In the “cry for help” school of foreign policy to which many in the Obama administration subscribe, North Korea is in the midst of a full-scale emotional breakdown. Five missile launches, a nuclear test, the restart of the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, the effective abrogation of the post Korean war North-South armistice, and threats of military action against South Korea and likely more to come. It’s not clear why Kim Jong Il has flipped out so completely, though the psychoanalysts among us suspect he has a case of Iran envy.
There are hopeful signs that North Korea’s neighbors are losing patience with Kim Jong Il. Previous missile tests, proliferation, and threats weren’t enough to excite the UN Security Council into a resolution condemning the violation of . . . wait for it . . . UN Security Council resolutions. But this latest spate of “crying out for help” has annoyed Pyongyang’s ever-patient Chinese patrons, prompted South Korea to finally join the Proliferation Security Initiative, and reminded the Japanese that “self defense” requires a nation to do more than hunker down and hope the United States will do something.
Here’s the problem: Even if the Security Council does ratchet up sanctions, they won’t stick. If past is prologue, this latest North Korean tantrum will soon be followed by a payoff to Pyongyang, an effort to reward them in order to restore the status quo ante. We’ve paid the North Koreans to come to talks, paid them not to proliferate, paid them to shut down Yongbyon. In each case, they’ve gone back to start and been paid again. For the North Koreans, there has never a downside to upping the ante.
So, what’s coming next? The simplest answer would be the proliferation of nuclear technology to non-state actors—why not al Qaeda? After all, what hasn’t North Korea sold? There’s a replica of Yongbyon in the ashes in Syria—bombed by the Israelis. North Korean nuclear materiel was reportedly found in centrifugees taken from Libya. North Korean missile technology and missiles are scattered across the Middle East, and North Korean advisors are present in both Iran and Syria (not to speak of other terrorist states across the globe). If I were Kim Jong Il, I’d be figuring the payoff right now.