Bait North Korea

The North Koreans are beating their chests so hard I fear an implosion of their torsos.

Yeah yeah, many analysts are saying this most recent barrage of bullshit coming from North Korea is due in large part to a succession issue regarding the youngest son of the Kim dictactor.

None of that matters.

What matters is a North Korea that has the capacity to drop, or launch, a nuclear weapon at either its neighbors or us, the United States of America.

I feel that the current U.S. administration is pursuing a policy of baiting the North into firing the first shot into what would end up being a war to unify the peninsula under South Korean leadership.

The main way in which this baiting would be done, I feel, is through the now-intensified interdiction program established by the most recent UN resolution in which ships from or to North Korea must be searched and detained if any nuclear or missile material is found (Signed even by China and Russia, but their stipulation was that the boarding and searching of such vessels must be voluntary by the captain of whatever ship we’re trying to search).

As it stands now, Obama has already said he would not longer reward North Korean belligerency only to face the same situation months later, whenever the food or fuel or whatever we gave to them the first time runs out.

In fact, the Obama administration has said that if containment via the interdiction of cargo and sanctions does not work, then the U.S. would adopt an “offensive, defensive posture” toward the North. 

If the North ends up firing the first shot, either at our navy or our allies in the region, then a determined coalition could be formed, similiar to that established prior to the First Gulf War.

I mean, seriously, if we’re not trying to bait them into firing the first shot, then what the fuck is our strategy? Are we waiting for the regime to collapse under the weight of more sanctions? Well, it’s been over eight years and that hasn’t happened; the elite of North Korea are apparently plenty content with watching their populace starve to death.

So then what is it? Is the American gameplan to wait until the North acquires or develops the necessary technology to concentrate their nuclear materials into bomb/missile format? Are we waiting for them to develop a viable delivery system?

That would be wonderful, because once the North has these things, it’s pretty much game over: Any conflict with them would amount to at least one, probably more, nuclear detonations against their enemies, and likewise mass nuclear detonation against the North. Why?

Why take this path when we can stop them now?

And don’t spout any of this bullshit about how we’re over-stretched militarily. For shit’s sake, we have the entire Pacific Fleet, on top of however many air bases in Japan and South Korea.

I still think Obama should have authorized the destruction of the North Korean long-range rocket while it was still fueling on it’s launch pad a couple of months ago. That would have sent a very strong message to the entire world: Don’t fuck with Obama.

Sure, it may have started a war, a war in which we would win, most likely, and there you go, no more Kim-led North Korean nuclear bullshit to worry about.

The North does not focus on their crushing defeat in the Korean War by American forces (They were thoroughly trounced and had it not been for massive Chinese and limited Soviet intervention, would have remained the conquered, thus unifying the peninsula under a Democratic government in the 1950s), rather they focus on, and teach their young, the series of faux pas made by the United States since the Korean war regarding the handling of certain incidents.

One of which occured in 1969 when North Korean warplanes shot down a Navy EC-121 surveillance plane and killed all 31 Americans aboard.

In 2003, a group of North Korean warplanes shadowed an American spy plane flying in international airspace over the Sea of Japan and came within 50 feet of the American craft. They followed it for over 20 minutes before breaking off.

Incidents such as these are drilled into the minds of the North Korean citizenry (Who are unable to access any outside media outlets) as proof that not only is the United States out to get North Korea (Which we are, but only because the Kims are fucking lunatics who have a score to settle with their neighbors and us that stem from not only the Korean War but also World War II), but that we are also weak and incapable of a forceful response to such provocations.

It has become increasingly clear amongst analysts and North Korean experts that the North has now concluded that it is in their best strategic interests to continue their nuclear and ballistic missile programs and that the benefits from mastering these things far outweighs anything they may receive by bargaining them away in the Six-Party talks.

Now, regarding an attack against North Korea – their military is strong on paper (Million-man army, over 4,000 tanks, 13,000 artillery pieces, etc.), but how would it hold up against prolonged American bombardment? I mean, how would their bottom of the barrel grunt hold up?

Keep in mind, none of these young soldiers, who make up the vast majority of the North Korean military, have ever been in a war, let alone a sustained bomb/missile/artillery barrage from land, sea and air.

I’m sure many of their highest ranking generals have, veterans of the Korean War, but their fighters have never seen war. Ours have.

The only thing holding the North Korean regime intact, and I repeat, the only thing, is their strong emphasis on the military (It is, after all, a military state.) Their economy is almost non-existent – if it wasn’t for grain donations given to them by China and South Korea they wouldn’t even have enough men to be in their army.

If their military infrastructure collapses, so does the state. And this can be said, to a certain degree, about any nation-state, but North Korea stands at the pinnacle of exemplifying this.

An associate of mine pointed out that regardless of whether they’ve ever seen combat, the isolation from international outlets combined with the brainwashing they’ve undergone would make them fight like fanatics.

Plausible, I suppose, but unlikely.

A counter-argument that outweighs this line of thinking is what would override the other: A fanatical desire to “defend Dear Leader against the imperialistic, evil Americans,” or an astoundingly abrupt, severe mental break due to an appalling, unrelenting bombardment?

I believe that the terror they would undergo during such a bombing (And I’m talking at least a month or more before ground forces, South Korean and, if necessary, American, go in) would take precedence over whatever brainwashing they’ve received.

Anyone who has been in intense combat or has studied the affects of prolonged combat on the human psyche will tell you that fear spreads through an army like an outbreak of flu – from one man in a platoon planting seeds of terror in his comrades to a battalion watching another battalion flee in horror amidst the earth heaving with fire and debris – fear and uncertainty bring an army down.

And as stated above, once their army cracks, the state collapses.

And at this point enters the big question: China.

China does not want North Korean refugees pouring in the millions across their shared border. The Chinese do not want Korean blood mingling with Chinese blood via sexual intercourse. The Chinese want to maintain their blood purity, as their leaders see it.

And not only this, a massive influx of terrified hoards of North Koreans could destabilize an already shaky domestic situation in China regarding the brunt of their masses already consumed by dirt-level poverty.

The Chinese poured a massive army into North Korea in the Korean War because they didn’t want the “imperialist Americans” sitting on their border. They were under the impression that our goal was not to unify the Korean Peninsula, but rather to use it as a jumping off point to attack China.

But things have changed dramatically in the past half-century, and I don’t think China would risk getting into a confrontation with the U.S. again over Kim’s North Korea – they have too much to lose now.

I’ve long floated the idea that the Chinese government uses North Korea as a semi-proxy of sorts, giving them the go-ahead to do these belligerent, outrageous things in order to gauge American response while not being on the receiving end of it. After all, it suits the Chinese well to have a completely dependent, autocratic military state sitting as a buffer region on their border.

But after the recent outbursts coming out of the North these past few months, along with the subsequent series of angry articles directed at the North written by Chinese scholars who, in the past, would always write out against any kind of tough talk made by the Chinese government toward the North, it seems the Chinese are finally getting fed up.

So unless this is some kind of very elaborate ruse, it seems that perhaps the Chinese aren’t using the North as a proxy or, if they were, then perhaps the proxy has thrown off the loose reigns of Chinese guidance and has gone berserk – a monster unleashed kind of deal.

China, putting their reputation on the line, assured the United States years ago, along with the international community, that Chinese-led diplomacy would solve the North Korean nuclear issue. Now the Chinese are embarrassed and pissed off.

Time will tell the outcome of the North Korean issue; but I feel if we don’t act soon, we’ll be caught in a qaundary against a backwards nuclear-armed state making outrageous demands, and threatening nuclear war against any who opposes them.

 

juice

Tags: Asia-Pacific, China, conventional war, Korean War, Military, North Korea, North Korean military, North Korean nuclear program, United States military, War