North Korea: 2012-2016

[carl]

Do you assume that an insurgency must start with "the people"? North Korea has a rather large army, which would remain armed even in the event of state collapse. Is it not likely that some of the leaders of that army might decide that they are the rightful heirs, and that a good number of their followers might think the same way? It's easy to assume that "the people" would follow whoever promised food, or that they would embrace the liberators as bringers of prosperity, but "us and them" is a powerful motivator and assumptions do not always play out. I remember being assured that Iraqis would dance in the streets and welcome us as liberators. Of course it's possible that North Koreans armed and otherwise would welcome an intervening force with relief and delight, but I'm not sure I'd want to base any plans on the assumption that such would be the case.

The question I answered was why I thought if there was any insurgency it would aim at a restoration of the Kim dynasty or a facsimile thereof. Your response above did not address my answer. But that is ok. The discussion meanders here and there.

I don't assume that if the there was any insurgency it would start with anything or body. For it to succeed it would depend on the support of those poor enslaved people. They are pretty hungry and therefore pretty tired and enough to eat might to do a lot to take the wind out of the sail of any call to fight "them." In any event, if the South Koreans can control food distribution, they can throttle any incipient insurgency. That is why I mentioned Malaya.

I don't know what will happen when or if the Kims fall. I have some ill informed opinions (as ever, feel free to use that as a straight line) and some hazy ideas (ditto for that) about what may be done in this or that event.

In any event all of this talk of insurgency derives from chains of assumptions long enough to be of limited utility. Suffice it to say that I think any decision to intervene in or occupy North Korea in the event of a hypothetical state collapse would have to be approached with great caution. Nobody anywhere knows what such a collapse will look like or how it would play out, and there might possibly be some circumstance in which such action might be necessary... but I'd hope whoever proposes to take it thinks well and hard before committing, and I'd doubly hope that Americans are not involved.

All fair enough. Please notice that I do not speak about us doing much of anything in the north. It is the ROK that will do or not do.

Granrted, but I'd hesitate to assume that lack of sanctuary would make effective insurgency impossible.

In the particular case of the Philippines, though, the limiting factor on the insurgency has not been lack of sanctuary, but the ineptitude of the insurgent leadership. I'm not sure sanctuary or outside assistance would have made much difference.

Lack of sanctuary doesn't make the insurgents task impossible, it just makes it a lot, a lot, harder. In the Philippines lack of sanctuary may very well have made no difference. We can't know. It is easily observed though that the various insurgencies there haven't been able to bring it home. My opinion is that lack of sanctuary is a big part of that. Inept leaders can learn to be ept if they have a place to hide out and think about what they did wrong and what they might do right. That is one advantage of having a sanctuary.

The government did not change itself. The change was imposed on it by the populace, through a chain of events that was not anticipated by anyone. If the government (and the US) had gotten their way, Marcos would have remained in power and the insurgents might have won.

But the gov did change, however it happened, and that change knocked the pins out from under the insurgency.

All that is a digression, but the bottom line for me is that it would be unwise to assume that an occupied nation cannot or will not insurge because they lack some factor we think necessary for insurgency.

Nothing is impossible. But those factors can make things more or less likely and more or less likely to succeed.

(Have you noticed the spell check doesn't like the word "insurge"? It doesn't seem to like "ept" either.)