Why care about North Korea; that’s a question many will ask.
Our world is full of flashpoints.
There are so many that it is difficult to focus on the ones that matter at any particular cross-section of time.
This is where average Americans stop reading. In a world of so many threats, what’s one more? If one were to create a hierarchy of threats, China would be at the top.
North Korea is to China as Hamas, and the rest of the Islamist proxies are to Iran.
They are deadly dangerous and force us to react and modify our behavior in small and large ways that commutatively unravel our way of life and self-confidence.
Free people can only be free if they retain their ability to live a normal life free of fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD). North Korea, through its subjugation by China, is a geopolitical threat that uses North Korea to distract us and forces us to allocate resources that should be focused on China directly.
With its ability to foment chaos and instability throughout the world, I’m disturbed by the West’s inability to grasp North Korea as a proxy of China in the same way Iran supplies and commands the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, and a half dozen other smaller and less well known proxies Iran has created over the last thirty years.
In recent weeks, I’ve talked about Russia, China, and Iran as primary players who operate intending to change the world order by force, subversion, intimidation, and by fomenting corruption in the nations they target. North Korea stands as a wild card, not only because it has nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them but because it has the recent ability to play off suitors (Russia and China) against each other. This makes North Korea more deadly than it has previously been.
Let’s first try and understand that even as a proxy, North Korea is different in several material ways:
• North Korea is as close to a Stalinist dictatorship as there ever was, perhaps more so.
• North Korea is highly dependent on its status as a vassal nation of China and isolates itself from the world at large. It’s not called the Hermit Kingdom for nothing.
• North Korea is one of the poorest nations on earth and seemingly has little interest in changing that status with a severe shortage of food, medicine, fuel, and few consumer commodities.
• Technically, North Korea is still at war with South Korea, with only a tenuous armistice that has been kept in place since 1953 with plans to ultimately “reunite” with the South sooner rather than later.
• North Korea is an economic wreck, unable to feed its people, and with few goods it can sell to bring in foreign exchange.
• North Korea is one of the most brutal nations on earth, routinely executing hundreds of its own people each year while incarcerating almost 200,000 more in prison, reminiscent of Soviet Gulags where many languish until they die.
• North Korea spends an estimated 36% of its GDP on its military, the highest percentage globally.
• In 2024, only about 105 persons escaped from North Korea, likely because China and Russia returned defectors who are then usually executed, frequently along with family members.
Unlike the religious theocracies of the Middle East and also unlike the political totalitarian states of Russia, China, Eritrea, and Turkmenistan, to name some of the least human rights-friendly countries on earth, North Korea has escaped the kind of scrutiny it deserves. North Korea also murders its citizens internationally.
One notable case was the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, in 2017. He was killed in Malaysia using VX nerve gas; there have been others.
While North Korea has been a regional threat for the last 71 years, it is instructive to understand that while North Korea has supported other insurgencies, it has not sent combat troops outside its region until its intervention in Ukraine last year. Out of approximately 10-12 thousand soldiers sent so far, about 25% have become casualties.
More soldiers from North Korea are expected as a quid pro quo for Russia’s promise to provide even more cash and, more disturbingly, S-400 long-range surface-to-air missiles, launchers, and ground-based radar systems. Air defense missiles have the potential to encourage Kim Jong-un and his even more bloodthirsty sister and heir apparent, Kim Yo Jong, to continue to overplay their hand with the West.
Western policy has encouraged and rewarded bad behavior for fifty years. Examples:
1. Strategic Patience: Begun under the Obama administration, focused on waiting for North Korea to negotiate while maintaining sanctions and diplomatic pressure. However, it only allowed North Korea to advance its nuclear programs.
2. Diplomatic Engagements: Various diplomatic efforts, including the Six-Party Talks involving China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea, and the United States, aimed to address North Korea’s nuclear program without success.
3. Sanctions: The United Nations and individual countries have imposed numerous sanctions on North Korea to pressure the regime to abandon its nuclear weapons program, again without success.
4. Humanitarian Aid: Humanitarian aid failed as a deterrent, with resources diverted to its military and elite. The US and South Korea gave billions of dollars and shiploads of food and oil to ameliorate North Korea’s belligerence.
China provides North Korea with economic aid, which accounts for about 90% of its trade. The lights would go off all over North Korea tomorrow if China stopped supplying electricity and oil. China is North Korea’s frontman, advocating for them on the world stage and blocking motions by the UN Security Council regularly. China provides most of North Korea’s military equipment, rarely paid for.
North Korea is China’s proxy, and if not for them, North Korea would not have nuclear weapons today. Without nuclear weapons, North Korea’s status in the world would be of little concern except to South Korea. You know your friends by the company they keep! The key to reducing North Korea’s threat is a successful policy and implemented actions at its sponsor, China. This must be Trump’s number one foreign policy objective.
God bless America.
Allan J. Feifer is a patriot, author, businessman, thinker, and strategist. Read more about Allan, his background, and his ideas to create a better tomorrow at www.1plus1equals2.com.
Image: Office of the Secretary of Defense, via Picryl // public domain
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