Sometimes it's not even for democracy, but just for overall stability. For example, the recently proposed 240,000 metric tons of food to North Korea to stop their nuclear development.
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North Korea
- Thread starter stopcrazypp
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WE've dont this before and it did not work. Why should we do this again? What is different except that now it is his son? How does that go?..... Fool me once.....
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Actually the aid worked fairly well. It was the bout about the terrorism list that broke down the negotiations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea–United_States_relations#Resurgence_of_hostilities
From your quoted Wiki article. We gave them 95 million in oil and food early 2002 to quit processing pultonium. By late 2002 they had broken that agreement. We went through the same process in 2008, and now are attempting it again and they are still processing plutonium. I don't see what worked well at all!
If north korea took the money they spent on thier nuclear program they could feed their people. The point was that that they played us twice to discontinue their nuclear program, and it's still operating.
I suspect the real reason for giving the food aid is to prevent the regime from totally collapsing, which would open up a huge can of worms. The nuclear angle in the negotiations is just a way to keep them talking and perhaps a feeble attempt to slow down their program as a bonus. North Korea doesn't need nukes; they could completely flatten Seoul with conventional artillery in a matter of hours, without stepping one foot over the border.
Agreed, but the real fear is that they will sell material in desperation to someone else who would use it, possibly on us or one of our allies.
Whoops! We went too far, and have been relegated to the Off Topic section. :redface:
Can't disagree with that comment... unfortunately the paranoid North Korean regime is holding all the cards. You can't really fix this without causing a disastrous war. All you can do is try and watch what is shipped out of the country. Fortunately China would be just as loathe to see this happen as the USA.
NigelM
Recovering Member
Reposting this here from my mixed post on the other thread:
Bluntly: does sending aid to North Koreans probably keeps them satisfied enough not to start a revolution? If they suffered more, wouldn't they then rebel against their dictatorship? Tough questions.
Bluntly: does sending aid to North Koreans probably keeps them satisfied enough not to start a revolution? If they suffered more, wouldn't they then rebel against their dictatorship? Tough questions.
Yes, and back to the original point. If we make another deal with them, it should have enough teeth to be enforceable.
You have to actually look at the details of the deals.
For the 2002, the condition for the aid was not for North Korea to "quit processing pultonium," but rather to stop their existing reactor, stop construction for two new reactors, with the three being replaced with two LWR units. The oil aid was supposed to provide power until the first LWR was built. But when the Congress reached the hands of the Republicans, they saw the deal as "appeasement" and failed to meet the US side of the deal (the US didn't stop economic sanctions and was late in delivering the oil). The "quit processing plutonium" falls under "1992 Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula" which was not directly tied to the aid, although one of the points under the overall agreement that included the aid did refer to "the DPRK would take steps to implement the 1992 Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreed_Framework_between_the_United_States_of_America_and_the_Democratic_People's_Republic_of_Korea
The 2007 deal did result in the Yongbyon nuclear facility being closed, even if it was temporary (again, being late on removing North Korea from the Terrorism list caused them to restart the facility).
So as a negotiation chip, foreign aid has worked quite well. No one is saying foreign aid by itself will get North Korea to stop all nuclear activity, but history shows North Korea has met conditions on their end when foreign aid is tied to it. Most of the time it's the US being slow or not holding up parts of the deals because of political reasons. As long as the delivery of the aid is tied to specific conditions (and so far it has been) then it can be fairly effective.
It appears that their missle launch announcement today has broken their agreement before the ink is even dry!
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