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After the Collapse

Michael O’Hanlon of Brookings, who (imho) did his best work on Iraq, refocuses on what happens after Kim Jong Il goes off to meet Saddam. Unlike me, O’Hanlon thinks a major U.S. troop presence in North Korea is inevitable. I think it’s just about the last thing we need:

The notion that the United States could somehow outsource most of this DPRK stabilization mission to its South Korean ally falls apart the minute one begins to consider the immediate stakes and the long-term strategic nature of some of the challenges listed above–and the possible degree of uncertainty, confusion, and violence that could accompany many collapse scenarios. If the main task were to simply restore order in North Korea, rather than defeat a combined air-armor offensive by DPRK forces, it might seem logical to defer to Seoul as much as possible.

South Korea may have the numerical capacity to handle North Korean stabilization. North Korea is a mid-sized country, slightly smaller than Iraq or Afghanistan demographically. Its population is estimated at just under 25 million. That implies a stabilization force of 500,000. South Korea has that many soldiers in its active Army, and eight million more between its reserves and its paramilitary. Such reassuring arithmetic may help explain DoD’s apparent inclination to view this problem as manageable largely by ROK forces themselves. [Michael O’Hanlon, Brookings]

And we think the Chinese will just let this happen? O’Hanlon is right about one thing — we should be putting much more thought and good diplomacy into preparing for this.

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7 Responses

  1. The inevitability of a post-collapse insurgency begs for USFK participation. The reality is that strategically, the ROK gets cold feet when dealing with any non-pen issues and will most certainly ask Uncle Sam to steer, even if behind the scenes. The collapse of the DPRK is inevitable – certain – almost a foregone conclusion. The PRC will not be prepared for a sudden collapse and may prefer the UN handle the situation. If it happened this afternoon, GEN Walter Sharp, US Army, is the Commander of the United Nations Command Forces, the legal owner of this problem. If China does the unthinkable and sends troops over the border without prior coordination with the UNC, it may incur a conflict for which Beijing has no stomach for right now as it enjoys the fruit of neo-capitalism.

    I’m surpised you are not covering this story, Joshua – this guy seems like the perfect advocate for your master plan to strangle the Juche regime.
    http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/politics/~3/KhagU7fxecg/north-korean-defector-describes-inner-workings-isolated-regime

  3. The problem with sending in US troops is connected to the insurgency: I can’t imagine how or how many troops it would take to stabilize things with thousands of armed military troops stationed in a society that has been drilled, drilled, drilled, drilled, drilled from cradle to grave in a continuous, all-encompassing propaganda about the evils of —– thousands of American GIs invading and destroying their society…

    …How could the US hope to succeed at stabilization in such conditions?

    The only hope would be to —- condition North Korean society to toss aside the insanity of the propaganda they have been fed and the social system that have created such horror in North Korea.

    But, we don’t seem to be doing the counter-propaganda work, and sending in US troops under present conditions would likely fail, I’d have to say.

    China isn’t likely to succeed in a society made so paranoid of the outside world – ally or enemy.

    South Korea, being Korean, is the only large enough force that would likely stand a chance at success, I think. That’s why the US and SK should be working out plans and have a strategy ready when collapse comes that will put the SK military into the North with the US providing massive logistical support and the US and Japan leading the rich nations in pouring in the funds that seek to build up the North to a stable level as quickly as humanly possible.

    In short, if North Korean society is basically the same at the time of collapse as it is today, it will likely turn into a nightmare for any Chinese or American troops pumped in…

  4. usinkorea:

    There about a half million underground Christians in NK. There are as many as 100,000 in the gulags. If you knew how zealous the ROK churches are to evangelize the Norks, you would see the pipleline forming between the two states already. These missionary NGOs are ready to surge (no pun intended) into NK with every type of humanitarian assistance you could imagine – and will find a welcome from every hungry Nork they encounter. The fact that fellow religionists already exist will make the job so much easier than we all expect.

    Yes, they have been brain washed by Juche for 60 years – and it still hasn’t completely taken hold. The reality is, its a man-made religion and most outside the Pyongyang privileged class aren’t buying it anymore. In the last 5 years Shamanism has made a huge comeback, even though technically its illegal. The people know the jig is up – the man behind the curtain is a fake. They just don’t know what else to believe in or where to turn.

    You are correct; our psychological operations and information operations (IO) warfare is pretty weak. That may be because the ROK signed a no-propaganda war agreement with the DPRK in 2004 (yeah, the ROK was REAL worried about South Koreans defecting to the Worker’s Paradise) during the Sunshine Policy years. In any event, the balloon launchers are the most potent IO weapon against Jucheism, especially religious groups like the North Korean Christian Association which launched 1.5 million leaflets into North Korea on 19 DEC 2008. And they are an NGO unregulated by the ROK government (as of now). They are dealing death blows to the regime and emboldening the underground church which exists even among the KPA.

    The insurgents will be armed to the teeth and discard their uniforms to blend into the population. They will attempt to sieze NGO operations and steal the aid. They will run out of steam after a few months when access to information from the outside world works its way in. But it could be bloody and drawn out.

    I was in Baghdad when it fell. Within a month of Saddam’s ouster, satellite dishes popped up on Iraqi rooftops dotting the skyline. Where they got those dishes is a mystery – but they got ’em. Information is the #1 most coveted commodity in a closed state. The only response the KWP has to the steady leakage of information that is getting into the DPRK is to make the Juche religious cult more rigorous. By doing so, they are sowing the seeds of their own demise. SEE: Iran.

    Counterinsurgency is graduate level warfare. It remains to be seen whether the ROK will be able to wage a successful counterinsurgency campaign in the north when the regime collapses. Its only a matter of time.

  5. My fear isn’t about the strength of Juche but the success of the demonization of the United States and Americans…

    I agree like before on the need to help the Christian groups that will help condition the collapse. And that work is going on in part – though I wish/hope the US government is putting more into it through covert means. I’ve mentioned that enough before here. I’d turn NK into something that resembled Circuit City or Office Depot with the amount of small data-sharing and multi-media devices I’d be flooding into the North…

    But if collapse were to come this year, I’d have to think the amount of America-hatred absorbed by the people would make it highly likely putting US troops on the ground post-collapse would prolong rather than shorten the period of instability and bloodshed…

    …which is why I wish the US government would step up in a major way the infiltration of NK.

    I mean, who could legitimately argue in the rest of the world with an effort to funnel in DVDs and other forms of South Korean TV shows or certain American movies and TV shows with Korean subtitles and classic works of literature translated into Korea like The Rights of Man?

  6. The hatred of America was a huge factor in Iraq as well – Saddam challenging Pres. Bush to a debate, burning him in effigy, lampooning the US in state run media, etc… yet after we toppled the Butcher of Baghdad, Iraqis cheered the US and British forces – for a while. We failed to anticipate all the religious and cultural actors on the post-major combat operations stability mission. Hopefully we have learned from that – if not, shame on us.

    Let me ask a question to OFK readers:
    If UNC Forces drop a bomb on the Juche tower, what will the effect be? Will Norks decry the destruction of Kim Il-sung’s religious symbol? Will they cheer or revolt if the 90′ statue of Kim gets toppled in KIS Square? In other words, what effect will destruction of Juche’s icons create? What if the Norks themselves pull down posters and portraits of the Kims if the regime collapses? Or is that behavior simply unrealistic because of all the brainwash, conformist doctrine, coerced obedience and superstition shoved down the throats of the North Koreans all these years?

    How should military planners deal with Juche cultural iconography? Should Kim’s tomb be protected from bombing? Should statues of the Great Leader be on the no-strike list? Should the UN Forces refrain from any insult to Juche? Keeping in mind there will be no place for Juche as it is practiced today in a post-DPRK North Korea…

    The reason I ask this is that Iraqis would run up to us and shout “No Saddam!” thinking that we wanted to hear this. Within hours they defaced every single image of Hussein and there were thousands and thousands of his images all over Iraq. The popular image from the invasion was of a US Tank pulling down Saddam’s Stalinist statue, but that was a very isolated incident. The Iraqis swarmed like the boll weevil on every single government facility within hours of the invasion and looted them COMPLETELY. People who have been controlled and dominated by their government through fear react very differently once the lid comes off. The people looting and defacing Saddam’s images were the same people shouting in praise of the dictator just days before as Saddam defied the Coalition.

    There are obviously huge differences between Iraq and North Korea but we can hopefully formulate some idea of how to deal with the demoralized and abused citizens of North Korea when the Juche regime falls. Thoughts?

  7. My biggest fear is that after NK collapse and refuges start flooding into China, China invades North Korea with the excuse of stabilizing the regime. Remnant North Korean army then requests South Korean aid to repel the Chinese. What will/can the South Korea do? US will likely not intervene directly, but will it allow ROK forces to intervene against the Chinese?