Marvellous photo, courtesy of the Daily Telegraph, of Kim Jong-un enjoying a post-ignition cigarette following the successful launch of North Korea's first satellite. He's rapidly joining Dick Emery, Hugh Cornwell and Kris Akabusi in my personal pantheon of heroes. No doubt he finished his celebrations with a pint of lager tops and a Pukka pie.
The Telegraph's correspondent opines that this launch should encourage the other states in the region to join together in order to deal with the "threat" from Jong-un's regime, but that isn't going to happen. While all eyes are on the likes of China and India as the next global hegemon, I remain quietly confident that the Koreans, dismissed as crazy and irrelevant, will be the real power in a few decades' time. They're the only country in the world that are really focused on where they are going, but nobody on the outside seems to recognise that.
In the same newspaper I note my other big geopolitical tip, the Franco-British Union, appears to have taken another knock, with Cameron having a tiff with Hollande about something or other. And yet I also note that the Tour De France is coming to Yorkshire next year. The cultural, military and economic links deepen, while the political noise on the surface increases. All going to plan, then.
Allez!
10 comments:
The problem with James Bond movies is they rarely have fat, klutzy, uncharismatic 'bosses sons' for villains. Making missiles cos they're a bit rubbish at throwing, footy, and meeting girls.
If they rectified this, we truly would have "a Bond for the 21st century".
Even Berlusconi has to botox his nob before he meets call girls. Action movies need to get with the program.
I like to imagine Kim Jong-un has a West Yorkshire accent, and after the rocket successfully launched he said "Aye! that were reet grand..."
Korea. Ok... could you give a potted summary of the evidence there?
Yeah - it satisfies all the criteria for what Sir John Glubb called the "pre-breakout" stage for an empire:
1. It's poor and barren, and therefore has strong motivation to expand outwards. It's bleakness makes its people very tough.
2. It's ethnically homogenous and has a young demographic.
3. It hasn't done anything spectacular before, and is generally disregarded as a backwater, so:
4. Nobody really takes it seriously.
5. There are plenty of under-populated and resource-rich regions adjacent.
6. I've been to South Korea, and they openly (and quite excitedly) talk about the military and industrial potential of a unified nation.
So it's in exactly the same position that Macedonia, Rome, Arabia, Mongolia and Britain were in before they started their imperial adventures. Empires usually start from small, barren, aggressive nations, not big well-resourced ones.
That's a great rundown, don't know Glubb at all. Do they talk about how reunification might happen?
And what about the Britain/France thing, what's your reasoning there? In a way even less on the radar of most. What's Scotland's position?
Now it makes more sense why you took that spat of Cameron's with Sarkozy so seriously! Although to be fair I didn't do so really because I felt Sarkozy himself was finished as a politician, not because the relationship isn't important...
(Now why is the captcha word "coulaid"? ^_^)
You can download Glubb's "Fate Of Empires" here:
http://www.filestube.com/d1goHDq97UuIRf7wuUctTC/The-Fate-of-Empires-and-Search-for-Survival-John-Glubb.html
It's only a very short work, so easily readable in electronic format. Some people are a bit put off by its gouty-old-British-Colonel tone, but a lot of it makes great sense.
My reasoning behind the Franco-British union is simply that the two world wars showed how vulnerable an island like Britain is in modern warfare, and so it simply has to have a continental anchor. During both those wars, the French and British should really have swallowed their pride and taken the Entente Cordiale to its ultimate conclusion and united.
As the EU degrades, I think both countries, far less powerful than they both were, will have no choice but to do it, simply to act as a counterweight to Germany. Not that I'm predicting another war with the Germans - I don't think that will happen. But I do think that we'll end up with something very familiar from about 150 years ago - a Europe of the blocs (Franco-Britain, Austro-Germany, Russia and Turkey) with everywhere else (Balkans especially) being a potential battleground.
As for the Scots, I think they might prefer to be run from Paris rather than London. Not that they'll be given any choice, when push comes to shove.
Thanks for that... JMGreer of course thinks we are in for an overspill from the Islamic nations first. I think he might be over-egging that... he's basing it on population growth levels.
But why then no war with Germany, a little further down the road? Aren't you relying on always getting a Bismarck and never a Wilhelm? Or is it simply that you think there will never be a technological or economic differential? Some steady state?
Oh yeah, the unification of Korea is an easy one.
1. South Korea has lots of oil-intensive industry.
2. Siberia to the north has lots of oil.
3. Inbetween South Korea and Siberia, North Korea has a massive army.
Now, I'm sure some mutually beneficial arrangement can be made...
As for Germany, I think their expansive moment has passed, and I don't see them being as insanely aggressive as they used to be.
But they're a big country that like all big countries likes to get its way, so there will be plenty of friction with the neighbours. I see lots of ritualised aggression, but not much real conflict, at least in the west of the continent.
I think the Islamic world will come back under Turkish control (first signs of them flexing their muscles again in Syria of course), so what ever happens there will be quite orderly and purposeful, I suspect.
It's starting to sound almost cosy! :) (Not really.)
I will have to mull this picture... but your thoughts are very interesting. Much obliged.
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