Nearly lost among headline's of Lee DeWyze's American Idol victory and (albeit significant and important) news on the BP oil spill in the Gulf, is what I think is the biggest development on the Korean Peninsula I can remember. Almost exactly two months ago the 1200t South Korean corvette Cheonan broke in two and sank after an explosion at her stern. 46 of her 104 man crew were killed. An investigation was performed and despite hopes to the contrary, when the wreckage was raised the presence of remnants of a North Korean torpedo have confirmed that the Cheonan was deliberately sunk by hostile action (in this case suspected to have been a torpedo delivered by a North Korean Yeono-class minisub).
This is a big deal. It's not a case of a bit of sabre-rattling gone a little too far such as the "Second Battle of Yeonpyeong." In that battle, or the others like it, both sides were pushing each other's buttons in disputed waters and shooting broke out. In this case, a DPRK minisub evidently stalked the Cheonan before the decision was made to fire on the ROK corvette. At any time in history, between any two countries, this is reasonable cause for war-- and the two countries in question in this case are already at war (still). The weirdest part is, I can't figure what the reasoning behind it was. Usually Kim Jong Il seems to be perpetrating a game of brinkmanship wherein he shakes something up or pushes some agreement to the point of strain and then lets ROK or the US or whomever buy him off. In this incident I can't see what he'd be looking to gain or why any usual gain would be worth the risk of such a bold move. It begs the question, how monolithic is North Korea? I'm not sure which is more scary, a North Korea dominated by a generally unstable and seemingly batshit-crazy Kim Jong Il, or a North Korea being fought over by several extreme factions with competing goals and resources. One angle that's been troubling my mind ever since it was reported that his health is failing, what if he's decided he should be the one to unify Korea and he feels time running out?
From what I can gather from the news, South Koreans are angry. And well they should be! Can you imagine the response from the government and the populace if some one sank a US naval vessel? That raises the question of a response. In my opinion, if this was "brinkmanship," then you've already gone over the brink. Appeasing Kim hasn't ever gotten us anywhere (though it did eventually lead to North Korea conducting two nuclear tests), and if he's resorting to overt military action to try to get whatever it is he wants then you certainly cannot countenance giving it to him.
Any military response would have to be exceuted very carefully. I'm pretty confident that any general engagement between allied ROK and US forces versus an outdated, outmoded, and probably underfed DPRK military would be very one-sided. Such an engagement needn't necessarily be "general," as you could, through any number of mechnaisms, probably sink a North Korean sub or five without it necessarily looking like it was you-- but a strategy like that could very easily and quickly escalate into a general engagement. The problem with a general engagement, beyond the fact that war is almost always an undesirable outcome, is that Seoul is too close to the border with the North, and DPRK artillery assets could be used to bombard Seoul for at least a short while before it would be neutralized by allied response-- and that could cause lots of damage and many civilian casualties.
In any case, it's not a war yet, but I feel like there are a lot of scenarios that could turn it into one. I hope it can be resolved via some reasonably peaceful approach that doesn't involve appeasement... But as long as an apparent madman like Kim Jong Il is in power, the North will be unpredictable and dangerous.
I don't think you have much hope of that. The original press reports all made fairly clear that the ROK was pretty anxious to ascribe this to anything but a Nork attack, and only publicly did so when they simply couldn't get away from that fact.
ReplyDeleteDespite Sec.State Clinton saying "something has to be done," my guess is that nothing will be done. As you rightly pointed out the consequences of doing something (i.e. the possible shelling of Seoul) will be viewed higher than the cost of doing nothing, even though, in the long run doing nothing will encourage even more acts of aggression.
Even if we did sink a few subs in a method that couldn't be directly linked to us, the Norks would attribute it to us anyway, and I imagine, act accordingly.
Yeah I think you're probably right. I see that wen jiabao is now in South Korea and as usual china is the wildcard... I have to think this really pissed the Chinese off and at some point you have to wonder if the potential economic benefits for china of a unified Korea won't someday be viewed to outweigh the security cost of a US ally sharing a border with china.
ReplyDeleteHaven't the Chinese remained supsiciously ambigious on the whole subject? I think a few days they issued a "you have our sympathies" to South Korea, but have otherwise been chummy-chummy with North Korea...am I mistaken on this? I am very worried this situation will escalate with the Chinese favoring the North and a unified Korea.
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