Duane Gundrum Politics This just in: Beating Your Head Against the Wall Leads to Results…a bruised head and a broken wall

This just in: Beating Your Head Against the Wall Leads to Results…a bruised head and a broken wall

I’ve talked about this before, but no one really seems to listen or care, but here it is again just for the fun of it. It appears that North and South Korea are rattling sabers and could be moving from posturing to actual fighting. The North Koreans may have (most likely) sunk a South Korean warship, and right now everyone is going nuts trying to get the North Koreans to admit their crime. Secretary of State H. Clinton says they have to own up to their deed. South Korea says they have to admit what they did, because they now have proof. North Korea says “make me!”. In other words, it’s business as usual on the Korean Peninsula.

You see, this has been going on ever since the two halves of one country decided to separate. Or someone decided to separate them. They both want to be back together, and but neither one of them is ever going to happy until the other one is gone. It’s kind of a bizarre set of circumstances, but that’s where they are.

What is NOT working is how we’ve always handled this. Our foreign policy approach to Korea has always been the old game theoretic model of tit for tat. It’s such a simple strategy that even a monkey can play it. Actually, they do. Give a monkey a banana, and he eats it. He might even do some tricks. Or throw poo at you. Monkeys aren’t really good at responding the way you’d want them to. Neither are North Koreans. And technically, they’re a lot smarter than monkeys. Can monkeys fire torpedoes? I don’t think so. So, yes North Koreans are a lot smarter than monkeys. So tit for tat is one of those great strategies that should work because North Koreans are smart enough to respond in a good way when you act in a good way towards them.

Well, that would work if North Koreans were computer programs that respond in a game theoretic fashion. And that’s the problem with game theories. They’re designed for a rational world, where people do what is in their own best interests. There’s no such thing as pride and prejudice (or other Penguin classics for that matter) in the rational choice world. People do what they do because it’s in their best interests. Or so we’d like to believe.

North Korea has rarely responded successfully in this fashion. But I’ll let you in on a little secret. It’s not because the game theory is wrong, because it’s pretty good and one of the few theories out there that consistently gets great results when used properly. That’s the problem right there. We don’t use it properly. In order to succeed with tit for tat, it requires both players to be involved in the game. And surprisingly, the wrong player is the one who never plays. We start the game, throw out a carrot, get a reaction from North Korea, and then we respond appropriately. BUT (and this, like JLo, is a big but) when they don’t respond appropriately, we go nuts and kill the game. The solution to tit for tat is to continue the game as if it was still happening, to actually escalate further in a positive manner, but we don’t. Instead, we throw a fit and wonder why North Korea never responds favorably. So that leaves us at a point where we have to start the game over again. And wonder why it fails soon after. We’ve created a second level tier of tit for tat where we’re not even playing the same game we’re starting. North Korea is still in Game 1.0, and we’re starting Game 5.7, wondering why North Korea is responding to inputs from a previous game instead.

So, what’s the solution? Stop playing tit for tat. We need a new “game” that works, and this is another one of those FOT responses I keep throwing out there. If we ever want to get at North Korea so that they become partners for peace, we need to stop trying to change them like Sandra Bullock wondering why her man keeps cheating even though she “reformed” him. FOT puts forth the simple idea that the best way to change a potential partner is to head towards a goal that both members desire. If you look at North Korea from the perspective of what makes NK tick, you can probably find something they need and want, like sustainable food. They don’t want handouts because that makes them reliant on others, something they seem to fall apart with. But find a way to make them self-sustaining, like create a program for helping them deal with very little arable land, possibly by focusing on crops that can be grown in mountainous terrain or to enhance the strategies of fishing (I mean, it is a peninsula that is not by any stretch of the imagination land-locked). For everyone else, a stable, peaceful NK is probably the end goal already. For even longer term strategies, an economically viable NK means a trading partner and potential market for future goods. The possibilities are endless.

The importance of FOT is that both partners have to be willing to change over time, not just expect change from the other member. That’s where we keep failing. We want others to be more like us, or reliant on us. But very rarely are we willing to undergo changes ourselves, even though such changes might mean the future of stabilization in more spheres than one.

Or we can continue to try to make four party talks where we focus on what we want and how our “enemies” must comply, OR ELSE. Not a lot of rational thought in that premise when you think about it. The only way to really win in that scenario is by zero sum economics (one destroys the other). Not a pretty picture.

But it’s not like anyone listens to me anyway. I’ll check and see if anything good is on TV instead.

2 thoughts on “This just in: Beating Your Head Against the Wall Leads to Results…a bruised head and a broken wall”

  1. I don’t understand why Kim Jung Il is always stirring up trouble. I guess he is a loose cannon (both figuratively and literally!). Any sane leader would understand that it’s bad to be on the edge of war without sufficient reason.

Comments are closed.

Related Post