A Real Possibility Of War On the Korean Peninsula

From One Free Korea:
H/T: Terry




Victor Cha: “There is a real possibility of war on the Korean Peninsula.”

Posted by Joshua Stanton on December 7, 2010 at 9:46 pm · Filed under ROK Military, Yonpyeong Attack



So begins a very sober assessment from a man not known, to put it mildly, for his erratic mood swings or his turbulent creative energy. If anything, I think Cha understates the gravity of the situation. North Korea — by the way, it was removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008 — has already sunk a South Korean warship, shelled a South Korean island, killed and maimed Marines and civilians, and turned the survivors of the impact zone into South Korea’s first population of war refugees since 1953. How is that not already war — even if it’s still unilateral and limited? Yet with each provocation, another limit is crossed. Cha is also right that South Korea has an urgent need for a way to deter the next escalation, which might be as unthinkable as the last ones still seem. He then gives a persuasive explanation of how conventional deterrence has lost its meaning:



President Lee Myung-bak is forced to respond with calm and measured actions every time the North provokes. The pat responses to the island shelling and the sinking of the Cheonan — of enhanced military readiness, exercises with the U.S., and diplomatic sanctions — do not work. The reality is that Pyongyang’s provocations are getting more deadly, and that Seoul’s strengths are its vulnerabilities: The more affluent, educated, and cosmopolitan South is far more wedded to the peaceful status quo than its northern neighbor, and therefore is forced to tolerate provocations even if they kill soldiers or civilians. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il sees this vulnerability and will continue to exploit it to extort concessions from the U.S. and South Korea. This is a losing strategic spiral for the South. It will soon feel compelled to break it.



When the South Koreans respond to this or future provocations, it will likely be a serious but pinpointed display of military force. The purpose would be to stop the cycle of North Korean provocation through deterrence, but it could very well ignite a major war.



Which brings us to where Cha gets it wrong. Notwithstanding this persuasive deconstruction of conventional deterrence, he still argues that we can only restore it by flooding South Korea with American targets soldiers (long ago, I was one of them). Then, almost as an afterthought, Cha argues that we seek the permission of the spineless Ban Ki Moon and the duplicitous Hu Jintao to do what Article 51 of the U.N. Charter clearly authorizes anyway. But this is a fool’s errand. I think Victor Cha is an honest, decent, and intelligent man, but here, he seems to personify a foreign policy establishment that wasted so many precious years leaning on the only two policies it ever seems to have thought of — conventional military deterrence, which North Korea has clearly circumvented; and diplomatic appeasement, which North Korea has so profitably exploited.



It has finally occurred to most people that we need ways to deter Kim Jong Il. Belatedly, we have learned that financial sanctions can actually hurt his regime, although there’s no clear evidence that they’re working better than China’s malicious, double-dealing efforts to undermine them. North Korea’s apparent desperation might mean that sanctions are working just fine. But if you forced me to guess, I’d side with Caroline Leddy and guess that China, South Korea’s very own Kaesong Industrial Park, and other sources of income are diluting their potency. I doubt, then, that we’re applying sanctions with the thoroughness, determination, or patience necessary to really inhibit Kim Jong Il’s capacity to provoke, threaten, proliferate, or oppress. Similarly, I do not believe that Kim Jong Il cares particularly that the International Criminal Court might eventually get around to indicting him as a war criminal, given the relatively towering magnitude of his crimes against humanity inside North Korea itself. At best, this would be yet another embarrassment for Kim’s Chinese sponsors, but then, no visible sign of conscience seems to inhibit China’s sponsorship of Sudan, Burma, or Iran.



Stated bluntly, deterrence is about making your enemy afraid of hurting you. But Kim Jong Il does not fear war, and given his health, I do not think he even fears death, so long as death does not come this way. What I believe Kim Jong Il fears has no English word that expresses the idea quite so well as “Götterdämmerung.” He fears the spiritual and historical apocalypse of his deiocracy, and his messianic place in its history. Are we prepared to attach that consequence to his atrocities? Because if we are, and if we’re not yet out of time and luck, we can restore deterrence after all.







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Kevin Kim said,

December 8, 2010 @ 12:51 am



In keeping with your final paragraph:



George Carlin once said, “I leave symbols for the symbol-minded.” While it might not be a deterrent, per se, I’d love to see SK knock down one major symbol per NK provocation. Flatten the Ryugyong Hotel, for instance, then start knocking down those Great Leader statues. Shell the stadium where the Arirang Festival takes place, powder the King Il-sung hall of gifts, blast away one leg of the NK Arc de Triomphe and let it topple, etc. If nothing else, such strikes would drive NK nuts. Whether they would demoralize the populace, embolden them to rebel, or solidify their loyalty to the Dear Leader, I have no idea, but if we think purely in terms of symbols, Pyongyang is a target-rich environment.



Kevin



Kevin Kim said,

December 8, 2010 @ 12:53 am



Of course, I do realize I’m only dreaming.



K


And this, also from One Free Korea:
Also a H/T:  Terry

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If You Must Bomb, Bomb Their Palaces

Posted by Joshua Stanton on December 8, 2010 at 9:18 am · Filed under NK Military, ROK Military, North-South, Korean War II



Now that Victor Cha has written that another Korean War is a very real possibility, that risk has become a matter of accepted conventional wisdom. Some in South Korea seem to be waiting for an excuse to restore deterrence through bombing. This is probably a mix of bluff and bluster, but there’s no arguing with South Korea’s right to self-defense and its need to restore deterrence.



A lot of unthinkable things have already happened this year, and I certainly hope the next one doesn’t lead to all-out war. I’ve already addressed the horrors that would follow if it does, and those risks are the main reason why I still oppose strikes against North Korea. Yes, those risks might still be justifiable if confronting them is the only way to to prevent war and save lives, but on the other side of this cost-benefit ledger, the prospect of a few more corpses to dispose of probably doesn’t deter Kim Jong Il much. If there is good news here, it’s that I’m reasonably confident that Kim Jong-Il still fears all-out war. Given Kim Jong Il’s age and health, I suspect his fears are more invested in the survival of regime and legacy. All-out war means the end of all these things, and his life. Fortunately, no one really wants an all-out war.



But if it’s now necessary for us to consider our military options, and I think it is, let’s at least tie those options to our policy objectives. My friend Kevin Kim proposes an idea that merits serious consideration, but to which I add some important caveats:



George Carlin once said, “I leave symbols for the symbol-minded.” While it might not be a deterrent, per se, I’d love to see SK knock down one major symbol per NK provocation. Flatten the Ryugyong Hotel, for instance, then start knocking down those Great Leader statues. Shell the stadium where the Arirang Festival takes place, powder the King Il-sung hall of gifts, blast away one leg of the NK Arc de Triomphe and let it topple, etc. If nothing else, such strikes would drive NK nuts. Whether they would demoralize the populace, embolden them to rebel, or solidify their loyalty to the Dear Leader, I have no idea, but if we think purely in terms of symbols, Pyongyang is a target-rich environment.



I’ve argued that Kim Jong Il seeks to provoke a limited war, so that he can unite his population behind the regime and against foreign enemies. To this end, the risk of absorbing some military and civilian casualties is hardly more of a deterrent than the risk of inflicting some. But any attack that strikes at the state’s spiritual legitimacy and the its most unpopular aspects would advance our interests in neutralizing North Korea as a threat. Speculate with me about what ordinary North Koreans still believe today:



- North Korean memories of the Korean War may rely, in part, on exaggerations of the horrors of U.S. bombing, but our bombing was in fact directed at cities full of civilians, was legitimately horrific, and would certainly be considered a war crime by today’s standards. If we’re trying to shape North Korean public opinion — and that is the single most dispositive factor in ultimately resolving our problems with North Korea — then we should do nothing to reinforce the state’s propaganda about indiscriminate American bombing. Because we are not like the North Koreans, we should avoid cities, hotels, and stadiums. Seeing such places damaged would only authenticate the very hatred, xenophobia, and humiliation the state exploits, and increasingly needs. And because soldiers are expendable to the state but precious to their families, we should seek to avoid military casualties, too.



- Ideally, the American role should be to stand by and deter escalation, while avoiding direct involvement. Let South Korea do the fighting and show its own strength and independence. American involvement only feeds North Korea’s nationalist propaganda.



- Admittedly, the idea of felling the biggest Kim Il Sung statue in Pyongyang had crossed my mind, too, but refugee surveys have convinced me that there’s still significant residual reverence for Kim Il Sung. For obvious reasons, I can’t quantify the degree of that reverence, and I suspect that its character is complicated by ambivalence. Still, I’d counsel restraint when it comes to statues and monuments to him. Similarly, symbols of anti-Japanese resistance should be off-limits. Plenty of South Koreans might also react against this.



- People listen to state broadcasting because it’s all most of them still have. But within days, rumors and Open Radio catch up with the state’s narrative, and a lot of people tend to believe what they hear from the outside. Generally, however, people are more likely to believe the first thing they hear. If you disable state broadcasting, rumors and Open News might have much more influence than they might otherwise.



- For anyone in the Pentagon who is reading this, let me helpfully offer that palaces would be ideal targets for several reasons. The first of these is that they’re big, blue and almost impossible to miss. Politically, they’re even more attractive. The evidence I’ve seen suggests that Kim Jong Il is generally hated, and that Kim Jong Eun is universally despised. Most of their palaces are in rural areas that have been cleared of civilians. I’d bet that the North Korean people would actually approve if they learn that KJI or KJU’s fancy palaces were bombed, particularly by the South Koreans. The North Koreans can’t even show video of the damaged palaces without highlighting the gross inequality of North Korean society and suffering an even greater propaganda backlash. Instead, we should use the occasion to show the world, including the North Korean people, how KJI and KJU live in splendor while everyone else lives in squalor. Finally, bombing palaces has the advantage of punishing the guilty instead of the innocent.



- I don’t think there’s much question that the Anjeonbu and Bowibu security forces are widely hated. Most North Koreans would likely approve of the destruction of their offices, which would have the added effect of weakening the regime’s capacity to control the population.



With this being said, we should be prepared for a wide variety of unpredictable consequences if the South strikes back, with or without American help. Some of these are obvious. One that I haven’t seen anyone discuss yet is that retaliation might set off a popular uprising. When hated regimes are attacked from the outside, a frequent consequence is that they’re attacked from the inside, too. It was the case in Iraq in 1991, where we paid dearly for failing to seize the moment. In the case of North Korea, defectors will tell you that they often wished for war. This was code-talk for the end of the regime, but it also reflected their belief that only American bombs could effect this result. Military retaliation could cause discontented North Koreans to think that this is their moment. They’re probably mistaken, and the consequences are certain to be tragic no matter what happens (this is North Korea). I suspect that the regime would eventually suppress this uprising, but that result is not assured if the military fractures.



We need to think through just how much support we’re willing to give anti-regime forces, particularly if those forces include mutinous military units. I would argue for as much support as possible — to include clearing out North Korea’s air defenses and dropping arms to anti-regime forces. For now, leave aside the moral obligation to stand with people who oppose tyranny. The more prolonged the uprising, the greater the deterrent effect on North Korea and China, which will gain a profound realization of our capacity to sow chaos and deliver their worst fears to them. The more prolonged the uprising, the more troops North Korea will have to divert from the DMZ, and the less the risk of a wider conventional war. If some elements of the rebellion persist, we then acquire a network of North Korean allies inside the world’s greatest intelligence black hole, along with the capability to influence events inside North Korea itself. Leveraging the effects of dissent vastly increases our bargaining power and may be the last hope for a diplomatic resolution to our problems with North Korea. Conversely, failing to support dissent will embitter North Koreans against us as it embittered Iraqis, and will dissuade anyone from challenging the regime for years.







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david woolley said,

December 8, 2010 @ 10:53 am



A very good idea indeed.



beblebrox said,

December 8, 2010 @ 11:23 am



First comment here. Though I obviously support the idea of minimizing the civilian effects of any possible military action against NK (and striking the palaces would be an excellent way of achieving that); I would not put it past the regime to attack their own population at that point merely to score the propaganda value of showing the mangled and bloody bodies in the rubble of civilian centers. They may conclude that it may be the best way to attempt to galvanize public support and head off or minimize any potential civilian uprising. They may claim it is either an SK/US attack or perhaps internal sabotage, along with a few (or more than a few) very public executions or the so called “saboteurs”.



I do not know what the answer to this is, but I think we must assume the likelihood of it high.



Dave said,

December 8, 2010 @ 12:05 pm



Long time reader, first time comment….



I agree that the palaces are a great mark.



Personal thought: I think that, if a war were to be fought, both the palaces and the many worker prisons/gulags would be excellent places for special forces to seize and control as bases/staging areas for any counter-attack against North Korea. Especially the worker prisons, which are fortified with fenced perimeters, guard towers and existing infrastructure to control access. Liberating and protecting those imprisoned would, in itself, help lead a revolt against the NK regime.



Great blog. I believe your efforts are crucial in helping get the truth out about North Korea.



Jon said,

December 8, 2010 @ 1:07 pm



I would not put it past the regime to attack their own population at that point merely to score the propaganda value of showing the mangled and bloody bodies in the rubble of civilian centers.



I agree. Or they could just litter the rubble of whatever icons got bombed with corpses of political prisoners from their camps…either way the regime wins. Unless we can survey the area and catch them in the act, bombing any public place is likely to just give them more propaganda material…



Han Kim said,

December 8, 2010 @ 3:50 pm



Too bad your blog does not have a LIKE button!



Glans said,

December 8, 2010 @ 6:16 pm



Dave, the North Korean camp administrators probably have contingency plans to massacre the inmates.



a listener said,

December 8, 2010 @ 6:59 pm



U.S.S. Pueblo, sink it in the harbour.



Will said,

December 8, 2010 @ 8:35 pm



If something is destroyed it should be highly visible. The palaces are hidden…you could take one down and the people of NK might never know. But if you could take out that Juche Tower in Pyongyang…now there is a symbol for you. I’ve seen pictures of people bowing and genuflecting before it. As hideously ugly as it is, it is a huge symbol to the NK regime. I know nothing about military technology…what’s feasible, what’s not. I wonder if a cruise missile could take it out.



KCJ said,

December 8, 2010 @ 11:06 pm



This just in, former Nork military members ready to form special ROK unit:



Defectors can make an important contribution to security because of their first-hand knowledge of the North Korean military, which could hasten the demise of the Kim Jong-il regime, according to the group’s leader Kim Sung-min. He added South Koreans seem complacent about the threat from the North because they do not know enough about it. “Real peace can only be achieved based on a firm sense of national security and strong defense,” he said.



The Liberation Front will hold a forum at the Seoul Press Center on Monday to analyze the North’s military capabilities and discuss ways of dealing with them.



The group also joined hands with activists Fighters for Free North Korea in floating balloons from Baeknyeong Island in the West Sea on Tuesday carrying 200,000 leaflets denouncing the North’s artillery attack and the three-generation dynastic rule.



Maybe its me, but I am sensing a momentum change on pen…











Source: http://www.freekorea.us/2010/12/08/if-you-must-bomb-bomb-their-palaces/#comments