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Pyongyang once again has the world's attention and the North Korean leaders are clearly enjoying their recent experience. If we need any more proof that the North is remarkably adept at manipulating the world media, we could not find better than the events of the last few weeks.
With little if any discernable reason, North Korea suddenly began to shower the world with rather graphic and dramatic threats. The North Korean government portal uploaded their battle plan for conquering the South in four days. Kim Jong-un was himself shown standing in front of a large chart that presented the "plan for a nuclear attack on the United States." The Japanese were told that North Koreans can arrange for a few more Hiroshimas as well.
Needless to say, while being rather disgusting, the threats are entirely empty and are merely a diplomatic game. The North Korean government is not suicidal and has not the slightest intention to start a war they have no chance to win. North Korea also lacks the ability to carry out such threats with their as yet crude delivery systems.
The threats have worked well, however, because the international media has picked up and relayed them with abandon. Crowds of journalists descended on Seoul a few weeks ago _ perhaps more than at any point of history since the end of the Korean War. They have been interviewing everyone they can find, being somewhat discouraged by the obvious lack of interest that the average South Korean has in the ongoing Pyongyang theatrics.
For days, the non-existent "North Korean issue" (aka "Korean crisis") has remained the largest story worldwide. The credulousness of the world media is remarkable. Once again it shows how easily the media world can be cajoled into concentrating on topics that manipulators want them to.
This all begs the question, what are the reasons for this media panic? Why was such an overreaction possible?
First, we should remember that the media and its audience have a remarkably short memory and do not care much about complicated and nuanced backgrounds. Few people bother to remember that North Koreans have behaved in similar ways many times before. It was only four years ago, in 2009, when they staged the last political show of this type. However, most journalists are generalists reporting from Zimbabwe today and Finland tomorrow, so they cannot possibly have sufficient background knowledge of the issues in play.
Second, it helped that North Korea broke some unspoken conventions of world politics (not that they were very respectful of such conventions up until now). It is not often that you hear the leadership of a country promising a massive nuclear attack on a number of other countries including the world's superpower. Such threats are picturesque, bizarre and lend themselves to a ready-made TV story ― especially when such threats are made with little reason.
Third, North Korea's reputation for irrationality also helps a lot. In fact, this reputation has been carefully cultivated by Pyongyang for a number of decades. North Korea is actually run by cynical, hardnosed and highly rational realists. Nonetheless, the average Western reader or listener brackets North Korea as an irrational and ideological regime, completely mad and hence capable of everything including a nuclear attack on the outside world.
Finally, North Koreans are simply too good at presenting the media with images and pictures that sell well with the Western audience. In this particular case, the world media has everything. It has a young fat dictator who holds the rank of Marshal, loves strange haircuts and dresses in a suit reminiscent of a Bond villain.
The media can present images of massive parades and pro-government rallies in which countless thousands of North Korean soldiers march in unison ― rather conveniently looking like mindless battle robots, ready to carry out every order. The media can always quote propaganda statements from the North Korean government that are written in funny, broken English, and include a great deal of imagery reminiscent of totalitarian and Stalinist regimes.
So, the combination of all these factors produced a massive media scare. When the world was paying so much attention to what was essentially a routine exercise in public diplomacy ― little more than a nuclear weapon-aided PR exercise.
No doubt, Pyongyang's media men must be very pleased with the results thus far.
Professor Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and now teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. You can reach him at anlankov@yahoo.com.
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