This is a follow-up to my prior post of 6/9/09 which resulted in many interesting reader comments. At this point in time, North Korea has developed enough nuclear technology to produce a few bombs, but it is still working on a reliable delivery system and a steady stream of nuclear material. It is not a member of the advanced nuclear club as are the U.S., Russia, China, France, the U.K, Pakistan, and Israel. However, it could sell its technology abroad and in some years it may be able to sell weapons-grade nuclear material.
What purpose does North Korea have in developing such military technology? One merely has to look south to the advanced country on the Korean Peninsula protected for nearly 5 decades by a significant presence of U.S. military forces. Since 1953 both Koreas have believed the dividing line along the 38th parallel to be an artificial but imposed separation between the developed, modern world, and a truly backwards totalitarian regime. The Korean division is solely the result of a 1953 military standoff between Chinese and American troops in which neither party wanted to escalate or continue the conflict.
Kim Jong-Il believes he will be the first President of a unified Korea. For five decades he has not had the conventional military strength or civilian support to change the dynamics on the ground. During the past decade, he decided to pursue an aggressive path to change the balance of power on the Korean peninsula. Though it would be ugly, bloody and difficult, any military match only between the two Koreas would be an outright loss for Jong-Il so his Chinese protection over the past 6 decades has been essential for his very survival.
The reason China doesn’t care about the crazy North Korean regime is that Jong-Il has probably assured Chinese leaders that his ultimate goal is similar to theirs: the removal of all U.S. troops from the peninsula protecting the South. The Chinese government could not care less about what types of despotic regimes are along its borders. China views most of Asia as its natural and rightful sphere of influence and control.
China considers Japan to be an unrelated U.S. island bastion of imperialism that is protected by the American nuclear shield. Due to centuries-old animosity and competition between the 2 countries, culminating in its humiliating occupation during WWII, China has little political or economic use for Japan. However, its view of the adjoining Korean peninsula is quite different.
With a viable nuclear weapon and delivery system, the whole balance on the Korean peninsula would change in favor of the North. Considering the way Jong-Il treats his own people, does anyone believe he cares about the welfare of South Koreans and Americans? They are merely pawns in his own grandiose visions for himself. He would likely destroy a small South Korean city by a nuclear bomb in order to prove he is extremely serious, really crazy, or both.
Jong-Il plans to use the threat of nuclear war in order to extort a South Korean surrender and reunification of the peninsula under his complete control. South Koreans would ask the U.S. troops to leave and most Americans would not wish to be a part of a nuclear civil war. Faced with the choice of certain death and the alternative of life under a crazy dictator, South Koreans would likely choose Jong-Il. The ability to hit something in Japan or Alaska would only reinforce Jong-Il’s control over the entire Korean Peninsula in case anyone wanted to challenge his power.
The Chinese might know of and secretly support this overall plan to ensure that U.S. troops are withdrawn from its natural sphere of influence and control. China would also get a measure of pleasure in seeing the U.S. humiliated again, and it would be able to assert itself as a true world power via proxy. Once reunification is achieved, the many North Korean refugees in China could leave and arguably the peninsula would no longer need any nuclear weapons. Then China could dictate the future of Kim Jong-Il and Korea according to its own best interests.
North Korea and China know what happened in Vietnam. The U.S. decided to leave when it realized it was supporting the weakest party to a civil war, and that it had no real strategic national interest in that country. Eventually the South Vietnamese did not have the desire to defend a completely corrupt and incompetent regime, and Americans could not see losing more lives in that same pursuit either. The plurality in the South viewed reunification, even under the communist North, as better than continuing a decades-long bloody civil conflict.
All of Vietnam is still controlled by the communist leaders from the North. Today, it may be welcoming to outside business investment and foreign tourists, but it is still a rigid regime that in no where resembles free and democratic countries such as Japan, the Philippines, Australia or South Korea. At least it is not as backwards as Burma, North Korea, or Cambodia. Vietnam effectuated the military overthrow of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge who just went too far in pure communism and national genocide for any neighbor to tolerate.
Senator Goldwater’s plan for the Vietnam War was not feasible nor were President Johnson’s efforts successful. The outcome would have been the same no matter what the U.S. did, which is not to suggest that all the human lives and injuries in that Conflict were a complete waste. The North Koreans plan to outlast the U.S. presence in South Korea just as the North Vietnamese outlasted the U.S. presence in South Vietnam. However, they need a viable threat of nuclear war to eventually reunify the peninsula under their sole control with the tacit support of China.
South Korea and the U.S. have to promptly achieve a difficult diplomatic resolution with North Korea and China. Russian and Japanese participation are irrelevant. Any diplomatic settlement would only be possible if they are convinced that we are ready to fight a messy war using conventional means to get rid of Jong-Il, as a covert internal coup would probably be impossible. Expanding the air and sea embargo against North Korea will not work.
If nothing is done now, we will be forced to capitulate to a nuclear-armed North Korea and have to pull out all U.S. troops from the peninsula, leaving South Korea on its own to surrender its future. Perhaps the 60-year U.S. presence and artificial division of Korea was just a short interlude in the overall history of this area. With China’s tacit support, it will be reunified under terms over which we have no control.
For those commentators who are afraid of all military actions, I supported the Afghanistan and Iraqi Wars. I would also support other unilateral U.S. military interventions if they served our country’s best interests, whether defensive, pre-emptive, or both. Every American should expect our government and President to pursue the best interests of the United States ahead of all other countries. If the best interests of others are aligned, then it’s all the better in forging cooperative solutions. However, I also expect any military action to be run competently, including being honest with the facts on the ground, minimizing the harm to U.S. troops, maintaining a clear exit strategy, and not allowing the operations to degenerate into a rejection of our basic governing principles in order to ensure profits to our large defense contractors. We have to always keep in mind our country’s best interests in any diplomatic negotiations or military operations. When we forget them, we are lost in quagmires of our own making.
By Marc Pascal in Phoenix, AZ