A new challenge from North Korea

What happened

Tensions between North Korea and the outside world escalated to a new level this week as the United Nations moved closer to imposing new sanctions, and the dictatorship warned that it would view any international punishments for its nuclear and missile tests as an act of war. If provoked, said the government of Kim Jong Il, it could use its nuclear arsenal “as a merciless offensive means to deal a just retaliatory strike to those who touch the country’s dignity and sovereignty.” Nervously, South Korea doubled its naval fleet near the sea border with the North.

The draft of the new U.N. sanctions, agreed to by permanent members of the Security Council, would expand the arms embargo against North Korea by prohibiting it from exporting any weapons, and would further restrict Pyonyang’s financial dealings with the outside world. It’s a response to North Korea’s recent test of a nuclear device. As part of the high-stakes power struggle, Kim’s government announced earlier in the week that it had sentenced two American journalists—Laura Ling and Euna Lee of Current TV—caught crossing into North Korea from China to 12 years of hard labor. The Obama administration sought their release, but said the regime would get nothing in exchange for blackmail and threats. “We are not intending to continue a policy of rewarding provocation,” Obama said.

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What the editorials said

“North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and belligerence are of growing concern, as is the possibility of accidental war,” said USA Today. The sham conviction and sentencing of two Americans has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with Kim Jong Il’s desire to gain leverage in the dangerous game he’s playing. Clearly, he thinks he can prevent a full-scale crackdown by promising to release Ling and Lee. “But North Korea cannot be allowed to manipulate U.S. policy by kidnapping.”

Obama definitely shouldn’t make any concessions in exchange for the journalists’ release, said The New York Times. But he can remind Kim that “failing to free them would only worsen relations” even further. That case should be made directly by a high-level envoy such as Bill Richardson or Al Gore, who now runs the TV network Ling and Lee work for.

What the columnists said

If the U.S. hopes to avoid a hot war with North Korea, said Bruce Bennett in the Chicago Tribune, we must accept that we’re currently in a cold war. That means embracing cold war tactics “that really bite.” One of these is propaganda. A barrage of pro-Western radio and television broadcasts into the isolated country could undermine the regime, which is already facing a potential crisis as Kim prepares to hand off power to his inexperienced youngest son. South Korea could also announce that it’s stockpiling food in preparation for the collapse of Kim’s regime. The goal here is not just to infuriate the North, but to make it clear that its bluster and threats will have “tangible costs.”

Don’t expect much help from China, said Anne Applebaum in The Washington Post. “China has ambitions to replace the United States as the dominant power in East Asia.” The more Kim makes the U.S. look impotent in the region, the more South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan are likely to turn to China for protection.

Obama now faces the ultimate test of his theory that it’s better to “engage” rogue nations, said John Hughes in The Christian Science Monitor. “His options are now few.” Talks with North Korea are “unlikely to succeed.” Sanctions won’t bring North Korea’s military leadership to heel, either. About all he can do is make it “explicitly clear” that use of nuclear weapons by the North—or their sale to terrorists—“would trigger a nuclear U.S. response.”

What next?

High-level U.S. officials quietly fanned out across Asia last week to plot a new regional strategy based on the increasing likelihood that North Korea will become a permanent nuclear power, said Massimo Calabresi in Time. The diplomats told leaders in Japan, South Korea, and China that the U.S. is prepared to adopt an “aggressive defensive posture” to prevent North Korea from enhancing or exporting its nuclear technology. That may mean interdicting North Korean ships on the high seas—which North Korea has said it would consider an act of war.