Denny Roy has an interesting Lowy Institute piece on the possibility of North Korea initiating a war with South Korea.
North Korea is not about to start a war
Threats, yes, because Kim Jong-un fears
political contamination from the South more.
Many observers think it is likely North Korea is planning and preparing to start a war this year. Pyongyang has indeed made bellicose noises in the last few months. But the main trigger for the spate of commentaries giving serious consideration to the idea of an imminent attack by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is a 11 January article in 38 North by two respected North Korea experts, former senior US State Department official Robert L. Carlin and Middlebury Institute of International Studies Professor Siegfried S. Hecker. “We believe that, like his grandfather in 1950, Kim Jong-un has made a strategic decision to go to war,” Carlin and Hecker write.
There’s a problem here: Carlin and Hecker’s analysis, the foundation of the war scare, is unconvincing.
The whole piece is well worth reading as an analysis of the situation, but also as an example of how the media choose their stories between scary and not so scary. We've heard a good deal about recent North Korean military threats and sabre-rattling, but not so much about the unlikelihood of war.
Kim says the policy change on reunification is a reaction to an “escalation” in hostility from the DPRK’s adversaries. He specifically cites South Korean discussion about the possible “collapse” of the North Korean state, “remarks made by the US authorities about the ‘end of our regime’”, US-South Korea joint military exercises, the US policy of nuclear-weapons-capable platforms regularly visiting South Korea, and enhanced trilateral cooperation between the United States, South Korea and hated Japan. Relatedly, South Korea has announced it is building a capability to pre-emptively kill Kim and other top North Korea officials. Pyongyang’s seemingly warlike behaviour is partly reactive.
We don’t need to rely on Kim’s word. He would not be sending stocks of ammunition and missiles to Russia if he planned to fight a war on the Peninsula in the immediate future.
An even stronger reason to doubt the Carlin-Hecker thesis is this: the combined forces of the United States and South Korea give them overwhelming military superiority over the DPRK at both the conventional and nuclear levels.
Threats, yes, because Kim Jong-un fears
political contamination from the South more.
Many observers think it is likely North Korea is planning and preparing to start a war this year. Pyongyang has indeed made bellicose noises in the last few months. But the main trigger for the spate of commentaries giving serious consideration to the idea of an imminent attack by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is a 11 January article in 38 North by two respected North Korea experts, former senior US State Department official Robert L. Carlin and Middlebury Institute of International Studies Professor Siegfried S. Hecker. “We believe that, like his grandfather in 1950, Kim Jong-un has made a strategic decision to go to war,” Carlin and Hecker write.
There’s a problem here: Carlin and Hecker’s analysis, the foundation of the war scare, is unconvincing.
The whole piece is well worth reading as an analysis of the situation, but also as an example of how the media choose their stories between scary and not so scary. We've heard a good deal about recent North Korean military threats and sabre-rattling, but not so much about the unlikelihood of war.
Kim says the policy change on reunification is a reaction to an “escalation” in hostility from the DPRK’s adversaries. He specifically cites South Korean discussion about the possible “collapse” of the North Korean state, “remarks made by the US authorities about the ‘end of our regime’”, US-South Korea joint military exercises, the US policy of nuclear-weapons-capable platforms regularly visiting South Korea, and enhanced trilateral cooperation between the United States, South Korea and hated Japan. Relatedly, South Korea has announced it is building a capability to pre-emptively kill Kim and other top North Korea officials. Pyongyang’s seemingly warlike behaviour is partly reactive.
We don’t need to rely on Kim’s word. He would not be sending stocks of ammunition and missiles to Russia if he planned to fight a war on the Peninsula in the immediate future.
An even stronger reason to doubt the Carlin-Hecker thesis is this: the combined forces of the United States and South Korea give them overwhelming military superiority over the DPRK at both the conventional and nuclear levels.
4 comments:
Every NK soldier crossing the border would have to be accompanied by a couple of commissars, just to stop them fleeing to the Haebangchon.
Then the commissars would have an excuse to follow them.
Doonhamer - we could see the commissars elbowing undernourished troops out of the way in a rush to defect.
"An even stronger reason to doubt the Carlin-Hecker thesis is this: the combined forces of the United States and South Korea give them overwhelming military superiority over the DPRK at both the conventional and nuclear levels."
That is true, and will remain so, right up to the point that China and Russia go to the aid of the DPRK, just like they did in 1950, and look at how close North Korea came to winning then.
Penseivat
Penseivat - yes that's a point and would presumably form part of Kim's calculations, although he'd know he couldn't rely on promises or treaties. It also depends if China and Russia think the DPRK regime is worth it and how much damage standing back would do to the US and the South, especially if the DPRK has to be put back together again.
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