A Syrian Solution for North Korea
So now that the Syrian army is invading town after town from Dara’a in the south to its restive border with Turkey, can we call it a civil war yet? Worse things could happen there, and absent this wave of unrest, probably would have. If Syria isn’t likely to become a democracy within the next year, a destabilized Syria is probably the next best thing. If Bashar Asad is preoccupied fighting to survive, he’ll be impeded in his capacity to build up his WMD capabilities, bully Lebanon, and support proxy terrorists like Hamas and Hezbollah. He may be more likely to throw his Palestinian cannon-fodder against Israel as a diversion, but he’s less likely to do anything serious enough to intensify sanctions or start a full-scale war (and I hope, but sometimes question, that the Israelis are smart enough not to throw Assad a lifeline by fighting him now). We can also thank this unrest for the clarification it has given us. It has liberated even Hillary Clinton from the illusion that Bashar Assad was a reformer who might have been talked out of his alliance with Iran and seeking a lasting regional peace, when in fact, those things are contrary to Assad’s pathology and fundamental interests. Finally, Syria and Libya were both good customers for North Korean weapons. The collapse of these regimes might reset those relationships and deprive North Korea of some key sources of revenue.
But the significance of Libya and Syria to North Korea extend far beyond finance in this, the post-Sunshine, post-engagement, post-Agreed Framework age we’ve entered, when the foreign policy establishment is struggling in vain for a plausible solution to the growing North Korea crisis. Libya and Syria are also showing us a way by showing us how quickly even ruthless totalitarian regimes can become unstable in the face of popular resistance. Significantly, neither Syria nor Libya had broad-based resistance or dissident movements at this time last year. In both cases, those movements coalesced spontaneously, largely from the thin, dry air. There are some obvious differences, of course. Even in Syria, news is more difficult to suppress than in North Korea. The other X Factor is the likelihood that foreign forces, most likely Chinese, will intervene, and that South Korea would quietly equip North Korean insurgents with the weapons and supplies to resist them.
Still, I posit that the United States and South Korea should be thinking through and planning for the eventuality of internal unrest in North Korea, and preparing to support opposition to the Kim Dynasty. I offer these arguments in support of such a policy:
First, a North Korea that’s wracked by civil war might still be a safer place for the North Korean people and the world than one where North Korea’s centrifuges, reactors, and its killing fields run at a full and unimpeded capacity, and while the state has little incentive to win over those segments of its population that it has chosen not to feed.
Second, a destabilized North Korea is no greater a proliferation threat than the regime as it is now — selling missiles by the boatload, selling nuclear technology to Iran and Burma, selling a nuclear reactor to Syria, in short, selling pretty much anything to any purchaser with the money. The sooner the present regime is shocked into a dramatic change of management, the sooner Office 99 goes out of business.
Third, a destabilized North Korea is no greater a threat to South Korea than the current regime. In 2010, we probably saw North Korea approach the limit of its willingness to risk a large-scale war with the South, backed by the United States. As long the regime is stable, it can afford a limited war with the South, and probably gains some benefits from one by galvanizing domestic support and writing new myths about Kim Jong-Eun’s military prowess. Kim Jong Il can’t afford that if he’s simultaneously fighting a rebel army based in Chongjin or Hamheung, or if he’s fighting a cross-border insurgency at the foot of Mt. Paektu. To do so would further tempt the South and the United States to break from their inevitable ambivalence about supporting the rebels.
Fourth, a destabilized North Korea is more likely to negotiate in good faith, because we’ll have leverage over it that we lack now. If North Korea’s leaders grasp that their regime is doomed but that we can offer them a way to save their necks, they may choose to give up as much of their WMD programs as they think they can’t hide from us, and from the factions opposed to them.
Fifth, a destabilized North Korea could induce China to negotiate in good faith. China clearly isn’t doing that now, in part because China prizes the stability of its puppet above keeping its negotiated commitments to the United States, its word as memorialized in U.N. resolutions, and even (as the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong incidents show) regional peace. But a destabilized North Korea brings unrest, weapons, chaos, and more refugees and drugs than ever to China’s border. If that happens, China’s incentive shifts to finding the quickest and cheapest way to restore order along its border. A new proxy regime without reunification won’t restore order for long, and even China must know that occupying any part of North Korea would come with high diplomatic (and perhaps military) costs. The best prospect for restoring stability to North Korea would be a negotiated reunification with the South, with China securing the right to keep its lucrative investments in the North and keep U.S. forces south of the current DMZ. And of course, leaving South Korea — with whatever financial Japan and the United States are in a position to offer — with the messy task of reconstructing North Korea.
This is not to say that supporting forces opposed to Kim Jong Il would be an alternative to diplomacy. Far from it — undermining the regime might be the only realistic prospect for diplomacy to succeed, and may be the alternative that resolves this crisis at the lowest cost in human life.
Any destabilization in North Korea is not going to have the support of China, which it would require, for communications and supplies, because of the Chinese fear of North Korean flight over the border. In the short run the Chinese see North Korea as a great way to keep the United States occupied while they settle the questions in the South China Sea. Also reacting to North Korea keeps the United States busy and off stride. In the long run a unified Korea, while not a threat to China militarly, would be a problem in a social sense.
If Chinese forces intervene, I don’t understand why South Korea should equip North Korean freedom fighters “quietly”. It should help them openly, proudly, defiantly. And so should we. After successful reunification, I don’t think Japan and the US should offer Korea much financial. That prosperous country, having recovered northern mineral deposits and seaports, should take care of itself.
We’ll see progress after China accepts the Glans Plan for Korea. Need a reminder?
1. PRC stays out.
2. ROK annexes DPRK.
3. USA gets out.
You need to change your “Glans Plan†to “Glans Fantasy,†because there’s no plan involved. In fact, it is hopelessly naïve and unrealistic.
How do you effect #1? The PRC wants a buffer around its territory, so how would they be convinced to stay out, especially under your “plan†that effectively turns the ROK into a wild card and a potential loose cannon as it swings wildly to prevent itself from ever getting attacked again?
As for #3, how do you make that happen in such a way that you don’t create a vacuum that ends up being filled by countries that are far more territory-grabbing in their outlook than the US, with a concomitant arms race as different sides panic about the other side(s) arming themselves more and more.
Really, I don’t get the eagerness to dismantle the Pax Americana, a highly successful arrangement that is pennies on the dollar compared to the alternatives we’ve already seen, with next to no loss of life.
What do you expect from the “Glans Plan� Some windfall? Even less loss of life? Do you believe that the US presence is keeping Japan, South Korea, North Korea, China, Russian, and Taiwan from holding hands and singing kumbaya? Seriously, what is the motivation for your “plan�
Yes, this is a rerun, but so was your “plan.” China will never accept it as is. You are the one who needs reminding of that.
kushibo, the Glans Plan can succeed if and only if China accepts it. That’s step one! Step two produces a prosperous, powerful nation that no-one will mess with. Step three relieves us of a burden and lets China claim a success.
The policy of the unified Korea will naturally be to seek friendly relations with its neighbors and, indeed, with the whole world.
But the whole thing starts with step one. China will decide whether northeast Asia is peaceful.
Glans wrote:
Can you name anything from China since the 1940s that would indicate they would? It’s a fantasy, Glans.
Why would no one mess with it? All its neighbors have territorial designs on it that they have tried to act on since the 1890s and again in the 1940s and 1950s. The US military presence is the primary thing keeping everyone at bay.
Again, a fantasy. The “burden” you speak of is pennies on the dollar compared to the burden we would be setting up for ourselves ten or twenty or so years down the road.
Kumbaya.
A convincing deterrence is what keeps the region peaceful, not some pie-in-the-sky “can’t we all just get along?” sentiment thought up in Fantasyland.
That’s not even what China is computing. China is computing whether or not it can control what parts of northeast Asia. They want a buffer zone, not a “peaceful” wild card.
Kushibo, you’re not demonstrating that the Glans Plan is a bad plan. You’re demonstrating that China rejects it.
The Korea that the great powers messed with was backward and isolated. The unified Korea envisioned in the Glans Plan will be rich and strong. Its neighbors will gain more from peaceful relations with it than from stupid fights.
I’m demonstrating that it’s completely unworkable because it is not rooted in real-world or historical conditions, and that is not just that China rejects it, but also that it removes the very thing that has made peace sustainable in a region that has historically seen repeated invasion.
If my niece proposed removing all the military and had My Little Pony guard all the lands and Ariel guard all the seas, that would also be an unworkable fantasy, and not just because Beijing would pooh-pooh it.
Sadly, that more can be gained by peaceful coexistence than from military confrontation and territorial expansion is usually a lesson learned too late.
Yours is a fantasy, but it’s shared by some foolish people in government who know very little of Northeast Asia and who need to be warned — repeatedly if necessary — of their gross folly.
This, by the way, was an excellent read, Joshua.
OP:
Last January (bottom half of this), I proffered something very similar. I think it’s very workable because it offers China the two things it craves the most: access to the East Sea and a continuation of the buffer zone against the US military. Moreover, it doesn’t pull out the very entity that has been most responsible for keeping the region free of general war.
Great read on many levels. I don’t know why more people aren’t writing about the Syria-NK connection — it seems clear that North Korea is paying a great deal of attention to what is going on in Damascus and around the region.
As for:
even China must know that occupying any part of North Korea would come with high diplomatic (and perhaps military) costs. The best prospect for restoring stability to North Korea would be a negotiated reunification with the South, with China securing the right to keep its lucrative investments in the North and keep U.S. forces south of the current DMZ. And of course, leaving South Korea — with whatever financial Japan and the United States are in a position to offer — with the messy task of reconstructing North Korea.
Would tend to agree. There was to my knowledge one time (May 13, 2010 Huanqiu Shibao editorial, post-Kim Jong Il homecoming, coming out of DPRK’s insulting announcement of having achieved nuclear fission) where the Chinese basically threatened North Korea with such a scenario, minus all the details about occupation. Kim must be doing something right as regards China, since there was no such backslap in the aftermath of the recent visit.
Instead, actual work is underway on a rather large new bridge from a gargantuan and still fairly empty new city (Xinchengqu, southwest Dandong) into North Pyong’an province. Maybe what Syria is lacking most, after all, is a China-sized patron and “rear area.”
China is not worried about massive NK refugees, that is not going to happen without a major NK civil war. China is worried that the average citizen of China seeing the collapse of a communist govt. and then hoping for the same thing. China is not going to try and use military power to keep the Kim family in power. That would need 600K to one million troops and would bring about a massive political and economic costs. China’s plan will be to send thousands of NK defectors in China and ethnic Koreans into the North with hundreds of millions of dollars or yuan and try and buy the loyality of the NK military and elites. However this plan would have less the a 20% chance of success and a large costs when it fails. If China is smart they will do nothing. North Korea is going to be a basket case for the foreseeable future and as such should limit any chinese citizens envy. Also when the North starts to come apart probably after the death of little kimmy, with all the rage built up after 60 years of insanity no force on earth will be able to stop a revolution.
>>If my niece proposed removing all the military and had My Little Pony guard all the lands
Rainbow Dash could give on-the-spot guidance to so many places each day that it would make KJI’s head spin.
@Adam Cathcart, you are the eyes and ears to the world regarding Sino-Korean and U.S. relations. You have no idea how much influence you have on the net regarding Korean/Russian/Chinese/U.S. relations in real life and virtual. It is nice that you play Coy, like Joshua, you both and a few others do not know yet, but your sites will be instrumnetal in taking down the KJI Regime. Literally, “Instrumental”. Even Russia is ready to topple the Regime.
But Ditto81, does Russia accept the Glans Plan for Korea?
Kim Jong-il may have a little chat with Dmitry Medvedev. Here’s a link in the marmot’s hole.
Dima hasn’t asked for my advice, but if he did, I’d have him explain the Glans Plan to Jong-il.