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After a few months of relative tranquillity and malign neglect, North Korea has once again found itself in the international spotlight. As usual, the reasons are not pleasant: hackers, believed to be on the payroll of the North Korean government, broke into the poorly protected computer system at Sony Pictures and obtained a great deal of damaging material.
The entire story of the Great Sony Hack is essentially the sorry story of a misunderstanding and cultural insensitivity ― and also of exceptional tactlessness. The actions of all sides can be understood and are generally rational, but the results are not good for anyone.
To start with, one cannot condone the initial decision of Sony Pictures to make a movie mocking and glamorizing the assassination of a real, living person. While the author believes in the right to freedom of speech, creating such a film as an act of utter tastelessness and is liable to elicit a response. It is not incidental that so far no other movie dealt with such topic. The only exception might a British 2006 film about likely consequences of President George W. Bush's assassination, but that did not show assassins in a favourable light, and generally concentrated on what supposedly happened next.
If Sony Pictures have an irresistible urge to make a movie about journalists being involved with the assassination of a head of state, there are any number of tried and tested ways to do so while minimizing the political and moral problems. For example, the Sony movie could portray the assassination of a leader of a fictional country ― say, Eastern Morea, run by an eccentric leader called Pim Munjong. After all, even Charlie Chaplin, when in 1940 he made his film ''The Great Dictator," which transparently depicted Hitler, still chose to avoid any direct references to the country that he was talking about.
Obviously, this time Sony Pictures believed that they were dealing with a soft target. They assumed that North Korea, being a tiny, underdeveloped and poor country, would be unable to retaliate. One can be certain that they would not dare to make a similar film about the assassination of the Xi Jinping of China or Vladimir Putin of Russia, let alone King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. They would not dare because they would fear expensive lawsuits and potential loss of access to the lucrative markets of these countries.
However, North Korea appeared to be fair game to the Sony executives, and they paid the price for their arrogance. The North Korean government cares far more about its security than it does about the livelihood of its people. It is stingy with welfare spending but remarkably generous when it comes to the military. Thus, North Korea maintains not only a nuclear weapons program, but also a top class team of professional hackers who have been used against targets in South Korea a number of times. Predictably for North Korean watchers, the North Korean side decided to use this computer strike force to settle the dispute with Sony Pictures.
Obviously, the North Korean side saw this action as a justified response to a grave insult. After all, it was non-lethal, even though, admittedly, on the later stages the hackers did include some actual threats of physical violence. However, the North Koreans (who are almost certain to be the hackers) probably did not anticipate that such threats would be taken all that seriously. After all, such threats are often made by the North Korean government against South Korean institutions and individuals, but never carried out.
However, the U.S. government did not brush off the threats as the North Koreans probably anticipated they would. For the American side, the hack was an act of cyber terror, and they do not take such actions lightly. Therefore, President Obama promised a proportional response – i.e. retaliation. Even if the actual US actions is going to be mild limited, for the foreseeable future North Korea should not count on getting investment from the developed West.
This is bad news. North Korean economy needs foreign investment, and now such an investment is difficult to get, especially because North Korea's relations with China are in bad shape, and its expectations about Russia are exaggerated. As a result of the Great Sony Hack, all participants are likely to pay the price, but for North Korea the price is going to be especially high.
Professor Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. You can reach him at anlankov@yahoo.com.
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