zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — at times the missing pieces of a puzzle are right there in plain sight — might it be a good idea to notice them? — oh, and Carthage! ]
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I recently wrote about the failure of many translators of jihadist texts to include the specific Qur’anic citations on which they were based — something I noticed because I’m keenly interested in theologies, but which doesn’t seem to concern those who are trying to understand jihad. A week ago I saw a neat parallel from the world of political propaganda, as noted by Patrician Kushlis at Whirledview:

one of the experts at the conference in describing the unique characteristics of the North Korean propaganda barrage pointed out that the country’s threats always concluded with the phrase: “if the Americans attack.” But the speaker added that these four final words are not reported in the media or government statements we see in the West.

What is it with these people, that they keep on uttering phrases that can safely be ignored at the beginnings and endings of statements?

I mean, would anyone in Carthage have bothered to translate into Punic — the language the Carthaginians spoke — an utterance like the Elder Cato‘s repetitive and obviously phatic Carthago delenda est ?

North Korea’s shopworn game of bluster, threaten, bully, violate international norms and eventually be rewarded with concessions and bribes has stopped working, which is why there now is a crisis. With the suckers (ROK, USA and Japan) refusing to play three card monty and with even  Pyongyang’s confederate China wearying of the scam when they have their own fish to fry, Kim Jong Eunhas few options to save face except to double down on painting himself into a smaller and tighter corner. There are some who would like to play the game of appeasement for a temporary respite but both Seoul and Washington are taking a harder line on North Korean antics.

One gets the impression that -unofficially, mind you – Beijing would not mind “Fatty the Third” getting a comeuppance that could push him from power and lead to the ascension of a more mature, more reasonable, more seasoned and more Sinicized leader of the Kim dynasty.

Here is a round up of more intelligently thought out (or at least interesting) articles and posts about the Nut of the North and possible war with North Korea:

Colonel Dave Maxwell– north Korean Leadership Assessment and The Realist Prism: North Korea Gambles on Strategic Assumptions and U.S. would seek regime change in North Korea if attack occurs

Colonel Maxwell is an area specialist on the DPRK, these are the “must read” pieces

Robert Baer –Viewpoint: North Korea’s Gaddafi Nightmare 

Gordon Chang –Is Kim Jong Un’s Bluster Really a Prelude to Reform?

Thomas PM Barnett –The Tricky Thing about Kim Jon Eun 

Patrick Cronin – Tell me How this Starts

IHT –Detecting Shift, U.S. Makes Case to China on North Korea 

Let me try my hand at reading the tea leaves. I don’t know that much, relatively speaking, about the “sovietology” of analyzing North Korean nuances which I will leave for experts like Colonel Maxwell to concentrate on other angles. Some points i no particular order:

• First, any hope of an internal coup against Eun is probably nonexistent. Not only for the the consistent ruthlessness and lavish bribery which the Kim Family regime has treated it’s military, but the fact that coups of this nature have a poor track record in Communist states, even weird ones like the DPRK. From the inception of Communist power in the USSR, Soviet leaders fretted about “Bonapartism” by counterrevolutionary generals on white horses from Kornilov to Tukhachevskii to Zhukov. That these plots were mostly imaginary did not matter and Communist rulers neutralized this threat by binding the military leadership into the Party leadership at a level subordinate to the Politburo and periodically shooting likely upstarts. The political space for successful military coups do not exist in Communist regimes even for the key insiders, just ask Lin Bao. The North Korean military does not have the will to do this except in conjunction with massive Chinese intervention. Perhaps not even then.
• For all the talk of irrationality, North Korea has been been playing this game as a survival strategy for sixty years and only miscalculated once, with the original invasion of South Korea in 1950 – which only happened, after Kim Il-Sung received the blessing of Stalin and promise of massive support from Mao ZeDong – and it was an unmitigated disaster for North Korea and China. Pointedly, the North has not initiated a war since and their subsequent violent provocations, while infuriating, have been quixotic and weird rather than existential threats that would guarantee a crushing military response.
• The “win” for the US and ROK here is in frustrating the regime’s grasp for status, however self-deluded, in extorting more material concessions by acting like the international community’s equivalent of a crazy, menacing, homeless person ranting on a street corner. We need to make this charade appear to be a diplomatic sure-fire loser this time in the eyes of Pyongyang’s elite with an endgame where the North emerges empty handed and Eun feels that pressing further risks a greater loss of face. We do this by making moves where the spillover costs of North Korean intransigence and public lunacy drift in China’s direction; a tightly constrained North Korea out of diplomatic and economic options is really Beijing’s problem.
• The strategic equation for “victory” from the North’s perspective depends heavily upon the reaction of the US and ROK governments to get drawn into tiresome negotiations before the North ceases it’s behavior, something they ultimately cannot control. Washington and Seoul cold hold firm or even (conceivably) take a harder line. If frustrated in their quest for concessions, the regime could exercise several options a) shift gears to a different propaganda campaign to distract internal audience b) engage in an act of terrorism elsewhere in the world, such as against a ROK embassy c) engage in a military demonstration that while provocative, like ballistic missile test, is not a casus belli d) all of the above e) undertake a military strike under the mistaken impression the ROK will not retaliate.

Comments welcomed.

HistoryGuy99 in a spot-on post on the death of Kim Jong-Il:

A National Case of Stockholm Syndrome

….Kim Jong’s death moves the dynasty cycle to a point that follows the old Chinese proverb about dynasties or even successful families, that says, “Wealth only lasts three generations. The first generation builds it up, the second consolidates it, and the third squanders it.” 

This proverb is a metaphor for the rise and fall of dynasties down through the ages. The dynasties start when a charismatic visionary leader comes to power, and is followed by less talented and motivated leaders until the dynasty falls and chaos reins until another leader emerges to repeat the cycle. Most nations have moved beyond that cycle today. Even China, the source of the proverb, is moving forward with succeeding generations of leaders that unlike preceding dynasties, mirror institutions that have learned to seek new charismatic leadership, instead of relying on a family blood line that invites decadence to the point of being endemic.

Where does this leave people of North Korea? Listening to the mass wailing and demonstrations of grief as if each family had lost their beloved children, the thought that crossed my mind was that the entire country was a victim of the Stockholm Syndrome were the nation had their sense of esteem so suppressed that they actually came to love their masters. ….

Read the rest here.

Very much like the death of Joseph Stalin. Many of those shedding tears would have been en route to the Gulag had the old monster lived a few years longer.

 

Wikistrat is running an interactive futurist simulation on possible pathways of change and regime change of the DPRK. I am participating alongside Thomas P.M. Barnett and HistoryGuy99 and the Wikistrat analytical team. Join us here.

Tom’s take:

New Simulation – The Death of King Jong-Il

…We have just launched our first open community simulation, where our analysts and subscribers explore a shock in the form of the sudden death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Join our subscribers to engage in this live simulation, explore potential scenarios, aftershocks the various impacts of this event on countries’ interests. You can then play the Prime Minister and plan potential strategies for the United States, China, South Korea and many more.

Current ruler Kim Jong-Il turns 70 this year and is allegedly battling pancreatic cancer (very low five-year survival rate) and diabetes, as well as the obvious lingering effects of a stroke that occurred in 2008.

Starting in mid-2009 and culminating in a special party event in the fall of 2010, Kim positioned his under-30 third son, Kim Jong-Eun as his clear successor, although it is widely believed that Kim Jong-Il’s brother-in-law Chang Sung-Taek will play the role of regent for some indeterminate time.

North Korea’s recent military aggressiveness (e.g., ship sinking, artillery barrage of disputed island) suggests a determined effort to speedily credentialize Kim Jong-Eun among the military leadership that now controls much of the government, economy, and – most importantly – mineral exports to, and humanitarian aid from, patron China. Kim Jong-Il was publicly groomed as “founding father” Kim Il-Sung’s successor for roughly a decade-and-a-half, whereas Kim Jong-Eun will likely have had only a restricted public persona for 3-4 years at the time of his father’s death.

When Kim Il-Sung died in 1994, Kim Jong-Il nonetheless was unable to fully claim leadership status until three years had passed.

ADDENDUM:

Interesting article (Hat tip Col. Dave)

N.Korean Protesters Demand Food and Electricity

Small pockets of unrest are appearing in North Korea as the repressive regime staggers under international sanctions and the fallout from a botched currency reform, sources say. On Feb. 14, two days before leader Kim Jong-il’s birthday, scores of people in Jongju, Yongchon and Sonchon in North Pyongan Province caused a commotion, shouting, “Give us fire [electricity] and rice! “A North Korean source said people fashioned makeshift megaphones out of newspapers and shouted, “We can’t live! Give us fire! Give us rice!” “At first, there were only one or two people, but as time went by more and more came out of their houses and joined in the shouting,” the source added.

The State Security Department investigated this incident but failed to identify the people who started the commotion when they met with a wall of silence.

“When such an incident took place in the past, people used to report their neighbors to the security forces, but now they’re covering for each other,” the source said.

[ by Charles Cameron ]

Okay, I am now clear that the correct translation of the Korean phrase that has sometimes been rendered “holy war” in recent news reports is in fact “sacred war”.

I’d been wondering just what an atheist state was doing threatening “holy” or “sacred” war…

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Juche is the state philosophy of North Korea, and is considered to be the 10th largest religion in the world by the Adherents.com portal, ranking above Judaism, Baha’i, Jainism and Shinto. It developed out of Marxist-Leninism and has more recently incorporated Confucian elements.

Sunny Lee, writing in a 2007 article in Asia Times titled God forbid, religion in North Korea?, quotes Han Sung-joo, a former South Korean foreign minister, as saying “There is a deification and a religious emotional element [in juche] in the North. The twinned photos of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il are everywhere. Every speech says Kim Il-sung is still alive. I think if I stayed another two weeks, I might even see Kim Il-sung. The country worships someone who is deceased, as if he were alive.”

One Christian site goes so far as to call Juche a “counterfeit Christianity:

Recognizing the power of Christianity, Kim wanted it to be directed at himself. So he took Christianity, removed God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, set up himself, his wife and son as the new trinity, and called it Juche. At its core, Juche is a counterfeit Christianity that is deathly afraid of true version, and rightfully so.

I suppose a close comparison here would be with the cult which Robert Jay Lifton described in Revolutionary immortality: Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese cultural revolution.

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In On Junche in Our Revolution, vol II (published in English, 1977), Kim Il Sung writes:

No military threat of the US imperialists, however, can frighten the Korean people. If, in the end, the US Imperialists and their stooges unleash a new war against the DPRK, in defiance of our people’s patient efforts to prevent a war and maintain peace and the unanimous condemnation of the peace-loving people of the world, the Korean people will rise as one in a sacred war to safeguard their beloved country and the revolutionary gains. They will completely annihilate the aggressors.

So the “sacred war” phrasing has been around for a while.

I hope to learn more — these in the meantime are some clues to be going on with…