A report on the ABC's PM program tonight was thought provoking but not for the reasons the presenters probably imagined.

The story started by informing us of the annual US/South Korea military exercise that inevitably puts the wind up those pesky North Koreans.

“North Korea's Foreign Ministry said the country would react by strengthening its nuclear deterrent. Yet for all its sabre rattling there's ample evidence that North Korea's military program is only kept going at the expense of people's basic welfare.”
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2010/s2841097.htm

The rest of the report went on to detail the harsh deprivations suffered by the North Korean population and it indoctrinated Yankee hating ways.

Is it me or is there an enormous disconnect going on here. How do you think a small country with a paranoid leadership is going to react to a massive military exercise conducted every year on its doorstep. Surely this is like poking a stick at a starving rabid beast hoping to bring it to heel. Is it surprising that so much of its limited resources are directed at military spending? The South Koreans are more than capable of dealing with any threat from the North bar nuclear with its 700,000 active service personnel and far superior weaponry without the help of the US.

Is the US intent to try and do a Reagan and take the country to near bankruptcy to cause its collapse like it did with the USSR? Well this nation is well past that point and still its people suffer terribly.

This may well bring the usual wolf pack out howling in protest but I for one am prepared to start laying responsibility for North Korean famine deaths at the feet of the US unless it comes up with a new strategy that allows the North Koreans to back off the military spend.

A start might be sending the money saved by discontinuing these exercises to the North Koreans in the form of aid.

Finally might I invite the PM program to join a few dots every now and again.

Reagan's policy in the 80's was to accelerate the arm's race, as he knew the USSR could not compete financially. This bankrupted the soviet union which lead to its collapse in the 90s.

The same policy is being applied to NK whose standing army is huge, but if faced with an actual war would not be able to sustain combat for long.

The North Koreans have a shiny powerful war machine, but the tank is empty, and both sides know it.

Actually the collapse of the USSR had more to do with the failure of their wheat crops and the rising ascendancy of the EU where the Soviets would have been threatened on two fronts instead of only one.

Add internal corruption where certain members of the Politburo saw their chance to become overnight billionaires plus the misguided antics of Dancing Boris and it was inevitable that those in charge would take the money and run.

The notion that Reagan was some sort of brilliant strategist is far too generous.

It's becoming more apparent that Reagan's strategy screwed their own economy as much as it did the Russians.

North Korea's current stance and posturing with the West is as much due to Clinton and Bush deliberately going back on certain pre-arranged deals than anything else.

Being in China's shadow is North Korea's only real protection at this time and will probably remain so.

As far as them being a major component of any "Axis of Evil", it's more a notion for domestic political consumption than being a Real-and-Present danger to the rest of the world.

Wobbles,

Do you have any references for your opinions or are you making this up as you go along?

By the late 80s Soviet expenditure was close to 20% of GDP (10 to 20 times what would have been required to buy or produce wheat) and enourmous resources were being diverted to the arms race and afghanistan.

I read analyses in Newsweek as far back as 85 as to what irreparible damage this was doing to the Soviet economy. The wheat failure was a symptom of this starvation of resources.

http://sfr-21.org/collapse.html

The afghan guerillas were given not enough fire power to beat them militarily, (no heavy equipment) but enough to destroy their hardware and personnel and require vast expenditure.

Once the economic infrastructure was shattered, they could no longer afford the huge military, and occupation of eastern europe, and Soviet empire simply imploded.

North Korea has never bothered to try and keep any of its committments to the West, and so the West has simply withdrawn any of its support as pledged in the agreements.

The sooner the odious regime collapses the better.

North Korea's safe, it doesn't have any oil so there won't be an invasion.

Collapse of Soviet Union happened only due to wish of those with power to privatise everything in the country - thay have become milliordaries within the weeks from the start of ‘perestrojka”. They wanted to openly enjoy money and power. Nowadays country does not get richer but otherwise because money flowing out of the country where before money stayed in. USSR used to be in trade and information blockade for decades. That is not likely that any country would survive under those conditions except USSR. Also in old times USSR gave out enormous financial resources to other ‘friendly” states including Afghan government and those accounts were taken always as bed debt. Etc
Anything about NK can not be really threatening. Big interest however attracts location of this country