The Buck is Coming to a Stop
Trump’s Triumph in Korea
Over the weekend, the United Nations Security Council, in a surprising amount of gall, decided to impose its harshest sanctions to date on the hermit kingdom of North Korea.
Not since April has Trump’s foreign policy shown as much backbone and might, reminding the world that America is still their watchman. Trump has spent the majority of his time in office talking more than he has done commanding — which is good for regulations, but useless for global security.
Yet, after six months of pressure on China, North Korea’s largest “ally,” some policy has finally materialized in the form of sanctions, making good on Trump’s promise to be less war hungry than Theodore Roosevelt, and instead by an economic warmonger bent on pulling the plug on powerful economies — not that North Korea’s economy can be called strong. Their GDP ranks as one of the lowest in the world, at only $13 billion. The sanctions will cut off North Korea’s ability to export its most profitable markets in natural resources such as oil, steel, iron, and seafood, among others. It will likely cost them $1 billion dollars in revenue.
Their South Korean neighbors are worth $1.411 trillion.
These sanctions will not cripple the government into submission over their weapons development, but they will hobble it. Currently, it’s a strategy that could save lives.
The Bear and the Dragon
What is more triumphant, yet, is to note that these sanctions not only passed, but unanimously passed among the Security Council — which includes Russia and China. The two countries supply North Korea with the majority of their crude oil, making any move against North Korea an indirect offensive on them.
For this matter, China has been hesitant to back Trump in the onslaught against North Korea, due to this entanglement. It would appear, though, that as North Korea becomes more relentless, they are bending to pressure, Russia as well, though they only share an 11 mile border with the nation. With these sanctions, the prospect of total war with North Korea becomes less frightening as China positions itself to be on the side of the United States to put an end to the regime.
This is a historic moment for the reason that, China and Russia have long been entangles with North Korea, even being responsible for the country’s existence. Following the second World War, Korea was split along the 38th Parallel, with the South being led by the democratic United States forces, and the North by the Soviets, with the support of radical communist Kim Il-Sung, who would become the country’s first dictator.
In 1949 China went red — this likely would not have happened had the Americans become involved in the war, and it would haunt Truman for the rest of his presidency, especially when the Korean War broke out just a year later; Republicans in Congress would forever hold him responsible for “losing” China in the game of containment — which led to an uneasy alliance between Stalin and Mao, and emboldened Kim Il-Sung to petition the support of Stalin. Though hesitant at first, Stalin understood the advantages of winning the Korean peninsula, establishing a strong blockade against American adventurism under the auspices of Douglas MacArthur.
Thus, in early 1950, Soviet military began supplying the North Koreans with the artillery necessary to launch an attack — at the same time as the last American troops were leaving home, as the Truman administration conducted a historic rollback of the military. Then, in the last week of June, the North Koreans spilled over the 38th Parallel and completely sacked all of South Korea, save for a small port at the southern tip called Pusan. It was only with MacArthur’s direction that the tide was able to turn momentarily, before the Chinese became involved, and the civil war turned police action stabilized into a bloody tennis match ending with a draw in 1953, when Eisenhower presided over an armistice.
North Korea has been one of America’s military blunder, and no president since Truman and Eisenhower have been able to make real gains on rolling back the regime, and perhaps accelerated its continued insanity during the Carter and Clinton years.
The Buck Is Stopping
This is but one policy victory, though. All options are still on the table as how best to deal with North Korea.
Time will tell if Trump will be able to press more leverage on the Far Eastern nations to begin further curbing Korean aggression, or if the failing, decades old policy of appeasement will continue. The sanctions mark a climactic conclusion to the first season of the “Trump Show,” and as Trump now embarks on a two week PGA tour in New Jersey, all that can be done is to pray that no fireworks start bursting over the green.
