Korea's open secret

As a part of the complex choreography that is international relations, the attempted North Korean missile launch was a bad piece of theater.

But that very ineptitude is what makes this episode a fitting emblem of the entire North Korean problem.

The headline on Google News captured the paradoxical situation quite nicely: “North Korean rocket fails but still angers U.S.”

The decision to cut off food aid is ineffective but probably necessary.

North Korea should not feel like it can violate a treaty without some consequences.

But on another level, this entire provocation and response seems pointless.

The North Koreans know that the United States will ultimately return to the negotiating table because the prospect of open war is unpopular in America and especially unpopular in South Korea.

Surely everyone at the State Department must know what they would never say out loud: Every government, on both sides, is perfectly happy with the status quo.

By strictly adhering to Stalinism and a personality cult, North Koreans have ensured their own economy is incapable of maintaining the government, not to mention the civilian population.
  
Currency counterfeiting, black-market deals and foreign aid are the only things holding the North Korean state together.

In effect, U.S. food aid is subsidizing the Korean military and only slightly relieving the starving population.

The North Koreans are the great examples of rational actors. The regime’s entire existence is predicated on keeping the world interested in the Korean Peninsula.

Keeping the U.S and the U.N. concerned about instability in Asia is an effective way of ensuring constant diplomatic talks that result in more foreign aid.

Without any outside help, North Korea could not survive for very long in its present form.

The truly repulsive side of international relations is visible in the Korean situation.

North Korea’s neighbors are less interested in helping the North Korean people and more concerned about continued stability.

Every diplomat and organization trots out to recite the appropriate lines of disapproval after each crisis, and then nothing happens.

For decades now, nothing has been happening at regular intervals.

If the North Korean state ever does collapse, it will take a major internal crisis, not a stray missile, to get things started.

At that point, we should all be prepared for a truly heartbreaking spectacle.

The reintegration of North and South Korea will be more difficult, expensive and traumatic than the reunification of East and West Germany.

And with Internet and video, it will occur in full view of the world.

When we can actually see the horror of North Korea, the policy of perpetuating the regime without really helping the people will not look nearly as expedient as it does now.
 
­— jzsoldos@indiana.edu