Head Games

I've been watching a lot of coverage of the North Korean missile launches, and what always amazes me is how comfortable talking heads are discussing what, exactly, Kim Jong-Il is thinking. This strikes me as a pretty speculative area, given (a) Kim is Korean, so he's from a different cultural context, (b) he was raised the son of a totalitarian dictator, so his assumptions in life are probably "unusual," to say the least, and (c) he's probably a psychotic. So, to say, "This is what Kim is thinking" strikes me as a bit of a stretch. It may be that Kim is thinking what the talking heads say he's thinking. Or, he might be batshit crazy. I'm a little skeptical here.

Moreover, we really have no reason to believe that the launches don't represent the result of (unspecified) internal struggles among factions within the North Korean regime. Every discussion of the launches, or North Korea in general, assumes that Kim's every thought is carried out in action, and therefore that North Korean actions map Kim's thoughts. This may be the case, but we know that that's not how most complex organizations work. There's almost certainly more going on here than Uncle Sam versus Kim Jong-Il.

This is part of a bigger problem, the over-personalization of politics, as covered in the media. The larger picture is often obscured by an endless fascination with individuals. A more interesting question in the case of North Korea, for example, would be, Why do other Koreans support Kim? He doesn't stay in power without some cooperation. So what motivates that cooperation, and how does the missile launch affect internal support for Kim? Everything I see suggests that this was meant to be "provocative" toward the United States and its allies (Japan). But why would Kim want to provoke the United States and Japan? I never hear a rational answer to this, in all these analyses, even when the analysts suggest that Kim is very "shrewd," or even (ABC news tonite) "crazy like a fox." Maybe Kim needs to provoke external threats to maintain his internal grip on power (?). In that case, aren't we helping Kim out?

Maybe Kim knows what George W. Bush is thinking? (But then, Bush should do what Kim doesn't expect. But Kim already knows that Bush knows that, so . . . Bush goes to the U.N.)

Or, just one more point: Is it really significant that the North Koreans launched the missile on July Fourth, and on the same day as the Shuttle Discovery was launched? "Clearly, there was a high propaganda level for the North Koreans, here." That's what a talking head just said on MSNBC. But is this really so clear? This may be the case, but there's never any evidence offered, other than the coincidence, that there was meaning in the choice of dates. The question I would ask is, Wasn't the shuttle launch delayed by weather? Did the North Koreans wait to launch, too? The coincidence might be more than that. But I doubt that the talking heads are basing their confident assertions on more than the coincidence.