North Korea has been a thorn on our side ever since the Korean War. After the cease fire agreement was signed in 1953, North Korea constantly created problems for us and we, for one reason or another, haven't been able to handle them! It is like one of those day time soap operas, it just keeps churning and churning. There were plenty of provocative actions by North Korea since the cease fire that could have resulted in military action, and I don't think anyone would have faulted us. But for one reason or another, we refrained from taking any action and instead used verbal condemnation and economic sanction, which have been in place since the cease fire anyway!
On the one hand, we seem to take them seriously and appear to be concerned. On the other hand we take them too lightly. It seems that none of our presidents, Republican or Democrat, have been able to solve this problem. Clinton had the best shot at stopping North Korean nuclear development, but for one reason or another, whatever deal we struck with North Korea did not work, and things got out of control. G.W. Bush tried also, but his approach did not work. Remember those words of the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at that time? A reporter tried to trip him up and asked a double edged question. He asked why we didn't carry out a "surgical" air strike with smart bombs to knock out their nuclear facilities. This was after the so-called "shock and awe" air bombardment that we carried out against Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. Rumsfled, in his typical caustic, sarcastic manner, responded by saying that: "North Koreans are not Arabs! They won't quit until every last man, woman, and child is killed!" So, obviously, at least Donald Rumsfeld did not take North Korea lightly. But then, the rest of the members of Bush's administration didn't seem to feel that North Korea was too much of a threat. Obama, in his eight years with his "non-active, reactive foreign policy" managed to give North Korea more confidence, if anything. Kim Jong Un came to power in 2011 and lived with Obama's non-policy on North Korea for the last six years! Obama and his "reactive policy" emboldened Kim.
Now Donald Trump begins by first saying that he would talk to Kim, then also stated that North Korea was incapable of making an ICBM, You can be sure that Kim was very much aware of it when he decided to launch an ICBM on the Fourth of July and tweak Trump's nose! Month's earlier I blogged and stated that North Korea had ICBM capability, however, all our "experts" were saying that they did not have ICBMs. So I guess Trump was listening to those "experts." Guess what? They do have ICBMs! It seems to me that we are forever underestimating North Koreans. Why? I can't quite understand this attitude. Look how high tech South Korea is today. I hate to say this, but they are ahead of us in many areas of high tech, especially electronics. If South Korea has the brain power to develop such high tech stuff. why can't the North Koreans? After all, they are the same people, just different political ideologies!
So now, there appears to be genuine alarm and concern in Washington over North Korea. My god, they have nuclear bombs and ICBMs capable of reaching our shores! What do we do? Russia and China must get involved and reign-in North Korea - that is what we have been saying for years! Note the responses from Russia and China. Russia says North Korea did not test an ICBM, it was just a "medium range" missile! Yeah, right, a medium range missile that can reach continental U.S.!
Both Russia and China are saying that if we stop the bi-national military exercises that we hold each year with South Korea, that would be the first step to curbing Kim's activities. If our leaders believe that, then they are even bigger fools than I think they are! Stopping the joint military exercises would be the first step. The next demand will be that we reduce significantly or totally remove our military presence from South Korea and Japan! Once that happens, guess what? Korean War II will begin! When the Korean War began in June of 1950, we had no combat troops whatsoever in South Korea. We had a few military advisors and administrative type personnel. We had no combat ready troops in Japan either. Our troops in Japan had been on occupation duty and relatively soft life style with practically no regularly scheduled combat training. We know what happened at the outset of the war! We don't want to repeat that. We now have about 30,000 combat ready troops in South Korea and about 50,000 in Japan. We also have troops in Guam and Hawaii that can reach Korea in relatively short time as reinforcements. This is what China and Russia does not like. They would love to see those 80,000 troops leave South Korea and Japan!
North Korea and Kim Jong Un are not the puppets of Russia or China. Kim Il Song, the grandfather of current psycho was a Soviet puppet for a while, at least during the Korean War. But he broke away from Soviet Union and PRC, becoming fiercely independent, starting the juche (self reliance) movement that exists to this day! Yes they trade with China and Russia and are dependent on those two countries for economic trade, but they are not their puppets! To add to this situation, neither China nor Russia want a weak North Korea. They want a militarily strong North Korea on their border as a buffer. North Korea would never attack them, but it will prevent any encroachment by South Korea, and therefore, U.S., to their borders!
After Trump met with Xi, it was announced that China will get involved in "denuclearizing" North Korea by applying political and economic pressure. There was this token stopping of coal shipments and China has supposedly stopped petroleum shipments. Some reporters got excited over these insignificant acts. Well, guess who has more petroleum than China? Russia! Russia has already signed a deal with former South Korean President Park to supply South Korea with oil, build a pipeline from Vladivostok! How difficult do you think it will be for Russia to supply oil to North Korea, if it isn't doing so already! Vladivostok is a stone's throw away from North Korea. Russia is desperate to sell to other countries. We had a chance to make a deal with Russia on oil back during George W's days. Putin offered Bush Russian oil but things sort of went sour and a deal was never struck. Economic sanctions by China and Russia against North Korea? If you believe that, you must believe in the tooth fairy! That will never happen in reality, at least not in this century! It may happen on paper and Russia and China may "claim" that they imposed sanctions, but in reality.........
In any kind of discussion with North Korea over their nuclear program, China and Russia must participate, but so does Japan, South Korea, and the U.S. That is a given, because all those countries are very close to each other. But to expect Russia and China to step up and pull North Korea's teeth? That isn't going to happen. Keep in mind that both China and Russia were directly involved in the Korean War. There were more Chinese troops on the ground after November 1950 than North Korean troops! The core cadre of North Korean Army was Russian, there were many Korean Russians in key positions including the Army Chief of Staff Nam Il, who was a major general in the Soviet Red Army, not to mention Kim Il Song himself who was a Brigadier General in the Soviet Red Army! Many Russian pilots flew MIG-15s in combat against our pilots! All in all neither Russia nor China want the Korean peninsula to become a democratic state that is more friendly to the U.S. than to them. Reunification of the two Koreas is not what China and Russia want, unless it will be reunited under North Korean control! In the same token, it is in their best interest to keep North Korea strong, a threat in the region!
Just what are we going to do now? Trump says that he is not ruling out military action at this time. That could be just tough talk. We haven't taken any military action before when North Korea's actions cost American lives. I would be very surprised if we did anything now. So, like a good soap opera, the North Korean saga keeps churning on and on. Sadly, I think that unless we really do something, it will blow up in our face one day soon. But if we do take military action, we risk Korean War II, not World War III as some alarmists suggest. But even if the war is confined just to that peninsula as it did before, it would be devastating, not just to North Korea but South Korea as well. South Korean capital Seoul is some 36 odd miles south of the DMZ. North Korea doesn't even need nuclear weapons to devastate that city, conventional rockets and missiles could do tremendous damage. Of course, in retaliation, South Korea and U.S. would probably destroy most of North Korea. I know there are a lot of FB postings about reducing North Korea to ashes, etc. But that is not the answer.
The best solution to the whole situation is if somehow the two Koreas got together and came up with a plan for peaceful reunification which would lead to free elections. This was what was supposed to happen in 1947 when North Korea decided not to play and took all its marbles home only to launch an invasion of the south three years later. South Korea is desperately hoping to settle the problem of divided Korea by peaceful reunification. This is what the UN and all the other world powers should push for. However, everyone has their own agenda and two of the most powerful countries, China and Russia, do not want to see a united Korea. They know that should reunification take place, despite initial economic and political chaos, a democratic form of government will prevail. If that happens, then both China and Russia will lose their influence, such as it is, over Korea. Right now, at least they have some influence over North Korea and are enjoying economic benefits of trading with a developed South Korea.
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