Do yourself a favor-don’t read blogs that simply recite neo-con tripe, or wishful views on foreign policy. Head on over to GI Korea for the straight word:
In fact since 1991 the North Koreans have publicly declared they no longer recognize the Armistice Agreement. Probably the most symbolic violation by North Korea is the fact that they refuse to allow for decades the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission composed of Swedish, Polish, and Swiss officers to inspect North Korea for military build ups outside the Demilitarized Zone.
So this threat to not respect the Armistice Agreement is nothing new and being used by North Korea to legitimize any response to any South Korean attempt to board and inspect North Korean ships. As I have stated before joining and actually enforcing the PSI are two different things and North Korea is letting it be known that there will be consequences if the PSI is enforced.
He’s also got a link to One Free Korea’s plan to hit back at the NORKS without losing our heads or doing something stupid:
At the same time, we should offer the North Korean people food aid, conditioned on strict monitoring and independent distribution by the World Food Program. We should also tell the North Korean people that we stand ready to help them by broadcasting into their country 24 hours a day. We should tell them about the depraved opulence of Kim Jong Il’s life, the corruption of their government, and the prosperity of South Korea. We should demand that the Red Cross be given access to the concentration camps, and that the World Food Program be given access to the hungry. The P.R. battle has great power to constrain or support our options. Bad P.R. for Kim Jong Il can deter leaders, investors, and candidates from defending policies that have prolonged Kim Jong Il’s misrule, and the misery of the North Korean people.
Start preparing for reconstruction. Unless Kim Jong Il believes that we’re prepared to accept the collapse of his regime as an alternative to verifiable disarmament, he won’t disarm. We should also understand that rebuilding North Korea will be a task of incalculable scale that we’ll eventually have to face, one way or another. Even if South Korean and Chinese aid continues indefinitely, it’s probably just a matter of time before Kim Jong Il’s regime collapses or dissolves into chaos. Kim Jong Il is over 60, his health is said to be bad, and he has no suitable successor. The economic system is in steady decline, resistant to reform, and probably incapable of reform. Information is leaking indiscontent is spreading. The food situation, which had recovered to more-or-less subsistence levels after the Great Famine, has worsened again following Kim Jong Il’s rejection of international aid and severe floods. North Korea is a failed state — stripped, gutted, and traumatized. Its reconstruction challenges could dwarf those of post-Saddam Iraq. That’s why we must wrap our minds around how big a problem we’re facing, financially, politically, diplomatically, militarily, and psychologically. Legislation such as the the North Korean Refugee Relief and Reconstruction Act would be a good start toward preparing to deal with those problems.
None of this requires us to close off our diplomatic channels to North Korea. We should keep talking, but we should also be realistic about our approach to those talks and widen their agenda. Even if negotiated disarmament seems exceedingly unlikely, we should express our willingness to talk any time, even if only for P.R. reasons.
And besides-look at the bright side-it gives me an opportunity to trot out this clip. As GI Korea notes, how can you ever get tired of it?
I would liken it more to East and West Germany…in terms of the economic drain, save that it will be far worse.
Years of deprivation has denuded NK of its forests and its agricultural quality. Once the “breadbasket” of the Penn. I have to wonder how much it would take to return it to a viable entity in a “whole” Korea…and worse could it be done fast enough to stop the flood of North Koreans into the Southern cities?
The saber rattling and empty postulating has always been there…but one has to wonder if a senile “wonly” old man might try to test out his “toys” before he kicks the bucket?
and as a failed state it has nothing to lose coupled with the fact thats its generals are older than Helen Thomas and as such, death in glorious battle would, for them, be a viable option.
You have been to seoul, you know that 10-15,000 artillery tubes in DPRK would cause enormous death and destruction and are IMMUNE to a first strike.
There is no military option.
Richard,
We don’t disagree about the fact that there is no military option. The long range artillery that the NORKS have and can range Seoul was a problem I got to see thought out for over two years. I have seen casualty estimates as high as 20,000 on the first two days till we can get in and take out most of their AA defenses and the LRA.
That’s why I kind of like this Plan B. Certainly it works better than anything else we have tried.
P.S. they might not be as immune as you think-counter battery fire will hit them hard once they open up.
Indiana,
We used to wonder the same about the Great leader. Would it be enough for him to shuffle off this mortal coil without rolling the dice or would he die alone. He opted for dying alone.
I thought that the north was the former industrial heartland of Korea and that the south was the breadbasket. Funny how that turned around.
The first few months I spent in Korea there were all those demonstrators that wanted UNIFICATION NOW!! The next 200 visits I was struck by how little the southerns wanted the northrons to collapse and then turn into instantaneous wards of the hard working southrons. They had seen what happened to Germany and decided, “screw those commie bastards.”