The young and seemingly not very smart ruler for life of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, sometimes know as North or “Yankee” Korea has been pushing the envelope of sanity lately. In fact he is causing many people in the International community to long for the “good old days” when Kim Jong Il “Big Daddy” was the “Beloved Leader” of the Happiest Country on Earth.
One has to admit that when Big Daddy Kim (his Hip-Hop name) was the Supreme Leader of North Korea that he was extremely good at going to the brink but pulling back. However his Swiss educated son doesn’t seem to have his father’s knack for pushing to the brink and pulling back.
Big Daddy Kim was a master at this, threaten something, create a provocation of some kind, even kill some South Koreans if need be but then pull back from the brink. He was a sane nutcase. Now his son seems to lack the finesse of Big Daddy. The young boy named Kim seems to have a need to outdo daddy in the lack of sanity department.
His actions are really becoming annoying and not just to the United States, South Korea and Japan. But now even the Chinese Communists and Russians seem to be tiring of Lil’ Kim. In fact they did not object to the US deployment of B-2 stealth bombers, F-22 fighters, Aegis Guided Missile Destroyers equipped with ballistic missile defense systems and submarines to the region. Nor have they challenged the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system on Guam. Normally they would be telling the US to back off. Instead they are not blocking United Nations sanctions. Likewise the Chinese who normally see any kind of US military concentration around the Korean Peninsula as threatening to them are publicly stating that the US moves are not seen as hostile or threatening.
In the past few weeks it has seemed that Lil’ Kim has been making at least one major provocation a week.
These have included with an ICBM missile test and in the past week alone Lil’ Kim or his minions have declared the Armistice between the Koreas over, announced a state of war, announced that the DPRK military has the authorization to attack the United States with a diverse nuclear attack, threatened, South Korea with devastation.
If these were isolated incidents I think that people would pretty much blow the threats off. But this is not the old Big Daddy Kim that we are dealing with. In addition to the missile tests and nuclear weapons tests the North Koreans closed a joint economic zone on the border to the South. They also announced that the plutonium reactor and Yongbyon would be re-started. The US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University believes may have already begun. Personally I think the boy is playing poker with a pinochle deck and unlike Big Daddy Kim may accidentally on purpose take the region to war despite the high level negotiations Lil’ Jim had with former NBA star Dennis Rodman which evidently ended in failure.
A war now would be bad. I mean really, really bad. I mean where would all the Hyundai, Kia and Samsung owners get replacement parts, new cars or electronic devices if Kim accidentally on purpose gets all of us into a war?
Of course that is the ugly Capitalist and cynic in me saying that but even if that were not the case any war on the Korean Peninsula or attack on US installations in the Pacific would kill lots of people and do huge damage.
Now no one really thinks that North Korea can strike the Continental United States with any missile that they currently own but when it comes to them who the hell knows?
I hate to say it but I think that Lil’ Kim Number One is very capable of accidentally on purpose plunging the region into war.
Now the military of the Republic of Korea or South Korea as most of it know it is formidable even without the troops of the US Army based near the DMZ and the air and naval power of US and Japan in the region. (See my articles on the North Korean and South Korean orders of battle to get an idea of how things stack up.)
I have served in Korea and been on the DMZ spending time being serenaded by North Korean propaganda broadcasts each night while sleeping in a tent. I even would do my PT by running to the DMZ and through the paths in the minefields between South Korean machine gun pits, dug in tanks and fortifications. A North Korean attack across the DMZ would cause a huge loss of life before they were stopped and their country destroyed. I have seen the fortified zones that fill South Korea between the DMZ and Seoul. They too are formidable and the South Korean military is superior to the North in many ways. But if war comes the North will certainly employ thousands of special operations soldiers as well as spies, saboteurs and South Korean collaborators to spread chaos in the South. Likewise they may be able to hit US Forces stationed in Okinawa, Japan proper and Guam.
My guess is that if Kim the Younger keeps pushing that he will overstep and accidentally on purpose take the region into war. Some analysts think it could happen soon.
Perhaps the younger Kim is taking the wrong lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe he thinks that the US struggles against insurgents show we are vulnerable. If he thinks that he is buying the wrong war. A conventional war where firepower, mobility and technology are applied with devastating effect is the kind of war that the American military excels at fighting.
My hope is that Lil’ Kim and the leaders of the North Korean military will come to their collective senses before anything bad happens. However with each passing escalation by the North and counter move by the US and the South that hope is replaced by a sense of foreboding.
I wonder if the words of Barbara Tuchman that “war is the unfolding of miscalculations” may be unfolding before our eyes.
Pray for Peace,
Padre Steve+
The Inglorius Padre Steve's World 