North Korea, Far From Crazy, Is All Too Rational - The New York Times

North Korea, Far From Crazy, Is All Too Rational - The New York Times

North Korea, Far From Crazy, Is All Too
Rational
The Interpreter
By MAX FISHER SEPT. 10, 2016
Is North Korea irrational? Or does it just pretend to be?
North Korea has given the world ample reason to ask: threats of war,
occasional attacks against South Korea, eccentric leaders and wild­eyed
propaganda. As its nuclear and missile programs have grown, this past week with
a fifth nuclear test, that concern has grown more urgent.
But political scientists have repeatedly investigated this question and, time
and again, emerged with the same answer: North Korea’s behavior, far from
crazy, is all too rational.
Its belligerence, they conclude, appears calculated to maintain a weak,
isolated government that would otherwise succumb to the forces of history. Its
provocations introduce tremendous danger, but stave off what Pyongyang sees as
the even greater threats of invasion or collapse.
Denny Roy, a political scientist, wrote in a still­cited 1994 journal article that
the country’s “reputation as a ‘crazy state’” and for “reckless violence” had
“worked to North Korea’s advantage,” keeping more powerful enemies at bay. But
this image, he concluded, was “largely a product of misunderstanding and
propaganda.”
In some ways, this is more dangerous than irrationality. While the country
does not want war, its calculus leads it to cultivate a permanent risk of one — and
prepare to stave off defeat, should war happen, potentially with nuclear weapons.
That is a subtler danger, but a grave one.
Why scholars believe North Korea is rational
When political scientists call a state rational, they are not saying its leaders
always make the best or most moral choices, or that those leaders are paragons of
mental fitness. Rather, they are saying the state behaves according to its
perceived self­interests, first of which is self­preservation.
When a state is rational, it will not always succeed in acting in its best
interests, or in balancing short­term against long­term gains, but it will try. This
lets the world shape a state’s incentives, steering it in the desired direction.
States are irrational when they do not follow self­interest. In the “strong” form of
irrationality, leaders are so deranged that they are incapable of judging their own
interests. In the “soft” version, domestic factors — like ideological zeal or internal
power struggles — distort incentives, making states behave in ways that are
counterproductive but at least predictable.
North Korea’s actions, while abhorrent, appear well within its rational selfinterest,
according to a 2003 study by David C. Kang, a political scientist now at
the University of Southern California. At home and abroad, he found, North
Korean leaders shrewdly determined their interests and acted on them. (In an
email, he said his conclusions still applied.)
“All the evidence points to their ability to make sophisticated decisions and
to manage palace, domestic and international politics with extreme precision,”
Mr. Kang wrote. “It is not possible to argue these were irrational leaders, unable
to make means­ends calculations.”
Victor Cha, a Georgetown University professor who served as the Asian
affairs director on George W. Bush’s National Security Council, has repeatedly
argued that North Korea’s leadership is rational.
Savage cruelty and cold calculation are not mutually exclusive, after all —
and often go hand in hand.
States are rarely irrational for the simple reason that irrational states can’t
survive for long. The international system is too competitive and the drive for
self­preservation too powerful. While the North Korean state really is unlike any
other on earth, the behaviors that make it appear irrational are perhaps its most
rational.
North Korea’s rational irrationality
North Korea’s seemingly unhinged behavior begins with the country’s
attempt to solve two problems that it took on with the end of the Cold War and
that it should have been unable to survive.
One was military. The Korean Peninsula, still in a formal state of war, had
gone from a Soviet­American deadlock to an overwhelming tilt in the South’s
favor. The North was exposed, protected only by a China that was more focused
on improving ties with the West.
The other problem was political. Both Koreas claimed to represent all
Koreans, and for decades had enjoyed similar development levels. By the 1990s,
the South was exponentially freer and more prosperous. The Pyongyang
government had little reason to exist.
The leadership solved both problems with something called the Songun, or
“military­first,” policy. It put the country on a permanent war footing, justifying
the state’s poverty as necessary to maintain its massive military, justifying its
oppression as rooting out internal traitors and propping up its legitimacy with the
rally­around­the­flag nationalism that often comes during wartime.
Of course, there was no war. Foreign powers believed the government would,
like other Soviet puppets, fall on its own, and barring that wanted peace.
So North Korea created the appearance of permanently imminent war,
issuing flamboyant threats, staging provocations and, sometimes, deadly attacks.
Its nuclear and missile tests, though erratic and often failed, stirred up one crisis
after another.
This militarization kept the North Korean leadership internally stable. It also
kept the country’s enemies at bay.
North Korea may be weaker, but it is willing to tolerate far more risk. By
keeping the peninsula on the edge of conflict, Pyongyang put the onus on South
Korea and the United States to pull things back.
From afar, North Korea’s actions look crazy. Its domestic propaganda
describes a reality that does not exist, and it appears bent on almost provoking a
war it would certainly lose.
But from within North Korea, these actions make perfect sense. And over
time, the government’s reputation for irrationality has become an asset as well.
Scholars ascribe this behavior to the “madman theory” — a strategy, coined
by no less a proponent than Richard M. Nixon, in which leaders cultivate an
image of belligerence and unpredictability to force adversaries to tread more
carefully.
Dr. Roy, in an interview, said North Korea “intentionally employs a posture
of seemingly hyper­risk acceptance and willingness to go to war as a means of
trying to intimidate its adversaries.”
But this strategy works only because, even if the belligerence is for show, the
danger it creates is very real.
Is a rational North Korea more dangerous?
In this way, it is North Korea’s rationality that makes it so dangerous.
Because it believes it can survive only by keeping the Korean Peninsula near war,
it creates a risk of sparking just that, perhaps through some accident or
miscalculation.
North Korea is aware of this risk but seems to believe it has no choice. For
this reason, and perhaps because of the United States­led invasion of Iraq and the
NATO intervention in Libya against Col. Muammar el­Qaddafi, it appears to
earnestly fear an American invasion. And this is rational: Weak states that face
more powerful enemies must either make peace — which North Korea cannot do
without sacrificing its political legitimacy — or find a way to make any conflict
survivable.
North Korea’s nuclear program, some analysts believe, is designed to halt an
American invasion by first striking nearby United States military bases and South
Korean ports, then by threatening a missile launch against the American
mainland. While North Korea does not yet have this ability, analysts believe it will
within the next decade.
This is the culmination of North Korea’s rationality, in something known as
desperation theory.
Under this theory, when states face two terrible choices, they will pick the
least bad option — even if that choice would, under normal conditions, be too
costly to consider.
In North Korea’s case, that means creating the conditions for a war it would
most likely lose. And it could mean preparing a last­ditch effort to survive that
war by launching multiple nuclear strikes, chancing a nuclear retaliation for the
slim chance to survive.
North Korea’s leaders tolerate this danger because, in their calculus, they
have no other choice. The rest of us share in that risk — vanishingly small, but
nonzero — whether we want to or not.
A version of this article appears in print on September 11, 2016, on page A6 of the
New York edition with the headline: North Korea Crazy? Worse. It’s Calculating.
© 2016 The New York Times Company

이야기방 > 인물탐방 > [정신대 할머니들]절대 잊지 마라/배상하라 지금!

이야기방 > 인물탐방 > [정신대 할머니들]절대 잊지 마라/배상하라 지금!

Standing with Historians of Japan

Standing with Historians of Japan:



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総理の最大目標は憲法改正―首相夫人の安倍昭恵さんインタビュー - Japan Real Time - WSJ

総理の最大目標は憲法改正―首相夫人の安倍昭恵さんインタビュー - Japan Real Time - WSJ:


<日本の農業、貿易自由化、居酒屋の経営について>

──農業と経営する居酒屋UZUについて聞かせてください。

自分で田植えをして、草取りもして、稲刈りもする。そんなにベッタリとやるわけではないが。手で全部やって育てていると、普通に食べる米より愛着がわき、すごくおいしいかった。これはぜひみなさんに食べてもらいたいな、ということが店を始めた理由の一つだ。

それが私が店にだんだん出られなくなって、今は全然関われなくなった。それで料理研究家の人に料理は任せた。無農薬とか無添加とか非常にこだわっている私の先生でもあるが、そうしているうちに、それがいかに大事なのかということが分かってきた。

──田んぼに入って草を抜いたりした感想は。

大変ではあるが、実際に田んぼにはだしで入って、植えるというようなことをやると、お米の大切さも分かる。人間も自然の一部なんだなあと感じられて、何か天と地を結ぶ役割みたいな、そんな感じがしてくる

──現在、TPP（環太平洋経済連携協定）の交渉が行われており、日本の農業は今、大きな変わり目を迎えている。農業の市場開放についてはどのように考えているか。

TPPは政府の政策。私は本音を言えば反対だが、そういう方向で進むのであれば、それに対抗できるような農業を日本人が作っていかなくてはいけないと思う。今、いろいろな農家を見ていると、もっと農家は農家で頑張れるところはあると思う。

だから自発的にもっとみんながアイデアを出していかなければならない。（日本の）農業は強いと思う。良いものをたくさん作っている。米国みたいに農業が大型化して大きい会社が全部管理するようにはなってもらいたくない。ここ（店）でも本当にいいものを使うように、一生懸命頑張って作っている生産者の方にできるかぎり光が当たるように、という思いがある。工業製品みたいに農業をしないでもらいたいなと思う。

──TPPには反対ということだが、首相とそういうことを家で話すことはあるか。

たまに話はするが、結局私はそこまでよく分かっていないのでちょっと話すとだいたい論破されてしまう（笑）。

──UZUは10 月に開店1周年を迎えた。（昭恵さんが最近出版した「安倍昭恵の日本のおいしいものを届けたい！私がUZUを始めた理由」によると、）安倍首相とは1年で黒字にならなければやめるという約束だったそうだが、目標は達成できたか。

はい。取りあえず。ぎりぎりで。

"사할린 강제동원 조선인 1천400명 日대기업서 노역" | 연합뉴스

"사할린 강제동원 조선인 1천400명 日대기업서 노역" | 연합뉴스:

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Video transcript in English

Video transcript in English

Boy: OK?
Mother: OK, now eat your Octopus
Boy: Okay, ... The octupus isn't real, is it?
Mother: No
Boy: So it doesn't talk or have a head, right?
Where is the head?
Mother: It does have a head. It's just part of the cut up octupus.
Boy: Oh? So the head is in the sea...?
Mother: It is fish market.
Boy: So, a man cut it, like this?
Mother: Yes, he cut it.
Boy: Why?
Mother: So we can eat it. Otherwise we'd have to eat whole.
Boy: But why?
Mother: So we can eat it. The same way they cut up chickens ...
Boy: Huh? The chickens? ... Nobody can eat chickens.
Mother: Nobody can eat chickens?
Boy: They are animals! 
Mother: Huh? ... Well, then eat your potatos. 
Boy: Only potatoes and rice.
Mother: That's fine.
Boy: Octopus is animal.
Mother: Alright
Boy: All those are animals. ...Fish are animals....Octupuses are animals....The chickens are animals....The cows are animals....The pics are animals...
Mother: Well, yes.
Boy: So then, when we eat animals...They die.
Mother: That's right.
Boy: why?
Mother: So that we can eat them, love.
Boy: But do they have to die? I don't like that they die... I like that they stand on their feet, happy.
Mother: Alright. Then we won't eat any more meat, okay?
Boy: Okay. ... Those animals. We have to take cae of them, not eat them.
Mother: You're right, son. Eat your potatos and your rice.
Boy: Okay. ... Why are you crying?
Mother: I am not crying. You just touched my heart.
Boy: So then I did something nice?
Mother: Go ahead eat now, but don't worry about eating the octopus, okay?
Boy: Okay.

Sejin Pak - [왜 동물을 먹지 말아야 하나 - 4살난 아이의 이야기] - Video transcript in...

Sejin Pak - [왜 동물을 먹지 말아야 하나 - 4살난 아이의 이야기] - Video transcript in...:

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Video transcript in English

Boy: OK?
Mother: OK, now eat your Octopus
Boy: Okay, ... The octupus isn't real, is it?
Mother: No
Boy: So it doesn't talk or have a head, right?
Where is the head?
Mother: It does have a head. It's just part of the cut up octupus.
Boy: Oh? So the head is in the sea...?
Mother: It is fish market.
Boy: So, a man cut it, like this?
Mother: Yes, he cut it.
Boy: Why?
Mother: So we can eat it. Otherwise we'd have to eat whole.
Boy: But why?
Mother: So we can eat it. The same way they cut up chickens ...
Boy: Huh? The chickens? ... Nobody can eat chickens.
Mother: Nobody can eat chickens?
Boy: They are animals! 
Mother: Huh? ... Well, then eat your potatos. 
Boy: Only potatoes and rice.
Mother: That's fine.
Boy: Octopus is animal.
Mother: Alright
Boy: All those are animals. ...Fish are animals....Octupuses are animals....The chickens are animals....The cows are animals....The pics are animals...
Mother: Well, yes.
Boy: So then, when we eat animals...They die.
Mother: That's right.
Boy: why?
Mother: So that we can eat them, love.
Boy: But do they have to die? I don't like that they die... I like that they stand on their feet, happy.
Mother: Alright. Then we won't eat any more meat, okay?
Boy: Okay. ... Those animals. We have to take cae of them, not eat them.
Mother: You're right, son. Eat your potatos and your rice.
Boy: Okay. ... Why are you crying?
Mother: I am not crying. You just touched my heart.
Boy: So then I did something nice?
Mother: Go ahead eat now, but don't worry about eating the octopus, okay?
Boy: Okay.