Embrace the Chaos: A New Report of Desertions in the N. Korean Military
The London Daily Telegraph is reporting an upsurge in the number of North Korean soldiers “defecting” to China this year. The report, unfortunately, adds little detail to the headline’s claim, aside from saying that “on one stretch of the border, Chinese troops apprehended five North Korean soldiers in May alone.” Despite the breathless headline, the text offers no evidence that a “military clash” is “imminent.”
Perhaps the word “desert” more accurately describes these soldiers’ actions than “defect,” which implies a change of location and political allegiance from one political system to a rival one, which China certainly isn’t as far as North Korea is concerned. In fact, the North Korean regime can rest assured that China will send any deserters it catches back to North Korea, “where they face execution.” By contrast, this North Korean officer’s crossing of the DMZ in 2008, and this NCO’s crossing later that year, are a better fit for the verb “defect.” But then, I’ve caught myself in the same linguistic imprecision.
Regular readers will already have read Part 3 of my presumptuously entitled Capitalist Manifesto, where I wrote about the difficulty North Korea has had in maintaining discipline among its border guard forces along its border with China. Corruption has been rife among the force, with guards sometimes caught on camera smuggling in the broad daylight. There were similar reports of desertions, including one mass desertion by border guards in 2007. The guards were reportedly one step ahead of an inspection that was going to arrest them for taking bribes from illegal border-crossers. North Korea launched a cross-border manhunt to catch them, but not too soon to prevent two of the deserters from giving an interview to a Japanese television station.
This is the second report in as many days to suggest that in at least some elements of North Korea’s security forces, morale is poor. Unlike Robert, I embrace the rise of chaos in North Korea and any erosion in the regime’s cohesion and discipline. After all, it’s not as if a stable North Korea governs competently, helps keep peace in the neighborhood, keeps loose nukes out of the hands of terrorists, or advances the humanitarian interests of the North Korean people. On the contrary, an unstable North Korea means the regime will have to divert resources from weapons development, luxuries, patronage, and white elephants of the figurative and literal kind back into investments in domestic tranquility (and we can only hope that means food). Instability in North Korea would also force China to reassess whether supporting the Kim Dynasty advances or threatens its objective of retaining influence over North Korea’s resources and keeping its people on the other side of the border. Continuing to bail the Kim Dynasty out financially — and UNSCR 1874 notwithstanding, China continues to dump more cash into North Korea than ever — will only delay the descent into chaos. If China actually sends troops into North Korea, it would be a costly decision for China, and could be a great strategic opportunity for the United States.
Unfortunately, this report suggests no more than low morale in some military units. Certainly that disgruntlement is ultimately a function of the regime’s limited resources to feed, pay, and entertain its soldiers, and financial sanctions are helpful in creating the conditions for this decline in morale. But like the similar previous reports I linked above, this one is likely to recede into history without much consequence unless the U.S., South Korean, and Japanese governments look for ways to give some organization and direction to the soldiers’ disgruntlement.
Before anything gets any better in North Korea, instability can also lead to the government resorting to shooting people en masse, more people sent to the concentration camps, warlordism, a complete breakdown of food distribution, including both the government system, foreign aid, as well as markets, the rise in third party criminal elements, including mafia-like elements (and with emerging markets, much more a possibility than ever before), as well as increasing belligerence and possible violence externally driven by the regime itself.
‘Tis not all sunshine and roses. Even in South Korea, the transition from dictatorship to democracy was a rocky road paved with blood; for a country like North Korea, that road is going to be a lot more difficult to tread.
It wasn’t that way for Romania, whose overthrow of Ceaucescu I see as a possible template for the removal of the Kim dynasty. But yes Jack, your scenario is very plausibe. I was part of the invasion of Iraq which devolved into the very scenario you described. It was chaos!
“If China actually sends troops into North Korea, it would be a costly decision for China, and could be a great strategic opportunity for the United States.”
Joshua, could you elaborate on this?
Jeffery Hodges
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“If China actually sends troops into North Korea, it would be a costly decision for China, and could be a great strategic opportunity for the United States.â€
I do not think it will be good for the US but it definitely will be bad for China. In spite of hunger and economic desolation, North Korea is scattered with small arms, RPGs, anti-tank weapons and artillery shells. It will be perfect for making IEDs and booby traps.
People in North Korea may be beaten down but I doubt they will accept Chinese troops. As North Korea descends into chaos, the Chinese forces will be caught in a quagmire worse than the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will be a complete 4th-generation-warfare nightmare. If the Chinese clamp down hard, they will look like bullies and create more insurgents than they kill, if they are soft, splinter groups of armed North Korean factions will rule over all the places the Chinese can’t garrison.
China and the US are far more interdependent on each other than cold-war rivals or even historic great power rivals. It does not benefit China for the US to bleed in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will not benefit the US for China to bleed in North Korea.
Both the US and China benefit from stability and peace. They will both benefit from a prosperous North Korea, and even more from a prosperous unified Korea in the long run. Both the US and China are dominant powers that benefit from the status quo of globalized economies, open trade and investment, and open travel and immigration. Their real enemy is not each other, nor even are the second tier powers such as Russia, Japan or rising powers such as India or Brazil the true threat to their welfare. The real enemy is radicalism, international terrorism and crime, and general chaos.
While 21st century geopolitics is interesting, it is an area where I have only lay knowledge. I will let us all return to our regular programming.
I believe Mr. Han Kim is correct and insightful in identifying the interests of the USA and the PRC.
History shows an alarming example of great powers being sucked into actions contrary to their interests by entanglements with fanatic client regimes. World War I was not in the interests of any of the great powers, who were in fact increasingly interlinked by trade.