The Yeonpyeong Island burning |
The surprise North Korean shelling of the Yeonpyeong Island (click to see map) was really not a surprise to anyone who has been watching North Korean internal political dynamics (as best as they can be watched). If you assume the powers that be (and the powers that struggle with each other in Pyongyang these days for ultimate power) really do not care what the rest of the world thinks about them, that they can survive any embargo the world puts on them (as they have shown year after year) and that they believe China actually acts as a protector of sorts as opposed to a disciplinarian (which the rest of the world thinks they should and can be -- an assumption that I think is fundamentally wrong), then you have to wonder why people like former President Carter keeps yapping about the immediate need for the US to engage in deeper, richer negotiations with North Korea (his argument that NK has been consistent and deserves our respect is beyond laughable -- it is offensive).
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27 year old Kim Jong-un |
So what is going on with North Korea? The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a stark list of numerous provocations by the North -- and each time the US and other eventually tries to patch things up, using the tried-and-never-quite-true method of "carrots and sticks" to get the North to behave better. For those of us who remember the "Peanuts" cartoon, the vision of Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown just as he attempts to kick the ball comes to mind (over and over again). But at the heart of this latest violent outburst seems to be the internal succession struggle of having 27 year old Kim Jong-un taking power, with the assistance of a powerful family members, most notably his aunt and uncle. And it appears that powerful forces within the North Korean general staff are more than a little nervous about having this young man -- and newly minted four star general -- taking control. Robert Kaplan gets this clearly in his Financial Times piece.
All in all, succession is likely not to be settled in the near future - barring a coup by the NK general staff or a massive, violent put-down of that same general staff by the young Supreme Leader. Either way, North Kora is shaping up to be President Obama's biggest foreign policy challenge in 2011 -- one he seems not particularly well prepared to deal with. Unless President Obama makes a clear policy statement that North Korea is a threat not only to all of Asia-Pac but to the rest of the world and work more intensely to assemble a unified, global approach -- one that of course includes China but does not put all the responsibility on them -- then we are in for a rough ride. And none of us want that.