North Korea Follow-Up

 

North Korea gets stranger by the day.

The bellicose pronouncements are probably just the usual verbal diarrhea coming from Pyongyang.

However, if militaries and rockets are on the ready, then who knows what hair-pin trigger response could set-off a war?  Remember August, 1914.

Third Way, a think tank I recommend, has a great report to educate you on North Korea.

Here are some main points from Third Way on what the American response should be:

1. The U.S. will defend allies and ourselves with a planned deployment of more missile interceptors in Alaska.
2. The U.S. has made progress convincing the international community to crack down on Pyongyang even further.
3. Given the threat, the U.S. must maintain a robust military presence in Asia to maintain the peace in the Asia-Pacific region.
4. The U.S. needs to work with China – North Korea’s only ally – to achieve a lasting peace.

This last point is a difficult one.

We don’t really know China’s true goals.

Is it mainly military?  Or it is mainly economic?

The truth is – it’s both.  You can’t separate military power from economic power; one enforces the other.

I want to believe this:  China’s military is just be backing up their economic needs.

I am backing on these two facts:

Chinese leaders need to keep billions of people happy, prosperous, and working or face some civil unrest.

China needs the U.S. and our massive amounts of consumption to keep Chinese workers working.

If these purely economic motives are right, then to maintain that economic balance, the Chinese need to control and protect economic resources.  Unfortunately, a lot of those resources are in the waters off the coasts of their Asian neighbors or in the ground in Africa.

As part of the strategy, China may use North Korea – along with Iran and the Middle East — to keep the U.S. occupied with time and resources so the Chinese can control the world’s natural resources for themselves and not the over-consuming Americans.

I will have more coming up on what China is doing in Africa in future posts and podcasts. Stay tuned

Tagged as: Africa and natural resources, Kim Jong Un, North Korea, Third Way, war with China