It's a victory!

In July 1953, then Premier of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Kim Il Sung, declared victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War (the "Korean War" to the rest of us).  This was a war he started in 1950 (although he claimed the US started it), and had a clear purpose, which was to obliterate the Republic of Korea (south Korea) and unify the country under his communist rule. 

This was after over 200,000 military deaths and the death of over 1 million north Korean civilians (and likely over 200,000 Chinese deaths, as Mao intervened to deter the US attacking China), and the net loss of 3,900 square km territory.  However, Kim Il Sung treated it as a victory and the Kim dynasty has done ever since.

Sure it lied about why the war started, and it is logically impossible to think that the war was any sort of victory for the north, but at least the Kims have an excuse - they are part of a psychopathic totalitarian dynasty clinging to power.

Trump doesn't have that. 

Sure, 90% of the Iranian Navy has been destroyed, but it is clearly fully capable of attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz, using small boats, coastal based cruise missiles and drones. The US and Israel have obviously not destroyed that capability.

Sure, most of the Iranian airforce has been destroyed, and its ballistic missile capability has been badly damaged, but it isn't over. Perhaps its nuclear programme is completely, or mostly destroyed, but its motivation to have a nuclear programme will not have abated, indeed quite the opposite.

After all, Kim Il Sung himself also knew that once the Soviet Union collapsed, the only security guarantee the regime in Pyongyang could rely upon is having its own nuclear weapons.  That has been proven, as there is little real chance of the US engaging in a first strike against north Korea, because the risk of nuclear retaliation, whether to the south or to Japan or beyond, is very real.

The Iranian regime has been weakened, it has lost leaders, but it has not loss control of the borders, the mass media or the instruments of domestic repression. It has not been destroyed, but it has been battle hardened and has - rightfully - claimed victory. Victory against the United States is defined as survival. It is not a victory Saddam Hussein could claim, as the Iraqi Government fell completely.  It is not a victory Muammar Gaddafi could claim either (although the regime of Nicholas Maduro is - largely - intact without him).

Trump's claim of victory isn't quite as hollow as Kim Il Sung's, but at best he has diminished and deferred the ability of the Islamist regime to project its terror abroad, and only moderately diminished its capability to project terror domestically.

If the regime remains, it will be more hardline, more focused on advancing terror abroad, including targeting the US, Israel and liberal democracies globally. 

I bet the Cuban regime isn't that worried anymore.

TACO indeed.

What's the role of government in an energy crisis?

For all of the fatuous claims of those who think fossil fuel use should be ended "as soon as possible", we can all see that the world values them, not just to power transport, and provide base-load energy generation in many countries, but to provide the essential materials for a vast range of industrial and consumer goods.  Notwithstanding the nonsensical claims by the likes of Greta Thunberg and de-growth multinationals like Greenpeace, oil use continues to grow worldwide according to the International Energy Agency.  Half of that growth comes from aviation and chemical feedstocks - in other words the use of oil as an input into the manufacturing of everything from pharmaceuticals to pipes to electrical insulation to asphalt and paint. 

Yes there is some substitutability around energy in some sectors. Most obviously in electricity generation, although no single alternative to oil or coal is "ideal".  Hydro-electricity is geographically dependent, nuclear is difficult primarily due to extremely high capital costs and public opposition, and solar/wind power is intermittent (and storage remains expensive).

In transport there have been huge leaps ahead in technology for light road vehicle, and medium weight trucks and buses doing short to medium haul trips are increasingly electric as well. However, it is going to be some years before long haul heavy trucks (and coaches) will go electric.

Aviation isn't moving from petroleum for some time, although hope it being seen in biofuels, that has its own issues. Shipping likewise, which mostly uses heavy fuel oil, is also not moving away from petroleum.  What many activists ignore is that most transport, certainly commercially provided transport, is only too aware of the importance of minimising fuel costs.  Conventional engines have never been more fuel efficient, and that is driven by market factors more than anything. Airlines, shipping companies, trucking companies all want to save on costs, because most of what they do is motivated by profit. 

Private individuals less so because they trade off high capital expenditure vs. lower operating costs, and many don't have much capital to spend on cars, but the incentives are there.  As someone once said, the stone age didn't end because of a lack of stones. Similarly railways did not move from steam locomotives because coal (and fuel oil) were scarce, but because technology made diesel and electric traction more cost effective.  

Outside transport, and outside the wishes of planners hoping people will trade off time and comfort to use public transport and active modes more (which will happen anyway due to cost), the big consumers of fossil fuels are in agriculture, industry and manufacturing, and much of that isn't changing soon.

So what SHOULD government do when petroleum gets more scarce and more expensive?  

1. Not meddle with prices. Higher prices ensure more supply and encourage more supply.  When people face the real price of energy they will take steps to conserve or change energy sources, and trade off whether they think it is a short or a long term saving they get from switching. The idea that politicians or bureaucrats have any clue as to what best meets the needs of everyone using petroleum products now is simply absurd.  High prices are already encouraging people to shift modes of transport, to drive less and consider what their next vehicle's fuel consumption is.  Let that work, and don't listen to the excitable planners who think more needs to be done. A majority of the costs of urban public transport are already predominantly paid for through motoring taxes and rates, as it is already "being encouraged" with fares well below cost.  It doesn't need to be more.

2. Don't get in the way of exploring for more energy.  The Ardern Government's ban on new oil and gas exploration was always an act of virtue signalling to fly a vacuous flag around climate change to the world, even though the impact of no more exploration on climate change is nil.  The even more preposterous argument that "there isn't any more to discover" makes it more ridiculous, because there is no need to ban something that wouldn't happen anyway.  Norway has the world's highest takeup of electric vehicles (96% of new light vehicle sales are EVs) and it is the world's seventh largest exporter of petroleum and gas (and there is bipartisan consensus about expanding it). 

3. That means all energy.  Whether it be wind power, solar power, nuclear power, tidal or coal, government should get out of the way. There are negative externalities with some options, but these should be treated as property rights issues.  Pollution is an escape over property boundaries and permission should be obtained from owners of such property if pollution represents anything from nuisance level onwards.  There should be minimal restrictions on installing solar panels, wind turbines or damning waterways if you own them, and the replacement of the RMA should enable this.  It also means that electricity generators should also be able to plan for future supply.

4. Maintain constructive foreign and defence relations with allies: Freedom of navigation is critical to survival for New Zealand. That means defence matters, including the alliance with Australia in particular, but also other like-minded liberal democracies.  Yes that includes the United States, Japan, south Korea and Singapore. It means that there should be a blue water navy and an air force that is a credible contribution to collective defence of sea lanes. It doesn't mean having to go along with every military action by allies, but it does mean contributing to the defence of allies, and having clear lines about what matters in the national interest. 

5.  Maintain a minimum critical reserve of supply: The International Energy Agency recommends member states keep reserves worth 90 days of supply. This isn't "free" to do, but should be considered a core part of national defence. Without such supply, significant parts of the economy and the public would be in danger.

6. Sell off your ownership in gentailers: As clever as it seemed for the Key Government to sell 49% of three electricity gentailers, it doesn't go far enough. For these generators to build more supply they need more capital, and it shouldn't be constrained by governments having to put their own capital into the three SOEs. Government should state that, at the very least, it is relaxed about becoming a minority shareholder, or better yet just hand over the shares to the general public for it to do with as it pleases. They can sell them or hold onto them. Before that happens, it should break them up. Generation and wholesaling electricity should be separated from retail, so the retail market can thrive. I don't mean the private gentailers like Contact, just the majority state owned ones.  That will stir up the market and encourage investment in capacity, which is just what is needed as more choose electricity over gas and petrol.

I'm old enough to remember how the National Party's greatest conservative socialist, Muldoon, tried to centrally plan New Zealand away from the volatility of oil prices, and lumbered the country with billions in debt for inefficient pet projects. From the Motunui gas to gasoline plant, to the North Island Main Trunk electrification, many Think Big projects were an economic disaster because officials assumed oil prices would remain high perpetually, which was not to be the case.  

The Muldoon government subsidised CNG and LPG conversions for vehicles, and subsidised the roll out of CNG and LPG refuelling at service stations across the country, and by the mid 1980s the growth in demand in CNG and LPG had collapsed. It also indirectly subsidised road use by such vehicles, as fuel duty on CNG and LPG was (and still is!) significantly lower than that for petrol.

In a few months, the US-Iran war will be over and the crisis in fuel prices will have ameliorated, and despite the eager calls by central planners, the best government can do is to 

Whether your agree with it or not, the US has to win in Iran

Morally it was entirely justifiable to attack the Islamic Republic of Iran. Many will disagree honourably because of concern that the international order, represented by sovereign states with recognised borders respecting each others territorial integrity, is fundamental to international peace and security.  They believe that this order protects peace and supports negotiation and diplomacy as the path to dispute resolution.  However, it is a defensible position that the Islamic Republic of Iran (distinct from Iran the nation) is not deserving of that protection or recognition, because it does not afford that to some other sovereign states.

It is a regime that has spent its entire history calling for death to the USA and Israel, and used terrorist proxies in Lebanon, Israel and Yemen to spread its evil poisonous misanthropic ideology of ultra-conservative Islamist theocracy.  Besides calling for "death to Israel" it has actively spread anti-semitism globally, including hosting conferences questioning the Holocaust.  It has the world's highest per capita rate of executions, killing over 972 in 2024 alone, and most recently reportedly slaughtering tens of thousands of protestors across the country.  Its theocracy includes a morality police dedicated to policing what women wear and how people interact in public, and it uses rape as a punishment of dissident women.

Given its long standing global sponsorship of terrorism (which included the IRA back in the Troubles), its pursuit of uranium enrichment and lack of transparency, it is easy to justify military action to stop it obtaining nuclear weapons. 

Whether or not it was tactically correct for the US and Israel to take on Iran only history will tell.  As much as those against the war will be wanting Trump to lose, to embarrass him, this is a very narrow and suicidal position. The very last thing anyone who supports liberal democracy, rule of law, individual freedom, human rights and civilisation should want is for the Islamic Republic of Iran to defeat the US, Israel and by proxy, the Gulf states as well.

Overthrowing the regime would be a success, weakening it so it fails due to domestic pressure (including from the Kurdish north) would be a partial success, but emboldening it even if its ability to project abroad is significantly weakened, would be seen as a victory for the regime, and a victory for its proxies.

For it would embolden Iran and its proxies to attack not just in the Middle East, but beyond, endangering Americans, Jews (don't even think Iran separates Zionists from Jews). This would make us all less safe, it would embolden Islamists across the world to promote their ideology, and for a few to be willing to use force to terrify us all.  

If the Islamic Republic survives, it will embolden Putin and Xi to give it succour, money, arms and to push on.  Putin already knows Trump wont stop him in Ukraine, Xi already knows the US will do little in the South China Sea, and wonders if he can attack Taiwan with little more than sanctions.

At this stage the biggest risk is that Trump chickens out, and wants a "deal". There is no "deal" with those who want you dead, who want your country dead and another dead.  As much as the international law purists want pontification from the Western world about the legality of the war on Iran (they think it isn't legal), that horse has bolted. 

While it's entirely possible (and probable) the Iranian regime could be replaced by one that is far from ideal (see Iraq, Libya and Syria), it is also likely it could be better.  Better is not wanting to destroy other countries, better is not wanting to fund, train and arm multiple terrorist proxies across the Middle East, and across the world to "globalise the intifada" against the infidels.

Better is not expounding an ideology that is a fundamentalist misanthropic dark-ages view of humanity, as serving a supreme religious leader who sends people to their deaths for the sake of Allah, who restricts music, literature, art, apparel, human relationships and human expression, for the sake of blasphemy.  Humanity, and in particular Europe and the Western world have been spending centuries unshackling themselves from the tyranny of theology.

The end of the Islamic Republic of Iran wont remove this, as there are plenty of others expounding such a view, including some it is attacking, but it will remove the most toxic, virulent and violent example embodied in a outwardly aggressive state.  For it to "win", survive and double down on militarising itself and securing weapons of mass destruction would be dangerous to us all.

Allister Heath in the Daily Telegraph:

Either Donald Trump holds his nerve, crushes the Iranian regime, rides out the oil shock and reopens the Strait of Hormuz, or he and America are finished, exposed as unserious, fickle and incapable of forward planning, a superpower manquée felled by drone-wielding barbarians.

The challenge is Trump’s character, his willingness to accept short-term economic and electoral pain, not America or Israel’s exceptional military capacities. Does the US president, a hawk on Iran for 47 years, have it in him to finish the job, going down in history as the saviour of civilisation from nuclear Islamism, or is he merely the unidimensional man child his critics believe him to be?..

The great danger is that Trump snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. A loss would involve the Iranians shutting the Strait for an extended period, the Americans panicking at elevated oil prices and the US president walking away with a premature declaration of victory. Iran would be bloodied, but unbowed. 

This would be a calamity from which neither Trump nor the West would recover. It would be interpreted by our enemies, chiefly China, North Korea and Islamists, as proof that their stereotype of the average Westerner is correct, that we are coddled, narcissistic consumers who cannot handle even the smallest discomfort.

It would also embolden the West’s defeatist class. Their “analysis” relentlessly asserts that the US cannot possibly win, and dismisses any contrary evidence. Everything to them is a miscalculation; killing Ali Khamenei will backfire, we are told, but not killing him would have been criticised just as harshly.

There is nothing wrong with caution, but some of these people sound as if they want Iran to win. These same experts rightly loathe Putin, correctly seeing him as a fascist monster, who is willing to kidnap children and ethnically cleanse civilians. They rightly support Ukraine, emphasise its victories and urge it not to give up when Russia strikes a blow.

Yet they are not as passionately opposed to the Iranian regime, even though it is just as fascistic as Putin’s. They loathe Trump and Israel. They were willing to suffer high energy prices to help defeat Putin, but cannot tolerate dearer petrol to take out the Iranian regime. Their double standards and hypocrisy are vile.

This is a civilisational struggle, a battle between good and evil. The West must win, or all bets are off...

There's no leader of the free world anymore

Nobody who supports either free markets or the non-initiation of force principles can now think that the Trump Administration is an acolyte of either principle, even in a somewhat flawed way (as all governments that may advance in that direction are).  It's an incoherent mash of the feelings of two men who are more upset about their egos being offended, than either projecting an economic policy of demonstrable success or managing international relations based on strength against a weak (albeit dangerous) aggressor that embodies almost everything the United States has been against for decades.

The stupid trade war isn't about leverage to get other economies to open up, it is old fashioned autarky or even Kim Il Sung's fatuous "Juche Idea" (self reliance). It's the economics of hardened Marxists, and the economics of moronic economic nationalists like the bloviator Pat Buchanan. The tariffs wont replace income tax ( a line that some have trotted out) and will push up inflation in the US, and harm consumers and producers there, and the global economy.  However, Republicans are now embodying the economics of destroyers like Juan Peron, who helped take Argentina from being a rich country to being a poor one, through this sort of nonsense.  It will only be made worse by the EU and other developed countries responding in kind.

However, it is the moral depravity of the line on Ukraine which deserves the most approbrium.

There is no morality in surrendering to an aggressor all that it has won, so you have "peace" while it rebuilds its armed forces, rearms, and at the same time your erstwhile ally has blackmailed you into signing a predatory deal to hand over resources for the sake of vague promises of security.  Ukraine doesn't want to do that, but the new appeasers do.

The claim Trump makes about wanting to be even-handed between Russia and Ukraine is a complete moral inversion.  Whilst he has been excoriating about Zelensky, he has said nothing negative at all about Putin or the behaviour of Russia.  He has said little about what Russia should do, and little about what the US will do if Russia doesn't stop fighting. He has only demanded that Ukraine stop.

He talks of Ukraine gambling with World War Three which is absurd, given Ukraine alone, with ample military supplies has taken the war to a stalemate -  stalemate with Russia, because Russia's fighting capabilities are woeful. Without nuclear weapons, Russia would be easily overwhelmed with Western power, and pushed back.  Indeed given the US also has nuclear weapons, it could have simply declared it was controlling Ukrainian airspace given:

• Russian military attack on a civilian airliner
• Ukrainian Government invitation to protect it.

Would Russia really have launched a nuclear attack at that point, with the US drawing a clear line that it was defending the territorial integrity of the remainder of Ukraine from air power?

Who was gambling with World War Three the non-nuclear armed Ukraine trying to defend itself from a nuclear power??

Of course Ukraine should feel aggrieved. It has the world's third largest nuclear weapons cache when it became independent and it signed it all away based on promises from the US, Russia and the UK to protect its territorial integrity.  It was Barack Obama who neglected to follow up on that agreement when Russia started its attack on Crimea.  It was Joe Biden who continued to fail once the full blown invasion was launched.

The claims about NATO expansion being provocative are only claims that are echoed by hardcore communists, who pretend that NATO was a project to attack their beloved eastern bloc, not one to defend liberal democracies from it, or from fascist nationalists, who can't believe that countries that spent half a century under the jackboot of the Soviet Union (which they once professed to loathe) would want to be free of Russian imperialism forever more.

Of course Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechia etc. do not want their independence threatened by an aggressive Russia - again - and if you dont think that is legitimate, then you're either a communist, or someone, like Hitler, who thinks you can make accommodations with a communist for your own political objectives.  Hating the European Union or "globalists" is all one thing, but if anyone who claims to believe in sovereign borders, the right of states to control their territory and be independent, thinks surrendering Ukraine is consistent with that, then it shows it up for all it is - desperate tribalist support for a US Administration that doesn't care about your beliefs when it suits it.

If territorial integrity of sovereign states doesn't matter to Ukraine, then maybe it doesn't matter anywhere that the Trump Administration doesn't care about, and that includes any country in Europe, or Australia, or New Zealand etc etc.

Of course everyone wants the war to end. It could end tomorrow if Putin just decided to end it, and withdraw, but he's a psychopathic kleptocrat who feeds young Russian men (from poor backgrounds) and North Korean men to their deaths.

Ukraine has been successful in knocking out much of Russia's military strength including knocking out  much of the Black Sea Fleet. Had it been armed more effectively it could have pushed back more inflicting more pain on Russia.

Trump doesn't like that though, because he wants economic relations with Russia.

Had Trump wanted to, he could have demonstrated strength against Russia and demanded concessions or significantly enhanced support for Ukraine, but instead he has demonstrated strength against Ukraine and made it into a supplicant, and emboldened Russia. 

If the war ends soon, on the basis of Russia giving up little, and there being no substantial security guarantees for Ukraine (including US direct military support), then it will prolong the inevitable. Russia can spend a few years rearming, and use its renewed economic potential after sanctions are lifted by the US, to steal military capability and be ready for another attack. It knows the US wont do much, and it doesn't fear European power. At that point, the cost not just to the Europe, but the world of letting it be known that the US is isolationist and wont act to protect any nation states from attack by Russia, is going to be much higher than the tens of billions taken to bolster Ukraine.

Even Marine Le Pen is critical of Trump on Ukraine, because by and large, European countries want to sure of defence against the predatory criminal gangster state to the east, which treats its neighbours with impunity.

Perhaps a deal will be struck, perhaps not and Europe will do all it can to support Ukraine, regardless, it is now a time for small countries everywhere to acknowledge that it's all on now - the US doesn't care if you are attacked, you have to fend for yourselves with any other allies.

There is no "leader of the free world" anymore.

Korea: Real change or the cycle of bluff?

North Korea watchers are split on what the outcomes of the latest diplomatic activities on the Korean peninsula will mean.  There was the usual, tiresome, anti-Trump kneejerk reaction to his threats to the DPRK, which of course follow the DPRK's missile and nuclear tests, all of which breach UN Security Council Resolutions.  Trump rightfully declared that no regime oppresses its citizens like North Korea.  Liberty in North Korea gives you more on this, which I wont repeat.  It's a regime that controls movement of its people not only to leave this prison state, but to leave your own town.  It runs gulags in which it incarcerates entire families for the political "crimes" of one (that mean elderly relatives down to babies).  It is difficult to exaggerate the scale of this, but it's also important to remember that this ISN'T a priority internationally.  

So let's be clear about what the DPRK is.

• Totalitarian regime with unrivalled levels of control on media, speech, movement of people compared with virtually any other country.  There is little internet access, almost no access to broadcasts from outside the country, and very few ever have permission to travel outside the country.  There is very little private enterprise, with what there is being restricted to informal (but tolerated) market stalls.  All other retail and trading activities are undertaken by the state, and economic activity is directed by central planning with limited use of price as a tool to manage demand and supply.
• Highly militarised, with a standing army of 1.1 million (and over 8 million reservists) out of a population of around 25 million, with the military taking around 20% of GDP.
• It is the creation of the USSR, which entered the northern half of Korea near the end of World War 2 as the US entered the southern half, as Japan withdrew its imperial forces.  Japan had occupied Korea and treated it is a vassal state since 1910, treating Koreans in many cases as slave labour.  The UN sought to hold elections across Korea, but the USSR refused to allow the holding of an election in the northern half.  The south held elections, and the Republic of Korea was formed, with the first President Syngman Rhee.  The north declared the Democratic People's Republic of Korea shortly thereafter, with a Stalinist system led by Kim Il Sung.  At the end of the 1940s the US withdrew from south Korea, and Kim Il Sung was given approval from Stalin and Mao to reunify Korea under a communist system, starting the Korean War.  After three years of bloodshed, including UN intervention on the side of the south (led by the USA), the war ended roughly at the same point as where it started.  The DPRK declared "victory" as it claimed the south started the war, led by "US imperialism".  
• The USSR instituted Kim Il Sung as Supreme Leader of the DPRK, with a Constitution and party/state structure mirroring that of the USSR at the time (under Stalin).  Kim Il Sung was a minor guerrilla fighter who led a small band of resistance against the Japanese, before fleeing to the USSR where the Red Army schooled him in Stalinism.  

However, it is important to remember what it tells its citizens:

• They are the luckiest people in the world with (as Barbara Demick's book was titled) "Nothing to Envy in the world".
• South Korea is a "puppet regime" run by the USA as a slave colony of fascism, where the people revere the Kim dynasty and ache for reunification under their leadership.  South Korea would quickly reunify with the North if the US imperialist withdrew their "troops of occupation", but the USA treats its south Korean "subjects" like the Japanese used to.
• Kim Il Sung led an army which was responsible for liberating ALL of Korea from Japanese imperialism, and he entered Pyongyang to adoring crowds grateful for his feats of military acumen.  Kim Il Sung was the most intelligent, skilled, amazing, adoring and generous man of all history, he is admired globally by billions of people, and his works are consumed by them and inspire their own feats.   
• Other countries are either impoverished or comprise a small rich elite that take advantage of a mass of downtrodden workers, who are all impoverished, without the wondrous goods and free housing, healthcare and education of the DPRK.  
• The Korean War was NOT started by the DPRK, but by the USA wanting to aggressively turn all of Korea into a slave colony.  The US has always wanted this.

Kim Jong Un's number one priority is regime survival.  This has two elements.  One is protection from foreign attack (primarily the US, seeking to destroy its nuclear arsenal) and the other is internal revolt.

Kim Jong Un may have a big ego and be ruthless, but he is no fool.  For decades, the DPRK relied on the Cold War to ensure that it didn't really fear any US attack, because that was deterred by the USSR.  However, with US military action to overthrow Saddam Hussein, to support the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi and to strategically attack military sites in Syria, there is real fear of the US (particularly under Trump, compared to Obama), striking the DPRK.

Yes Kim Jong Un knows the US fears the DPRK striking back, not so much with nuclear weapons, but with a massive conventional attack on south Korea, which may also include chemical and biological weapons (it is widely believed that the DPRK has all three primary types of WMDs).  However, he also knows that the US and south Korea can easily defeat the DPRK on the battlefield with conventional weapons and if nuclear weapons were used by the DPRK, Pyongyang would almost certainly be levelled by a similar response.  He is as deterred by the devastation and scale of death as the US is, so he is keen on lowering of tensions.

His survival also needs protection from internal revolt.  The only institution capable of doing this is the military.  Mass revolt by the population is almost inconceivable, as the whole country outside Pyongyang faced starvation during the late 1990s and there was little sign of resistance.  However, shortly after Kim Il Sung's death in 1994, his widow (who was not Kim Jong Il's mother, but his stepmother) apparently sought to get the military to stage a coup against Kim Jong Il (widely thought of as a lazy psychopathic playboy), but failed.  His response was the "Songun" (military first) policy that effectively sidelined the Korean Workers Party as the centre of authority, making the military the priority of the party, the state and the economy.

This is where the rational interest of denuclearisation, reduction of tension and peace on the Korean peninsula faces a conflict of interests with those of the Korean People's Army.  Kim Jong Un will know that if he significantly reduces the economic commitment of the state to the military he risks the military taking over.

So he has TWO choices, assuming that ignoring the military isn't an option.

1.  Don't demilitarise at all.  Re-enter the familiar cycle of detente, with rhetoric of peace.  Conduct no more nuclear tests, even allow unprecedented levels of inspection of the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site (which is already destroyed) and seek a lowering or ending of economic sanctions. It will not dismantle its existing arsenal, but it will buy time for trade and investment.  It will demand that the US withdraw from south Korea before anything else happens (despite claims to the contrary) and after a period of a year or two of more trade, the cycle of sanctions and threats will recommence.

2.  Corporatise the military.  Sign a peace treaty, get US assurances of non-aggression, but retain WMDs and a formidable defence capability, but redirect the defence sector's activity more towards trade and the (black) economy.  Let the army run businesses, allow limited foreign investment in factories and infrastructure and become rich.   The military can then be part of a pseudo-capitalist reform programme that enriches those within it, enables it to upgrade its own equipment and grow the economy.  This will also mean that the current elite can enrich themselves through a mild form of liberalisation and capitalism.  Think China in the 1970s, but don't go too far down that path.

For as long as the Kim clan lead, the Kim Il Sung myth needs to be sustained.  That means that the big lies of the regime must be protected.  North Koreans can't know that their brethren in the south live with a level of prosperity AND freedom that they could hardly imagine.  So don't expect very much loosening of trade and travel between north and south.  South Koreans will be able to visit very carefully managed resorts (and be expected to spend a lot of hard currency), but north Koreans wont be travelling.   The tight control on media, movement of people and information will have to be maintained, otherwise it risks the broad mass of the population who are neither in the military nor the elite, asking questions and demanding to live more like south Koreans.  They'll want the houses, the clothes, the electrical goods, the cars, the freedom.  All of that will bring down the DPRK, particularly if the military split.  

So what do I think will happen?

I think there will be a lot of talk.  I think the US will demand, as a bare minimum, full inspection and verification of the dismantling of the DPRK's nuclear arsenal and concrete steps to build confidence between the sides.  That could mean allowing unrestricted family reunifications across the border,  greater travel from the south to the north, trade and investment, and allowing cultural and sporting exchanges.

However, the DPRK only wants three things: the US to withdraw from south Korea, a guarantee to not be attacked and an end to economic sanctions.  It can't afford to open up, so it is stuck.  

By no means should Trump agree to US withdrawal from south Korea without a least full verifiable dismantling of the nuclear weapons programme, and ideally also chemical and biological weapons (if the DPRK opens those up then it will be a transformative change).  Although it could certainly agree to a non-aggression treaty based end to the war, it still needs to maintain deterrence against conventional attack.   However, what should not be neglected is the push for closer interaction between the Koreas at the personal level.  I'm far from convinced that Kim Jong Un is doing anything other than playing for time, cementing his reputation in the north and pushing to get economic sanctions eased to help enrich the elite of his regime (and encourage some investment.

He is stuck between the legacy of his grandfather (and father's) web of deceit and the military's position to overthrow him.  The China reform option isn't really there.  However, let's take the calming of tensions as a good thing and hope that it's an opportunity to break the regime open a bit more.  The more that happens, the better the chances for the millions north of the DMZ.

Abandoning foreign policy now means Pax Rus - is it what you wanted?

Whether it be left-wing activists of the so-called "peace" movement or libertarians who think that foreign policy should mean immediate withdrawal from the world, the recent events in Syria have demonstrated that when the USA, and with it the Western world, decides to withdraw from being involved in other countries, that others will fill the vacuum.

So it is that President Obama, who ridiculed Mick Romney's claim that Russia was a rising threat, has left the opponents of the Marxist/militarist hereditary dictatorship of Bashar Assad wide open to being attacked, by the air, by Vladimir Putin's unashamedly expansionist military.  

Dad and son, and their personality cult

Had Obama been true to the neutrality that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee had presumably rewarded him for "ex.ante", he would have said that there is no Western interest in what happens to Syria.  For indeed, his pitiful actions (a few airstrikes against Islamic State) have demonstrated not much above it.  In fact, I would have respected, if disagreed, with a position that replicates that of the nihilist libertarian isolationists who want the USA to withdraw from the world, and let Islamism grow, tyrants take over its friends and do nothing, until the first missile, bomber or terrorist controlled airliner strikes US soil (actually scrub that, for when the latter happens, even they think the response is NOT to attack those who harboured them).

If the so-called "land of the free" wants to withdraw from the world, then those of us who bear the consequences of that withdrawal better be prepared for the cost of this, but let's not pretend that the USA gives a damn about other peoples wanting to be lands of the free or escape tyranny.  That's their battle, and if others want to join in their oppression, don't pretend that it matters.

So to Syria.

Obama opts out of the world (UPDATED)

Isn't it rather odd, than when Libya's dictatorship has used fighter aircraft to attack its own citizens, when it is difficult to engage evacuations deep into Libya (only Tripoli airport and Benghazi appear accessible), that the USA has such a low profile?

The appropriate response is clear:

- Declare a "no-fly zone" over Libya, that NATO will take control of Libyan airspace for the purposes of preventing use of military aircraft against civilians, and to allow for evacuation and aid missions to fly in unhindered.

- That means being willing to warn and shoot down Libyan air force aircraft if necessary, or escort them if they wish to defect.

However Obama has given up, he has withdrawn from the world.  The US as superpower is absent, if you see the White House website there is nothing at all about Libya.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said she is "watching" with concern.

It's a fairly clear lesson, Gaddafi was scared of Bush sufficiently that he stopped sabre rattling and his WMD programme.   He isn't scared of Obama.

So that's it people.  The Obama Administration was more vocal about Egypt, because of Israel and because it was so obviously a key ally of the US.  Libya, an arch enemy, is almost irrelevant now.

Have a guess at what governments are quietly taking comfort from that, they have capital cities beginning with T, D and P. 

UPDATE:  Even the New York Times agrees.

"It took President Obama four days to condemn the violence. Even then, he spoke only vaguely about holding Libyan officials accountable for their crimes. Colonel Qaddafi was never mentioned by name....There is not a lot of time. Colonel Qaddafi and his henchmen have to be told in credible and very specific terms the price they will pay for any more killing. They need to start paying right now."

Helen Clark the hypocrite

As one of the world's very high income untaxed international civil servant parasites, Helen Clark thinks she has some moral authority to comment about New Zealand politics.

So she is back to her tired old tribal politics of saying the Wikileaks cables showed the US "disrespected" New Zealand's so-called "independent" foreign policy according to the NZ Herald.  Of course it paints a whole series of assumptions, such as the idea that a foreign policy that was sold as maintaining an alliance with the US (just without anything nuclear) is more independent than choosing to welcome all of the ships and weapons of your allies.   However, the key point Clark is upset about is that US diplomats, privately, were less than impressed by the policy - which Clark was a cheerleader of as she and other leftists in the Labour caucus in the mid 1980s, pushed David Lange to accepting.

Clark herself has long been anti-American, having picked coffee for the "peace-loving" Sandinistas (not that the other side was worth supporting) and having frequently held the US government in contempt publicly (and who knows how often in private).   If her private communications were to be leaked much no doubt would be discovered, although it is no secret that she was no friend of US foreign policy.

Moreover, was it not disrespectful how Clark encouraged the Lange government to act towards the US? How the US was prepared to send a non-nuclear powered ship, that no rational individual could believe would ever carry nuclear weapons (USS Buchanan), but Clark like a clamouring harpie along with her coterie of baying Marxists demanded Lange refuse access to it because of the "neither confirm nor deny" policy that applied to all ships.   In other words, Clark was instrumental in telling the US, in the midst of the Cold War (which Clark no doubt thought NZ should be "neutral" in), to go to hell.

On top of that, as a former Prime Minister she isn't keeping her mouth shut, as is the conventional protocol, when there is an existing, elected Prime Minister that replaced her.

Who is the disrespectful one?  

Let's not forget, Helen Clark is one of the lords of poverty, she sups from the cornucopiae of loot from rich countries under the pretence that she is somehow necessary to the advancement of people in the poorer countries.  Helen Clark having never had any poverty as a child, and on US$0.5 million tax free, plus accommodation allowance and first class air travel, she will remain more remote from poverty than she ever has been.  Meanwhile, she has spent tax money on criticising UNDP's critics, and runs an organisation that has been criticised for not keeping proper accounts and in the midst of the recent attacks by North Korea on South Korea, sought to increase its budget.   You see UNDP has been paying its North Korean government approved staff in the country in foreign currency directly, not that Clark cares as she lives off the pig's back.   Experience has shown me how utterly lazy, unproductive and vastly overpaid the UN bureaucracy is, how little work people there do compared to the private sector (or even public sector elsewhere) and how generous pay and conditions are.

Helen Clark doesn't have moral authority to talk about "respect" from the US, when she gave the US precious little respect politically in much of her career, and in private as Prime Minister.  Today she lives like a grand Lady of Poverty, enjoying a privileged lifestyle whilst having responsibility for billions of dollars of other people's money (a good part from the US) ostensibly to provide relief from poverty.   She is one of the biggest parasites on the face of the earth, having spent her whole life living off of the back of others and doing little more than telling others what to do.   She wont answer questions about the openness and accountability of UNDP in her own job to Radio NZ.

You don't learn much about respect from paying attention to Helen Clark