Things are getting pretty dicey on the Korean Peninsula. I have no idea how the president can juggle so many crises at the same time. It’s insane what’s going on right now.
About The Author

BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
I am not happy about this develoopment at all, and I agree, it is insane. This though, is the first one that has me really sitting up to take notice. I think with everything else going on, it is being under reported, and potentially could be incredibly, well, scary!
Is this just me, but is this not just another case of an amazingly despotic and desperate N Korean regime looking for attention, aid, trade, anything that will relieve it of its own failed attempts at providing for it’s own citizens? At some stage Obama may have to put it out of its own misery. I hope he doesn’t attempt “bipartisanship” with Eternal President: Kim Il-sung
How would he put it out of its misery?
Fair question. I suppose I would be hoping for an East Germany style regime collapse.
The day is gone when the USA can act unilaterally in Asia. China’s concurrence (overt or covert) must be obtained for any military intervention.
I’d just as soon let the two Koreas duke it out alone. The Cold war is over.
Regime change! What a GREAT idea. Look how well it worked out for the US in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I have a question. Why is anyone surprised? The Bush and now Obama administrations have demonstrated to the world the actual limits on American military power in the age of contractor/mercenaries. The famous line from a princess bride about the two greatest errors in the world, a land war in asia is number 1. The US cannot possible defend south korea and our 37 K troops stationed there without Nuking. Same thing with Taiwan. Adding the war supplementals into the defense budget yields around a trillion dollars being blown along with untold harm to our people and our reputation.
If, as some have suggested, this is a power struggle between an aging, ailing dictator and an increasingly assertive military, things could get very dicey indeed.
Here you go for a motive:
My sense is that the reported divisions in the North Korean leadership are overstated and probably wishful thinking.
I hope you’re right.
Why? The fact that it was a “rational” retaliation and that the leader and his military are united is not really good news. It bodes more of the same either now or periodically in the future.
North Korea might have virtually all of its army at the DMZ, but that leaves it exposed to a Chinese enforcement action if they get out of hand. There are limits to North Korea’s freedom of action.
True, but as bad as the current regime is, I think having a rogue military testing its boundaries would be worse. Just saying.
A rogue military–you mean like Gen. Petraeus?
There are a number of things that I see going on.
That’s probably all or partly true. The question is to what extent crazyguy can keep it all from spinning beyond his control. Plus, nobody really knows where China sees its ultimate interest lying — we always assume they want to maintain stability above all, but that could prove a pretty thin reed to cling to.
Most countries want to maintain stability on their own borders. China’s historic behavior in the past 50 years does not invalidate that. Even Chinese participation in the Korean War was driven by that and the fact that they wanted to keep a friendly nation (North Korea) as a buffer with South Korea.
But that’s kinda my point: if NK loses control of events, it will no longer be a stable entity on their borders, it will be a wildcard with the potential to force China to take some kind of action, none of which would be satisfactory. It will have to decide whether to go with ideology or act to protect its huge economic stake. That battle could challenge its own fragile stability.
China is not likely to act rashly. It has the advantage of militarily being at North Korea’s rear, well away from the millions of troops stationed at the DMZ.
China’s “huge economic stake” includes trade with South Korea; its ideological alignment with North Korea is negligible compared to the Mao era. And China is consulting with South Korea and the US in order to forestall North Korea losing control of events.
If China has to act in North Korea militarily, it is likely that South Korea and possibly the US will have some sort of concert of action with China.
At some point legitimacy and authority in North Korea crumble, the rank and file of the military refuse to obey orders and the regime collapses like that of East Germany. My guess is that that is another 25-30 years away.
I am not convinced that China has stability problems at the moment. By all reports, their economic development efforts are penetrating deep into the countryside. And that will come long before any political issues. Plus the single party system operates with jockeying of factions, just as in any other party. So within the Communist Party you have the equivalent of the different institutional factions you have as parties in multiparty systems. Not democratic yet, but certainly not as unstable as it might have been at the time of Tien An Min.
My concern is that NK is having real problems and the NK gov’t sees a common enemy and war as an answer.
MacArthur really screwed things up for the US and we still aren’t clear of what he did.
For NK to break off with SK is scary.
Pat Buchannan will say if we didn’t have troops there, we wouldn’t have to worry.
What a simplistic stupid view of matters.
Every time I hear a pundit ask, “Is this the President’s top priority” I want to throw something at them.