Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Is Collapse Inevitable In North Korea?

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Reuters

Eli Lake, Bloomberg: Preparing for North Korea's Inevitable Collapse

Let's be honest. The world would be a better place if a revolutionary tribunal in the near future sent North Korea's Kim Jong-un and his henchmen to the gallows. Kim's subjects are so malnourished that North Koreans are notably shorter than their South Korean cousins. The state's gulags are so large, you can see them from space. Survivors of those camps have testified that fellow prisoners withered away from starvation.

The U.N. high commissioner for human rights has acknowledged the horror. A 2014 report from that office says that inside of North Korea "crimes against humanity" have been committed as a result of the state's policy. These include "extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation."

Read more ....

WNU Editor: My Chinese friends/contacts tell me that North Korea will not collapse. Too many North Koreans are still invested in the system .... and there are enough of them to make sure that an uprising or the growth of an opposition group will never succeed. But if China should withdraw their support and start supporting other North Korean groups .... everyone I know in the region says the same thing .... that is the day when everything will change.

4 comments:

"Sebastian" said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
"Sebastian" said...

What if China and SK together take control over NK and making it a de-militerized zone and part of a reunioned Korea?

Part of the deal, the US has to leave the bases in SK...

Unknown said...

What if China gives NK to South Korea on the condition that SK kicks out the U.S.?

If Japan falls or allies, then China has won the western Pacific with potentially no shots fired.

Don't know how Japan could be done, but the rest could be done without force.

Necklaces complete

B.Poster said...

I suspect what would probably happen would be China and NK together would take SK unifying the country under the control of NK. It's unlikely that the US when faced with this type of situation would come to the aid of SK. We don't have the means to fight both NK and China.

China could conceivable help South Korea take North Korea. In order to keep the country unified as a demilitarized zone, China would need to commit a large force to the area for an indefinite amount of time. South Korea lacks the means to contain North Korea on it's own, North Korea is an ally of China, and we need to remember North Korea is nuclear armed. As such, for these reasons it is unlikely that China would South Korea in this manner.

Also, I'd add in addition to this that North Korea would be able to unify the Peninsula with only a minimum of help from China and a lnog range Chinese force is unneccessary. As such, it would not seem to make sense from a pragmatic point of view for this reason. Also, remeber NK and China are allies. As such, this wouldn't seem likely from an ideological point of view either.

Now IF this were possible, it is clear the US needs to redeploy it's military forces around the world. I've discussed this many times here before. The only question is will these redeployments be orderly or disorderly. Such a scenario, allows the interests of our SK "ally" to be safeguarded and allows us an orderly redeployment. I'd expect POTUS and any other US leader who is thinking rationally and along the liness of American interests to embrace such a development.

Unfortunately the more likely scenario NK and China together take control over SK and making it a de-millitarized zone and part of a reunioned Korea. The reunioned Korea would be under the control of NK.

The US has two optiins here. 1.) Leave voluntary hoping China and NK do not mete out punishment on it. 2.) Fight a hopeless war against vastly stronger powers for a natikn and a people thousands of miles who are NOT going to do anything even remotely approaching this for us. Also, remember the US is still heavily dependent on "made in China."

South Korea has two basic options at their disposal. 1.) Develop nuclear weapons. This needs to be done NOW. If we can help them here, we probably should. 2.) Develop strong enough conventional forces to make an attack by NK to costly for them to ponder. Progress does seem to have been made in this area.