Military Engagement: Influencing Armed Forces Worldwide to Support Democratic Transitions

7. Hard Cases

7 95 Hard Cases This chapter addresses military relations with several important autocratic countries that are difficult to move toward democracy : North Korea, Iran, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and China. Conventional wisdom has been pessimistic that any of them can change. However, in the past, dictators who have seemed solidly in control of their countries, supported slavishly by armed forces and other security services, have toppled with astonishing speed, and the leaders of armed forces have in many cases shown them the door. While this handbook was being written, Myanmar moved away from its autocratic past with surprising speed. It is important to acknowledge at the outset that the most important factors that cause autocratic regimes to change or to relinquish power are internal. Most common are splits within the leadership or poor economic performance. external factors, including military influences, play a secondary role. Nonetheless , the established democracies should use every tool of influence they have with autocratic regimes to induce them to move in a democratic direction and should refrain from policies or actions that provide them with encouragement or justification to remain as they are. The established democracies have a range of military relations with the six countries listed above. Military relations with Blair.indb 95 2/11/13 8:08 PM 96 HARD CASES Iran, North Korea, and Myanmar are minimal, whereas military relations with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and China are wide ranging . relations with each of the six vary among the democracies. For example, the United States has the closest relationship with Saudi Arabia, while the republic of Korea has the closest connection with China. It is important for each country to use the influence it has and to coordinate with the other democracies to maximize the effect of their common efforts. North Korea The touch points with the potential to influence North Korea through military relations are very few. The regime’s relations with the democracies of Asia are generally so hostile that not even the routine cooperative military arrangements such as search and rescue and humanitarian assistance exist. Despite North Korea’s “military first” policies and the martial trappings that surround its public events, the Kim family dictatorship has always followed the communist tradition of keeping close watch on the loyalty of its armed forces through a separate intelligence service and through frequent rotations of senior officers to prevent them from accumulating power and becoming potential rivals. There have been scattered reports over the years of unrest and even revolts by individual military units, but none has been successful. By all objective measures, the Kim regime, now starting its third generation, has been a failure. The economy and population have shrunk in recent decades, and the lives of the great majority of North Koreans are grim. Only the repressive measures of a police state and the support of the power elites have kept the Kim family in control. With the upsurge of North Koreans fleeing their country, and the penetration of cell phone service from China into regions of the country, ordinary North Koreans are increasingly realizing how backward and repressed their country is. elites with access both to cell phones and to television broadcasts from South Korea, China, and other countries by satellite understand how poorly their country measures Blair.indb 96 2/11/13 8:08 PM 97 HARD CASES up by all standards of development. regimes like Pyongyang’s are strong but brittle, and once a split develops among the tight ruling group, the end will come quickly. The only democracy that has a military relationship with North Korea is Mongolia, which signed a defense agreement with the Democratic People’s republic of Korea in 2008. Any contact between Mongolian defense officials and military officers with their North Korean counterparts should have a positive effect. In their interactions with Mongolians, the North Koreans cannot help noticing that an independent and democratic Mongolia is taking full advantage of its relations with the developed world to generate an 8 percent economic growth rate. Perhaps through contact with Mongolian officers and other sources of information from the outside, North Korean Two North Korean guards looking south across the demilitarization zone. (U.S. Army photo by Edward N. Johnson) Blair.indb 97 2/11/13 8:08 PM 98 HARD CASES military officers can realize that their country could improve its economy and the lives of its citizens by becoming more democratic . Under...