Life after the leaks

The avalanche of Wikileaks, taken together with the revelations made in Bob Woodward’s Obama Wars, presents a striking parallel between the foreign policy approaches of Pakistan and North Korea. Although the situation in the two countries is not identical, both Islamabad and Pyongyang are employing similar techniques in extracting maximum concessions from the outside world because of their own vulnerabilities and capacity for mischief.

The peculiar structure North Korea has built around the Kim family in a militarised state harbouring extreme poverty and large parts of a population suffering hunger has meant that the leadership is trading on its capacity to cause mayhem and pulling at the heartstrings of a divided country, with the South hankering for a reunion. For a time, it seemed, Pyongyang was willing to trade its nascent nuclear capability for vast amounts of aid. At the same time, during the two regimes of liberal Presidents in South Korea, generous quantities of aid were received by dangling periodic “family reunions” of families separated by the war on the peninsula in the early 50s.

There was the mechanism of six-party talks (the US, the two Koreas, Japan, China and Russia) to dismantle the facilities yielding plutonium for Western-supplied light water reactors and oil supplies in the meantime. This was initially sabotaged by the Bush regime taking over from the Clinton administration in Washington, but there is enough evidence to suggest that Pyongyang had no intention of giving up its bomb-making option. Once the West became wise to the North’s technique of offering concessions only to withdraw them, aid dried up and Pyongyang decided to show its hand by exploding an atom bomb.

Pakistan, on its part, has been employing its location and links with the Taliban and Al Qaeda-allied Taliban to milk the United States and the West of vast amounts of aid in military and civilian assistance. As one of the leaked confidential American cables suggest, the US realises that the billions of dollars it is giving Pakistan will not alter its military’s India-centric military strategy.

Besides, the leaked State Department cables only underline the well-known fact that the Pakistan Army runs the state in crucial areas of policy, such as nuclear strategy and on Afghanistan, India and the Kashmir issue. Again, Washington believes it has no option but to throw more money at Pakistan because its grudging support to some American aims is all that it can hope for.

In both cases, North Korea and Pakistan are indispensable for the United States because of their capacity to plunge the Korean peninsula into a new conflagration in one instance and in frustrating Americans in fighting the Afghan war to a draw, if possible. But both countries have chinks in their armour. Despite the compelling pull of an eventual reunification, Seoul’s stance towards the new President, Lee Myung-bak, has hardened considerably, buttressed by the torpedoing of a South Korean naval vessel by the North killing 46 sailors earlier this year and the shelling of the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong more recently, killing two marines and two civilians. Although the latter is being interpreted as the right of passage of Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il’s son, it has further muddies waters.

In Pakistan’s case, the Army’s policy of nurturing militants as an insurance policy for influencing Afghan events and in relation to India is proving counter-productive to an extent because the Pakistani authorities themselves are being increasingly targeted at home. Indeed, WikiLeaks has further bared the nature of the authorities’ compact with militants while making it clear that Washington has no illusions about the nature of the Pakistani state.

What then are likely to be the repercussions of WikiLeaks on North Korea and Pakistan? Despite the heroic efforts of US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, it cannot be business as usual in the post-WikiLeaks world. It is one thing to contain information within the bounds of secret State Department cables, quite another to flaunt that information around the world. Although Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has tried to laugh away the import of the leaked cables, Pakistan is still recovering from the body blow.

Pyongyang, for its part, is relying on Uncle China to pull its chestnuts out of the fire. But, according to other leaked cables, Beijing is getting tired of its problem child and, according to private South Korean testimony, the Chinese are no longer entirely averse to seeing the reunification of the Korean peninsula as long as American troops stay in the southern half. President Lee has been inspired to moot the proposal of a reunification tax to prepare for a peaceful reunification.

Reunification is still some way away but WikiLeaks, for all the embarrassment it has caused Washington, has helped clear the air and could indeed give a new twist to the long-running saga of North Korean provocations. North Korea can no longer rely on South Korean efforts to buy peace with much economic assistance and China supporting Pyongyang to the hilt for its own geopolitical reasons.

The impact of WikiLeaks on Pakistan is more difficult to divine. There are, of course, some red faces in the ranks of the Pakistan Army and the nature of its reaction will be dependent upon how far it chooses to brazen it out, despite the worldwide broadcast about the Army that owns the state. But the greatest impact will be on the civilian leadership. The very fact of the merciless exposure of its thin veneer of power and the fears of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari himself of being eliminated by the Army are humiliations for the civilian dispensation. In Pakistan’s case, as for Pyongyang, WikiLeaks has circumscribed its options and room for manoeuvre.