RoK Navy Ships Like Those Involved in Skirmish

The navies of North and South Korea engaged in a brief, 2-3 minute, skirmish that resulted in the North Korean ship returning to port for repair. The engagement occurred after a North Korean ship apparently ventured across a limit line off the west coast of the peninsula and then failed to heed an extended volley of warning shots. There were no South Korean casualties.

There seems to be a widespread belief that the North Koreans engaged in the provocation to send a signal in advance of President Obama’s impending  trip to Asia. Incidentally, the US recently announced that it would send a special envoy, Stephen Bosworth, to North Korea to engage in talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.  Of course, this rationale may or may not be accurate. For all we know, the North Korean captain and crew were attempting to carry out a “Hunt-for-Red-October-esque” defection plot. However, the hypothesis about sending a message does seem consistent with North Korean behavior historically, which tends toward the provocative and crisis bargaining.

Assuming that the North Korean action is an attempt to either send a message or influence behavior, what is the goal and how does Kim Jong Il imagine this behavior will translate into his objective? From this side of the street one might assume that the provocative action is designed to push the Obama Administration away from the negotiating table. One does not have to have a great understanding of American politics to understand that the more North Korea engages in provocation, the more it makes it impossible for President Obama to extend an olive branch. While the President may enjoy creating a more peaceful tone for global diplomacy and a large swath of the American citizenry may support him in this, he is also well aware that politically he cannot afford to respond to aggression with conversation or concession. More broadly than just the President, the Democratic Party realizes that one of its greatest Achilles’ Heels is an appearance of weakness that the American public finds unappealing in times of crisis. Of course, this assumes that Kim Jong Il has internalized the old lesson from Sun Tzu, and that he knows his enemy as well as himself. The evidence doesn’t seem to support this in that what Kim Jong Il says he wants often seems to be paired with actions that are designed to do anything but achieve his stated goals.

A second possibility is that Kim wants to negotiate but wants to avoid starting from a position in which his country is seen as the weak party in the negotiation. I suspect this is what most people refer to when they say that Kim Jong Il ordered his Navy to be provocative because of Obama’s visit. This raises the question of how provoking a naval force whose capabilities seem to be several generations ahead of yours achieves this goal. The somewhat predictable outcome of the North Korean ship returning to port in flames while the South Korean ships remain untouched does not seem to bode well for an expression of strength. However, there is an alternative to showing strength by might, and that is showing strength by way of the will to be kooky. That is, Kim Jong Il may be saying: “Look I know my country is poor and seems too weak to have leverage, but I am willing to press things to the limit so don’t discount me.”

There is another possibility, and that derives from the inability to segregate domestic from foreign messages. That is, Kim Jong Il may be trying to convince his people that the dynasty is still alive and well without having any intended message for actors abroad. I have not heard much about Kim Jong Il’s successor in all this, but internally there may be an attempt to build some gravitas for him.

I don’t know what resides in the mind of Kim Jong Il or Kim Jong Un, but it seems clear they need better advice on strategy.

Yesterday the New York Timesreported that the Obama administration had judged that there was a high likelihood that the North Korean freighter, Kang Nam, was probably just leading the US on a wild goose chase. In other words, that the rusty ship probably had no illicit cargo onboard, and was hoping that it could draw the US or one of America’s allies into the embarrasing position of searching the boat only to find no booty. (See: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/world/asia/01sanger.html?hp)

The US Navy has been tracking and monitoring the ship’s movements since it left North Korean waters, and it had earlier been speculated that the ship might contain a small arms shipment for Burma. The question has been whether UN Security Council Resolution 1874 that encourages states to board and search North Korean vessels suspected of violating the arms export embargo would be put to the test. The DPRK had said it would consider such a search a violation of its sovereignty, and an act of war.  (See: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2009/sc9679.doc.htm)

The latest news seems to be that the Kang Nam has turned around, and, for the moment, is headed back in the direction of North Korea. (See: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-tc-nw-briefs-0630-07014jul01,0,3444662.story)

There has been speculation about the rationale for making such a jaunt, but it seems to be a quite beneficial test for the DPRK. I think the little vessel’s voyage is disconcerting. If North Korea wants to ship missiles in order to earn some funds, one of the few ways it is able to, then it would not send those missiles out on the first voyage. Rather, conducting a test is a win – win for the Kim’s. If they don’t get searched, they gain confidence that they won’t be searched in the future – as long as the level of intelligence remains the same. If they had been boarded, they would have also made it hard for the US to repeat the venture in the future without a much higher standard of intelligence. It is true that they would have had to deal with the fact that they had said such a search would be an act of war, but since the Korean War is not legally over, the Kim’s could worm their way out of that threat at low-cost manner.  The question of the day is what happens if the next time the Kang Nam goes out (or the third time or the sixth time) it does have missiles on it. We can’t count on having better information, so at best there is the lucky guess possibility. For those who want to dismiss the Kim dynasty leaders as irrational and incompetent (and I, myself, have certainly had trouble accounting for some behaviors with motives other than childishness or narcissism), consider the masterstroke of this gambit.

Is Iran on the verge of a revolution? Can Kim Jong Un maintain power if his father transfers it to him in the near future? Are we seeing the leading indicators of America’s decline in conditions like debt that is completely out of control, failing business giants, the crippling costs of persistent asymmetric warfare, and looming unaddressed crises such as the mathematically infeasible pay-go social security system? What will the rise of massive high-growth emerging economies mean for world affairs? What will the world look like politically, economically, and diplomatically 3 months from now?; 6 months?; 1 year?; 2 years?  

We are living in interesting times. We could be on the precipice of some very major changes to the international system. Sometimes change is slow and evolutionary; sometimes it is faster and more revolutionary; and, rarely but occasionally, the conditions evolve to converge to the point where it is catastrophically instantaneous. There is a vigorous tug of war in progress between inertia and the winds of change.

I would love to be able to make some definitive predictions about what the world will look like next year. Like the vast majority of people, I am motivated by discomfort with uncertainty to want to think that I can have a grasp on how events will unfold. However, the lesson (an unintended lesson to be sure) that has most stuck with me in completing graduate degrees in International Relations and Economics  is that anyone who thinks they can predict the future unfolding of large-scale political and economic events is full of crap. This will no doubt be considered heresy to many who have made lucrative livings because we (as a species) would rather pay millions to someone who makes an incorrect prediction than to accept that we have no idea what will transpire. One can read papers that misapply probabilistic and statistical models in some of the most elite scholarly journals because even the most educated of our society are addicted to thinking that the future can be known in a system whose level of complexity remains beyond our capacity to unravel.

My advice to those trying to get a handle on the future, save your soothsayer money, hedge your bets, and enjoy the ride.

No one is more aware of the impermanence of power than old revolutionaries. Individuals who helped topple a government know that angry young men and women, spitting images  of themselves in their former glory, have a vast capacity to turn energy and passion into the death knell of an ineffective, corrupt, or abusive regime.

One approach to ensuring longevity and stability of a new government, as codified in the documents of America’s Founding Fathers,  is to accept the power of people to determine their own governance through democratic elections, rule of law, and limitations on the length and number of terms that office holders can serve. Another approach is to rely on propaganda, brutal suppression, targeted vote buying, and cultivation of cults of personality to maintain a passive populace. Authoritarian regimes have been dying off in the modern era, but are still more common than one would like. However, we are seeing interesting times for a couple of world’s remaining non-democratic revolutionary-born governments including, most notably, Iran and North Korea.

In essence, a non-democratic revolutionary government needs to create a successor to the divine right of kings argument. This argument was historically used to convince people of why they should accept rule by tyrannical forces who showed little or no interest in the citizenry’s well-being. This is unless, of course, you are a country such as Iran where the ”god-as-guarantor of earthly governors” argument still holds sway.  

Communist governents are noted for attempting to delude the people that they, as the citizenry, are, in fact,  in power- or in the process of being handed the reigns of power. One need look no further than the adoption of names, such as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea(there are at least three things wrong with that name), to see the great effort made to convey to an oppressed people a false sense of empowerment. If truth-in-advertising ruled, Kim Il Sung would have named the country the Tyrannical Kim Dynasty House of Famine in Korea, but this would not have kept the pitchforks at bay. Communist regimes tell the members their populace that they are, as George Orwell described, all equal- except in that “some pigs are more equal than others.”  Of course, when you have no power, you are keenly aware of it, and so this leaves control of information, movement, and assembly as the true means by which the old revolutionaries keep from becoming the  former revolutionaries.

In some sense, the Ayatollah Khamenei’s dictates about how election dissent will be handled seem promising. He has suggested the possibility of an investigation, and has taken actions designed to calm civil unrest pending an investigation. However, he has also asked the foreign press to leave. This is, of course, precisely the thing a government does if it wants to crack heads with impunity, and without losing all appearance of legitimacy abroad. Khamenei seems to be hedging his bets by leaving open a variety of counter-revolutionary activities (note: I am not using this term in the manner that it has come to be used by Communist regimes, which is to say that a counter-revolution is any revolution that throws Communists out on their butts)  designed to ensure the theocracy holds.

I suspect the odd behavior of North Korea of late is also tied to regime control concerns. In this case, Kim Jong Il wants to continue the dynasty begun by his father, but his chosen successor is untried and vulnerable. Kim Jong Un needs to establish some credibility quick or the days of the House of Kim may be numbered. Of course, Kim Jong Il came upon a sure-fire strategy to keep the people from rising up. It includes all the usual element such as spying on them, beating any dissenters down violently, and building a cult of personality,  but it goes further to ensure that the population is starved half to death and are too busy foraging for sustenance to organize an opposition. However, the military will remain a threat unless Kim Jong Un’s primacy can be established.

In the past I have always found the Central News Agency of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) (see: http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm) to be less than compelling and rarely worthy of examination. The stories are generally about how such-and-such Sub-Saharan African dictator sent congratulations to Kim Jong Il, or how the North Korean People wished to pay their respects to such-and-such nation. In essence, it was not only propaganda, but propaganda of the dullest and most mundane sort imaginable.

However, in recent weeks it is becoming increasingly worthwhile to visit the Agency’s site. Oh, it is still wild propaganda, but it is entertaining propaganda. Consider some of the current headlines:

“US Wild Ambition to Dominate Whole of Korea Can Never Come True”

“US Termed Chief Culprit of Nuclear Proliferation”

“Japanese Reactionaries Urged to Stop Their Rash Acts”

This last one is particularly amusing. It essentially rebukes elements inside Japan who would like that country to develop nuclear weapons. The irony is, of course, that the only way the Japanese will be sufficiently motivated to make major changes in their law as required to build a nuclear arsenal is in response to the continued provocations of their nutty newly nuclear neighbor who is constantly shooting missile tests across their bow lately.

Today the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed sanctions against North Korea consisting primarily of a complete arms export embargo and a partial arms import embargo. The big news seems to be China’s support for these efforts. While Chinese diplomats were careful to state that inspections must be carried out in accordance with international law, and, therefore, the sanctions did not equate to open season on DPRK shipping, they did go along with the provisions as stipulated. The Chinese don’t want a nuclear armed Japan any more than the North Koreans do. The difference is that the Chinese recognize that the way to avoid a Japan with nuclear weapons is a sane and stable North Korea.

Besides the long-range missile test that was earlier estimated would take place early next week, it will be interesting to see of what the North Korean response consists. As I have mentioned before, when you go as provocative as nuclear weapons tests, it is hard to up the ante without risking war. While the North Korean rhetoric is harsh, it is difficult to imagine what North Korea can do besides the same old bag of tricks it has been playing.

The 32nd Session of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) is going on June 8-9, 2009. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) would prohibit all nuclear tests. A 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) outlawed testing of nuclear explosive devices in space, underwater, or in the atmosphere, but left open the option of subterranean tests.

The CTBT is being talked about more these days with a US administration that supports its implementation and a Congress more likely to ratify. However, the US is only one of nine Annex 2 states that must ratify the CTBT for it to enter into force. Of course, among the nine is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK.) Should it come down to North Korea holding things up, there would probably be adequate support for amending the Treaty requirements to eliminate the need for their cooperation. The Kim government has demonstrated a desire be an outlier from the non-proliferation and disarmament regime by withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as well as by being the only state to conduct tests in recent years.

However, that still leaves seven Annex 2 countries that have not ratified the Treaty including: China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, and Pakistan. All of these states are within the regime, and their participation will be critical. Of these, Iran provides an interesting case. Its ratification of the CTBT might be made part of a negotiated agreement that would end opposition to their fuel cycle facility development provided they enact Additional Protocols to ease concerns about diversion. Iran can convincingly argue that they have a right under the NPT’s Article IV to develop a fuel cycle infrastructure to support the nuclear power plant they have under construction at Bushehr, and in the realm of isotopic separation medical technology as well as fuel cycle arguments apply. However, there is no reasonable explanation for opposition to nuclear explosive testing unless you desire to retain the capacity to build  nuclear weapons. That is, if their intent is truly the peaceful use of nuclear energy and medical isotope development as they have said, they should have no objection to prohibitions on testing. The myth of a utility to be gained from Peaceful Nuclear Explosions (PNE) seems to have long since been put to bed.

Other opponents, such as Egypt and India, object primarily on the basis that the CTBT might help to institutionalize a “have – have-not” division with respect to nuclear weapons. If such countries are true to their word, their perception of the US and Russia’s good-faith efforts to disarm will be critically important to obtaining their ratification. I remain skeptically that the CTBT can enter into force, but am interested in the views of others.

It is interesting to note that, despite the fact that the CTBT has not entered into force, the verification system consisting of four types of monitoring stations (Seismic, Infrasonic, Hydro-acoustic, and Radionuclide stations that measure the force and direction of an explosion through the ground, air, and water respectively, plus determining the nuclear nature of the test [i.e. radionuclide stations]) is up and running with partial capacity. While the system is not yet completely on-line, it has been useful in providing information about the two North Korean nuclear device tests.  

Tiananmen 19 Years After the Massacre

Today marks the 20th Anniversary of the tragic crack down against protesters on the broad open Tiananmen Square in the heart of the Chinese capitol. This action left hundreds, perhaps as many as a couple thousand, dead, and countless more were injured. There have been a large number of stories in the news this week about suppression of Internet sites as part of the Chinese government’s approach to handling the anniversary. This approach, which is said to go beyond limiting Internet access to putting family members of some victims under house-arrest, is a tragedy itself.

One would like to think there has been growth in governance in China that, even if it cannot keep up with the  rapid pace of economic growth, demonstrates forward progress and momentum. Because China has risen to such an important place in the global community, one might expect that its leaders would have begun to build the requisite level of courage and sophistication to do the people’s business well. Unfortunately, repression of people and information sources is an indication that governance is still immature in China, and is far from what the Chinese people deserve.

China is a spectacular place, and its people intelligent, industrious, and kind. As much as China has become a dominant force in recent years, I expect it will see yet a greater age in the future.  A government so cowardly as to prohibit its people from mourning, and so imbecilic as to think it can achieve some equilibrium under which its people are kept ignorant of detrimental information while accessing all the information necessary as a 21st century economic powerhouse, cannot stand, and will either evolve or be supplanted. With better governance, it is hard to fathom the limits for China. I don’t buy that Chinese government needs to look like Western governments, I suspect that its form of governance may end up being uniquely Chinese. They certainly have the history to know good from bad government. I just suspect that it will have to be of higher quality.

I was in Beijing last summer, about one year ago precisely (hence the caption on the photo.)  I noticed then that I couldn’t access my WordPress account to make any blog posts. It had worked just fine in Japan, which I visited immediately prior to traveling to Beijing, and more recently when I made a number of posts from Hungary at Christmas time. I had heard many times about China’s restrictions on the Internet, but it was an interesting and frustrating experience to experience it first hand.

I have heard that there are several approaches to censorship practiced around the world. Apparently, some Middle Eastern nations show you a screen that tells you that you are trying to go to a prohibited site. In China, the computer would just time out trying to get to the blocked site. Of course, there are various things that countries are attempting to achieve by way of censorship. Some are trying to enforce a moral code by barring access to pornography or the like, and others are trying to prevent illegal activity that may take place on otherwise legal sites (e.g. Craig’s List.) China’s government is trying to prevent people from learning things that would make the government appear inept, would let the citizenry know that there is potentially a better life available to them, or might create revolutionary momentum.

This is, of course, a dominant Communist tactic for maintaining the Party’s frontispiece of equality and prosperity. In reality, withholding information in the Information Age is like trying to bail out a boat with a pasta strainer – an exercise in futility. It is difficult enough for a dictatorship like that of Kim Jong Il, for which prosperity is irrelevant and the survival of the dynasty is everything. However, this attempt to control information is really a comic farce in a country as linked into the global economy as is China. The government’s fear may have true roots to be certain. No government can stand against a billion person opposition should it arise, but the lesson they need to learn is that more freedom doesn’t necessarily mean more risk of overthrow, it may well mean less.

I recently read a book by Chinese-American immigrant author Anchee Min who told her story about growing up in China. She said that she had been a virulently anti-American Mao supporter as a child. Then someone in the hutong got a television. They all gathered around to watch, and the process changed her worldview. The government-directed news programming showed a labor protest in Chicago, and was meant to convey the oppression of the capitalist working man. However, the take-away for the girl (and perhaps others that evening) was that the workers were well-dressed, well-fed, and, in the background, there were signs of prosperity and wealth beyond the girl’s comprehension.

James Michener in Bridge at Andau, conveys a story that has a similar take away about the capacity to conceal information in the modern era, or the lack thereof. In this case, a Hungarian man was at a soccer match in Budapest and met a couple guys who had traveled from Austria to catch the game. The long and the short of the experience was that the Austrians did similar factory work as the Hungarian, but had vastly higher standards of living. This was, of course, not the official line that the Hungarians were hearing from the government in those early years of the Cold War.

Day-by-day it becomes more difficult to deceive a populace, particularly if you want to be integrated into the larger world and accrue the benefits of commerce and international influence that follow. Certainly the Chinese government has made progress since the days of Mao in which brutal oppression ruled the day. However, there remains the need for the Chinese government to develop the courage necessary to let the truth be known. I suspect their days are numbered if they do not. At least this is my hope for the Chinese people.

On April 5th, President Obama gave a masterful speech in Prague, the later half of which was devoted to the topic of nuclear disarmament. The speech began with an homage to people who acted on a belief that change could be achieved against an overwhelming sentiment that it could not (referring, of course, to the Cold War), and then implied that people of the same ilk were needed to advance disarmament in a similar manner.

Those wishing to see any momentum that may have been created by this speech derailed could hardly ask for better intervening world events. North Korea conducted its second test of a nuclear device, and, in the process, displayed an improved capability had been achieved. Following the nuclear test, they proceeded to set off short-range missiles like  some sort of Independence Day display, and it appears that they are preparing for a long-range missile test in up-coming weeks. Meanwhile, the Iran front remains unchanged. In other words, the Iranians are getting progressively closer to having an infrastructure that would support making weapons-grade fissile material in sufficient quantities within a reasonable time period, and this is making many countries (re: Israel) really unnerved.

It might be argued that such events are a potential boon to disarmament because they underscore the nature of the threat and give impetus for positive action. After all, nonproliferation is unlikely to go anywhere without the major nuclear weapon states showing progress toward disarmament. If the 2010 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference turns out to be a carryover from 2005, then we can expect backward and not forward momentum on nonproliferation. 

Unfortunately, I suspect that current events do not bode well for advancing the agenda President Obama laid out in his Prague Speech. Nuclear weapon states will only ease their grasp if they feel relatively safe from the threat of attack by states. I emphasize “by states” because I don’t think world leaders give much sway to deterrence as a strategy against nuclear terrorism, but they are pretty confident about the value of deterrence against states. While the threat of nuclear terrorism may (or may not) be on the rise, I don’t think that is a non-starter for disarmament. However, the same cannot be said of risk from states.

As the President stated, nuclear disarmament is not likely to be achieve quickly. There were a number of steps that were laid out that are considered intermediary steps including: reduction of the relevance of nuclear weapons to overall security, bilateral reductions between US and Russia, enactment the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), verifiable implementation of the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT), strengthening of inspection authority, development of a fuel bank, and progress with North Korea and Iran.

The question is whether all of these are necessary, and, if so, whether any of them are intractable. Take, for example, the question of verifiability of the FMCT. The Bush Administration dropped this treaty supposedly because it was “impossible” to verify. The present administration seems to take as a forgone conclusion that it can be verified. This tells us one of two things. The best case scenario is that the two camps are working under different assumptions about what constitutes a minimally acceptable level of verification. I say this is the “best case” because there would ostensibly be underlying facts that could be agreed upon, and, therefore, there would be a map to understand what would be necessary to move towards a negotiated agreement (e.g. what technological developments.) The worst case is that politics is leading the facts and science- in which case there may be no room for agreement. By “politics leading” I mean that either the Bush Administration started from from the position that they did not want to support the FMCT and found arguing the unprovable case of non-verifiability a good means to quash it, or the Obama Administration started from the position that they wanted the FMCT and knew it required arguing that it was, in fact, verifiable, or, given the possibility that no one knows the answer yet, both of the above. If this is the case, then there is no incentive for either side to reduce ambiguity, and little prospect for moving forward.

When there is a point of intractability, one needs to determine whether there is a new approach to the subject that can be taken, and what it might be. Too often there is a failure to recognize points of intractability, and then to be creative about how to change the underlying conditions to one where progress is possible.

We are now on missile test number seven, following the test of a nuclear device by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). The Obama Administration’s stance seems to be: “just let baby Kim Jong Il do his thing, he’ll cry himself to sleep.” Secretary Gates has indicated that he has seen no reason to suggest a build up of forces on the peninsula, and the US is not taking any action that might be seen as escalatory.

I am not being critical of this strategy as it seems about the only reasonable course to take without having any better understanding of the motivations and thinking that inform Kim Jong Il’s behavior. It would be nice to have a good historical analogy as a guide to what strategy might best be employed. However, the most apropos analogy seems to be a thug that wants something and has decided to act out until others relent. If Kim Jong Il were trying to provoke the US into war, he could easily enough do that by artillery attacks on the South. This would guarantee a fight. However, it is difficult to imagine what Kim might think he could gain from getting into a war with an opposition that holds advantages in every area except perhaps raw number of servicemen. While I have no doubt that, like many dictators, he may be a little deluded as a result of his own narcissism and being surrounded by people too fearful to tell him how the world really is, I doubt that he finds the risk of war acceptable. Furthermore, I have trouble with the idea that Kim Jong Il is trying to get the rest of the world to give him some space while he gets his “house” in order with respect to transition, because his actions are designed to do anything but get others off his back. However, I can believe that there is a domestic driver to his behavior. It is certainly possible that he is trying to show no weakness to those within the DPRK as he tries to set up Kim Jong Un for successorship. He might be worried that certain elements smell blood in the water.

The options seem to be: contain and ignore, attack and destroy, or relent and be played. Attacking North Korea would be exceedingly costly given their ability to reign down artillery on heavily populated areas of South Korea. I’ve heard this capacity is pretty well hardened against possible preemption. Relenting just takes us down a dangerous path that we have been before, and it encourages bad behavior in others. This leaves the option of letting Kim do as he pleases as long as his activities don’t become a direct threat, and not giving him the attention and concessions he seeks, as probably the best course at the moment.  

It should be noted that there is also the argument that the tests are a signal to potential arms buyers. I would not be surprised if this were true. I am presuming /hoping that during the period when the IAEA and US were verifying dismantlement that there were  samples taken at the reprocessing facility such that attribution could be definitively made if a nuclear device using North Korean material were to go off anywhere in the world. It must be made clear to the DPRK that if a nuclear explosion occurs using their material anywhere in the world and by any perpetrator, they suffer massive retaliation.

Source: CIA Factbook

North Korea followed up on its underground test of a nuclear explosive device with two missile tests while the intervening hours were filled with statements of outrage by world leaders. The South Koreans have since responded by announcing their intent to formally join onto the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). The PSI is designed to hinder trafficking of materials and technologies used in Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) production by way of inspections of suspect ships, containers, and vehicles transiting through the participant’s territory or territorial waters. The North Koreans are on-record publicly opposing South Korea’s participation even on an ad hoc basis as it has in the past. The South Korean response will no doubt spur further attempts to up the ante from Kim Jong Il. 

Of course, by going to a high level of provocation with the tests, there is little Kim Jong Il (or whoever controls the country in the future, e.g. Kim Jong Un) can do without a severe risk of overplaying his hand. No doubt the appeal of the tests for Kim is that they are concrete actions, and, therefore, have more effect than mere rhetoric – which no one need take particularly seriously because of its low cost. However, what action do you follow up nuclear and missile tests with, if you are not eager to get into a war that will likely pit the rest of the world against you?

On the other hand, the international community also has limited acceptable options. Certainly, there exists, given the lack of economic self-sufficiency of the DPRK, an ability to make life hard on the North Korean people, but nobody is eager to further starve people who are already suffering and who do not have means to control the provocative decisions of their leaders. One has to feel bad for the North Korean people who have experienced famine in a region otherwise characterized by rapid growth and development (i.e. famine solely due to bad governance), and who will no doubt suffer more before this escalatory spiral has played out. That being said, to give in to such escalatory provocations will put us back on a path we have all too many times trod before.  

Had Saddam Hussein not been executed, I would suggest Kim Jong Il give him a call and get some tips for opulent living in a spider hole.