North Korea attempted to launch a long-range rocket on Friday, but it instead malfunctioned and broke apart before even escaping Earth’s atmosphere.
“This was supposed to be associated with (Kim Jong Un’s) ascension to power. So for this thing to fail … is incredibly embarrassing,” said Victor Cha, former director of Asian affairs for the U.S. National Security Council and now a Georgetown University professor.
The very public failure of this attempted display of military strength is indicative of two things. First, North Korea isn’t nearly the threat that Washington and the media try to make it out to be. And second, U.S. policy has failed to change the status quo in the authoritarian state.
Successive presidential administrations in Washington, along with a sensational media, have tried to paint North Korea as presenting some serious threat to the U.S. While it has nuclear weapons, it is ultimately a dysfunctional nation with a dilapidated military infrastructure, as this latest failed test illustrates.
The Obama administration has taken the approach of his predecessors in isolating North Korea diplomatically and sanctioning it economically. But more of this kind of engagement will not induce North Korea to become less belligerent.
“A policy of not engaging Pyongyang,” writes former CIA officer Paul Pillar, “was tried for several years under the previous administration, without success in preventing North Korea’s first nuclear tests.”
“Wise statesmen learn to abandon obsolete or unworkable policies,” writes Ted Galen Carpenter, senior fellow for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. “President Richard Nixon did so with his opening to China in 1972, and President Bill Clinton did so with his normalization of diplomatic and economic relations with Vietnam in the late 1990s. The results have been clearly positive in both cases” and Obama “needs to show the same judgment and courage by making a sustained effort at the highest level to establish something at least resembling a normal relationship with Pyongyang.”
Pakistan IS a soverign nation…NOT a serfdom of imperial warmonger amerika–Good for them.
North and South Korea united, this would create a nuclear threat to Japan and make all our military bases in and around China worthless.
That's japan's problem. And why should we have bases around China?
…“needs to show the same judgment and courage by making a sustained effort at the highest level to establish something at least resembling a normal relationship with Pyongyang.”…
What!?!?! And be labeled as guilty of bowing to another dictator, or worse, damaging the IMAGE of world supremacy of the US? I mean, actually talking to the North Koreans – how demeaning to American Exceptionalism!! Romney would be apoplectic and probably have to sic his Frau on Obama for being against women in uniform.
And the 3 stooges in the Senate would be all over that…
it did not fail to start the hand wringing, Kim must be laughing uop his sleve
The amount of ignorance displayed in some commentary sections regarding this issue is staggering. Yesterday I picked up the stories on Yahoo! News and it appeared that every redneck and yokel from New York to Los Angeles was posting about how fail the North Koreans are for having a dud missile. They weren't too happy when I pointedly asked how many US missiles and rockets fail in testing every year, and how long would it have taken us to reach this level of sophistication if it hadn't been for the work of the ex-Nazi (they LOVE that) von Braun heading up our space program. They also didn't like me asking how many North Koreans have died in failed launches or testing as compared to the US. Oh, no- you can't ask questions like that! It's… it's UNAMERICAN!
The fact is, the US is just butt-hurt because NK- like Iran- isn't knuckling under to US pressure. "Waaaaa they won't do what I say, Imma punch 'em in the face!" is pretty much the state of our foreign policy these days. All of the propaganda, all of the threats, all of the sanctions boil down to that one item- they're not doing what we say so they must be punished.