Mac-Coleman

18 December 2011 –

Kim Jong-Il died this morning. Or yesterday. Or last week. The People’s Democratic Republic of Korea, North Korea, is such a closed country, that he could have been a hologram for the last six months and nobody, even most North Koreans, would have been the wiser. The dear leader succeeded the great leader, his father Kim Il-Sung, and will be succeeded by his son, Kim Jong-Un. I wonder what heraldic moniker the young despot will assume—provided he lives long enough to decide on one. The world looks on as the great game of Northeast Asia requires a strategic adjustment by all the players.

I have been to the Republic of Korea, South Korea, so many times, I have lost count. Exercises TEAM SPIRIT and ULCHI FOCUS LENS multiple times. At least five Pre-H-Hour Scenario planning conferences. Assorted conferences, other exercises, and a three hundred sixty-six day, seven hour and fourteen minute unaccompanied tour; it was a leap year, and I had to serve an extra day. I also remember standing on the beach of a South Korean controlled island about twelve miles off the coast of North Korea. I was looking through binoculars at North Korean artillery positions well within range of hitting me. The airplane that was going to pick me up had to land on the beach at low tide and then take off within five minutes or risk being a target for the artillery. It was real.

I have watched South Korea transform from poverty and military dictatorship to widespread WI-FI and a functioning democracy. Thank you, US Forces Korea, particularly the U.S. 2^nd Infantry Division—Second to None—the USAF 51^st Wing and the 8^th Fighter Wing—Wolf Pack—and the US Seventh Fleet. You have kept the North out of the South and the South out of the North for nearly six decades. In many minds, the 1950-53 war was an unnecessary war. But, what exists now south of the 38^th parallel on that peninsula was worth your sacrifice over the years. The Republic of Korea is well within US compelling strategic interests to defend.

I also have watched North Korea scream ridiculously dangerous dogma, belch missiles and nukes, and starve. I have watched a people live a modern version of the deconstruction of normal society that followed such events as the Great Plague. The same powers who have vital interests in maintaining the status quo on the peninsula are the same powers who will largely determine how long North Korea will last as an entity and if there will be violence on the peninsula in the near future.

Strategically, North Korea is a buffer between Democratic South Korea and Chinese Manchuria. Its importance as a buffer has not diminished since MacArthur’s forces pushed all the way to the border of China on the Yalu River in the fall and winter of 1950. Mao Ze Dong then decided that it was strategically important enough to divert his focus from invading Taiwan/Formosa to keeping Americans and others off his borders. In one of the greatest intelligence failures in history, UN and US force commanders did not predict or then see the Chinese divisions pour across the Yalu, changing the war into a vicious stalemate that lasted another three years. Nothing has changed strategically for China since then. China wants it border with North Korea to be closed to refugees and far from any foreign forces. North Korea is a buffer zone that still is a strategic imperative to Communist China.

In 1992, I played in an executive table-top exercise where a war erupted on the Korean peninsula. Allied forces were pushed back some, then we counterattacked with a massive offensive air campaign and an offensive of allied ground forces through the main invasion corridors into North Korea. Everything followed the predicted computer plans. What made the exercise fun was my decision, as my team lead, to stop offensive air operations 30 miles north of the capital of Pyongyang and to consolidate all ground forces on an east-west line crossing the peninsula at the same point. This was accompanied by a message to the Chinese that we would not go any further north. We proposed to treat the rest of North Korea as a demilitarized buffer zone, which would be administered by Allied governments and the Chinese government. My intent was to allow the Chinese to maintain the strategically important buffer zone in a way that did not force them to enter the war. The iron, gold, and other mineral deposits in the rugged mountains between the Pyongyang-Wonsan Line and the northern border could still be exploited, but didn’t have to be fought over. Russia also would have its buffer zone in the far northeast as well as close access to mineral deposit exploitation. In exchange for the use of Japanese bases for the throughput of logistics and as bases for our aircraft, Japan would not have to compete economically or diplomatically with a burgeoning Korea that would have otherwise controlled all the peninsula. All the strategically important reasons to keep Korea divided would be met, and the threat of North Korea would be eliminated. I liked the solution. I still like a similar solution today.

China, Japan, Russia, and the Republic of Korea’s strategic interests still have to be met in this episode of leadership change in North Korea. Every country mentioned still has its own reasons for keeping North Korea alive—just barely alive (If North Korea were the neighborhood horse, its neighbors would be arrested for animal abuse). But, donated food, fuel, and medicine and diplomatic niceties to prop up the regime are cheap compared to the costs of five powerful countries each pursuing its own interests if North Korea were to implode in the near future. Later on, I wouldn’t care if the latest Kim died a horrible death at the hands of his people or his generals as long as we didn’t return to the mistakes of the last Korean War and have to fight it out again. Does such a cold carving up of the corpse of North Korea reflect the will of the Korean People? Not yet, I suppose. Satisfying them will have to be a future adjustment in this Great Game.