The Death of an Alliance, Part 42

China’s newest satellite won’t back sanctions against North Korea, after the North lobbed seven missiles into the Sea of Japan. The United States is actively supporting a Japanese-drafted sanctions resolution at the U.N. China is opposing it. The lines have been drawn, sides have been chosen. Seoul really didn’t even need to take part in this “camp diplomacy,” but it has. It’s yet another reason to ask: why do we provide the defense for a nation that’s neutral at best, the servant of our enemies at worst?

The only explanation I can offer is a mix of inertia and hope that things will change in 2007. Yet no election will really alter the fundemental strategic realities, and no Korean political movement seems ready to alter the fundemental demographic ones, modest improvements notwithstanding.
—–