Gordon Campbell on the Kim regimeFirst published on Werewolf
Supposedly, we’ve been on the verge of thermonuclear war for the past fortnight. In the circumstances, it would be nice to know (a) what the guy in Pyongyang is thinking about all this and (b) what an achievable strategy goal for the US might look like. During the Cuban Missile Crisis for instance, the US had a very clear objective and eventually offered a quid pro quo of the removal of some of its own missiles from Turkey. This time, there’s no clarity about what the US is seeking, or offering.
It hasn’t helped that the US and the global media consistently agree on calling North Korea and its leadership “crazy”
and “irrational” and urging it to “come to its senses”. When you treat your opponent as being beyond reason, it gets
hard to comprehend what their strategy is, let alone work out the terms of a viable compromise.
Thankfully, Foreign Policy magazine has just published a useful article attacking the “crazy” meme. Kim is a survivor, not a madman, it argues. The Kim regime may be cruel and ruthless but it
has followed a consistent logic for decades – in which it regards its possession of a nuclear deterrent as its best
insurance policy against its foreign enemies.
What that should tell us is that anyone expecting or pressing North Korea to unilaterally give up its nuclear deterrent
is not chasing an achievable goal. In fact, insisting on disarmament would be the best way of pushing it into a corner
where it could feel obliged to use its nuclear arsenal. The Kim regime may be paranoid, but it has genuine enemies,
domestic and foreign. There’s a particularly relevant precedent:
The sorry fate of Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi [has] taught the Kim family its firmest lesson. In 2003, the Libyan
strongman agreed to surrender his nuclear weapons development program in exchange for generous economic benefits
promised by the West — the first time such a deal had been publicly struck by a state formerly hostile to the United
States. But when revolution broke out in Libya in 2011, it was the NATO no-fly zone that doomed Qaddafi’s regime. That
story ended with Qaddafi’s violated body strung across a car bonnet.
A decade ago U.S. diplomats and journalists, then full of enthusiasm about Libyan nuclear disarmament deal, used to say
that North Korean leaders “should learn the lessons of Libya.” And there’s no doubt that they have, even if they’ve
drawn very different conclusions.
To repeat: for all its bellicose rhetoric, North Korea sees its nuclear programme as being its prime defence against invasion and regime change. And since there’s no point in having a deterrent unless you signal you're willing
to use it, the aggressive rhetoric is meant to intimidate the outside world. A world that the Kim regime sees – with
good reason – as entirely hostile to it, with China being maybe the solitary (and unreliable) exception:
Kim Jong Un sees the nuclear program as purely defensive. Conquering the South would be nice in theory, but this task is
completely beyond his reach, both due to the U.S. commitment to protecting South Korea and Seoul’s own huge advantage in
economic and technological power. He knows that any unprovoked North Korean attack against South Korea or the United
States will end badly, perhaps in his death, and he is certainly not suicidal. However, he also presumes that no great
power would risk attacking a nuclear state or sticking a hand into its internal strife — especially if it has delivery
systems and a second-strike capability.
Whatever else that it is, it isn’t an irrational tactic, given the likely outcome of any alternative route for the Kim
dynasty. The Kim regime is not of a mind to remove its defensive shield:
There is no form of pressure that can convince them to budge on this, no promise that will seduce them into compliance;
they believe that without nuclear weapons they are as good as dead. That’s a disaster for the region, but a perfectly
logical choice by the Kim family.
The internal corollary of North Korea’s foreign policy is the systematic removal of those in the military – or in his
own extended family – who might form an alternative power base to the Kim dynasty. As Foreign Policy says, it is only
the military and police that routinely get purged and executed, not the country’s top economic planners. That’s
significant. By quietly introducing the sort of incremental market changes that Deng Xiaoping ushered into China, the
late Kim Jong-il succeeded in setting North Korea’s economy on its current path of gradual economic growth.
While there are some disagreements, most experts believe that North Korea’s annual GDP growth in recent years has been around 3 percent or even higher. The era of famine is
over, and living standards are growing fast across the entire country — not just in Pyongyang, as some claim. The
private money is fuelling a construction boom, while shops and restaurants are crowded with the new rich — and traffic,
once barely visible in the capital, is now sometimes a real problem.
But these market-oriented reforms have not been accompanied by political liberalization. In culture and ideology, the
“nationalized Stalinism” reigns supreme, and the country has by far the world’s highest rate of incarceration for
political crimes — some 80,000 political prisoners among a population of just 25 million. Kim Jong Un assumes that some
combination of economic growth with harsh surveillance will keep his population docile.
This ruthless logic has kept three generations of Kims in power. There have been some successful nearby precedents, if –
as tyrants tend to do - you count mere survival as success. As Foreign Policy concludes, “nearly all founders of East
Asia’s “developmental dictatorships” — from Deng Xiaoping and Chiang Kai-shek of Taiwan to Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore —
died in their beds, admired by many of their compatriots.” The two previous Kims died in their beds, too.
A few weeks ago at his post-Cabinet press conference I asked PM Bill English if New Zealand would be willing to advise
the US against the deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system which – especially in the current climate – is likely to
be regarded by North Korea as an aggressive act, and which Beijing happens to believe is really being targeted at China,
not Pyongyang. No, English replied, he wouldn’t be doing that. Thankfully, the US itself has begun sending less warlike
signals in recent days. Regime change in North Korea, it now says, is not on its policy agenda.
As yet, it is not clear what goal Washington is pursuing, beyond the projection of aggression.
Tax cuts, offshore
The Trump administration did however, summon the entire Senate to the White House to brief them on North Korea. All for show, with no policy revelation.
The pantomime show that the US presidency has become has left the media, worldwide, in a genuine quandary. Should it
ignore the latest headline grabbing claim by the White House on the reasonable grounds that it will quickly be buried by
its virtual reversal coming down the pike soon afterwards? Is journalism unwittingly making itself complicit in this
game of bluff if and when it solemnly reports on the plans to scrap Obamacare, confront North Korea, tear up NAFTA,
bring China to heel and slash the US corporate tax rate as if these things are (a) really going to happen and (b) might
have real time repercussions for the rest of us. The US media is already being criticised for its role in grooming the public for war with North Korea.
Yesterday, in similar vein, we had tax experts on RNZ talking about the ripple effects that the US tax cuts signaled earlier this week might have for New Zealand, and for
the rest of the global economy. (Should we cut our corporate taxes too? Can we afford not to etc etc.) Hang on. This
stampede is based on the assumption that the media has a duty to report on Trump’s stunts as if they were the serious
intentions of a normal politician. The downside of the dutiful, traditional approach to reportage is that the media also
becomes discredited when it turns out yesterday’s stern commitment is just another P.R. soufflé, already sagging in the
White House kitchen.
A few months ago, the wise old heads in the media were saying that the best approach was not to criticize or to attack
Trump, but merely to report him, as is. Well, that approach leads us into a zigzag series of alarums and retractions –
he’s going to do this, no he isn’t! – similar to what RNZ found itself promoting yesterday. In essence, the media
doesn’t do itself or anyone else a favour when it takes Trump at face value. Context and skepticism should be part of
the job.
The US tax cut charade has been a classic example. This “policy” consisted of a one page, double spaced list of bullet
points. As Slate pointed out, it was spectacularly lacking in specifics, even by Trump’s normal standards. Here, paraphrased by Slate, are some of
the questions reporters asked, along with the verbatim answers given by Trump’s Treasury Secretary and by the head of
his Council of Economic Advisers:
•What will the tax rate be on repatriated corporate profits? "We are working very diligently with the House and the Senate on coming up with final details of the bill."
•What levels of income will the new tax brackets apply to? "Again, we are in constant dialogue with the House and the
Senate. As the Secretary said, we're holding a bunch of listening groups right now. We have outlines. We have a
broad-brush view of where they're going to be. We're running an enormous amount of data on the proposals right now. We
will be back to you with very firm details."
•Will the proposal address the marriage penalty? "We are working very diligently with the House and the Senate on coming up with final details of the bill."
•How will you make up the lost tax revenue that such a massive cut to the corporate tax rate will create? "Again, today
we're putting out the core principles which includes rates. We're working very closely with the House and the Senate to
turn this into a bill that can be passed and the President can sign and there's lots and lots of details that are going
into how that will pay for itself."
•What is the overall size, in dollars, of the tax cut that this plan will create? "We're working on lots of details."
•How will a median American family of four making $60,000 see their tax bill affected by this proposal? "We will let you
know the details at the appropriate moment."
•How will the president's own tax bill be affected by the plan? "I can't comment on the President's tax situation since I
don't have access to that."
Basically, Trump was coming up to the deadline of his first 100 days in office, and wanted to signal that oh yeah, tax
cuts. He’d promised those. Tax cuts are what Republican presidents (Ronald Reagan George W. Bush ) deliver, even if the
results are so bad, the policy usually has to be un-wound.
As Paul Krugman has pointed out time and again, tax cuts have been a right-wing fever dream for decades. For the past 40 years, neo-liberal cultists have claimed
there is a direct connection between tax cuts and economic growth. (There is no empirical evidence for this belief.)
Supposedly, tax cuts will unleash such a wave of entrepreneurial activity that the subsequent economic boom will be so
immense it will more than pay for the original revenue loss. Reality has begged to differ. Reagan and George W. Bush
quickly learned otherwise.
The state of Kansas has also over the past four years, provided comprehensive proof that tax cuts not only do not pay for themselves, but they leave the state’s finances in
such a mess that it is unable to fund its basic services. (There is even some contrary evidence from the Clinton and
Obama years, to suggest that tax increases are just as likely to usher in economic growth.) Moreover, there is no evidence that the official US corporate tax rate
– 35% – has been stifling economic growth. If anything, the share of federal tax revenues paid by business has been
declining for decades:
….In fact, big businesses are earning record profits, and many of them pay no federal taxes. The corporate income tax brought in just 10.6 percent of the federal government’s revenue in 2015, down from between a
quarter and a third of revenue in the 1950s, according to the Pew Research Center.
Empirical evidence however, doesn’t seem to have any effect on tax cut believers. If lemming-like, New Zealand follows
suit and cuts its corporate tax rate all we will have done is accelerate the transfer of wealth from poor to rich. As
the Trump one page “plan” would surely do, if it ever got turned into legislation, and enacted.
Tax cuts happen to be the right’s great exception to its customary message of virtuous thrift. For all the railing
against the deficits racked up by those wilful spendthrifts on the centre-left, the Trump one-pager would blow the US
economy wildly into deficit. Yet at the same time, and according to the likes of House Speaker Paul Ryan, it is
supposedly unaffordable for the US to pay adequate medical subsidies to the poor, the elderly or the disabled. But it
can – apparently- afford to vastly increase the deficit with large handouts to big business and the wealthy, with a few
side servings for small business and individuals, to sweeten the politics of it.
Will any of this do any good for the Rust Belt hopefuls who placed their faith in Trump to bring back their lost jobs in
manufacturing? Hardly. There would be an initial sugar hit, then a stream of revenue staunching cut-backs to welfare
entitlements, and finally, more bad news for the Rust Belt as the cost of American exports got pushed skywards:
History… tells us it is far more likely that the tax cuts would explode the deficit and drive up interest rates as the
federal government is forced to increase borrowing. Investors from around the world would then pour money into Treasury
bonds, bidding up the value of the dollar, which would increase the trade deficit — $502 billion last year — as American exports become more expensive in the rest of the world and imports become cheaper. This in turn could
cost jobs. Economists say that’s exactly what happened in the 1980s when the Reagan administration and Congress drove up
the federal deficit through tax cuts and increased military spending.
Scotland vs Ireland
Does anyone have an explanation as to why Scottish bands are generally better than Irish ones, given they share a
similar Celtic heritage, and can both point to art-inspiring regions & histories of deprivation? My Bloody Valentine is the exception that proves the rule.
Scotland : Jesus and Mary Chain, Frightened Rabbit, Camera Obscura, Rustie, Life Without Buildings, Teenage Fanclub, Belle and
Sebastian, Primal Scream, Boards of Canada, Cocteau Twins, Mogwai, Vaselines, Big Country, Calvin Harris, Chvrches,
Franz Ferdinand, Annie Lennox, Altered Images, Proclaimers, Hudson Mohawke, Simple Minds, Aztec Camera, Blue Nile,
Average White Band, Bananarama, Glasvegas, Arab Strap, Bert Jansch…
IMO, that beats this line-up pretty handily :
Ireland : U2, My Bloody Valentine, Thin Lizzy, Cranberries, Ash, Corrs, That Petrol Emotion, Lakker, Boyzone, Villagers, Van
Morrison, Sinead O’Connor, Roisin Murphy, Westlife, Boomtown Rats….and who else?
Yet another reason for Scotland being well able to go it alone, once the Brexit deal has hit the fan. If you have a
theory about the dominance of Scotland – or if you wish to disagree - email me on gordon @werewolf.co.nz.
To mark the death this week of the great Jonathan Demme, here’s Sister Carol singing over the credits of one of Demme’s
most enjoyable films, Something Wild.
And from that movie, there’s this diner scene, where an affable Jeff Daniels takes on the extremely scary Ray Liotta: