What a strange take this is. If you are trying to equivocate the two situations as a condemnation of Ukraine, I would note that sanctions are leveraging economic power, while conventional warfare leverages military power, and you obfuscate this difference by using the word “blockade”. It isn’t a blockade, it’s sanctions. Blockades involve military power, sanctions do not. Do I believe that the US is guilty of immense human suffering as a consequence of the usage of sanctions in international relations? Of course, and I’m equally aware of the diminishing returns of pulling such an economic lever, but between economic and military power, North Korea is under economic pressure, and Ukraine is under military pressure. Having a military government only makes sense as a solution in one of these two situations, and the situations are similarly not comparable.
If, however, I instead take you at face value, likely against my better judgement, and interpret your point instead to mean that it’s valid for North Korea not to have elections because they are also justified in martial law, then I am perhaps even more confused, because it sounds like you’re arguing for martial law because of sanctions endured by North Korea (if so, see above why this is not a justification for martial law). What confuses me, though, is why you would pick that justification in the first place. You could, for example, argue that because North Korea only has an armistice with South Korea, they technically remain still at war, and thus are reasonable for imposing a permanent state of martial law. My counterpoint would be that South Korea is, at this point, incredibly unlikely to invade for a variety of economic, political, and demographic reasons, and North Korea has already shielded itself against existential threat via nuclear weapons (their opponent’s capital is 40km from the border, Seoul can’t even get much warning, much less intercept the nukes). Regardless of sanctions, there isn’t actually that much reason that North Korea should still be devoting so many of its resources to its military, nor is there that much of a reason for martial law to still be in effect.
I would also question if you genuinely think that any kind of meritocratic process occurred in a military sense when, rather than elect a leader (reflecting a peacetime footing), or have an experienced military officer take the role (reflecting a wartime footing), leadership instead passed down through three generations of the same family. Frankly, I don’t think martial law can justify that, regardless of whether or not martial law itself is justified.
Edit: Also, if you happen to have that study showing the 500,000 figure on hand, I would actually love to take a look at it. I wouldn’t be surprised, as often it is the civilian populace who bears the burden of sanctions, but it would be good to take a look at it to see if I can get a credible number to attach to that idea.
I wasn’t condemning Ukraine for not holding elections during a war, I was seriously arguing about the difficulty of holding elections when you’re under severe economic and political duress because of consequences of mass-bombing of your country by the US (which is important and you failed to mention in your comment) and economic blockade.
I call it blockade not because it’s exerted militarily, but because it doesn’t consist of unilateral sanctions by the US, it consists of a prohibition of companies from trading in the largest economy in the world if they trade previously with North Korea, as is the case of the blockade of Cuba. In this manner, if a Chinese company wants to do any trade in the US, it cannot do trade in North Korea too. A sanction is applied only within your own jurisdiction in my opinion, as for example what the EU is doing to Russia.
We estimated that unilateral sanctions were associated with an annual toll of 564 258 deaths (95% CI 367 838–760 677), similar to the global mortality burden associated with armed conflict
This is why I don’t bother making a distinction between pressure to elections from military violence as from economic violence, both are equally harmful even in number of deaths, and both represent a similar strain on the institutions and the trust of people in the government. As I quoted in my previous comment, the US itself admits this, by talking of “bringing about hunger, desperation, and overthrow of government”. I don’t bring up the frozen Korean war because as of today it doesn’t produce the amount of deaths and suffering that the American economic blockade does by any materialist metric. My point is not to argue about technicisms of whether a country is technically at war hence no elections, but rather about the measurable, material impact of western pressure, whatever form it may take.
Apologies it took me so long to look at this - got busy irl, but that’s a fair take, and an understandable one at that. I’ve long been of the opinion that sanctions on nations like North Korea and Iran are, at this point, completely ineffectual, and are essentially just inflicting pain on the civilian populace for little gain. Past a certain threshold of sanctioning, you essentially decouple your economy from the one you’re sanctioning, and in so doing you lose any leverage you might have had. I also will make clear that I consider the US’s actions in the case of Cuba to be utterly reprehensible; that particular case is as clear cut as it gets, and is illustrative of the way that the US has historically wielded its geopolitical and economic heft with all the precision of a cudgel as part of its broader aims to impose its own (flawed) economic view of the world.
The thing that I would note, however, is that the US isn’t the only actor, and that sanctions on North Korea haven’t been continuous by other western actors. In particular, sanctions were easing to a significant degree in the 90s and early 2000s under the Agreed Framework as a consequence of Seoul pushing for normalized relations during that time. This changed, however, when North Korea first withdrew from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and then in particular tested nuclear weapons several times from 2006 onward. At that point, several western nations which had lifted sanctions re-imposed them as an attempt to discourage other actors from pursuing the same path. Now, I will admit that this is a somewhat unfair argument, as it fails to note that the US broadly did not hold up its end of the deal within the Agreed Framework, only agreeing to it in the first place on the assumption that the Kim regime would collapse before they needed to hold up their end, and Israel is similarly in violation of the NPT and hasn’t faced anything like the consequences that North Korea has, but it isn’t as if there aren’t modern reasons for the sanctions, nor is it the case that North Korea isn’t somewhat guilty here.
All that said, however, I still don’t think that the North Korean sanctions as they exist now are serving American interests, and the reason I say that is because it has pushed North Korea into alignment with Russia, as they have essentially zero to lose by doing so considering how heavily sanctioned they already are. Historically, the primary limitation of North Korean nuclear weapons is not the warhead, but actually the technical aspect of the delivery system, and North Korea’s recent collaboration with Russia may actually resolve that particular problem for them, as Russia has the industry and technical know-how to create some truly cutting edge ballistic missiles. In a certain sense, the American over-use of sanctions may, at this point, have actually become entirely self-defeating in a geostrategic sense.
Sanctions do make sense in the case of Russia, though, as they are a net positive producer in most critical civilian industries, so the populace is unlikely to go hungry regardless of sanctions, so the sanctions instead serve a primary purpose of providing an extra layer of friction in Russian imports of technical systems, increasing cost for domestic military manufacturing, and an extra layer of friction for Russian exports. One specific example is OPEC capping the price of oil at such a level that Russia is unlikely to actually make any kind of profit on such an export. This allows the global price of oil to be kept steady (and keeps the price high enough that, ideally, Russian civilians who work in the industry aren’t faced with economic pain) while simultaneously limiting how much Russia can benefit from the export of such goods. That’s not really relevant to North Korea (except, perhaps, insofar as technical imports by Russia might be used to assist in warhead delivery system development, but I’ve covered that already), but I figured I would mention it as I do believe there is a case to be made for sanctions in some scenarios, separate from the fact that the US’s overuse is, at this point, clearly not what should be aimed for. Sanctions (just like tariffs, good lord the current admin is braindead) are a tool which should be considered with a surgeon’s mindset; only used in very specific scenarios where it is both necessary and sensible, and wielded with the precision of a scalpel, and not that of a blunt instrument
Regardless, though, I’ll acknowledge that your view isn’t unfounded, and that it’s not so cut-and-dry as I had implied. Thank you for providing that study, I’ll definitely be keeping that on hand for future reference.
Thanks for the charitative reading of my post, I appreciate that you took the time and we’re having a discussion and not a dunk contest.
I generally agree with mostly everything you’re saying in your comment, except for a few things like non-proliferation treaties for nuclear weapons, and sanctions not starving Russians.
On the first hand, I simply don’t think it’s fair that the “international rule-based order” that allows the genocide of Palestinians gets to decide who has the right to nuclear weapons and who doesn’t. Historically, it’s one of the best assurances against western invasion, and for example Iran clearly regrets now not pursuing nuclear weapons, as regardless of whether it does or not, it has been treated as though it does (we’ve been seeing news headlines of Iran being a year away from nuclear weapons for 30 years). I do not like nuclear weapons, but I can’t blame a country whose history with the US is that of invasion and bombing, for wanting to ensure its own retaliation capabilities.
On the other hand you’re right that the sanctions in Russia aren’t having the impact that they have on, say, Venezuela or Cuba, if only simply because of the dynamics of economic development and resource availability. That said, I just wanna make it a point that the sanctions include the medical and pharmaceutical sector, and the Russian economy, being capitalist, relied on import of such medical goods for treatment of certain conditions. Applying sanctions to the medical and pharmaceutical industry also amounts to murdering people, although ofc not on the same scale as the sanctions to NK or Cuba.
What a strange take this is. If you are trying to equivocate the two situations as a condemnation of Ukraine, I would note that sanctions are leveraging economic power, while conventional warfare leverages military power, and you obfuscate this difference by using the word “blockade”. It isn’t a blockade, it’s sanctions. Blockades involve military power, sanctions do not. Do I believe that the US is guilty of immense human suffering as a consequence of the usage of sanctions in international relations? Of course, and I’m equally aware of the diminishing returns of pulling such an economic lever, but between economic and military power, North Korea is under economic pressure, and Ukraine is under military pressure. Having a military government only makes sense as a solution in one of these two situations, and the situations are similarly not comparable.
If, however, I instead take you at face value, likely against my better judgement, and interpret your point instead to mean that it’s valid for North Korea not to have elections because they are also justified in martial law, then I am perhaps even more confused, because it sounds like you’re arguing for martial law because of sanctions endured by North Korea (if so, see above why this is not a justification for martial law). What confuses me, though, is why you would pick that justification in the first place. You could, for example, argue that because North Korea only has an armistice with South Korea, they technically remain still at war, and thus are reasonable for imposing a permanent state of martial law. My counterpoint would be that South Korea is, at this point, incredibly unlikely to invade for a variety of economic, political, and demographic reasons, and North Korea has already shielded itself against existential threat via nuclear weapons (their opponent’s capital is 40km from the border, Seoul can’t even get much warning, much less intercept the nukes). Regardless of sanctions, there isn’t actually that much reason that North Korea should still be devoting so many of its resources to its military, nor is there that much of a reason for martial law to still be in effect.
I would also question if you genuinely think that any kind of meritocratic process occurred in a military sense when, rather than elect a leader (reflecting a peacetime footing), or have an experienced military officer take the role (reflecting a wartime footing), leadership instead passed down through three generations of the same family. Frankly, I don’t think martial law can justify that, regardless of whether or not martial law itself is justified.
Edit: Also, if you happen to have that study showing the 500,000 figure on hand, I would actually love to take a look at it. I wouldn’t be surprised, as often it is the civilian populace who bears the burden of sanctions, but it would be good to take a look at it to see if I can get a credible number to attach to that idea.
I wasn’t condemning Ukraine for not holding elections during a war, I was seriously arguing about the difficulty of holding elections when you’re under severe economic and political duress because of consequences of mass-bombing of your country by the US (which is important and you failed to mention in your comment) and economic blockade.
I call it blockade not because it’s exerted militarily, but because it doesn’t consist of unilateral sanctions by the US, it consists of a prohibition of companies from trading in the largest economy in the world if they trade previously with North Korea, as is the case of the blockade of Cuba. In this manner, if a Chinese company wants to do any trade in the US, it cannot do trade in North Korea too. A sanction is applied only within your own jurisdiction in my opinion, as for example what the EU is doing to Russia.
As for the study I promised, in the findings it says these words:
This is why I don’t bother making a distinction between pressure to elections from military violence as from economic violence, both are equally harmful even in number of deaths, and both represent a similar strain on the institutions and the trust of people in the government. As I quoted in my previous comment, the US itself admits this, by talking of “bringing about hunger, desperation, and overthrow of government”. I don’t bring up the frozen Korean war because as of today it doesn’t produce the amount of deaths and suffering that the American economic blockade does by any materialist metric. My point is not to argue about technicisms of whether a country is technically at war hence no elections, but rather about the measurable, material impact of western pressure, whatever form it may take.
Apologies it took me so long to look at this - got busy irl, but that’s a fair take, and an understandable one at that. I’ve long been of the opinion that sanctions on nations like North Korea and Iran are, at this point, completely ineffectual, and are essentially just inflicting pain on the civilian populace for little gain. Past a certain threshold of sanctioning, you essentially decouple your economy from the one you’re sanctioning, and in so doing you lose any leverage you might have had. I also will make clear that I consider the US’s actions in the case of Cuba to be utterly reprehensible; that particular case is as clear cut as it gets, and is illustrative of the way that the US has historically wielded its geopolitical and economic heft with all the precision of a cudgel as part of its broader aims to impose its own (flawed) economic view of the world.
The thing that I would note, however, is that the US isn’t the only actor, and that sanctions on North Korea haven’t been continuous by other western actors. In particular, sanctions were easing to a significant degree in the 90s and early 2000s under the Agreed Framework as a consequence of Seoul pushing for normalized relations during that time. This changed, however, when North Korea first withdrew from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and then in particular tested nuclear weapons several times from 2006 onward. At that point, several western nations which had lifted sanctions re-imposed them as an attempt to discourage other actors from pursuing the same path. Now, I will admit that this is a somewhat unfair argument, as it fails to note that the US broadly did not hold up its end of the deal within the Agreed Framework, only agreeing to it in the first place on the assumption that the Kim regime would collapse before they needed to hold up their end, and Israel is similarly in violation of the NPT and hasn’t faced anything like the consequences that North Korea has, but it isn’t as if there aren’t modern reasons for the sanctions, nor is it the case that North Korea isn’t somewhat guilty here.
All that said, however, I still don’t think that the North Korean sanctions as they exist now are serving American interests, and the reason I say that is because it has pushed North Korea into alignment with Russia, as they have essentially zero to lose by doing so considering how heavily sanctioned they already are. Historically, the primary limitation of North Korean nuclear weapons is not the warhead, but actually the technical aspect of the delivery system, and North Korea’s recent collaboration with Russia may actually resolve that particular problem for them, as Russia has the industry and technical know-how to create some truly cutting edge ballistic missiles. In a certain sense, the American over-use of sanctions may, at this point, have actually become entirely self-defeating in a geostrategic sense.
Sanctions do make sense in the case of Russia, though, as they are a net positive producer in most critical civilian industries, so the populace is unlikely to go hungry regardless of sanctions, so the sanctions instead serve a primary purpose of providing an extra layer of friction in Russian imports of technical systems, increasing cost for domestic military manufacturing, and an extra layer of friction for Russian exports. One specific example is OPEC capping the price of oil at such a level that Russia is unlikely to actually make any kind of profit on such an export. This allows the global price of oil to be kept steady (and keeps the price high enough that, ideally, Russian civilians who work in the industry aren’t faced with economic pain) while simultaneously limiting how much Russia can benefit from the export of such goods. That’s not really relevant to North Korea (except, perhaps, insofar as technical imports by Russia might be used to assist in warhead delivery system development, but I’ve covered that already), but I figured I would mention it as I do believe there is a case to be made for sanctions in some scenarios, separate from the fact that the US’s overuse is, at this point, clearly not what should be aimed for. Sanctions (just like tariffs, good lord the current admin is braindead) are a tool which should be considered with a surgeon’s mindset; only used in very specific scenarios where it is both necessary and sensible, and wielded with the precision of a scalpel, and not that of a blunt instrument
Regardless, though, I’ll acknowledge that your view isn’t unfounded, and that it’s not so cut-and-dry as I had implied. Thank you for providing that study, I’ll definitely be keeping that on hand for future reference.
Thanks for the charitative reading of my post, I appreciate that you took the time and we’re having a discussion and not a dunk contest.
I generally agree with mostly everything you’re saying in your comment, except for a few things like non-proliferation treaties for nuclear weapons, and sanctions not starving Russians.
On the first hand, I simply don’t think it’s fair that the “international rule-based order” that allows the genocide of Palestinians gets to decide who has the right to nuclear weapons and who doesn’t. Historically, it’s one of the best assurances against western invasion, and for example Iran clearly regrets now not pursuing nuclear weapons, as regardless of whether it does or not, it has been treated as though it does (we’ve been seeing news headlines of Iran being a year away from nuclear weapons for 30 years). I do not like nuclear weapons, but I can’t blame a country whose history with the US is that of invasion and bombing, for wanting to ensure its own retaliation capabilities.
On the other hand you’re right that the sanctions in Russia aren’t having the impact that they have on, say, Venezuela or Cuba, if only simply because of the dynamics of economic development and resource availability. That said, I just wanna make it a point that the sanctions include the medical and pharmaceutical sector, and the Russian economy, being capitalist, relied on import of such medical goods for treatment of certain conditions. Applying sanctions to the medical and pharmaceutical industry also amounts to murdering people, although ofc not on the same scale as the sanctions to NK or Cuba.