High Stakes Poker

North Korea is an increasingly erratic pariah nation that is slowly but surely developing omni-potent weapons technologies. Also of serious concern is that technologies and materials may be fanned out across the globe to state or non-state actors that have ill intent. The difficult and tedious diplomatic efforts are testimony to the difficult road ahead. However it is almost surprising to note that North Korea’s path could easily have been considerable curbed or even terminated at any point over the last decades. Why then has this not happened? The answer is because the power to turn the taps off lies with the Chinese.

With supplies of aid, military trade, and other forms of trade, China has supported many dubious sovereign states. However North Korea’s recent advances in nuclear weapons technology give itself a little too much capability for China to feel comfortable with having such an erratic neighbourhood friend. Hence although it is unlikely that you will see any major policy shift from the Chinese, I would suggest that you will see the breaks being applied gradually over the next years. The same however cannot be said for China’s general policy of supporting brutal and reckless regimes.

Russia has followed suit behind China in propping up pariah states, but to a lesser degree. However I am of the opinion that the motivation is different to the Chinese. With the Chinese Communist Party, it is simply a criminal organisation that supports other criminal organisations. For Russia, I suggest that its poor conduct is more as an added counter-weight to its historical adversary – the United States of America. It is with this in mind that the high stakes poker game is being played out.

Barack Obama, the United States president, recently played a bold move. Just prior to his first official visit to Moskow, he threw his hope for a ‘restart’ in relations with President Medvedev, and openly slammed Premier Putin as an old crony with ‘one foot in the old and the other foot in the new’. Ever since Medvedev came to presidency pundits have incessantly posted the former president and current prime-minister Putin as being the real power. How would you think that this makes President Medvedev feel? Guaranteed Barack Obama does not agree with the pundits. Obama has alienated Putin to make Medvedev his chum. Whether or not this works remains to be seen, however he has at least achieved his initial objective.

There are numerous questions that remain as yet unanswered. Is Medvedev an autonomous presidential power, and if so, is he capable of improving relations with America? It is reasonable to assume that Putin has at least one foot in the old ‘cold-war’ mentality because in his eight years of reign relations have dive-bombed.

If relationships can improve between the two historic super-power enemies, then my prediction is that Russia will back away from its support for countries like North Korea and Iran. In this way China gets left out on its own, and with the increasing internal pressure (such as show in recent days in the major civil unrest with its Muslim minority), China will be in for a rough ride. Not only will it have difficulty maintaining its current ruinous strategy, it will also start to have pressure on its financial clout to back up this intent. Remember that Japan became a post World War II economic giant and everything you used to by was Japanese. Look at Japan now: a lost decade in a financial mire, and now collapsed exports and trade. Now everything you buy is made in China, but this is about to change. Following this logic, the next direction to look is either in Africa or in the countries where the industrial revolution started its first paradigmatic revolution. Such countries (America, Britain and Germany to name three) are now drowning in debt and are at the bottom of a cycle.

Now back to the poker game. In order to move relations forward with Russia, Obama backs Medvedev and gives Putin a good right hook – better remember that Putin is a spy guru with a martial arts forte. Anyway, the main point is that if relations with Russia improve, Russia will most likely withdraw or reduce support for regimes like North Korea and Iran. If this happens, its importance cannot be overstated. This may well shift the balance of power and bring about real change on issues that are getting more and more out of hand – as weapons technologies improve and potentially therefore proliferate.

So good luck to Mr Obama for he has already played his hand and Mr Medvedev is his new chum whilst Mr Putin is not at all a happy camper.