The Marmot’s Hole

A little birdy sent us the text of an online discussion held with Dartmouth professor David Kang, co-author of “Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement
Strategies,” which was conducted online at some point in the near past. He answered questions about North Korea via The Washington Post’s Website.

The gist of the discussion is that we should all not worry and be happy — the DPRK is a delightful dinner guest who regales the world community with its stories of the good old days when it would try to drink Trotsky, Lenin and Stalin under the table with soju.

Some of the juicy bits:

Seattle, Wash.: Should I consider investing in a bunker?

David Kang: No, no bunker! North Korea has no weapons capability that has
been tested that can hit the U.S. — they conducted a failed test in 1998,
and since then have not tested an inter-continental ballistic missile.
Beyond that, however, North Korea is fairly well deterred by the U.S. Condi
Rice is absolutely right that we have the capability to deter the North –
they have been deterred since 1953 (52 years), and we don’t see any
indications that this is lessening.

Fair enough.

Detroit, Mich.: Do you think military action by the U.S. is a feasible
option? (If North Korea is not able to deploy a nuclear weapon at this time,
should not the U.S. consider this before it can?) Given that the leader of
North Korea is willing to allow many of his citizens to starve while he
pursues nuclear ambitions, it does not seem that this is someone with whom
the U.S. will be able to reach a negotiated settlement.

David Kang: A number of you have posted questions along this line. No, the
military option is not feasible, and no North Korea is not going to attack
the south. (You heard it here first!). The basic reason is that war on the
peninsula would have disastrous consequences for both sides. The capitals of Seoul and Pyongyang are less than 150 miles apart: closer than New York and Baltimore. Seoul is 30 miles from the de-militarized zone that separates the North and the South (DMZ), and easily within reach of North Korea’s artillery tubes and missiles. Former commander of U.S. Forces Korea General Gary Luck estimated that a war on the Korean peninsula would cost the U$1
trillion in economic damage and result in one million casualties, including 52,000 U.S. military casualties. The result has not been surprising: although tension is high, the balance of power has been stable. Both sides have moved cautiously and avoided major military mobilizations that could spiral out of control. Thus, although we can deter the North, nobody wants
to find out how the North would react if we struck first, or if we engaged in a selective strike. The risks are too great for either side to take. As for North Korea, even though they can do a lot of damage, ultimately they would lose the war, and North Korea would cease to exist. This is why they have been very cautious about ramping up tensions beyond the rhetorical
level.

Again, humans aren’t exactly the most logical of beings (see also: Andy Dick’s career) and so those crazy kids up north may not act quite the way we expect them to.

Now that South Korea can basically deter the North by itself, the US isn’t as centralto the defense of South Korea as it used to be. So it’s not surprising that
some rethinking or rebalancing of the troops is going on in both Seoul and
Washington. However, I would add that the U.S. gains a lot by having forward
deployments. Certainly if (a big if), we get involved in a potential Taiwan
conflict, US troops in the region get there more quickly than if we have to
airlift them from Guam, for example. Also, if we remove our troops from
South Korea, U.S. deployments in Japan will come under increasing scrutiny.
That may be fine, but the spillover of a withdrawal would mark a major
adjustment of U.S. policy in the entire Asian region. We may decide to do
that, but we haven’t yet.

Ahhh, does this mean no more adventures in Itaewon one day?

While in general it’s a perfectly reasonable belief that the DPRK will play nice and simply be a pest who won’t own up to letting Silent But Deadly poots around the global village camp fire, there is the issue of The Guns of August.

As you may know, The Great War was one of those moments in history when things just didn’t quite work out the way they should have. August, 1914 was that quicksilver moment in history when the Universe Changed and everyone went to sleep one night in the 19th Century and woke up in the 20th.

Any American will tell you that just because it’s a clear day in mid-September, doesn’t mean that low-flying plane over the Manhattan skyline isn’t going to strike a building. “There’s nowt so queer as folk,” as the folks of Northern England are wont to say and when you stir up power, geopolitics, starvation, East-West cultural differences — not to mention a hyperpower bogged down elsewhere — into a witch’s brew of misunderstanding, all bets are off about what may happen.

So we are entering a summer of discontent here on the Korean peninsula. May God have mercy on all our souls…and Seoul.