Kaplan on the Fall of the North Korean Regime

UPDATE #2: It sounds like at least somebody in the South Korean government has been reading Kaplan:

China is pursuing the so-called Northeast Project to co-opt Korean history with an eye on claiming North Korean territory when the regime there collapses, a senior lawmaker quoted a Chinese leader as saying. Former National Assembly speaker Kim Won-ki quoted the remarks in the Unification, Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee on Thursday, saying they were made in a frank meeting with the high-ranking Chinese official.

The Chinese leader also reportedly said Beijing finds the Kim Jong-il regime and the political situation in North Korea very unstable. In any emergency, the U.S and allied army would move to North Korea?s border with China and face the Chinese People’s Liberation Army there, a situation Beijing would not tolerate, he said.

Meanwhile, Chinese attempts to distort ancient Korean history have this time taken it to the point of trademarking as their own the spot of the birth of the Korean people according to the Dangun mythology, Mt. Baekdu, by attaching the Chinese name, “Changbai shan.”

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UPDATE #1: Richardson has more analysis of the Kaplan article over at TKL.

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It seems like every six months somebody writes an article about what should happen in the event of a North Korean collapse. The latest person to take his shot at providing a theory of what to do in the event of a North Korean collapse is Robert Kaplan. Well now we know what Mr. Kaplan was up to two months ago at the DMZ. Coming Anarchy first reported on this, but you had to have an Atlantic Magazine subscription to read the complete article, however Robert was nice enough to actually cut and paste the whole article.

Basically Kaplan provides a good summary of the Korean situation and provides his recommendations about how to handle a post-Kim Jong-il North Korea. Kaplan believes that the Chinese are making a power play to control a post-Kim Jong-il North Korea by either militarily occupying the country or installing a puppet regime subservient to China. This really shouldn’t be a surprise to those following things here on the peninsula. I would actually be more surprised if China wasn’t making plans to exert some kind of authority over North Korea after a collapse. After all the Chinese are fearful of the masses of refugees that could pour across their borders not to mention the regional economic and military threat a united Korean peninsula could become a few decades after reunification to China. I’m also sure the Chinese wouldn’t appreciate a united Korea with US troops in it as well. So it is totally in their interest to establish conditions to where they will exert some kind of authority over a post-Kim Jong-il North Korea and prevent a unified Korean peninsula. However, don’t expect a collapsed North Korea any time soon. China will not allow that country to collapse until after the Beijing Olympics. The 2008 Olympics is going to be China’s coming out party and they don’t’ want anything like a massive refugee crisis or war on the Korean peninsula to ruin it. The scenario of China taking authority over North Korea is a very real one. China is already trying to claim ancient Korean history as their own so if they ever do occupy North Korea they can use their shared history as part of the reasoning for doing so. It worked in Tibet, why not North Korea too?

Kaplan also provides scenarios of a collapsed North Korea being occupied by US, Chinese, Russian, and South Korean troops. I have long advocated that the US should not send in any troops into a collapsed North Korea and that the ROK Army should overwhelmingly fill the country with soldiers to exert authority over the north before the Chinese or Russians can move in. If the US moves into North Korea that would give the Chinese and the Russians the green light to move in as well. In the interest of a unified democratic Korean peninsula the US and South Korea cannot have these two country’s occupy any portion of North Korea. That is why it is critical that South Korea quickly deploys it’s forces throughout North Korea and implement martial law and immediately begin humanitarian assistance to exert a sense of authority. North Koreans have been brought up since the day they were born to hate the United States and if the ROK Army is seen working side by side with the United States in North Korea this may give many North Koreans the impression that the South Koreans are the pawns of the United States and may be more inclined to wanting a Chinese occupation instead. It is critical that the South Koreans have to be viewed early on as the legitimate occupiers of North Korea by the North Korean population. The US military could be best used in South Korea to help the ROK Army establish camps and give humanitarian aid to North Korean refugees that may poor into South Korea. Even this has to appear to be South Korean led. Everything done in the early days of a collapse has to be viewed in the context of building the legitimacy of the South Korean government in the eyes of the North Korean population. Also the US Navy would be critical to blockade the country to ensure no weapons or WMD are being smuggled out of the country.

Another recommendation that Kaplan advocates is that the US should not conduct a military strike on North Korea in response to a missile test, which he is absolutely correct about. This is something I have long believed in though for slightly different reasons than Kaplan’s. Kaplan believes North Korea would retaliate with a limited artillery attack on Seoul and Yongsan Garrison. I don’t think he would do that because that would provoke a war because the automatic counter battery fire back at North Korea would just be tremendous which would ultimately escalate into full scale war. What I think is more likely is that North Korea would retaliate in more unconventional ways like terrorist attacks on subways, bombing bridges, shooting down civilian airliners, or small scale DMZ shootouts for example that would not precipitate a full scale war, but still inflict heavy damage on the South Koreans which the regime could in turn blame the US for and then use the attack on his country as an excuse for a complete nuclear arms build up. Kim Jong-il is desperately praying for a US air attack that the Clinton era history revisionists want George W. Bush to give to him. The Clinton era policy advice on Korea is as incompetent now as it was back when they were in power. Fortunately President Bush is not taking their advice and sticking to economic sanctions to wear down the Kim regime.

Overall, the Kaplan article is a good read for those who haven’t been following the situation on the Korean peninsula to closely and I think it is great he debunks the Clinton era policy makers recommendations to bomb North Korea. Ultimately reading the article I think it is increasingly clear that South Korea’s greatest national interest should be in maintaining a strong US-ROK relationship because South Korea has no chance of a reunified, democratic Korean peninsula without the United States to counter balance the territorial and hegemonic ambitions of China and Russia.