In a rare expression of unanimity ~ after the prevarication over Libya and Syria ~ the Security Council has tightened the screws on North Korea in the immediate aftermath of the latest  intercontinental ballistic missile test. By its very nature, it isn’t merely a US counter-mobilisation, but the concerted decision of the five permanent members ~ America, Russia, Britain, China, and France. The economic reprisal, however severe, is unlikely to bring the likes of Kim Jong-un to their knees; President Hassan Rouhani of Iran soldiers on with his nuclear programme regardless of the curbs. The Korean Peninsula now bears witness to an international war of nerves, almost a battle of attrition. The North Korean President has swiftly condemned the latest cache of  sanctions as an “act of war and tantamount to a complete economic blockade”.

Chiefly, the sanctions will restrict Pyongyang’s access to refined petroleum products and crude oil, and its earnings from workers abroad. The UN resolution seeks to ban nearly 90 per cent of refined petroleum exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year and, in a last-minute change, demands the repatriation of North Koreans working abroad within 24 months. The resolution, drafted by the US, has capped crude oil supplies at 4 million barrels a year; the Security Council will effect further reductions if the North conducts another nuclear or ICBM test.

The economic blitz will not only affect the petroleum sector; no less significant is what has been called a “last-minute  change”, demanding the repatriation of North Koreans working abroad within 24 months. Verily, the sanctions are a double whammy for Pyongyang ~ the North will be deprived of adequate crude supplies as well as the remittance from non-resident North Koreans, indeed a critical component of its revenue earnings.

The crippling curbs thus imposed are the harshest ever and are bound to rock the country’s economic base to its foundations. For all that, such are the complexities of geostrategy that there is little or no guarantee that the North has tested an ICBM missile for the last time. It hasn’t, if the nature and frequency of its defiance is any indication. The sanctions have been greeted with stout condemnation, even a “categorical rejection” of the UN resolution ~ “The US is terrified by the North’s  nuclear force and is getting more and more frenzied in the moves to impose pressure on our country”.

There is little doubt that the P-5 members have abided by the certitudes of international law against a “rogue state”, if indeed the Security Council has imposed a “complete economic blockade”, which Pyongyang sees as a “grave infringement upon the sovereignty of our republic, as an act of war violating peace and stability”. The North is yet to acknowledge the fundamentals ~ every missile test is tantamount to beating the war-drums and it has been doing its bit to destabilise the region.