What North Korea doesn't understand

By Ranjit Kumar Dhawan

Recently the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed Resolution 2270 which puts severe economic sanctions on North Korea. There was a rare unanimity in the UNSC against the nuclear and missile development by the North Korean regime and these sanctions if put into action have the potential to shake the reclusive regime in Pyongyang.

However it is quite interesting to note that no such sanctions were ever imposed on the five permanent members of the UNSC for developing nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD). They continue to develop more sophisticated weaponry and use them against weaker nations as it has happened in Ukraine, Syria and Iraq in the recent years. Since the five permanent members also have the veto powers in the UNSC so any sanction against them would never pass.

The biggest mistake the North Korean regime has done is to challenge the sole superpower in the world ― the United States (U.S.). The North Koreans do not understand their position in the international system. Just like Confucian ethics the relations between the nation-states are based on certain rules and regulations. Only the big and powerful countries have the right to develop and have monopoly over the nuclear weapons and also use them as it happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

It is not the first time that an impoverished state like North Korea has challenged the might of any superpower. In 1950 the North Korean regime dared to unify the Korean Peninsula through military means. The result was three years of the devastating Korean War (1950-53) when almost every inch of the North Korean territory was bombed by the U.S. and its allies. It is often said that the U.S. forces “ran out of targets” in North Korea. But nothing happened to China when it gobbled up an independent nation called Tibet because the big powers have the right to eliminate smaller nations.

Instead of submitting to the superpowers, North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung initiated the idea of Juche to make the country self-reliant and became the member of Non-Aligned Movement in 1975. North Koreans do not understand that their tiny “Hermit Kingdom” does not deserve to have that privilege. After the end of the Cold War Pyongyang lost the economic support of another superpower Soviet Union and subsequently North Korea has become one of the poorest countries in the world.

In this international system the smaller allies of a superpower do have the right to develop nuclear weapons and violate human rights of their citizens. Pakistan and Israel can have nuclear weapons and Saudi Arabia can continue with barbaric public executions because they are allies of a superpower.

The North Koreans do not understand that the lectures on democracy and human rights are mainly for those countries which do not accept the superiority of the superpower. Dictators with dubious human rights records but loyal to superpower are exempted from these lectures. Augusto Pinochet, Chun Doo-hwan, Suharto, Ferdinand Marcos, Zia-ul-Haq, Francisco Franco and several other dictators did not face problems from superpowers.

The North Koreans do not understand that for smaller countries Sadae Chui or “serving the great” is the easiest way of survival. There is no real democracy in the international system but there is a feudal order where the big powers decide the fate of the smaller nations. Germany was punished, divided and then unified by the big powers. And so was the division of the Korean Peninsula and its possible unification in the future also largely depends on the wishes of the big powers.

Therefore, the new UNSC sanctions are significant in not only prohibiting North Korean regime from developing WMDs but also gives it some important lessons of international relations.

The author is a Ph.D candidate at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India. His e-mail address is rkdhawan13@hotmail.com.