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Analysis: North Korea will get away with this outrage again May 26, 2010
Pyongyang is unlikely to face significant reprisals for the sinking of the Cheonan
When it became clear that North Korea had sunk a South Korean naval ship, killing 46 sailors in an unprovoked attack, it was obvious to everyone that Something Must Be Done.
But six days after the publication of the evidence, the punitive measures taken so far are unimpressive.
South Korea has suspended all trade with Pyongyang, but given how minimal this was to start with, it is hardly a crushing blow.
Even less daunting was the second part of the sanctions against the worlds most isolated, nuclear-armed dictatorship a battery of huge digital signboards which will display rude messages over the North Korean border.
The same kind of thing happens every time North Korea provokes a crisis. It happened after Pyongyangs two nuclear tests, last year and in 2006, and it is happening now.
The world huffs and puffs with justifiable outrage and then comes up against the fact that when it comes to punishing North Korea, there is very little you can do.
Military action is out. Even if South Koreans were prepared to suffer the inevitable high casualties, its US allies, already struggling to justify a far less intensive operation in Afghanistan, would not.
This also rules out the harshest kind of measures, such as a shipping or air embargo which any country would regard as an act of war.
And North Korea is already so profoundly sanctioned that finding more economic measures to impose would be like torturing a bald man by trying to pluck out his hair.
The international community has a responsibility and a duty to respond, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, said in Seoul today.
We cannot turn a blind eye to belligerence and provocation.
She failed to answer the obvious question: so what do you intend to do?
There are a few things, none of them very potent.
The US can put North Korea back on the list of countries that engage in terrorism, which will disqualify Pyongyang from receiving trade and aid privileges which it does not receive anyway.
A few remaining holes in the sanctions regime might be plugged, such as still tighter restrictions by the Japanese Government on transfers of cash from overseas Koreans (comparable to pulling out the bald mans ear hairs).
But the only government with the power to squeeze North Korea where it hurts is China, and China isnt playing ball.
Partly this is a temperamental disinclination to buy into the outrage of the West. But it is also practical.
If Kim Jong Ils Government were suddenly to collapse, it would be China which paid the price in terms of a potential refugee crisis and political instability on its border with North Korea.
All of this was true a year ago when North Korea conducted its last nuclear test. Then, as now, there was much noisy outrage and little concrete action.
The UN Security Council will come up with some kind of statement, and the US and Britain will trumpet its sternness and significance. But it will serve primarily, not to punish North Korea, but to cover up the impotence of the rest of the world.
Analysis: North Korea will get away with this outrage – again - Times Online
Pyongyang is unlikely to face significant reprisals for the sinking of the Cheonan
When it became clear that North Korea had sunk a South Korean naval ship, killing 46 sailors in an unprovoked attack, it was obvious to everyone that Something Must Be Done.
But six days after the publication of the evidence, the punitive measures taken so far are unimpressive.
South Korea has suspended all trade with Pyongyang, but given how minimal this was to start with, it is hardly a crushing blow.
Even less daunting was the second part of the sanctions against the worlds most isolated, nuclear-armed dictatorship a battery of huge digital signboards which will display rude messages over the North Korean border.
The same kind of thing happens every time North Korea provokes a crisis. It happened after Pyongyangs two nuclear tests, last year and in 2006, and it is happening now.
The world huffs and puffs with justifiable outrage and then comes up against the fact that when it comes to punishing North Korea, there is very little you can do.
Military action is out. Even if South Koreans were prepared to suffer the inevitable high casualties, its US allies, already struggling to justify a far less intensive operation in Afghanistan, would not.
This also rules out the harshest kind of measures, such as a shipping or air embargo which any country would regard as an act of war.
And North Korea is already so profoundly sanctioned that finding more economic measures to impose would be like torturing a bald man by trying to pluck out his hair.
The international community has a responsibility and a duty to respond, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, said in Seoul today.
We cannot turn a blind eye to belligerence and provocation.
She failed to answer the obvious question: so what do you intend to do?
There are a few things, none of them very potent.
The US can put North Korea back on the list of countries that engage in terrorism, which will disqualify Pyongyang from receiving trade and aid privileges which it does not receive anyway.
A few remaining holes in the sanctions regime might be plugged, such as still tighter restrictions by the Japanese Government on transfers of cash from overseas Koreans (comparable to pulling out the bald mans ear hairs).
But the only government with the power to squeeze North Korea where it hurts is China, and China isnt playing ball.
Partly this is a temperamental disinclination to buy into the outrage of the West. But it is also practical.
If Kim Jong Ils Government were suddenly to collapse, it would be China which paid the price in terms of a potential refugee crisis and political instability on its border with North Korea.
All of this was true a year ago when North Korea conducted its last nuclear test. Then, as now, there was much noisy outrage and little concrete action.
The UN Security Council will come up with some kind of statement, and the US and Britain will trumpet its sternness and significance. But it will serve primarily, not to punish North Korea, but to cover up the impotence of the rest of the world.
Analysis: North Korea will get away with this outrage – again - Times Online
