The sinking of the South Korean corvette Choenan was mystifying to many outside observers, and an outrage to South Korean citizens. Some has mused that the crisis was initiated by Kim Chong Il to cement the military behind his chosen successor. Despite the best inventions of his biographers, the younger Kim has never had the charismatic appeal of his father, the “Great Leader.” His scion is a mystery outside of the gulag state, and the North Korean military is increasingly made up of rigid ideologues and potential adventurers who may badly misunderstand the correlation of military and economic strength between their own forces and the South.
The North Korean military occupies a privileged place in the Hermit Kingdom, at least in relative terms. They have first access to the sere economic fruits of that country, including foodstuffs.
This, then, could be a significant indication of internal unrest:
An upsurge in the number of North Korean soldiers defecting into China fuelled fears of food shortages and an imminent military clash.
Previously considered to be among the regime’s most important assets, the North Korean People’s Army has always been well provisioned in order to ensure the troops remain loyal.
But a poor harvest and the disastrous revaluation of the North Korean currency in November of last year has worsened the nation’s already dire economic straits.
Defectors have claimed that they were required to survive on noodles made of ground corn and that meat or fish were a luxury, a journalist for Japan’s Asahi Shimbun reported from the Chinese city of Shenyang…
The defectors have claimed that senior members of the party and the armed forces were stockpiling provisions, another indication that the regime is steeling itself for a military confrontation…
The defectors apprehended by the Chinese were reportedly returned to North Korea, where they face execution.
These are mere footsoldiers, acting in the extremities of desperation. It will be interesting to see if more senior officers attempt to flee the sinking ship of the North Korean state.
Stupid Civilial question(s): Can the ROK hold them off? What will the US response be if NORK uses their WMD on the South and kills US citizens? Is there a CVSG nearby? Last, but not least, wonder if the BMD shooters are up and at 100%?
And at the risk of showing loopy James Bond style thinking – would the Norks be able to put a nuke on Seoul via an underground route (40 km is long distance to tunnel, but then when you have hordes of slave laborers, how hard would it be)?
The ROKs have used seismic sensors all over the place for a long time just to find tunnels down from the North.
And they found a bunch of ‘em.
But do the norks have, in fact, WMDs? Correct me if I’m wrong, but if memory serves, the only verifiabe detonations were 1 kiloton and 2-3 kilotons.
…And after checking Wiki to ensure my memory was correct, I see that North Korea claims to have chemical weapons stores.
The biggest known issue has been the number of artillery tubes aimed at Seoul. I seriously doubt the nork army is any real threat, unless you’re standing between them and a large pile of hot-pockets. They haven’t been in a fight for sixty years, and they’re facing one of the best armies in Asia.
I get the feeling most South Koreans don’t want anything to do with the North just now; they know what happened to Germany in the early 1990s.
You should have seen what happened to Austria, particularly Vienna, when the hordes arrived. It weren’t pretty…
The senior officers probably have a lot more watchers watching them than the average grunt.
I’m so glad the US under the Obamination brought up “early and often” our lamentable treatment of illegal aliens to the people who regularly return defectors to torture and certain death
– and I have to hand it to the Chicoms for not just breaking out laughing at them – that must have made at least one or two busted guts…
Don’t we monitor their banking traffic on the internet, telephone system, wire transfers, etc? An upsurge in large sums leaving the country should be a good early indicator.
Forgive my likely naivete – but how could the Chinese return these men knowing they face execution? I know the Chinese are the old “friends” that North Korea has…is there more to this? What do the Chinese get from North Korea that would prompt them to return men to a certain death.
It’s not what China gets from the Norks, Kris, it’s what they don’t *want* to get — a half-million North Korean refugees crossing into China.
China returns *all* Nork border-crossers, except for the lucky ones who are hidden by the few sympathetic Chinese who live close to the border.
Gimmie a break! These guys mowed down unarmed students in Tienanmen square.
Kris,
They don’t care.
It’s a cultural thing. The chinese and saudis and kuwaitis and iranians and yemenese and somalis, indians, ceylonese, really are NOT anything like us. They don’t care. If that guy is not in my family or my tribe, sucks to be him.
Well, I hope they try it. Once the fear of retaliation is lifted we and the ROK would be free to conduct air strikes all over the DPRK and take out their nuclear facilities. If the DPRK actually invaded the ROK, it would solve some very pressing concerns about weapons proliferation that make me fear for everyone’s future.
Conventionally, the ROK Army is large and much better trained, fed, and supplied than the DPRK (the average DPRK citizen is six inches shorter than the average ROK citizen). The logistical difficulties of invasion are far beyond what they can handle. China would not back them. It wouldn’t even be a contest.
A less conventional, but far more realistic scenario should the DPRK invade: Initial attacks are asymmetrical. In this case, having a US troop presence would actually prove detrimental. Mass chaos in populated areas and a significant language barrier for our troops. Lots of fratricide (since the DRPK soldiers would wear civilian clothing and/or ROK military clothing). Which is why we need to hand over operation control to the ROK asap, even if they don’t want to take it.
Actually, Liz, ROK has in fact recently asked the US to retain overall command, which would be activated during a war. They seem to think the US armed forces are better at controlling allied operations.
As best I can tell, there’s only about 19,700 Army and 8,800 AF on station. That’s compared to 655,000 active duty and 3,000,000 reserve personnel for the ROK. I suspect our troops would function more as liaison and coordinators.
Much of the ComBloc reserve forces were a joke, with outmoded equipment and poor maintenance of that. The NORKS are probably in the that same boat today. The 600K+ troops could probably hold the line against the NORKS, while the reserve mobilizes, and then Katy bar the door into Pyonyang. If the NORKS were to use Chem weapons, then it can be stated they committed suicide. That would be one thing that would most likely set aside all the political differences in ROK and they would be determined to snuff out the evil regime up north. Pity the NORK Army in that case.
Personally, I’d give the NORK Air Force about 48 hours before they are destroyed, then, unless Red China comes in to help, the NORK Army wouldn’t last much more than 30 days afterward. Ask the Wehrmacht what the Jabbos did to them. It would be far worse for the NORKS.
QM, agreed. What’s worse for the North? Trying a conventional attack, and getting crushed, using “only” conventional munitions in all those tubes pointed at Seoul, and getting really crushed (I doubt the South Koreans would be amused at this point), or going chemical, and getting darn near exterminated? I suspect that if things go south (excuse the pun), the ROK won’t give a tinker’s damn about “world opinion.”
I think asymetrical attacks would be least ‘worst’ for the North. They have spy rings in the South already, and they speak the language, look like the South Koreans. Open societies are pretty vulnerable to those types of attacks. Things might have changed after 911, but back in the late ’90s you could get on base just walking by and flashing any card (I used a blockbuster video card once and the ROK soldier waved me through).
Wouldn’t be able to ‘hold’ South Korea, but could make a mess of things. But who are we kidding? Won’t happen, because even as schizophrenic as JKI is he knows his cash cows, both illicit (weapons shipments, counterfeiting) and legal (Kaesong Industrial Complex, et al) would end, as would his regime.
Interesting situation.
The NORKs don’t have that “12th Imam” think motivating them, but in their desperate economic and food straits, an all out exchange with ROK may seem to be a good idea to them (in some perverted way that would not make much sense to us.)
Nothing would surprise me.
After that, things would really get interesting, with Iran and assorted other troublemakers the sudden beneficiary of our downsizing of forces to cope with one fight at a time.
And the reactions of our leadership would make it…….more interesting.
Aside from the terrible realities of war I am mystified as to why the South Koreans haven’t responded yet. The signs sure seem to point to a lack of will on the other side. And its nice to have the biggest kid on the block covering your backside.
Spencer,
I don’t where you live but imagine that you live within range of 12,000 artillery pieces firing high explosive and gas rounds. From caves. The ROKS made themselves hostages to fortune when they situated their capital at Seoul, again. If they’d left it in Chinhae they would be at the Yalu now. War over.
Thanks. Never been and know little about the theatre.
Leaving the capital at Seoul was not good foresight. It might have been a good politcal move, but politics and good strategy are often at odds.
Greetings:
One of the things that has surprised me about the aftermath of the Cheonan atrocity was that no one seems to want to make a connection to the South Korean navy shooting up one of the North Korean’s ships a while back.
In my experience, bullies don’t like to be shown up.
I served in Korean waters alongside Cheonan. I worked with its officers and crew back in the mid-nineties.
It was a good ship. They were good sailors and I was glad to have them with us.