I just came back from there actually - specifically from Benghazi. It’s pretty bad. Gunshots every single day and I heard at least 5 car-bombs going off during the 12 days I was there. But the situation there is the subject of a whole 'nother thread.
This is a nice fantasy…but spy agencies are not supermen. We’ve seen recently that they can’t even track a civilian airplane from Malaysia. There’s a good chance that the CIA does not have a single agent on the ground in North Korea, and they may not know where the nukes are stored.
The Dear Leader’s “one shot” is exactly why he can do anything he wants, and not worry about starting a war.
Nobody will fight him, because his first shot (even without nukes) will destroy Seoul, or (with nukes) destroy anything he can hit in Japan. Millions dead, and and the world economy will sink into a depression for years. Nobody is willing to pay that price, so nobody will ever fight the Dear Leader, and he knows it. Fortunately, the only thing he cares about is being boss of a shithole, and he has no desire to conquer new territory. So he’s going to stay in power for a long,long time. No foreign power can oust him, and I don’t see an internal coup in the near future.
The end game is the real problem here. You are basically talking about a 24 million person cult re-programming. Is there discontent in the congregation? Of course there is. But that doesn’t mean it will be easy for them to suddenly switch religions.
This is an entire society programmed from birth, undereducated, falsely educated, and -in shockingly high proportions- developmentally damaged by malnutrition. The mental health crisis alone would be devastating. Feeding them all for the first 3-5 years until soil could be re-built and a transportation network built would be another overwhelming challenge.
Here is a great peek into the problem from the perspective of North Korean Refugees: How much longer will the North Korean regime last?
China doesn’t give a hoot about “another democracy” on its border. As always when it comes to North Korea, what the Chinese government is concerned about is what they call stability on the Korean peninsula. In other words, no massive influx of North Koreans fleeing into China. The Chinese government already isn’t happy with the current level of escapees and there is also the issue of cheap labor and cheap mineral imports. Democracy outside of China? The PRC couldn’t care less. Economic impact of millions of unemployed people suddenly appearing in the country? That would make the CPC look like it doesn’t have things under control.
Two things:
[ol]
[li]The US Navy has hydrophones in the Indian Ocean. They probably have a rough idea as to where MH370 crashed; they simply have done little to launder the information to the search parties as it would reveal US technical capabilities simply to retrieve dead people and a non-US carrier’s aircraft[/li][li]Nuclear weapons have distinctive radioactive signatures which can be detected using technical means. Even if decoys were employed to divert attention from them, the real weapons would still require extensive security to prevent their destruction - You simply target any area which gives off those distinctive radioactive signature of a weapon.[/li][/ol]
The Dear Leader’s “one shot” would be the end of his regime as the US is treaty bound to defend South Korea AND Japan. If Kim were somehow stupid to consider an attack on say Guam or Alaska (US territory) not even the potential threat of Chinese retaliation would halt the US from rendering the North Korean military machine and its command and control structures “inoperative.”
He had better make his one shot count as it would be the end of his regime and very probably his own life in its aftermath.
A reunified North Korea would be problematic for China as people in Manchuria would see the freedoms that the South Koreans have up close and personal. As it stands now, with the minor exception of Hong Kong and perhaps India, there are no democratic nations bordering China. Even Russia isn’t a “democracy”; it’s an oligarchy which allows voting.
North Korea is China’s only real ally. Losing it to a reunified Korea would be like the US losing Canada to a communist nation. It would be so terrible to conceive of that they wouldn’t allow it to occur.
So I wonder… if the prevailing winds blow East, how would China feel about an uninhabitable radioactive wasteland where North Korea used to be?
That’s the leverage we use to gain their tacit consent to conventional bombing. “You know we have every right to use nuclear weapons, but we won’t, out of consideration for your environment. No objections, we presume?”
Are you unaware of living conditions in China? “People in Manchuria,” as well as everywhere else in the People’s Republic of China, see the freedoms that other countries have. Plenty of Chinese visit, study, and work in South Korea, Japan, the United States, France, and other free countries. Free societies are not some mythical, mystical, far off thing to the Chinese citizenry.
Once again: Stability. That’s all the PRC government cares about. They’ve made that clear time and time again. Your little essay above is merely wishful thinking. And how do you propose the PRC “not allow it to occur”? They’re certainly not going to launch an attack on South Korea’s territory. Furthermore, they’re doing what they can to rein in NK to prevent “instability”.
The ultimate fear of whoever is on the Chinese Throne, is, and has been for longer than Western recorded history* is “chaos”. When you have that many people to feed (and don’t do a really great job of it), stability is not assured.
Ironically, the Communists are the ones who most recently demonstrated the result of “chaos”.
24 million starving, ignorant, unemployable peasants, while not exactly on the order of a serious revolution**, comes real close to the definition of “chaos”.
-
- approx time line.
** - the continuing attacks on train stations (why not markets, like the MidEast?) are likely to trigger yet another demonstration of how China deals with “chaos”.
- approx time line.
Why not markets? Because the train stations have and are surrounded by shops.
For the military types:
How much is known of the artillery so terrifying that Seoul has been expanded to the DMZ?
We know their “air force” includes MiG-17 (many of which are believed to be hollow shells, stripped for parts) as its main fighter. If their artillery is ancient enough, could it be brought ready to fire without emitting any detectable signal, or would they need to fire up some kind of electrical fire-control system, the activation of which would be/could be detected?
With Seoul on the border, you know they have some detailed intelligence of the activity in the bunkers and trenches.
Guns aren’t activated remotely - you need to have a team of men at each one in order to fire them. The best indication that they’re about to be used won’t be some electrical system, it’ll be drones spotting thousands of trucks rushing to positions.
Incidentally, I’m less worried than some regarding NK’s artillery. Maintaining these sorts of complex mechanical systems in operational condition requires money, training, technical expertise and more money. Combined with the usual “first day of war” stumbles, and I doubt more than 1 out of 10 barrels will be capable of firing when war starts. Most of them are probably rusted husks.
Not that even 10% of NK’s artillery array won’t do horrifying damage to Seoul, of course.
What makes you think Seoul is on the DMZ?
The NKs are good at digging. I understand their subways are dug in 100 meters deep. So, SK and the US are going to need a lot of “bunker busters” and munitions for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th strikes.
Unless I’m completely off, Seoul is less than 50 miles south from the DMZ. There’s a lot of artillery that can reach that far.
No, I’m not “unaware” of how China has “changed” in the last 40 years. What I am very well aware of is that most of those changes are cosmetic rather than practical as:
[ol]
[li]Freedom of speech is severely curtailed.[/li][li]Freedom of assembly is also[/li][li]It is illegal to form independent political parties in the nation.[/li][li]Unions are illegal and the worker’s right to have their grievances redressed are severely limited.[/li][li]Tens of thousands of people are held in Chinese prisons for spurious charges mostly of a political nature.[/li][/ol]
Do I need to continue on why China is a authoritarian nightmare or was satisfactory?
Having a democratic nation on China’s border could result in there being a refuge for Chinese dissidents to foment unrest in the nation. Since Manchuria is already China’s version of the US Rust Belt (an aging area with more people than opportunities) a democratic and united Korea could infect that region and spread throughout the nation.
That would (again) be problematic for the autocracy ruling the country.
If China knew anything about stability there wouldn’t have been serious episodes of civil unrest in the nation every 20-30 years, would there be? After all, the world didn’t imagine The Cultural Revolution or the events in Tianamen Square: they happened while China was trying to control its populace.
“Wishful thinking” is presuming that a nation which is held together by draconian laws would not try to prevent anything that would or could foment unrest inside its own borders.
And none of that has jack to do with the Chinese citizenry’s knowledge of freedom. As mentioned, plenty of Chinese travel overseas for tourism, plenty of Chinese live overseas for study or employment and even return to China.
There’s already a honking big democracy on China’s border. That’s not the cause of what unrest there is here at the moment.
Unlikely since, as noted, there’s already a honking big democracy on China’s border. A united democratic Korea on China’s border wouldn’t mean much since Korea’s not exactly a big place. What would mean much would be millions of refugees coming to China if the NK government were to collapse and their citizenry decided to flee en masse. China’s already doing what it can to send back North Korans who enter China illegally.
It’s not wishful thinking to realize that the PRC absolutely will not attack South Korea. Your idea that a foreign entity could somehow foment unrest inside North Korea is laughable. How, exactly, would they go about that? Kind of hard to mingle with the locals. Impossible to get someone into the local government or even the military owing to the songbun concept which is pretty much the be all and end all of navigating NK society, advertisements in the local press are obviously out of the question. So, what’s left?
True, but that isn’t “on the border” aka DMZ.