North Korea (Superthread)

[Jarnhamar]

Is cutting off food really going to make their regime more reasonable?

yes.
Starving soldiers don't fight very well.
Starving civilians don't behave very well.

Both make invading another country difficult.

 

[GAP]

New Korean war could involve Canada, federal documents suggest
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/new-korean-war-could-involve-canada-federal-documents-suggest-110880524.html
By: Mike Blanchfield, The Canadian Press Posted: 26/11/2010

OTTAWA - If war breaks out on the Korean peninsula, Canada could become embroiled due to a half-century-old United Nations military alliance, federal documents reveal.

Canada's military obligations in the volatile region are outlined in a briefing note prepared for Defence Minister Peter MacKay shortly after North Korea detonated a nuclear device last year.

The note by the Defence Department's policy branch, which was obtained by The Canadian Press, says the UN alliance could be used to generate an international fighting force if war erupts.

North Korea ratcheted up its war rhetoric Friday following its deadly artillery barrage of a South Korean island Tuesday.

Because Canada was one of the combatants in the Korean War, it became part of an organization known as the United Nations Command — or UNC — following the 1953 armistice that ended three years of war between North and South Korea.

"Recent tensions have caused ADM (Pol) to review Canada's military obligations on the Korean peninsula if armed hostilities were to erupt," the memo reads.

"The UNC structure would be used as a means of force-generating and receiving and tasking any contributions that UNC Sending States may choose to contribute in the event of a crisis."

Canada was one 16 countries that took part in fighting the Korean War and all signed the July 27, 1953, armistice that paused three years of hostilities. North and South Korea have remained technically at war since then, but the armistice has been supervised by a UN military commission along the 243-kilometre long Demilitarized Zone between the two countries.

As the briefing note outlines, the main "fighting formation" that would take the lead in any new conflict is the joint United States-South Korea Combined Forces Command. But that joint command "includes under its strategic organizational umbrella the legacy United Nations Command (UNC)."

Canada remains a member of the UNC because it was one of the 15 "Sending States" that supplied troops to the Korean conflict, the memo says.

Paul Evans, the director of the Institute of Asian Research at University of British Columbia, said he doesn't believe the current situation will become a full-blown military crisis. If it does, he said, "it would be difficult to use the UNC structure in the event of a conflict except as an initial advice."

That's because the UN's role would be minimized by fact that Russia and China wield vetoes as permanent members of the all-powerful Security Council, said Evans.

"I have a hunch that the UN role, whatever its formalities are now through the military commission and other things, are likely to be superseded almost immediately by a coalition of the willing that would be led by the United States and South Korea."
More on link

 

[George Wallace]

Looks like North Korea is looking for a fight, and will not stop trying to provoke one:



Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.

N. Korea threatens retaliation if war games go on
27/11/2010 11:19:19 AM

CTV.ca News Staff

LINK

North Korea warns of retaliation if the United States and South Korea go ahead with naval exercises in the Yellow Sea.

The four-day military exercise is slated to begin on Sunday, but the two Koreas used strong language Saturday to suggest more violence is possible.

Resentment between the two sides has grown since Tuesday, when North Korea launched a missile onto the small fishing island of Yeonpyeong that claimed the lives of South Korean two marines and two civilians.

Protesters took their anger to the streets of the South Korean capital of Seoul on Saturday, not long after a national public funeral was held for the two slain marines. During the funeral, a military commander said "they will take the anger and hostility in their bones and strike back at North Korea," CTV's Janis Mackey Frayer told CTV News Channel Saturday during a telephone interview from Yeonpyeong.

"There's been a ramping up in the sharp words from both sides over the last few days. The latest from Pyongyang is that North Korean leaders are vowing a sea of fire if their territory is breached and if the U.S and South Korea go ahead with these joint military exercises, they should be seeing unpardonable provocation," Mackey Frayer said.

Mackey Frayer also noted that the South Korean President, Lee Myung-bak, said he was going to review the rules of engagement and agreed that in the past, South Korea had been too passive when it comes to acts of aggression by North Korea. He cited the sinking of a South Korean military warship in March, where a North Korean torpedo was responsible for killing 46 sailors, according to a South-Korean led investigation.

Both the U.S. and South Korea have been urging China, North Korea's closest ally, to use its influence to help moderate the situation. Though China has assured it will do its best to ease tensions, the joint military exercise by the two countries is causing unease in Beijing.

On Friday, North Korea used a burst of artillery fire to signal its fury with South Korea and the U.S. North Korea warned the conditions brewing in the Korea peninsula have pushed it to the "brink of war."

The flash of artillery fire could be heard in Yeonpyeong.

Only a few dozen South Koreans have stayed behind on the island, which lies just 11 kilometres from the shores of North Korea. They ran to shelters after seeing the faraway flash of artillery.

The artillery fire did not hit any South Korean targets, though it was launched while U.S. Gen. Walter Sharp was touring the part of Yeonpyeong that came under attack.

The commander of the 28,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea called out the North Korean regime for violating the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953.

"We at the United Nations Command will investigate this completely and call on North Korea to stop any future attacks," Sharp said Friday.

But in North Korea, Pyongyang's government insisted that the U.S. was an aggressor, by stating an intention to take part in the joint military drills with South Korea in disputed waters.

A North Korean military official bragged about the Tuesday attack in which the military "precisely aimed and hit the enemy artillery base."

The official also made reference to a possible forthcoming "shower of dreadful fire."

In South Korea, more troops and better weapons were being deployed to the island, while the president and his government tried to pin down their next move against the unpredictable and defiant North Korea regime.

While the U.S. has sent a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to the Yellow Sea to take part in the exercises with South Korea, there seem to be few options for cooling things down with North Korea.

As a result, South Korea and the U.S. are leaning on China to help drop the temperature of the feverish resentment that is building up in North Korea.

China is a rare source of influence on North Korea and Chinese state media announced Friday that Beijing's foreign minister had met with the North Korean ambassador.

With files from The Associated Press


More on LINK.

 

[Old Sweat]

I think the North Korean regime is betting that the US and South Korea will cave again. The standard pattern is for them both to ask for negotiations and pony up some Danegeld for the North. The North has no intention of taking any negotiations seriously, but will talk for a while and then walk away. As long as "we" continue to appease them and the Chinese keep a fairly loose rein, we will see the process repeated indefinitely.

Having said all that, I am notoriously poor at predicting the future which is why I dabble in history. I have got pretty good at predicting the past.

Maybe it's time to start the refresher course in Korean war era Canadian army slang.

skosh - a little from (from skoshi, Japanese for a little)

 

[a_majoor]

We will see more of this:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/more-south-koreans-will-die-maybe-americans-too/?singlepage=true

More South Koreans Will Die. Maybe Americans Too
North Korea is predictable. It will continue to kill.
November 26, 2010 - by Gordon G. Chang


North Korea shelled Yeonpyeong, an island administered by Seoul, on Tuesday. Four died. Two of them were civilians.

What does every analyst say about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea? That it is unpredictable. Yes, Pyongyang can surprise us, but it’s more precise to say that the North follows its own logic. And North Korean logic dictated that its leader would launch another deadly attack. The only things we did not know were where that assault would take place and when it would occur.

And how did we know another gruesome incident was almost certain? Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s leader, promotes his songun, or “military first,” politics. “Military first” means exactly what it says and maybe even a bit more. Kim’s regime not only begins with the army, it ends with the army.

His boast — “My power comes from the military” — accurately identifies the source of his current strength. In a country of about 23 million souls, there are around 1.2 million active-duty soldiers, sailors, and pilots and perhaps as many as 8.2 million reservists. North Korea has — by far — the highest percentage of its population in uniform.

As the Wall Street Journal’s Evan Ramstad notes, the central problem stemming from Kim’s military-first politics is that the government’s legitimacy is dependent on military success. And because no one is attacking the North at this moment — in fact, no country has ever launched an unprovoked attack on that miserable state — Chairman Kim feels the need to initiate deadly incidents. Therefore, he ordered the torpedo attack on the Cheonan, a South Korean frigate, this March — 46 deaths — and the shelling of Yeonpyeong this week. He will order more assaults unless he is stopped.

Unfortunately, neither the United States nor South Korea is bent on doing so. Both of them are afraid of provoking Kim and triggering wider conflict on the Korean peninsula. What was President Lee Myung-bak’s first command at an emergency meeting following the shelling on Tuesday? Ramstad reports that an aide said it was “make sure this doesn’t escalate.”

In fact, on Tuesday President Lee warned of “enormous retaliation” the next time North Korea strikes the South. But Seoul talked of “stern countermeasures” after the sinking of the Cheonan eight months ago and did nothing. On Tuesday, Lee declared North Korea’s “indiscriminate attack on civilians can never be tolerated.” But he is in fact tolerating the attack on civilians, taking no steps other than issuing strong words.

If President Lee releases hollow statements, it is because he is the leader of a country that is deeply afraid of the North and which is determined to avoid conflict.  Moreover, about half of the electorate — the so-called “progressives” — are sympathetic to the North due to the kinship of “blood,” so Lee is trying to appease South Korean voters as well as North Korean aggressors.

“The question for South Korea is how much more serious can these attacks get before the risk of doing nothing, and showing there’s no cost, is worse than the risk of prompting an overreaction by North Korea,” says risk consultant Andrew Gilholm to the Wall Street Journal. “My own view is we’re still not at that level.”

Gilholm’s assessment mirrors that of Washington policy insiders. So there has been a decision, made as much by drift as well as design, to tolerate South Korean casualties. That was the thinking behind the failure to send the George Washington, the nuclear-powered carrier, into the Yellow Sea for joint exercises with South Korea after the Cheonan incident.

Predictably, the soft approach did not work. On Wednesday, the Pentagon announced that the carrier and its strike group were on their way to the Yellow Sea for drills with South Korean vessels. If the Obama administration had ordered the George Washington to the area this summer, the shelling of Yeonpyeong might never have happened.

The beneficial effect of sending the carrier to waters close to North Korea was unfortunately diluted by other Obama administration responses. For instance, special envoy Stephen Bosworth said that the artillery duel on Tuesday — the South Koreans eventually got around to returning fire — “is very undesirable” and then called for “all sides” to exercise “restraint.”

General Walter Sharp, the American general in command of UN forces in South Korea, was hardly more inspiring in the face of North Korean aggression. His response to Pyongyang’s murder of South Korean civilians and soldiers? A call for general-officer talks with North Korea.

“I think a similar North Korean provocation could come at any time,” said President Lee immediately after the shelling.  At least the South Korean leader got this right.  Feeble responses from Washington and Seoul mean the North Koreans will definitely strike again. In fact, Pyongyang this week warned of additional attacks.

Additional attacks will mean more South Koreans will be killed. And with the drift to general conflict evident on the Korean peninsula, we can expect American forces there and in the region to be drawn into the fight.

Democracies are known for weak responses to the hostile acts of authoritarian states. This week, neither the White House nor the Blue House broke the pattern. They adopted policies that look like the ones we have witnessed before every major war in memory. We should not be surprised when conflict roils North Asia.

Gordon G. Chang is the author of Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World and The Coming Collapse of China.

 

[57Chevy]

China's support of North Korea grounded in centuries of conflict:
article link

Having just enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner, the American soldiers were told they would be home by Christmas as they launched their final offensive.

In fact, they were driving into the greatest ambush in modern history.

Twelve miles to their north, 380,000 brilliantly camouflaged enemy fighters lay in wait. In the days that followed, the U.S. Army would suffer its most harrowing ordeal of the past half-century.

Two American regiments were massacred at a pass called Kunu-ri; another was annihilated beside a frozen lake called Chosin.

The time was 60 years ago; the battlefield was North Korea; the enemy was China's People's Liberation Army.

Despite wide-ranging global changes -- the fall of European communism, the end of the Cold War, China-U.S. rapprochement, the rise of China as economic superpower -- there has been no indication that Beijing has altered its stance toward maintaining the isolated regime in the peninsula's north since it routed U.S.-led United Nations forces in Korea in the winter of 1950.

"China does not want to lose North Korea as a buffer zone vis-a-vis a pro-U.S. country -- South Korea," said Kim Won-ho, dean of the Graduate School of International Studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.

article continues at link

Photo:
A truck crosses the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge which links the N. Korean town of Siniuju to Dandong (L) in northeast China

                            (Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.)

 

[bdave]

Dunno how trust worthy this is:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/expats-recalled-as-north-korea-prepares-for-war-2145018.html

 

[midget-boyd91]

Apparently the DPRK have readied Surface to Surface and Surface to Air Missiles, placed them on launch pads around the Yellow Sea.

North Korea readies missiles as U.S., South Korea begin drill

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/asia-pacific/north-korea-readies-missiles-as-us-south-korea-begin-drill/article1816291/

And artillery fire has been heard coming from the North

Artillery heard as SKorea, U.S. begin military drills

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20101127/koreas-tension-101127/

 

[bdave]

Seems like shit really is gonna hit the fan.

 

[MPwannabe]

I'm not sure why they can't move the exercise a little away from NK, considering the situation. Is this to prove a point that the US and SK won't be intimidated?

 

[JesseWZ]

That's giving a greedy toddler what they want, every time they ask for it. It raises a greedy and gluttonous adult- which is what we are seeing now. It's a policy of appeasement that has been going on too long in my humble opinion.

 

[a_majoor]

A list of the highest end options (although in practice I doubt you will see this come to fruition). Part one of two:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/americas-grim-options-on-north-korea/

America’s Grim Options on North Korea
Posted By John Parker On November 28, 2010 @ 12:37 am In Asia, China, Homeland Security, Koreas, US News, World News | 62 Comments

For the past week, the stunning report of nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker regarding North Korea’s uranium enrichment program has been sending shock waves throughout the world. This is indeed an extremely grave development, although the most serious aspect of it is not what most people think, i.e., the mere fact that North Korea has the bomb — that particular horse left the barn several years ago.

Instead, the most dangerous aspect of North Korean nuclear-state status is the fact that the DPRK has a very consistent record of selling every weapons technology it possesses to literally anyone who will buy. This record includes the regime’s well-known deal with Pakistan to obtain uranium and uranium enrichment technology in exchange for missiles. Other customers included Iran, Libya, Syria, and Yemen.

To many, the idea that North Korea might actually sell nuclear warheads to Islamic extremists might seem implausible, even for the North Koreans. It is obvious to outsiders that to even attempt this, in the current international climate, would be suicidally reckless. But North Korea is perhaps the ultimate rogue state. It has never paid any attention to the normal rules of international conduct: it sells narcotics; it forges currency; it blows up passenger airplanes; it murders the entire families of defectors; it kidnaps children from neighboring countries; it assassinates diplomats; it digs invasion tunnels; and, as we saw yet again with the Yeonpyeong island attacks, it lashes out militarily whenever it feels the need.

The result of the DPRK’s dramatically enhanced uranium enrichment capacity is a situation much worse than the one which nearly triggered a war in 1994, during the Clinton administration. Compared to then, North Korean nuclear capability is now a fact, not a possibility; and unless action is taken, the regime will begin adding warheads to its arsenal at the rate of perhaps one a month.

What to do now? Unfortunately, we are at the point where the easy options have all evaporated. Contrary to the bizarre conclusion of Dr. Hecker in his report, it is obvious that further direct diplomatic approaches to North Korea itself will be pointless. All the years of frantic diplomacy to date have only succeeded in buying the North time to bring its nuclear weapons program to successful fruition. It is now perfectly clear that, from the very beginning, North Korea was never sincerely willing to bargain away its nuclear activities. And even if that had been the case, how could one trust any agreement with the North, given its consistent willingness to violate agreements almost before the ink was dry?

There are, however, some meaningful countermoves available to the United States and its allies in East Asia, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Two of these measures, in the author’s opinion, are mandatory as the minimum necessary response to the current crisis. In addition, if we are serious about dealing with the North Korean nuclear problem once and for all, there are several more serious steps we urgently need to consider.

Necessary Step 1: Nuclear Terrorism Means War With North Korea

The first immediately necessary step is required because the U.S. must prevent, at any cost, the sale of nuclear warheads by the North. Al-Qaeda is only the most frightening of many possible buyers. The U.S. must now make it clear to Kim Jong-Il, in no uncertain terms, that if a terrorist nuclear weapon ever detonates on U.S. soil, the U.S. will not wait for an investigation before retaliating directly and massively against the North Korean leadership itself. In other words, the North Korean government must be convinced to totally abstain from nuclear proliferation for the sake of its own physical survival; and if a direct threat to the lives of the Kim family is the only way to do that, then such a threat must duly be made.

I first suggested in 2005 [1] that this explicit linkage between any incident of nuclear terrorism and a state of war between the U.S. and North Korea had been made inevitable by the North’s acquisition of nuclear weapons; nothing I have seen since has led me to change my mind. Indeed, the increase in enriched uranium capability implied by the Hecker report has only made the need for this policy more dire.

It is crucial that the personal accountability of the Kim family be openly stated by the U.S. government. It is no longer appropriate or useful to maintain the fiction that the North Korean government exists as a separate entity from the Kim family dictatorship. All the important decisions in North Korea are made by the Kim family, regardless of the family members’ wisdom, qualifications, or competence. The Kim family is supremely indifferent to its neighbors’ desire for peace. Moreover, contrary to its propaganda claims, it does not care a whit for the welfare of the Korean nation; the lives of Korean people; or the reunification of Korea — after all, the North’s acquisition of nuclear weapons has made reunification far less likely, and obviously placed Korean lives in far greater danger, both north and south of the DMZ.

The regime has already proved conclusively, by its own actions, that it cares about one thing and one thing only: the perpetuation of its dictatorial power. That is why it is now necessary for the U.S. to make it clear to the Kims that they will personally be made to pay a price for any nuclear proliferation activity. This might strike many as a crude Mafia tactic unsuited to the U.S. government. Perhaps so, but that very fact is precisely why such a threat would be clearly understood by the Kim family — which is already an organized-crime organization in essence — and lead to an actual change in their behavior, which is now mandatory if we are serious about avoiding a truly apocalyptic war which could pull in China and Japan.

Necessary Step 2: Restore U.S. Nukes to South Korea

The second urgently necessary step is to restore nuclear weapons to South Korea. Until they were removed in 1991 as part of an arms control agreement between the U.S. and USSR, the U.S. maintained several dozen B-61 gravity bombs in the ROK, intended to be used against DPRK armor in the narrow Korean mountain passes if the North ever attacked the South. This step is necessary now simply to provide minimal security for South Korea, in light of the new strategic situation that the North has created with its nuclear program. In fact, it is so obviously necessary that South Koreans themselves have begun to suggest it, something unthinkable only a few years ago when huge crowds were demonstrating in Seoul’s streets against the U.S. presence in the peninsula. The mood in the ROK has changed dramatically since then.

Furthermore, the U.S. should seriously consider going beyond the status quo in 1991, not only in the sense of introducing more modern warheads than the antiquated (and probably decommissioned) B-61s, but as a deliberate strategic step to put economic pressure on Pyongyang. For example, the U.S. and South Korea could jointly announce that, in order to secure the ROK in light of the North’s many provocative acts, the new nuclear policy will be to, at all times, maintain a 5-to-1 numerical superiority in warheads on the peninsula.

This calibrated escalation would have several highly desirable effects. First, it would confront the DPRK regime with the choice of either 1) accepting a permanent state of strategic inferiority (one very obvious to elements of the DPRK military, which might be looking for an excuse to get rid of the Kims), or 2) bankrupting itself to keep up with the increasing warhead count of the U.S.-ROK alliance (we must not forget that the North’s weakest point is its laughable economy). Also, this step will ramp up the pressure on China, which is the only nation that has the power to effect peaceful change in Pyongyang; this is especially the case if Seoul is granted command authority over the nukes (more on this possibility on the next page).

 

[a_majoor]

Part two:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/americas-grim-options-on-north-korea/

More serious options

Is it possible to actually reverse North Korea’s nuclear weapons status without going to war — a feat which no previous policy has come close to accomplishing? In my opinion, yes, but it will not be easy. It will require tremendous nerve — one might even say audacity — and a willingness to bring our full national power to bear, in the clear awareness that these steps could trigger the most serious escalation in international tension since the Cuban missile crisis. No previous administration has been willing to go that far, for good reason. But remember: the alternative we now face is to watch helplessly as Pyongyang sets up a global bazaar for nuclear warheads, with total impunity.

These options basically fall into three groups. The first two are similar: they involve putting serious pressure on mainland China to intervene with Pyongyang. There is absolutely no question that this could work: China holds the balance of power on the peninsula, and the PRC is North Korea’s only international patron. Of course, this would require Beijing to change its policy; to date, the CCP regime has determined that North Korea should be maintained as a useful buffer against a democratic, U.S.-allied South Korea on its border. I, and a significant number of Chinese foreign policy experts, believe this policy to be absurdly outdated and contrary to China’s true national interest. After all, China’s relations with Seoul are excellent; Pyongyang’s recalcitrance has caused endless grief for the PRC, including diplomatic humiliation and holding back the development of China’s northeast region; and most of all, China could use a North Korean collapse as a lever to pressure Seoul to remove American troops from the peninsula (i.e., say, “the price of our non-intervention is that the U.S. must leave”).

Nevertheless, speaking as someone who reads fawning pro-North Korean articles in the Chinese state media on an almost daily basis, it has become quite clear that Beijing will never cease to act as the North’s chief shield and enabler unless it is made to pay a high price for doing so. Of course, putting pressure on the PRC has always been a difficult task, and never more so than now when the PRC is a superpower. But doing so is not impossible. There are two main ways. Both are high-risk, provocative moves with many obvious counter-arguments against them; but as I said, time has run out on the easy options.

Finally, before discussing specific measures, one must dispense with Beijing’s occasional protestation that it is helpless to change North Korean behavior. This is totally false, and it is time to stop apologizing for the PRC’s Korean policy, which has been consistently disastrous in its real-world effects ever since Communist China was founded. China is not only the DPRK’s only military ally, but practically its only remaining commercial partner. Chinese trade and investment has been crucial in keeping the Kim system alive, especially since the conservative Lee Myung-Bak administration came into power in the ROK.

Most importantly, the PRC, unlike the U.S., has a diplomatic option with North Korea that is so powerful that it could virtually resolve the situation with a single phone call, as I suggested [1] several years ago. Namely, Beijing could threaten to publicly abrogate its alliance with North Korea, placing the DPRK totally at the mercy of the U.S., ROK, and Japan. Many would argue that China could never publicly abandon an ally in this way. On the contrary — the PRC, the most realpolitik regime in the modern world, has abandoned allies so many times that this is practically a standard practice for them: Mao snubbed the USSR to meet Nixon; Deng Xiaoping decided to do business with South Korea despite Kim Il-Sung’s frantic requests to desist; Jiang Xemin abandoned Albania to support the Serbs during the Kosovo war; and Hu Jintao has displayed a notable lack of grief for the departed Saddam Hussein regime, as Chinese energy companies poured into Iraq in recent years. Indeed, so strong are the PRC’s pragmatic tendencies that, although this possibility rarely occurs to Americans, one can plausibly argue that North Korea developed nuclear weapons primarily because it feared being abandoned by China, not because it feared a unilateral attack by the U.S.

Serious Option 1: Economic Sanctions on the PRC

The first basic option for putting serious, no-more-Mr. Nice Guy pressure on China is to threaten economic sanctions, such as: crippling tariffs on Chinese exports to the U.S.; an asset freeze; travel ban; etc. Now, anyone reading this can immediately think of at least ten reasons why such steps would be a terrible idea. So can I; believe me, as a business journalist covering China, I can see you those 10 reasons and raise you at least 20 more. But the fact remains, the PRC needs its $300 billion-plus in annual exports to the U.S. (around 6% of China’s economy) a heck of a lot more than the U.S. needs its around $70 billion in exports to China (about 0.5% of the U.S. economy). Years of hand-wringing articles about our trade deficit with China may have conditioned Americans to believe that our pathetic inadequacy as an exporter is an entirely bad thing, but in this context — using a trade cutoff as a threat — it’s actually beneficial, because it means that we have much less to lose from a breakdown in trade than China does.

Another destructive side effect of perspective-challenged journalism on China is that most Americans’ perception of the power discrepancy between the two countries is fundamentally opposite to what it actually is. Not only is the U.S. economy still three times larger than China’s, but the average American is far better cushioned against economic adversity than the average Chinese; 230 years of fairly steady economic growth have seen to that. Moreover, the U.S. economy is largely based on indigenous innovation, whereas China’s is based on the deployment of foreign technology — the supply of which would, at the very least, be drastically reduced by a serious economic dustup with the U.S.

Militarily, China is many years away from being in a position to take on the U.S., not least in nuclear arms. A nuclear arms race with America would cripple China financially. Beijing knows this, which is why its nuclear missiles function only as a deterrent force; if a nuclear exchange did take place at current warhead levels, the U.S. would be terribly bloodied, but China would cease to exist as a modern nation within hours of a nuclear attack on the U.S.

Another aspect of Chinese vulnerability is, as strange as this assertion may sound to American ears, political: Americans typically overestimate the CCP’s political strength. U.S. administrations renew their mandate every four years; over the long term — if not always in the short term — this is a tremendous source of strength and stability for the U.S. But mainland China has never had a legitimately elected government (though Taiwan has). This means that the PRC regime depends on a limited set of options to maintain its popularity, which is constantly drained away by the gross corruption that is an ineradicable structural feature of China’s current political system. The most important of these tools is continued economic growth. Beijing is already facing spiraling discontent in the form of public demonstrations; any serious breakdown in economic relations with the U.S. would almost certainly trigger a depression which could quite possibly lead to the end of the CCP’s monopoly on power.

Serious Option 2: Permit Our Allies to Go Nuclear

Second, the U.S. could to threaten to allow its major allies in the region to match Pyongyang’s procurement of nuclear weapons. This is something that, to date, the U.S. has always actively prevented; for example, in the mid-1970s, the U.S. pressured South Korea to abandon its own nuclear weapons program (Park Chung-Hee was feeling insecure after the U.S. pullout from Vietnam). North Korea, in its folly, has furnished the U.S. with the perfect political cover for this policy: it is absurd for the U.S. to accept a situation where China’s ally has nukes, but America’s allies don’t — we have every moral right to insist on parity.

Also, because the U.S. has three major allies in northeast Asia — South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan — this policy offers the advantage of having a built-in ratchet where the aggressiveness, risk, and likely effectiveness in influencing Beijing to change its policy increases with each step. The least confrontational version would involve threatening to place nuclear weapons under Seoul’s control, something that would be practically impossible for the PRC to oppose under the current circumstances. This version is relatively low-risk because following through on the threat would do little to increase the risk of war (the two nuclear-armed Koreas would deter each other); however, at the same time, it would be highly detrimental to China’s strategic position. For example, the prospect of entering any renewed conflict on Pyongyang’s side would become dramatically more risky for Beijing if Seoul, in addition to the U.S., possessed nuclear arms.

A further escalation would be to accede to Japanese nuclear weapons status; Japan would hardly require assistance in this regard — everyone in Asia knows that Japan could go nuclear on its own within a matter of one to two years at most. Also, it is probably unrealistic to equip Seoul with nukes and not Japan, for two reasons: first, Japan would greatly resent the diminished status that this disparity would imply; and second, given that North Korea’s war plan (according to the late defector Hwang Jeong-Yop) involves a threat to nuke Japan, the Japanese have every right to deter Pyongyang by themselves, irrespective of U.S. policy.

The last stage in this three-step ratchet would be the riskiest and most aggressive, but also absolutely guaranteed to get China’s attention, to put it mildly. This would be to raise the possibility of nuclear weapons in the hands of Taiwan. For the CCP regime, a nuclear Taiwan would be a bona fide foreign policy catastrophe, and Beijing will become apoplectic if this is even suggested.

Nevertheless, the truth is that being cornered in this manner is exactly what the CCP deserves. It has propped up the Kims and winked at North Korea’s nuclear activities for decades; now that matters have deteriorated to the point where the core national interests of the U.S., South Korea, and Japan are imperiled, the time has come for Beijing to start feeling the heat as well. Ultimately, China must choose: does it want to reduce itself to the status of Kim Jong-Il’s guard dog, even at the cost of wrecking its economy and losing Taiwan forever; or does it want to join the mainstream of world civilization — a civilization it will certainly earn tremendous gratitude from by acting constructively (for once) to deal with the threat posed by the Kim regime?

Serious Option 3: Military Action

The third major option, of course, is military strikes. Many levels of action are possible, ranging from air strikes to destroy the North’s nuclear facilities (the location of which is so well known that millions of Americans have seen them on Google Earth), up to and including an all-out war to finish off the Kim regime once and for all. Contrary to popular belief, there are also various intermediate military options. For example, the U.S. and its allies could introduce a naval blockade; conduct a limited “message-sending” land campaign that might occupy an offshore island; or, more aggressively, retake the city of Kaesong (which is just a few miles north of the DMZ, and is actually South Korean territory because it is south of the 38th parallel). The allies could also, in fairly short order, conquer a “security belt” north of Seoul, to alleviate the artillery threat.

Of course, war is horrific to contemplate: it has become almost traditional in the English-language press to use the word “unthinkable” to describe a breakout of full-scale hostilities on the peninsula. There are good reasons for this: northeast Asia is not some third-world backwater; it is one of the most developed and economically crucial parts of the world (save the North Korea-shaped void in its center), densely populated, and crammed with modern industrial infrastructure, including the Seoul, Pusan, Tokyo, Osaka, Tianjin, and Beijing metropolitan areas.

Most writers assume that any military action will quickly escalate into all-out war. It might; but then again, it might not. The Kims are totally amoral, but they are also totally corrupt, and not stupid. Kim Jong-Il knows full well that actually using his nuclear force will mean the end of his regime and quite possibly the death of himself and his entire family. Suppose the U.S. and ROK unexpectedly mount a snap land offensive to secure the artillery belt north of Seoul, along with air strikes against the nuclear infrastructure, while publicly announcing that the objectives are limited. The North will certainly resist conventionally — something the U.S. can easily deal with — but will it actually nuke Seoul? I find this doubtful. And even if such an attack was ordered, how would the weapon be delivered, with ballistic missile launch sites destroyed in the first few minutes of hostilities, and allied airpower roaming the skies at will?

In war, when you are winning, you can use that fact to extract concessions from the enemy. In fear of his own life, Kim Jong-Il might be made to see the wisdom of giving up his nuclear program, and accepting unrestricted weapons inspections, as a condition of a cease-fire. I do not relish the prospect of another extended period of UN inspections accompanied by lying and evasion; however, if this was accompanied by a militarily defanged DPRK with nuclear facilities in ruins, and a more secure South Korean capital, that outcome would be preferable to both the status quo, and a full-scale war that could end with the U.S. fighting China, as the previous Korean war did.

There is also the possibility that China may be actively planning to quickly occupy the North in the event of war — it has already increased troop levels near the Korean border in preparation for this contingency. I do not believe that Beijing took this step because it actually wants to fight the U.S. and South Korea. Fundamentally, a war with the U.S. in Korea is not in the PRC’s national interest; if China must fight the U.S., it wants the conflict to be over Taiwan, not Korea. Rather, I think Beijing’s intention is to halt a total collapse of the North in any conflict and demand a cease-fire line that stops short of a total reunification of Korea.

To avoid a war with the PRC, I think the U.S. would accept such a proposal (though South Koreans would be livid), and Beijing would use its de facto control of the remaining North Korean territory to remove the Kims and place a compliant government in power, one which would abstain from WMD programs. This outcome would meet the security needs of the major powers; a continued division of Korea would be immensely tragic for the Korean people, of course, but South Korea would have a significant expansion of territory and population to console itself with.

Conclusion

It would not be easy for any presidential administration to execute these strategies. It will require nerve, a willingness to throw the dice to achieve a goal that is an urgent national security priority, a willingness to proceed in spite of criticism, and most of all, a tough-minded realism about the nature of the North Korean regime. Oddly enough, when one thinks of an American politician who has the necessary traits, the first name that comes to my mind is John McCain. A pity the senator is not in a position to use those qualities just when America needs them.

Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/americas-grim-options-on-north-korea/

URLs in this post:

[1] 2005: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/GB23Dg02.html

 

[57Chevy]

Patience with North has run out, warns South Korea

SEOUL — South Korea's president has said there is no point in being patient with North Korea any longer, as he warned that his communist neighbours would pay a "dear price" for any future provocations.

North Korea, which claims ownership of the sea immediately around the southern island of Yeonpyeong, meanwhile declared Monday that it was "not afraid of war", explicitly threatening a "rain of dreadful fire" if there is any violation of what it deems its territory.

In his first full address to the nation since Pyongyang shelled Yeonpyeong, killing four people, Lee Myung-bak, the South Korean president, said that "at long last" his country had come to realize that its previous policy of patience with North Korea "no longer makes sense".

"The South Korean people now unequivocally understand that prolonged endurance and tolerance will spawn nothing but more serious provocations," he said.

"We are aware of the historic lesson that a disgraceful peace achieved through intimidation only brings about greater harm in the end.

"If the North commits any additional provocations against the South, we will make sure that it pays a dear price without fail."

In his seven-minute televised address, President Lee, who is facing a wave of anger from South Koreans over his handling of the attack, apologized to his countrymen for what he called a "crime against humanity".

"I am standing here, keenly aware that I am responsible for not having been able to protect the lives and property of the people," the president said. "I understand very well that you were greatly disappointed with how we responded."

Mr Lee's promise of retaliation for any future North Korean attack leaves him with almost no room for manoeuvre in the event of further provocations by Pyongyang.

At the same time, however, the South drew back from staging new live-fire exercises around Yeonpyeong island. Similar exercises last week were blamed by Pyongyang for triggering its attack.

The exercises are separate from joint U.S.-South Korean drills which continue 50 miles to the south.

Pyongyang state media yesterday issued new threats against the South. "We don't want war, but never are afraid of one," the Rodong Sinmun, newspaper said.

"If internal and external war maniacs make a provocation again, we will counter it without hesitation, grub up the base of aggressors entirely and cleanse the root cause of war clearly."

North Korea meanwhile announced it had "cutting-edge" nuclear fusion technology, claiming a breakthrough in a field that has baffled the world's scientific community.

link
                      (Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act)

 

[57Chevy]

Gallery: Demonstrations and War Exercises in the Korean Peninsula

Anti-North Korea demonstrations denouncing North Korea's November 23 attack on Yeonpyeong island. South Korea deployed rocket launchers and extra artillery on a frontline border island bombarded last week by North Korea, as Seoul's leader vowed on November 29 to make Pyongyang pay for any fresh provocations.

Photo:
South Korean war veterans protest during an anti-North Korea rally on November 30, 2010 in Seoul, South Korea. South Korean and American military forces began war games exercises Sunday as tensions between the two Koreas remain high following an artillery exchange on the disputed island of Yeonpyeong on November 24.
Photograph by: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images
23 other photos (link)
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[tomahawk6]

The ROK decision makers response to the shelling of the island was a bit slow. Caution is one thing but the local commander should have the authority to respond. What if an amphibious assault came under cover of the artillery shelling ? Part of the North Korean game plan is to see how fast the ROK can effectively respond to a threat. If they determine that the ROK doesnt want to aggressively respond to a threat the North could well ratchet up the incidents.Sink a ship one day.Mount a limited ground assault another time. At some point the ROK has to take something off of the board that the communist leadership value. Personally I would target infrastructure. Kim Jong Il loves his trains blow some up. Blow the rail line at a point that would take weeks or longer to repair. Blow up oil/gas storage facilities.Tit for tat.

A Credibility Problem In South Korea 

November 29, 2010: The South Korean military has a credibility problem. That's because when Yeongpyeong Island was shelled by North Korean rockets on the 23rd, it took the South Korean self-propelled 155mm K-9 guns on the island 13 minutes to begin returning fire. The South Korean guns fired 80 rounds into North Korea before they were ordered to cease fire at about 3:30 PM, an hour after the North Koreans began firing. The North Koreans had fired 170 122mm rockets at Yeongpyeong, with about half the unguided rockets missing the island and landing in surrounding waters.
The credibility problem arose from the fact that North Korea had fired towards Yeongpyeong Island last January, but the shells from their coastal artillery landed north of the island. It gave everyone a fright, but there was no damage or casualties. The problems arose when the South Korean generals were called before parliament and asked what would happen if the North Koreans actually fired on Yeongpyeong Island. The reply was that South Korea guns on the island would promptly fire three or four times as many shells right back. That was a reasonable statement, if the North Koreans used their 130mm coast artillery weapons. These have a low rate of fire, and there aren't that many of them in the vicinity of the island. But the North Koreans moved up several 122mm rocket launchers, and let the island have it, and then quickly moved before the return fire arrived 13 minutes later. The South Korean generals had told parliament that return fire would begin within minutes, and the K-9s were prepared to do that. But first they had orders to call headquarters and ask permission to commence firing. That took most of the 13 minutes, as alarmed officers and officials at defense headquarters debated what to do. Firing artillery into North Korea could start another war, and no one wanted to be responsible for that.

The South Koreans also sent some fighter-bombers to the scene, including the new F-15K, armed with smart bombs. But these were ordered to stay out of North Korean air space, as an air attack might have escalated the fighting. However, the military was criticized for that as well, because the voters are in an uproar over the state of South Korean defenses, and the performance on the 23rd did not inspire confidence. In the long run, the military will probably be proven right to be prudent, but in the meantime, they have to be careful what they promise the politicians in public.

 

[57Chevy]

U.S., S.Korea wrap up war games amid N.Korea crisis

Gazette article link
SEOUL - The U.S. and South Korean navies Wednesday wrapped up war games meant as a muscular show of force to North Korea, as world powers remained sharply divided over how to deal with the nuclear-armed regime.

Their biggest-ever joint exercise, which saw jet fighters thunder through the sky above a U.S. carrier battle group, began days after Pyongyang stunned the world with a deadly artillery strike on a South Korean island.

The shelling of Yeonpyeong island, which killed two marines and two civilians, infuriated South Koreans and sharply raised public support for a far tougher military response if the volatile North should attack again.

The 10 warships and 7,300 crew taking part in the drill Wednesday carried out "manoeuvres of fleet protection and logistic sustainment under various scenarios of enemy threat", said South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

They also said both sides were planning more drills this month or in early 2011, although no details had been finalized yet.

The North has warned that the four-day Yellow Sea exercises brought the Koreas closer to "the brink of war". In the South, Defence Minister Kim Tae-Young said there was "ample possibility" of another North Korean strike.

The regime of Kim Jong-Il, which has staged two atomic bomb tests since 2006, ramped up tensions when it boasted Tuesday about a new nuclear facility that, experts warn, could be used to produce weapons-grade uranium.

With the Korean peninsula plunged into its worst crisis in years, diplomats at the United Nations and elsewhere struggled to find common ground on whether to punish Pyongyang or seek to engage it in new talks.

Diplomats said China, the long-time patron of the communist regime, has blocked attempts for a UN Security Council condemnation of North Korea over its attack and its new nuclear activities, which contravene UN resolutions.

"Council talks have come to a standstill. It is now very likely that the Security Council will do nothing about North Korea," one said.
Beijing has instead proposed that the six parties to long-stalled North Korean denuclearization talks — the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan — hold an emergency meeting on the crisis.

Washington, Seoul and Tokyo have been cool to the proposal or rejected it.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters: "I think the Chinese have a duty and an obligation to greatly press upon the North Koreans that their belligerent behaviour has to come to an end.

"And I think you'll see progress on multilateral discussions around this over the next few days."

Diplomats are seeking to arrange a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the South Korean and Japanese foreign ministers, though no date has been announced yet.

Envoys from North Korea and Japan are now visiting Beijing, and China's top foreign policy official Dai Bingguo was expected to head to North Korea this week, according to reports.

Russia's deputy nuclear envoy Grigory Logvinov was due in Seoul on Wednesday to meet South Korea's chief nuclear envoy Wi Sung-Lac. Moscow has had friendly ties with Pyongyang but has said its attack last week deserves to be condemned.

The frantic diplomacy is going on against the backdrop of a massive leak of U.S. embassy cables by whistle-blower site WikiLeaks, which adds a new perspective on China's views about North Korea.

China has long supplied the impoverished country with food, energy and diplomatic cover, in part because it fears a regime collapse that would bring a flood of refugees and erase a buffer state with the U.S.-allied South.

But the leaked U.S. cables — although they are second- and third-hand accounts of Chinese officials' views — nonetheless suggest Beijing is growing more exasperated with its neighbour.

The sensitive cables also reflected a view that China may be growing more open to the North eventually being absorbed by the South.
The spike in tensions comes as North Korea's Kim, 68, is thought to be in poor health and readying to hand over power to his youngest son Kim Jong-Un, who two months ago assumed a top military post at the age of 27.

                                (Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act)


edited for coloring :

 

[GR66]

It's a very difficult situation.  I don't doubt that the US and the South (with thier allies) could inflict enough damage on North Korea to cause the collapse of the regime but the cost would be enormous (physical destruction, civilian and military casualties and the massive costs of rebuilding the North afterward).  Who in the South would be willing to initiate such an event knowing those costs?

Unfortunately it seems that short of the regime in the North collapsing in such a way as they don't lash out at the South in an effort to survive, the South may just be seeking to delay an inevitable confrontation.  If it's put off long enough that confrontation may end up involving nuclear weapons that are truly deployable, perhaps even miniaturized enough to be placed on missiles to strike targets outside the area of the front lines which would be even more costly in all ways to everyone involved.

China doesn't want a pro-US South advancing directly to their border...but they obviously wouldn't want to see a nuclear war take place in their back yard either.  Everyone's hoping against hope that by maintaining the status quo we'll all get lucky and see the "least bad" outcome, but the more time that passes the potential "worst possible" outcome becomes more possible.

The balance of power between China and the US that left this war unresolved has allowed it to fester to the point that it may eventually become just as potentially dangerous as the original war it replaced.  The same could maybe be said of similar "unresolved" conflicts like the Arab-Israeli conflict and the US/Arab-Iranian conflict.  Resolving them now (or when the first happened) would be extremely costly but putting off that resolution could eventually result in an even higher cost being paid.

 

[57Chevy]

S.Korea spy chief says more attacks likely:

SEOUL -- North Korea is highly likely to attack South Korea again, the South's spy chief said on Wednesday, as a flotilla of American warships led by an aircraft carrier left South Korean waters after a deadly attack.

"There is a high possiblity that the North will make an additional attack," Won Sei-hoon, director of the National Intelligence Service, told a parliamentary committee meeting.

The South's Defence Minister, Kim Tae-young, has also warned there was an "ample possibility" the North might stage another provocation once a U.S.-South Korea exercise ended on Wednesday.

Won said wire-taps in August indicated Pyongyang was preparing for an attack off the west coast designed to smooth the way for Kim Jong-il's son to take over as leader, Yonhap news agency reported.

"In August this year, we confirmed North Korea's plan to attack five islands in the West Sea through wiretapping," he said. "We didn't expect the (North's) shelling on civilians, as North Korea has often made threatening remarks."

Article continues read more: here

Photo:
Retired South Korean marines burn a cutout photo of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il at an anti-North Korea rally in Cheongju, south of Seoul December 1, 2010.
Photograph by: YONHAP, Reuters
                              (Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act)

 

[57Chevy]

N. Korea warns against further military drills in tense waters:

Yonhap News Agency article link
SEOUL, Dec. 5 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Sunday warned against South Korea's plan to resume fire drills and hold more joint exercises with the United States in waters near their tense western border, saying nobody can predict the consequences of the drills.

  "The political situation on the Korean Peninsula is reaching an uncontrollable level due to provocative, frantic moves by the puppet group," the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a "commissioned" report. "Should a full-scale war break out between the North and the South, this will have grave influence on peace and security on the peninsula and elsewhere in the region."

  The KCNA did not mention who "commissioned" the report, but it is believed to be the all-powerful National Defense Commission or other military authorities.

  North Korea attacked the inhabited island of Yeonpyeong near the tense Yellow Sea border on Nov. 23 with artillery, killing four people. The North justified the assault by claiming that its military had reacted only after the South's troops on the island held live-fire drills and fired into its waters, the usual logic its regime has used as an excuse for past shellings into the waters across the maritime border.

  South Korea's military said the drills were harmless and regular, and that at the time of the North's attack were being conducted on its side of the so-called Northern Limit Line (NLL), the maritime border drawn by the United Nations that Pyongyang does not acknowledge.

  Citing Seoul's plan to resume live-fire drills and discussions with the U.S. to hold additional joint military drills within this year in waters off Yeonpyeong Island, the North threatened, "Nobody can predict how the situation will deteriorate in the future."

  "The U.S. and South Korean puppets should not act rashly, mindful of possible consequences of their military provocations," the report stressed.
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Also from Bloomberg
North Korea Condemns U.S., Japan, South Korea Creating `Military' Alliance:

North Korea denounced the U.S., South Korea and Japan for “reckless moves” to create a military alliance that threatens peace in North Asia.

“The situation on the Korean Peninsula is getting tenser as the days go by and the danger of a war is increasing hour by hour,” the state-run Korea Central News Agency reported, citing a commentary in the Rodong newspaper yesterday. ‘The U.S. is giving spurs to an arms buildup and preparations for a war.”

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have increased since North Korea’s Nov. 23 shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong island that killed two soldiers and two civilians. South Korea’s new defense minister Kim Kwan Jin two days ago vowed retaliation that would include airstrikes if North Korea made another attack.

article continues...,
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