View Poll Results: What is the near-term future of the DPRK

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  • It will fall into chaos as a result of renewed famine and poverty, resulting in military crackdowns.

    3 15.79%
  • There will be a military coup that displaces the current leadership, hopefully soon.

    4 21.05%
  • It will continue to remain a closed society, technologically dormant and otherwise insignificant.

    12 63.16%
  • The leadership will eventually make a misstep, forcing military action from the United States.

    0 0%
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Thread: North Korea: 2012-2016

  1. #461
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default What makes DPRK tick?

    Dr Schindler's blog offers a commentary and includes this key passage:
    The bottom line, as Myers make clear, is that the juche stuff is all mumbo-jumbo for external consumption while the regime’s actual beliefs, which the population is bombarded with non-stop, are based in crude nationalism that works well at motivating the people though terrible times. Basically, Pyongyang is not a bunch of Commies, rather a bunch of Nazis, of a rarified Asian variety. Myers, who spent years studying the regime’s ideology, demonstrates that the DPRK’s esoteric worldview owes more to Japanese mystical ultranationalism, learned during Tokyo’s occupation of the country from 1905 to 1945, including – time to possibly get worried here – an emphasis on sacrifice and death in kamikaze fashion, than anything to do with Marx, Lenin, or Mao.
    Shortly after:
    Myers also shows that Pyongyang has no fear of the United States and perhaps wants a confrontation, even a military one, to gain dominance over the Korean peninsula. The DPRK’s assessment of strategy, grounded in very different ethnic and political assumptions, is radically different from our own.
    Link:http://20committee.com/2013/04/05/do...talking-about/
    davidbfpo

  2. #462
    Council Member carl's Avatar
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    David:

    Here is a link to an interview with Prof. B.R. Myers, the man whose work prompted the XX Committee comment.

    http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksd...ht-colin-.html

    Prof. Myers work and view are unlike anything I've read about North Korea. It seems perfectly sensible and extremely scary. The interview and Prof. Myers book are from 2010 and the interview contains this quote:
    I think a time may well come when North Korea really is so desperate, and has no other way in which to rally its people around it, that it will actually look for a military confrontation with South Korea.
    I strongly urge people to read the interview. Those guys, all of them, ain't like us and the rules of behavior we (including me) are used to don't apply.

    As an aside, Prof Myers mentions more people having seen Korean movies lately. The first one I ever watched was 3 years ago called Tae Guk Gi. I never saw a war movie with such ferocious antipathy toward the enemy (the DPRK) as that movie. Maybe I just don't know much about Koreans but if the attitude of the producers of that movie at that time is anything to go by, if the North and the South go at it, it will be something.
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 04-10-2013 at 08:53 PM. Reason: Citation in quotes
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  3. #463
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Default SBW Is The Only Way Out

    Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
    I strongly urge people to read the interview. Those guys, all of them, ain't like us and the rules of behavior we (including me) are used to don't apply.
    Not to disappoint anybody but the only way out of this mess is to analyze Little Kim as a System and then Attack him as a System. If we continue to analyze him in terms of Clausewitz,Sun Zu,Who Flung Dung we will just keep running around in a maze. Or more precisely we should analyze the larger system that controls him. To do that we should ask the First Strategic Question(1) which is Where should we be and that is China! We should strive hard to come up with a Strategic Plan that makes little Kim irrelevant to our long term interest. We need to stop using obsolete guessing based some dead foreign people and use some hard core current real world facts. Face it Colonel Warden is right.

  4. #464
    Council Member carl's Avatar
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    Slap:

    I don't see how North Korea can ever be irrelevant. It is important to South Korea and Korea is important to Japan and therefore it is important to us. The same with Red China. The only way I can see to make the DPRK irrelevant is to give up any interest in what occurs in the western Pacific. I don't see that happening.

    What is SBW?
    "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene

  5. #465
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Default Airpower And Strategy

    carl,
    I used to say SBW stood for Slapout Based Warfare but it is really Systems Based Warfare. The more comolex and confusing an entity is the easier it is to understand it by viewing it as a System connected to other larger Systems. You understand it without realizing it. By making this an Air Power Mission and making South Korea and China more important to us and letting them control Bad Korea's(Little Kim) 5 Rings we could make Little Kim(Bad Korea) irrelevant. Link to Colonel Warden's latest article!

    http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchr..._04_warden.pdf
    Last edited by slapout9; 04-11-2013 at 01:13 AM. Reason: stuff

  6. #466
    Council Member carl's Avatar
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    Slap:

    If you mean we should try to bump off Kim III, I'm all for it. But I don't think we could if the only option was an air strike. We would have to have information about not only where he was when the weapon is launched but where he would be when it landed. That is close to impossible to know.

    I read Warden's article quickly and was not impressed. Everything he says has been said by airpower advocates since after WWI. He does dress it up with new words though. The problem with airpower doing it all is for that to work you have to have perfect information at all times about all the worthwhile targets and you have to have weapons that can kill the target. As long as people can think, dig and hide, airpower can't do it all. Warden in fact advocates airpower advocates start from the premise that '"airpower has no limits"'. He says also that "With precision of effect combined with precision of impact, bloodless war becomes a reality." First I don't trust anybody who can seriously say war can be bloodless and the two precisions he mentions depend upon perfect knowledge and execution. That can't happen.

    I still don't get it. If South Korea is important to us and they get into a fight with the North, then the North is important to us.
    "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene

  7. #467
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    carl,
    The short answer is any ground force(s) should be supplied by South Korea, which by the way has really been an Air Force idea since the 50's.

    I am not recommending a UBL style style bug hunt for Little Kim which is an entirely different situation Bad Korea is a (System)not a terrorist organization and it should be attacked as a country (System) if that becomes necessary.

    If you read the article in detail you will find that an Airpower solution can be a complete annihilation of a country just like Rome and Carthage if we determine that is what we want.

    Which may be the right thing to do in this case because we no street credibility with Korea they kill our people, steal out ships and property and those of our Legal Treat Allies and we do nothing but give them booty, we may be backed into going all out because we have cried wolf to many times, we have drawn to many lines, to many times with no real consequences.

    On second thought he would be easy to find as he really wants to be Dennis Rodman's Prison Bitch. Gee if Gay marriage becomes legal and they hook up he would be an American citizen, it which case it would OK to use Drones on him

  8. #468
    Council Member carl's Avatar
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    Slap:

    I am always skeptical of airpower enthusiasts claims. They have been making the same claim for going on a century now. Airpower is decisive but it can't do it all every time, everywhere as they claim.

    In the case of the DPRK, airpower wouldn't be needed at all, except in a tactical sense, if Red China played along and shut the border. If that happened North Korea becomes an island with no navy, an island that has no fuel and no food. If you are hard enough and hold the north and south borders, they fall. No sorties needed.

    In any event, Kim III has the initiative. We are going to react to what he does, not the other way around. We, including Red China, aren't going to do anything unless in reaction. The key is Red China of course. If the North and South were to go at it the result, or at least the immediacy of the result depends on if they keep the border open and if they logistically support the North. If they isolate the North, airpower isn't needed. If they don't, airpower won't be able to do the job alone.

    You're right though. I don't see any need at all for for US troops to go north of the border.

    In any event, the reason I so strongly recommend reading that interview is that the thing that is really important is the world as it exists inside the DPRK. That world is way different in ours, so different I don't see how we can affect it at all in the long run...short of a kill it dead war. That is as sobering a thought as there can be.
    Last edited by carl; 04-11-2013 at 02:10 PM.
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  9. #469
    Council Member carl's Avatar
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    Slap:

    I've been thinking on this and I wonder if there is something else, another type of ring, that can be attacked ala Warden and attacking Kim III as a system...sort of.

    According to the interview with Prof Byers the slaves in the DPRK know only what the king and the king's men want them to know. The Kim dynasty's power depends entirely upon that. What if you put big drones continuously off both coasts. The drones would be broadcast stations for TV, radio and any other thing you could think of. They would show and talk about the world, especially South Korea, compare and contrast, how the South Koreans aren't downtrodden and aren't living for the day the peninsula is reunited. Also highlight how all the suffering those poor people undergo is really for the Kims and nobody else.

    The effectiveness of this could be gauged by how much the Kim regime howled. What do you think?
    "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene

  10. #470
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Default I Believe In Gang'Em StyleTheory!

    carl,
    Hold on I am coming but we have really, really bad weather coming in LA (Lower Alabama) so I will be off the air for a while. But like MacArthur or a good dog I shall return

  11. #471
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by carl
    I am always skeptical of airpower enthusiasts claims. They have been making the same claim for going on a century now. Airpower is decisive but it can't do it all every time, everywhere as they claim.
    I don't disagree that.

    Quote Originally Posted by carl
    In the case of the DPRK, airpower wouldn't be needed at all, except in a tactical sense, if Red China played along and shut the border. If that happened North Korea becomes an island with no navy, an island that has no fuel and no food. If you are hard enough and hold the north and south borders, they fall. No sorties needed.
    That is why I brought up the fact that China is the Larger System that must be properly influenced in order to have a successful long term solution.

    Quote Originally Posted by carl
    In any event, Kim III has the initiative. We are going to react to what he does, not the other way around. We, including Red China, aren't going to do anything unless in reaction. The key is Red China of course. If the North and South were to go at it the result, or at least the immediacy of the result depends on if they keep the border open and if they logistically support the North. If they isolate the North, airpower isn't needed. If they don't, airpower won't be able to do the job alone.
    Sorta agree except US Airpower would most definitely be our US decider along with the South Korean Ground force.

    Quote Originally Posted by carl
    You're right though. I don't see any need at all for for US troops to go north of the border.
    Agree it would be a really bad idea.

    Quote Originally Posted by carl
    In any event, the reason I so strongly recommend reading that interview is that the thing that is really important is the world as it exists inside the DPRK. That world is way different in ours, so different I don't see how we can affect it at all in the long run...short of a kill it dead war. That is as sobering a thought as there can be.
    I did read the article and I liked it alot, but I am not surprised at all. Little Kim is a gang leader, almost a cult leader(both of which I have dealt with, gangs in particular) so his somewhat strange antics don't surprise me at all. And he is NOT crazy he knows exactly what he is doing! And he is a very dangerous guy. The OLDEST gangs in the world come from the Asian area, they have been at this a long time. I suspect we will see more of this type activity as we do the Asian Pivot or what ever they are calling it now.

    The new trinity of War analysis should be should be Race, Religion and Language not the Army, Government and the People.Just my opinion as usual.

  12. #472
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by carl

    I've been thinking on this and I wonder if there is something else, another type of ring, that can be attacked ala Warden and attacking Kim III as a system...sort of.

    According to the interview with Prof Byers the slaves in the DPRK know only what the king and the king's men want them to know. The Kim dynasty's power depends entirely upon that. What if you put big drones continuously off both coasts. The drones would be broadcast stations for TV, radio and any other thing you could think of. They would show and talk about the world, especially South Korea, compare and contrast, how the South Koreans aren't downtrodden and aren't living for the day the peninsula is reunited. Also highlight how all the suffering those poor people undergo is really for the Kims and nobody else.

    The effectiveness of this could be gauged by how much the Kim regime howled. What do you think?
    It's is not another ring per say... it is a Process (PsyOp Communications) and belongs in Ring #2(Processes sometimes called System Essentials). Not really that important IMO for the simple reason it would take to long for any beneficial Effect to happen. South Korea may want to do it as part of some type of a Political Propaganda Campaign but the USA should stay back from something like that.

  13. #473
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    Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
    Slap:

    I've been thinking on this and I wonder if there is something else, another type of ring, that can be attacked ala Warden and attacking Kim III as a system...sort of.

    According to the interview with Prof Byers the slaves in the DPRK know only what the king and the king's men want them to know. The Kim dynasty's power depends entirely upon that. What if you put big drones continuously off both coasts. The drones would be broadcast stations for TV, radio and any other thing you could think of. They would show and talk about the world, especially South Korea, compare and contrast, how the South Koreans aren't downtrodden and aren't living for the day the peninsula is reunited. Also highlight how all the suffering those poor people undergo is really for the Kims and nobody else.

    The effectiveness of this could be gauged by how much the Kim regime howled. What do you think?
    Based on what I have read in this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_Envy

    No. Not likely to work.

    1. For those with state sanctioned TVs and radios, they can't be tuned to any other channels. If someone else parks transmitters to transmitted and/or jam the official North Korean channels, this might just provoke a real war.

    2. Via the border, there is quite a bit of a black market trade ongoing. This means that those (other than the Pyongyang elite) with connections, especially those locals near the border, do have access to illicit material including SK soaps.

    3. My personal theory: many in the country knows just how screwed up their country in comparison with the rest of the world. For those old enough, they certainly know that things had gone much worse since the early 90s. This includes people in the power structure, especially those from the mid tier down. Meanwhile their survival instincts kick in and they simply want to carve out whatever they can out of this crumbling rubbish heap. If they can climb higher up this trash heap, the better. If they can profit from the illegal black market trade, the better.

    As for the generation were born in the 90s? It is hard to say. They might just be convinced that their current circumstances are the best that have ever been (in NK at least) and it is all thanks to the evil imperialists and their running dogs.

    Because of how pervasive the controls are in place, no one knows who or what to trust, not even close family members of blood. They parrot the necessary words and actions when in front of any other human being (or worse, any living thing). Only those who are brave enough or desperate enough, would attempt to get out of that mental assylum. Somehow, I do feel that the control system that was set in place is so strong that it even locks the top leadership into this rattling train that is slowly falling apart on its way to hell.


    Off topic: God, I wish SK manufactured music and TV soaps would stop afflicting the region...
    Last edited by Maeda Toshiie; 04-12-2013 at 07:55 AM.

  14. #474
    Council Member carl's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by slapout9 View Post
    I did read the article and I liked it alot, but I am not surprised at all. Little Kim is a gang leader, almost a cult leader(both of which I have dealt with, gangs in particular) so his somewhat strange antics don't surprise me at all. And he is NOT crazy he knows exactly what he is doing! And he is a very dangerous guy. The OLDEST gangs in the world come from the Asian area, they have been at this a long time. I suspect we will see more of this type activity as we do the Asian Pivot or what ever they are calling it now.
    That is a very interesting observation. In your experience, how have gang leaders lost their positions?
    "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene

  15. #475
    Council Member carl's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by slapout9 View Post
    It's is not another ring per say... it is a Process (PsyOp Communications) and belongs in Ring #2(Processes sometimes called System Essentials). Not really that important IMO for the simple reason it would take to long for any beneficial Effect to happen. South Korea may want to do it as part of some type of a Political Propaganda Campaign but the USA should stay back from something like that.
    I don't think an extended period of time for something to work with the Kim dynasty is a drawback. This has been going on for decades and decades so if something would have an effect in say 5 years, that's actually pretty quick.

    You're right though, the whole thing would have to be a South Korean play.
    "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene

  16. #476
    Council Member carl's Avatar
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    Maeda Toshiie:

    Prof. Byers makes the same point in the interview that Kim's slaves don't actually have much envy of the outside world. The propaganda world they live in has taken care of that. But a critical point he makes is that the sacrifices they know they are making have a point, the 'liberation' of the south and reunification of the peninsula. He says that since the South has elected a gov that is actually kind of hostile that whole line of argument is breaking down. Sort of "We go through all this to save them and they don't want to be saved. WTF? Why are we doing this?" He says enough info is getting through so that is becoming a concern, hence the provocations.

    The other point he makes is if the idea gets out that all the suffering isn't for Korea, but for the Kims, then there might be trouble.

    So the idea would be to build upon those two things.

    As far as the technical aspects, I don't know. I have confidence in people's ingenuity with radios, TVs, cell phones and all that. But their ingenuity won't come into play unless they have something to shoot for and broadcasts or texts or whatever are something to shoot for.

    You are very right that a well organized police state with an ideology of some kind to back it up is extremely difficult to bring down from the inside, perhaps impossible. So the kind of outside push I am suggesting may help a bit. Or it may not do anything at all. I figure though something new (maybe it was tried before, I don't know) should be tried. Otherwise the choice ultimately is giving Kim III a blank check, or a big war. If they get really upset we would know it was working.

    The thing in the interview that mildly shocked me was that the average North Korean man is shorter than the average South Korean woman. That is something.
    "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene

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    From the reports by the defecting civilians, the famine in the 90s took a severe toll, in deaths and the health of those who survived. This is especially true in areas outside of Pyongyang. I am sure those who grew up at that period of time (and survived), would have suffer from stunted growth.

    I suppose the good outcome of that is that their army has a larger number of people to select tankers from, given the size of Soviet tanks.

    I think there are sporadic reports of mutinies over the years. Not all may be true, but I can't believe that all are untrue. The guess of some is that these mutinies are due to ration shortage. Given the draconian discipline, they must be really hungry to mutiny.

    There are reports that PRC stopped shipment of fuel to NK. Might actually be untrue with shipments continuing quietly, but surely a sign of PRC's anger towards NK's recent action.

    -----------------------------

    The possible scenarios that I can see (but not necessarily likely):

    1. North Korea attempts to maintain status quo, while trying to squeeze whatever concessions they can out of the rest of the world and PRC. NK will slowly waste away while the rest of the world moves on.

    2. North Korea attempts to follow PRC's example of liberalizing the economy. This is highly unlikely, since Kim III is no Deng Xiaoping, nor there seems to be a Deng Xiaoping in NK. Even if there is, he/she can't do anything with the cult of Kim being firmly entrenched in the political ideology. The chance of this happening is very very slim.

    3. North Korea finally implodes with Kim losing control or dead. Would the PLA drive in and attempt to secure Pyongyang and plant a puppet? Would there be a sufficiently big incident that the South Korean government can use as justification to intervene?

    4. (Unintended?) escalation to full-scale war, due to the hardline factions on both sides who keep raising the stakes?

    -----------------------------

    The cost of the war and the even bigger cost of reunification is what stopping South Korea from marching north and putting an end to it all. I am sure everyone is aware that the cost will make the German reunification look like a walk in the park. Plus, I believe South Korean government still wants sufficient justification for a massive intervention. At the very least, they probably want to look like they are forced into action, so as to make themselves look like the victim of NK bullying and then as a saviour for the North Korean civilians on world political stage. However bellicose the current rhetoric seems, it is still words and no blood has been spilled these few months.


    It's late over here at GMT +8. My post may seem a little incoherent...
    Last edited by Maeda Toshiie; 04-12-2013 at 06:01 PM.

  18. #478
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Default They Often Don't!

    Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
    That is a very interesting observation. In your experience, how have gang leaders lost their positions?
    That is probably one of the biggest myths out there! They don't loose their position they transition to somebody else often just like a country does. That is why we still have so many gangs around and they are still getting stronger. Again that is a generalization and there are a lot more moving parts but that has generally what I have seen. PS sendindg them to prison doesn't stop the gang from functioning either. Another general myth that floats around a lot.

  19. #479
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    Quote Originally Posted by Maeda Toshiie View Post
    It's late over here at GMT +8. My post may seem a little incoherent...
    Seems pretty coherent to me. Add some more if you have time.

  20. #480
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    Quote Originally Posted by slapout9 View Post
    That is probably one of the biggest myths out there! They don't loose their position they transition to somebody else often just like a country does. That is why we still have so many gangs around and they are still getting stronger. Again that is a generalization and there are a lot more moving parts but that has generally what I have seen. PS sendindg them to prison doesn't stop the gang from functioning either. Another general myth that floats around a lot.
    If you wanted depose a gang leader somehow though, how would you go about it? What might work? What I am getting at is what in gang dynamics might be useful against Kim III?

    Maeda: no incoherence that I could see.
    "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene

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