South Korea is on the brink of announcing that they blame the Norks for sinking of a corvette near the Northern Limit Line, taking the lives of 46 sailors:
South Korea concluded that North Korea was responsible for the attack after investigators from Australia, Britain, Sweden and the United States pieced together portions of the ship at the port of Pyeongtaek, 40 miles southwest of Seoul. The Cheonan sank on March 26 after an explosion rocked the 1,200-ton vessel as it sailed on the Yellow Sea off South Korea’s west coast.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because South Korea has yet to disclose the findings of the investigation, said subsequent analysis determined that the torpedo was identical to a North Korean torpedo that South Korea had obtained.
The war between the two parts of the divided peninsula is not technically “over”, but rather in a state of armistice. One side has unilaterally breached that cease fire. The question now becomes, what will the South do, if anything?
The answer, according to one diplomat, ought to be more diplomacy:
In the 16 years I have worked with North Korea, I have made 18 trips there, and I remain convinced that sustained diplomatic engagement is the only way to encourage the North to moderate its threatening behavior. The alternative is far worse: an isolated North Korea that is heading down a path of defiance.
This lesson has been forgotten. When President Obama took office he pledged to engage rogue states in dialogue, but he didn’t follow through with North Korea. Confronted by its provocative nuclear and missile tests, he secured international sanctions, stepped up cooperation with South Korea and Japan and even garnered some support from China, the North’s closest friend. All that made sense as far as it went.
But then American officials neglected to re-engage Pyongyang. Instead of using last summer’s extraordinary meeting between former President Clinton and Kim Jong-il to jump-start dialogue, they lashed themselves to a set of hard and fast preconditions for talks, demanding that Pyongyang pledge to give up its nuclear arsenal and return to multilateral nuclear negotiations.
When the only tool you have left is a hammer, all problems come to resemble nails. And in any case, discussions about discussions are probably superior to kinetic mutual annihilation – after all, the south has more to lose in every way than the orcs of the hermit kingdom, and Nork artillery threatens the whole of Seoul with cataclysm. Then there is the wee little issue of nukes for kooks.
Just don’t expect it to get us anywhere anytime soon, nor provide any solace to the families of those whose lives were snatched away.
W’s “Axis of Evil” speech was deemed by the chattering classes as simplistic.
To me, it looks ever more prescient.
This can’t be right. Jimmy Carter was favorably impressed with the country and is he ever wrong?
North Korea is the kind of problem that Iran (and maybe some others) will soon become. Then, despite what the problem country does, we “have to live with them” because to truly ‘solve’ the problem would be too hard a choice, which is the reason that they became such a problem in the first place….so we kick the can down the road and hope that nothing happens. Hope: such a poor strategy.
The entertaining bit goes unsaid. The SORKS have been agitating for many years for US to begone and even forced the Combined Forces Command to turn over all military control…..The then CFC said, sure! Let’s do it in 2010 not 2012 or 2013. Why put off a ‘good’ thing?
I have to admit, I’m watching these developments with fiendish enjoyment. I’m pretty sure Bell and the rest are too.
Like the rattlesnake living under the porch, sometimes you just have to deal with it.
And sometimes you just say, “To hell with worrying all the time about whether or not that SOB bites me and I die” and you kill it.
Me? Something North Korean that floats and has weapons aboard with be beggining the process of becoming a reef right about now.
Ah but one must look at it as a politician. Sure the whole GSMA is at risk but what does that matter to the pols from Taegu or Pohang, Pusan or Mokpo?
I went back again and again to a little place almost nobody goes to. It was scenic and quiet, restful really. Shoes left at the door. Little tiny plaque commemorating the deep plans that Syngman Rhee and Chiang Kai-shek had reached for world peace in 1949. Odd really that nobody had invited Mao or any Japanese.
A lifetime ago. The Angels Weep. There towards the end there was just one power that we thought would refuse to go down without trying genocide first and last. They can’t win but they don’t care. Still, when one considers the power of the nations that folded quietly and shuffled off….one would have thought that the prescient would have made themselves our best friends in life, but they didn’t. BB Bell was my kind of guy even if he did fall for the effects based BS.
When 7th fleet is down to a USCG cutter or whatever Gates deems expedient won’t our ‘friends’ enjoy what must arise in response to our withdrawal? It’s going to be exciting.
I’m not a politician
I know that!!
They are way too stupid to read blogs and way to cunning to actually write on blogs.
Blowing up a NORK surface ship (of which they have few) would be too obvious and allow them to claim credibly they are being attacked by the bullying capitalist running dog lackeys.
They have a lot of crappy old subs though. What if none of them ever return from patrol again?
Whatever North Korea’s game is, I say we can play it all day long without having to resort to all out war just yet. Let them make that move, but let them “rest assured” it will mean their end.
We have now had a period of attempts at diplomacy and really strong words describing that really strong things would be put in place to control rogue regimes someday as we follow the process toward resolution perhaps.
I find myself wondering if anyone has ever studied the effects of the SWDO (Strongly Worded Diplomacy Only) approach as opposed to the more militant approach. As in “you come out here and play funny games and you’ll get your nose bloodied”. My memory says that Khadafi was a pretty quiet guy for some time after the 1986 raids on Libya, and what stopped Iran’s game of “Where’s the mine now?” in the Persian Gulf in the late 80′s wasn’t strongly worded statements.
But it would be interesting to see an objective study of world events in which crises with rogue states were resolved by threat or actual military intervention were compared with those resolved by SWDO.
I supposed I could do such research myself but in spite of the words of Ms. Pelosi, I think I still need to work to get healthcare. And if I didn’t need to work to get health care I would be out fishing today… man, it’s a beatiful day here in Michigan. OK, back to work.
George v.
The primary reason the ROK hasn’t and won’t take any steps to counter DRPK aggression (unless they’re invaded outright) is that they don’t want that country to collapse. The economic impact would be disastrous for the ROK, and not a picnic for China for that matter (millions would flee over their border).
To borrow from your other topic above, we could call this one ‘perverse disincentives’.
Give the lady a prize. The retaliatory options are very limited. Whole lot depends on China.
Sort of like the millions we have crossing OUR border every year?
The Chinese have had several decades to come up with some sort of response to their North Korean problem. They’ve chosen to mostly ignore it, treating North Korea as a lovely buffer zone.
Well, it’s time for China to deal with the psychopath neighbor who doesn’t seem to mind shooting out the windows of the next house down.
Liz,
You nailed it. They saw the awful cost that W. Germany paid for reunification and all of a sudden reunification dropped off their table.
These days there is that and the 17,000 artillery tubes in range of the GSMA. There’s a certain reluctance.
Still like our response to the fervent demented mad desires of the nationalists to boot out Americans and take command again. I like that one can walk Yongsan and still see 8th Army HQ and the staff there is probably larger than the last brigade of the 2nd ID.
SOKOR is a formidable force and country. It will be interesting.
There is a fascinating slide show contrasting the winner and loser of WWII. I will post it on my blog. It portrays Detroit juxtaposed with Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Berlin from WWII to now. Life and death.
South Korea, I believe, WILL take some sort of kinetic action. It has no choice. The North Koreans have time and again made incursions into the South, both through land and especially sea, killed people, blown up stuff, etc.
However, the deliberate sinking of a South Korean Corvette, with the accompanying loss of 46 crew, cannot be set aside. It is a blatant act of war, and the two Koreas are still in a state of war, dampened only though an armistice. In fact, North Korea is still at war with the United Nations, if I’ve read the original armistice articles correctly.
How much will South Korea tolerate? I think we’re about to find out, and I suspect that lines already been crossed.
Which means, ipso facto, they are still at war with the US. I have always been amused at those who counseled the US to eschew the “six-party” talks and negotiate one-on-one in direct talks with the NORKS brushing aside the little inconvenient fact that we are the lead UN signatory to the Armistice and are legally in Korea as representatives of the UN ONLY.
And of course there is no small savage irony in the fact that the UN tries to avoid official talks in any capacity with N.Korea like Dracula avoids the cross despite the fact that they are legally still at war with them, while at the same time clamoring for a greater role in Iraq despite presently having no legal/formal connection to that conflict in any form or fashion beyond generalized resolutions.
Yes, it’s always interesting how the UN works it’s way into a leadership role, then walks away at the first sign of trouble. I have no use for that organization.
I think the first step, were they planning retaliation, would be halting aid. They haven’t even done that. Nor have they been strictly enforcing the Proliferation Security Initiative which they signed on to, another salient first step…how about taking Geumgang Resort off the table? Or officially closing the Kaesong Complex? I won’t be holding my breath.
The answer, according to one diplomat, ought to be more diplomacy…
Because diplomacy has worked so darned *well*.
When the only tool you can conceive of using is a carrot, you tend to view all your problems as cottontails…
“When the only tool you can conceive of using is a carrot, you tend to view all your problems as cottontails…”
Hee, hee. That’s a good one!
Picture this: SSN-23 (I’ll leave the name for the reader to discover), goes for to deposit some SLMM’s in NORK waters. Said SLMM’s do what they do.
Namesake of aforementioned vessel furrows brow in displeasure. Like we care…
Sweet irony. Yes?
Indeed!
I don’t believe the Norks are that crazy. They want us to think they are, but various stories coming out (like, say, Kimmie boy’s recent trip, hat in hand to China begging for more aid) suggest that, whatever their internal lunacies, their senior leadership has their eye pretty clearly on #1: their own survival.
This suggests that there might be room for a well-communicated limited retaliation. “You blew up one of our ships. We’re going to blow away for retaliation. We will not go further, unless you go further.” The difficulty there is judging what you can blow away without knocking over the whole house of cards, or whether their leadership can survive a loss of face of that kind.
But it’s not a matter of “they’re all lunatics who are ready to go suicide-genocidal on your entire population and kill 5 million people at the drop of a hat.”
The “more talking” approach will *not* work to stop rampantly aggressive types. We’ve got a lot of history on that one. The only benefit for more talking is hoping they manage to do themselves in before they cause more damage than starting a small war would.
Has anyone heard any speculation if the commander of the NORK vessel that launched the attack, I’m guessing a sub, acted independently?
Of course if that had happened I would expect the NORKs to tell the South Koreans in a back-channel manner and that would dissuade the South from announcing the action . . .
South Korea is showing off the remains of the torpedo. A large portion of the gear box, drive shaft and tail fins survived the detonation and were recovered inside a portion of the vessel.
What Liz said about the economics of the situation is correct. It also applies to China and Japan as well as SK. The Chinese have apparently moved a large number of troops to the border to prevent or discourage anyone from crossing in bulk.
The guys at startegypage feel that the hardliners have won out, and were the ones who authorized the attack. Basically, ther are several factions fighting for control, and Dear Leader isn’t in the best of health. His son is rather hated, and there are reports of unrest. If a civil war breaks out, it’ll most likely be the Chinese who go in and restore order. At any rate, the country will have to be built from scratch, and eveyone remembers how W Germany’s economy was destroyed by the re-unification (part of the problem was the exchange rate that EGer was absorbed with, but that’s economics). The Kim family is also terrified that the population would do to them what the Hungarians did to the Ceaucescu’s. The potential for a gotterdamerung is very real.
When I’m in a darker mood I feel like Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse now. Drop the bomb. Exterminate them all.
And I have to wonder, if China moves in to bring stability and those 23 million starving people become their responsibility….would they ever leave? Another potential scenario, the ROK might also try to move in from the south to occupy and avert a humanitarian crisis/mass refugee problem on that end (and attempt to stop a Chinese takeover of the entire DPRK). What then? Would they meet in the middle or would troops clash?
No good options for anyone, a collapse of the DPRK government is like a burst appendix.
The US Navy would be critical too, to ensure no weapons and WMD are smuggled out when all hell break’s loose. Otherwise, US occupation would be the very worst thing we could do there. North Koreans have been brought up since the day they were born to hate the United States and if the ROK Army is seen working side by side with the US instilling martial law and occupying their country, it will reinforce the impression that the ROK is a US pawn and the population may be more inclined to favor a Chinese occupation.
What the hungarias did to Ceaucescu? Because the dude was romanian as far I know…
Sorry about the error, Vitor, but you get the idea. Liz, one of the options is that the north would be administered by an asian coalition. The Chinese don’t really want to administer the peninsula, but they don’t want a united (and free) Korea on its border. On the other hand, if the peninsula could be guaranteed to be completely nuclear free then they might go for it.
No good options, no matter how you slice it.