Laura Bramble
THE RED MENACE
We are finally seeing the fruits of our recent interventionist style foreign policy. North Korea, perhaps inspired by the plot of a 1959 movie, is doing what any cash strapped nation should seriously consider doing- it is threatening the US into conflict so that we will have to invade and rebuild it with our own money or give them aid and capitulate in order to get them to stand down.
North Korea has cost the US considerable money and resources for the last 50+ years. The DMZ is a huge military operation with significant full time military presence and equipment. Unbeknownst to most Americans, the soldiers stationed in South Korea at the DMZ are in constant threat and in a continual state of alert. There have been regular attempts by North Korea to breach the DMZ and start conflict; a conflict that it has no hope of winning, but that it can use to cause a significant headache for the US. Knowing that China will jump into the fray if necessary, it is a conflict that North Korea also knows that the US cannot win and cannot pursue full out without running the risk of starting a major world war with China.
This dangerous game has been going on under the noses of the American public ever since the end of the Korean War. In the meantime, North Korea, one of the poorest nations in the world, has watched us invade and spend significant money rebuilding the infrastructure of nations we have been in conflict with. The US has spent billions, if not trillions, in Iraq and Afghanistan to construct hospitals, schools, roads, and civilian peace keeping forces and propping up governments- all without conditions or sanctions. All the Iraqi and Afghani people have to do is stay quiet, subdued, and prosper. Kim Jong Il would love nothing more than to prop up the nation he and his father squandered with monies that he will claim they "won" from the US and that "cost" him nothing.
This is yet another side effect from the "spreading democratic capitalism at any cost" style foreign policy that the US has been engaging for far too long, and the conservative's and our media's preoccupation with raising the boogeyman of socialism/capitalism to scare the public into line is not helping. Reagan may have been able to end the Cold War with consistent pressure on the USSR in the 1980's, but North Korea is not the USSR and Reagan could not have foreseen the military costs that the USSR paid during their own failed attempt at subduing Afghanistan. There is no major economic or military benefit from engaging the North Koreans- it's like using a howitzer to kill a bee. We also do not have the ability, with our current military stretched to capacity as is and Pakistan on the brink of collapse, to act decisively if the situation demanded it. Yet there is a significant advantage for North Korea in getting us to do it.
President Obama and Secretary Clinton have in their hands the first serious foreign policy challenge of their administration. North Korea, as well as other small and impoverished nations with nuclear capability such as Iran, are watching to see what happens. This is another move in a chess game the US has been playing for a long time, but this time the stakes have never been higher.
Dangers of
"Invade Now, Regret Later"
Foreign Policy
Laura Bramble
Political Simpleton
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