I suspect much of the modern American perspective on "sanctuary" for insurgency is shaped by our experiences in places like Vietnam and Afghanistan where the existence of formal legal sanctuaries in neighboring states were available and so problematic. Those were legal sanctuaries. Legal status is an important form of sanctuary and it can indeed come from a border. It can also come from a status, be it simply declaring some individual or organization to be "outside the law" or more modernly, to place them on a "terrorist list." Such status facilitates the ability to capture or kill or attack; but it severely limits the ability to pursue virtually any other form of engagement. It also provides a sanctuary as that once one is outside the law, the law no longer applies to them. Such a status makes one a target of law enforcement, but it gives one complete sanctuary from the rule of law. We give such sanctuary to so many organizations today.
But the most important form of sanctuary comes from the support of a poorly governed populace. Charlie owns the night because he walks among you during the day. You don't know who he is, but the people do, because he and they are one and he operates from the sanctuary of their support, and cannot exist without that same sanctuary.
The archetypal hybrid of Robin Hood is instructive. Robin and his men had many forms of sanctuary. Most famously they had Sherwood Forest. But more importantly they were deemed outlaws and possessed broad support among the people. If the Sheriff somehow denied or destroyed the forest, does he also deny or destroy the sanctuary and thereby defeat this organization? Of course not. He would merely force them to adopt new tactics as they continued to rely on the two primary sources of their sanctuary. They would live and hide among the people and operate in more distibuted, networked ways. Much as the French Underground did in WWII, for an example most are aware of.
The same is true in Afghanistan in regards to Pakistan today. Deny or destroy the FATA? Best case one forces AQ and others to simply migrate and adopt modified tactics, as AQ has already done.
Same would be true in North Korea. Same would be true in the US. Same would be true virtually anywhere.
Those action officers who dared to suggest that the Iraqi people might not greet the American army as liberators were banned from the planning process. Higher said that is what would happen, so shut up and plan. Stay in your lane.
Napoleon liberated the Egyptians from the Ottomans and brought them all of the goodness of the French enlightenment, and could not understand why they resisted his presence so fiercely. Same in Spain.
Unless one is the lesser of two evils, if you are a "liberator" you better be prepared for a strong resistance insurgency if one does more than simply defeat, pillage and leave. The US in both post WWII Germany and Japan was the lesser of two evils. The war weakened and defeated German and Japanese people were both fully aware of what the alternative to American occupation was. We deluded ourselves to think that it was "a good war" and that the people loved us because we were Americans and brought them the goodness of American enlightenment and the Marshall Plan. No, they tolerated us because we were the only thing between them and Soviet/Sino oppression.
Americans have a biased historical view on insurgency of every form. Both why it occurs and why it does not occur. We fixate on things like the physical legal sanctuaries that we create for our opponents to use and blame them, rather than owning how the very nature of our operations are creating the problems we face.
If we delude ourselves as to how the North Korean populace is apt to reasonably react to foreign "liberation" we will once again find ourselves in a mess of our own design. Many experts will blame China for providing "sanctuary" and call for an expansion of the conflict or for hard action against China (as they do now for Pakistan). Einstein called such experts "intelligent fools." It is an apt title. We all wear it at times, but some wear it often. Our policy and doctrine on insurgency is a product of intelligent fools, and we write intelligent, but foolish war plans as well.
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