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Opinio Hiberno: Time for Action against North Korea
Read more about: Defence, Foreign Affairs, Law
North Korea has finally lived up to its Team America reputation and tested its nuclear warheads (correction: for the sake of accuracy it was the missiles to deliver weaponry they tested), which might well have the capacity to reach the United States and the United Nations once more is called into focus. Will the Security Council have the capacity to act in a manner that properly affects North Korean policy? There are a couple of issues that arise here – what sanctions can the Security Council potentially place on North Korea and will they make any difference at all?
The Security Council is the ultimate enforcement agency of the United Nations with powers under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to react to crises throughout the world. Chapter VII relates to breaches of the peace, acts of aggression and threats to the peace so this action might be said to easily fall within ‘threats to the peace’ at least. Should a threat to the peace be found by the Security Council then it can take a number of actions including sanctions, blockades and military action.
At the moment the effort appears to be concentrating on sanctions or blockades but even if the five permanent members could agree to impose these sanctions (it’s unlikely that this would happen of course) it’s unlikely that these would be successful. The political ties between North Korea and other nations, including China in particular, make the effective operation of these sanctions unlikely. In addition, of course, non-state actors are not bound by Security Council Resolutions therefore sanctions would be exceptionally unlikely to prevent the passage of nuclear weapons to terrorist organisations should North Korea be inclined to liaise with them.
It appears inevitable that the time has come to talk about military action and it also appears inevitable that Security Council support will not be forthcoming for such action, mostly because of the permanent veto held by Russia and China. There are a number of other options that might be explored – a NATO force? A Coalition of the Willing? Even an Article 51 self-defence argument that would be a little shaky but not as shaky as another ‘Bush doctrine’ argument? To think that a despotic madman like Kim Jong-il is going to be at all influenced by a slap on the wrist from the Security Council is entirely unrealistic. There’s idealism in international relations (of which I am a huge fan) and suicidal idealism – the distinction is important.
Foreign relations decisions are made on the basis of three things – intelligence (can never be perfect but US intelligence is normally of high quality; it’s in the assessment of the intelligence they failed in Iraq), a government’s ‘sacred’ duty to provide for the security of their territory and people (Morgenthau) and intuition tempered by law. There’s always a margin of error; this is unavoidable. The cost of error in this decision might well be drastic however and the three – intelligence, security and intuition within an international framework - would tend to support military action. It’s just a pity that the veto will stymie the UN and the ongoing war will stymie the United States. For once they need to go to war, but they’ve lost the capacity.
Oh good grief.
Firstly, they’ve tested some missiles that didn’t really work all that well and almost certainly couldn’t carry any nuclear weapons the North Koreans are capable of making. The distinction is rather important.
Now, first question: why does North Korea testing missiles constitute a threat to the peace and the US testing missiles not?
Talk of North Korea selling nuclear weapons to terrorists is based on what exactly?
As for “It appears inevitable that the time has come to talk about military action “, can I ask why? What military action is possible, what would the aim be and how would it be better than the current situation? How will you prevent massive casualties in South Korea, never mind North Korea? How, if you really believe that they have nuclear weapons, will you prevent them using them? How do you know where they are?
You completely fail to justify your call for hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Colman,
On why the distinction between US and tests and NK tests is important I think the answer should be clear - for the US to make or test missiles requires appropriations and approval by Congress and is subject to domestic crique and politics which serve as a check (not an absolute one but an important one) on such actions and the potential for their deployment. Therefore there is an internal system of checks and balances - both constitutional and democratic - in action that is lacking in NK. Secondly the United States is more integrated into international affairs and institutions and while not being completely bona fide in their actions is more likely to subject itself to international scrutiny so there’s an external check. This isn’t as strong as the internal check because of the US’ unipolarity but it’s still important I think.
Secondly talk of selling to terrorists is speculative. I acknowledge as much in my post by saying ‘if’ they were going to liaise with such factions. I don’t assert that they would but I’m sure you would agree it is more probable than the United States doing so for example. Despite my best efforts I’m not privy to security briefings (I wish!!) but there may be intelligence to this effect or there may not. I’m floating it as a mere possibility and saying if this were accepted as a possibility we’d have to accept the limited capacity for sanctions to work effectively.
I don’t call for hundreds of thousands of deaths and I don’t know how the military operation would work, what I call for is serious talking and thinking about military action. I feel, from the knowledge I have, military action would be a potentially successful way to try to move forward on this but I don’t assert it’s (a) absolutely necessary or (b) desirable. I have no desire for war, unsurprisingly, but I do have a cautious bone in my body that tells me some assessment of military action as a possible response if NK refuses to engage. Perhaps I should have made this clearer. On the basis of my access to the three ingredients - intelligence, intuition and security - military action (prefereably UN sanctioned, multilateral and minal) seems required, but as i said above I don’t have the intelligence of the decision makers.
To say I call for hundreds of thousands of deaths is somewhat melodramatic. But these are precisely the conversations that need to go on in international circles and complete focus on sanctions might well prevent their conduct until it’s too late for proper planning and multilateral co-operation.
Fiona
“Talk of North Korea selling nuclear weapons to terrorists is based on what exactly?”
The clue is in the first sentence: “North Korea has finally lived up to its Team America reputation…”
You bloody warmonger
Is this the UCC way?