IF and WHEN we should offer Exile-Asylum to Kim Jong Un

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

Okay… so we can’t like… put this offer on the table just yet… as it would likely result in a general launching a Coup once it is confirmed the west sees Jong Un as being basically a weak puppet… but there is going to come a sudden realization on either Jung’s side or by South Korea or someone else they will have a very short time table to offer him a way out, alive, preferably with his wife… if it comes to the point of the eventuality of a military coup.

Problems arise:

Civil Rights abuse by his father and grandfather- though not HIS FAULT, he definitely benefited from them. Given the means of succession, being given then taken away from his older brothers, suggest that while his father was alive, he wasn’t ever his ‘own man’… having to do what his father wanted… and once he came into power, he had a moment of open mindedness- which might suggest his personal outlook, only to be overtaken by a clique within the military, forcing him into a more militant position. It’s hard to say given the closed nature of his regime- who’s character is inherited, that he had much of a option in deescalating the situation, be it human rights or martial outlook, without looking soft and loosing his position, likely under lethal circumstances, and to be replaced by someone worst.

However… however ‘innocent’ he might be overall… it’s speculation, educated speculation, but speculation none the less. If we offer asylum to him, someone has to deal with having him… I’m not too certain he would fit in the US, no matter how into disneyland and youtube he becomes… given none the less the track record of his nation. The Emperor of Japan got out of his situation by showing himself to be a unwitting actor in Japan’s rise to militancy, and it was necessary to secure his support for a successful, stable Japan in the occupation years.

It would be ideal to offer him sanctuary, and work the inside of north korea so him, or his child, can return as a savior in relieving the burden of the North once the regime there shows a weakening… but isn’t assured, and has complications realistically itself. China perhaps… but China is within easy reach of North Korean Assassins. Russia perhaps.

Secondly… funding… what assets can we give to what is essentially a royal household in everything but in name, given it’s Marxist origins? Does anyone really want to pitch in and give him a estate and a sports car to drive around in, and money for food and basic luxuries? It’s easier for kingdoms ruled by kings with a decadent nobility to pull this off… and the two most obvious examples- Japan and England, don’t seem to be too accepting of Sung showing up amongst them.

It’s a possibility, one that isn’t unknown in history, but is delicate. Honestly, we can’t head to the peace talks with the offer of political asylum to someone who is supposed to be, and may very well be in actuality, a despotic dictator of his own choosing. None the less, I see it bending to him being a pawn… and so this needs to be discussed now, in advanced to get the ball rolling.

How do you feel about your country hosting Kim Jong Un moving into your country? Do you think some sort of international court will prosecute in even if he isn’t really responsible on his end, and do you think he could ever provide proof it wasn’t him? Likewise, why would you oppose the offer being extended, or the request denied? Imagine yourself in his shoes- your basic personality, with military cliques floating around you, your asshole dad… and seeing what happened to your brothers. You played the nice guy option, and the military clique threatened you in such a way that threatening to start nuking the most powerful nations in your region and the world and declaring war on them sounded like the better option.

How do we play this option when and if it comes up? Is there any place left in the world he could go?

2

Contra: I think if anyone will relocate Jung, it would be the Chinese. They are the ones, who stood by this regime as far back as can be remembered, and even during the cold war days, china was NK’s puppeteer. Although if it eve comes to that, and as usual with dictators having a huge dowry, they will be taken by anyone with even a promise of citizenship, including Switzerland. That is, if the monetary gains balance out the political windfall. It may even smell of humanitarian beneficence. Of course in a process like this, there are huge payoff benefits, all along the line of political chain of command, where everyone including their aunt, uncle and cousin benefits.

 However I don't have the feeling, that this will go down smoothly, if it ever happens, in Korea.  The reason is, in communist countries, the solidarity in leadership is very tight, and kim will not have a chance. Because the pundits, who are always way ahead in evaluating their own political future, would have assassinated their leader to gain browny points. There is an extreme of social projection going on in absolute ideological dictatorships, and there is probably little slack afforded for mistakes.  However it's a very unstable, uncertain situation, and anything can happen, including a sudden turnaround in the political climate.  A coup may not afford him the opportunity to seek asylum.
3

The captain goes down with the ship. Even if he’s not guilty of the worst of what North Korea has done/is doing, he’s benefiting every day from his leadership position in terms of wealth and power and luxury. A clean death after a life like he’s had so far wouldn’t be all that unjust, and there’s millions of people in N.K. that deserve asylum as much or more than him.
The only way we should offer him anything like that would be if we were getting something amazing in return, and I can’t imagine what that could be. If the only problem we’re solving with offering him asylum is the problem of “poor Kim Jong Un will die otherwise”, I’m not seeing the problem. You can’t use asylum to begin peace talks, because as you’ve said, the moment he moves in that direction, his authority becomes null and void anyway, and we’ll be talking with some other Glorious Leader.

4

A strong part of em agrees with this.

You don’t offer asylum for immediate gain, but for long term pressure of the coup factions that would then become the defacto leaders… it’s always a threatening thorn in their side to know the old regiem is still out there, ready to pop in, and gain old loyalties.

We did it with the first president of the Soviet Union, gave him Asylum when Lenin decided to replace him. Communist regimes are notorious for being off balanced and fickle politically, as it’s never a simple dictatorship- they always have republican features (though not a democracy, they have councils with a meritocracy implied, but rarely functioning).

The North Korean regiem is closed lipped, but that’s from the Mohist influence on making information travel vertically and not horizontally, as well as emphasizing controlling military information from works like 100 Unorthodox Strategies… in the west, where we’ve always been more loose lipped, it hasn’t been a issue as much historically, but in asia, alot of the classical ideology is centered around people not talking. Doesn’t mean the esprite de corps is all that great… though admittedly we would count this as a qualifier in the west.

I don’t see that much that is special about the three Kim’s dynasty in terms of information control in terms of the philosophy that’s at the heart of most every asian military power in the region. It the only part of the world (talking China now) where entire military regiments, one after another, would suddenly defect to the enemy out of the blue. People keep quite and just go along with it- it’s why there were so many Cliques in the Chinese revolution, and how such a small group- the Maoist who emphasized moving the lay population, ultimately succeeded- it’s basic Mohist thought. It wouldn’t work too well in the US, where everyone demands to know why they have to do something, to see if it was meaningful, before doing it.

The fallout in North Korea is going to happen at the top, not bottom. They still teach the classics of philosophy in the DPRK, meaning the leadership already knows what to do. They aren’t going to be thinking on a European model… lots of similarities, but also substantial differences in how information flows, and who’s responsible for action, and when to strike. It’s predictable, and largely codified. In the west, we have a rough idea when the masses are suppost to rise up, and from that a leadership is expected to quickly be cobbled together, in asia, they have a rough idea when the leadership is supposed to rise up and lead the masses.

5 
Don't we already have some exiles like that, people who balked and left the country when Juche became super-tyranny instead of just regular tyranny?  Or has it been too long and they're all dead/infirm now?  I guess the problem I'm seeing is, N.K. has absolute communication control, so if Kim Jong Un is hiding out in South Korea (the obvious choice) someplace, the people will know nothing about him but what the State tells them- so he won't have any popular support.  Sympathizers inside Government might exist, but in a situation like this, how do we identify them? They can't speak up.  I don't know how you politically leverage a nation like that. The closest comparison would be Stalin- you make them so paranoid that the Glorious Leader assassinates any potential successor and the machine devours itself. That's how I see it going if you try to threaten them with a Kim Jong Un coup.
6

Or on the other hand they are playing with reality. Maybe the dogma got to them, and they see nothing beyond it then the void the west represents. Maybe they live in a futuristic fantasy of seeing themselves in a cloak of heroic defiance, reminiscent of the mi Laii massacre, with auto-da fe like lifetime snaps of what oriental type heroism may look like? The hari kari of self immolation, as a tragic reminder of a butterfly effect, a view of how inefficient the romantic European notion of belief systems put into a strangle hold positions, where the romance suddenly takes an about face.

7

Or they just twisted the Confucian basis of society into a siege state… if you look at soviet propaganda films made during the Nazis siege of Leningrad, you’ll find parallels between it and the DPRK media… the balance it out with emphasis on esprite de corps (not necessarily military units, any given collective, but it’s modeled off the military none the less) and childish affirmations of aesthetics and comedy… which was what Qaddafi did (if you ever watched Libyan State Television on the satellite, it was little more than Tom and Jerry reruns and some old guy with a beard bitching, followed up by more cartoons.)

The mentality of a siege state is very simple, keep everyone scared of a immanent invasion… in Leningrad’s case, it was a very real threat, in the cities of Coastal China under Mao, long after the PRC got beaten back to Taiwan, the occasional mass evacuation of the coastal cities due to the imminent threat of Taiwanese invasion of the mainland, at a time when the Chinese had the largest army in world history, was a means to evoking a siege mentality and control over the population.

They are not that deep, at least not in the way you are expressing them… yes, the military classics they possess on the topics of statecraft and strategy makes them incredibly dangerous… they are playing with a fire few in the west philosophically comprehend. What they are not are bonafide intellectuals OUTSIDE of this… yes, Marxism still has some lingering effects, the previous two dictators wrote long, tiring works of philosophy (translated into English by a renegade american enlisted man who joined them after the korean war) but I don’t think we have much to worry about.

And yes, there are exiled factions of the North Korean Government, and they maintain English newsites and send out newsletters… representing the various factions within the DPRK… but it’s been some years since we’ve had some truly fresh meat, and it’s doubtful they have the clout anymore to do jack squat now.

However, having a legitimate heir to the ‘throne’ has it’s clear advantages… the offspring would be a continuous threat even in say, 70 years from now… royals have a slower half-life of decay when it comes to political destabilization of a political clique… they always capture the people’s attention… look at Republican France… they still eat up the recent works of their legitimate kings, and hang off his every saying, and know his lineage since Napoleon by heart. It would be much, much, much more intense in north korea.

Not saying we WOULD HAVE TO once we have him return him to power, but simply having him on hand somewhere would be useful.

8

Once we finish the war in Afghanistan after a few years of peace we should just finish this nonsense.

9

Troop numbers for Afghanistan substantially differs for any war in North Korea… Afghanistan is comparatively a minor war… long lasting because it was largely a holding action whereas Iraq was the main theater, but that’s not unique in the history of warfare… I’m translating with a friend an old Byzantine manual on guerrilla warfare currently, still in the early stages of it… these kinds of wars were done in actuality more than they were theoretically discussed because it wasn’t as definitive or final- an old roman prejudice.

Afghanistan is just something, in one form or another, the world collectively will just have to deal with… ideologically, it’s considered a impossible war to win, but we’re not leaving planet earth any time soon, and the capacity to project devastating force on civilians is quite high and credible… unfortunately Afghanistan and Pakistan isn’t as remote in comparison to the rest of the world as it once was, and I doubt the current nor future generations of men will be as tolerant towards it as we were in the past.

I see a Chinese semi-occupation down the road, as well as Iranian and Pakistani attempts of grabbing territory once they create a competent enough military to do so (only reason they haven’t). This will continue until they stop being such backwards fuckheads as they are. It’s all nasty and uncultured for me to say it, but it’s the brutal truth, it’s a culture of wife beaters and donkey fuckers operating under a economy based on international drug sales and puritanical religious jihad on anything that moves… but it also has to be understood that they are racially in many cases the same race as the Tibetans… who were once just as warlike and narrow minded. I doubt what I can say of them now will be what men will say of them in a few generations… just don’t expect a final end to the ‘Afgan problem’ anytime soon… it’s going to stick with us like Carthage did with the Romans- everytime they killed off the offending faction, be it the republic of carthage or rebels in the desert, another local group deeper in the desert would pop up and attack- the wars lasted for centuries. Our consolation is Afganistan’s biggest long term worry isn’t the US, but India, China, Iran, and Pakistan even… and they aren’t known for their pacifism.

North Korea is a entirely different kind of theater requiring heavy ground troops in conjunction with air and naval assets in a face pace, WMD environment… think D Day… afganistan is mostly light troops with some air support, and training locals to not kill one another or smuggle drugs on donkeys when the westerners aren’t looking to supply the war.