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This should be your reminder that economic sanctions really does nothing but starve ordinary people to death while doing nothing to the ruling regime and, in ma

by jmyeet 2y ago

This should be your reminder that economic sanctions really does nothing but starve ordinary people to death while doing nothing to the ruling regime and, in many cases, strengthens support for it as those enacting the sanctions are (with merit) seen as the enemy. Back in 1996, then UN Ambassador and later Secretry of State was asked about the 500,000 Iraqi children who died due to economic sanctions and she replied "we think the price was worth it" [1]. The next century for the Korean peninsula is going to be interesting. Looming large is the collapse of South Korea. The current fertility rate is the lowest in the world at ~0.71 children per woman. What that means is if you take 50 men and 50 women in 3 generations you have 8 people. We haven't seen anything like this before. I, too, find NOrth Korea fascinating but what I find more fascinating is how and what we talk about with North Korea and how it's never about the starvation and death we directly cause. [1]: https://x.com/schwarz/status/1506723921302855686 https://x.com/schwarz/status/1506723921302855686

appleorchard46 2y ago
> This should be your reminder that economic sanctions really does nothing but starve ordinary people to death while doing nothing to the ruling regime and, in many cases, strengthens support for it as those enacting the sanctions are (with merit) seen as the enemy. This is predicated on the idea that the problems NK citizens face are due to lack of total resources, not misallocation of resources by the ruling government. I have a hard time believing that the same regime which continues to pour resources into military spending and lavish living for its higher-ups as its population starves would allocate further resources toward anything else. If there was a sensible limit on inequality it would have been reached long ago.
elhudy 2y ago
Preventing the north korean regime from having the funds to grow its military presence seems like a fair use of economic sanctions to me - sadly, even if there is an economic cost to its people.
- guerrilla 2y ago
  You're not responding to the comment you're trying to reply to. The claim is that it does not actually do that, only starves ordinary people.
  - elhudy 2y ago
    I thought the context of the previous response was that sanctions do nothing to the regime i.e. in terms of strengthening, weakening, or getting rid of. The North korean dictatorship remains in place so that is agreeable. However, North korean military presence (seen as distinct from the regime presence) has seemingly faltered dramatically.
    - guerrilla 2y ago
      > North korean military presence (seen as distinct from the regime presence) That distinction is nonsencial in this context.
      - elhudy 2y ago
        No, it isn’t, as described by the divergent strengths of the two.
  - IncreasePosts 2y ago
    Do sanctions force North Korea to adopt ridiculous internal agricultural policies which leads to frequent famines?
    - cess11 2y ago
      Life expectancy follows South Korea rather closely, with the exception of a period in the nineties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Life_expectancy_in_North_Korea_and_South_Korea.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Life_expectancy_in_North_... Is that to be expected with frequent famines?
dingnuts 2y ago
if their economic situation is the result of sanctions by the West, why is trade with China insufficient to turn around their economy?
- thisislife2 2y ago
  They aren't just sanctioned by the west, there's UN sanctions on NK too. China and Russia are more inclined to abide by UN sanctions than western sanctions. (But this has now changed after the Ukraine war, and both countries do appear to have strengthened military ties with NK). Moreover, due to the sanctions, NK can't acquire Euros or dollars essential for international trading, and only afford to pay with its own currency. This means that unless there is equal trading between NK and other countries, any trade imbalance in favour of NK would mean the other country would get stuck with a lot of NK's currency in their banks with no real idea what to do with it. That is why China and Russia actually do barter-trading with North Korea (i.e. they mostly exchange goods and services, instead of money, when they trade).
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
rightbyte 2y ago
The failed military coup in SK changed my view on the country quite a lot. Reading up on their presidents where the legacy seem to be if they are sentenced to death after impeachement or not ... It is like the cracyness in NK makes people assume SK is sane.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  The only unusual aspect of the failed South Korean coup is the failed part. They've had a crazy number of coups in their short history.
- yongjik 2y ago
  Meh, when a South Korean president tries to overthrow its government, we throw his sorry ass in jail. Because we take our constitution seriously. The same cannot be said for a certain other famous country ...
  - rightbyte 2y ago
    Ye well you can compare SK to Norway or SK to NK. The later is easy to win.
zemvpferreira 2y ago
I feel you on SK and demographics, but 3 generations is still a very long time these days. We're talking close to 200 years before anything like a population collapse.
- fernandopj 2y ago
  Only if you count as "people dying and then the next". After a parcel of a population reaches adulthood, another generation is already expected. See the delta between GenX, Millenials, GenZ, and so on. I'd say that scenario is closer to 40 years. The "coming sooner" problem with such low fertility rate is the bell-curve of your population by age. It starts to center on lower-productivity ages, more medical resources are needed. The system can't sustain itself with a thinner base on age.
callc 2y ago
The idea that the sanctions ‘we’ (I will treat ‘we’ as the western world) place on NK directly cause NK starvation and death needs an exuberant amount of evidence. NK literally and figuratively puts guns to the heads of their citizens and kill’s people trying to escape from the country. NK “government” (quotes since they act like a gang) forces a cult following of Kim Jong-(Il, Un). NK aligned with USSR and China and tried to out Communism. But like USSR and CCP, the centralization of power into a single leader squashed the good hopes of communism and turned into totalitarianism (absolutely power corrupts absolutely). How about ‘we’ treat NK as a grown up country that has responsibility for the welfare of its people? “We” are not responsible for the starvation in NK, just like all the how all the villains in movies say “You’re forcing me to do <horrendous act>!” No, really, you’re doing it yourself because you’re insane and care about other things over the lives of people.
rqtwteye 2y ago
It's the same with the Cuba sanctions. They have achieved nothing but suffering.
Ray20 2y ago
>This should be your reminder that economic sanctions really does nothing but starve ordinary people to death That's not true. I mean we can look at Russia, which is currently under the maximum number of sanctions and doesn't seem to have any problems with food. It is leftist regimes, that bear responsibilities for starvation, not sanctions. Food is rather easy to grow (unless the communists forbade it, of course). >strengthens support for it as those enacting the sanctions are (with merit) seen as the enemy. That's also doesn't work in such way. Appearance of new enemies does not lead to the support of the more hostile and dangerous old ones.
yongjik 2y ago
I'm not sure how to feel about sanctions in general, but when it comes to North Korea, I think the blame firmly lies on its government. Since the days of president Kim Daejung (1998-2003) every liberal South Korean regime tried to build trust with North Korea, including the controversial Kaesong industrial complex (housing factories owned by South Korean companies inside NK, with NK workers), which North Korea unilaterally shut down in 2013. Railway connections: severed by North Korea. Group tour of mount Kumkang: stopped after a North Korean soldier shot and killed a South Korean tourist who walked into a restricted area. Basically, every time South Korea tries to give North Korea money in exchange of better relation, North Korea pisses it off, to such a degree that these policies (and their perceived failure) are now regular talking points by conservative South Korean pundits. At this stage, there's not a lot of things we can try, unless we want to just give NK money and say "Oh please develop more nuclear weapons with this money, we don't care what you do."

by jmyeet 2y ago

appleorchard46 2y ago

> This should be your reminder that economic sanctions really does nothing but starve ordinary people to death while doing nothing to the ruling regime and, in many cases, strengthens support for it as those enacting the sanctions are (with merit) seen as the enemy. This is predicated on the idea that the problems NK citizens face are due to lack of total resources, not misallocation of resources by the ruling government. I have a hard time believing that the same regime which continues to pour resources into military spending and lavish living for its higher-ups as its population starves would allocate further resources toward anything else. If there was a sensible limit on inequality it would have been reached long ago.

elhudy 2y ago

Preventing the north korean regime from having the funds to grow its military presence seems like a fair use of economic sanctions to me - sadly, even if there is an economic cost to its people.

guerrilla 2y ago
You're not responding to the comment you're trying to reply to. The claim is that it does not actually do that, only starves ordinary people.
- elhudy 2y ago
  I thought the context of the previous response was that sanctions do nothing to the regime i.e. in terms of strengthening, weakening, or getting rid of. The North korean dictatorship remains in place so that is agreeable. However, North korean military presence (seen as distinct from the regime presence) has seemingly faltered dramatically.
  - guerrilla 2y ago
    > North korean military presence (seen as distinct from the regime presence) That distinction is nonsencial in this context.
    - elhudy 2y ago
      No, it isn’t, as described by the divergent strengths of the two.
- IncreasePosts 2y ago
  Do sanctions force North Korea to adopt ridiculous internal agricultural policies which leads to frequent famines?
  - cess11 2y ago
    Life expectancy follows South Korea rather closely, with the exception of a period in the nineties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Life_expectancy_in_North_Korea_and_South_Korea.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Life_expectancy_in_North_... Is that to be expected with frequent famines?

dingnuts 2y ago

if their economic situation is the result of sanctions by the West, why is trade with China insufficient to turn around their economy?

thisislife2 2y ago
They aren't just sanctioned by the west, there's UN sanctions on NK too. China and Russia are more inclined to abide by UN sanctions than western sanctions. (But this has now changed after the Ukraine war, and both countries do appear to have strengthened military ties with NK). Moreover, due to the sanctions, NK can't acquire Euros or dollars essential for international trading, and only afford to pay with its own currency. This means that unless there is equal trading between NK and other countries, any trade imbalance in favour of NK would mean the other country would get stuck with a lot of NK's currency in their banks with no real idea what to do with it. That is why China and Russia actually do barter-trading with North Korea (i.e. they mostly exchange goods and services, instead of money, when they trade).

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

rightbyte 2y ago

The failed military coup in SK changed my view on the country quite a lot. Reading up on their presidents where the legacy seem to be if they are sentenced to death after impeachement or not ... It is like the cracyness in NK makes people assume SK is sane.

lupusreal 2y ago
The only unusual aspect of the failed South Korean coup is the failed part. They've had a crazy number of coups in their short history.
yongjik 2y ago
Meh, when a South Korean president tries to overthrow its government, we throw his sorry ass in jail. Because we take our constitution seriously. The same cannot be said for a certain other famous country ...
- rightbyte 2y ago
  Ye well you can compare SK to Norway or SK to NK. The later is easy to win.

zemvpferreira 2y ago

I feel you on SK and demographics, but 3 generations is still a very long time these days. We're talking close to 200 years before anything like a population collapse.

fernandopj 2y ago
Only if you count as "people dying and then the next". After a parcel of a population reaches adulthood, another generation is already expected. See the delta between GenX, Millenials, GenZ, and so on. I'd say that scenario is closer to 40 years. The "coming sooner" problem with such low fertility rate is the bell-curve of your population by age. It starts to center on lower-productivity ages, more medical resources are needed. The system can't sustain itself with a thinner base on age.

callc 2y ago

The idea that the sanctions ‘we’ (I will treat ‘we’ as the western world) place on NK directly cause NK starvation and death needs an exuberant amount of evidence. NK literally and figuratively puts guns to the heads of their citizens and kill’s people trying to escape from the country. NK “government” (quotes since they act like a gang) forces a cult following of Kim Jong-(Il, Un). NK aligned with USSR and China and tried to out Communism. But like USSR and CCP, the centralization of power into a single leader squashed the good hopes of communism and turned into totalitarianism (absolutely power corrupts absolutely). How about ‘we’ treat NK as a grown up country that has responsibility for the welfare of its people? “We” are not responsible for the starvation in NK, just like all the how all the villains in movies say “You’re forcing me to do <horrendous act>!” No, really, you’re doing it yourself because you’re insane and care about other things over the lives of people.

rqtwteye 2y ago

It's the same with the Cuba sanctions. They have achieved nothing but suffering.

Ray20 2y ago

>This should be your reminder that economic sanctions really does nothing but starve ordinary people to death That's not true. I mean we can look at Russia, which is currently under the maximum number of sanctions and doesn't seem to have any problems with food. It is leftist regimes, that bear responsibilities for starvation, not sanctions. Food is rather easy to grow (unless the communists forbade it, of course). >strengthens support for it as those enacting the sanctions are (with merit) seen as the enemy. That's also doesn't work in such way. Appearance of new enemies does not lead to the support of the more hostile and dangerous old ones.

yongjik 2y ago

I'm not sure how to feel about sanctions in general, but when it comes to North Korea, I think the blame firmly lies on its government. Since the days of president Kim Daejung (1998-2003) every liberal South Korean regime tried to build trust with North Korea, including the controversial Kaesong industrial complex (housing factories owned by South Korean companies inside NK, with NK workers), which North Korea unilaterally shut down in 2013. Railway connections: severed by North Korea. Group tour of mount Kumkang: stopped after a North Korean soldier shot and killed a South Korean tourist who walked into a restricted area. Basically, every time South Korea tries to give North Korea money in exchange of better relation, North Korea pisses it off, to such a degree that these policies (and their perceived failure) are now regular talking points by conservative South Korean pundits. At this stage, there's not a lot of things we can try, unless we want to just give NK money and say "Oh please develop more nuclear weapons with this money, we don't care what you do."