What a strange take this is. If you are trying to equivocate the two situations as a condemnation of Ukraine, I would note that sanctions are leveraging economic power, while conventional warfare leverages military power, and you obfuscate this difference by using the word “blockade”. It isn’t a blockade, it’s sanctions. Blockades involve military power, sanctions do not. Do I believe that the US is guilty of immense human suffering as a consequence of the usage of sanctions in international relations? Of course, and I’m equally aware of the diminishing returns of pulling such an economic lever, but between economic and military power, North Korea is under economic pressure, and Ukraine is under military pressure. Having a military government only makes sense as a solution in one of these two situations, and the situations are similarly not comparable.
If, however, I instead take you at face value, likely against my better judgement, and interpret your point instead to mean that it’s valid for North Korea not to have elections because they are also justified in martial law, then I am perhaps even more confused, because it sounds like you’re arguing for martial law because of sanctions endured by North Korea (if so, see above why this is not a justification for martial law). What confuses me, though, is why you would pick that justification in the first place. You could, for example, argue that because North Korea only has an armistice with South Korea, they technically remain still at war, and thus are reasonable for imposing a permanent state of martial law. My counterpoint would be that South Korea is, at this point, incredibly unlikely to invade for a variety of economic, political, and demographic reasons, and North Korea has already shielded itself against existential threat via nuclear weapons (their opponent’s capital is 40km from the border, Seoul can’t even get much warning, much less intercept the nukes). Regardless of sanctions, there isn’t actually that much reason that North Korea should still be devoting so many of its resources to its military, nor is there that much of a reason for martial law to still be in effect.
I would also question if you genuinely think that any kind of meritocratic process occurred in a military sense when, rather than elect a leader (reflecting a peacetime footing), or have an experienced military officer take the role (reflecting a wartime footing), leadership instead passed down through three generations of the same family. Frankly, I don’t think martial law can justify that, regardless of whether or not martial law itself is justified.
Edit: Also, if you happen to have that study showing the 500,000 figure on hand, I would actually love to take a look at it. I wouldn’t be surprised, as often it is the civilian populace who bears the burden of sanctions, but it would be good to take a look at it to see if I can get a credible number to attach to that idea.
Apologies it took me so long to look at this - got busy irl, but that’s a fair take, and an understandable one at that. I’ve long been of the opinion that sanctions on nations like North Korea and Iran are, at this point, completely ineffectual, and are essentially just inflicting pain on the civilian populace for little gain. Past a certain threshold of sanctioning, you essentially decouple your economy from the one you’re sanctioning, and in so doing you lose any leverage you might have had. I also will make clear that I consider the US’s actions in the case of Cuba to be utterly reprehensible; that particular case is as clear cut as it gets, and is illustrative of the way that the US has historically wielded its geopolitical and economic heft with all the precision of a cudgel as part of its broader aims to impose its own (flawed) economic view of the world.
The thing that I would note, however, is that the US isn’t the only actor, and that sanctions on North Korea haven’t been continuous by other western actors. In particular, sanctions were easing to a significant degree in the 90s and early 2000s under the Agreed Framework as a consequence of Seoul pushing for normalized relations during that time. This changed, however, when North Korea first withdrew from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and then in particular tested nuclear weapons several times from 2006 onward. At that point, several western nations which had lifted sanctions re-imposed them as an attempt to discourage other actors from pursuing the same path. Now, I will admit that this is a somewhat unfair argument, as it fails to note that the US broadly did not hold up its end of the deal within the Agreed Framework, only agreeing to it in the first place on the assumption that the Kim regime would collapse before they needed to hold up their end, and Israel is similarly in violation of the NPT and hasn’t faced anything like the consequences that North Korea has, but it isn’t as if there aren’t modern reasons for the sanctions, nor is it the case that North Korea isn’t somewhat guilty here.
All that said, however, I still don’t think that the North Korean sanctions as they exist now are serving American interests, and the reason I say that is because it has pushed North Korea into alignment with Russia, as they have essentially zero to lose by doing so considering how heavily sanctioned they already are. Historically, the primary limitation of North Korean nuclear weapons is not the warhead, but actually the technical aspect of the delivery system, and North Korea’s recent collaboration with Russia may actually resolve that particular problem for them, as Russia has the industry and technical know-how to create some truly cutting edge ballistic missiles. In a certain sense, the American over-use of sanctions may, at this point, have actually become entirely self-defeating in a geostrategic sense.
Sanctions do make sense in the case of Russia, though, as they are a net positive producer in most critical civilian industries, so the populace is unlikely to go hungry regardless of sanctions, so the sanctions instead serve a primary purpose of providing an extra layer of friction in Russian imports of technical systems, increasing cost for domestic military manufacturing, and an extra layer of friction for Russian exports. One specific example is OPEC capping the price of oil at such a level that Russia is unlikely to actually make any kind of profit on such an export. This allows the global price of oil to be kept steady (and keeps the price high enough that, ideally, Russian civilians who work in the industry aren’t faced with economic pain) while simultaneously limiting how much Russia can benefit from the export of such goods. That’s not really relevant to North Korea (except, perhaps, insofar as technical imports by Russia might be used to assist in warhead delivery system development, but I’ve covered that already), but I figured I would mention it as I do believe there is a case to be made for sanctions in some scenarios, separate from the fact that the US’s overuse is, at this point, clearly not what should be aimed for. Sanctions (just like tariffs, good lord the current admin is braindead) are a tool which should be considered with a surgeon’s mindset; only used in very specific scenarios where it is both necessary and sensible, and wielded with the precision of a scalpel, and not that of a blunt instrument
Regardless, though, I’ll acknowledge that your view isn’t unfounded, and that it’s not so cut-and-dry as I had implied. Thank you for providing that study, I’ll definitely be keeping that on hand for future reference.