As early as tomorrow, North Korea will loft a long-range missile into space. Over the past week, we've seen a fair amount of saber-rattling -- and lots of screaming headlines.
But is the best way to deal with this crisis to, like, ignore it? That seems to be recommendation of B.R. Myers, an expert in North Korean ideology at Dongseo University in Busan, South Korea. Writing in yesterday's New York Times, Myers proposes that we beat North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il by ignoring him.
Kim, Myers argues, is largely playing to a domestic audience. "The now-familiar cycle of North Korean provocation, American warnings, North Korean follow-through and American calls for more peace talks — calls that are always mocked as an abject surrender — must turn every few years if the 'military first' regime is to justify its existence and give heroic meaning to the people’s hardship."
The opinion page of USA Today also concurs. In an editorial today, the paper says the response to North Korea thus far has been "appropriately muted." The United States has pretty much ruled out a missile intercept; Japan's government, however, has threatened to shoot down missile debris heading for its territory.
Never mind the official furor in Tokyo, though. An Associated Press reporter visited Akita, a city in northern Japan directly across from North Korea, and found residents stifling a collective yawn.
"I'm not interested," said Sueko Meguro, the owner of a local noodle shop. "If North Korea is really firing a missile, go right ahead."
UPDATE: "It would be better for the world if the North Koreans did not go through with this test," writes Ivan Oelrich, with the Federation of American Scientists. "But if they conduct the test, the rest of the world might as well learn as much as we can from it and we can learn a lot." For instance:
[PHOTO: Wikimedia]
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