“Crazy Kim”, or Kim Sung Um as he is officially known, the recalcitrant leader of North Korea has manipulated a new crisis with his counterpart and nemesis in South Korea; that in itself is nothing new but the sinister connotations of the current crisis could see a miscalculation leading to a major war which could easily drag the United States and China into a larger, much more destructive conflagration.
North Korea and South Korea were partitioned after World War Two with the North Korean state established as a communist entity and the South as a democratic society in the tradition of post war politics.
North Korea invaded the South in 1950 attempting to stretch it’s sovereignty and communist manifesto to include the entire peninsula and very nearly succeed except for a brave stand by the underdone and ill trained US Army at Pusan which enabled those he-men of the American armed forces, the United States Marines to make an imaginative and daring landing at Inchon near the demilitarised zone which cut the North Korean forces in half and sent them reeling.
The man who planned the rescue of this bastion of democracy in North East Asia was none other than General Douglas Macarthur, he of Corregidor and South West Pacific fame who’s legendary quote after leaving the Phillipines, “I shall return”, was actually uttered to the waiting press corps at Brisbane railway station.
Unfortunately, “Dashing Doug” got a little full of himself and pushed the North Koreans right back to the Yalu River which bordered China in contradiction of the orders of his Commander in Chief, the President of the United States, and goaded the Chinese to take the offensive. Doug’s best suggestion on how to deal with this situation was to use nuclear weapons on the Chinese which went down like lead balloon in the halls of power and quickly saw him on a plane back to the US, much to his chagrin.
The United Nations called on it’s member states to save South Korea and many nations, including Australia sent their forces but as usual the heavy lifting was done by the United States and it is an often forgotten statistic that as many US servicemen died in the Korean War as in the soon to follow insurgency in South Vietnam.
The Chinese Army was halted roughly on the border of North and South Korea and the two sides settled down to two years of trench warfare in the frozen hills of Korea,a fight reminiscent of the First World War.
An armistice was signed in 1953 and although the war has never officially ended, the two sides have maintained an uneasy peace ever since, punctuated by the occasional flare up and exchange of live fire and casualties for both.
North Korea has remained in seclusion and isolation for much of the seventy years since the end of the Korean War but it does seemed to have developed a leadership cult that dwarfs anything seen in other communist nations. They are the most insular, secretive government on earth, only China seems to have any influence on it’s satellite state and even their grip seems to be loosening, much to their horror as they watch “Crazy Kim” play childish games with nuclear weapons.
Kim has recently inherited the mantle of leader from his father who wasn’t above playing games with the West, usually in an attempt to wrest concessions from the US and her allies in order to feed his starving nation. Most of North Korea’s GDP is spent on it’s massive and formidable army and one can only imagine the deplorable conditions most must live under in that wretched nation.
Uranium enrichment plants have sprung up in North Korea in an attempt to create a nuclear strike capability, a situation which has sent shivers through the South and her allies and coupled with long range missile capability which she is known to posses, has ensured that North Korea poses a special problem for the world.
North Korea, as I mentioned before has always played games with the West, just to let us know they are still there, brooding, plotting, planning. But nothing which has been done in the past has equalled the rhetoric which has come from the leadership over the past few weeks.
Kim has threatened to fire nuclear tipped rockets at Japan and Guam, a US territory which houses military bases and even the Northern Territory is in range of these rockets. The US cannot stand idly by while such threats are thrown about and has ramped up her own military preparedness in response but one can only imagine President Obama sitting bewilderedly in the Oval Office thinking, “Is this guy for real!?”.
Unfortunately, no one knows for sure. Kim is a young leader, only 28 and some analysts have speculated that his current play is merely a ploy to unite the army generals and the nation at large behind him, to establish his power base and make his own leadership more stable. But the truth is, no one, except perhaps China, knows who is really in charge or what North Korea’s intentions really are. And that is the worry. He is backing himself into a corner and while the west looks on incredulously there must come a point where they start to take his threats seriously and prepare for war.
North Korea surely do not want this least attractive option to play out. Lighting up a nuclear missile and sending it careening towards to Japan or Guam would surely invite massive retaliation from the Untied States. They can’t be that mad, can they?
Fifty years ago another US President had to show his mettle to the world and stare down the communists. Let’s hope President Obama doesn’t have to prove to the world that he is made of the same stuff as John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Have a nice day.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 