Is "North Korea" a Two-Word "Scissor Statement"?

I'm glad that Donald Trump is negotiating with Kim Jong-un about denuclearization -- including the inevitable reckoning over what "denuclearization" means. However, as a next round of negotiations about peace in Korea and denuclearization are pending, there is a dilemma that is much on my mind:

Right now, is it more important to do the (very necessary, long-term) work of debunking US prejudice surrounding Korea in general, and North Korea in particular?

Or is the best use of our time and effort to defer -- for the moment -- getting people to reform their thinking about Korea, and instead emphasizing the need to treat the overall nuclear weapons risk with the urgency called for?

Last spring, I devoted much time to writing about the need to overcome US prejudices surrounding Korea. (Links to posts listed below.)

And since last spring, there's been a little progress in the US media and other areas of foreign affairs discourse towards rational discussion of Korea. But just a little. This is the point driven home by an excellent article in The Nation: "US-North Korea Talks Are Moving Decisively to the Diplomatic Phase" by Tim Shorrock.

V @christineahn on Twitter
Naming it: orientalism and jingoism with respect to Korea.

And this dilemma is of some moment, since "North Korea" seems to claim a plurality of the mindshare when people think about (or attempt to think about) nuclear weapons risk. I was reminded of this disproportion reading Michael Lewis' new book, The Fifth Risk. When queried about what we should be worried about, the former Chief Risk Officer at the Department of Energy listed:

(1) Broken arrows (nuclear weapons that get out of control)
(2) North Korea
(3) Iran
(4) Attacks on the electrical grid
(5) Problems with Big Project Management (e.g. Hanford clean-up)

North Korea as the number two worry? That's a pretty big share of worry assigned to a pretty small proportion of the global nuclear weapons threat. A June, 2018, tally of 14,450 nuclear warheads worldwide attributes only 10 to 20 to North Korea:

June 2018 global nuclear warhead count
(each symbol representing FIVE weapons):
Russia: 6,850
US: 6,450
France: 300
China: 270
UK: 215
Pakistan: 140
India: 120 to 130
Israel: 80
North Korea: 10 to 20
(Source: Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University)

The US and Russia each have at least 300 times as many nuclear weapons as North Korea.

So is it really possible that North Korea is a greater threat to the US than the US is to itself?

I recently learned about the concept of a "scissor statement" -- one that immediately serves to divide people into opposing camps. A scissor statement is so divisive that people stop thinking and stop communicating, and once that happens it is mighty difficult to work cooperatively. The concept is ably described by Scott Alexander in his piece "Sort By Controversial".

To me, it seems likely that "North Korea" is a sort of two-word "scissor statement." And just think what happens when it is combined with another two-word scissor statement -- "Donald Trump." Are we at risk of getting derailed before the conversation can even get started?

I am concerned that we need to do much more to get discussions about nuclear disarmament out of the weeds of disagreeing over "possible scenarios" and into the area of common sense -- that nuclear weapons pose a one-of-a-kind risk, one whose consequences truly threaten to end our world, and whose likelihood is practically unknowable (but certainly real). Maybe a good rule of thumb would be focusing 90% of our dialogue on that core danger, and only then -- possibly -- giving over some portion of our dialog into trying to revise US conventional wisdom (bias, prejudice) about specific contexts like Korea.

I trust I will be having many conversations with colleagues about this in the days ahead . . . .


Post about Korea on Scarry Thoughts

Korea: A History of Living Under Nuclear Terror

The Cynical American Scapegoating of Korea as a Cover for Nuclear Terror

Media analysis series:
A Checklist for Critically Reading (and Writing) About North Korea.
Can You Judge a Nuclear Confrontation by Its Cover?
When Writing About North Korea Is a "Downer"
The US and North Korea: Suspense, Discomfort, Regret
North Korea: Who Am I To Look At You?

#Nuclearban Game-Changer: South Korea?

North Korea and #NuclearBan

Who Has Been "Begging for War"?

Is Kim Jong-un giving the US its "Suez Crisis"?

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: "Korea's Place in the Sun" by Bruce Cumings

"Denuclearization" - A Graphic to Focus the Mind

ICAN logo

I've recommended an important article in the New York Review of Books.

I featured the logo of the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) in my post. The post (and the article it recommended) was not about ICAN and the nuclear ban treaty -- at least not directly. But I used the image for three reasons.


Ad hominem

First: I have a strong objection to the image that did accompany the NYRB article. Oh, I think the graphic is very artistic, with its portrait of a deathly pale Kim Jong-un flanked by skulls. But I object to the use of it in connection with this article -- which is, after all, about multiple nuclear weapons states. The suggestion of death is appropriate to any discussion of nuclear weapons, but it is false to focus on the deadliness of a person instead of the deadliness of the nuclear weapons, themselves, and the nuclear weapons architecture and the roles people play in it.

Kim Jong-un by Siegried Woldhek in the New York Review of Books

This is especially true at a moment when people in the US -- that is, many of the very people who make up the readership of NYRB -- are struggling to develop a fact-based understanding of Korea, its northern and southern parts, and the role of the US in negotiations about conflict and nuclear weapons there. That's why I wrote A Checklist for Critically Reading (and Writing) About North Korea and Can You Judge a Nuclear Confrontation by Its Cover?

(By the way: you could fault me for the many times I have used pejorative images of Donald Trump to suggest the danger he poses as the commander of US nuclear weapons. More to come on this subject . . . . )


"Denuclearization"

Second, one of the essential points of the NYRB article is that the term "denuclearization" is being used by both Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump, but the two mean different things when they use it.

Kim means, in essence, "we want a situation in which we're not threatened by your nuclear weapons and you're not threatened by ours."

Trump means "we want a situation in which you give up your nuclear weapons capability and we keep ours."

Anyone who is familiar with US nuclear doctrine to date understands why Trump thinks his version is the way things work.

Anyone who is familiar with the history of Korea understands why Kim is committed to his version.

And what results is a discourse. People get to dig into the issue, learn about it, try to understand it, and discuss it with others.

So: back to that graphic. I believe that the ICAN logo -- the image of a nuclear weapon being broken -- is an image that helps us focus on the core discourse: denuclearization.


A Proprietary Image?

It's debatable whether the logo of ICAN is fair game for the Korea Spring and denuclearization. ICAN is not a party to the talks, and the talks are not connected to the central project of ICAN, the nuclear ban treaty -- directly.

And yet . . . .

The discourse on denuclearization is impossible to separate from the discourse on the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which has now become impossible to separate from the discourse on the global nuclear ban treaty.

Just as "Nature abhors a vacuum," people innately sense and reject inequity. The longstanding de facto architecture of nuclear weapons -- "some've got 'em and others don't get to have 'em" -- withers a little more each time another person comes to see it and think about it and understand it and talk about it.

And right now the Trump-Kim Summit is shining a bright light on the discourse of denuclearization and that inequity.


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"Denuclearization": Let's Get Serious

Symbol of the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
(Why here?)

I commend to all the article by Jessica T. Matthews in the May 10, 2018, New York Review of Books, "Jaw-Jaw Better Than War-War."

The crux is found in these three sentences:

Former defense secretary William J. Perry, who has years of experience with arms control, including a failed effort in Pyongyang twenty years ago, believes that the very modest goal of a ban on further nuclear and missile tests and on the export of nuclear technology is all that can be hoped for. He argues that it would be impossible to verify even a freeze in the number of existing warheads, much less cuts. There is a stunning contrast between the modest goals that might be realistically achievable in North Korea and the stringent cuts and verification measures already in place and working under the Iran deal.

(The article is dated April 10 - before Trump de-certified the Iran Deal.)

Three thoughts on getting serious about denuclearization:

Serious analysis: It's important to advocate for broad goals; it's also important to participate in thinking about the details. How we as a species are going to "unlearn" nuclear weapons technology is a problem filled with devilish details.  (More to come on this subject . . . . )

Serious conversations: It's important to participate in conversations with all kinds of people. I'm particularly interested in the role of people like Matthews and Perry right now -- the kind of people who hold many views on security and international affairs that I don't agree with, but who do carry tremendous influence with respect to the task in front of us.

By the way, the expression "jaw jaw better than war war" -- a Harold Macmillan/Winston Churchill mashup -- expresses a kind of crude, patronizing attitude, the condescension of the warrior-reluctantly-turned-diplomat (there's an unspoken "I suppose" there . . . ) and perfectly encapsulates the idea that it's worth putting up with some attitude in order to get some dialog.

(More to come on this subject, too.)

Serious citizenship: Predictably, the daily ups and downs connected to the Korean Spring continue. There's an important role for ordinary citizens like you and me: to help the wide array of people we interact with day-to-day understand the larger arc of what's happening -- between the two parts of Korea, between the US and Korea, and with denuclearization broadly.


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HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: "Korea's Place in the Sun" by Bruce Cumings

US President Donald Trump and North Korea President Kim Jong-un have set their summit for June 12 in Singapore.

Some people think this event will be all about North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

Others realize it is much bigger -- it includes the resolution of the war that has left Korea divided, and about the US nuclear weapons program, too.

On the nuclear weapons topic -- those of both North Korea and long-standing "nuclear weapons states" like the US -- I've previously told readers here about a vital resource: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: ElBaradei's "Age of Deception."

For the important facts about Korea -- facts that most of us in the US seldom really hear about -- the book to read is "Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History," by Bruce Cumings.

If, like me, you like to start the story in the middle and then spread out in both directions, you might want to dive right into the section describing "The Division of Korea," which starts like this:

In the days just before Koreans heard the voice of Emperor Hirohito for the first time, broadcasting Japan's surrender and Korea's liberation [from four decades of being Japan's colony] on August 15, 1945, John J. McCloy of the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee (SWNCC) directed two young colonels, Dean Rusk and Charles H. Bonesteel, to withdraw to an adjoining room and find a place to divide Korea. It was around midnight on August 10-11, the atomic bombs had been dropped, the Soviet Red Army had entered the Pacific War, and American planners were rushing to arrange the Japanese surrender throughout the region. Given thirty minutes to do so, Rusk and Bonesteel looked at a map and chose the thirty-eigth parallel because it "would place the capital city in the American zone"; although the line was "further north than could be realistically reached . . . in the event of Soviet disagreement," the Soviets made no objections -- which "somewhat surprised" Rusk. General Douglas MacArthur, the hero of the Pacific campaigns, issued General Order Number One for the Japanese surrender on August 15, including in it (and thus making public) the thirty-eighth parallel decision. The Russians accepted in silence this division into spheres, while demanding a Russian occupation of the northern part of Hokkaido in Japan (which MacArthur refused). (p. 186, 2005 edition)

This is just a taste. We who live in the US need to take much, much, much more responsibility for understanding how things got to be the way they are.

PS - I have previously referred to "Korea's Place in the Sun" - see Korea: A History of Living Under Nuclear Terror.

PPS - Bruce Cumings is one of a handful of scholars in the US who have, for decades, been urging a much more thoughtful approach by US people to the affairs of the countries of Asia - see A Checklist for Critically Reading (and Writing) About North Korea.


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The US and North Korea: Suspense, Discomfort, Regret

The New Yorker, September 18, 2017

In light of the sobering news that John Bolton will become National Security Advisor to Donald Trump, I'm continuing with my analysis of an article about North Korea by zeroing in on some points that I hope people take away from that article.

Now more than ever we need lots and lots of people to participate in the process of reading, thinking, and speaking critically.

As in previous posts, I'll continue to use the up/down/level scoring approach as I discuss how this information was presented in "Letter from Pyongyang: On the Brink," by Evan Osnos in The New Yorker, September 18, 2017 (online: "The Risk of Nuclear War with North Korea").


Suspense: Will the US go to war?

I'm particularly interested in war powers, and whether "we, the People," have the ability to constrain the president. I mentioned in my post two days ago that I sat up and took notice when I read the part of "Letter from Pyongyang" about the North Korean official asking "who decides?" (article paragraph 25). I was also struck by the following paragraph, which appeared a few pages later:

Occasionally Pak misread something that was hard to discern from far away. He told me, "The United States is a divided country. It has no appetite for war." On some level, that was true -- the United States is a divided country, and it is tired of fighting wars in the Middle East, in South Asia -- but he would be wrong to assume that these facts would, with absolute assurance, prevent the Trump Administration from launching a strike on North Korea. (article paragraph 64)

That, my friends, is called "burying the lede." In my opinion, it is the most important paragraph in the entire article, and trumps (no pun intended) anything else written there, even (or especially) the most lurid anecdotes or rumors about North Korea.

Evan Osnos is confronting us with the fact that the US has lost control of war-making authority.

Not coincidentally, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on this very subject in November.

Nonetheless, I rated this paragraph "level," i.e. because it was focused on the US, I couldn't feel it impacting the notion that North Korea is "bad" one way or the other.

By the way, paragraph 5 of the article describes Osnos' plan for his reporting trip: "Before my arrival in North Korea, I spent time in Washington, Seoul, and Beijing; many people in those places, it turned out, are asking the same things about the United States." In this paragraph, "the same things" means "the kind of violence that their country so often threatens" and "[w]ere the threats serious, or mere posturing?" . . . and would those threats result in war. Unfortunately, the structure of the paragraph is so front-loaded with focus on North Korea doing "those things" that the reader is unlikely to give equal weight to the role of the US in all this, much less the heavy weight it (in my opinion) deserves. As a result, I rated that paragraph a "down," i.e. it tended to reinforce the impression that North Korea is "bad."

In paragraph 48, a school child asks Osnos, "Why is America trying to provoke a war with us? And what right do they have to block us from building our own nuclear weapon?" Osnos writes that "[t]his did not seem the occasion for rigorous analysis or debate. I mumbled some bromides about hoping that things would get better. The boy seemed unimpressed." I rated this paragraph a "down," because I think the main impression that the average reader gets is, "What is a ten-year-old doing thinking about this? They've been brainwashed! War-crazed North Koreans . . . . " (Personally, I think the paragraph is brilliantly . . . really "meta." To those who have ears to hear, Osnos is asking, "Well, what is the time and place to start analyzing this whole thing rigorously? Hello? Readers? Anyone awake out there?")


Discomfort: when war and weaponry are visible

One reason I rated many elements of the Osnos article a "down" is because they involved described talk of war and weaponry in North Korea. The irony, of course, is that this is liable to strike the average US reader as "war-obsessed." US people are in the curious situation of living in a state that is has the world's highest level of military spending, and is the world's largest weapons export, and is involved in armed conflicts all over the world . . .  and/but does a phenomenal job of keeping all of that out of sight, and out of the minds of the populace.

Paragraphs 65-78 of the article (down, down, down, down, level, level, level, down, down, down, down, down, down) describe frequent mentions of war and weaponry, and the apparent belief on the part of the North Koreans that they can endure the suffering of war. On this last point, Osnos challenges his host:

     But, to state the obvious, I said, risking a premature end to a friendly meal, a nuclear exchange would not be comparable.
    "A few thousand would survive," Pak said. "And the military would say, 'Who cares? As long as the United States is destroyed, then we are all starting from the same line again.'" He added, "A lot of people would die. But not everyone would die." (article paragraphs 77-78)

"A lot of people would die. But not everyone would die." I think that sounds to the average reader like, "The North Koreans are crazy. They've been brainwashed into thinking they can survive a nuclear war."

This might be an opportune moment to pause and look at a graphic of global nuclear weapons holdings:

So many exist, ready to be used . . . .
The world's nuclear weapon count (August, 2014):
16,400
(Source: peaceandplanet.org)

So: who's crazy? The people thinking about how many people will survive nuclear war? Or the people living in the country with 7,000+ nuclear warheads (2014 total) who never even think about it?


Regret: things could've been different

Osnos does a good job of providing the recent diplomatic history. I just wish it weren't buried so deep in the article.

Paragraph 82 gives an account of Kim Jong Un's Father, Kim Jong Il, as someone who came close to "forging peace with the United States" c. 2000. (Four "ups" in a single paragraph.)

Paragraph 83 describes how the US dropped the ball as the Clinton Administration ended and the Bush Administration began. (I bet US readers gloss over the significance of this: level.)

Paragraph 84 reminds us of Bush's inclusion of North Korea in an "axis of evil." (Level, at best. The word "evil" tends to poison the well of this particular paragraph.)


Which brings us back to John Bolton. (See the "Beyond the Axis of Evil" speech. Given the sudden turn Bolton's appointment represents, it is now more than ever incumbent on every US citizen to take personal responsibility for a truth-based approach to understanding the US, understanding North Korea, and understanding the US-North Korea situation.

Your own close reading of the Osnos article is a good place to start.


(To be continued.)


Additional posts in this series:

A Checklist for Critically Reading (and Writing) About North Korea.

North Korea: Who Am I To Look At You?

When Writing About North Korea Is a "Downer"

Can You Judge a Nuclear Confrontation by Its Cover?


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Can You Judge a Nuclear Confrontation by Its Cover?

I want to write in more detail about the article I talked about in yesterday's post -- When Writing About North Korea Is a "Downer" -- but I realized that first I should say something about the cover of the issue of The New Yorker in which it appeared.

I wrote two days ago about how important images are -- North Korea: Who Am I To Look At You?. The article from the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars that I referenced there directed our attention to how caricatures may cross the line from commentary on an individual to ethnic stereotype. Consider this example:

"Let's see -- my old man said the top button is to launch and the
bottom button is to cancel -- or is it the other way around?"
Kim Jong Il caricatured by Don Wright, Palm Beach Post
c. 1994

Commenting on the cartoon, scholar Robert Perkinson says, "[T]he cartoon not only ridicules North Korea's likely new president Kim Jong Il by exaggerating both his lack of expertise and his perceived menace to the West, but also employs anti-Asian racial stereotypes." (Introduction to "Notes from the Field: The Korean Nuclear Crisis.)

Having been alerted by Perkinson, I notice several things about this cartoon:

* Kim's feet don't reach the ground. (They barely reach beyond the edge of his chair.) This suggests:

- the physical fact that Kim Jung Il was relatively short (5' 3")
- short stature as a metaphor for youth, in turn a metaphor for inexperience and/or lack of expertise
- infantilization of Asians as a racial stereotype

* Kim has big glasses and barely visible eyes, i.e. the representation is in no way realistic. Does this reflect:

- reliance upon a long-standing and innocent cartooning convention?
- reliance upon a long-standing and anti-Asian racist cartooning convention?

* Kim can't keep straight the simplest instructions concerning this mechanism. Is this:

- a dig at his inexperience and/or lack of expertise?
- an anti-Asian racist stereotype, suggesting Asians are too simple to understand machines?

I know, it's hard work; we've been looking at images like this for so long without thinking about these questions.

The New Yorker cover for September 18, 2017 is interesting.

The New Yorker, September 18, 2017

It is by Eric Drooker and is entitled "Warhead."

What I noticed about this image is that it puts Kim Jong Un on a par with Donald Trump. After months of graphics that made use of what had become a true cultural meme -- Trump's orange mop of hair -- we were now seeing an image saying to us, in effect, "There's another leader that you know just by looking at his hair!" (and, possibly, "Compare to Trump - similar? different? . . . . ")

Using the up/down/level scoring approach that I talked about in yesterday's post, I would give this a "level." If all it were suggesting was "Kim is scary" (i.e. the message implied by the image's title, "Warhead"), then I would rate it "down." But in my opinion the image makes people think.

I'm confirmed in my judgement by comparing it with an earlier New Yorker cover depicting Kim:

The New Yorker, January 18, 2016

It is by Anita Kunz and is entitled "New Toys."

Here the questions raised by the Don Wright cartoon come to mind. It seems perfectly legitimate to provide commentary that suggests that a leader lacks the maturity to handle his or her country's military and weapons responsibly. However, I believe it also involves an anti-Asian racial stereotype when an Asian leader is shown as a baby playing with his toys. (Why isn't he shown side-by-side with his US counterpart, also depicted as a child?)

So: between January, 2016, and September, 2017, the story the public has gotten from The New Yorker has progressed from "down" to "level."

At least, if you can judge a nuclear confrontation by its cover . . . .


More:

The US and North Korea: Suspense, Discomfort, Regret

"Denuclearization" - A Graphic to Focus the Mind


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When Writing About North Korea Is a "Downer"

The New Yorker, September 18, 2017

In the past several days, I have started the process of examining some specific examples of recent writing by others about the US, about North Korea, and about the US-North Korea situation, and trying to highlight the ways in which certain aspects of writing play a role in forming the impression that might be formed by readers.  I've started specifically with an article that appeared in The New Yorker: "Letter from Pyongyang: On the Brink," by Evan Osnos, September 18, 2017 issue; online: "The Risk of Nuclear War with North Korea".

Here is now I began:

A Checklist for Critically Reading (and Writing) About North Korea.

North Korea: Who Am I To Look At You?

Today, I want to get into the body of the Osnos article itself.

First, a disclosure. I was delighted with this article when I first saw it. Back in September, 2017, when it first came out, I was involved in helping prepare for a conference to be held at Harvard in November about presidential first use of nuclear weapons (see video summary and full text), and I immediately saw a connection. Osnos quotes Ri Yong Pil, "a Foreign Ministry official in his mid-fifties, who is the vice-president of the Institute for American Studies":

After several more toasts, Ri loosened his tie and shed his jacket. He had some questions. "In your system, what is the power of the President to launch a war?" he asked. "Does the Congress have the power to decide?" ("Letter from Pyongyang," paragraph 25)

No question about it, I was gleeful to see the very question upon which the conference was to focus being raised by people in North Korea, and reported in this prominent article!

Going back now and studying the article more closely, I realized that my particular point of view and special concerns meant that my first reading didn't necessarily have much in common with the many other people who read it. For sure, paragraph 25 was probably not the most memorable paragraph for the average reader. I even wonder whether the average reader paid very much attention to paragraph 25 at all . . . .

This time, as I read through the article, I tried to notice how the words struck me, and tried to think and feel like an average US reader. We've all heard a lot about how "bad" North Korea is -- all of us carry that with us -- so I applied a simple test: I went through the article word by word and rated each paragraph (or fragment of a paragraph) as follows.

* "down" --  if it tended to reinforce the impression that North Korea is "bad";

* "up" --  if it tended to counterbalance or question the idea that North Korea is "bad";

* "level" --  if I couldn't feel it impacting the notion that North Korea is "bad" one way or the other.

I know, I know - completely subjective and arbitrary.  But that's what all of us have to work with when we read -- received ideas, notions, and impressions, and feelings about how the words strike us. (Yes, I'll admit it: some of us . . . some of the time . . . may also read with a degree of steely logic and layered analysis . . . . Anyway, back to the real world . . . . )

Here are some examples of "up," "down," and "level" in "Letter from Pyongyang"

The article begins with a section head:

I. THE MADMAN THEORY

Now, I personally know the words "madman theory" to be associated with US nuclear doctrine. So my initial impression was, "Ah, good, Osnos is going to place the blame where it belongs, with the US!" This would seem to rate an "up" rating, right? It tends to counterbalance or question the idea that North Korea is "bad."

But I made a guess about the average reader. I guessed that the average reader wouldn't immediately think of US nuclear doctrine, but would think "madman" refers to the North Koreans, specifically the North Korean leader.

I also thought: "Uh-oh. Right off the bat, that section title sets a tone for what follows, and tends to swamp the mood of the piece, even though it's just a few words."  (Many paragraphs later, Osnos indeed associates the "madman theory" with US nuclear doctrine -- but by then the damage has been done, in my opinion.)

(Yes, some words get more weight than others. Similar to the way that a big colorful picture can outweigh a thousand words.)

On the other hand, I noticed that every time Osnos used a non-threatening descriptor for a North Korean person, it tended to feel like he was lifting some of the stigma on North Korea overall. I jotted down words like . . .

genial
placid
gregarious
confident
pragmatic
well-informed
technical
single-minded
long-term
modern

Certain lifestyle words also seemed positive . . .

MacBook
jet
stylish wife

All of these tended to contribute an "up" feeling, in my opinion.

There was a lot in the article that I considered "level." There were multiple instances in which I thought, "If a reader is well-informed and paying close attention, they will see that this paragraph is an indictment of the US., and puts North Korea in a more positive light than usual. But what feeling will the average reader get from this paragraph? I fear that at best it will be like water off their back."

For example, here's a paragraph in which Osnos reports on his escorts' sincere questions about what is likely to happen:

For Pak and other analysts in North Korea, the more important question about the United States extends beyond Trump. "Is the American public ready for war?" he asked. "Does the Congress want a war? Does the American military want a war? Because, if they want a war, then we must prepare for that." ("Letter from Pyongyang," paragraph 16)

Personally, I tended to view this as another extremely significant paragraph. "That's the crux of the Constitutional problem we're up against -- and they get it!" Score an "up," right?

However, I tried to be honest with myself, and I thought I had to admit that the average US reader would find this anecdote complicated and not terribly revealing (unless possibly reinforcing an impression that North Korea is war-obsessed) . . . . in other words, at best, "level."

The upshot was that when I made a tally, I found the "downs" far outnumbered the "ups" and the "levels":

"up" -- 35
"down" -- 101
"level" -- 38

Again, I know - it's not terribly precise. But I think it points to a direction that's worth looking at more.

More: The US and North Korea: Suspense, Discomfort, Regret


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North Korea: Who Am I To Look At You?

Many people in the US are looking at North Korea, thinking, "We don't really know enough . . . I want more information."

That's important.

. . . but/and . . .

I'm beginning to realize it's even more important that we ask, "Who am I? How is that I get to do the observing? Do I imagine North Korea is obliged to prove something to me?"

These questions go to the head of what I have described as A Checklist for Critically Reading (and Writing) About North Korea.


Standing

I attended a screening of a film at the Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) two days ago: The Thoughts That Once We Had by Thom Andersen.

Thoughts is a film about film. I'm guessing most people who see it think of it as being about the art of film (" . . . directors from Griffith to Godard"). But it's really about philosophy and phenomenology. Which means it's also about politics.

There's a substantial section of the film that is about war: the siege of Stalingrad, Hiroshima, Vietnam -- and North Korea.

I was so startled by the appearance of this extremely topical North Korea section that I barely had time to grab my pen and scribble down the narration as best I could: " . . . North Korea 1950-1953 . . . The US Air Force destroyed every town and city in North Korea . . . 600,000 tons of bombs . . . 2 million civilians . . . no repentance . . . not even acknowledgement . . . . "

I thought: "Serendipitous. Important context for what's happening right now. What if we routinely got reminders of this information? What if it just popped up at random times, as it seemed to do for me in this film?"

This snippet of film gives important context for our standing as observers of North Korea.

Do we need to know where we stand?


Pictures and Words

I have set out to look at a recent article about North Korea ("Letter from Pyongyang: On the Brink," by Evan Osnos in The New Yorker, September 18, 2017; online: "The Risk of Nuclear War with North Korea") and try to understand how it impacts understanding about North Korea, and about the US-North Korea situation.

One of the first things that occurred to me is that the impact of a few images is likely to swamp the impact of thousands of words. There are several photographs by Max Pinckers accompanying "Letter from Pyongyang: On the Brink," and I think it's worth considering them even before the article's text.

(Perhaps I'm just starting here for convenience. And yet . . . . Consider the way generations of people have read The New Yorker: first flipping through the entire issue looking at the cartoons (and, now, other images), and then putting the magazine out on the coffee table (yes, or . . . ), and only later (possibly) reading an article or two.)

Among Pinckers' photographs, I found the one below particularly full of information:

North Korean schoolchildren photographed by Max Pinckers for The New Yorker

The image was displayed as a 2-page spread in the print edition. I wondered: what happens when someone looks at this image? How might it impact their understanding about North Korea, and about the US-North Korea situation?

The overall effect of the image seemed to me to be scary.

I tried to break it down. Some of the things I noticed in myself as I looked at the photograph:

Lighting/mood: glare, garish ... weird pink partition glass ... amber color

Composition: regimented ... is it a language lab?

Costume: uniforms ... red kerchiefs covering shoulders

Faces: overall feeling is troubling

I realized that the ephemeral aspects of the image had as much impact on me as the actual content. In other words, the feeling of the picture as much as the substance.

I went back and looked at each of the faces in turn: what do I see there? Looking left to right, front to back, at the six children's faces, I sensed: leery/looking askance; sheepish/guilty; imploring; dull/affectless; content/unconcerned; trying to be alert.

People would be justified in thinking they can tell something from the expressions on these children's faces: faces communicate -- across cultures, pretty consistently. And yet: do these six expressions really signify something? Beyond, that is, what these six individuals were feeling on that particular day, in that particular situation? (How different is this than any other group of schoolkids of this age?)

The caption in the print edition reads, "Students at the Pyongyang Orphans' Secondary School, which is housed in a new brick-and-steel complex. In a class of ten-and-eleven-year-olds, one boy asked, 'Why is America trying to provoke a war with us?'" [More on that question in a separate blog post.])

You can read the photographer's own take on this image here: "A Photographer’s Search for Cracks in North Korea’s Propaganda Machine."

When I got done with these observations, I wondered: does a photograph such as this get us closer to the truth?

Of course, this is just one picture.

Still, considering the stakes -- not to mention the history -- what obligation do we have to give everyone concerned the best possible shot at approaching the truth?


The Power to Look

We aren't going to stop looking at North Korea, nor should we. But will we slow down, even for a moment, and do our looking with a level of intentionality and self-awareness appropriate to the subject?

I have recently been watching a series of programs filmed by Louis Malle, Phantom India. From the very outset, Malle says that he and his team realized they were in an inequitable position vis-a-vis the people they were filming: they came to India, looked at people, took their images, and went do what they wished with them. It was as if, he says, they were thieves.

We are in a moment when many images and many words will be taken from North Korea and consumed by people in the US. Much of this will happen in the context of inequities from the past that will not be immediately reversed (if, indeed, they ever are), and we need to take in more, not less, information.  However, at a minimum, let us to commit to a process wherein we slow down and think as we are doing it.


More:

Can You Judge a Nuclear Confrontation by Its Cover?

When Writing About North Korea Is a "Downer"

The US and North Korea: Suspense, Discomfort, Regret


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A Checklist for Critically Reading (and Writing) About North Korea

cover, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars,
January - June 2000

I recently began doing something I wish I'd done forty years ago when I was a college student: reading and thinking about the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars (now Critical Asian Studies) - the publication of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars.

You can read this publication free online:

Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars (1968-2000)
Critical Asian Studies (2001 onward)

I plan to talk in a more general way about this important publication in a future post. Here I will begin with a relevant example of its important work.

In a 1994 issue of the Bulletin, there is a group of articles about North Korea and nuclear weapons: "Notes from the Field: The Korean Nuclear Crisis." The articles are:

* Robert Perkinson - "Introduction"

* Bruce Cummings - "Old and New Korean Wars"

* Minn Chung - "'Seoul Will Become a Sea of Fire . . .'"

* Reunification Committee of National Council of Churches in Korea - "Statement on Peace and Reunification of the Korean Peninsula"

* Catherine B. Wrenn - "The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in Retrospect: The Case of North Korea"

* Tom Clements - "Nuclear-Free Korean Peninsula: Visit of "MV Greenpeace" Spotlights South Korean Nukes"

* Minn Chung - "Chronology of Crisis: Important Developments for Peace, Reconciliation, and Denuclearization in Korea"

(You can read all these articles in pdf form In the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars Volume 26 (No. 1 and 2).)

Robert Perkinson's introductory article calls our attention to the need to read critically -- in general, and as we comment on places and cultures that are not our own, and especially in charged contexts like the relationship between the United States and North Korea.

I jotted down some words from Robert Perkinson's article:

Western media spin . . .

monolithic ideological line  . . .

portraying . . .

condemning . . .

demonizing . . .

target the North Korean people as well . . .

overt racism . . .

mocking . . .

demeaning anecdotes . . .

"hysteria" . . .

epithets . . .

jingoistic . .

anti-Asian racial stereotypes . . .

denigrating . . . 

All of these are examples of behaviors that we who write about countries and cultures not our own must be on guard against. At a minimum, our unending effort to produce "colorful writing" -- stuff that people actually feel compelled to read -- is filled with the risk of leading readers by the nose instead of giving them the material to think for themselves. At a deeper level, the power we wield as observers and interpreters and writers generally needs much, much, much more acknowledgement, not to mention careful, measured, respectful, peaceful application.

I decided it would be valuable to spend some time examining how my own writing might be improved by paying attention to these behaviors.

I also decided to examine some specific examples of recent writing (by others) about the US, about North Korea, and about the US-North Korea situation, and try to highlight the ways in which these (and other) behaviors play a role in forming the impression that might be formed by readers.

The good news is that much is being written and shared today about North Korea.

The bad news is that we -- readers, writers, all of us -- have a lot of unexamined biases.

Let the critical reading begin . . . . 


Follow-up posts:

North Korea: Who Am I To Look At You?

When Writing About North Korea Is a "Downer"

Can You Judge a Nuclear Confrontation by Its Cover?

The US and North Korea: Suspense, Discomfort, Regret


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Trump and Kim and Nuclear Brinksmanship: Too Close for Comfort

WHAT IF?
"For the first time since the end of the Cold War, Bay Area
residents are being forced to confront the unthinkable:
the possibility of a nuclear attack on our own soil."
(The Mercury News, August 10, 2017)
(Please share this post on Twitter.)

A number of things will need to be said to clarify the context of the Trump-Kim Summit.

I think the most important is: US people have woken up to the fact that "business as usual" (i.e. US nuclear deterrence doctrine) means that they are targets . . . and they've also woken up to the fact that a nuclear strike is not something anyone "survives."

Donald Trump cannot come back from Korea and say, "Too bad, we couldn't agree, we're going to pursue other alternatives."

There are no "other alternatives" to ending the risk of nuclear weapons use.

I knew something had changed when more and more members of Congress agreed to co-sponsor Ted Lieu's HR.669 "Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017" - including 19 from California alone!

I knew something had changed when I saw the picture above on the front page of our Bay Area paper last summer.

I knew something had changed when Hawaii had a missile alert and suddenly everyone in the US knows someone who has been scared to death by nuclear weapons.

I knew something had changed when thousands of people started to watch this video from the International Committee on the Red Cross (ICRC):

"From the 1st second, to 70 years on: here’s what could happen
to you and your city if a nuclear bomb is dropped. #nuclearban"
(Please share this message on Twitter.)

For years, experts in the medical field, such as International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), have been urging us to face the facts: a nuclear strike is not something you "survive."

For instance, here's a video from the 1980s ("The Last Epidemic"), with specifics about the impossibility of providing medical care to all of the people harmed if San Francisco were struck by a nuclear weapon:

I guess now people in the US have begun to connect that reality to their own lives.

The degree to which things have changed struck me this morning when I happened to be reading an old Joan Didion essay about Joan Baez.

When she was at Palo Alto High School and refused to leave the building during a bomb drill, she was not motivated by theory; she did it because "it was the practical thing to do, I mean it seemed to me this drill was impractical, all these people thinking they could get into some kind of little shelter and be saved with canned water." ("Where the Kissing Never Stops," (1967), in Slouching Towards Bethlehem (Picador edition, p. 83))

People have become a lot more practical in the past year. No one is talking about shelters. People are talking about getting rid of nuclear weapons.


Related posts

What Would a Nuclear Weapon Do to Chicago? (Go ahead, guess . . . )

Obscene Geometry: The Hard Facts about Death and Injury from Nuclear Weapons

US Mayors "Get It": The Nuclear Threat Must Be Stopped


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Yes, Trump to North Korea ... AND ... #restrictnukes

On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is it that we keep working
to restrict the ability of #DonaldTrump to use #nuclearweapons?
(Please share this message on Twitter.)

Yes, Donald Trump says he will go to meet with North Korea Leader Kim Jung-un by May.

. . . AND . . .

It still remains URGENT that formal steps succeed in restricting the ability of the US president to carry out a first strike with nuclear weapons.

As of today, there are 80 House members and 14 senators supporting restrictions on the ability of the US president to unilaterally call a nuclear first strike:

Co-sponsors of  HR.669 "Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017" (plus bill sponsor Rep. Ted Lieu)

Co-sponsors of S.200 "Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017" (plus bill sponsor Sen. Ed Markey)

Are your representative and senators supporting this bill?

This is not the end of the struggle to #restrictnukes. It's just the beginning . . . .


Related:

Full transcript of conference -- "Virtual Roundtable on Presidential First Use of Nuclear Weapons" -- from Public Books.

Nuclear Weapons: People Power Over Trump Power


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Trump and Nuclear Weapons? We need a different future . . . .

Dunne, Raby, and Anastassiades,
"Priscilla Huggable Atomic Mushroom"
from Designs for Fragile Personalities in Anxious Times

Yesterday I was at the Art Institute of Chicago and saw a staggering piece of art: "Priscilla Huggable Atomic Mushroom," from Designs for Fragile Personalities in Anxious Times by Anthony Dunne, Fiona Raby, and Michael Anastassiades.

The plush mushroom cloud is the perfect size to hug while curled up in a fetal position: "The soft, toylike object allows users to confront (and cuddle) their fear of nuclear annihilation directly."

"The soft, toylike object allows users to confront (and
cuddle) their fear of nuclear annihilation directly."
Dunne, Raby, and Anastassiades,
"Priscilla Huggable Atomic Mushroom"

 

I immediately thought of the Kurosawa film I Live in Fear, about a man who is alert to the risk of the next atom bomb dropping and can't rest until he finds some sort of solution.

Fearless samurai portrayer Toshiro Mifune plays against type
as the haunted protagonist of I Live in Fear.

And then there is what people in Hawaii experienced recently . . . .

Dunne and Raby have a book entitled Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming, directed to getting us outside the ruts we're stuck in and inviting us to think about how the world could be completely different: "Dunne and Raby pose 'what if' questions that are intended to open debate and discussion about the kind of future people want (and do not want)."

What a perfect coincidence with the events of the past few days! We have just seen a vote of confidence in a new future by the people of Korea, as the teams from the North and the South marched together under one flag at the opening ceremony for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

Athletes march under the flag of a united Korea
at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang.
(New York Times photo) .

Could there be a starker contrast with the stuck-in-the-past behavior of the current US president?

"CNN BREAKING NEWS . . . .
Trump: If N Korea keeps threatening, will be met with 'fire'."

And people in the US were confronted with that very mushroom cloud imagery again this past week as the cover story of TIME described Trump administration efforts to ramp up the US nuclear weapons program. The TIME piece described how the US government is toting out all the old arguments -- "we need more, bigger, better so that they don't get a step ahead of us!" -- while also reporting the argument for an alternative future: "Enough! We don't have to do this!"

For anyone willing to imagine the alternative future, here are two ways to work to make it happen:

(1) Support the effort of members of the US Congress to restrict the US president's ability to conduct a nuclear first strike.

(2) Support the effort of countries worldwide to bring about a global ban on nuclear weapons. (It's happening now at the United Nations!)

Working for an alternative future: do we really have any other choice?

LIMITED TIME ONLY!
O F F I C I A L
Trump Administration
Collectible Plush Toy
MEMORABILIA!
offer good while supplies last . . . .

Related posts

Bunker Mentality

Is Kim Jong-un giving the US its "Suez Crisis"?

Korea: A History of Living Under Nuclear Terror

Nuclear Weapons: People Power Over Trump Power

133 Is a Lot of #Nuclearban-Supporting Countries


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Bunker Mentality

Saturday, January 13, 2018: People in Hawaii this message:
 Emergency Alert
BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT
INBOUND TO HAWAII.
SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER.
THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

Do you know somebody in Hawaii?

Ask them to share their experience . . . .

The thousands of people who experienced the "BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII" emergency alert need to be listened to.


Related posts

Korea: A History of Living Under Nuclear Terror

VIETNAM and the NUCLEAR BAN: Out From Under the Shadow of US Nuclear Terror

Why People Want a Pacific (and World) Free of Nuclear Weapons


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Is Kim Jong-un giving the US its "Suez Crisis"?

An end to "business as usual"?
(Anthony Eden and his cabinet in The Crown (Netflix))

I wonder if it has occurred to other people watching "The Crown" -- as it has occurred to me -- that the tailspin into which the UK was thrown by the Suez Crisis might be compared to what is happening to the US in the course of the crisis over North Korea and nuclear weapons.

(See "The Crown: What was the Suez Crisis and why did it bring down Prime Minister Anthony Eden?")

Today I am sitting down to study the chronology of developments during the past year. But even before beginning, I'm aware of similarities:

* Before the Suez Crisis, it was just assumed that it was for the UK to decide the disposition of the canal. It never occurred to anyone that that particular piece of infrastructure might be controlled . . . by Egyptians!

* Before the Suez Crisis, it was just assumed that the UK could brandish its military might, and its allies would applaud it. UK leaders didn't expect the rest of the world to say, "What gives you the right?"

* Before the Suez Crisis, UK leaders (like Anthony Eden) never thought of leaders of other countries (like Gamal Abdel Nasser) as being entitled to stand up to them. That changed . . . .

The slow-boil crisis over North Korea and nuclear weapons is changing assumptions about how the US acts, and where it stands in relation to the other nations in the world.

As of today, there are 73 House members and 13 senators calling for restrictions on the ability of the US president to unilaterally call a nuclear first strike:

Co-sponsors of  HR.669 "Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017" (introduced by Rep. Ted Lieu)

Co-sponsors of S.200 "Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017" (introduced by Sen. Ed Markey)

AND . . . the UN treaty on a global nuclear weapons ban has been signed by 56 countries and ratified by 3 already: "Signature/ratification status of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons."

So I am beginning to wonder:

* Is the issue any longer: "How will the US control North Korea?"

* Perhaps the issue has become: "How has North Korea managed to change the position of the US in the world?"

Some of my previous posts on this topic:

Who Has Been "Begging for War"?

Korea: A History of Living Under Nuclear Terror

North Korea and #NuclearBan


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Who Has Been "Begging for War"?

US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley says North Korea's tests of increasingly sophisticated nuclear weapons and missiles amounts to "begging for war."

So THAT'S what testing increasingly sophisticated nuclear weapons and missiles is! Thank you for the clarification, Ambassador Haley.

Is that what the US and the other nuclear weapons states have been doing for the past 70 years? Perhaps now we have some inkling of how we have been viewed by the rest of the world as we have brandished weapon after weapon after weapon . . . ?

(The video above is a 3 minute version of all nuclear detonations since 1945. I invite you to watch the unrelenting sequence of thousands of nuclear detonations by the US and other nuclear powers unfold in the original 14 minute version, if you have the stomach for it.)

"I think that North Korea has basically slapped everyone in the face in the international community that has asked them to stop," Haley said. Yes, well . . . .

What, then, is the opposite of this way of "begging for war"? Perhaps becoming a party to the UN #nuclearban? Perhaps that is what countries "insisting on peace" are doing?


Related posts

Korea: A History of Living Under Nuclear Terror

Nuclear Weapons Abolition: What Will Be Different After September 20?

USA: Bringing a Trumpian Posture to the Nuclear Ban Talks. (Bankruptcy.)


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Korea: A History of Living Under Nuclear Terror

Korean War map, showing relative position of
Manchuria (Northeast China), Yellow Sea, and
Sea of Japan. (Source: Encycl. Britannica)

A few days ago, I wrote about the new president of South Korea, Moon Jae-in, and wondered: will South Korea join negotiations on a global nuclear ban when they resume in New York at the United Nations on June 15?

I wrote a post several years ago about nuclear weapons in Korea, emphasizing the ways in which the US (not North Korea) has been the one making threats with nuclear weapons for decades. (See: The Cynical American Scapegoating of Korea as a Cover for Nuclear Terror.)

After I wrote the post about President Moon's election, I began to go back and study the history of Korea again. Prof. Bruce Cumings has documented US plans to use nuclear weapons in Korea, and you can read some of his research online: "Nuclear Threats Against North Korea: Consequences of the 'forgotten' war." Here is an excerpt:

In interviews published posthumously, [Gen. Douglas] MacArthur said he had a plan that would have won the war in 10 days: "I would have dropped 30 or so atomic bombs . . . strung across the neck of Manchuria." Then he would have introduced half a million Chinese Nationalist troops at the Yalu and then "spread behind us -- from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea -- a belt of radioactive cobalt . . . it has an active life of between 60 and 120 years. For at least 60 years there could have been no land invasion of Korea from the North."

From the Korean War onward, nuclear weapons were part of US military planning for Korea. It's well worth reading Cumings' book, Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History, to get a perspective on Korea across the decades since 1945 - including nuclear politics throughout the period. (It's a perspective that most people in the US currently lack.)

Vietnam, another country that has been on the receiving end of nuclear threats by the US, is a co-sponsor of the resolution for global nuclear ban negotiations at the UN. (See VIETNAM and the NUCLEAR BAN: Out From Under the Shadow of US Nuclear Terror.) One wonders if there isn't similar broad sentiment in Korea about putting an end once and for all to nuclear weapons. As I mentioned in my post last week, North Korea voted in favor of holding the nuclear ban negotiations. South Korea voted against holding negotiations -- but that was under a conservative government that was disinclined to say "no" to the US.

Things are changing fast in Korea.

Let's see what President Moon does next.


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#Nuclearban Game-Changer: South Korea?

South Korea's new leader: Moon Jae-in
(Image: NY Daily News)

What if South Korea participated in the negotiations at the UN on a global nuclear weapons ban?

Up until yesterday, that seemed unlikely. Based on information provided by the ICAN (the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons), "South Korea voted against the UN resolution to begin negotiations in 2017 on a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons. It claims that US nuclear weapons are essential for its security and has refused to declare that nuclear weapons should never be used again under any circumstances."

However, South Korea elected a new president two days ago, and he has said that his country should no longer sit on the sidelines while the US and China control the efforts to deal with a nuclear North Korea. Moon Jae-in favors a "Sunshine Policy" to achieve peaceful reconciliation with North Korea. (See "South Korea’s New President, Moon Jae-in, Promises New Approach to North") Not incidentally, Moon is willing to challenge the US on military systems like THAAD.

It is noteworthy that . . .

* the US actively protested against the nuclear weapons ban negotiations, and has urged/pressured its allies to do the same (See USA: Bringing a Trumpian Posture to the Nuclear Ban Talks. (Bankruptcy.) )

* China abstained from the vote on the negotiations, sent a representative to the preparatory meeting, but then announced it would sit the negotiations out. (See China DOES Have a Role in the Nuclear Ban Movement)

* North Korea voted in favor of the negotiations, but then said it would not participate in the negotiations if the US is not doing so. (See North Korea and #NuclearBan)

* Japan gave strong indications that it would participate, but ultimately declined to participate, saying it would be inconsistent with its reliance on the US nuclear umbrella. (See NUCLEAR WEAPONS BAN TALKS: With Japan at the Table (Hopefully))

Negotiations on a global nuclear ban resume in New York at the United Nations on June 15. Participation by South Korea could be a game-changer.



RELATED: Korea: A History of Living Under Nuclear Terror and The Cynical American Scapegoating of Korea as a Cover for Nuclear Terror


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