An Irrational Approach to a Rational Foreign Policy

North (N) Korea has gone really far these days.

Having conducted a second nuclear test in May, it has proceeded to launch a further seven missiles from various sites just last Saturday.

The outburst of anger and condemnation at N Korea’s actions is understandable, given the provocative nature of its actions and the threat to international peace, not to mention having spent an estimated 700 million dollars on those tests, which could have paid for its food shortage for a good two years.

This creates the impression that N Korea’s actions defy logic.

But, is N Korea truly irrational?

I think that although N Korea’s actions may defy reason, there are underlying reasons which are perfectly rational.

The first reason is that N Korea, unlike the other countries involved in the six-party talks, has a different outlook on the global system. N Korea still lives in the Cold War, which it has the right to believe that it is the only survivor from the old communist bloc. Any interference by the US is interpreted through the lens of the Cold War.

Its actions appear irrational to the outside world because the rest of the world have already consigned the Cold War to history. When the Cold War was at its nadir, the US and the Soviet Union was still doing what N Korea did, albeit on a much larger scale.

To N Korea, nuclear weapons was thought to be the best guarantee for security, as the Soviet Union, as the Chinese, as the Indians and Pakistanis thought decades ago.

Secondly, it is interesting to note that nuclear weapons aren’t so much to be used as a tactical weapon against N Korea’s enemies, real or imagined, but more as a political weapon to be used on the people and on the regime itself.

It can placate the military, putting them in a position of great power and prestige, and augment the pride of their people in their state being elevated into the ranks of the nuclear powers, however empty that status may be.

Of course, N Korea suffered a horrible miscalculation.

While the domestic objectives might have been achieved, coupled with material incentives (imported cars and wine, etc) for the top brass in the military, and a powerful propaganda machine, the foreign policy aims of N Korea horribly backfired on itself.

Instead of gaining more security, it became the target of intense international pressure, mitigated (barely) only by the intervention of China.

Instead of admission into the “nuclear club”, it came to be seen as a pariah, a threat to regional peace.

So the dream of international acceptance by the formal recognition of its military power on the part of the N Korean regime turns out to be, well, a dream, and a dream that becomes ever more distant with the provocative course of action it has taken since the crisis began.

And to make things worse, N Korea has trapped itself in a vicious circle, being more defiant each time the international community exerts yet more pressure on the regime.

However, it is doubtful that Kim Jong Il, or the military, or whoever has real power in N Korea now, will be affected by the now immense pressure on the regime.

This is because, to them, it’s not the welfare of the people that’s important; it’s the survival of the regime that mattered.

It’s sad when one realises from this episode, that N Korea has reached a stage where the suppression of its people has become a means not to some idyllic communist utopia, but an end in itself, where the survival of the regime DEPENDS on the suppression of the populace.