Before We Start Bombing North Korea, Let’s Try Turning It into Afghanistan
I don’t know about you, but when North Korea decided to shell South Korean homes and kill South Korean civilians in South Korean territory, my balance of risks shifted. We’ve always known that if U.S. and South Korean forces attack North Korea, North Korea would respond by trying to kill as many American and South Korean civilians as possible. Estimates that this would result in hundreds of thousands of casualties are probably worst-case scenarios, but a toll of several thousand Koreans and several hundred Americans seems probable. The fact that North Korea has used thermobaric weapons against a civilian population is proof that they’re willing to use indiscriminate force, although it’s oddly comforting in another sense. I’d have expected “the poor man’s atom bomb” to cause far more casualties.
In the past, most of those who’ve called for strikes against North Korea sounded like people who’ve never lived in or particularly cared about South Korea, and who hadn’t thought through the likely consequences of things it felt good to call for. But now, there are thoughtful, well-considered arguments that a quick strike against North Korea’s artillery and missiles might actually be necessary to deter more provocations and save lives. This isn’t a view I’m prepared to support — in part because of the fear of civilian casualties on both sides, and also because I still question whether involvement in a North-South war really advances or protects America’s vital interests, especially when so few Americans correctly estimate just how ambivalent the South Korean people themselves are about the North’s aggression against them. Yet North Korea is emerging as one of the greatest threats to the security of the United States because of its proliferation potential. Every instrument of our global power has failed to suppress that threat so far, including military deterrence, interdiction and containment, and of course, decades of diplomacy.
Today, the idea of a lightning campaign of preemptive air strikes is no longer a view I’m ready to summarily dismiss, but it’s not an idea anyone should support without knowing the answers to a few questions that aren’t available without the right security clearance and a retrospectoscope.
Artillery emplacements in cliffs overlooking the inter-Korean maritime boundary, via the Chosun Ilbo
First, how quickly we could silence all 10,000 of those artillery emplacements? And how many of their missiles could we take out before they were launched? The experience of SCUD-hunting in Gulf War I doesn’t encourage me, and North Korea’s extensive system of tunnels would probably conceal many of those missiles for an eternity. Since North Korea probably would fire at least some of those missiles, how confident are we that the PAC-3 Patriot batteries will stop all of them? Is the answer “very?” Because they’ll probably carry chemical or biological warheads.
North Korean artillery emplacements
Would North Korea activate its substantial Fifth Column in the South, or its Special Forces, to carry out terrorist or WMD attacks? Would its air force launch suicidal air raids, using obsolete aircraft operating from underground hangars and runways, in a modern analogue to the kamikaze attacks that proved so effective in World War II? If we were successful in meeting each of these challenges, what about North Korea’s best cross-DMZ delivery systems — the tunnels? How are we ever going to know which blue Bongo truck came from the warehouse with the exit ramp?
Downtown Seoul
Given those risks, isn’t it still wiser to exhaust other alternatives first? Given that the North Korean regime wouldn’t last a year without Chinese money, have we really reached the limits of our capacity to pressure China to force the Kims’ disarmament and abdication? In addition to sending the carrier group, can we finally get serious about sanctioning the Chinese companies and banks that do business with North Korea? Opponents of sanctions have recently suggested that North Korea’s aggression means that sanctions have failed, something they curiously failed to conclude about two agreed frameworks during the two decades when they clearly did fail. I reach the opposite conclusion. North Korea’s willingness to take greater risks now may be a sign of its rising desperation to restore its extortionate relationship with South Korea and the United States.
Our diplomatic options against China aren’t exhausted, either. What if an unnamed, high-level U.S. diplomat were to tell David Sanger of the New York Times that the United States has decided to support the sovereign right of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to have nuclear weapons? Why couldn’t a senior Pentagon official convene a meeting of the defense ministers of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore to discuss the creation of an integrated missile defense system, or even a regional defense alliance?
Finally, we have not even begun to discuss asymmetric military options. Even ten years ago, the North Korean people would not have been prepared to oppose their government, even if given some reasonable hope of success, but I believe that has changed. For anyone willing to consider the risk of a direct strike against North Korea’s military — and this includes President Lee Myung Bak, who speaks of it openly now — why is it too provocative to talk about training, equipping, and arming a few of those 20,000 North Korean refugees now living in the South to wreak chaos along the most remote and rugged parts of the borderlands between North Korea and China? Can anyone explain to me why it’s out of bounds for the United States and South Korea to arm a North Korean opposition, yet it’s not out of bounds for China arm the janjaweed? Or to blithely underwrite a regime that commits mass murder against its own people, exports nuclear technology to Syria, and which sinks the ships and shells the homes of its southern neighbor? Of course, building an insurgent infrastructure would take time, but if North Korea continues to escalate its provocations, it’s long past time to begin building the capacity to directly pressure the regime.
South Korean artillery on Yeonpyeong Island, via the Chosun Ilbo
Is there some way we can reduce North Korea as a threat to the South and to the United States without the messiness of OPLAN 5027, and without turning North Korea into the next Outer Koguryo Semi-Autonomous Zone? Why not first try giving the North Korean people the guns they’ll need to take care of that part on their own? Would places like Chongjin or Hamhung really be worse to live in if they were more like Mogadishu, Kandahar, or East Saint Louis (sorry)? And wouldn’t the threat of exactly that be a more effective way to get the cooperation of the Chinese government than simply continuing our groveling appeals to its beneficent nature?
I don’t suggest that this approach is completely free of the same risks, but it has the advantage of being more incremental. This makes it far more useful as a tool of diplomacy, should people finally decide they need to negotiate with us in good faith. It also presents less of a risk of escalation to full-scale war. Kim Jong Il doesn’t have long to live and doesn’t care if anyone else does either. When he sees a lot of bombs falling on the weapons he built and emplaced so painstakingly and at the cost of so many lives, he’ll conclude that OPLAN 5027 has been activated, and he’ll see his immediate choices as being to use those weapons or lose them. Far better that he face something that doesn’t look like Götterdämmerung to him. Better yet, the beginnings of civil unrest in his rear would force the North Korean army to divert some of its best infantry to the interior and the north of the country, where they’re less of a threat to Seoul. This might also upset the force structure that’s built into North Korea’s military doctrine, since mechanized forces can’t operate effectively without infantry to protect them. Until now, China has seen North Korea as a cost-free way to plague and pressure American presidens. Far better, too, that China should face the choice of unrest on its doorstep or intervening in North Korea to fight a demoralizing and costly war of occupation, rather than that America should face the same thing in a far more distant place.
Today, it looks like North Korea has launched a low-intensity conflict on its own terms, a conflict that continues to escalate as its provocations go unanswered and shielded by China. If we can no longer escape conflict on some level, let’s at least fight asymmetrically, play to the weaknesses of our enemies rather than their strengths, and spare as many American and Korean lives as we still can.
Update: Popular Mechanics has some great links on the subject raised in this post. I think the de-bunking of the idea that North Korea would flatten Seoul in 30 minutes is particularly valuable.
The casual, and largely unsupported references to Seoul’s potential flattening punctuates the notion that Kim Jong Il is holding a city hostage. It recasts a complex strategic vulnerability as a cartoon: an entire city facing a perpetual firing squad. It also ignores physical laws, and the realities of modern warfare.
Barring the use of nuclear weapons or large-scale bombing runs, destroying a city requires an extended campaign of shelling and demolition, the likes of which the world hasn’t seen since WWII. When the Chechen capital of Grozny was all-but-destroyed by Russian forces in 1999, it was the result of months of artillery and missile bombardments, as well as air strikes. There’s no doubt that North Korea’s massive deployment of artillery, and potential deployment of roughly 300 ballistic missiles, could wreak havoc on Seoul and its population. What’s clear, however, is that a sudden barrage of shells and missiles would only mark the beginning of a battle for the city, not an apocalyptic fait accomplit.
The point about Grozny is an excellent one. I’d add that it took weeks of sustained and unimpeded aerial and artillery bombardment to drive Djokar Dudaev’s forces out of his “Presidential Palace,” the former Communist Party Headquarters. Even then, most of the building’s structure remained intact until the Russians demolished it. We tend to think of Dresden, Hamburg, Stalingrad, or Berlin when we think of what artillery does to cities, but those were actually the effects of sustained saturation bombing from the air, using in excess of 1,000 heavy bombers per raid, loaded with incendiary bombs that started firestorms in cities built of brick and wood. Today’s reinforced concrete structures would not suffer the same type of catastrophic damage when hit with artillery, particularly if counter-battery fire and air strikes limited the duration of the North Korean barrage.
But again, this isn’t to deny that a second Korean War would be a horror. It’s just that I’m more afraid of what North Korea’s chem, bio, and terrorist capabilities could do to Seoul than its artillery. If war does come, a lot of us are going to be in for quite a shock when we see how many South Koreans would actively assist the North Koreans. I tend to see both the threat and the best response in more asymmetric terms.
A couple of points:
1. China: if discussions with Chinese academics and diplomats have gleaned anything, it’s that China’s chief worry is a North Korean collapse – there’s no way they’re going to pull the plug and let the country go. besides, why destroy the bridgehead you’ve created through all those investment efforts within the country?
2. the defector community in the ROK: If you thought the Cuban community’s efforts against Castro were futile, I would predict even more disastrous results from the defector community in the ROK. From my own conversations with several leaders in the defector community, only about a 1000 of them (ie. 5%) are engaged in any NK-related advocacy. At the moment, they’re highly disorganized and prone to infighting. Many of them carry baggage from North Korea, related to anything from where their hometowns are, to whether they were considered part of the loyal class in the DPRK. organizations who work with defector groups note the lack of organizational capacity and professionalism (which is a consequence of the North Korean educational/corporate culture in general). at its present state, arming the defectors and sending them off to basically conduct insurgency ops will get a lot of people killed. Not to mention that the NorKs can spin this in any way they want to, even producing the opposite effect (ie. rallying a wavering public against the outside world). Remember, when asked about how proud they were of North Korea itself, even North Korean defectors look at such things as the nuclear tests with a certain amount of pride.
Rather than a more violent solution, I would suggest that states intensify the already ongoing operations to engage North Korea – not the Pyongyang regime, but the North Korean people. Increase the level of radio broadcasts into North Korea. Distribute more cell phones to North Koreans. Give the North Koreans pirated versions of “Spartacus,” which seems to be popular these days in Hamkyungbukdo. Have more humanitarian aid groups on the ground, blanket the country with foreigners. Information is the key weapon in having the North Korean people make informed choices for themselves – and in the long run, the only way that the North Korean regime is going to moderate its behaviour.
Go easy on the thermobaric bomb nonsense. The classic thermobaric action is a leaky gas line in a private house: that creates a massive explosion because the gas has expanded, and then expands further once ignited. It is most likely that the NorKs used semi-armor piercing shells — to get through concrete – and these damaged domestic gas lines or butane bottles used in cooking- with the result of greater devastation than expected. There were thermobaric effects, but no such “bombs”, shells or rockets.
If they did use penetrating thermobarics, then they are really dumb, because they really have their greatest effect, like our own MOAB, outside, pressing in, and because this island is basically an uninteresting target.
I really appreciate this site because, when things go turnip-shaped, there is generally a focus on the ultimate goal — One Free Korea — rather than on jingoism. Your cell phone idea really is an extremely clever and feasible one — just as opening a Safeway at Kaesong ould be.
I think there has been a savage dog reaction by the NorKs to local SoKo artillery practice in a disputed region, and our response should be proportionate: I’d love to see the SoKo Navy special forces sink all the NorK’s submarines at their piers, overnight. That would avenge Cheonan and Yeonpyeong, and the foolishness would then likely stop.
The ability to process uranium into saleable atomic products, to supply terrorist forces with dirty bomb components, and the ability to buy and install a thousand or more centrifuges is a far more serious problem than a North Korean burp at Yeonpyeong.
“If war does come, a lot of us are going to be in for quite a shock when we see how many South Koreans would actively assist the North Koreans.”
You just tossed that in there at the end, not cool… Please EXPLAIN.
Jennifer, How much time have you spent in South Korea? I suspect the answer is either none at all or way too much.
Not if it is a sign of increasing desperation on the part of a regime that, with the inside information only it possesses, that increasingly believes it is going to collapse. — That makes the string of isolated attacks, especially as they escalate, troublesome – especially for those living in South Korea or who have family there…
A question worth debating: Are the recent attacks like this last one more likely a sign of strength or weakness and what does a detailed answer of that question tell us about the possible future?
I’d say the attacks in the 1960s-80s were a sign of strength and confidence.
I’d say the North’s provocations from the late 1990s until now were signs of weakness. And I worry that the rising level of provocations is in proportion to the self-perceived weakness on the part of Pyongyang. And given my fear that North Korea will lash out violently when it does collapse, I am more afraid of the recent isolated attacks than I am about a dirty bomb – though I want people to pay a lot of attention to the North’s proliferation and going nuclear stockpile as well….
In short, these isolated attacks are not just a side-show. They are significant and must be deeply considered by policy makers.
I don’t have anything deep or insightful to add because most of this stuff is over my head so I will keep my comments simple:
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“retrospectoscope”
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Love this word.
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Jack wrote:
I would predict even more disastrous results from the defector community in the ROK.
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That was my gut reaction too. I would think they would be too unstable to fight. I dunno.
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“If war does come, a lot of us are going to be in for quite a shock when we see how many South Koreans would actively assist the North Koreans.â€
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I have never been to South Korea. Are you saying it’s interchangeable with Berkeley?
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or East Saint Louis (sorry)?
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You really wanted to say Oakland, didn’t you??
“Jennifer, How much time have you spent in South Korea? I suspect the answer is either none at all or way too much.”
That still doesn’t explain your statement that many South Koreans would assist the North. Don’t mistake a desire for ethnic and cultural reunification with an easy dismissal of the wealth and democracy South Korea has built, in exchange for the brutality and starvation a rule by the North would certainly bring (something South Koreans are very much aware of). Besides, you also haven’t included any thought as to how many North Koreans might actively resist their own government, which seems to be growing in frequency already.
Attacking Jennifer by stating she has either been here too little or too long (which makes no sense, but only serves as a very vague dismissal of her question), does nothing but undermine the credibility of your statement. It is an ad hominem attack meant to sidestep your responsibility as a writer to back up your assertions with evidence and reason.
As to popular mechanic’s assertion that North Korea couldn’t flatten Seoul in 30 minutes, I think they’re missing the point. Tens of thousands of lives could be lost! Who cares about the infrastructure. I hate hearing such cold and calculated discussions that focus on the loss of material wealth and goods, and don’t consider the damage to and loss of human lives. It is inhumanely irresponsible, at best.
Great read this time around. Like the others, I question the how effective we could make an NK-defector insurgency group. To my knowledge and from my experience, few have any actual desire to go back and fight for their former homeland. You are right, though, that ways of putting more pressure on China as they are (outside of South Korea, honestly) the ones who keep the regime operational. China has a lot more to lose economically, so I would wonder if sanctions against them directly can be possible under international law? I’m no expert, but it seems that they have blatantly ignored UN resolutions on NK, but once again I’m not sure what’s possible.
For those unfamiliar with the term, a “fifth column” refers to those within a large group who covertly work to undermine it from within. There is a very plausible belief that there is a group of North Korean operatives within the defector and general South Korean population. These operatives are trained to conduct espionage, sabotage and take terrorist actions in the case of a hot conflict. Unfortunately, proof of the existence of this fifth column is only circumstantial and anecdotal and even those who feel it exists can’t truthfully estimate its size, could be dozens, hundreds or thousands.
Additionally, as we can see after any attack or incident with NK, that there is, at the very least, a loud segment of the SK populace who automatically put all blame for any incident on the South. They may believe that SK is just a puppet-state of the US and therefor if the conflict really took off, whose side they would stand on is quite debatable. I, personally, do not believe that this group is large or dedicated enough to actually actively support the North in case of conflict, but I can understand those who feel they could.
Here’s some “advice on taking down North Korea without war” from Christian Whiton, a state department senior advisor. Try and get through it without laughing:
3. Ships going to or from North Korea should be impounded. (cause China would have no problem with a US blockade in the yellow sea)
4. Wage economic warfare. The North Korean government is the first regime since the Third Reich to counterfeit U.S. currency. We should return the favor by dumping bales of North Korea currency just off Korean and Chinese shores. (what???? I…nvm)
5. Allied militaries should broadcast a clear message to North Korea’s military seeking to separate it from the Kim family. The USS Pueblo, which North Korea hijacked in 1968 and currently holds captive, should be sunk. We have every right to do this to our own property, and every military officer in North Korea would perceive the regime is running out of lives. (yeah, *or* every military officer will now be at war with us)
6. Change the military balance. We should consult with South Korea and Japan about increasing the forces of our three nations available for a rapid move on Pyongyang should one ever become necessary. (cause Japan has a *huge* military force…)
To those without a brain, it almost sounds like good advice! Great to see the US government is on top of the situation.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of South Korean leftists whose sympathies (for whatever reason) lie with the North. We’ve seen this with the former Soviet Union. Some people just don’t get that there is a noose around their necks.
Isolating China is a huge step. I believe the West should be in on this with full strength. No trade, no diplomatic favours, nothing. Isolate China further by giving some big guns to Japan. China would hate that. Turn their childish demands into laughing points.
I am unsure how much increasing radio broadcasts would work. Some North Koreans have been told how prosperous the West yet they still won’t believe it. I’m sure it might make some impression but that plan cannot be a lynchpin.
It might not be logistically possible to flatten all of Seoul in thirty minutes but who would stick around once the shelling started? Would Seoul fall if there was a large-scale bombardment? If by fall, someone means the population leaves en masse, then yes.
Run massive campaigns in South Korea reminding them how North Korea starves it own people, has kidnapped Japanese and Korean citizens and committed acts of terrorism. Stress the defectors’ plights. Let the airwaves be so saturated with the Kim regime’s monstrous deeds that people could recite them by heart. People just aren’t angry enough. If people can still be fried over the Second World War, they can be just as fried over things that happened twenty years ago or a few months or days ago.
Just my thoughts.
I would be very interested in reading an examination of the potential support NK might receive from SKeans in the event of an invasion, and I suspect many other people would too.
China will reluctantly allow the United States to blockade the Yellow Sea if push comes sove that sever. However China knows that the U.S. has no intention of a naval blockade of the PRC. The PRC is not going to let any country on Earth threaten the United States. They have too much invested in it. The United States will by the same protect the Chinese.
The PRC is pissed that we include Taiwan in that.
Regarding what South Korean support the North would have if it attacked, that discussion is obviously somewhat speculative, but I have a whole category for posts about South Koreans either propagating the North’s ideology or spying for the North. Don’t stop digging through that before you get to the part about the Ilshimhoe Spy Ring. The number of North Korean sleeper agents waiting quietly inside the South is unknowable, but who thinks the answer is “none?” My point was that the extent of this will be shocking to a lot of people, and it doesn’t take very many people living in a prosperous democracy supporting such a repellent and decrepit ideology to be gobsmacking. For the hard-core left in South Korea, however, the North is a workers’ paradise and can do no wrong. Similarly, I expect the files of the Reconnaissance Bureau of the Workers’ Party to be shocking to a lot of people, because I’m sure they’re going to reveal that plenty of South Koreans are knowingly or unknowingly taking their instructions from the North.
The extent to which sympathy for North Korean ideology translates into joining up with your friends to build barricades or rat out your neighbors is also unknowable, but for a while, I was collecting polling data on South Korean views on America and North Korea. While I’d expect that these numbers have since shifted — hopefully, quite a bit — as some of the ardor for Sunshine has cooled, this survey done several years ago, at the peak of that ardor, suggested that in Cheolla-Do in particular, a significant number of South Koreans would rather play for the other team. I can’t quantify this phenomenon, and I sure can’t explain it, but I expect it, and so should USFK and the ROK Defense Ministry.
Incidentally, we also know that a certain percentage of North Korean defectors are actually Reconnaissance Bureau agents. A case in point is the recent attempt by three of them to assassinate Hwang Jang Yop. Two of them were recent arrivals, and a third member of the conspiracy had lived in South Korea since the 1960’s.
I was waiting for One Free Korea to respond himself, but one thing I thought of when the issue of South Korea’s attitude toward the North and pro-North Korean elements inside the South and what the fighting spirit among elements of the population would be is —- what about the number of soldiers and reservists who would simply sit home or shoot into the air and drag their feet as much as possible in the case of a war?
Watch the first part of Taegukgi. Look at how the South Koreans gung-ho to defend against the invading North Korean forces are caricatured. Look at how the main sympathetic characters were portrayed and their reaction to the thought of fighting in a war.
South Korean pop culture for the past decade (and more) has been putting out fair like that that calls into question, pretty much immediately these days, any highly negative reactions concerning North Korea: the artillery shelling is a prime example – and a common reaction among especially the younger Korean teachers I talked to – which I’ve mentioned in another comment – shows what I’m talking about:
These are Korea’s educators. They shape the young minds of today. One of the older teachers in our discussion felt the need to inform me how the US has taken part in (caused?) every war since the end of WWII, and she wished it would stop, and that Koreans were peaceful people and just wanted peace, and the North is so poor and desperate…..(I just wish the world would let (North) Korea alone…..she implied). I don’t know why her mind quickly jumped from talk about what the artillery attack meant to the US warmongering, but it did. She was the only one who stated things passionately like that…
(Another, younger teacher did add the next day that she’d heard a US submarine accidentally sank the Cheonan and then the South Korean government covered it up and wanted to know what I thought about it. That led several young teachers to say that they didn’t believe the torpedo parts the South Korean government put on display were real, because they said Pyongyang was too smart to leave Korean writing on a torpedo it was going to use to attack the South….)
…But a more common reaction, the most common, was a tendency to make excuses for the North – to accept that the South Korean military drills “might” have caused the North to attack – to further excuse the North by talking about how it shouldn’t act as it does, that the bombing was wrong, but, darn it, the North is so poor – and South Korea and the US and others have been “pushing the North more and more the last few years” (I guess since President Lee was elected and the Sunshine Policy came to an end?)…
Given all we have seen in South Korean society the past couple of decades — what will their fighting spirit be if war does break out? How many soldiers will refuse to fight? How many will fight half-heartedly? How many of the college-aged Southerns already leaning toward hancheonryeon radicalism will join the already dedicated pro-North Korean elements to do the kinds of things OFK is talking about…
I don’t want to push this issue too high. This is not a primary concern of mine. But, it is something worth considering and discussing.
For myself, I think a war will be over more quickly than we expect, so I am not so concerned about this issue…
I really hope my last comment got caught in the spam filter, because I don’t think I can remember it that well…
Regarding the DPRK’s fifth column in South Korea – granted that there are probably a lot more spies and sleeper agents than we think, I don’t think poll numbers are a good way to gauge actual support for the North. Ticking a box on a poll is cheap; actually shooting your neighbors is a lot harder. There’s a lot of frustration in (South) Korea that Korea isn’t better-respected internationally and more independent. Fair enough. There’s also – how to put this? – a certain tendency toward exaggeration and melodrama in Korean culture. Taking the extreme option to get attention is just sort of par for the course there. Do these people actually believe so much in Korean prominence and independence that they’d support a regime as odious as Kim’s? They say they would to make a point; whether they actually would when a war breaks out is something different entirely. My guess is that the price at that point is too high. Like so many other things in South Korea, reckless support for North Korea is just for show. The people who answer those polls don’t really mean it.
Of course, the people who are sleeper agents do. That, granted, is going to be a bigger problem than most people are probably prepared for.
Joshua Herring, I don’t disagree with most of what you say. Poll results are an imperfect measure of the immeasurable for two reasons. You’ve articulated the first reason pretty well already, but the second reason is that the actual sleeper agents are presumably pretending not to be supporters of North Korea.
Regarding Nate’s link from Christian Whiton of Fox New, I wonder how much of Whiton’s recommendations Plan B is already covering, particularly #1, #2, and #4.
The rest of the article just sounds like an excuse to bash Obama as weak amongst a group of general public that probably hasn’t been following what Bush or Obama have been doing vis-Ã -vis Plan B.
And Nate, he’s a former State Department senior advisor.
Herring wrote:
“Like so many other things in South Korea, reckless support for North Korea is just for show. The people who answer those polls don’t really mean it.”
Especially among college students…
I’m with Joshua Herring on this one. North Korean sleeper agents aside, I’d say a majority of the spoiled brat chinboistas are like those people who hate cops, yet will call one when they’re in a jam. They’ll be trying to flee to an air raid shelter just like everyone else once the s*** hits the fan.
Jeremy, I tend to agree with you with the cop-hating analogy. Most of the rank-and-file chinboistas, at least. Some, however, may true believers who would, initially, be inclined to impede South Korean efforts or even aid North Korean efforts at least in the beginning. Meanwhile, some of their leadership is made up of decidedly pro-Pyongyang individuals who would welcome their new overlords.
God help them if the North does ever take part of South Korea, though, because my guess is that they’re first against the wall.
Joshua,
WOW THANKS.
I asked you to clarify what seemed like a tacked on statement in YOUR article because I wanted to learn more about something that you threw in there… THANKS for deciding to be a defensive jerk instead of correcting your minor journalistic oversight.
And for the record I have been in Korea for extended stays three times over the last four years as my one and only brother lives there… in Junggye-dong, Nowon-gu, Seoul… yeah, sittin’ right up on the side of Seoul closest to Dear Leader.
I’ve eaten dog, slurped down live octopus and puked up Soju in a back alley somewhere off of the #4 train line. I’ve hiked up mountains in Seoraksan and visited the JSA. Last month I was proud to wear a hanbok to my brother’s wedding in Gunsan and I’m super psyched to have a big extended Korean family that loves me and is amused by all my crazy weigook foibles…
So forgive me all to hell for not having enough ‘cred’ to read or comment on your blog… although as others have already pointed out, that really shouldn’t matter should it? I was asking YOU to clarify something that YOU wrote.
I’ve had your blog on my RSS feed for a couple years now but I guess I’m going to start going somewhere else for political insight on a country I am proud to say I love… a country where basically half my family now resides.
THANKS AGAIN.
Yeah, it’s a terrible thing to be defensive, isn’t it, Jennifer? Buh bye!
I think Jennifer’s original question was a fair one (to which I would have directed her here) that perhaps deserves expansion, but Jennifer should know that insulting the host and calling him/her names is really not the way to go.
I wonder how many “sleeper cells”, when the order comes from their NK handlers to poison a reservoir or blow up a bridge, would think long and hard about it, then look at each other, then sigh, then do nothing except go to the Family Mart to buy another box of choco-pies.
God help them if the North does ever take part of South Korea, though, because my guess is that they’re first against the wall.
My thoughts exactly, kushibo.
I wonder how many “sleeper cellsâ€, when the order comes from their NK handlers to poison a reservoir or blow up a bridge, would think long and hard about it, then look at each other, then sigh, then do nothing except go to the Family Mart to buy another box of choco-pies.
It’s could see that happening, unless NK has some sort of Telefon-style mind control program going on.
I think commenters should consider the apathy angle more than the sleeper cells – and I think the cop analogy fits – or how it used to fit.
South Korean society has always had an underground communist, pro-NK element whose fortune among the average Korean has waxed and waned greatly in different eras. Except for the time before the Korean War, I always got the general feeling that people familiar with Korea believed, once the shooting started and people saw the bare aggression of the North, the South would unify (for the most part) and fight hard. This is the conclusion formed after the experience of the start of the Korean War when some experts did not want to build up the South before the war, because they looked around South Korean society and believed it would surely collapse under current conditions including massive subversion from the North…
I have focused much on the anti-US/USFK attitudes in different parts of South Korean society, but I always felt that if war did come, the average South Korean’s sense of patriotism would have them fighting hard against the North.
Now, I’m not so sure. After 12 years of Sunshine Policy, and after 50 years of taking the US security blanket for granted, and expanding that blanket beyond its actual capability, I’m not so sure.
One of the reasons South Korean society isn’t in much of an uproar about the recent attacks on its soldiers and civilians is — they are mainly convinced war is an impossibility. Their Cold War experience is exactly opposite what later generations in the US experienced: We were convinced either the Soviets or the Americans would make a mistake one day and destroy the world. South Koreans are convinced that, since the North knows it can’t win a war and wants to survive more than anything, war is impossible.
And that mind-set seems to me to have sunken in to the point that, if war comes, a fair percentage of South Koreans (soldiers) will not actively participate in it. I kinda expect a large chunk of the people will have the idea they can sit around with the expectation that the all-powerful US military will take care of things and it will be over quickly — and judging by their reaction to a string of events going back to 2002 – their anger will be directed a good bit at their own government.
It is still hard for me to imagine that – if a general conflict breaks out – the vast majority of South Koreans will not gain a war-fighting spirit. But, I honestly don’t have confidence in that any more. I just don’t know….
Jennifer,
Chest thumping doesn’t do much.
On the Internet, a drive by questioning doesn’t either. Was it a serious question? Or was it a pot-shot? You never know for sure…
And eating Korean food and puking on the streets in South Korea is not the same as demonstrating a longer-term commitment to flushing out ideas on the topics related to a topic-driven website.
You’ve read the stuff here for years — so you should have gotten the idea that OFK and almost all of the regular commentors over the years have chosen to spend much time reading about, watching, and discussing this stuff.
There is nothing wrong with taking offense at something said by the host or people offering their thoughts. There is nothing wrong with rebutting them.
It should be done in more than a one line question and then a chest thumping.
You asked a fair question but would have done better by adding to it to make your position clear. OFK then answered in some detail and pointed out that he has covered this issue in the past. Now others, probably waiting for OFK to answer, have offered their opinions based on considerable observation/experience – most of which appear to disagree for the most part with OFK’s position. That adds to the quality of dialog on the site: Chest thumping does not.
Are South Koreans getting mad? Martin Feckler says they’re experiencing a stirring for revenge.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/world/asia/28island.html?ref=world
They’d be taking a page out of America’s playbook. The US engaged in massive terror bombing campaigns during the Korean War that killed up to 30% of its population:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20101127&articleId=22131
It was an unprecedented percentage of mortality suffered by one nation due to the belligerence of another.
For comparison, during The Second World War the United Kingdom lost 0.94% of its population, France lost 1.35%, China lost 1.89% and the US lost 0.32%.
The United States of America has the most modern Nuclear warheads on Earth. And more importantly, the most precise nuclear warheads. Not since the Romans has a country with soo much trump card, been soo patient to foe.; even when it is in debtor season.
The DPRK better thank it’s lucky stars that the United States is a New Roman Republic, and not Old Roman Empire.
It’s=I, sorry.
The UK was bombed extensively, including cities, but troops did not range up and down the island multiple times. The logistics of bombing the UK and UK’s air defenses also have something to do with the numbers you are quoting — rather than the inhuman mentality of one side vs the normalcy of the other…
France, China, and the US were also not main targets of combined land-sea warfare by the main combatants with mechanized forces. France opted out of fighting Germany in order to spare itself fighting another devastating modern war on its soil.
From your own source:
North Korea’s air force was pretty much non-existent in terms of strategic warfare against cities in the South, so how do we account for the nearly million South Korean civilian deaths?
I wonder where this 1/3rd death toll and how it points out the inhumanity of the Americans (and thus the normalcy of the North Koreans?) is being promoted originally in response to recent events?
I ask because a Korean high school teacher, one I mentioned in a comment the other day, quickly jumped from a discussion about South Korean society’s reaction to the artillery attack to telling me how the US has been involved in every war in the world since WWII — and she said “Koreans” want peace and hate war, because Korea lost 1/3rd of its population in the Korean War and she wished the US would just leave nations alone…
Another thing to consider, before WWI, the deadliest killer in warfare was often mother nature — not really, you could argue, because disease was certainly encouraged under conditions of war.
South Koreans lost close to a million civilians during the war when the North could not mount the “war criminal” bombing campaigns the US (under the UN flag) during the Korean War. So, how many of the estimated civilian deaths were due to health conditions on the ground rather than the graphic depictions of napalm Bruce Cumings and Hanchongnyon like to describe?
This is true, it’s likely a number of factors were at work. One of the goals was to destroy major cities, as well as towns and villages and foment psychological terror. There were three years of indiscriminate bombing where virtually everything became a target.
These figures have been around for some time. LeMay himself admits around 20%. Estimates of civilian deaths range from two to five million. It’s a factual matter, and it can be used in various ways. It can be used to point out the inhumanity of war in general, not necessarily of the Americans.
http://books.google.com/books?id=EgIW-uGMA50C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA81#v=onepage&q&f=false
Mark,
I was wondering about the specific use of the item in relation to the Cheonan sinking and the artillery attacks.
I’ve been reading the K-blogs for a long time, and I’ve seen the issue of bombing in North Korea during the war as a war crime brought up, but I can’t remember hearing the 1/3rd of the population claim come up, and I’ve just heard it twice, almost verbatim, within a couple of days of the artillery attack.
I am wondering if the Hankyoreh or a somewhat popular left-wing website in Korea has posted something about it which has been picked up by other netizen sites? I don’t have the time to check out common sites, because my Korean language skills are basic.
usinkorea,
Actually I just heard about it for the first time a couple days ago at the first link I posted. I was googling around about North Korea and war after the shelling and came across it. I don’t really know that much about the Korean War and it was the first time I heard of those figures. I started Halberstam’s book a couple years ago but didn’t get through much of it. I mostly just read the Marmot’s Hole to keep up with Korea news and don’t read any Korean left-wing sites. I suppose the Korean left-wing may be talking about it these days.