Oh come on Wolfie. You seem to be having a right old hump with me recently and I think its blunting your usually razor sharp incisive insight.
Haha Sampan, please don't take it personally as I assume you I have nothing but the highest regard for you as a person.
I was not disagreeing with you because I had anything against you, only because I don't agree with some of your take on this particular issue.
1) Young Mr Kim can and will take it to the wire. He has thus cemented his position as leader and not lost face when standing up to the great Hyper Power. I think many Koreans on both sides of the DMZ will take notice of this.
Well valid point, but I do not recall anyone suggesting he was a soft touch or questioning, never mind challenging his authority or position before this all kicked off, so it seems like a pretty costly and excessive exercise, not to mention a massive gamble to prove a point that was never seriously in question. Well, not in question to anyone outside of NK anyways.
If anything, his extreme behaviour would tend to actually raise and fuel speculation about just how secure he is in his new position as supreme leader of NK, because if had a point to prove, it does not really seem like it was to anyone outside of NK.
2) If the US was trying to prove that having Nuclear Weapons and Missiles is not of itself a guarantee of security, it has then spectacularly backfired and many other nations will have taken note. I assume you do not think its is coincidence that all this has been happening while the Iranians and P6+1 have been sitting down in Almaty do you?
Valid point, but what I don't see is how this benefits NK in any way. Why would NK go to all that trouble to spend all that diplomatic and actual capital and take such an almighty risk just to do the Iranians a solid?
3) The North Koreans have been able to take back every card that they had negotiated away over the last ten years and have them in the hand again ready for play. I am sure they will be saying "and maybe this time you would like to take the game a bit more seriously Uncle Sam"
Well I think this is the best point of the three. If NK does restart production at the previously close down reactor, it will give them another big chip to use to try and bargain with get concessions from the Americans and South Koreans.
The fly in the ointment is that America and South Korea have memories longer than that of a gold fish. So the next time NK offers up to put one of its reactors out of commission in exchange for whatever it is they want for example, I somehow doubt the Americans and South Koreas will settle for the same measures and safeguards as before since those obviously were not adequate to the job.
So yes NK did get some cards back into its hands, but the same concessions will just not cut it next time, so if NK wants to reuse those cards again at a later date, the US and SK are going to demand more from NK in return. So the value of those cards are greatly diminished.
All in all not a bad result I would say.
Well, good points and I concede that NK did get something out of this mess in the form or bargaining chips it can reuse to to things from the world, although at a diminished value.
But what price did NK pay to get those cards back?
It was paid a real economic cost in that it has suspended operations at one of the only legitimate revenue generating operations in the whole of NK. The Chinese actually co-sponsored a new set of UN sanctions, and more importantly, seems more willing to enforce it and are putting the squeeze on the black and grey market that helps keep NK's economy and hard pressed people going.
In terms of political and diplomatic costs, NK has greatly annoyed China's new leaders with this stunt, and that won't be forgotten in a hurry. The Americans and South Koreans are likely to demand far more solid assurances and guarantees in future on anything NK promises, and what little international support and goodwill NK might have had has largely evaporated. How many people would actually be upset if someone invade NK and instigated regime change tomorrow? A great deal fewer than before NK pull this latest stunt I would expect.
In terms of the balance of power, the additional military assets that the US deployed to the region for this crisis may well stay for the long haul, greatly eroding what little deterrence power NK nukes and long range missiles might have had. This latest incident might harden Seoul's resolve and commitment to investing more in its military to better defend against NK.
I would not be surprised at all it a big deal for Israeli Iron Dome missiles are signed sometime in the near future.
NK has always played a delicate balancing act between 'I don't want to mess with that' crazy and 'plain unpredictable out of control crazy', and I think they step over the line this time.
If someone is 'I don't want to mess with that' crazy, you wanna give them a wide birth as its just not worth your while to mess with them. But there is an unspoken mutual understand that so long as you don't mess with them, they won't mess with you. But if someone is plain unpredictable out of control crazy, you honestly don't know if they are going to come and try to eat your face even if you left them the well alone. And when faced with that sort of crazy, you are very tempted to buy a gun and deal with the lunatic once and for all before he has the chance to do any real damage to you. And its not just the Americans and South Koreans who are proven to having such dark thoughts.
