At the clip below, with Donald Kirk of the Christian Science Monitor. He speaks toward the end on the extreme dangers of a military overthrow in North Korea, especially a refugee crisis. Interesting how these dangers are raised primarily in the context of outside intervention, and not in the case of an implosion of the dictatorship in Pyongyang. Most problematic is the size of the North Korean forces, with nearly 1,000,000 troops under arms. A military incursion from the south would only be feasible with a combined contingent of American and South Korean units. The U.S. would provide air support off shore through carrier battle groups. Tokyo has indicated its support for military retaliation --- and Japanese military forces were deployed to Iraq in the first outside operations since WWII --- so perhaps the operation could be multilateralized. And then there's China. We can only speculate, but it's unlikely any force options would be available without some kind of support from Beijing. Regime change North Korea would require buy-in from all the major actors, and so far I don't see much realistic discussion of it on the Chinese side. (But see, "Is China About to Throw North Korea Under The Bus?") Certainly China relishes the regional prestige from propping up its NoKo client. But should the Kim dynasty continue its bellicose actions, perhaps leading to the additional loss of life, the situation will be an increasing reminder of the false peace of 1930s Europe. A huge blowout of historic proportions could be expected.
Kirk's got a report from yesterday: "Disillusioned South Korea Weighs Response to North Korean Flare-Up."
And New York Times has another installment on the diplomatic cables: "Leaked Cables Depict a World Guessing About North Korea." And related news at Memeorandum.
Cross-posted from American Power.
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3 comments:
Um...excuse me....uh...ha..'cuse me....can anybody hear me?
I would just like to ask a question....is that ok?
If the South Koreans have had this "enemy" to their north....I mean like right nearby, so close you can smell their kimshee breath...
Why do they have to "weigh their response to North Korean Flare-up"!??!?!??!
I mean wouldn't you think that maybe, just maybe they should have looked at ALL OF THE POSSIBILITIES regarding North Korea and come up with a standard set of replies to ANY DUST UPS WITH THEM!?!?!?
Did they think that the son of a dying dictator would just quietly take over power? I mean the 'lil tyke hasn't been allowed to exhibit any kind of maleness before...didn't they think that maybe, just maybe he would try to rattle his testicles!??!!?!
Seesh, I'm a fat balding middle aged white guy and I can even figure that out.
Steve
I've seen many of these talking head "expert" articles, and they all seem to avoid the 1,000 pound nuclear gorilla sitting in the corner. 100% chance that the Nork dictatorship will take as many human lives as possible with it before it goes. That having been said, is in not better to act now than later, when they will have even more nukes and a less crappy delivery system?
The last 10 seconds of that RT item included scences from a islimeic ass kicking , not related to the mad stunted retard and his pathetic malnourished fu-ked up army:)
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