North Korean Logic Explained

Connections ^ | March 3, 2003 | Warren Pollock

[expatpat]

The choices for the US are total war and ruin, or unification between a single Korea on its terms and timetable.....

Just as did Nazi Germany and Japan, and others since, your NK 'contact' is vastly underestimating the size, power, and strength of the US, due to NK's isolation from reality. No way can NK bring the US to ruin, the only country ruined would be Korea, N and S.

[wepollock]

Expat-pat, I think you hit on the paradox of cultural perception.

Kim sees himself as an equal to the US.

Technically with a bunch of nuclear bombs he might not be mistaken.

[sanchmo]

The stated goal of North Korea is to unify the peninsula in a way as to assure national dignity and heritage of a single historic nation free from foreign influence and occupation.

Their actual goal is to (a) keep a tyrant's boot pressed firmly against the neck of his subjects and to (b) increase the number of necks available for stepping. Any talk of dignity and heritage are empty words meant to tickle the ears of the West's useful idiots.

The North Koreans have super-militarized themselves with the intent of applying so much pressure to the Untied States that it will either attack or move away from the peninsula...
US involvement in Iraq just represents an additional opportunity for North Korea to drive the US to one of two choices.

This sounds true. It certainly looks like North Korea is making its choice - and is choosing poorly.

The choices for the US are total war and ruin, or unification between a single Korea on its terms and timetable...
If the US chooses the path of war North Korean attacks will be on the US coastal cities using its merchant fleet as its delivery mechanism.

Total war would certainly mean ruin - but for NK, not for the US. The second the NK leadership decides they want to target the US directly they know their fate is sealed. I don't know hw much history North Koreans know, but the US has proven itself capable of total, devastating war in this part of the world already.

[AmericanInTokyo]

au contraire, wallows in his sense of inferiority towards all men and all things.....

[wepollock]

The total war issue depends on whom hits first and hardest.

Would a loss of a major city be acceptable for the US?

Would the North Korean's rather hit friends and family in South Korea or the people they are still at war with? (Armistice)

[AmericanInTokyo]

...while it is still dangerous and unpredictable at times, I believe it is on the Ceaucescu Fast Track by now.....

[wepollock]

"au contraire, wallows in his sense of inferiority towards all men and all things"

As victim perhaps, highly plausible. The personal and national victim of a history of foreign occupation and dominance. No wonder why a westerner got his ear lopped off when he had a car accident.

[wai-ming]

The US may chose the path of total war and lose everything.

Wrong.

North Korea could choose the path of total war and be wiped off the face of the earth.

[LibertarianInExile]

Bravo, and well said to you. I'm for WAR. Not for half-ass Truman-esque b.s., not for nationbuilding, not for liberating. I'm amazed at the Democrat harping about the costs of WAR. Can anyone imagine saying to Roosevelt, "Um, sir, we'd like to fund this Manhattan Project, too, but it's just too much money? Oh, and about that D-Day idea, well, you see, we need teachers, Mr. President! We can't AFFORD these costs--you'll have to scale your war back to the occasional skirmish."

[wepollock]

"North Korea could choose the path of total war and be wiped off the face of the earth."

It certainly could.

[wepollock]

Imagine the damage if the US backed down. Roosevelt nailed the costs of this kind of failure in the 1904 on his corollary to the Monroe doctrine.

[katana]

One major problem with the analysis is the presumption that an attack by North Korea on the United States and/or Japan would not result in their rather sudden incineration.

Also, reunification of the North and South will be a very lopsided union. The South is hugely more developed and has a military that is quantitatively smaller but qualitatively twenty to thirty years ahead.

On the other hand, if Kim Jong Il is as delusional as he seems, I suppose anything is possible.

[Mr. Mojo]

If the US chooses the path of war North Korean attacks will be on the US coastal cities using its merchant fleet as its delivery mechanism.

In a war-time situation we'd blow any ships clean out of the water that were even remotely suspicious.

[wepollock]

The GAO (Government Accounting Office) thinks otherwise.

In terms of national security the GAO cites "systemic failure and resulting risk inherent through critical areas of government". Some excerpts from the Government Accounting Office - GAO pertaining to our security or lack thereof:

The Department of Energy - DOE must improve management of the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile. Resolve problems in contract management that place DOE at high risk for fraud, waste, and abuse. The Department of Defense (DOD) - confronts pervasive and complex financial management problems that can seriously diminish the efficiency of the military services' support operations. Significant management problems continue to impact the economy, effectiveness, and efficiency of DOD's business processes. This places mission capability at risk by unnecessarily spending funds that could be directed to higher priorities such as modernization and readiness. Infrastructure costs continue to consume nearly 44 percent of its budget, detracting from DOD's ability to spend funds on more critical needs such as weapon system modernization and readiness. The Department of Agriculture poorly secures biological agents. It does not provide policies or procedures for agencies to follow to manage security at laboratories. The department lacks a consolidated database to identify the location and risk levels of the biological agents at laboratories; and some laboratories failed to follow requirements to maintain an inventory of their biological agents and other laboratories had inaccurate inventories. Also, many of the laboratories reviewed lacked alarm systems, security fences, and surveillance cameras. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) faces many challenges, including unfocused or ineffective efforts at combating benefit fraud, unauthorized employment, and alien smuggling. The, FAA's Air Traffic Control modernization efforts continue to be at high risk.

The list goes on and the tip of the iceberg can be seen in failing programs like the Osprey which continue to kill soldiers, or prohibitively costly programs such as the B1 which are partially decommissioned and the B2 bomber which delaminates. It has taken so long for our nation to position our military towards Iraq we need to consider the probability that we could not mobilize effectively shortly after 9-11 even though we held the strongest international political position at that time.

[Quix]

I'll send your query to my friend and see what he has to say.

My own sense would be that the cultural gestalt for 'US' AGAINST 'THEM' would be strong enough to be virtually irrational. It seems to be so with the Chinese. And the Koreans have been subjugated a long more and more brutally.

They are thankful for the standard of living.

But there seems to be a growing sense of the guest who came for dinner and never went home. It's not necessarily rational.

I suspect if there were an option to give sufficient of our nukes to the SKoreans, they'd be glad to have us gone almost in a flash.

Here's an interesting cryptic item from Snodgrass for whatever it's worth.

"I will be posting a prophetic update at the end of the week, dealing with the significance of 03/03/03, and what really happened behind the scenes when four North Korean MIG's intercepted a U.S. reconnaissance plane in the Sea of Japan on March 3, 2003. The world was closer to a third world-war on 03/03/03 than most realize."

By the way, don't hold your breath on his updating. He gets around to it when he gets around to it which tends to be considerably later than he aims to.

Anyway--I'm glad Yong Yi Cho's million person church is praying 24 hours a day regarding all this. I suspect war would have already broken out otherwise.

[wepollock]

"On the other hand, if Kim Jong Il is as delusional as he seems, I suppose anything is possible"

It is a matter of perspective. I characterize him as ruthlessly logical. The bases of his assumptions are not understood (or even correct by our standards). We are thinking that he is delusional, which might not be the case.

[Quix]

It depends on a lot of contingencies.

IF

We force Israel to go along with giving up the West Bank; continue to gleefully invest in infanticide for convenience; continue to pump porn at rapid rates to the rest of the world; continue to reward and glorify corruption and insanity a la Dillbo and Shrillary; continue to demonstrate rank immorality and arrogance etc. etc.

THEN God will likely pull back His massive protection.

THEN massive natural disasters will further weaken us.

AND THEN

North Korea, Russia, China, Mexico, Lybia, Cuba, Venezuela, ?France? ["some European country"] will nuke and invade us as so many have had dreams and visions of.

[Quix]

Certainly the delusions of the very ILL Jong are sobering and hazardous.

Also hazardous up aside him are our own understandable cautions in nuking anyone. I HOPE and pray we don't hesitate when we should not and cannot afford to.

But sometimes we can fail--perhaps terminally fail--to act quickly and decisively even when our survival depends on it.

[Quix]

The Pueblo incident is not a gleaming indication of our responsiveness.

[wepollock]

"I will be posting a prophetic update at the end of the week, dealing with the significance of 03/03/03, and what really happened behind the scenes when four North Korean MIG's intercepted a U.S. reconnaissance plane in the Sea of Japan on March 3, 2003. The world was closer to a third world-war on 03/03/03 than most realize."

--These issues are running like a train on a perfect schedule. (My guess is that the train will stop before NK can economically implode, which could take years)

--The WWIII perspective is exactly one of the NK strategies. Biden (who can be very hard to understand) talked about something called a "Hopis" choice. The Hopi indians had two choices bad and worse. That is the kind of scenario the NK's are looking to build.

--I see the reason for not talking to Korea, but as long as you are talking you might not solve the problem but you are not shooting at each other.

--Talking would most likely culminate in a "bad" choice not the "worst" choice

--As McCain indicated this is a CRISIS.