LET THEM EAT CARROTS

摘要

Despite all the disagreement over who's to blame for the North Korean nuclear test, everyone agrees on the next step: economic sanctions. But does anyone really think that they will work? North Korea is already the most isolated country in the world. Its people live at subsistence levels, escaping mass starvation only because of aid shipments. There is virtually no industrial economy. The United States has imposed sanctions against the country since the 1950s, but they have not stopped the regime from acquiring nuclear weapons. Nor have they loosened the regime's grip on power. The new round of sanctions will be more multilateral. Still, they have the telltale feel of most sanctions, imposed mostly because military intervention is impossible, and yet one has to do something.