DJ: Kim Jong Il Says US Troops Can Stay After Roh Surrenders Next Week

4 Responses to This Entry

1. Lankov on October 01, 2007 @ 5:28 am

   Hm… “More northward deployment”? Well, I would not count on it. Not too soon, anyway. Theoretically, you are 100% right: Russia is bound to have problems with China, sooner or later, so it makes perfect sense to side with the US to keep Chinese at bay. However, you should not underestimate the degree of the anti-American nationalism, now a very powerful force in Russia. Western press often presents it as if the “evil ex-KGB” Putin manipulates those simple-minded Russians, making them hate Americans. Alas, this is not the case. Putin and Co. uses the mood, they also encourage it to some extent, but the mood itself had been growing since the mid-90s, well before Putin took power. This mood is irrational, to be sure, but this does not really matter. Americans are seen as a force which has triumphed over Mother Russia, and Russians cannot like it. They dream of revanche, they feel happy when Americans are in trouble (even when these troubles are likely to influence them as well)and they sympathize with all forces which challenge America. Nowadays no Russian politician, ex-KGB or not, can loose votes by being too harsh on the Americans. This is stupidity, I know, but I think it will last for a long time. A recent research indicated that the most anti-American people in Russia are college-educated youth in major cities, and this tells volumes about the prospects for the near future. May be, it will continue until it will be too late.

2. Sperwer on October 01, 2007 @ 3:45 pm

   DJ’s position is not difficult to understand.  The ROK undoubtedly would love to have the US not only finance the security of the entire peninsula vis-a-vis China (and Russia?), just as it has that of South Korea for 62 years, and even act as the pointy end of the stick shaken in their eyes in order to give Koreans the room to maneuver to regain and maintain control of the entire peninsula (rolling back some of the inroads made by the Chinese with the NORKS’ reluctant acquiesence (it was only “inevitable” and hence subject to being reneged on by the Koreans)(and indulge in some irredentist sabre-rattling of their own in re Goguryeo territory?).

   In the meantime, ROK and NORK, undoubtedly, will offer the US untold opportunities to contribute to the least profitable, i.e., unprofitable, development schemes for the North while, in SOP neo-mercantilist fashion, continuing to reserve the real business opportunities for ROK companies, which will then have untold opportunities of their own to engage in the sort of corrupt crony capitalism in which they are so expert but for which there is less scope in the ROK itself nowadays. And why shouldn’t the self-described little turd share such a Korean strategy?  In the meantime, as long as he makes himself and his regime the tar baby that Uncle Sam can’t shake, he improves his own and its chances of long term survival and/or decisive influence on the character of whatever Korean polity - confederation, federation, unitary state - succeeds the current Arnold/Danny duo.  The only compelling question is whether Uncle Sucker will go for it.

3. Stromfels on October 09, 2007 @ 9:35 pm

   Well, it`d be a political suicide for anyone who grants Russian territory for a foreign military base (especially for NATO or American troops).
   There weren`t foreign garrisons (in peace time) since the end of the 15th century.

4. Rand Millar on October 10, 2007 @ 7:08 am

   Many thanks Brendon Carr for your thoughtful if pungent comments on the slow dance toward a united Korea, and for the worthy responses you evoke. Prof. Lankov seems squarely on the mark about the current state of Mother Russia’s soul and its practical implications for USA foreign policy, in Northeast Asia and elsewhere. Sperwer has a good nose for likely Korean behavior as the Kim family regime deathstar deforms while settling further into terra firma. A presumptuous question: will Lee Myung-bak’s apparent lack of principle and penchant for grandiosity be a boon or a bane for whatever survival strategy the head Hennessy drinker has?

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