The Struggle Against American Power - OhmyNews International
The Struggle Against American Power
[Book Review] North Korea's nukes as a reaction to American threat
Timothy Savage (yamanin)
Print Article Published 2006-08-13 10:44 (KST)
©2006 Pluto Press
North Korea: The Struggle Against American Power
By Tim Beal
Pluto Press. 342 pages. $28.95
If the ongoing nuclear crisis with North Korea has accomplished nothing else, it has provided a great deal of employment to the chattering classes. Thanks to the widely accepted image of North Korea as a black box, just about anyone can claim to be an "expert" on the subject, even if they lack any background in Korean studies, knowledge of the language, or experience actually visiting the country. People like Jasper Becker, Gordon Chang, Michael Horowitz, and Jay Lefkowitz get book contracts, speaking engagements, and government jobs based solely on their willingness to accept and propagate the most negative views on the Pyongyang regime. In such a situation, it's refreshing when someone comes along who is willing to look at things from the other perspective, as Tim Beal does in his recent book.
The basic premise of Beal's work is an undeniable but oft-overlooked truth: namely, that the balance of military and economic power on the Korean Peninsula vastly favors the United States and its allies. While hawks in Washington make much of the threat posed by Pyongyang's small arsenal of nuclear weapons (if indeed they even exist), the reality is that the United States enjoys absolute superiority in ever measure of military power, both nuclear and conventional. This fact, well known and well understood by all parties in the dispute, serves as an effective brake on any aggressive action by North Korea, and has done so for the past 50 years. As Beal rightly argues,
"[North Korea's nuclear weapon] could not be used for 'blackmail' as is frequently alleged... Pyongyang cannot say to Washington, 'Give us $100 billion and normalise relations or we will drop one of our eight atomic bombs on Los Angeles.' That really is not feasible. What is feasible for North Korea, if it had the capability, is to threaten to retaliate if attacked. In other words, a deterrent and no more than that." (pp. 181-182)
Beal also questions the popular image of North Korea on such issues as drug running, counterfeiting, and human rights violations. In doing so, Beal avoids acting as an apologist for the regime, instead simply pointing out that many of the charges against Pyongyang are leveled based on very little evidence by people pushing an agenda -- usually regime change. Still, Beal is not immune to charges of selectivity with his own use of evidence. While raising some valid questions about some high profile cases that have been cited as evidence of the DPRK government's complicity in trafficking, he pointedly ignores the instances of North Korean diplomats being caught traveling with contraband, for instance.
There are other flaws in the book, some of which could have easily been avoided with a good fact-checker. The 16th century Japanese warlord Hideyoshi never held the rank of Shogun; North Korea captured the U.S.S. Pueblo in 1968 (not 1961 as the book claims); and the South Korean communist leader Park Hun-young was purged in 1955 (not 1995). New York Times report David Sanger's name is twice misspelled as "Sangster." While none of these errors detract from Beal's overall argument, they mostly occur in the early part of the book, which focuses on historical background. This is unfortunate, as the information in these chapters will already be familiar to students of Korean history, and is not reliable enough to serve as a primer for newcomers to the subject.
Beal's discussion of the relations between the two Koreas makes several valid points, but also appears a bit out of date. He argues, persuasively, that many of the actions that North Korea's detractors say qualify it for rogue status -- covert WMD programs, widespread jailing of dissidents, assassination of political opponents, the use of demonizing propaganda in the educational system -- were also prevalent in South Korea during the years of military dictatorship.
He fails, however, to give adequate attention to the changes wrought by 20 years of democratization in the South, and of the failure of a similar process to take root in the North. This historical myopia causes difficulties in other parts of his analysis: in some places, he seems impressed by the willingness of recent South Korean administrations to buck the U.S. on North Korea; at other times, he just can't seem to shake the notion that South Korea remains an American "client state."
But it is the discussion of the nuclear issue that is at the same time the strongest and the most disappointing part of Beal's book. Beal correctly emphasizes the hypocrisy in the concept of "nonproliferation" in general and of U.S. nonproliferation policy in particular.
It is often overlooked, either on purpose or because we are all so buffetted with propaganda, that no country has any particular right to nuclear weapons to the exclusion of others. Much of the discussion on the issue automatically assumes that it is natural for the US to have nuclear weapons, so natural that its possession of them is not even mentioned, while on the other hand it is presumed that it is immoral and threatening for North Korea to develop them. Such double standards are unacceptable..." (p. 203).This point is well-taken. The United States and the other five "accepted" nuclear powers have ignored their obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to move toward disarmament. This fact is a major reason for the increasing
There are other flaws in the book, some of which could have easily been avoided with a good fact-checker. The 16th century Japanese warlord Hideyoshi never held the rank of Shogun; North Korea captured the U.S.S. Pueblo in 1968 (not 1961 as the book claims); and the South Korean communist leader Park Hun-young was purged in 1955 (not 1995). New York Times report David Sanger's name is twice misspelled as "Sangster." While none of these errors detract from Beal's overall argument, they mostly occur in the early part of the book, which focuses on historical background. This is unfortunate, as the information in these chapters will already be familiar to students of Korean history, and is not reliable enough to serve as a primer for newcomers to the subject.
Beal's discussion of the relations between the two Koreas makes several valid points, but also appears a bit out of date. He argues, persuasively, that many of the actions that North Korea's detractors say qualify it for rogue status -- covert WMD programs, widespread jailing of dissidents, assassination of political opponents, the use of demonizing propaganda in the educational system -- were also prevalent in South Korea during the years of military dictatorship.
He fails, however, to give adequate attention to the changes wrought by 20 years of democratization in the South, and of the failure of a similar process to take root in the North. This historical myopia causes difficulties in other parts of his analysis: in some places, he seems impressed by the willingness of recent South Korean administrations to buck the U.S. on North Korea; at other times, he just can't seem to shake the notion that South Korea remains an American "client state."
But it is the discussion of the nuclear issue that is at the same time the strongest and the most disappointing part of Beal's book. Beal correctly emphasizes the hypocrisy in the concept of "nonproliferation" in general and of U.S. nonproliferation policy in particular.
It is often overlooked, either on purpose or because we are all so buffetted with propaganda, that no country has any particular right to nuclear weapons to the exclusion of others. Much of the discussion on the issue automatically assumes that it is natural for the US to have nuclear weapons, so natural that its possession of them is not even mentioned, while on the other hand it is presumed that it is immoral and threatening for North Korea to develop them. Such double standards are unacceptable..." (p. 203).This point is well-taken. The United States and the other five "accepted" nuclear powers have ignored their obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to move toward disarmament. This fact is a major reason for the increasing
©2006 OhmyNews
No comments:
Post a Comment