Targeting North Korea: Let’s Think Like a Kim
This dynamic — horrible incidents, followed by acts of resolve, and then payment of rewards — continues. No one outside North Korea likes it, but no one wants to risk war with the Kim family regime. How do we finally break this iron cycle?
Here’s a suggestion: Let’s think like a Kim. Kim commits minor acts of aggression because he knows he can get away with them. Case in point: He sinks the Cheonan, and two things happen. The president of the Security Council reads a statement, and then Seoul and Washington conduct military drills. Kim, who is not adversely affected by either of these moves, knows we will not start a war to avenge his acts of murder.
So let’s recognize that Kim won’t start hostilities if we retaliate with small steps that injure his regime. He knows that a general conflict on the Korean peninsula will destroy his state. So he won’t start one if he has any hope of continuing his family’s rule. This situation gives us considerable room for maneuver.
To stop his acts of killing, we have to make him hurt. For example, after the sinking of the Cheonan, Seoul could have closed down the Kaesong industrial zone, which is just north of the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas. There, about 120 South Korean businesses employ around 44,000 North Korean workers. That, by itself, would deprive Kim of a substantial source of funding because Pyongyang skims a large portion of the wages.
Similarly, we can cut off North Korea’s access to the international financial system. The Bush administration did just that in September 2005 when it declared Banco Delta Asia, a bank Kim used in Macau, to be a “primary money laundering concern.” As such, no financial institution would do business with it. And as a result, North Korea, for two years, had to use its diplomats to ferry cash in bulging suitcases around the world. And, lo and behold, Kim Jong Il did not start a war even though the U.S. Treasury Department crippled his government.
Washington, in the wake of the Cheonan incident, has announced a new set of financial sanctions, but they are too narrowly crafted. Why not expand them and really injure Kim? This would be a particularly good time to do that because he is in failing health and preoccupied by the internal opposition to his efforts to install his 27-year-old son, Kim Jong Un, on the throne.
Similarly, we can ring the waters around the North with frigates and begin inspecting all cargoes on the high seas. Similarly, we should search every plane leaving North Korea when they land in countries friendly to us. Kim has been exporting nuclear technologies to Iran and Syria, so we need to stop him in any event.
Kim will not start a war if we employ the same tactics against him that he uses against us. And if we do not change our approach toward his aggressive regime, we know one thing: the killing of Americans and South Koreans will continue.
Just call the idiots bluff for christ sakes.. Get this over with and if he really does something stupid then put him out of his misery… for good…
Why anyone would cringe when this freakin toad speaks is beyond me….
Toppling Kim Jung Il is not as easy as you seem to think.
The border between North and South Korea is only around 20 kilometers – roughly 15 miles – north of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. Seoul is a city of several million people. North Korea’s conventional artillery alone could kill very large numbers of South Koreans and, as I understand it, large quantities of North Korean artillery is deployed along the border in ways that make it very hard to knock out. (I believe a lot of the North Korean artillery is sheltered under huge rock outcroppings or something along that line.)
That’s not the entire strategic picture by any means but the point is that no one can simply drop a few bombs and neutralize the North Korean threat; they can do a lot of damage to South Korea before a US/South Korean effort could hope to end the North Korean regime.
As desireable as it would be for all concerned – except the top figures in the North Korean regime of course – to see North Korea freed and reunited with the South in a democracy, getting there is not going to be a simple. In addition to all the artillery along the border, the North Koreans have a very large standing army and appear to have at least some nuclear capability although no one seems to be sure how much.
The real tragedy, of course, is the horrible lives the North Koreans lead in their Stalinist dictatorship. Just getting enough to eat is a major challenge there much of the time and even young children can find themselves in the North Korean gulag over minor offenses. I read an interview with a man who had been arrested, with his entire family, when he was just 8 years old. They were sentenced to one of the gulag’s camps for 10 years. (I don’t remember what pretense the regime used to arrest them but I believe it was just a minor criticism of the government.) Eventually, after completing his sentence, this man managed to sneak out of the country by crossing its border with China and then managed to make his way to South Korea where he could finally tell his story. The part of the story that really struck in my mind was his description of the conversations in the camps among the inmates. Do you know that they constantly asked themselves why the Americans weren’t invading? They longed for an invasion: they felt it was the only chance that they had to be freed of their appalling Marxist regime.
Try to picture a world in which you HOPED for an invasion by foreigners – who had been constantly demonized in your media – as the only hope of overthrowing your miserable government and having a normal life….
Call his bluff? OBAMA?!!!!
Bwahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahaha ha ha *gasp*
*wheeze*
*fall down*
spasm *gasp*
“Medic!”
I don’t speak for anyone, but I’ve had enough of getting taunted, bad mouthed by half pint ‘leaders’ of 3rd World/near 3rd World-condition countries.
Kim, Chavez, Ahmadinejad, Mugabe for starters (the entire U N body to round it out..). If it weren’t for PC/limp wristed responses by our ‘leaders’ (Sanctions? Seriously?), I’m not hinting or insinuating to introduce violence or war – but having a stiffer upper lip when it comes to these despot leaders.
ah….remember how ‘Godfather I’ ended? Don Corleone makes a clean sweep of all his enemies. I’m just sayin……
While I totally agree in general tommyd, the 15000 +\- artillery tubes in range of and pointed at Seoul are an issue to be dealt with and to this point in history a safe answer has not been found since the 50′s. It would not be and is not just something that can be ignored when he controls those tubes.
DO NOT doubt a Götterdämmerung would be an option that was out of the question with this unstable regime.
It is a situation that has to be nuanced sadly, and he knows it. If unleashed that artillery would DESTROY a vibrant modern city of 9.8 million in 2005. We cant have that obviously. While my considered opinion is VERY similar to your stated its just not a feasible option at this time. Which is of course why its NOT been done yet.
Regards.
Don’t forget this horrific axe murder of two US soldiers in 1976
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axe_murder_incident
This is pure crap. Let South Korea take care of it’s own border. We have an invasion here on the southern border.
Well said Leatherneck!
We need a big stick on the border to show we can take care of our own affairs – South Korea can take of theirs. Unfortunately, we will have war soon enough on the peninsula as it is only a matter of time. In any event, we should as a super power be able to knock some heads around to make a point and still maintain peace. Peace comes from force in this world and that’s a fact!
The “Targeting North Korea” article has inspired me to spend several hours reading various accounts from North Korean refugees who managed to escape their disaster of a country. Each is interesting and worthwhile in its own way but I’ll just post one example here; I know people have busy lives and don’t have the time to read dozens of articles.
This article tells about a young man who was BORN in a labor camp in North Korea and describes his life until the point where he was finally able to escape the camp – as an adult – and then the country: http://www.northkoreanrefugees.com/2007-09-atbirth.htm.
If you ever think your life is miserable or even unendurable, read what THIS guy had to go through. It will make you grateful that your problems aren’t much MUCH worse, like his…..
The artillery targeting Seoul could be eliminated in a few minutes with well placed nukes. Why are we afraid to use them? We would rather see thousands of civillian deaths? The use of nuclear weapons against Japan helped keep the Soviets at bay, they knew we would use them. Nowadays the Chinese are not so sure. We have become a paper tiger due to Liberal Progressive goo goo ism. It is only a matter of time before our enemies call our bluff.
The only country other than the United States POTUS Obama Barack H. AKA Barry Sortero (D) (PBUH) is Israel.
He will NOT bomb a communist or muslim country.
He will not bomb anybody.
Anonymous
[.......The artillery targeting Seoul could be eliminated in a few minutes with well placed nukes. ..........]
The Nork HARTs (Hardened Artillery sites) are a indeed a hard nut to crack but are by on means invincible/impregnable. I have every confidence that the US military and/or Sork military have had a solution (probably non-nuclear)in place for decades to netralize/destroy these Harts on short notice…..likely inevitable when the first HART tube fires…and the Norks know that.
It is unreasonable that such a large city would be under a virtual sword of Damocles without a shield in place…..we did have men walk on the moon
doncha know.