The U.S. Tightens the Screws on North Korea: Don’t We Have Other Things to Worry About?

In the midst of the Ukraine mishegas — and Saudi Arabia’s perfidy — we read in the New York Times this week that the Biden administration has added new North Korean sanctions, and sanctioned more companies in Asia that do business with the Kim regime.

We’ve said it before and we will say it again: if we don’t let North Korea do legitimate business with the world, it will do illegitimate business with the world. We wish that meant selling heroin and whatnot! But it does not. It means arms sales.

When Russia ran low on weaponry to pursue its criminal war on Ukraine, to whom did it turn for resupply? Iran and North Korea, of course, the two countries subject to the most severe global sanctions.

North Korea denies, implausibly, that it helped Russia, but its denials point to an important point: the hermit kingdom knows that helping Russian imperialists conquer a neighbor is wrong. There is a certain shame implied there. If it could have refused to help Russia, it would have refused to help Russia. But it had no choice.

Ukraine, in fact, demonstrates North Korea’s pickle. Russia invaded Ukraine; it would not have done this if Ukraine had kept its nuclear weapons. The U.S. has not put boots on the ground, because Russia is a nuclear power. If Russia were not a nuclear power, we likely would have sent troops to defend our Ukrainian ally, as we defended Kuwait years ago, when it was invaded by non-nuclear Iraq.

Now we ask North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. North Korea need only look to the example of the Ukraine and Kuwait invasions to see why that is a terrible idea.

And they might recall Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, by the way, who, like Ukraine, gave up nuclear weapons in exchange for good relations with the West, but wound up overthrown by the U.S. as thanks.

The fact is that if we lift sanctions, North Korea will never use its nuclear weapons, and we may negotiate controls to keep us all safe. And the next time we need a united global front, North Korea will be on our side.

If we keep sanctions, North Korea may be forced to sell its nuclear technology.

No matter how long the sanctions remain in effect, North Korea will never give up its nuclear weapons, because to do so would be idiotic, and they are not idiots.

One wonders how long we will keep forcing North Korea’s hand.

^^^

Content by Audere. Image by Geralt/Pixabay.