It would be an understatement to say my friends and family living outside of Korea react to provocations by North Korea than I do living here. I don’t want to say I take things too lightly, having seen how quickly the dream world can cross into violent reality having lived in New York City during 9/11. That said, there’s nothing I can do about it.
No one can say with certainty North Korea will or won’t attack the South. Yesterday’s noise got one of my friends and I talking — what we’d do if there was an attack, how likely a North Korean attack in this part of the country would be. As an aside: I’ve decided Ulsan would be a very likely target due to it’s high number of petro-chemical plants and heavy industry that was the backbone of the surging economy during the 80s.
That said, there isn’t all that much coverage in the Korean media itself, signalling that these new threats are being interpreted by South Korea and America in a different way.
Anyway, I get a lot of comfort in knowing that people like the esteemed Andrei Lankov are saying things like this in the Washington Post:
“The location of mansions where Pyongyang’s leaders enjoy their Hennessy cognac is well-known to the American military, and North Koreans know the precision of U.S. cruise missiles,” Lankov said. “The North will steer clear of any action which might lead to a real confrontation.”
Yep. Sounds about right. Cheers Andrei.
Taken from Marmot’s Hole.
15 responses so far ↓
1 baekgom84 // May 28, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Last night I logged onto messenger and had an offline message waiting for me, written by a friend, which read, “GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!!!” I think the average Korean’s indifference to North Korea is a pretty calming influence for those who live here long term.
Honestly, the North would have to be bat-shit crazy to stir up any major trouble, given that their leaders live what must surely be some of the cushiest lifestyles on Earth. Besides that, someone pointed out that even though North Korea have the superior ground force, their air force is well-behind South Korea, and that in modern warfare a ground force will get torn to shreds without adequate air support.
2 DJ // May 28, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Excuse my ignorance, but isn’t Kim Jong-il pretty much the epitome of “bat-shit crazy”? Just wondering.
3 DJ // May 28, 2009 at 3:17 pm
(For the record, I think most people here in the States intuitively understand that North Korea is basically a gangster state and that its leaders’ provocations are designed to simply get the West’s attention. An old-fashioned gangsterland shakedown, nothing more. But whathappens if the U.S. and the ROK call the North’s bluff? Then what? That’s what worries me.)
4 DJ // May 28, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Oh, and if that bat-shit crazy gangster Kim Jong-il launched a nuke at Seoul or even Tokyo, something tells me that President Obama wouldn’t have the sack to respond in kind by blasting the hell out of the North with thermonuclear warheads. Discuss.
5 Patrick // May 28, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Despite all the talk back in ‘02 about Saddam’s alleged WMD”s, Kim has been openly claiming to be pursuing nuclear weapons for years. He’s lucky he doesn’t have any oil.
6 Korea Beat // May 28, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Kim is far from crazy. He has held on to power for well over a decade in a nation with powerful enemies and few resources. Despite that he has been able to play his enemies like fiddles.
Most likely the recent saber-rattling is about internal power struggles. It is not (primarily) about getting other countries’ attention.
7 Shinsano // May 28, 2009 at 9:31 pm
I have to agree with Korea Beat. He’s quite cunning and has managed to manipulate powers far greater than he. It’s more a question of “is he desperate?”
I’ve read much of what he’s doing now is to get a grip on the country while he turns over power. That makes some sense to me. However, if he’s backed far enough into a corner I could see him doing something a little crazy. Not launching a nuke into Seoul, but a more severe attack than a border war on the west side.
8 Ron // May 28, 2009 at 11:29 pm
I was there in ‘94, when all the stupidity was going on then, and when the old man died on a Saturday night.
I don’t remember any of the locals being worked up about it at all. Just another day.
9 DJ // May 28, 2009 at 11:46 pm
“Despite all the talk back in ‘02 about Saddam’s alleged WMD”s, Kim has been openly claiming to be pursuing nuclear weapons for years. He’s lucky he doesn’t have any oil.”
Well, he’s been more than talking about it. One crucial difference between Iraq and North Korea is the fact that an all-out invasion of the North is pretty much out of the question. They’ve got a real army, lots of mountains, and (even without nukes) could level Seoul with missiles and ordinance pretty quickly.
So apples, oranges. You know. Bush would have sent the 10th Mountain Division into Pyongyang in a heartbeat if there was any chance of pulling it off.
10 DJ // May 29, 2009 at 1:46 am
By the way, this analysis by Robert Kaplan in the Atlantic is pretty interesting:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905u/nuclear-test-kaplan
The premise is this: Of course the basis for Kim’s provocations is internal North Korean politics. But Kim’s strategy to prevail in that struggle is to provoke the U.S. to de facto recognize his regime and buy some international support that will allow to fend off Chinese aspirations to control the territory. In other words, Kim isn’t acting all crazy here in order to impress anyone INSIDE North Korea. It’s to force actors OUTSIDE the county (namely, the Obama Administration) to negotiate one-on-one and, in the end, to help prop him up.
Kaplan goes on to explain why this is such a problem for Obama. I’m not sure about that part, but the analysis about what’s going on in the North seems plausible enough to me.
11 baekgom84 // May 29, 2009 at 11:45 am
Can you imagine how pissed the Koreans would be if North Korea collapsed and the Chinese moved in? They’re still pissed about giving away Manchuria, and that was hundreds of years ago.
12 DJ // May 29, 2009 at 1:18 pm
But how about the opposite? How pissed would the Chinese be if Korea reunited into one hyper-nationalistic country whose people suddenly think its a good idea to turn their attention nortj, stake a claim to Gando, and start fighting for the rights of minority Koreans living in Manchuria?
Pissed enough, I’d warrant, that they’ll do whatever they can to make sure it doesn’t happen.
13 baekgom84 // May 29, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Well I think if re-unification were to happen in Korea’s favour, the massive efforts required for the rebuilding of infrastructure etc etc would consume far too much time and energy for Koreans to even think about annoying the Chinese with wild claims to territories held centuries ago. I know Koreans are a little prone to over-sentimentalism, but surely they have more right to NK than the Chinese?
14 Shinsano // May 29, 2009 at 3:55 pm
I think you’re both making good points. I think if China were to attempt to move into or get control of North Korea they’d do it in a very unassuming way. You could argue China is attempting to do that now. It might even entail a “reunification,” but in name only.
If reunification did happen and China was out of the mix it could go somewhat like what DJ is suggesting. Sure, they’d have more important matters to tend to initially, but over time (beyond any of our time) Korea would turn it’s attention to Gando, or every other border in its sphere. That’s going to be an ongoing debate in East Asia. Forever.
15 DJ // May 29, 2009 at 10:41 pm
By the way, I didn’t mean to predict that that’s what Korea would do if there’s unification. The point is that CHINA’s worried it could happen. And that’s reason enough, I think, for them to press internally for some sort of de facto control. (Just like what it’s doing on Taiwan.)
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