People watch news on missile launch in Pyongyang, North Korea. AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin
Editor’s note: The following is a roundup of archival stories related to North Korea.
North Korea has launched repeated tests of ballistic missiles, which it claims are now advanced enough to carry a nuclear warhead as far as the United States. Although experts have cast doubt on the veracity of these claims, the international community has sounded the alarm. South Korea in particular is taking steps, with support from the U.S., to defend itself against the threat.
To better understand this intensifying conflict, we turned to stories in our archive.
Basics
1. Especially for younger generations, the origins of this conflict are not always clear. We asked East Asia scholar Ji-Young Lee of American University to take us way back in this Q&A and explain how Korea got divided into North and South in the first place. Along the way she unpacks some myths about the effect the North Korean regime has had on its people:
“Still, not all North Koreans are interested in defecting. According to anthropologist Sandra Fahy, interviewees said they left the North reluctantly driven primarily by famine and economic reasons, rather than political reasons. A majority of them missed home in the North.”
2. By now, most people are familiar with the man at the helm in North Korea – Kim Jong Un. But his motives still mystify world leaders. Foreign policy expert Stephen Dyson of the University of Connecticut writes a brief history of how the U.S. has sought insight into the minds of other strongmen – from Hitler to Khrushchev:
“History tells us that to influence Kim, we must empathize (note: not sympathize) with him. To figure out what makes him tick, Trump and his advisers must first understand how we look to the North Korean leader, peering at us from his very particular vantage point.”
Options
3. What options are on the table for dealing with the threat from North Korea? A good first step would be increasing U.S. cooperation with Asian allies on security issues, writes Flynt Leverett, a former National Security Council and State Department staffer and professor at Pennsylvania State University. But will Trump’s focus on trade get in the way?
“For Trump and ‘inner circle’ advisers like Steve Bannon, the top concern is economic. Trump and his team see U.S. trade deficits, concentrated in Asia, as draining America’s wealth and threatening its national security…Overall, Trump’s Asia strategy is unlikely to boost Sino-U.S. cooperation on regional security.”
4. Another option that the international community has resorted to for years is imposing sanctions to limit the regime’s ability to develop nuclear weapons. But these sanctions have had, it seems, limited effect. John Park at Harvard University interviewed former North Korean business managers who bought components for the regime’s nuclear and missile programs. His findings suggest that sanctions must be revisited:
“As sanctions have become tougher, these local Chinese middlemen have charged higher fees to reflect the elevated risk of doing business with North Korean clients. Instead of hindering procurement activities, we found that sanctions have actually helped to attract more capable middlemen, who are drawn by the larger payday.”
“North Korea keeps its military capabilities secret, and is particularly cautious about revealing its cyberwarfare capabilities. South Korea’s Defense Ministry estimates that North Korea’s ‘cyber army’ is 6,000 strong. That’s as big as the U.S. military’s Cyber Mission Force is planned to be.”
President Clinton during his grand jury deposition, Aug 17, 1998.
AP Photo/APTN
According to a biographer of Donald Trump, “He’s been lying his whole life, almost reflexively.”
Now, President Trump may be lying to his team of private lawyers who are handling issues relating to the investigation into Russian meddling in the election. Last month, Trump’s personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, told “Meet the Press,” “the president was not involved” in drafting a misleading statement describing a meeting at Trump Tower between campaign members and a Russian lawyer in June 2016.
Failure to be truthful with his private lawyer is what led to former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment. At the heart of the Articles of Impeachment brought against Clinton was the charge that he gave “perjurous, false and misleading testimony” and allowed his attorney to make “false and misleading statements” in a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by Paula Jones.
As a scholar of legal ethics, I teach my law students that if Clinton had been truthful with his lawyer, it’s likely he never would have been impeached. Like Clinton, Trump badly needs advice from lawyers who are fully informed of the truth. In the opinion of many legal experts, the pattern of misleading statements about the Trump Tower meeting has already increased Trump’s exposure to criminal prosecution or impeachment. The stakes have just been raised with news that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has obtained grand jury subpoenas in connection with the Trump Tower meeting.
Clinton’s impeachment
When Clinton was forced to testify in the Jones lawsuit, his personal lawyer, Robert Bennett, attempted to block questioning about Monica Lewinsky. Bennett showed the judge an affidavit in which Lewinsky stated, “I have never had a sexual relationship with the president.” Clinton’s lawyer described the affidavit as “saying that there is absolutely no sex of any kind in any manner, shape or form, with President Clinton.” Bennett then asked Clinton if “never had a sexual relationship with the president” was “a true and accurate statement as far as you know it?”
In a later court filing, Bennett admitted the Lewinsky affidavit was false. But in his autobiography, Bennett insists when he told the judge there was “absolutely no sex of any kind” between Clinton and Lewinsky, “I believed it with all my heart.”
If Bennett is to be believed, at the time of Clinton’s testimony he was unaware that Lewinsky had engaged in oral sex with Clinton. We can also infer he did not know, as Clinton explained in later grand jury testimony, that his client was interpreting the affidavit’s phrase “never had a sexual relationship” as not including oral sex.
If Clinton had told his lawyer the full truth, Bennett could have advised against Clinton’s disastrous word game about the meaning of “sexual relationship” – advice that if taken would probably have prevented Clinton from committing perjury, thus avoiding later impeachment.
As explained by the American Bar Association, there is an ethical rule that would require Trump’s lawyers to treat everything he tells them with complete confidentiality. Trust is “the hallmark of the client-lawyer relationship” so that a client can “communicate fully and frankly with the lawyer even as to embarrassing or legally damaging subject matter.”
In my view, Trump should learn from Clinton’s mistakes to never put his lawyers in the position of making statements in his name that later turn out to be false. Clients who don’t tell lawyers the full truth not only lose the benefit of wise advice. Even worse, as Clinton found out, inadequately informed lawyers may inadvertently do their clients great harm.
A well-designed product equally elevates form and function. It is pleasing to look at, easy to use and solves a common problem.
We reached out to five design professors and posed the following question: What’s the best-designed product of all time, and why?
Their responses vary from cheap, everyday products to newer, more expensive ones. But all share a story of trial, error and ingenuity.
Cutting the glare
Catherine Anderson, The George Washington University
In the early 1920s, as Danish designer Poul Henningsen observed Copenhagen at night, he lamented the quality of light in people’s homes. He noticed that the incandescent bulbs – sometimes bare, sometimes surrounded by a single shade – created “arrows of light” and a harsh glare.
Henningsen set out to create a new design that would mitigate this “dismal” effect; it would be “…constructed with the most difficult and noble task in mind: lighting in the home.”
“The aim is to beautify the home and who lived there,” he wrote, “to make the evening restful and relaxing.”
His approach was scientific. He rigorously examined how using multiple shades could cast a warm glow of light within a room.
It’s delightful to look at. But most importantly, it emits a light that’s forgiving to the eye – an effect that’s created by the multiple shades, which evenly distribute the light. This creates a soft halo that attenuates the contrast between the light source and the surrounding darkness.
Henningsen’s sleek, spare lamp was awarded a gold medal at the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts. Over the years, it inspired many offshoots, such as the Artichoke Lamp, and became a product worthy of kings: In 1938, a train compartment for Danish King Christian X included one of Henningsen’s lamps.
Lorraine Justice, Rochester Institute of Technology
For years I took the simple paper clip for granted. As a kid I’d twist them apart to hang Christmas ornaments. In my teens I’d use them to shoot rubber bands at my friends. And in the 1990s I’d straighten them to pop a software floppy disk from a defective hard drive.
It wasn’t until I became a design student that I realized the paper clip – which is officially patented as a “gem paper clip” – was a near-perfect design: elegant, functional and made of steel, a sustainable and recyclable material.
But the paper clip had a long path to the flawless form we know today.
The paper clip started out as a pin that pierced the papers to hold them together. The sharp pins would prick the workers using them and were difficult to use. Thus began the gradual improvements: The straight pin morphed into something called a T-pin, a device with a horizontal wire on the end that allowed the pin to be pushed more easily through the papers without needlessly pricking fingers. However, this design still left holes in the papers.
In the late 1890s inventors in the United States and Europe began to work on new versions of the paper clip. In 1898, Pennsylvania inventor Matthew Schooley believed he had improved upon the pin design by creating two loops in the wire. But there was still a problem: A piece of wire extended from the loops and would catch and rip the paper. Many other inventors introduced various clasps, clips and metal-stamped designs, all in an effort to create a reusable paper binder that would be cheap, safe and secure.
Finally, in 1899, an inventor from Connecticut named William Middlebrook designed the gem paper clip, along with a machine to manufacture it, to create the paper clip that we know today.
The iconic double loop design had just enough spring to hold several sheets of paper together – without snapping and without piercing fingers or paper. Today, Americans buy 11 billion paper clips every year, though they aren’t all used for binding pieces of paper – I doubt Middlebrook could have imagined that his invention would double as an ornament hanger and rubber band launcher.
Terminal waits
Craig M. Vogel, University of Cincinnati
In 1958, architect Eero Saarinen, who had been tasked with designing the main terminal for Washington Dulles International Airport, approached furniture designers Charles and Ray Eames – already famous for their Eames Lounge Chair – with a request: He wanted a public seating system for the terminal that was affordable, sturdy, stylish and versatile.
In 1962, the husband and wife team unveiled their tandem sling seating system. Even though it was designed to complement Saarinen’s terminal, it was so practical that it quickly became one of the most common seating solutions for airports around the United States – and, eventually, the world.
Because public seating gets so much use, it needs to be sturdy and easy to maintain. Cost is always an issue, so designers are often hamstrung if they want to make something that’s aesthetically pleasing.
An iconic example of the principles of midcentury modernist design, Eames’ seating system was an elegant and simple solution to all of these problems. It ships in parts, is easy to put together and maintain, and is tamper-proof.
The chairs are sturdy but lack a cumbersome support structure, which makes it easy to clean the floor under the seats. The configuration is flexible: Rows can be as small as two seats and as long as eight.
Furthermore, there are only three main materials used in the design: aluminum, vinyl and neoprene (a synthetic rubber). Even though the materials are cheap, they look expensive and upscale. The sling seat cushion slides into a slot and never tears. Meanwhile, the width of the seat accommodates a wide range of body types.
And if travelers miss their flight and need to spend the night in the terminal, the seat and seat back are angled in a way – like the Eames Lounge Chair – that allows its occupant to get some shut-eye.
Dial ‘D’ for design
Kalle Lyytinen, Case Western Reserve University
American industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss’ AT&T Model 500 phone is one of the most iconic and recognizable products of the 20th century. The phone – together with its design process – was a harbinger of many design principles used today.
In addition, early telephone users would call into operators, who would use a switchboard to connect callers. When this process became automated, designers needed to figure out a way to offer an intuitive interface, since callers would be dialing more complicated number sequences (essentially doing the “switching” on their own).
Though earlier models came close to addressing these needs, the 500 model elevated the design, adding several functions that forever changed the way phones would be used.
AT&T’s first rotary phone in 1927 (dubbed “the French Phone”) had an integrated handset for both the loudspeaker and the microphone, but it was cumbersome to use. Meanwhile, Dreyfuss’ earlier model from 1936, the 302, was made out of metal and also had an awkwardly shaped handset.
Employing new plastic technology, the phone’s handset was smooth, rounded and proportional, an improvement on unwieldy earlier versions. It was the first to use letters below the numbers in the rotary – a boon for businesses, since phone numbers could now be advertised (and remembered) as mnemonic phrases (think American Express’ “1-800-THE-CARD”).
The 500 phone was also the first to undergo a design process that used ergonomic (comfort) and cognitive experts. AT&T and Dreyfuss hired John Karlin, the first industrial psychologist in the world, to conduct experiments to evaluate aspects of the design. Through extensive consumer testing, the designers were able to tweak all minutiae of the product – even minor details like placing white dots beneath the holes in the finger wheel and the length of the cord.
Including its later incarnations, the phone would go on to sell nearly 162 million units – around one per American household – and become a presence in living rooms, kitchens and offices for decades to come.
Changing the way we work and play
Carla Viviana Coleman, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
In recent years, virtual reality glasses have hit the market. They don’t come cheap: Most cost US$3,000 to $5,000.
But one of these models – the Microsoft HoloLens – has sold thousands of units since its first shipment in 2016.
The HoloLens allows users to interact with a 3D digital world and simultaneously see what’s around them in the real world. In order to operate the interface, users can make hand gestures, talk or simply gaze.
The product was designed with ergonomics in mind: Users can adjust the head size, the head band and glasses. The weight – distributed throughout the crown area – prevents pressure on the nose and ears. Users can even wear their own glasses or wear their hair up in a pony tail. This is a key difference from most VR headsets – like the HTC Vive – which are heavy, cumbersome products.
While one could easily imagine a new generation of video games being designed for the HoloLens, a number of employers have realized the glasses can improve workplace productivity and ease the burdens of certain jobs.
For example, the company ThyssenKrupp, which manufactures elevators and escalators, has begun giving HoloLenses to its elevator technicians, with the idea that the glasses will allow them to access data much more efficiently. The employees can multitask, choosing either to lift up the spherical visor or to keep it in front of their eyes as needed – all while working in a cramped elevator shaft.
The opposition is determined to get rid of President Jacob Zuma even if it means overriding democracy. Flcker/GCIS
Relying on one event to change a country usually ends in tears – particularly when you pin so much on it that you endanger your future.
The event on which many in the South African mainstream are pinning their hopes is the motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma proposed by opposition parties and scheduled for August 8.
Zuma’s governing African National Congress has a comfortable parliamentary majority and seven previous no confidence votes have failed: but this one has taken on almost mystical significance among opposition parties and citizens’ groups that oppose Zuma and commentators.
One opposition politician, Julius Malema, claims enough ANC legislators support the motion to assure a majority. While others don’t go that far, they hint that it could succeed. But there is a catch: the motion will only pass, they say, if representatives can vote in secret, which needs the help of the courts.
What they want Parliament – and the courts – to do would damage South African democracy. But, they insist, so important is the no confidence vote that it’s worth bending the rules - once only – to win it.
This ignores reality. Democracies are shaped by precedent - “once off” exceptions usually become part of the political furniture. And so it is good news for democracy that they won’t get what they want – the “make or break” no confidence vote is likely to be a damp squib and this means that the assaults on democracy which accompany it probably will not happen.
Why elected officials shouldn’t vote in secret
Democracies don’t allow elected representatives to vote in secret. Citizens are entitled to a secret vote because they speak only for themselves: their votes are no one’s business. Elected representatives speak for voters - their votes are everyone’s business. And it’s easier to buy a lawmaker’s vote if the public doesn’t know which way they voted.
The stated reason for suspending openness is that MPs are being intimidated to oppose the motion: Makhosi Khoza, an ANC MP who plans to vote against Zuma, has been threatened with violence and some opponents of the president’s faction in the ANC have been shot. But if people want to kill politicians who vote a particular way, they can find out which way they voted in secret. If a judge were threatened with violence to influence a judgment, democrats would not insist she ruled in secret. They would protect her so she can judge in public.
But much of the “intimidation” is simply normal politics. The threats lawmakers are said to face is losing their seats by bucking party discipline. Whether MPs should vote the party line is an important debate. But democracy would cease to be democratic if MPs were guaranteed their jobs. Parties, as well as voters, can remove them.
Bending the rules
Opposition parties have turned to the courts. The problem is that the courts aren’t being asked to interpret law – they’re being asked to defeat Zuma.
First, the opposition parties that took the secret ballot issue to court were expecting the judges to order parliament to hold a secret ballot, destroying the principle that the legislature is responsible to voters, not judges. The judges refused, leaving the decision to Parliament’s speaker.
Now the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters says that, if the speaker doesn’t allow a secret ballot, they will ask the court to declare that she acted irrationally and to overturn her decision.
It is fashionable to want courts to declare irrational decisions opposition parties don’t like: parties have also asked the courts to declare a recent cabinet reshuffle irrational. But who occupies elected positions and how parliament votes are a matter for voters, not courts. The courts are not going to overturn election results because some people don’t like the winning candidate and, since the principle is similar, they won’t apply legal tests to political decisions.
There is a great irony in these attempts to override democracy to get rid of Zuma. They are almost certainly futile since there’s little prospect the vote will remove him, even if it is held in secret. The motion may not be debated at all – it could be snarled up in court challenges demanding a secret ballot. If it is, at least 53 ANC MPs would need to support it and it’s hard to see that happening.
Those who want a secret ballot say many ANC lawmakers want Zuma gone but are reluctant to support the motion because they need their jobs. Secrecy, they say, would allow them to vote for the motion. Many MPs do need the income, but that’s not the only factor at play.
Misplaced excitement
The ANC spent much of its life as a beleaguered movement and so loyalty to it is an important part of its ethos: voting for an opposition motion of no confidence goes against that ethos’s grain and this may matter even if MPs can keep their jobs. This is why the South African Communist Party, which wants Zuma gone, is not telling its MPs to support the motion. Zuma’s ANC opponents are more focused on winning control of the organisation at the end of the year (when they may well remove him) than in getting him out now. So excitement about the vote misreads ANC politics by remaking the party in the image of those who comment on it.
The vote will not change politics by removing Zuma. It also won’t change the role of the courts because the Constitutional Court has signalled that it knows the limits of its power. Unless the speaker sets democracy back by allowing a secret vote, the no confidence vote may leave the country exactly where it was before it started.
This is not ideal but is a great deal better than the costs of suspending long-term principle for short-term gain.
South African President Jacob Zuma with Parliament’s Speaker Baleka Mbete. Flickr
South Africa’s governing African National Congress has got itself into one hell of a pickle. Next week the National Assembly will debate an opposition motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma.
Were the motion to succeed, Zuma and his entire cabinet would be forced under the constitution to resign. The Speaker of the House would then become Acting President for up to 30 days while it goes about the business of electing a replacement, who would then serve as state president until the expiry of the present term of parliament in early 2019.
Yet the reality is that, save a political tsunami, the motion won’t succeed even though it’s common currency that Zuma is irredeemably corrupt and that he has sold his country out to the Gupta family. He has also alienated many of the ANC’s traditional allies, and the performances of the government and the economy under his rule have become increasingly shambolic.
Key figures in the ANC have indicated that their party’s MPs should vote with the opposition. These include former President Thabo Mbeki who has proclaimed that ANC MPs should vote in the national rather than the party interest. Similarly, the recently dismissed finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, has urged MPs to allow their consciences to dictate their votes.
Despite such calls, only two ANC MPs, Makhosi Khoza and Mondli Gungubele, have openly declared that they will vote with the opposition. The ANC has indicated it will subject Khoza to disciplinary proceedings. Gungubele may well face a similar fate. If the ANC follows through on its threats, both may lose their jobs (for if a party expels an MP from party membership, the MP concerned can no longer sit in parliament).
There are certainly other MPs sitting on the ANC benches who recognise the damage that Zuma has done. But it appears they have been held back from speaking out because of the threat of dismissal from parliament and the loss of salary and status that would involve.
It’s for this reason that the opposition has set such store on securing a secret ballot – reckoning that this will allow ANC MPs to vote in favour of the motion while circumventing the risk of party discipline.
ANC’s conundrum
When faced by the request of the opposition parties that she allow a secret ballot on the no confidence motion, Baleka Mbete, the Speaker of the House (and a member of the ANC’s National Executive Committee) declared that she did not have the power to grant the request under the rules of the Assembly. However, after being approached by opposition parties, the Constitutional Court subsequently ruled that a secret ballot was permissible, throwing the decision back into her lap. Mbete has yet to make public her decision.
The likelihood is that she will seek to deflect criticism by announcing in favour of a secret ballot – but only at the last minute.
But even if enough ANC MPs were to align themselves with the opposition to unseat Zuma, the ANC would remain in control of the immediate situation because it would retain its majority in the House, and it would be another ANC MP who would be elected to serve as president.
Yet win or lose the vote, the consequences for the ANC are dire.
Options for the ANC
The party faces three possible options:
The ANC wins the vote by a substantial majority, with only a handful of ANC MPs voting with the opposition. Supposedly this would be a massive victory for the ruling party, yet it will fly in the face of not just the parliamentary opposition, but a massive body of popular opinion throughout the country. The ANC would have voted to keep a deeply corrupt president in power, with probable long term disastrous electoral consequences. Any internal ANC “reform” project will be more likely to fail.
The ANC just scrapes home by a small majority, indicating that a substantial body of the party’s MPs have voted for Zuma to go. Cue internal party turmoil. Will the dissident MPs own up? If they do, will they face party discipline? What would happen if the dissidents were known to include party heavyweights (and potential candidates for the party leadership at the party’s national congress in December 2017) such as Cyril Ramaphosa and Lindiwe Sisulu? Subjecting them to party discipline would risk not just massive intra-party division, but a split within the party – and the further danger that they might team up with the opposition.
Cyril Ramaphosa, Deputy president of South Africa. Flickr/GCIS
The ANC loses the vote, and Zuma is forced to stand down as state president. In this case, the ANC is openly divided, and all hell would break out within the party ahead of its conference in December. An ANC MP, probably Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, would be elected as state president, but Zuma would remain as party president.
The ANC would be at war with itself, with little or no prospect of it facing the electorate in 2019 in one piece. Were the ANC to offer Zuma an amnesty from prosecution, they would face a massive public backlash. If they didn’t, they would face the very real prospect of his having to face trial, with the party’s extraordinarily dirty linen being washed in public for the foreseeable future.
Whatever happens, Zuma will work ceaselessly and ruthlessly after the debate to secure the party presidency for his former wife, (and favoured candidate) Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, reckoning that in so doing, he will retain the power to shape events (and not least, to keep himself out of jail).
Meanwhile, those opposing Zuma will need to rapidly group behind one leader (presumably the new state president) if they are to stand a decent chance of securing enough control over the party organisation to defeat Dlamini-Zuma in December. Rivalry between the prospective anti-Zuma candidates for the party leadership (notably Ramaphosa, Lindiwe Sisulu and Mathews Phosa), would only weaken their chances of victory.
Ominous future
Tim Cohen, editor of Business Day, has indicated, sagely, that the Zuma presidency has begun to wind down as the #Gupta Leaks – the series of emails detailing the extent of the Gupta family’s control of the state – reveal more and more dirt. More and more ANC rats will desert the sinking ship and seek safety on a new (anti-Zuma) ANC vessel.
Yet even if the anti-Zuma campaign was to gain enough momentum for victory in December, it will come at massive cost. Not the least of these dangers is that the already alarmingly high rate of intra-party killing of rivals will increase.
It’s difficult to imagine that the ANC will be in any reasonable shape to face the electorate in 2019. Although ostensibly it may yet put on a decent show, it seems inevitable that it will lose numerous votes and a large swathe of MPs.
The looming danger is that in facing the risk of defeat, the party will be tempted to subvert a contrary result in the 2019 election.
“North Korea keeps its military capabilities secret, and is particularly cautious about revealing its cyberwarfare capabilities. South Korea’s Defense Ministry estimates that North Korea’s ‘cyber army’ is 6,000 strong. That’s as big as the U.S. military’s Cyber Mission Force is planned to be.”
In my view, Trump should learn from Clinton’s mistakes to never put his lawyers in the position of making statements in his name that later turn out to be false. Clients who don’t tell lawyers the full truth not only lose the benefit of wise advice. Even worse, as Clinton found out, inadequately informed lawyers may inadvertently do their clients great harm.
If the price goes down, the market for this product – currently in the thousands – could easily multiply into millions.
This is not ideal but is a great deal better than the costs of suspending long-term principle for short-term gain.
The looming danger is that in facing the risk of defeat, the party will be tempted to subvert a contrary result in the 2019 election.
