zenpundit.com

THE STRONG POSSIBILITY EXISTS THAT BEIJING FINDS NORTH KOREA MORE TROUBLESOME THAN WE DO [ DOUBLE UPDATED]

The diligent historians laboring at The Cold War History Project have been busy translating decades of diplomatic material from the archives of the former Eastern bloc satellites on North Korea’s strange and often rocky relationship with the rest of the Communist world. KimIl-Sung, the father of the current dictator proved to have been a major headache for MoscowAn excerpt:

“These documents from North Korea’s former allies give us a record of what constrained the DPRK-—what worked and what did not,” said Kathryn Weathersby, senior associate and coordinator of CWIHP’s Korea Initiative. As U.S. policymakers differ on whether to take a hard or soft approach toward North Korea, this new material brings a level of reality to that debate, she said, “by revealing the evolution of North Korean thinking about the use of military force against South Korea and about the perception of threats to the DPRK…

…The “Stalin formula” had two main tenets. First, North Korea could not decide on its own whether to invade South Korea, but had to consult its allies and await decision from Moscow. Second, North Korea was permitted to defend itself from a U.S. or South Korean attack. The DPRK took full advantage of this latter point, said Weathersby, “a loophole that inadvertently encouraged Kim Sung Il to stage provocations disguised as attacks from the South.”

Thus, in January 1968, North Korea sent 30 commandos disguised as South Korean guerillas to the Blue House in Seoul to kill South Korea’s President Park Chung Hee. Kim Il Sung had hoped this action would incite an uprising in the South and a subsequent request for military aid from the North, thus leading to reunification. But the commandos were captured, all but one were killed, and the failed plot was exposed. To divert attention from this embarrassment, North Korea seized an American intelligence ship, the USS Pueblo, charging U.S. aggression. One crewmember was killed, several wounded, and the 80 surviving crewmembers were taken hostage for 11 months.

In the United States, the Johnson administration assumed the Soviet Union was behind the Pueblo attack and took steps to reinforce its military strength along the Soviet border. The new evidence, however, reveals that North Korea did not consult any of its allies before the attack. “The Soviets were ignorant of the plot but after the Pueblo attack, they used their influence to restrain North Korea and make them take less provocative actions,” said Weathersby. But when Kim sent a note to Moscow asking for reassurance that the Soviet Union would indeed offer assistance should North Korea be attacked, “Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev made it clear to the North Koreans that the Soviets would not get dragged into war with the United States by North Korea—-that the alliance was strictly defensive.”

To relay this message, Brezhnev summoned Kim to Moscow but with remarkable impudence Kim declined to go, sending his defense minister in his place. Nonetheless, despite their anger, “the Soviets had to publicly defend North Korea in part to rebuff what they saw as U.S. arrogance. Privately, though, the Soviets pulled the Koreans back and the situation was calmed,” said Weathersby. “Although North Korea kept pushing the envelope,” she observed, “it still stayed within the ‘Stalin formula.’”

It may be that Pyongyang’s rattling of nuclear sabres causes more of a spike in Maalox consumption at the Chinese Foreign Ministry than at the White House.

UPDATE: TM Lutas examines how DPRK nuke tests might affect Beijing

UPDATE II: Dr. Barnett says that Kim Jong-Il ” must go down”.

THE MORNING’S RECOMMENDED READING

I have quite a task at hand in replying to Dan of tdaxp before me tonight but there are a few things that you need to see first:

The always great and too seldom blogging Geitner Simmons examined the concerted and irrationalist attack on History as a discipline by the usual crew of academic barbarians. ( hat tip Austin Bay ).

The Adventures of Chester scored an interview with Andrew Bacevich on his book The New American Militarism.

Rick Shenkman, HNN’s editor, on Saudi Arabia’s Doomsday Plan. A good one for Collounsbury to put his two cents in on.

Peter Lavelle ‘s round-up of experts on Russia commenting on the VE-Day celebrations.

IN PRAISE OF PUNDITA

I have to direct you to two of Pundita’s posts, both of which are well done and, frankly are illuminating, though in different ways:

First, is her post ( forgive the self-referential nature here) that follows up on EMPs. Not so much because of the importance of EMP weapons which were being overhyped but in Pundita’s superb advice on being a critical consumer of news as she dissects the trajectory of the EMP ” story”:

“So what does it all mean? It means that the consumer of news has to learn to think like an old-school reporter–a reporter well-trained in ferreting out the traditional Four W’s of a story:

Who (said or did it)?
What (what was said or done)?
Where (where was it said or done)?
When (when was it said or done)?

There is also the “H” (How did it come about?) if the reporter has space for it in the report.But given the skill of today’s disinformation specialists and the general low quality of reporting, I insert an “I” in my list:

Who?
What?
In What Context?
Where?
When?
How?

Asking yourself in what context something is said helps you quickly spot where in the story you’ve been napping.”

One of my mentors as a historian was an old and crusty, toughminded, Social-Democrat. He never thought that Stalin was anything but a bastard and that the Revisionist New Left historians, most of whom he knew personally, were fooling themselves to some extent. I recall his curt admonishment to a young, zealous, graduate student who was going a tad overboard in reporting on an author whose conclusions he, and most likely my mentor, agreed with politically.

” Be the careful when you read something that makes you feel good…because that’s when we have a tendency to stop thinking “.

Pundita’s second post concerns the very complicated causation driving mass migration from Mexico to the United States. I’m a student here – my knowledge of Latin American history is, by my standards, weak. Pundita begins to untangle the driver of illegal immigration from the surrounding verbiage that beclouds this issue:

“And because of the knowledge deficit, Americans can’t argue to Mexicans who have been unwitting pawns of Fox’s human export program that they are pawns. Mexico’s ruling class has long encouraged the export of their ‘troublemakers’ –the Mexicans who have the strongest opposition to corruption and inertia in their government. This set in motion a vicious cycle: the more the really outraged Mexicans flee to the US, the fewer troublemakers left in Mexico to contest bad government. This makes conditions in Mexico worse by further weakening opposition to bad government. This causes yet more Mexicans to flee. …

…But the World Bank and the IMF have dug in their heels. They’ve said in effect to Fox’s government: Fix the blasted tax code and go ahead with structural adjustments, or forget getting more megabucks WPA-type project loans that we know Mexico will default on anyway.

So what we have is a Mexican Standoff. Is there any way to break the standoff? Yes; there are two ways that I’ve seen. But much depends on Mexico’s political parties and the Fox and Bush administration seeing Americans awakened from their long slumber about Mexican affairs. As with so many other problematical situations around the world, the “illegals problem” has flourished in the darkness of inattention. “

During my time as a blogger, Dave Schuyler has functioned for me not only as an always interesting and perceptive voice in his own right but also as a formidible talent-spotter in the blogosphere. It was he who steered me to Pundita’s blog in the first place.

Good work Dave, she’s a gem !