It honestly will probably happen anyway. You can only let your people and then your military starve so long before they turn on you. I think most people are underestimating the inevitable humanitarian crisis thats going to follow. First and foremost, alpha teams or Chinese commandos or both will have to secure the WMDs before some rogue Nork general decides to commandeer and use them. And you have to figure out how to prevent or stop an inevitable civil war from breaking out between regional military units that want to seize power. And you have to figure out how to not start an accidental war with China in the process. And you have to figure out what to do to prevent all the citizens from starving. After that initial bout and hostilities stabilize, the real fun work begins. How do you stop everyone from starving? What do you do with all the war criminals that previously operated without impunity? How do you even begin to arrest and try them in court? Then how do you get to the prison camps fast enough to prevent the commanders from executing the political and diplomatic prisoners to prevent them from testifying? What do you do with all the private property, and who does it go to? The people there now or the families that rightfully owned it before the government seized everything? How do you even bring these people up to speed after decades of brainwashing and indoctrination? The list goes on and on.
The problem we have is that asking Trump to navigate that incredibly difficult balance is like entering your grandfather with Parkinson's in the egg-and-spoon race.
Nobody elected or nearly elected in recent memory could handle this, Trump will delegate this to the military more than likely. Probably the best bet for the least amount of destruction would have been Eisenhower way back when but that ship has long since sailed.
The problem is that its going to take decades to navigate it. Even if Trump got re-elected, it would still be going on long past his administration. And I would rather let China have it all than having to pick up the tab ourselves.
I would say sit back and let Russia and China figure it out. There's nothing there for the US to gain out of it, but Russia and China have been pulling natural resources out of NK at an ever-increasing rate. If they still want to do so, it's in their best interests to fix the problem. It might appear to be a bit of a dick move to go in, tear shit up, and then let others clean up the mess, but in the big picture, I think that's what makes the most sense.
I also kind of think that people will figure shit out on their own, to a certain extent. It's not like their leadership is growing food, or running the internal systems... they are just controlling it. If you wipe out the top ranks of the government (which I tend to think would be fairly do-able based on their physical concentration, etc), I really wonder just how much worse things would actually get? People still need to be fed, so why couldn't they continue to do what they are doing now? Some sort of force may need to step in and oversee things to ensure a new regime doesn't replace the old, and maybe to help educate people in how to form a government, etc, but that wouldn't really be as difficult or catastrophic as an entire country all of a sudden being deprived of the necessities of life. I'd love to see any kind of strategic and tactical analysis of something like that... as in, how exactly would they wipe out the government, what kind of resistance would be expected, and what the repercussions would be. Anyone have any links to anything like that?
Love to read something like that too. As far as who would do the nation building thing once/if the US wrecks shit, I imagine with all the natural resources in NK China and Russia will be fighting between themselves to rush in there and be the savior. I'm honestly surprised China isn't already jumping at the bit to help (maybe they are privately?) given that Trump sounds pretty serious about going pig hunting. The US slams them with missiles and bombs and then gets the hell outta the way while China and Russia divide up the spoils and deal with the remaining military protecting them.
I really wonder the amount of brainwashing efficacy of the population and how much real interconflict would happen if the regime fell. I honestly don't see it going as badly as the countries caught up in the Arab Spring or Iraq since there are no real surpressed ideologies that would be vying for control. If South Korea opened their gates to the flood of refugees I could see a reunification on the scale of East/West Berlin in 89.
Because they have a central authority governing everything. When thats gone, factions will develop and fight to control resources. The military will likely pillage the civilian population for resources, especially food in a population that is already on the brink of starvation. It happens in every war. People forget that NK went through a famine in the mid-90s, much of which was obscured by their state media. We knew about it because we use satellites to predict annual crop yield and determine how much food will be available for their population. Even if they were able to grow the food required, they lack a reliable distribution system to get it outside Pyongyang. Much of the North Korean economy is propped up by its thriving black market with China, which their government allows because its become so fundamental to preventing a full collapse. Once the central government collapses that will take any underlying value of the NK currency with it, either triggering rapid runaway inflation or rendering it worthless altogether. Food as a commodity (along with arms) will become the de facto currency instrument for goods and services. The factions that develop will control the means of production and hoard it because it will suddenly become extremely valuable.
Which makes me wonder just how much worse things would get if the government was removed? I'm not saying that it wouldn't be painful, and people wouldn't die, but I'm really curious just what the numbers would look like? Do we care if there are a bunch of smaller factions that rise up to replace one big one? Would the removal of the government then allow that black market with China to flourish and prosper as a result, somewhat legitimizing it, and making it more beneficial? Kind of like the legalization of pot? I'm not trying to belittle the struggle of the people or the potential shitstorm that would be the aftermath, I'm just genuinely curious about the dynamics of that. As it is, most reporting and journalism I've seen on it is just sensationalist bullshit, but I haven't really seen any sources being cited by anyone who is proposing any kind of explanation of what would happen or why... just lots of supposition and guessing.
Initial reaction from the press conference Trump just did was that NK is...... fucked. And he's certainly ready to pull the Trigger. Shockingly, trump wasn't going completely off the cuff, which makes me think there's some military commanders talking to him now, but he mentioned a lot about China helping out. I think when something happens, it's gonna come as a complete and utter surprise. Like those missile attacks against Syrian air bases after they used chemical weapons, except on a much larger scale. Like one day we're just gonna have the news in the background and wait what the fuck?!? Was that an explosion behind that reporter???
I mean I suppose whether or not we consider something "worse" is relative. We just dont know have a ton of information on the life of an average North Korean, but in a full government collapse with the US having a real presence there, the perception would certainly seem worse. If a civil war develops and say a general or two gains access to nuclear weapons from two different launch silos and one decides to nuke the other, I would certainly consider that worse than the current state of things. Plus any conflict could immediately spill over in the SK or China, also making the situation considerably worse. Since northern Manchuria has a few hundred thousand ethnic North Koreans, perhaps a conflict with China involved triggers an insurrection within their own borders. But suppose all that goes well, how do you even begin a rebuilding effort with a starving population? The country is delicately operating on shoe-strings. I think you would have a very difficult time motivating them to restart an economic machine when they are just too weak for meaningful productivity, let alone their ability to operate as a modern economy. And thats not even considering an insurgency. You may soundly defeat the military, but how do you think a civilian and military population thats been indoctrinated against the West for decades are going to react to an invasion or attack that immediately legitimizes all of the propaganda the State has fed them?
I can say the window for reunification is shrinking, if not closed already. Younger South Koreans have very little in common with NK citizens and aren't excited about paying for all the reunification costs. In their region, refugees are a difficulty: Russia would rather shoot them for encroachment, the Chinese have no interest in absorbing them en masse, and SK probably couldn't do it alone, without tanking their economy or putting an entire generation under a tremendous economic yoke. Most of the population that has relatives in NK are old, dying and their voice in society is diminishing. The German comparison falls short, because NK doesn't really produce anything of value, and so much of the infrastructure is outdated by damn near 40 years. Remember, Korea was one of the poorest countries on Earth when the war began, and for much of NK, it still is. At least on both sides of the Berlin Wall, production and education continued. The Arab Spring comparison falls short, because there's no global community of Koreans, they have no shared identity (religious or otherwise) that supersedes arbitrary national lines that will draw international support. Koreans are pretty much isolated to their tiny, weird little corner of the world, sandwiched between 3 tremendous powers, and they've survived (even thrived) because they contort themselves into things that are simply unpalatable by Russian, Japanese or Chinese standards. That's one thing about this that's remarkable: NK is extremely shrewd and knows how to play the US like a fiddle. Think about the response to the Pueblo: any other country would have been a glass parking lot. They KNOW what they can get away with, they KNOW how they are perceived by the population and they KNOW a nuclear arsenal is a license to act even more brazenly. They learned lessons from Iraq, Vietnam, Libya, Syria, Cuba, etc. The one thing those countries had in common: no nukes. Kim's logic is very valid: nukes legitimize the regime and if they have them, the US will be coerced to do what they want. The wild card in this is Trump: the NK's have no ability to predict Trump's behavior. China can (and should) exert pressure to calm the situation down, but they're not doing it for the fuck of it: they want something in exchange, because we have always given them something (and this sequence has replayed itself over and over). This administration has antagonized China, is considered a diplomatic joke, and doesn't really have any leverage with the Chinese. Thus, the amped rhetoric. North Korea has a population of 20 million people, almost none of which have a role in a modern economy. This is why it's a hot potato, administration to administration: these 20 million individuals are not going to be wiped out. Something has to be done with them, and literally no actor involved has a great plan for this. It's going to be painful, expensive and difficult, and there are few human plans. Most of what I recall from the SK military plans was centered around the "regime change" being as bloodless as possible, using the military for reconstruction, and the US & China collaborating on installing a state government friendly to both. Which is as wishful as wishful thinking gets. Best case scenario that's realistic: we, as part of a larger group, pressure China into shutting Kim's nuclear aspirations down and start to break down the isolationism. It will take time, plenty of diplomatic carrots and a lack of bluster....so, not gonna happen.
Just bought this as a pen holder and paperweight for my home office. Spoiler: once in a while politics is funny -- large image, SFW
What I find most interesting about this whole NK affair is all the military analysis about how horrible it might be. It very well could be, I don't know. However, I also clearly remember the media build up and analysis prior to Desert Storm. Iraq had the 8th most powerful military in the world, it was going to be a long drawn out battle, in short...we were in for a viscous fight. It took us something like 24 hours to have complete and total air superiority, we lost more troops to friendly fire than to enemy fire, I don't believe we lost a single plane, the 8th most powerful military in the world was surrendering en masse to drones while screaming "God bless George Bush!" Their whole counter offensive was to lob some Scud missiles at Israel, a few that did make it through. That was one of the worlds most powerful militaries. According to Business Insider , in 2014 NK ranked number 35 among world militaries and I read somewhere that something like 25% of their weaponry is duds. I just don't really understand how they could put up much more of a fight then a much stronger military was able to. Yes, they could and would launch artillery barrages against Seoul, but the city is prepared for that with plenty of shelters. Also I have to wonder how much the media might be overstating the NK military's want to fight. Saddam's guys were supposed to be quite gung ho and seasoned from fighting Iran for years. They folded like a house of cards, even his highly touted "Red Guard." I guess seeing everyone and everything needed to fight reduced to ruble in a day will take the fight out of a unit.
Everything I've read about this whole situation boils down to concern about China stepping in just like they did with the original Korean War. I don't think there's any doubt that if were just NK that they'd get rolled.
A country who didn't even have guidance programs for their payload vehicles five years ago is not going to put up much of a fight, period. The US has a navy more powerful than at least the next eleven largest navy's combined. Their armed forces is more powerful than the next nine most powerful countries combined. Fighting NK isn't an issue, it's trying to understand them. This is a country who's entire population and economy is in complete and utter servitude to one stupid little man. And like fundamental Islamics, they don't view this as war but a cosmic battle between gods that trendscends our lives and planets. People who are forced to believe until they believe that if they do much as pick up a BOOK written outside North Korea it will make their hands wither and rot off. Such craziness in such a mass population makes things unpredictably scary.
I just find it interesting that our president is more of a wild card than their guy. I think Trump knows that too. Is Kim willing to lose it all?
He has been raised since birth to believe that he is an immortal messiah from his sociopathic mass-murdering father and grandfather. I firmly believe that he would do anything and everything to fight opposition.