Gregg Easterbrook

For a generation, the arc of international events has been mainly positive — the Cold War concluded, the Germanys reunited, apartheid is over. But a few conflicts refuse to end, and one became worse today as North Korea and South Korea exchanged artillery fire, killing two South Korean soldiers. It’s not yet clear how the incident began. Presumably the United States, which has substantial forces in South Korea, Japan and Guam, is at the moment watching closely.

South Korea is prosperous, reasonably free, a budding democracy, and supported by the most powerful government on earth. North Korea is impoverished, repressed and alone. Nearly all North Koreans would benefit immensely if the wall separating their country and South Korea was the world’s next wall to tumble. So why does the conflict between these two states refuse to end?

North Korea is the last truly closed society. The old Soviet Union, and then Mao’s China, were able to keep their populations cowed by blocking nearly all outside information, then depicting the larger world as a nightmarish place. Once Russians of the 1970s and 1980s, and Chinese of the 1970s and 1980s, knew what the larger world was like, the clock began to tick on their nations’  dictatorships. Today’s global information flow is far from ideal, but North Korea is the last nation in which the average person takes a big risk by trying to find out what’s happening in the world. This allows North Korea to be the last secret-police state, and means little internal pressure against its corrupt, paranoid autocracy.

North Korea needs endless conflict for its ruling family to stay in power. Both Germanys wanted their conflict to end. South Korea wants the Koreas conflict to end. The United States, Russian Federation, China and Japan want the Koreas conflict to end. Kim Jong-Il does not want the conflict to end — without it, he and his son would be tossed from power. Conflicts are hard to end when one major player (think Hamas) has a self-interest stake in endless misery for the many combined with power and riches for a few.

There was no Korean War treaty. A 1954 armistice stopped the shooting, but no peace treaty ever was signed. This is deceptively important. Even former dictatorships, such as imperial Japan, respected the peace treaties they signed: while international agreements including the 1975 Helsinki Accords, on human rights, helped begin to dissolve the old Soviet system. No peace treaty to tie the knot on the Korean War exists, and the belligerents have long since stopped trying for one. This means no liberalizing treaty requirements bind Pyongyang, while the fact that the state of war technically never closed helps Kim Il-sung, and now Kim Jong-Il, maintain an internal condition of xenophobia.

The United States didn’t keep its word. The 1994 “Agreed Framework,” basically a very fancy memo, said North Korea would stop trying to make weapons-grade fissile materials in return for large amounts of oil (basically, foreign aid) from the United States and U.S. financing of a light-water power reactor (the civilian kind that generates electricity but doesn’t have much military value). Washington did not follow through, and after George W. Bush in 2002 proclaimed North Korea part of an “axis of evil,” the agreement essentially expired. Subsequent hot air from Washington, from Republicans and Democrats alike, has lacked credibility in Pyongyang.

(North Korea continues to try to build a light-water nuclear reactor on its own; probably this isn’t threatening, but since North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty after Bush began shaking his fist at Pyongyang, it’s hard to be sure. The centrifuges North Korea recently showed to a Stanford University professor might be for civilian power — but on-site inspectors are the only way to verify that.)

North Korea is not involved in international trade. Say what you will about globalization, in almost every case, it has made nations more open. At least since the Leipzig Trade Fair, which began nearly a thousand years ago, trade has caused different cultures to learn about each other, fear each other less, and generally, been a liberalizing force. Because hardly any nations do business with North Korea, nothing dilutes its xenophobia.

Family rule. Dictatorship based on lineage was the norm across the world during the Dark Ages, and in Europe as recently as the 19th century. Now it has vanished in most of the world — but still thrives in North Korea. Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994, had the title Eternal Leader and remains, on paper, the head of state. Kim Jong-Il possessed just one qualification for office — he was  Kim Il-sung’s son. Kim Jong-un possesses only one known qualification — he is the son of Kim Jong-Il.

Not only does the crooked ruling family live in extreme luxury while North Koreans starve: here is a satellite view of Kim Jong-Il’s mansion, plus water slide.

Family political rule based on oppression is essentially organized crime (think Cuba). But the awful reality of family rule in North Korea will not be changed by international action. North Korean patriots must be the ones to end it.

Nor can the United States, or the United Nations, or the six-party apparatus resolve the Koreas conflict. Only the Koreans themselves — North and South — can accomplish that. But a useful first step would be meaningful engagement with Pyongyang. Decades of bluster haven’t accomplished anything, as today’s events show.

Photo caption: Soldiers from the South Korean Army and Marine Corps take part in an annual river-crossing exercise against a possible attack from North Korea on the Han river in Yeoju, about 100 km (62 miles) southeast of Seoul, November 23, 2010. REUTERS/Jo Yong-Hak

This morning (Wednesday, November 17) I am in Washington moderating the launch of the United Nations Human Development Report 2010, one of the world’s significant documents. Most of what we hear on the news is a noisy blur of specifics even the participants can’t remember a week later. This annual report details The Big Picture: the economic, social, educational, political and health care situations of the world’s nations. The report is roughly 10,000 times more important than the Wall Street data, political polls and sports stats we obsess over.

Perhaps you assume that as a product of the United Nations, the report is political hot air. Quite the contrary: the report is candid, factual and rational, because it’s written at the United Nations Development Programme, which functions independent of the General Assembly and Security Council. United Nations population forecasts and agricultural analysis have high standing among experts. So, too, does the Human Development Report.

And perhaps you assume that any United Nations document is alarmist cant. Again quite the contrary: the 2010 Human Development Report is mainly optimistic about the developing world. It paints, in fact, a far more sanguine picture of most of the human family than is found in the mainstream media. When the United Nations says something depressing, coverage is always assured. Today, the United Nations says something hopeful – will the world pay notice?

“Overall, poor countries are catching up with rich countries” on nearly all central measures, the report finds.

Since 1970, income in the developing world has risen 184 percent (all money figures in this column are adjusted to 2010), versus a 126 percent income rise in the OECD nations in the same period. Literacy in the developing world has risen 61 percent since 1970. School enrollment and life expectancy have risen sharply in most developing nations. An overall Human Development Index, which weighs the leading indicators of life, is up 57 percent in the developing world since 1970, and 23 percent since 1990. (See page 28 of the report.)

Many other measures are encouraging. In 1970, just a third of nations had true democracy; today, the fraction is 60 percent. World literacy was 73 percent in 1990, is 84 percent now and continuing to climb. Half a century ago, the typical developing world person attended two years of school. Now it’s six years, and still rising. Most gaps between rich and poor nations are shrinking. For example, compared to 1970, Norwegians now live seven years longer – and Gambians live 16 years longer.

The big jumps in social progress are outside the West. The report’s top five “movers” – countries showing the best progress on the overall Human Development Index – are Oman, China, Nepal, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. (See page 29.)

Trends are generally positive, the report shows, though income inequality has risen in the majority of nations. Income inequality is a problem – but if living standards, education, longevity and freedom for typical people rise at the same time that income inequality rises, this seems to show that income inequality is not, in itself, incompatible with a better world.

Generally positive trends hardly mean, of course, that all is well: the report finds that a stunning 1.8 billion people live in “multidimensional poverty.” But considering the population explosion – there were three billion people on Earth in 1960, and are six billion now – the widely forecast Malthusian calamities haven’t happened. More than four billion people now enjoy mainly good living standards and social conditions – which exceeds the total number of human beings who were alive when I was a child.

The report concludes that rates of poverty, malnutrition and illiteracy are in steady decline, even as the human population booms with unprecedented speed. Paul Ehrlich and many other commentators expected the world to become dramatically worse in the current generation. Instead the world has become mostly better.

That most nations grow mostly better, and most typical people experience a better life (while all anyone anywhere does is complain), is a core theme of my 2004 book “The Progress Paradox” and my current book “Sonic Boom.” It sure is nice to have the United Nations Development Programme backing these contentions.

But will editorialists and international politicians take note – or continue, reflexively, to cry doomsday?

The full report is here and the announcement of today’s launch event is here.

And if you’re wondering how the United Nations Development Programme scores nations on overall quality of life, here’s the ranking. Norway comes in as the world’s best place to live, Zimbabwe the world’s worst. The United States ranks number four, the United Kingdom tumbles all the way down to 26th, Estonia surely will celebrate finishing 34th, the old Warsaw Pact nations rank well ahead of Russia, China is 89th (but rising fast), India and Indonesia are in worse shape than I would have guessed, and the bottom of the ranking is dominated by Africa.

If you are a Barack Obama supporter — as I am — you should be glad the House of Representatives is changing to Republican. For this is likely to make Obama a better president.

Bill Clinton was ineffective in the first two years of his presidency, with Capitol Hill debacles on health care and the forgotten BTU tax. Then Clinton’s party lost the House in 1994: and his performance as president began to improve.

Sure, there was some kind of fuss between the White House and the House regarding somebody named Monica. But all of Clinton’s signature achievements — welfare reform, the Good Friday Agreement, conversion of federal deficits into surpluses, the Camp David summit — came after the Democrats lost the House.

Once the Democrats no longer had full control of Congress, Clinton no longer could spend his time mediating disputes among the party’s interest groups – disputes regarding the various handouts and special deals various factions were demanding. Clinton needed to broaden his appeal and leadership style, plus acquire genuine concern for his opponents’ positions. He went from being president of the Democrats to president of the nation.

Losing the House was essential to the maturation of Clinton’s presidency. The same can happen for Barack Obama.

So far, President Obama has devoted most of his time and energy to trying to be leader of the always-complaining, always-hands-outstretched internal factions of the Democratic Party. For Democrats to hold the White House, Senate and House, plus have two fresh appointments to the Supreme Court, arguably has made Obama less effective than he otherwise might have been.

Open squabbling over giveaways — the $800 billion stimulus bill might have been called Interest Groups Spoils of Victory Act of 2009 — has made the Democrats look foolish. Possessing near-total control of Washington, Obama’s party nonetheless has made wacky claims of conspiracies against it. Nancy Pelosi’s assertion that “secret money” beholden to mysterious foreign powers is really running the U.S. government is the daffiest thing anyone’s said in years, but hardly the only contention along these lines. Losing the House of Representatives should cause the White House, and at least some Democrats, to get their feet back on the ground.

Obama needs to become the leader of all Americans. As happened with Clinton, this will require broadening his leadership style and finding genuine concern for his opponents’ views and positions.

In a democracy, steamrolling the opposition may work once in a while, but cannot be a basis of governing. Consensus must be sought. Losing the lower chamber of Congress means the White House can’t steamroll any more – and this will be good for the Obama presidency.

Millions of Americans agree with and like President Obama — but millions also don’t. Obama needs to come to terms with that, and show that he cares just as much about his opponents as about his party’s interest groups.

Barack Obama is the most gifted natural leader since Ronald Reagan — who also stumbled and struggled in his first two years as president, and who also took a shellacking, in terms of losing House seats, in his first national election while president, which in Reagan’s case was in 1982.

Clinton in 1994, and Reagan in 1982, woke up and realized they needed to become president of everyone. Both grew in empathy, and improved as leaders, as a result. The same can happen for Obama.

Election postscript 1:
There was obvious voter anger about the cost and bureaucratic-nightmare aspects of ObamaCare. Since most of the reform has not yet taken effect, consensus-seeking amendments to the legislation could improve health care reform — as long as Republicans are sincere in saying they want to improve the reform, rather than just use the issue as a political battering ram.

But bear in mind –– hardly any of the benefits of ObamaCare have been felt. Voters are very aware of the costs and red tape — they haven’t yet experienced the benefits. Once they do, even most Republicans may conclude that Obama mainly was right about health care. Fixing the “preexisting conditions” fault of health insurance, for instance, is a tremendous reform that will spread benefits across all social and income classes.

Election postscript 2:
Have Republican leaders even read the health care reform bill they denounce? The party’s pre-election Pledge to America says of the Republican agenda,  “We will make it illegal for an insurance company to deny coverage to someone with prior coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition, eliminate annual and lifetime spending caps, and prevent insurers from dropping your coverage just because you get sick.” All these points are already covered by Obama’s legislation!

Election postscript 3:
The big question about incoming Tea Party types is, what exactly will they cut? It is hard to imagine tackling the deficit without cuts in Social Security and Pentagon spending. So far no Tea Party senator- or representative-elect has offered anything even remotely specific about how the deficit might be pared. It’s a lot easier to denounce than to govern.

Republican Jim DeMint, a Tea Party favorite just re-elected to his second term in the Senate, said on Meet the Press on Sunday that reductions in Social Security and Pentagon spending won’t be required because “we can cut hundreds of billions of dollars a year at the federal level” by eliminating “administrative waste.”  If DeMint knows of “hundreds of billions of dollars a year” — this is about the same as Medicare spending — in “administrative waste,” how come he never moved to do anything about it during his first six years in the Senate?

Photo: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson