There has been much discussion in the both the mainstream media and the blogosphere as to what a Second Korean War might entail, much of which is rightly apocalyptic in nature yet occasionally histrionic and alarmist. I am just a political theorist and armchair strategist with a bit of historical perspective -- neither a Korea nor a military expert, so what I postulate here might be misguided. Yet I hope, though, that it starts the real experts -- or even just the real journalists -- thinking along the lines of unconventional theory.
When we think about 2017 Korea, we need to stop doing so through the prism of the 1950-53 Korean War’s. The current situation cannot be seen in the context of the Incheon landing or the Chosin Reservoir battle, but rather the Cuban Missile Crisis and a government apparatus led by a rotund Dr. Strangelove with a very bad haircut. We are in a world situation akin to the of the Berlin garrison being held hostage by an encroaching, belligerent-sounding USSR, and with mutually assured destruction a clear and present danger.
Thus, only a small part of the military picture in Korea is actually relevant: North Korean artillery and the ever-evolving DPRK store of nuclear missiles. Artillery is essential to North Korea for defense, butit could be leveraged to have value for extortion by nuclear missiles. Hence, it is crucial for the United States, South Korea, Japan, and China to eliminate that threat by force or the threat of force.
North Korean was a nation that swept aside South Korea’s army with relative ease and (backed by China) fought the United States military to a standstill. Now, it has devolved into a basket case. The economy is a shambles, the government/military complex is rife with corruption, the supreme leader is a (scary) joke, and the citizens are more oppressed than anybody in the world. The army is still large, but nobody thinks it could defeat South Korea in a straight-up conventional fight, not even if the United States armed forces (28,500 strong) left. It would be far too risky for fragile North Korea to attempt an invasion, especially since the ideology of revolutionary egalitarian Communism has slowly morphed into the singular objective of preserving the semi-divine Kim dynasty.
The contemporary North Korean army now has two purposes: 1) to enslave North Koreans; 2) to defend against South Korean and allied attempts to topple the Kim regime. The United States has overthrown governments in Iraq and Libya for outrages against humanity trivial by comparison with North Korea’s and has shown it has no qualms about violating national sovereignty in the interest of American “justice”, especially when, unlike Iraq, the DPRK unquestionably possesses weapons of mass destruction.
Nuclear missiles are good bargaining chips for deterrence, but the real core of North Korean strategy lies with an immutable fact: Seoul is only about 20 miles from the border, well within the range of large-calibre artillery. Even if North Korean missiles can be intercepted by US THAAD defences, and its air force could be destroyed within hours of hostilities commencing, artillery shells are a cheap and readily available alternative for dealing a severe blow to South Korea either defensively or pre-emptively.
Thus, North Korea’s best strategy is to put 100% of its artillery in the part of North Korea closest to Seoul, the Kaesong salient, and to put 100% of its infantry and armor there to protect the artillery. The function of the artillery is not to protect Pyongyang; it is to kill Seoul civilians. The function of the rest of the army is to protect the artillery briefly while it does its job.
1) How powerful is this threat?
North Korea has 130mm and 170mm guns (5-inch and 7-inch calibre) with ranges of 25 and 35 miles using special “bleeding” or rocket-assisted projectiles. This arsenal is complemented by 122mm and 240mm multiple rocket launchers (5- and 9-inch), with about the same firing ranges, and 300mm (12-inch) rockets that can reach 120 miles. Sources say that the 300mm rockets alone could hit Seoul with 350 metric tons of explosives in a single volley, equivalent to the bomb load of 11 B-52 bombers. The 170mm and 240mm weapons in aggregate can fire an astonishing 10,000 rounds per minute. In addition, North Korea has SCUD and home-grown missiles, but although their ranges are longer, they are less numerous, less dependable, and easier to intercept.
Artillery is relatively simple, low-tech and easy to both train and learn. Gunners do not have to learn barrage-rolling or infantry communication or even how to read topographic maps: just point and shoot. Any refinement can come in perfecting rates of fire.
South Korea is well aware of the Kaesong pocket artillery and has done its best to counter it with fire-spotting technology and missile, air, special operations, and infantry forces to eliminate it. I would be not surprised if every North Korean gun that revealed itself by firing were destroyed within 24 hours. However, 24 hours is too slow. This is not battle, but terror and a terror attack does not have to last an entire day.
Besides defense, though, the North Korean military does have another purpose -- making money. There are two ways it can help defray its own tremendous costs: First is by arms sales. As a gangster state, North Korea has nothing to lose by engaging in criminal activities, and the government has no doubt decided that the nation’s top talent is better used for that than for industrial production. Such things as drug sales, internet crime, and arms sales to embargoed nations and terrorist groups are more lucrative than exporting shoes and T-shirts.
Second is by demanding a "nuisance" fee. demanding nuisance fees. Would it be worth $20 billion per year to South Korea to avoid Seoul being bombarded? North Korea could be like the Barbary Pirates of 1800, who were enough of a nuisance to extract a goodly amount of their revenue as protection money, but so poor that that same amount was trivial to the European countries that paid it. The United States, having a bit more principle and less monetary calculation, ironically, than the aristocratic Europeans, proved problematic on the shores of Tripoli and eventually France ended the game by conquering Algeria. However, the Barbary pirates did have a good run for their money.
The problem is making the threat to bombard Seoul credible is that if South Korea refuses, and the North is compelled to shell Seoul, South Korea and will respond by destroying the guns and mounting an invasion. Or, in such a scenario, the United States might be tempted to launch a pre-emptive strike to take out as many of the guns, the regime (a ‘decapitating’ strike) and its offensive nuclear facilities. South Korea may have lost 100,000 people, but that is small comfort for the Kim regime if it loses power -- North Korea will have almost literally “shot its wad”. Thus, blackmail, while not impossible, is an altogether different level of crazy even for a crazy regime.
However, let us turn to missiles and nuclear weapons. The North does not need them for defense against the South. The Kaesong salient artillery is sufficient for that and a much cheaper alternative. So what use are nuclear missiles?
Nukes would be useful to serve two purposes: a) deter invasion or other putative acts such as a decapitating strike to effect regime change by the United States, or in support of South Korea’s sovereignty; b) remind China that keeping Kim Jon-Un in power (as opposed to incubating his late half brother Kim Jong-Nam’s son as a possible replacement) is in its best interests. In the latter situation, Northern artillery cannot reach anywhere important in China, and China would not be impressed merely by the threat of killing some thousands of unimportant people near the Yalu river, many of whom would be ethnic Koreans anyway, since many Koreans have always lived on the Chinese side of the border in Manchuria. A missile that could reach Mukden or Beijing, however, would be another thing altogether.
On the other hand, all this depends on the Kim regime preventing internal revolution, one of the current situation’s great unknowns as, though floods and famine have been widely reported, so cowed and brainwashed have the people become that any popular uprising seems highly unlikely. The day it becomes clear that the Kim dynasty might not survive, China will want to act, both to prevent a refugee crisis overwhelming its borders as well as to safeguard a North Korean nuclear arsenal falling into the wrong hands.
Of course this might already be whistling past the grave yard. The second use for the DPRK developing nuclear weapons is for profit. Foreign sales could be lucrative and by themselves justify the entire enterprise. It is not far-fetched to imagine any number of Muslim or anti-western regimes lining up to purchase not just the missiles but the technology itself. In addition, nukes are good for extortion in themselves and a good backup for the artillery threat as it widens the scope of credible threats to include the other regional power, Japan.
Gaming this further assumes North Korean technology evolves its missile technology to match that of nuclear bombs. Possession of just an artillery-fired version of the bomb would wildly change the equation, exponentially strengthening the bite of the artillery and ensuring that not all of the conventional ordinance needs to be expended in an initial strike.
Ironically, despite years of “sensible” sanctions-based applications of pressure by the UN and the Obama administration, a key element in the North’s calculus could be wariness of President Trump’s employing what Nixon called the “Madman strategy”: pretending to be crazy enough to ignore the material and reputational costs, pushing ahead without regard for world opinion and utlizing violent responses on every opportune occasion---for example, bomb Syria after a minor gas attack.
It is precisely because King Jong-Un is both a tyrant and a violent man that he may very well, through his bellicose rhetoric and seemingly provocative actions, be signalling his willingness to deal with Donald Trump, whom he regards as another man who understands streetfighting. This could be the moment – precisely when the world press is predicting an imminent fire-and brimstone clash – when back channels should be opened, if they already aren’t.
Much like his largely successful China policy, driven as it is by Beijing's uncertainty -- even fear -- as to his unpredictability, Donald Trump could be the one to succeed because the language of New York's streets turns out to be the same spoken in Pyongyang.