North Korea Proves The Value Of Extortion

On one hand it is welcome news that North Korea has decided to reenter the 6 nation nuclear talks. Peaceful negoiation of issues is vital for all states. All issues should be open to peaceful resolution. But it is also sad how North Korea got to this point.

After saber rattling with the West, with claims of nuclear weapons, and leaving open the possibility of North Korean "preemptive action", this renegade state finally decided to reenter talks after the U.S. in the usual "nonlinked" official claim, has agreed to ship 50,000 tons of food to North Korea. All of this proves the power of nuclear extortion by small renegade states.

This is absolutely a terrible message for many renegade states to hear from the North Korean example. Any small state now realizes it can gain benfits from the United States, as well as wield power in the world solely by saber rattling some nuclear arms. The world's worst regimes can suddenly be treated as a major and respected state, simply because their capability to create damage is now feared. The irrational and crazy regimes of the world will unfortunately be inspired by this bad example.

Some of the world's worst regimes in Africa, the MidEast or even Central America may find the North Korean example a true inspiration. A sort of twisted Norman Vincent Peale tale, where a renegade nation can dream of greatness only by inspiring fear of nuclear damage, and Western states will send money or food support to pay a nation not to cause trouble.

The people of North Korea deserve enough to eat because starvation is immoral. And food aid from America is very good to help the hungry of the world. But any rewarding of nuclear extortion is a seriously wrong decision by any major state towards renegade states. As a principle this cannot stand and have an orderly and safe planet.