It's All About North Korea: Beyond the Iraqi sideshow.

National Review Online ^ | March 5, 2003 | Stanley Kurtz

[dennisw]

bttttttttttttt

[alloysteel]

North Korea is China's stalking horse. Bad Boy Kim Jong-Il makes noises and feints out to the side, to keep the attention of the world and the US focused upon themselves, and China observes our response. And for that reason, our response to North Korea's provocations must be measured, and somewhat unpredictable, which serves to confound the planners in the Chicom regime in Beijing. At the moment, the US is just teasing NK, not threatening by words, but by actions, like moving long-range heavy bombers to Guam, and sending out surveillance planes with armed fighter escort. Meanwhile, we maintain the position that NK is the problem for Seoul, Tokyo, Moscow and Beijing, not Washington.

It is not like NK was a real country or anything.

[jpl]

Woof.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I don't know that NK has placed us in any kind of bind.

[SevenDaysInMay]

IMHO, Saddamn has Dear Leader on the payroll, to make nasty so that we divert resources to the NK theater of the absurd.

NK is imploding as more than 10% of the population has died. That is mere "history", as Stalin said. The surviving including the military know that they are on the edge of a very long fall from Grace.

Will the NK politburo decide to trigger real war pretending that they will be saved by the UN or just continue tactical murder by skirmish?

What would the USA if another 31 American aircrew were lost to Russian supplied Migs? It happened during the Viet Nam show. Like the Pueblo incident, we played paper tiger.

What can only two dozen more old bombers do against the Peoples' Republic, Dear Leader must proudly ask as he swaggers to his next submissive conquest, after his saucy imported dinner with French wine. Ahhhh, the French.

[Myrnick]

I wonder if we shouldn't just disengage from the penninsula all together? The South Koreans make noises like they don't want us there and they make attempts to appease the dwarf from da norf.

If we just left, that might be enticement enough for Kim Jong-Il to move south. We would then have an excuse to "save the day." Without that excuse, I'm afraid it is lose/lose all the way around.

[Always A Marine]

I don't know that NK has placed us in any kind of bind.

He is causing us fits. While we are committing fully half of our combat power against Iraq, North Korea starts rattling sabres above the heads of 37,000 U.S. Army and Air Force personnel deployed in the beaten zone of any PDRK invasion. While we still have the other half of our military earmarked for the defense of South Korea, almost all of our strategic sealift and airlift is already committed to deploying and sustaining the Iraqi invasion. Kim knows this, and is ramping up the pressure -- forcing us to consider a nonconventional response to any invasion. This is not a good situation at all...

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Makes you wonder why we have:
a)37,000 troops in and around the DMZ, or
b)would more troops be a good idea, or
c)should we keep troops closer to Pusan.

[John H K]

I know I've mentioned this before but I have to harp on this as every single article about Korea now has some insanely high figure for South Korean civilian casualties...

But I think they're WILDLY inflated. The amount of DPRK artillery that can actually hit Seoul from behind the DMZ is a lot less than people think.

And there's no freaking way a million people are going to be killed in Seoul by shelling in a few days, as most articles seem to imply.

Even mass firebombing of people in flammable houses by the US in WWII couldn't kill more than 100,000 at a time.

[Steel Wolf]

Very good article. The only thing I would add is a comment about the timeframe of a future conflict. The author posits a six year or so schedule, but he's probably closer to the mark when he said six months. North Korea simply won't survive six years without massive U.S. aid, on a scale of what Clinton was providing. Failing that, (like right now, for instance), North Korea has no choice but to rattle the sabre and attempt to scare us into backing down and quietly paying them off.

They don't have much time unless we help them survive. If we don't help them survive, and Bush takes out their nuclear weapons program with a military strike, then they have no long term prospects at all. Six years just isn't in the cards.

[ModelBreaker]

there is now a genuine divergence of interest between the South Koreans and ourselves. The policy that best saves Washington and New York most risks Seoul.

This is the essence of the problem. NK is holding Seoul hostage. We cannot eliminate NK WMD without NK killing many in Seoul--it is within range of NK artillery.

The only way to eliminate those WMD and save Seoul is to take out the NK military within range of Seoul virtually instantaneously. The only way to do that is tactical nukes. Not a pretty set of choices.

* Negotiate and appease. Result, the virtual certainty that NK plutonium will end up in American cities someday.

* Take out NK WMD capability. Result. Seoul burns. Thousands dead. US, not NK and China, blamed. The entire peninsula could end up controlled by the NK.

* Take out NK WMD capability and the NK army simultaneously with tactical nukes. Result. We cross the nuclear threshold with no first use of WMD by the enemy. Radiation kills many civilians in NK and SK.

None of these choices look very good. If we don't take the second or third choice very soon, it's moot anyway. By all reports, NK will be producing plutonium in about a month. Once they have it, it will disappear and we will not be able to take out their WMD with bombers.

That's why this is all happening now, when we have our forces concentrating in Iraq.

[jpl]

And there's no freaking way a million people are going to be killed in Seoul by shelling in a few days, as most articles seem to imply.

For crying out loud, they're talking about his deliverable nuclear warheads, not his artillery. He's got two of them already, and he's going to be able to start mass producing them within the next several months.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

Of course, until they actually land on the ground, it cannot be assumed with certainty that the MiddleEast is the actual destination of the most recent divisional deployments.

[Steel Wolf]

The casualty figures are plausible, its just the methods are not. You are correct in noting that a few hours of shelling won't produce as many casualties as the author is talking about.

That having been said, artillery pounding densely packed cities will cause terrible casualties. A city with skyscrapers has never been shelled that heavily before, you'd see the whole skyline collapse in short order. Even so, the shells alone would only, like you said, probably kill off one or two hundred thousand before they could get out of town.

Many casualties will come from chemical weapons. If you have any notion that North Korea won't use them for some reason, part with it immediately. Their doctrine calls for persistant strikes in population centers south of Seoul, and non-persistant strikes on troop and civil concentrations in the path of their advance.

A massive refugee problem will soon erupt, and disease and starvation will claim many as food distribution networks on the densly populated peninsula break down. This is what generally kills off most civilians in war, anyways. If the war drags on for any amount of time, I'd expect to see civilian casualties (SK, that is) number around one million, if we could wrap it up in a few weeks, then it would be less.

[Always A Marine]

Makes you wonder why we have: a) 37,000 troops in and around the DMZ, or b) would more troops be a good idea, or c) should we keep troops closer to Pusan.

Such is the crushing financial and military burden of empire, which will become more and more prohibitive. Our forces in Korea have always been intended as a "tripwire" which would commit us to war if the PDRK attacked. Enough American blood to make us fight, but not enough to win without massive reinforcement [see OPLAN 5027]. They are in the right place to influence the fight, but I question whether they should be there in the first place..

[Question_Assumptions]

I've been getting a feeling that we might attack NK before or while we attack Iraq. I, too, get the feeling that NK is really the main event.

[Always A Marine]

Of course, until they actually land on the ground, it cannot be assumed with certainty that the MiddleEast is the actual destination of the most recent divisional deployments.

Thou art a thinking man, Mr. Stackhouse...

[John H K]

That assumes that everyone in Seoul politely stays where they are in every building they're in and calmly waits to die.

And the number of tubes that can hit Seoul numbers a few hundred. To get more tubes on Seoul assumes the DPRK makes progress in an invasion and would require moving artillery forward in the open; I submit they won't have much success in getting anywhere.

And I also submit the mass casualty ability of chemical weapons, even against civilians, is somewhat overstated.

Any of the infamous tunnels they pop out of are gonna get the exits closed by bombs VERY quickly.

I'm always DEEPLY suspicious of "casualty" (of course casualties ALWAYS mutate into "deaths" in the media) that are nice round numbers, like 1 million. I don't think that number is the result of anything resembling a valid analysis.

[r9etb]

I guess the real question is -- or ought to be -- what happens if Kim Jong Il suddenly becomes "unavailable for service?"

Does NK fall apart, or does it commit suicide in a mad attack against the South? I suspect it would fall apart.