Psyops Updates
Kim Jung-Wook, the Joongang Ilbo’s Washington Correspondent, thinks that the Cheonan Incident has revived the U.S.-Korea alliance, but frankly, the end result may well be the exact opposite. No, the incident didn’t raise tensions in a way that makes obvious the many conflicts in the two states’ interests, and yes, President Obama has shown more backbone than the North Koreans probably expected. The problem with this theory is that so far, there has been no significant response to the attack from either South Korea or the United States, which means that the military deterrence of North Korea has reached a critical point of failure. If the two governments fail to implement an effective response to the attack that deters the next one, you’ll begin to see a lot of Koreans ask exactly what security benefit the alliance confers on South Korea anyway.
But then, the alliance is about creating the illusion that we might use conventional military force, and the best that the threat of conventional military force can hope to accomplish is to preserve a degrading stasis. It is political and psychological warfare that are the keys to the initiative in Korea, and which will determine the outcome of the Korean War. South Korea is flunking its opportunity to win through psychological warfare because it doesn’t get this, and because it has already lost the loyalty of so much of its own population. North Korea has the ability to mobilize millions of South Korean voters, activists, and union members — directly and otherwise, with their knowledge and otherwise — because it does get this.
And yet South Korea seems lacking in the will to do anything that would reach ordinary North Koreans:
“We completed the first round of loudspeaker installment June 9, but haven’t decided on when to resume the propaganda broadcasts,” said a South Korean military official who asked for anonymity. “We’ll make that decision after seeing what progress is made at the UN Security Council.
The official said that setting up the loudspeakers is just the first step toward putting pressure on the North’s military, which has threatened to shoot down the loudspeakers if the broadcasts are resumed. [Joongang Ilbo]
Let’s hope the South Koreans give more thought to message and media alike, because I suspect that because of North Koreans’ puritanical programming about sex, messages like this, however much appeal they have for sweaty middle-aged white guys, will backfire on the small North Korean audiences they actually reach.
Frankly, if you want to know what messages will persuade North Koreans, I suggest asking a North Korean. Michael Gerson, writing in the Washington Post, talks about Radio Free North Korea, the potential of psyops, and the opposition it has attracted from “unification activists”:
It is a risky, lonely task. Defectors are living reminders of heroic, dangerous struggles that prosperous, comfortable South Koreans would sometimes prefer to ignore. “Korean socialist groups,” says Kim, “held demonstrations, forcing us to move from location to location. In the mail, we got axes covered in blood. North Korea sent spies. Hackers attacked our Web site. At some point, all of us started carrying Tasers for self-protection. Even now there are two policemen waiting downstairs who protect me.”
One day, the files of the Reconnaissance Bureau of the Chosun Workers’ Party will make for very interesting reading for some, and very embarrassing reading for plenty of South Koreans.
I think you continue to underestimate the propensity of the average South Korean – and Chinese, Russian, and Japanese – bureaucrat to crave stability. And, the US and the majority of Americans are in no mood for a third war. Now, devise a way to square the circle by stabilizing the country and quietly getting rid of the leadership, and no one would notice a change. It would be as if the country didn’t exist. Wait, for most people, it doesn’t!
http://www.psywarrior.com/OpnJilli.html Here’s a very good article on Operation Jilli, which was the US PSYOPS program in Korea post-Korean War. We should start doing something like this again.
One day, the files of the Reconnaissance Bureau of the Chosun Workers’ Party will make for very interesting reading for some, and very embarrassing reading for plenty of South Koreans.
Indeed. I just worry that files will be destroyed days before (or after) the will go down or for decades buried deep in top secret archives of post-unification Korea (“for the sake of re-conciliation”, of course).
Joshua is 100% correct that the Norks get this while the South precariously guards their economy as if that is what is really holding the DPRK at bay.
The Juche cult propagandists are nothing less than religious zealots who know every weakness in the human mind and ruthlessly exploit fear in order to pursuade ‘converts.’ What is sad is that for many in the South, this religious message has not earned creedence (although there ARE neo-Jucheists in the RoK) but credibility. That is to say, South Koreans are not ready to defect to the
Worker’s ParadiseHell Hole up north, but afford credulity to the fear-mongering promulgated by the DPRK and KWP.I was told by a RoK liberal last week that if free and open elections were held conjointly by both Koreas for a single leader, all of North Korea would vote for a Kim Il-sung descendant and enough South Koreans would vote for him as well making the DPRK the defacto government of all Korea. This is not lost on the priests of the Juche cult, believe me.
I think the problem in the South is that the government lacks legitimacy in the eyes of a significant portion of the population. That’s because so many of the government officials in the past worked for the Japanese and the present government has many people whose relatives worked for the Japanese. In north Korea those people were purged.
Personally I think the north’s driving factor is race, not Juche. The people up north know the South lives better but the north drives home the point that only they can keep the Korean people/race pure.
PBAR, Juche has incorporated many racial factors into the state religion among which is the doctrine that the su ryong (great leader) must be a descendant of Kim Il-sung and that Tan Gun, mythical ancestor of the Koreans (supposedly born on Mt. Paekdu) corresponds to Kim Jong-il (in the Juche narrative).
Remember, the great theme of Juche is the reunification of Korea under the leadership of KIS, whom Juche claims is alive. The DPRK Constitution says the KIS is the ‘eternal leader of (all) Korea.’ Confucian filial piety is a large part of the obesiance paid to KIS – honoring ‘our father, Kim Il-sung’. And what is the greatest honor? Fulfill the purpose of Jucheism by uniting Korea under his eternal leadership.
Its ironic because the leftists in the south admire KIS for his (greatly embellished) resistance of the Japanese occupation, but North Korea has become defacto, the new Japanese occupation. Japan’s coerced emperor worship and cultural annexation look tame compared to the rigors and violent coercion of contemporary Jucheism.