Pressure N. Korea financially to reduce nuclear threat
The latest North Korean nuclear test is more worrisome than those that went before. Seismographic evidence suggests the recent underground blast was much more powerful, and Pyongyang claims the bomb was “smaller and light” — composed of “diverse” materials.
The latter reference was apparently a claim by the regime that it can now build uranium bombs — important because it has at least one operating enrichment plant. Earlier devices used plutonium, to which the North’s access is far more limited.
Couple this with December’s test of a long-range rocket — in defiance of three United Nations resolutions — and the rogue regime could soon pose a credible intercontinental nuclear threat.
For 15 years, the U.S. has been locked in a fruitless cycle in which North Korea engages in provocations and threats, agrees to stand down in exchange for promises of aid, and then ignores the agreements.
Washington should not repeat the cycle. Instead, it ought to increase pressure on China to control its ally, speed up work on U.S. missile defense and choke off North Korea’s access to the global financial system.
The latter approach, pursued for a time by the Bush administration, got the attention of Pyongyang, which depends on shadowy relationships with various banks to finance the “palace economy” by which the elite lives in luxury.
Pressuring Pyongyang financially has been shown to be effective. In light of the recent North Korean bomb test, the Obama administration should put it to use, while pushing other countries to pressure their own banks not to do business with North Korea.
Matt Henry
4 months agoI think it’s cute that you think we can put pressure on China that would cause them to act in any way they don’t already want to. Sort of like all that pressure we put on them and russia before they blocked more sanctions on Iran. Oh, and how you act like you wouldn’t be right back here screaming about how somebody needs to do something about the humanitarian disaster that would happen after the gov’t, who doesn’t give two poops about their people, started to let them starve after your heightened sanctions take effect.
This has been shown to be effective before they had a bomb, a weakened America with a crappy economy staring at sequester, a china spoiling for a fight to prove their hegemony over east Asia, and we had the stones to stand firm for the better of the world when their people start to die. Oh, and it would help to have had an administration who acted like they had any interest in controlling the problem.
It’s like watching a foal trying to stand.