North Korea's Right To Self-Defence.

“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing” – Malcolm X.

North Korean Leader Kim Jong-Un. Picture Credit: Alaska Dispatch News.

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

In condemning North Korea’s latest missile test, but not the large-scale military drills between the United States and South Korea and other shows of force as well, the United Nations Security Council is being true to its stock-in-trade: Hypocrisy. International law itself outlaws even the threat of the use of force, but allows use of force in self-defence. United States show of force against North Korea is a threat of the use of force, while North Korean actions, properly understood, are preparations for the act of self-defence. 

The way I see it, military drills between the United States and South Korea, and flights by nuclear capable bombers, are a threat of the use of force against North Korea. The two countries are essentially perfecting how they will fight North Korea. North Korea thus has every right to perfect how it will fight its enemies when the time comes. 

What is also missing from the headlines is that the United States has harmed North Korea even more grievously through what Johan Galtung called “Structural Violence” – structural violence are all those actions that are not overt violence, but which still result in injury and death (just as would happen had open violence been used). This is precipitant from the United States’ involvement in the 1950 – 1953 Korean War, the United States has since blockaded North Korea for over 6 decades, with the result being stunted economic development for North Korea, and all the human insecurity that that precipitates.

Information Superiority In Warfare: A Myth?

A diagrammatic representation of USAF Col John Boyd's Observe - Orient - Decide - Act (OODA) Loop.

The above decision making model will be my reference point during my attendance at a major warfare conference in London in the next few days. The OODA Loop is fully explained here and a good example of how Donald Trump has (unwittingly) used it appears here 

The conference is on information superiority in warfare and, make no mistake, information, in all walks of life, is an invaluable commodity. The thing to remember, however, is that information has its own nature and rules which defy total domestication even by the most dedicated adherent. So, even before I attend this important conference, I am already circumspect about the grand pronouncement western war fighting says it aims at;  

Information Superiority is defined by Western militaries as “the operational advantage derived from the ability to collect, process, and disseminate an uninterrupted flow of information while exploiting or denying an adversary’s ability to do the same.” 

With an annual budget of over US$700 billion, failures to win (outright) the war in Afghanistan, makes a mockery of such a grand pronouncement and opens up avenues to discuss more decisive factors in warfare.

ISIS May Yet Punch Way Above Its Weight

The Russian Su - 24 All Weather Bomber that was shot down by Turkey in Syria on 24 November 2015.

If the unthinkable - nuclear war - were to happen over Turkey's downing of a Russian bomber jet in Syria, then ISIS will have punched way above its weight in style. The fable that readily comes to mind in illustration, is the African folk tale: The Hare, the Elephant and the Hippopotamus. 

The Most Potent Global Security Threat Of The Twenty First Century

The unthinkable is the logical conclusion of all the great powers' strategic manoeuvring. Picture Credit: Wonderful Engineering.  

The greatest global security threat of the 21st century is the United States of America's fear of losing its status as the world hegemony. From this fear precipitates actions - in the name of "strategic manoeuvring" - that have destabilized, to name only the latest places: Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine. Ukraine represents exactly the kind of overreach, on the United States' part, that may result in the unthinkable.

This is the top tier of global security threats, all other threats should be viewed through this prism. It is also not necessarily that America is evil, Thucydides writing in the 5th Century already showed that all pre-eminent powers will behave this way. The only difference now is that a war fought to maintain such a hegemony will be the last war.