioned it. The United States, Great Britain and France split the West side. The Soviets took the East. And West Berlin was a thorn in Stalin's side. It was a gateway to the West for those oppressed under Soviet Communism in the East.
FDR liked Uncle Joe Stalin. Both were Progressives. And Stalin did Progressivism in a grand way. The only problem was that the people didn't want it. They tried to escape from the heavy hand of Soviet rule. So Stalin built a wall in Berlin.
Then, to seal the deal, he cut the rail lines into West Berlin. He was going to starve the West Berliners into submission. The West initiated the Berlin Airlift to relieve the besieged Berliners. Stalin relented. He restored rail service. And the West checked the spread of communism in Europe.
The Soviets tried to expand into Greece, Turkey and Iran
The Soviets changed tactics. They tried to entice Western nations into the Soviet Sphere. To check the spread of Communism into Greece and Turkey, President Truman kept them into the Western sphere with generous U.S. aid.
During World War II, American aid for the Soviets fighting the Nazis came through Iran. When the war ended, the Soviets didn't want to leave Iran. They wanted those warm water ports. And that land in between those ports and the Soviet Union. American support and aid to Iran eventually forced the Soviets to leave Iran.
Rebuffed in Iran, the Soviets found success in China. And North Korea. Truman implemented his Truman Doctrine to contain any further Soviet/communist expansion. And, in 1950, this turned into a shooting war on the Korean peninsula.
The Cold War Heats Up
We call the standoff between East and West the Cold War. The Soviet Union tried to spread communism. The West tried to contain communism. And the Cold War heated up on the Korean Peninsula.
The North Koreans invaded South Korea. The United Nations fought back. With General MacArthur in command, he pushed the North Koreans out of South Korea. And he kept on going. Pushed them all the way back to the Yalu River (the border with China).
And then the Chinese entered the war. They poured over the border and pushed the U.N. force back. Eventually, the front ended up about where it started. At the 38th parallel, the military demarcation line to this day between the North and South. There was an armistice to halt combat operations. But no formal peace treaty.
The North Korean Ruling Elite Didn't Lose, but their People Did
South Korea remained in the Western Sphere and prospered. North Korea remained in the Soviet Sphere and stagnated. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, North Korea suffered from energy shortages and recurring famine. The country is a mess. The ruling elite have food. But millions of North Koreans have starved to death over the years.
North Korea is a closed and isolated nation. With a strict censorship of all media, the people know only the ruling party propaganda. The ruling elite told great lies to the people to keep them from rising up. They flipped the truth. North Korea was rich and prosperous. The United States was oppressing her people, starving them, invading other countries, etc. A lot of North Koreans fear the United States. And will suffer great deprivations to support their leader.
Which brings us to today. With no one to turn to and being incapable of providing for their own people, they need Western aid. But that often comes with conditions. Such as lightening up on the human rights violations. Which they are none too keen on. If the people in North Korea do not live in fear and intimidation, they may threaten the ruling elite's power hold. So they have to find ingenious ways of getting the West to provide aid with fewer conditions.
North Korea Speaks Loudly but Hits with a Small Stick
North Korea likes to cause trouble. Be provocative. Threaten the West with annihilation. Shoot people. Blow things up. Anything to get the attention of the West. So the West will give them stuff to calm them down. The latest provocative action involved the shelling of a South Korean island (see North Korea fires artillery barrage on South by Jung Ha-Won, Agence France Presse, posted 11/23/2010 on Yahoo! News).
North Korea fired dozens of artillery shells onto a South Korean island on Tuesday, killing one person, setting homes ablaze and triggering an exchange of fire as the South's military went on top alert.
Which was more bad news upon previous bad news.
The firing came after North Korea's disclosure of an apparently operational uranium enrichment programme — a second potential way of building a nuclear bomb — which is causing serious alarm for the United States and its allies.
Which was upon previous bad news.
Tensions have been acute since the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, which Seoul says was the result of a North Korean torpedo attack. Pyongyang has rejected the charge.
Russia and China Grow Uneasy with North Korea's Provocations
Even past Cold War allies are not happy with this latest action (see World edgy on Korea, Russia sees "colossal danger" by Peter Apps, London, posted 11/23/2010 on Reuters).
"It is necessary to immediately end all strikes," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters during a visit to the Belarusian capital Minsk. "There is a colossal danger which must be avoided. Tensions in the region are growing."
China, the impoverished North's only powerful ally, was careful to avoid taking sides, calling on both Koreas to "do more to contribute to peace.
And why is China being so careful (see The Next Korean War? by Leslie H. Gelb posted 11/23/201 on The Daily Beast).
Beijing simply won't take a stance against the North, no matter what it does, for fear that this Communist regime will collapse and leave China to pick up the pieces.
The North Korean Problem
North Korea is a problem. It's a little like slavery in 19th century America. There's tragic human suffering. And no easy solution to the problem. If the current regime falls, some nation (or nations) will have to absorb the huge costs of reincorporating the North Korean people into an open society. Feed them. Deprogram them. Prevent them from devolving into civil war (the oppressed versus the ruling elite and their huge standing army).
The costs will be staggering. So great that maintaining the status quo is the easy option. Even though it condemns the North Korean people. And leaves a ruling elite in power that may go rogue and do something nuclear.
Posted in War and Peace
Tags: American aid, Berlin, Berlin Airlift, China, Chinese, Cold War, Communism, communist expansion, contain communism, East, Eastern Europe, human rights violations, Joseph Stalin, Korean peninsula, North Korea, North Korean problem, nuclear bomb, ruling elite, Russia, South Korea, South Korean island, South Korean warship, Soviet Communism, Soviet sphere, Soviet Union, Soviets, speaks loudly but hits with a small stick, Truman, Truman Doctrine, U.S. aid, United Nations, uranium enrichment program, West, West Berlin, Western aid, Western sphere