“R-E-S-P-E-C-T, FIND OUT WHAT IT MEANS TO (KIM JONG EUN)”

4/3/13

I mentioned in my earlier post today (SOUTH KOREA:  “MR. PRESIDENT, WE CANNOT ALLOW A MINE SHAFT GAP!”) that the current bout of saber rattling by North Korea should be providing plenty of grist for the Mighty Quinn mill for some time to come and, sure enough, even today the story is bearing more fruit.

The Wall Street Journal put it succinctly in the continuation of page A8 of today’s (4/3/13’s) front page story when it reported

North Korea has repeatedly asked the U.S. and other major countries to recognize it as a nuclear-weapons state and negotiate with it as an equal partner.

As I stated in my post of a few days ago (KIM JONG EUN:  “I’M SMART, NOT LIKE EVERYBODY SAYS, LIKE DUMB.  I’M SMART AND I WANT RESPECT!”, 4/1/13), this craving for undeserved respect is the essence of this, and every, North Korean bout of bluster and bravado.  North Korea wants respect, and its new young leader needs respect not only from “the U.S. and other major countries” but also internally, especially from the military.   Hence the empty threats to nuke Seoul, Hawaii, Washington, and other places Mr. Kim can perhaps find on a map.  Being treated as “an equal partner” is impossible, given the military, economic, and geopolitical realities, but respect can indeed be achieved.

The problem is that getting respect the right way, by developing one’s economy, engaging the world, and giving one’s citizens a decent chance at a better life, the way that South Korea has done it, is difficult, expensive, and risky.  It takes time, patience, and investment.  Achieving respect in this manner also might lead to one’s citizens making outrageous demands for, among other things, a say in the way things are run.   People have a funny tendency to demand input into their own lives, and into their communities, when they have something at stake.  

Kim Jong Eun and the people who pull his strings cannot take the risks, or do the hard and expensive work, necessary to earn respect in an enduring way.   Developing a bomb and threatening to use it is far cheaper, easier, and less fraught with peril, from the regime’s standpoint, than undergoing the type of economic miracle that has been achieved by South Korea.  In fact, miracle is the wrong noun to describe what has happened in South Korea.  The South Koreans and, yes, their formerly authoritarian regimes under Syngman Rhee and, to a greater extent, Park Chung Hee, took the types of risks, and engaged in the type of hard work, that the North Koreans are too timid to undertake.   They are to be congratulated.   The North Koreans, and their pudgy ruler, are to be ridiculed.   Only they don’t appear to know it.

With that having been written, I think I’ll go out and buy a Kia or a Hyundai.