After listening to the international community fulminate for weeks at the prospect, North Korea blithely launched its latest missile. Though they claimed it was an attempt to launch a satellite into orbit, from which a soundtrack of psalms to Kim Jong-Il would play on a continuous loop, most military and aeronautic experts believed it was in fact a test of the Taepodong-2 ballistic missile.
Since the missile will be able to strike the continental United States, and given North Korea’s propensity for marketing military technology to rogue states and terrorists alike, the launch was rightly seen as a destabilizing act. The world stood as one in its opposition to the test. Yet North Korea ignored world opinion. They openly defied the civilized world. They sowed the wind, now they reap the whirlwind.
It didn’t take long for the world to react. During a campaign stop in Prague, President Barack Obama declared, “Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something.” Basking in the outpouring of love and admiration his strong statement engendered, Obama added that ever-popular campaign trail trophe, “Now is the time for a strong international response.”
Now is the time indeed. Acting quickly in response to Obama’s charge, the United Nations Security Council held an emergency session Sunday night to debate its response. The choice was stark, the consequences severe. On the one hand, the Security Council could agree to enforce the harsh sanctions enacted two-and-a-half years ago, when North Korea detonated a nuclear device. Others on the council thought that response wasn’t strong enough. The need to send a message was clear, they argued, and rather than simply enforce sanctions already approved, it would be more effective to enact still harsher sanctions, which could then be ignored.
The decision so weighty, the divide between the options so profound, the Security Council adjourned the session, agreeing to meet at some later date when they could agree on which option to choose.
Though North Koreans were reeling in the face of this devastating international response, Obama felt that more needed to be done. To this end he offered to drastically reduce America’s nuclear arms stockpile. Though his decision was reached unilaterally, the President reached out to our international partners, promising to convene an international summit so other countries could slash their armories as well. Disarming in the face of North Korea’s, and Iran’s active, defiant arming should, if nothing else, embarrass the hell out of those rogue states.
As if that weren’t already a huge response, and at the risk of being accused of piling on, Defense Secretary Robert Gates stands ready to join the fray. As part of his eagerly anticipated plan to reshape the U.S. military, Gates is expected to announce today a reduction in funding for missile defense programs.
“Words must mean something,” our President says. Actions, too, carry import, and if in the face of defiant militarism we offer to disarm and dismantle our defenses, we are sending a powerful message. It is the kind of message designed to strike fear into the hearts of rogue leaders and terrorists everywhere. But even more important than that, it is the kind of message designed to fill the hearts of European, even French, intellectuals with love.