Turning the Tables on North Korea
The conflict with North Korea is a Catch-22. On the one hand, ignoring the regime’s provocations guarantees they will continue and will escalate. On the other, the West does not want to risk war and destabilization makes it more likely that corrupt officials will sell expertise, weapons, and even WMDs to high-paying customers. At the moment, there is no viable opposition group that can replace the regime. The West seems stuck, but a proper understanding of the regime’s behavior does offer a way to deter Kim Jong-Il and Kim Jong-Un, his youngest son and successor.
The artillery barrage was part of a methodical escalation. Prior to the attack, Kim Jong-Il and his son met with the military officials in charge of the area from which the artillery would be fired. Shortly before this, the regime showed off a new uranium enrichment site to an American nuclear expert and told him that 2,000 centrifuges had been installed. The North Koreans also shot at a South Korean border post on October 29 and began constructing a lightwater reactor.
These provocations coincide with a purge of the military and the governing political party. Defectors say that older officers are being replaced as it is unlikely that the older leaders will follow a 26-year old with no military experience and no qualifications to lead them beyond his last name. About 1,000 officials in the party have been arrested and 20 to 30 executed to stifle any dissent or potential internal challenges. The simultaneous provocations and purge indicate the two are aimed at a common objective: securing the rise of Kim Jong-Un.
Knowing this, it appears the U.S. has two broad options: Ignore North Korea, denying the regime the tension it seeks, or react and potentially give the regime what it wants. The problem with the first option is that if Kim Jong-Il and his son feel a crisis is necessary for their survival, they will keep upping the ante until they get it. Dismissing them just guarantees greater provocations. That leaves the second option of retaliating, but this must be done in such a way that it discourages future aggression. The key is to cause a backlash among the military he’s trying to secure his hand over. If the provocations are done for stability, then we must make them result in instability. If their goal is to unite the regime, then division is what must happen.
The quickest way to pop the NK balloon is to follow the European model: the final nail in the East German coffin was the opening of the Austian/Hungarian border. If SK were to cordon off a large section along the DMZ and announce that that section of the DMZ were now open to any and all NK defectors who wanted to flee south with blanket amnesty for NK military defectors, the regime would collapse overnight.
The problem with your idea is that its suicide for the South Korean government and nation. Economically, the South can’t handle the influx. As it is, the Germans barely survived when the wall came down.
“At the moment, there is no viable opposition group that can replace the regime.”
Sure there is, it’s called “China.” Are you telling me that if China wanted to have its own people run North Korea, it could not do so? China could change governments there in a heartbeat, and Kim Jong Il knows it. Problem is, China likes having South Korea, Japan, and especially the United States preoccupied with the insane people in North Korea. And North Korea has made a living on bluffing the west that it will attack the south. No it will not. North Korea knows that attacking the south will mean the end of North Korea and both Kim Jong Il and China will not have that. It’s about time we stood up to these psychopaths. Nothing, and I mean nothing, clarifies the mind of a dictator more than the sight of four carrier battle groups steaming off his coast. Time to call their bluff, before North Korea actually sells a nuclear bomb to a terrorist group.
Good grief, so much of this is what I think is or about to happen to Iran.
The key contribution of this article is that every scenario which follows the will of Kim Jong-Il ends in total war, either conventional or nuclear. This conclusion is not held either in China, South Korea, or the US; the political pain is too great to face reality. What is omitted in the article is China’s interest, the great and reasonable fear of millions of starving refugees pouring across her border, due to catastrophe.
Our ally is electronics, the capability to communicate with the people of North Korea, overcoming the government’s primitive blockage. We should institute a preplanned Marshall plan with China, which will cost money, and be triggered by the next murder by the North. Food, and fuel should go to China, to be used along her unstable border, concurrent with limited military attacks, solely on military targets, e.g. communication and radar sites. Degrade their detection and coordination, but no GI footprints. The key issue is what a fat China will really accept on her border? Today it is a nut with the bomb; that is our lever.
macarthur doesn’t look like such a fool after all, 50 years later, now does he?
I say all out attack.
Fire 5000 tomahawks in the first 5 min. Then send in the air force. Lets make it hot and lets make it quick.
I like this course of action from a retired intelligence professional friend of mine:
I hate all this hand-wringing about not having any good options to contain or counter North Korean aggression. If it were up to me, after the sinking of the Cheosan South Korean frigate, I would have put assets in place to make sure that every North Korean submarine, minisub, and submersible that left their underwater tunnel bases to go out to sea would suffer some unspecified terrible accident, lost at sea with all hands, without the chance for even a distress call back to base… After 5 or 6 of those went down, the North Koreans would get it through their communist pig-fornicator heads that if they don’t want us or the ROKs to #$%^ with them, then they sure as hell better not @#$% with us or the ROKs! Other than the 12,000 or so “political tripwire” 2nd ID US troops and some USAF folks at Osan AB, the North Koreans would have very little leverage on the US with the threat of war. We could sit off their coast and launch T-LAMs and ALCMs for months. You cannot really negotiate with the North Koreans, as we should have learned since 1952! Either they do not listen, or they’re very good at hard-nosed “doomsday-threat” negotiations, at which we cannot match them.
State Department weenies then wring their hands some more and fear that any military counter or FDO [Flexible Deterrent Option] against North Korea will bring down those 5500 missiles and artillery tubes on Seoul, to turn it into a “lake of fire and blood.” What we would then need to do is to let the North Koreans know in advance and in no uncertain terms that the destruction of Seoul means not only the destruction of Pyongyang and every other North Korean city above the size of a hamlet, but also the no-holds barred destruction and replacement of the North Korean regime—which is precisely what these assholes are trying to preserve by their posturing and aggression! They should also know that it would not be US forces driving into Pyongyang, but the ROKs, and that the ROKs would know how to wreak revenge upon key members of the “Korean People’s Workers Party” for their crimes against humanity these past 65 years!
I say bring all troops home out of there, encourage S.Kor. to open its border and ignore NK. Let the region deal with it. It’s on the other side of the world for crying our loud.
Let ‘em send all the nuclear knick knacks around that side of the world they want to. Sooner or later there will be another Chernobyl and every country down wind can put their two cents in. India’s such a big shooter nowadays, let them put their intelligence people to work. They’re the ones downwind of Iran and Pakistan.
What in the world is it going to take to get the US to knock off committing the same stupid mistakes since after WW II? Planes flying into New York skyscrapers? We are the nosy, noisy and sick neighbor down the block.
Shut up you steaming liberal piece of feces. It’s all America’s fault? Be glad I don’t have some of my retired friends backtrace your info and pay you a midnight visit. The only reason I don’t is that you’re not worth getting into trouble over. Hope I never meet you. The urge you create within me is both very powerful and very violent.
Oddly enough, I used to know a Jim May. He had more sense in his little fingers than you do in your entire body. America’s fault indeed.
Opening the DMZ on the SK side won’t do anything. The NK side is a problem.
The real opportunity is have China allow North Koreans in China to go to South Korea. Treat them as refugees. This would cause a regime collapse. Unfortunately China and South Korea really don’t want this to happen.
Reagan sent Qaddafi a message via a 500 pound smart bomb into one of his tents.I think Kim il Jong needs a cruise missile through his bedroom window at about 3AM.
We don’t need any more enemies, nor do we need a nuclear war. I hope we can keep these people in their prison camp and not rattle the cage. At least they don’t have any Islamic terrorists blowing things up, I think?
The North has thousands of artillery pieces trained on Seoul. They don’t want to destroy it. It’s their best insurance, short of a nuclear exchange, to keep the status quo the way it is. If war breaks out, though, the people of Seoul had better get to their bomb shelters because the North will have assumed the game is up and the US and the South are bent on regime change. For the South to make this decision it will mean they have accepted that Seoul will be a ruin by the time those hidden artillery emplacements have all been eliminated. Despite being the most odious regime on Earth the North not only has its chess pieces in the right places it has already declared checkmate were Seoul is concerned.
Perhaps the solution is the opposite of Aztikal’s proposal. China should close its border with NK. The Chinese govt should tell the NK govt “We reopen the border if you behave every day for the next four month. We will close it again the next time you make war.” Obama could tell the Chinese that is what he wants them to do, if he wanted. If Obama has no leverage over the Chinese government then he is not trying very hard.