Joseph DeThomas on 38 North evaluates the North Korean sanctions resolution passed by the UN Security Council recently:
Even if the resolution inflicts the damage its sponsors hope, it will be insufficient to change Pyongyang’s policy. As we have seen in the past, the Kim regime will simply shift its remaining foreign exchange resources to its strategic priorities and allow those outside the defense and political elite establishment to shoulder the pain. This was the sad experience of those of us who wielded the even more powerful sanctions against Saddam Hussein under UNSCR 661. Highly repressive regimes with a narrow political elite can successfully shift the pain of even severe sanctions to the innocent.
While having these sanctions is better than diving into a preventive war, we should not expect this resolution to solve our problems. On its own, it is simply too little, too late. Rather, it is a card to be played in a much larger game involving military deterrence and US-China, US-ROK, China-DPRK and US-DPRK diplomacy. However, whether or not the leaders in Washington, Pyongyang, Beijing and Seoul, are up to that complex effort is very unclear.
But it does function as an instrument of communications, and a measure of the strength of resolution the Big Powers have in resolving that North Korea should not have nuclear weapons.
