We all see and hear what goes on over there. Kim will execute kids if they don’t cheer hard enough at his birthday party or something? He’s always threatening to nuke countries and is probably has the highest domestic kill count out of any world leader today.
So I ask? Why don’t any other countries step in to help those people. I saw a survey asking Americans and Escaped North Koreans would they migrate to North Korea and to the US if given the chance (hypothetical for the refugees). And it was like <0.1% to 95%. Obviously those people live in terror.
Why do we just allow this to happen in modern civilization? Nukes on South Korea? Is just not lucrative to step in? SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO ME PLEASE!?
Generally countries in the west only get involved in conflicts if they get something out of it, be it directly via getting wealth from the country, or indirectly like curbing successful non-capitalistic economies before they catch on and their own people start questioning the billionaires. The “we’re there to liberate people” is just marketing speech.
I wonder why you say “countries in the west” and not just “countries”. It’s not like, I don’t know, Banín is shouting about North Korea every day and nobody listens.
I don’t know enough about how the rest of the world runs to generalise further
The US has invested a lot in its capacity to police the world (just look at how many bases we have around the world). So it’s logical to ask why the US would or wouldn’t police something. And usually before the US polices something with force, they start talking about it publicly.
Benin has no such capacity or intentions and so neither polices anything nor telegraphs its opinions.
You’re saying that no one with empathy has any power to help these people?
It’s not a lack of empathy as much as a kind of educated empathy. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as they say. We historically have a notorious and awful track record of nation building, and I think a lot of people believe this boils down to the fact that it’s very difficult to impose a national identity on people from outside, even with direct, physical intervention. We have tried to get around this at times by only supporting what we believe are legitimate independence movements which clearly already possess a strong national identity. Unfortunately even those tend to devolve into ethnic cleansing campaigns and dictatorship as soon as we leave. And if we don’t leave, then we have to stay there forever and we have to keep interfering every time things threaten to go off the rails and then it becomes paternalistic colonialism.
Keep in mind too that a lot of people living under oppressive regimes are genuinely damaged people and there is nothing but time that can heal those wounds. They are traumatized, they are angry, they have lost loved ones, they have been subjected to horrors we can only imagine and clinically document, without feeling the fear and emotional scars those things inflicted on millions of people. If you suddenly give them back power again, even small amounts of power, it is in human nature for many to seek revenge for what they’ve gone through (and not always against the right people). They’ve learned how to operate within the context of a deeply flawed and dangerous regime, and it is natural to adopt some of the same tools and practices. As resilient as the human spirit is it still is difficult to teach new ways.
At some point, people have got to learn to stand on their own two feet and find a way to build an equal, fair and just nation for all of themselves, by all the people and for all the people. While we certainly can do a better job of supporting this, we can’t do it for them and our attempts to do so have typically ranged from highly questionable to disastrous and extremely counterproductive. We fought for our own freedom, and it is not out of selfishness that we tell them they must fight for their own too. It’s not that we enjoy the fighting, it’s that as awful as it is, it appears necessary to get that hostility out into the open and understood to be as awful as it is, for a successful outcome to be possible.
On the other hand, even that hasn’t helped in Israel/Palestine where it seems like we’ve tried almost everything and failed. The fact is, nobody has the answers. We don’t know the way to fix this. We are always trying, even when it doesn’t seem like it, but we have to be abundantly cautious that we’re not making it worse, because we often are. For that matter, we have our own problems, and we haven’t figured those out either. Just because we’re doing much better than the worst countries in the world or even much better than average doesn’t mean we’ve got it all figured out or even that we’re doing anything right at all.
It seems as though unfortunately any people with the capacity for empathy never end up in positions of real power… :(
People in power in the west are barely moving the needle for their own people sadly.
Also even if they did, they’d still need a valid cause to start an international conflict I think, it’s why Russia tried the “it’s actually russians in Ukraine that are being oppressed and we’re liberating them” excuse
It’s more that there’s little that can be done that doesn’t also risk making the situation much worse.
Something like going to war to depose Kim would lead to mass death and risk spilling over into a much wider conflict since North Korea has the backing of China.
no one with political power gets that power through empathy
Is that hard to believe?
It’s one of the most heavily fortified countries with an extreme nuclear power regime out in the mountains. How could a country like the United States help North Koreans without threatening intense military conflict?
I think the answer is simple: end the sanctions.
McDonalds and Starbucks can take down the Kim regime much more effectively than B-2 bombers and Hellfire missiles.
Nukes. We know they have them and missiles to deliver them. Any situation where a wildcard like North Korea uses nukes in any offensive capacity is terrifying. “Nuclear War: A Scenario” is a great modern book on how things could go to hell if one single North Korean nuclear missile is launched towards the United States.
Artillery. In any case of open war on North Korea anyone within artillery range of the NK border will be bombarded with heavy shelling. Even if it lasted for just an hour or two before the batteries were eliminated the civilian casualties and destruction would be like a large natural disaster. Now imagine if chemical shells were added to the mix, because they have those too.
China has the most leverage to help North Korea on a humanitarian and diplomatic level without risking war, so if it could be done the best chance is through them.
To add to this, N Korea also has a huge conventional army, and is a very mountainous country. Lots of soldiers+mountains=very bloody to invade.
This is also why Iran is fairly safe from ground invasion. It’s like a gigantic Switzerland, which if you’re familiar with WW2 history, even Hitler left Switzerland alone despite kinda wanting to occupy the place. The cost was just too high compared to the benefits, so, y’know, may as well skip it and invade the USSR instead.
Despite what people keep saying, a war in NK would be short and one sided. While they could cause a lot of destruction at the start, after a few salvos their artillery would be taken out by air power. Then their entire command and control structure would be eliminated so they couldn’t communicate with their troops at all. And those troops are conditioned to not do anything without orders. So at best they’d be sitting ducks waiting to be taken out. And I’m pretty sure most of them would cost to surrender once it’s clear that the regime is gone. There’d be a share of diehards that would choose death over surrender but i don’t think that would be a large percentage.
Modern war planners mostly know better than to count on everything going well.
Yes, that’s basically what we did in Iraq. It led to a 20y occupation, thousands of troops killed, hundreds of thousands to millions of civilian deaths, and several new terrorist organizations. It will cost the US alone about 8,000,000,000,000. Basically the entirety of cultural progress and then some was lost in a few months.
We saw how that failed in iran
And those troops are conditioned to not do anything without orders. So at best they’d be sitting ducks waiting to be taken out.
When you’re so racist you think Koreans are the battle droids from The Phantom Menace.
We all see and hear what goes on over there.
Do we? We only get a little bit of news from there, and I wouldn’t be sure how reliable it is.
Why don’t any other countries step in to help those people.
Help how? Go to war and slaughter most of their population? They are already heavily mobilized, and no doubt they’d conscript a lot more in case of a conflict. Not to mention they have nukes.
Why do we just allow this to happen in modern civilization?
Who is ‘we’? No offence, but this sounds like some oblivious American patriot asking why America hasn’t saved the world yet.
Is just not lucrative to step in?
Most countries don’t have their own nukes, so they will never even consider getting into a conflict with a country that does have them. Most countries don’t have even a fraction of the resources needed for any sort of operation.
Plus, North Korea has powerful allies (like China) and is technically a member of the UN, so you can’t just disregard everything and conquer it.
NK could not defeat the US or China militarily but it could do quite a bit of damage to SK before anyone could stop them. This is a big reason the US doesn’t intervene.
China is concerned about the population of NK suddenly becoming millions of refugees they’ll need to recuse and deal with. So they would rather the regime not collapse.
Why should we, as the collective west, spend soldiers lifes and money on “liberating” a population that hates us? Oh, and please mind: “Liberating” a country normally also includes killing a shitton of civilians in this process.
Because that roads leads to war. The moment one country decides it has the authority to overule another’s sovereignity because they disagree with what’s going on there, it becomes a free for all.
This line of thinking is the very reason why there are two Koreas today, because of two superpowers who thought they knew better and could make a nice profit in the process.
We have a word for this: Colonialism.
And we certainly don’t do THAT anymore.
If NK was oil rich and off the coast of the US, we’d colonialism the shit out of it.
It’s not because the world is now too enlightened for colonialism. It’s because the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. NK has nothing of value, and China wants it to stay there as a buffer to SK.
Short answer is that NK is pretty much self-contained. Occasional Kim might rattle his sabre but no one is too worried about it. Until they start making serious threats to the stability of other countries it’s just a case of leave well enough alone.
Sure it sucks what the people of NK have to endure but it’s not for other countries to tell them how they should live unless they directly ask for help or start threatening the sovereignty of other countries.
As someone else in the comments mentioned, WW2 wasn’t an intervention to protect the German citizens that were being persecuted, it was a reaction to German invasion of other nations.
They have nukes
The nukes are recent, and probably not tactically functional. It’s purely a cost benefit analysis. As long as NK isn’t in serious motion to cause more damage outside their country, than it’s worth to stop them, no one will.
Yeah true. Like Turkmenistan. That country is like North Korea, but not in conflict with other countries. So no one cares.
Plus, they occasionally release pretty decent music
And don’t forget the former president, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov with live performance and rap song
Certified hood classic.
Ah, the old question about what to do about North Korea, it occupies the minds of many, there are some answers, many lead to more questions, and so on.
The stakes are increadibly high, so we have to tread very carefully.
Let’s bring up a few key facts.
- NK is a totalitarian state with a huge personality cult surrounding the Kim family.
- NK is supported by both China and Russia, they both have a highly vested interest in keeping the status quo.
- NK is located within artillery range of SK’s capital city, Seoul.
- NK’s society is vastly different from all of it’s neighbours, even the language used in NK is noticably different from the language spoken in SK.
- NK has nuclear weapons.
- NK does not have a problem ignoring the normal rules of diplomacy.
Now, you ask what other countries can do to help the people of NK, that is a hugely complicated question, which in general is mostly answered with an answer no one really wants to hear:
Support the current regime
For any proper aid to get into NK you need the support of the regime, and they will take the credit for the aid.
I saw a documentary of a film crew following a team of surgeons travelling to NK to help people who had lost their sight, it was a simple operation, preformed and funded by foreign organizations, the regime had only allowed the team access.
The operation took maybe a few min per patient, they replaced a lens in the eyes of the patient, and as soon as the patient was done, they rushed to the portraits of the leaders of NK, got on their knees and thanked them deeply for their graciousness of restoring their eyesight.
This is the kind of society NK is, everything is tied to the leader.
This is the starting point, and you have 26 million people to deal with…
Ok, say that a world power decide that they have had enough with the Kim family and this is worth going to war over.
What can we expect?
Regardless of what countries are involved, Seoul WILL be bombarded.
So now the attacker is hated both in NK and SK as well as probably a lot of other countries.
NK will use their nukes, and possibly other WMD they have.
Then comes China…
China loves NK as a buffer against the west, so they would and have deployed the PLA to save NK.
I fell asleep a few times while writing the pervious comment, so if it seems cut off, that is why.
Now, there are a few more things to talk about.
- What is more likely with regards to real change, military action by a foreign power, political collapse, or a gradual change?
- What will have to be done after thing have changed?
Lets start with 1 first:
I think we can rule out direct military action by a foreign power, any action will see Seoul in SK destroyed within a day, and even Japan is at a high risk here.
Political collapse is possible, but not realistic to happen in the current situation, remember that the government has an extreme level of control over the media in NK, this includes extreme control over the smartphones sold in NK, everything you do is monitored, any photo you take with the camera is cryptographically signed on the device so the government knows the origin of any photo spread around in NK, you can see more here: https://youtu.be/czJaA0S2AjE . With this level of control of the media, the regime will probably not fall soon.
Gradual change is the most probable, but will take a long time, people in SK do send baloons with USB sticks containing SK media, so people in NK are somewhat aware of life in SK. But as I noted earlier this will take a long time.
Ok lets move on to number 2, what would happen after a collapse of the NK government.
The most probable thing is that China will come and run NK as a kind of colony, NK lacks a LOT of modern infrastructure, and the citizens will be at extreme risk of exploitation.
Whoever colonized NK would face the daunting challenge of integrating 26 million people into a modern society, meanwhile other groups will try to exploit the cheap labour NK citizens can provide.
Bringing NK citizens into modern society with zero oversight will end in disaster, look at Albania as a warning, there was little knowledge of financial scams in the times after communism and several pyramid schemes was established and later collapsed, wiping out 50% of the GDP of Albania at the time and contributed in large parts to the 1997 Albanian rebellion.
Teaching the NK citizens about the dangers and advantages of modern society will take a long time, it will involve a lot of shattered illusions, plenty of people will want to go back their old ways, other’s will want to go full steam ahead, making their own paths without help.
This is just a small taste of the issues to come…
Great clarification. Do you think lifting sanctions and creating Pro-NK surpluses would help? Would Kim even do that?
The main problem with NK is the lack of trust and respect between them and the rest of the world, they don’t respect the rules of other nations (look at the NK kidnappings of Japanese citizens), this makes it very difficult to deal with them.
So trust and respect needs to be built up from the ground up.
As it stands now, even small lifted sanctions should be expected to be exploited by NK.
To start work to handle NK, the world could start by involving NK in talks, generic talks, acknowledging their existence outside of just conflicts and mandatory communications.
Talking will lead to better understanding which we can use to slowly try and lift some sanctions, and working from that angle.
Same reason why no one does anything about the atrocities that happen within the US.
So… Nukes.
Part of it.
How many children have been killed because an insurance company refused payment for healthcare.
Comparing “the atrocities” in the US with NK is really out of touch.
Shifting focus on the fact that US has its hands in vat fulls of blood yet the question is “Why isn’t anyone doing anything about NK?!”
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What exactly are you suggesting we do about it? They’ve got enough conventional artillery aimed at Seoul to cause millions of casualties the moment it even looks like we’re about to intervene.
Countries are not good or bad they don’t have friends they have interests. Is always a good rule of thumb when thinking about Geopolitics.
China is the answer. Nobody does anything about North Korea for the same reason China doesn’t invade Taiwan.
And this goes back to the Cold War, which goes back to WWII, and the politics of the president and military commanders, specifically MacArthur, who wanted to continue north and take North Korea decisively to keep the Soviet Union and China from controlling it before it could be reinforced by Chinese soldiers.
At the time, North Korean soldiers were outnumbered by UN forces 3:1, with far more tanks, etc than NK had.
The UN waffled, and by the time they decided Korea should be reunified, China had shipped in nearly 300,000 troops, and an unknown amount of matériel.
Fuck the UN. It’s their fault this is still going on.
Why “fuck the UN” and not “fuck China?”
Sounds like the UN could have made better choices, but the real villain (at least in the part of the history you describe) is China. No?
No
Are you familiar with the Korean war? There was a massive conflict which got drawn out into a stalemate and everybody agreed a temporary ceasefire was preferable to even more destruction.
Trying to topple a regime that has nothing to lose and a highly indoctrinated population is not an easy ask. We can only hope that like most authoritarian regimes they eventually succumb to the weight of their own opression. It’s better than torching the whole continent in the name of freedom.
The difference is that the North Koreans still fight with the same technology as back then while the other side has made some advances.
Even if true, an old nuke will destroy your city just fine, don’t worry about that.
Because China doesn’t want anyone to.
