The leaders of China, Japan and South Korea say they will not tolerate further provocation from North Korea, amid fears that Pyongyang is preparing for a new nuclear test.
This is going to be a problem for North Korea because their military is rotting away at an accelerating rate. Years ago, North Korea thought that they could afford to rely on nuclear weapons to deter a foreign attack and rely on their secret police to keep the people and armed forces in line. The military--which cost too much money to keep happy--would no longer be a pillar of the regime but a potential threat. I called this a strategy of "kooks, spooks, and nukes."
I thought this was fairly risky if you keep the newly impoverished army around. But the North Koreans couldn't bring themselves to shrinking the army to a smaller but loyal force. In my mind, this just left an increasingly unhappy large body of armed men hanging around.
So The Un changed the policy to one of "military first." Given the lack of any resources, is it any wonder I was perplexed at the move?
Seriously, the maintenance of the "military first" policy begs the question of first for what?
I couldn't see what good it did to put the military at the head of a list to get what little North Korea had. Besides, the rulers obviously were first. Nobody in the elites was going to go without imported luxury goods for the sake of the army.
And as time goes on, the lack of any visible means of support for this policy is more clear:
So far this year over 50,000 have died of starvation in North Korea. To keep the death toll down the government has ordered the military to provide food from the military food reserves in areas where many civilians were near death. But the troops have been going hungry as well (but not starving) in the last few years in order to maintain the military food reserves. These are the "rainy day" food stores, and once gone, the government has nothing to use for emergencies. The reserves were also dipped into to provide the food "distributions" that accompanied the recent centennial celebration of founder Kim Il Sungs birth. Such food distributions always accompany national celebrations, if only to put the people in a celebratory mood. Even the military is suffering now, and families have been encouraged (often via threats by local officials) to send packages of food and other goodies to kin in the military. If morale collapses in the military the North Korean government is doomed.
Dudes, it's pouring. If the rulers try to shake down the usual victims with an attack on South Korean forces, the retaliation will be fast and large. China will not stand in the way, it seems.
Will North Korean military morale hold up under that kind of attack and that kind of abandonment?
