Watching at least 10 North Korean diplomats defect to South Korea since Jan. 1, 32-year-old Kim Jong-Un went on an execution binge, vaporizing Vice Premier for education Kim Yong-Jin by firing squad in July. Called “an anti-party, anti-revolutionary agitator,” said South Korea’s Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-Hee. Joon-Hee insists Young-Jin was interrogated for bad sitting posture, with North Korean minders finding other crimes. “Kim Yong-Jin was denounced for bad sitting posture when he was sitting below the rostrum,” during a North Korean parliament meeting. Kim Jong-Un’s decsion to make spectacles of high-ranking North Korean officials puts all on notice that under Kim’s rule no one’s safe, not even close relatives of his family. Purging the ranks of Party officials has become one of Kim’s most coercive tactics in maintaining control.
Unnerved by high-profile defections, Kim’s paranoia has gone through the roof, even removing his chief spymaster Kim Yong-Choi, a top North Korean official for espionage against the South. Instead of facing a firing squad, the 71-year-old spymaster, responsible for numerous cyber-attacks on South Korea, was sent for thought reform, type of old-school Chinese brainwashing. Yong-Choi earned high marks for March 26, 2010 sinking the South Korean ROK’s Cheonan in the Yellow Sea with a miniature submarine torpedo, killing 46 South Korean sailors, less than two years before Kim Jong-Il’s death Feb. 17, 2011. Proving no one’s immune from Kim’s reach, sending his spymaster to forced re-education puts all on notice that defectors would be found and punished. Reinstated after a month at a thought-reforml farm, Kim Yong-Choi was purged of his “arrogance” and “abuse of power.”
Five months from leaving office, President Barack Obama has done little to contain a growing North Korean nuclear threat. Claimomg he could “wipe out” the U.S., Kim boasted Jan.6 about a successful new hydrogen bomb test, adding to Kim’s growing nuclear arsenal, destabilizing the Korean Peninsula. North Korea’s H-bomb “are in the spirit to detonate H-bombs . . . capable of wiping out the whole territory of the U.S. all at once as it persistently moves to stifle the DPRK.” Any coherent North Korean containment strategy must include linkage, something sorely lacking in Obama’s foreign policy. Instead of developing closer ties to Russia, Barack has driven U.S.-Russian relations to the lowest point since the Cold War. Differences with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Crimea and Syria have compromised U.S. national security, certainly with North Korea.
Dealing with North Korea requires close U.S.-Russian relations. Taking opposite sides in the Syrian conflict, Obama lost site of the big picture: U.S. national security requires cooperation of the Kremlin. Killing at least 100 North Korean officials, including executing his uncle, No. 2 in power, Jan Song-Thaek in 2013, Kim Jong-Un presents a clear-and-present danger to the U.S. Kim’s defiance of U.N. sanctions for brazen nuclear tests shows that North Korea won’t back down from developing offensive nuclear weapons. Obama’s duty as commander-in-chief is to look at the big picture of threats to the U.S., developing micro and macro strategies to lessen threats. Tossing out 60 years of diplomacy with Russia has cost the U.S. dearly under Obama. Democratic nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton promises no change in U.S.-Russian relations.
Kim’s got a real problem holding his population in captivity especially for diplomats getting a glimpse of the outside world. Despite all the coercion and brainwashing, some of North Korea’s diplomats defect when given the chance. When North Korean Deputy British Ambassador Thae Yong-Ho defected Aug. 17, 2016 to South Korea, it was a PR black eye for Kim. Quoted as saying “disgust for the North Korean regime,” Yong-Ho told the real story of captivity under the world’s most repressive Stalinist regime. Known as a Stalinist state for the brainwashing and vaporizations, North Korea makes no apologies for its ruthless tactics. Escaping and defecting from North Korea is one of the state’s most closely guarded secrets. Kim’s response to defections are rounding up more Party officials, charging them with crimes and vaporizing them.
Obama’s approach to North Korea, like Iran and other rogue states, cedes U.S. control to the U.N. Security Council where little can be done other than imposing more feckless sanctions. Squandering U.S. relations with Russia has weakened leverage over rogue regimes like North Korea. If the U.S. had closer ties to the Kremlin, Kim would back off, knowing his dependency to Russia and China. Since Putin invaded Crimea March 1, 2014, Obama’s done nothing other than work with the Security Council to slap Moscow with economic sanctions. When you consider Russia’s a permanent veto-wielding member of the Security Council, Obama’s strategy has backfired, leaving the U.S. more vulnerable with rogue states like North Korea. Whatever happens behind closed doors in North Korea, it’s to the U.S. advantage to have strong partners like Russia to help contain growing threats to U.S. national security. Alienating Russia only makes U.S. geopolitics more dangerous.
