Still traveling, in Saint Louis for a speaking engagement after spending Thanksgiving with my Mom; but wanted to comment on the most recent crisis with North Korea. 2010 marks the 60th anniversary of the start of the Korean War and the 57th of the Mutual Defense Treaty we signed with South Korea. Yet though 60 years have passed, we still have no peace treaty. Even more troubling, this year in particular North Korea has raised the bar on responses to perceived national security threats to include the probable sinking of a South Korean Navy ship earlier this year and last Tuesday firing artillery shells at Yeonpyeong Island, an island located in disputed waters off of the peninsula’s west coast and populated by South Koreans. According to a Stratfor report North Korea fired a total of 170 artillery rounds, 80 struck the island but 20 failed to detonate. According to press reports two South Korean Marines and two civilians were killed. An additional 19 others were wounded. The South Koreans responded by firing 80 rounds. I’ve not seen any information on any damage the South Korean rounds may have caused.
In response, the U.S. deployed the George Washington Carrier Strike Group from Japan to conduct exercises with South Korea in the Yellow Sea from 28 November to December 1st. Over the weekend, according to a New York Times report, China called for an emergency “consultations” with North and South Korea, Japan, the U.S. and Russian in Beijing next month. The New York Times report also said China had dispatched an official to South Korea and said a North Korea would travel to China this week.
North Korea insists that the U.S. and South Korea have caused the crisis and have released several statements on that theme through their official state news agency. South Korea had been conducting exercises and according to the Stratfor report, “North Korea has occasionally protested these drills — including recently — and claims dozens of shells fell in North Korean waters near the island, provoking it to fire.”
In an article released 29 November, they state: “The vicious moves of the U.S. and the south Korean ruling forces in league with it to start a war of aggression against the DPRK are the main factor of driving the situation on the peninsula to a serious catastrophe. The military provocation committed by the puppet forces in the waters around Yeonpyeong Island was by no means accidental. It was part of the adventurous scenario to provoke a war of aggression against the DPRK which has long been in the making and a deliberate and premeditated move to derail the process for improving the inter-Korean relations and do harm to the DPRK by force of arms at any cost. The U.S. has frantically stepped up the preparations for a war of aggression against the DPRK, while staying in south Korea for several decades. The aim sought by the U.S. is to keep Korea indefinitely divided and put the whole of the Korean Peninsula and the rest of Northeast Asia under its unchallenged control with South Korea as its military base and springboard. Prompted by such sinister aim, the U.S. is noisily talking about the fictitious threat from someone while posing a constant military threat to the DPRK under the pretext of coping with it. The warlike forces of the U.S. and South Korea are driving the situation to an uncontrollable catastrophe under the pretext of the recent incident in a bid to impose a nuclear war disaster on the Korean nation without hesitation. This is, however, a serious miscalculation. The warlike forces will never go scot-free while making desperate efforts to ignite a war of aggression against the DPRK on this land at any cost.”
Since South Korea frequently conducts exercises this explanation doesn’t ring true to me. This past March, General Walter Sharp, the commander of UN Forces, combined US and South Korean, and US Forces Korea, testified before Congress on the North Korean threat. The General stated, “Of North Korea’s true intentions we know little” but “Kim Jong-il’s strategic goal is the survival and continuance of his regime. North Korea’s efforts to build a nuclear arms program have become the key component of its strategy to guarantee regime survival.” General Sharp also said “North Korea’s conventional and asymmetric military forces remain the guarantor of Kim’s power. The regime manufactures the perception of an external threat – primarily from the U.S. to maintain internal control and justify its ‘military first policy’.”
General Sharp’s three priorities for his command are:
– Be prepared to fight and win
– Strengthen the ROK-U.S. alliance
– Improve the quality of life for all service members and their families and Department of Defense civilian workers
General Sharp elaborated on the first priority by stating, “maintaining ‘fight tonight’ readiness if the primary reason U.S. forces are stationed in the ROK…The Alliance stands ready to address the full spectrum of conflict that could emerge with little warning on the Korean peninsula.”
I’ve watched the Korean situation for a long time. Fire fights and artillery exchanges are not uncommon but this recent series of events is as tense as I’ve ever seen. It will be interesting to see what happens after the latest joint U.S./South Korean Naval exercise. Publicly China is still neutral but I think their attempts to get a diplomatic initiative set up to address the problem is an encouraging sign. It may not be the strong condemnation of North Korean actions the U.S. would like to see but it’s a start. I’ll probably be blogging more about this when I recover from jet lag. As always my views are my own.
