North Korea: The Struggle Against American Power By Tim Beal Pluto Press. 342 pages. $28.95
If the ongoing nuclear crisis with North Korea has accomplished nothing else, it has provided a great deal of employment to the chattering classes. Thanks to the widely accepted image of North Korea as a black box, just about anyone can claim to be an "expert" on the subject, even if they lack any background in Korean studies, knowledge of the language, or experience actually visiting the country. People like Jasper Becker, Gordon Chang, Michael Horowitz, and Jay Lefkowitz get book contracts, speaking engagements, and government jobs based solely on their willingness to accept and propagate the most negative views on the Pyongyang regime. In such a situation, it's refreshing when someone comes along who is willing to look at things from the other perspective, as Tim Beal does in his recent book.
The basic premise of Beal's work is an undeniable but oft-overlooked truth: namely, that the balance of military and economic power on the Korean Peninsula vastly favors the United States and its allies. While hawks in Washington make much of the threat posed by Pyongyang's small arsenal of nuclear weapons (if indeed they even exist), the reality is that the United States enjoys absolute superiority in ever measure of military power, both nuclear and conventional. This fact, well known and well understood by all parties in the dispute, serves as an effective brake on any aggressive action by North Korea, and has done so for the past 50 years. As Beal rightly argues,
"[North Korea's nuclear weapon] could not be used for 'blackmail' as is frequently alleged... Pyongyang cannot say to Washington, 'Give us $100 billion and normalise relations or we will drop one of our eight atomic bombs on Los Angeles.' That really is not feasible. What is feasible for North Korea, if it had the capability, is to threaten to retaliate if attacked. In other words, a deterrent and no more than that." (pp. 181-182)
Beal also questions the popular image of North Korea on such issues as drug running, counterfeiting, and human rights violations. In doing so, Beal avoids acting as an apologist for the regime, instead simply pointing out that many of the charges against Pyongyang are leveled based on very little evidence by people pushing an agenda -- usually regime change. Still, Beal is not immune to charges of selectivity with his own use of evidence. While raising some valid questions about some high profile cases that have been cited as evidence of the DPRK government's complicity in trafficking, he pointedly ignores the instances of North Korean diplomats being caught traveling with contraband, for instance.
There are other flaws in the book, some of which could have easily been avoided with a good fact-checker. The 16th century Japanese warlord Hideyoshi never held the rank of Shogun; North Korea captured the U.S.S. Pueblo in 1968 (not 1961 as the book claims); and the South Korean communist leader Park Hun-young was purged in 1955 (not 1995). New York Times report David Sanger's name is twice misspelled as "Sangster." While none of these errors detract from Beal's overall argument, they mostly occur in the early part of the book, which focuses on historical background. This is unfortunate, as the information in these chapters will already be familiar to students of Korean history, and is not reliable enough to serve as a primer for newcomers to the subject.
Beal's discussion of the relations between the two Koreas makes several valid points, but also appears a bit out of date. He argues, persuasively, that many of the actions that North Korea's detractors say qualify it for rogue status -- covert WMD programs, widespread jailing of dissidents, assassination of political opponents, the use of demonizing propaganda in the educational system -- were also prevalent in South Korea during the years of military dictatorship.
He fails, however, to give adequate attention to the changes wrought by 20 years of democratization in the South, and of the failure of a similar process to take root in the North. This historical myopia causes difficulties in other parts of his analysis: in some places, he seems impressed by the willingness of recent South Korean administrations to buck the U.S. on North Korea; at other times, he just can't seem to shake the notion that South Korea remains an American "client state."
But it is the discussion of the nuclear issue that is at the same time the strongest and the most disappointing part of Beal's book. Beal correctly emphasizes the hypocrisy in the concept of "nonproliferation" in general and of U.S. nonproliferation policy in particular.
It is often overlooked, either on purpose or because we are all so buffetted with propaganda, that no country has any particular right to nuclear weapons to the exclusion of others. Much of the discussion on the issue automatically assumes that it is natural for the US to have nuclear weapons, so natural that its possession of them is not even mentioned, while on the other hand it is presumed that it is immoral and threatening for North Korea to develop them. Such double standards are unacceptable..." (p. 203).
This point is well-taken. The United States and the other five "accepted" nuclear powers have ignored their obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to move toward disarmament. This fact is a major reason for the increasing
Korean Brinkmanship, American Provocation, and the Road to War: the manufacturing of a crisis1
Tim Beal
The exchange of artillery fire between South and North Korea on 23 November, 2010 had predictable results – a great increase of tension on the peninsula, a show of force by the United States, and a torrent of uninformed media articles and pontificating from the security industry. Zbigniew Brzezinski, who as Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor armed the Mujahideen in order to draw the Soviet Union into Afghanistan, thereby starting that long and continuing war (and paving the way to 9/11 for that matter), opined that
If these actions are deliberate it is an indication that the North Korean regime has reached a point of insanity. Its calculations and its actions are difficult to fathom in rational terms. Alternatively it is a sign that the regime is out of control. Different elements in Pyongyang, including parts of the military, are capable of taking actions on their own perhaps, without central co-ordination.2
Robert Kaplan,with a touch of wishful thinking, decided that the clash, and the earlier display of an experimental Light Water Reactor to US nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker3 revealed that the North Korean government was ‘imploding’ and would soon be ripe for plucking, though that would have to be shared, in some unexplained way, with China:
An aggressive nuclear programme coupled with military attacks on South Korea, including the sinking of a South Korean vessel by a submarine last March, are also a way for new leader Kim Jong-eun to cement his credentials. In his twenties, and with little experience, his ascension is being spurred along by his powerful uncle and aunt, Jang Song-taek and Kim Kyonghui, each with their own networks of power relationships.
This means that for the first time in its history, North Korea now has a multipolar leadership, in which power is not concentrated in the hands of one person. A regime that is illegitimate and divided best stays in power by keeping its people on a permanent war footing, which in turn encourages disparate elements of the power structure to pull in one direction.
The heightened aggression shown by North Korea therefore may be a sign that the regime is in deep trouble. A sudden implosion could unleash the mother of all humanitarian problems, with massive refugee flows toward the Chinese border and a semi-starving population of 23m becoming the ward of the international community – in effect the ward of the US, Chinese and South Korean armies.
The Daily Telegraph’s security guru Praveen Swami decided this was all about getting aid from the West:
South Korea is one of the engines of Asian prosperity, on which the world's hopes of an early economic recovery rest on peace in the region. By attacking Yeonpyeong (Yonphyong4) island, a target of no strategic value, North Korea's dysfunctional regime is telling the world how much pain it could inflict if it isn't bribed to behave itself. It hopes that its sabre rattling will force talks where the West will agree to an aid package in return for a guarantee that Pyongyang will not produce further nuclear weapons.5
In London, the Evening Standard editorialised that
North Korea wants a resumption of six-way talks between the regional powers, including the US and China, about its nuclear programme and its leaders may believe that a demonstration of strength, nuclear and military, can achieve it. The moves have, however, played predictably badly with the US.6
The writer was correct that the DPRK wants talks with the US, and the invitation to Hecker was part of the process of attempting to draw the Obama administration into negotiations. But claiming that the artillery clash was part of that strategy just did not make sense..If the Evening Standard can work out that such an incident would predictably push Washington away from negotiations, then Pyongyang would likely come to that obvious conclusion as well. This particular inherently contradictory analysis of the North's intentions is frequently repeated in the English-language media.
What is most striking in the above reports is a failure to attempt to analyse the context in which the event is embedded. This context has two aspects, the contemporary geopolitical environment, and the historical framework. Once you take an event out of its context, events and the actors that perform them can have their meaning and significance distorted, often to the point of inversion. Prey become predators, victims become villains, and war becomes peace.
In this case, the provoker is portrayed as the provoked and the origins of the crisis are obscured.
The fire fight at Yeonpyeong Island seems to have been a manufactured crisis. It appears that, for the first time, South Korea, alone or in tandem with the United States, carried out a military exercise part of which took place in territory claimed by the North.7 There have been innumerable ROK and US-ROK military exercises over the decades, some of them very large, involving up to 200,000 troops.8 These have taken place either in international waters, or in South Korean territory. The North has charged the South, and the US, numerous times with infringing its territory by plane or by ship, and the area between the West Sea boundaries is contested, as discussed below. However, the live fire exercise of the marine’s howitzers on Yeonpyeong Island on 23 November, coinciding with the massive South Korean Hoguk exercise, seems to have been unprecedented. It appears that the North considered it a step too far and warned the South a number of times that they would retaliate. The warnings were ignored and the North shelled the marine base.
The south Korean puppet group perpetrated such reckless military provocation as firing dozens of shells inside the territorial waters of the DPRK side around Yonphyong [Yeonpyeong] Islet in the West Sea of Korea from 13:00 on Nov. 23 despite the repeated warnings of the DPRK while staging the war maneuvers for a war of aggression on it codenamed Hoguk, escalating the tension on the Korean Peninsula.9
The Yeonpyeong incident, therefore, had two components. One was the actual live fire into contested waters. This, as discussed below, was a statement of a territorial claim which the North declared that it could not tolerate.
The other was the fact that this shelling took place during the staging of a major military exercise (Hoguk). This included large-scale amphibious landings: ‘Marines will participate in regiment-level landing drills’.10 The South brushed off complaints about Hoguk saying it was an ‘annual routine drill which has been conducted by the South Korean military since 1996’, as if that made it any less threatening.11 The South also claimed that the marine live fire exercise at Yeonpyeong was not part of Hoguk. That was formally correct but really a matter of semantics. The marines firing howitzers from Yeonpyeong were under the same command as those practising beach assaults. The Guardian’s Tania Branigan automatically made the connection between the two, as it would appear did the ROK military:
The incident came during a routine drill by Southern forces in waters near the island, the military said.12
The howitzers were introduced to Yeonpyeong and at least one of the other islands in the disputed area in 2000, after the naval clash in 1999 which came to be called the ‘First Battle of Yeonpyeong’. There was a ‘test-firing’ but whether this involved live shells is unclear. It also seems to have taken place in isolation, not in combination with major war exercises:
Recently alone, they introduced a new type of 155 mm self-propelled howitzers and a large quantity of shells into Paekryong [Baengnyeong] and Yongphyong [Yeonpyeong] islets. On February 23 and 24 including mid-February, they staged a "test-firing" under the simulated conditions of a battle to "destroy" warships of the north.13
In 2004 the Navy Command of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) complained about firing exercises in the area, and about the artillery installed on the island:
In another development, the south Korean army has staged madcap firing exercises in waters west of Taechong [Daecheong] and Paekryong [Baengnyeong] Islands and in waters off the Yonphyong Islets with a flotilla of speed boats and guard craft involved.
The purpose of the firing exercises staged by the south Korean army in the West Sea is to be proficient in firing at warships of the north with various types naval artillery pieces and 155 mm self-propelled howitzers deployed on the Yonphyong Islets.14
It is not clear from the KPA statement what role the howitzers played. They could scarcely have been using live shells against their own boats, so it may have been some sort of simulation.
A KPA statement in 2008 about ‘combined firepower drills‘ suggested that this might be what is happening:
Combined firepower drills for "striking and destroying" warships of the Navy of the Korean People's Army and drills for tactical naval maneuvers are staged on Paekryong, Taechong and Yonphyong Islets and in waters around them almost everyday.15
It is not until the Yeonpyeong incident that KCNA uses the phrase ‘live shell’ in connection with artillery drills on the island:
The army of the DPRK warned several times that if even a single shell of the enemy is fired inside the territorial waters of the DPRK, it will take a prompt retaliatory strike in connection with the live shell firing drill they planned to stage from Yonphyong Islet while conducting the ill-famed war maneuvers for a war of aggression against the DPRK codenamed Hoguk.[emphasis added]16
It is unclear from the available material in English whether the marines had actually fired shells into the contested waters before 23 November. If they had not, then this exercise on its own would be provocative. If they had, then it would appear that it was the combination of this local exercise and the large-scale Hoguk which triggered the DPRK warning. In addition it may be that the scale of this firing was unprecedented, though they would have found that difficult to know in advance. According the Nam Kim, quoting a Korean-language source, the marine’s shelling was intense:
South Korean artillery units located in the West Sea Islands, just seven miles from the North Korean coast, engaged in firing exercises on November 23, 2010, for four hours. According to the South Korean Ministry of National Defense, the units on those islands, including Yeonpyeong Island, fired 3,657 times, or over 900 shells per hour, into contested waters.17
While many details remain unclear, we do know that North Korea regarded the 23 November live fire exercise by the marines on Yeonpyeong as a provocation it could not tolerate and warned the South a number of times that it would retaliate. In order better to understand how this crisis came about, and what may follow, we must, in addition to scrutinising the evidence about the events, also examine the underlying drivers of the clash.
Bearing in mind the importance of context three key drivers of the clash stand out. These are:
•Lee Myung-bak’s policy towards the DPRK
•The DPRK’s ‘zero tolerance’ strategy
•The reason for the perpetuation of the Northern Limit Line (NLL)
Lee Myung-bak’s Northern policy
Unlike his immediate predecessors as president, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, Lee has adopted a strongly confrontational policy towards the North. This has been evident from the beginning of his administration, but it became increasingly manifest with his exploitation of the Cheonan incident.
A very important part of Lee’s policy is the buildup of tension, especially through war exercises. But Lee and the South Korean military are only part of the decision-making process. War exercises take place because the US and ROK military want them. Given the vast disparity in power between North Korea and its adversaries (primarily the Unites States and South Korea but perhaps including Japan) what can be the motive for engaging in provocative military exercises? For the US the prime objective may be sending a message to China.18 Lee’s motives are probably threefold: to increase pressure on the North to produce a crisis of confidence and eventually collapse, to raise tension and fear of the North in the South, and to lock the Americans into his strategy.
ROK ships near Yeonpyeong Island in the aftermath of the shelling (Associated Press)
Frequent large scale joint exercises between the US and ROK militaries, under US command, which have been a feature of the peninsula for decades, stretch back in various forms to the late 1940s. The ROK military also has its own exercises, with little ostensible US involvement. Though since it is dependent on the US for high-tech intelligence – surveillance from aircraft and satellites, and signals interception – the Americans are never far away. In addition, the ROK military is under the wartime operational control (OPCON) of the US. Former President Roh Moo-hyun had negotiated for the US to relinquish operational control in 2012 but under Lee this has been pushed back to 2015.19 Control of Joint military exercises was also scheduled to be transferred to the ROK, but this has also been rescinded.20
The DPRK has its own exercises, but not with China or anyone else. A recent report from the Congressional Research Service notes that there is still a formal treaty between the DPRK and China, but little more than that:
…..the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance—which committed either party to come to the aid of the other if attacked. This military alliance, however, lacks key operational components, such as a joint headquarters, joint planning, or even joint military exercises.21
Indeed, when I raised the issue of the treaty with Chinese scholars in Beijing in November 2010, the replies were vague and it was unclear whether the treaty was still considered as binding. Whereas the US frequently makes a point of saying it will come to the aid of its ally the Republic of Korea, China makes no such public promises to the DPRK, calling instead for peace and stability.
Differentiating the involvement of the great powers, specifically the United States and China, is essential if we are to understand the security dynamics of the Korean peninsula. Treaties may be no more than scraps of paper. It is the establishment of implementation mechanisms – joint control, exercises, operational plans (OPLAN) and interoperability –that distinguishes the real from the merely formal. Neither Korea could invade the other without the support of its’ patron’, but clearly the commitment of the United States and China varies greatly. Moreover, invasions don’t just happen – they have to be planned and practised. It is only the United States and South Korea that does this repeatedly and on a large scale, not China and North Korea.
Sometimes it is difficult to disentangle the offensive from the defensive, and much depends on context, and interpretation. The US ‘Missile Defense’ programme is touted as defensive but coupled with the US offensive capability, which it allows to be utilised with impunity, it is rightly regarded by targeted countries as inherently aggressive.22 The US-ROK military exercises are claimed to be ‘defensive’ but on close examination we see that they are quite the opposite. Here is a description from the Seoul newspaper Hankyoreh of the exercise held at the end of November:
Joint South Korea-U.S. drills with the USS George Washington in the West Sea will be held from Sunday to Wednesday [28 November-1 December 2010]. North Korea has promised retaliation if both countries hold the drills in the West Sea.
South Korea and the United States have stated that the drills are routine and defensive in nature, but with the drills being held in the middle of the West Sea for the first time, they strongly take on the character of a show of force against North Korea...
Moreover, the South Korean military and U.S. military reportedly plan to limit the exercise to waters south of Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province. This means they will conduct the exercise in waters outside the range of North Korea’s Samlet (83~95km) and Silkworm and Styx (46km) land-to-sea anti-ship missiles.
Participating in the carrier strike force will be the 9,600-ton Aegis cruisers USS Cowpens and 9,750-ton Aegis destroyers USS Shiloh and USS Stethem and USS Fitzgerald. One Aegis destroyer carries about 100 Tomahawk cruise missiles that can bombard North Korea’s nuclear facilities with precision strikes.
The E-2C airborne early warning aircraft about the carrier is a “flying radar base” that detects and analyzes the situation in the air and ground from a far distance. The USS George Washington carries about 80 aircraft, including the fighter-bombers F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and F/A-18A/C Hornet. South Korea will provide two KDX-II destroyers, a patrol boat, frigate, supply ship and anti-submarine aircraft.
As the drill is taking place far from the NLL, the Marines on Baengnyeong Island, Yeonpyeong Island and the other Five West Sea Islands will not participate. The Marine artillery drills on Yeonpyeong Island will restart during the middle of next month, after the damage from Tuesday’s attack has been repaired. On Sunday, the first day of the joint South Korea-U.S. drill, the Marines will participate in regiment-level landing drills at Mallipo, South Chungcheong Province as part of the Hoguk Exercise, a primarily South Korean drill that involves U.S. participation. [emphasis added]23
On the one hand we have a task force headed by the giant nuclear-powered (and presumably nuclear-capable) carrier USS Washington, a ‘warship capable of delivering air power anywhere in the world’ as its official website proudly tells us.24 The taskforce with its missiles and aircraft can bomb anywhere in North Korea (and much of China as the Chinese are well aware). Deployed against that we have North Korean artillery and shore-to-ship missiles, both of limited range, and unable to threaten the task force. And if there were any doubt about the message all this is designed to deliver, just note the marine landing drills.
The media often plays its role in disguising the threatening nature of these exercises by describing them as ‘war games’, as if they were playful, pretend, activities with no harm being done or contemplated.25
The US-ROK joint military exercises not merely prepare for a possible invasion of North Korea but they also serve as weapons of attrition. They force North Korea to devote much more of its resources to the military than it would if there were no palpable threat. An important component of the exercise is their element of ambiguity. The Korean People’s Army (KPA) can never be sure when a feint might become the real thing, so every exercise has to be taken very seriously. The translation of this commentary from the Rodong Sinmun on the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises in 2009 may be fractured, but the underling recognition of the danger of attack is clear:
The said largest-scale saber rattling kicked off by the U.S. imperialists against the DPRK at a time when their scenario for the second Korean war is at the final stage of completion is a very adventurous and dangerous military provocation that can be seen only on the eve of a war, and this is an undisguised military threat and a sort of declaration of war against the DPRK.
No one can vouch that the U.S. imperialist bellicose elements will not ignite a war against the DPRK by surprise while reinforcing armed forces and staging war maneuvers in south Korea and its vicinity as they did in Iraq.26
Indeed, the clash at Yeonpyeong Island coincided with a substantial military exercise, the Hoguk (‘Safeguarding the Nation’):
North Korea fired the artillery during South Korea’s military drill called the Hoguk Exercise on Nov. 22-30 that involves 70,000 South Korean military troops, 50 warships, 90 helicopters and 500 planes. The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) of U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Seventh Air Force will also participate in the exercise.27
The scheduled participation of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) is particularly significant.28 The 31st MEU, based in Okinawa, is America’s ‘forward deployed rapid-response’ unit in East Asia. It trains with the ROK marines practicing beach landings, but its specialty appears to be urban warfare.29 One of its possible functions is to mount a commando type raid on the DPRK. A Japanese scholar writing in the authoritative PACNET newsletter of Pacific Forum CSIS (the Honolulu branch of the Washington think tank Center for Strategic and International studies) commented thus:
As a collapse of North Korea -- rather than a North Korean invasion of South Korea -- has become a more likely scenario, the 31st MEU can search and seize the North Korean nuclear arsenal, and prevent proliferation of those weapons.30
It is not surprising, therefore, that the KPA was concerned about the Hoguk exercise and responded to the ROK live firing in line with the ‘zero tolerance’ strategy. However, concerns extend beyond specific military exercises, to the whole policy of building up of tension in preparation for a crisis that would lead to an invasion of the North. The KPA barrage can be seen as a message that an attack would be met by a devastating counteroffensive which would, at the very least, imperil Seoul; it was a reminder that ‘Seoul [is] not safe from artillery attacks’.31
The DPRK’s ‘zero tolerance’ strategy
The DPRK’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy long predates the Lee Myung-bak administration, let alone the present crisis. Basically this strategy is to reiterate than no infringement of DPRK territory will be tolerated, and any intrusion will be met by force. There has been flexibility and restraint in implementing this strategy, especially in respect of the NLL (see below), but the underlying strategic calculation is that any sign of weakness will lead to further US and ROK moves against the DPRK.
The case of the US invasion of Iraq is often cited by the North Koreans as indicative of the dangers of an appeasement policy. This is often raised in respect of North Korea’s emphasis on nuclear deterrent. Alexander Frolov, writing recently in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs journal International Affairs on lessons from the Iraq war, for example, made the point that “The leadership in N. Korea also realized that nothing less than a nuclear status can guarantee the country against US aggression.”32
However, the relevance of Iraq to the non-appeasement policy goes beyond developing a nuclear deterrent. In May 2003 after a breakdown in US-DPRK negotiations, the official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) in a lengthy statement refered to Iraq:
On March 20 this year the U.S. provoked a war of aggression against Iraq under the pretext of "finding out weapons of mass destruction" in a bid to topple the Saddam government.
The Iraqi war taught the lesson that "nuclear suspicion," "suspected development of weapons of mass destruction" and suspected "sponsorship of terrorism" touted by the U.S. were all aimed to find a pretext for war and one would fall victim to a war when one meekly responds to the IAEA's inspection for disarmament.
Neither strong international public opinion nor big countries' opposition to war nor the UN Charter could prevent the U.S. from launching the Iraqi war.
It is a serious lesson the world has drawn from the Iraqi war that a war can be averted and the sovereignty of the country and the security of the nation can be protected only when a country has a physical deterrent force, a strong military deterrent force capable of decisively repelling any attack to be made by any types of sophisticated weapons.
The reality indicates that building up a physical deterrent force is urgently required for preventing the outbreak of a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula and ensuring peace and security of the world, now that the U.S. does not show any political intention and will to renounce its hostile policy toward the DPRK.
The DPRK will increase its self-defensive capacity strong enough to destroy aggressors at a single stroke. Any U.S. aerial attack will be decisively countered with aerial attack and its land strategy will be coped with land strategy.33
In reality, the DPRK cannot hope to match US military power (especially in the air) so its response to attack would be asymmetrical, drawing on its strengths.34 It would probably utilise its special forces, submarines, and in particular its artillery.35
As noted, the frequent US-ROK war exercises, the integration of the ROK military into the US command structure, and the associated operational plans, are recognised by the DPRK as very threatening:
[The United States] made public "strategic guideline No. 1" in November 1978 and thus officially announced the formation of the "Combined Forces Command" in south Korea. . .
The organization of the "Combined Forces Command" deepened the military dependence of south Korea on the United States and increased the danger for an outbreak of a new war on the Korean Peninsula.
The Team Spirit joint military exercises for invading the north had been escalated as a large-scale war exercises involving huge armed forces over 100,000-200,000 strong from 1978. Such joint military exercises as the Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration (RSOI), Ulji Focus Lens and Foal Eagle have been staged almost every day as planned and directed by the command.
The aggressive and bellicose nature of the command has remained unchanged even after the June 15 era [the 2000 North-South summit], a new era of reconciliation and cooperation, was ushered in on the Korean Peninsula.
Many war scenarios against the north including "OPLAN 5030", "New OPLAN 5026" and "OPLAN 8022-02" have been worked out and war exercises to carry them into practice conducted in a more frenzied way.
This year the command changed the codenames of the RSOI and Ulji Focus Lens with Key Resolve and Ulji Freedom Guardian and is holding actual maneuvers to hurl U.S. imperialist aggression forces in the mainland and abroad into Korean front.
It goes without saying that such war exercises and arms buildup had have negative effect on the north-south relations and chilled the ardent desire for the Korean people for reunification.
The south Korean people thus press for the dissolution of the "Combined Forces Command" disturbing peace in Korea and obstructing her reunification.
The south Korea-U.S. "Combined Forces Command", a tool for war of aggression and a source of permanent atmosphere of war and tension on the Korean Peninsula, should be disbanded without delay.36
The most famous example of the efficacy of the US-ROK strategy is the reported argument between President Kim Young-sam and President Bill Clinton in 1994. According to Kim, Clinton wanted to bomb the North Korea nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. A 2003 BBC report recounted the tale:
"Clinton told me that he would launch an immediate bombardment on the Yongbyon area. Clinton was very determined about it, but I argued to him that such an attack should never take place," said Mr Kim.
"So there was quite an argument between him and me. Sometimes the phone conversations lasted more than 40 minutes," he said.
Mr Clinton first revealed the 1994 plan to attack North Korea last month, but said nothing of the alleged dispute with the South.
Mr Kim said that a US attack would have led to a tremendous loss of life, and would have turned Seoul into a "sea of fire".
"Finally I told him that if the United States attacks North Korea, I cannot send one single member of South Korea's 650,000 armed forces into battle."37
Kim’s version of events was contradicted by Tong Kim (Kim Dong-hyun) a Korean-American who worked as an interpreter for the State Department for over 30 years, only to suggest that such plans were actually mooted at the defense minister level. According to him,
It simply is not the case [...]. There was no discussion about a possible U.S. attack on North Korea between the two presidents via phone. Such discussions indeed took place between their defense ministers Kwon Young-hae and William Perry with the South Korean minister obviously opposed to the military action.38
The consequences of a Northern counterattack, and specifically an artillery offense against Seoul, was not the only consideration, although it was the main one. A South Korean simulation exercise predicted that ‘bombing of North Korea’s nuclear facilities could in the worst case make the whole of Korea uninhabitable for a decade’.39 The bombing of Yongbyon was but one variant of the ‘military option’ that the United States has been examining, if perhaps the favoured one.40 The release of radioactivity aside, a US attack would mean war with immense devastation of the Korea peninsula, so it is to be expected that there has been, in the past, opposition across the political spectrum, from progressive President Roh Moo-hyun to conservative legislator Park Jin.41 There nevertheless remain those who pin their hopes on precipitating a collapse that they hope would prevent the North from making a counterattack. This is an ongoing issue but as long as the DPRK functions as a viable state, committed and able, to retaliate, the consequences of an attack would be weighty indeed. Part of the reason for the vigorous DPRK response at Yeonpyeong was presumably to demonstrate that the KPA was still in business.
The DPRK has been threatened, and blockaded, by the United States for decades, but unlike other countries that have been targeted as a threat to the United States, it has not been invaded, or bombed since 1953. To that degree the zero-tolerance strategy can be said to work. But it comes at heavy cost. It is a high-risk strategy. If there is a miscalculation or a misunderstanding, or ‘maverick’ action by soldiers on the front line, the situation could rapidly whirl out of control. War would be disastrous for North Korea, despite the brave words. It would also have grave consequences for the South, and Japan. If it spread to China the results for the entire Asia-Pacific and the world are incalculable.42 In such a war, the DPRK would suffer most, but the ROK and the US would also suffer unacceptable damage and that could be considered sufficient to keep the peace.
The strategy has other disadvantages. It allows the DPRK to be portrayed as belligerent, and certainly the coverage of the Yeonpyeong incident, within South Korea, and internationally has been virtually uniformly hostile toward the dPRK. Not everyone has jumped on to the bandwagon and there are those, in particular Korean-Americans, who oppose the drift towards war and call for engagement.43 But these are only a tiny minority.
The strategy also runs counter to the main thrust of DPRK strategy which is to negotiate the United States into accepting peaceful coexistence. Recourse to confrontation, and military action, makes that more difficult to prosecute.
Finally, it gives a hostage to fortune. The other side (here South Korea but in other circumstances it could be the US) can construct a provocation knowing that it will trigger a response that can be labelled as belligerent. The trick for the ROK here is to do something which the DPRK will regard as provocative but which can be disguised as normal and legitimate. The military exercises in general fall within this category. For the DPRK (and China) they are intimidating and provocative, but that is not how they are described in the Western media. No doubt if the tables were turned and it was a North Korean carrier stalking up the American or even the South Korean coast, perceptions would be different.
In the particular case of Yeonpyeong the ROK did something that was portrayed as legitimate and non-threatening but which the DPRK found intolerable. To understand why that was so we turn to the question of the Northern Limit Line (NLL).
Northern Limit Line
The Northern Limit Line is a very strange beast, as a glance at the map shows (fig 1).
On this map #1 indicates Yeonpyeong Island where the artillery clash took place, and #2 Baengnyeong Island, off which the Cheonan sank. The upper(blue) line represents the Northern Limit Line (NLL) and the lower (red) one the West Sea Military Demarcation Line (MDL) claimed by the DPRK.
The NLL was unilaterally established by the Americans (officially the United Nations Command) in August 1953 and has been claimed by the US and ROK thereafter.44 The NLL, instead of striking out directly from the coast at the end of the land Military Demarcation Line (MDL), snakes up the west coast of North Korea, through rich crab fish grounds, and taking in various islands the main three of which are Yeonpyeong (1) , Baengnyeong (2), and Daecheong (3). It has been argued that the line was set to prevent Southern incursions into Northern waters (Syngman Rhee had not signed the Armistice Agreement and wanted the war to continue), however, it seems more plausible to see it also, or primarily, as affording bases for inserting intelligence and commando teams in position to harass the DPRK. Be that as it may, by the 1990s commando raids were a thing of the past, yet the ROK refused to negotiate concerning the NLL. This was despite two major incidents in 1999 and 2002 which were a distinct threat to the ‘Sunshine Policy of then president Kim Dae-jung.45 A further clash occurred in November 2009 under the presidency of Lee Myung-bak.46 This 2009 incident may have owed something to the more assertive North Korea policy of the Lee administration.47
The NLL did not receive much international attention until the Cheonan incident of March 2010. There were a number of reasons for this. Most of the casualties in previous incidents were Northern and so, in the eyes of most of the international media, warranted less attention. The Cheonan was the largest single disaster for the ROK navy.
Many commentators were quick to point out what a dangerous situation the sinking of the Cheonan illustrated. Typical was Nicole Finnegan of the Washington-based Korea Economic Institute: ‘Regardless of what we learn the true cause of the tragedy to be, the sinking of the Cheonan has revived fear and debates on how easily North and South Korea could lurch into war unexpectedly.’48
There is nothing new in these concerns. The NLL by its unilateral nature, its configuration close to the North Korean coast, and running through highly prized crab grounds, is a recipe for conflict. Fishing boats from both South and North sometimes ignore the NLL during the crab season and their respective navies tend to follow them. The NLL is also at variance with the now standard territorial sea limit of 12 nautical miles.49 Writing in 2002, after the clash of June that year, John Barry Kotch and Michael Abbey, point out that:
If the two Koreas are genuinely committed to reconciliation, these differences can be resolved through negotiation, thereby preventing future incidents. A line that was drawn more than a half-century ago for an entirely different purpose should no longer be allowed to fester as a source of conflict, thereby retarding the peace process.50
The differences were not resolved, so the question is why? If this failure to negotiate a resolution had occurred during the Lee Myung-bak administration it might not have been surprising. But this was during the time of Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun. It is clear that a resolution would have meant the South abandoning the NLL in whole or in part, and agreeing to something more closely approximating the North’s line. Whatever the role of Americans behind the scenes it seems clear that resolution of the NLL was opposed, successfully, by the ROK military. The logical conclusion is that there were strong forces in the ROK political elite, revolving around the military, who wanted to keep the NLL precisely because it would “to fester as a source of conflict, thereby retarding the peace process.”
All of the previous conflicts around the NLL had been at sea, and the artillery duel at Yeonpyeong was the first one on land. To understand how that came about we must return to the map. It appears that the DPRK acknowledges ROK control over the islands, but claims these are its territorial waters, except for the access channels shown on the map.51
Whilst the NLL has long been a bone of contention, the situation greatly worsened since the Lee Myung-bak administration came into office. One rough way of measuring that is to calculate the number of times the official KCNA news agency mentions the NLL. Roh Moo-hyun was in office from 25 February 2003 to 25 February 2008 when Lee Myung-bak took over. Fig 2 shows the monthly average of NLL stories over those two administrations. This is admittedly an imperfect metric, but the difference between the two administrations is compelling: under Lee Myung-bak the number of North Korean complaints rose nearly three-fold.
In March 2008, for instance, the KPA navy warned:
Combined firepower drills for "striking and destroying" warships of the Navy of the Korean People's Army and drills for tactical naval maneuvers are staged on Paekryong, Taechong and Yonphyong Islets and in waters around them almost everyday.
A situation in which an armed conflict may break out any moment is prevailing in the frontline waters in the West Sea due to the reckless military provocations of the south Korean military warmongers.
Any attempt on the part of the south Korean military authorities to "protect" the "northern limit line" at any cost would only spark off a clash in the said waters.52
The following year, as the Lee administration moved to join the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), the KPA navy issued another warning:
3. For the present, we will not guarantee the legal status of the five islands under the south side's control (Paekryong, Taechong, Sochong, Yonphyong [Yeonpyeong] and U islands) in our side's territorial waters northwest of the extension of the Military Demarcation Line in the West Sea of Korea and safe sailing of warships of the U.S. imperialist aggression forces and the south Korean puppet navy and civilian ships operating in the waters around there.53
The PSI is in many ways similar to the NLL. It is unilateral and has no legal standing. The PSI claims that the US and its clients are above international law and may stop and search ships on the high seas. Ostensibly this is to stop the shipping of weapons of mass destruction which, given the United States pre-eminence in the international arms trade, smacks of a certain degree of chutzpah.54 Indeed, as Hazel Smith has documented, ‘There is little hard evidence that the government of North Korea is involved in the illicit shipping of WMD or components of WMD.’55 The PSI seems to be really about harassing the DPRK and stoking tension, and that also holds for the NLL.
The NLL seems to have been much more successful in attaining these objectives so far than the PSI. The NLL was perhaps only peripheral to the Cheonan incident. True the ship sank in disputed waters, and had the NLL not existed, that is, had the two Koreas been separated by a mutually agreed maritime border, the sinking would probably not have occurred. It appears, as Russian investigators concluded, that it ran aground in shallow waters and in an attempt to extricate itself, may have been sunk by one of the South’s mines.56 If the actual sinking of the Cheonan may have been an accident, the subsequent investigation was deliberately fraudulent.57 The Yeonpyeong incident is different in that it occurred because of a deliberate provocation by the South.
The artillery duel at Yeonpyeong
Much remains contested about this incident. But the essentials can be traced. The media tends to give the impression that the North Korean barrage against the marine base on Yeonpyeong island on 23 November came out of the blue, with nothing preceding it. The Chosun Ilbo specifically makes that claim:
… the latest artillery bombardment on Yeonpyeong Island came completely out of the blue, and there is no way of telling when, where and how North Korea will strike next.58
A slightly more nuanced version is the Washington Post narrative, with the North launching a barrage and the South responding:
North Korea launched a massive artillery barrage on a South Korean island Tuesday, killing two South Korean marines, wounding at least 19 other people and setting more than 60 buildings ablaze in the most serious confrontation since the North's sinking of a South Korean warship in March.
South Korea immediately responded with its own artillery fire and put its fighter jets on high alert, bringing the two sides - which technically have remained in a state of war since the Korean armistice in 1953 - close to the brink of a major conflagration.59
Yet there is no mention here of the South’s arms buildup on the island, the North’s warnings, the provocative nature of the Northern Limit Line, or the South’s threatening military exercises preceding the barrage.
Back in 2008 the KPA complained about the ROK introducing new weaponry into the NLL islands: ‘They also issued an order to batteries of 155 mm caliber howitzers and various type guided weapons deployed on the above-said five islets to be ready to go into action.’60
The KPA statement also claimed that:
Combined firepower drills for "striking and destroying" warships of the Navy of the Korean People's Army and drills for tactical naval maneuvers are staged on Paekryong, Taechong and Yonphyong Islets and in waters around them [take place] almost everyday.
A situation in which an armed conflict may break out any moment is prevailing in the frontline waters in the West Sea due to the reckless military provocations of the south Korean military warmongers.
Any attempt on the part of the south Korean military authorities to "protect" the "northern limit line" at any cost would only spark off a clash in the said waters.61
The live fire drills that the ROK conducted on 23 November were not just artillery practice; they were specifically focussed on possible combat against KPA ships in waters around the island. However, it was the specific contested status of those waters, in a tense situation exacerbated by the military exercises since the Cheonan incident, which sparked the North Korean response. It appears that the North warned the South against the drills, but the warnings were disregarded.
The Seoul newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported on 24 November that,
North Korea in a telegram on Tuesday morning [23 November] criticized an annual South Korean defense drill now underway. The same afternoon the North Korean military fired on Yeonpyeong Island.
An official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, "At around 8:20 a.m. on Tuesday, North Korea sent a telegram that said they would not sit idly by and watch if South Korea fire at North Korean waters during the military training." North Korea already criticized the drill on Nov. 17 on the website of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland and again on Monday when the drill began.
But the military dismissed North Korea's claims, saying an artillery firing drill by the Marine Corps that took place in Yeonpyeong Island on Tuesday had nothing to do with the annual drill but was a part of monthly training there. Moreover, the drill the North cited as an excuse for the attack is an annual routine drill which has been conducted by the South Korean military since 1996.
A spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, "The training was directed at South Korean waters to the southwest of Yeonpyeong Island, and the training site had been announced already through the international network of communication of merchant ships.62
To say that the marine artillery drills had nothing to do with the Hoguk exercise is surely sophistry. Moreover, the DPRK warnings stretched further back. The information available on the English-language KCNA website is only a portion of the published Korean-language material, and on top of that there are the direct communications between North and South (such as the telegram mentioned above). However, there is enough English-language for us to get a certain picture of preceding events, even though the English translation is often of poor quality.
This picture taken on November 23, 2010 by a South Korean tourist shows huge plumes of smoke rising from Yeonpyeong island in the disputed waters of the Yellow Sea on November 23, 2010. North Korea fired dozens of artillery shells onto a South Korean island on November 23, 2010, killing four people, setting homes ablaze and triggering an exchange of fire as the South's military went on top alert. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
On the 4th of June 2010 a Rodong Sinmun editorial headlined ‘S. Korea Accused of Dangerous Provocations’ warned that:
The puppet military is massively amassing offensive forces in the waters off five islets of the West Sea including Paekryong and Yonphyong [Yeonpyeong] islets while vociferating about "defence of the northern limit line" and ceaselessly infiltrating its warships into the territorial waters of the DPRK for the purpose of sparking off a new armed conflict.
It is needless to say that the large-scale "demonstration of military muscle" and war maneuvers taking place under this situation are as dangerous acts as playing with fire by the side of a powder magazine. These moves are, in fact, a prelude to an all-out war.
The DPRK loves peace and does not want a war. But it is the DPRK's spirit and mettle to react to fire with fire and punish the provocateurs with a merciless retaliation of justice.63
This is a generalised warning about retaliation ‘for starting a war of aggression’ rather than specifically threatening a response to military exercises at Yeonpyeong.
This warning was followed by another on 3 August which specifically threatened retaliation for ‘naval firing maneuvers’ from Yeonpyeong and other islands in the area:
The Command of Forces of the Korean People's Army in the western sector of the front issued on Tuesday the following notice in this connection:
The naval firing maneuvers to be staged by the above-said warmongers in the waters near Paekryong, Taechong and Yonphyong islets in August with all ground, naval and submarine attack means involved are not simple drills but undisguised military intrusion into the inviolable territorial waters of the DPRK and reckless politically motivated provocation to preserve the illegal "northern limit line" to the last. ….
In view of the prevailing situation, the Command of Forces of the Korean People's Army in the western sector of the front made a decisive resolution to counter the reckless naval firing projected by the group of traitors with strong physical retaliation. ….
It is the unshakable will and steadfast resolution of the army and people of the DPRK to return fire for fire.64
Whether the ROK marines carried out any firing exercises after that warning is unknown. The Chosun Ilbo report quoted above says the drills were held ‘monthly’ but the [London] Telegraph talks about ‘monthly air raid drills’, so the exercises on 23 November may have been the first since the August threat. As the Telegraph put it, ‘The island, lined with tank traps and trenches, and equipped with 19 fully-stocked bomb shelters in which residents conduct monthly air raid drills, is permanently ready for war.’65
The South Koreans admitted carrying out live firing exercises on 23 November but justified these by saying they were fired into the sea, away from the direction of the North Korean mainland. There seems no doubt they were firing into the sea (on the technical level it was presumably an anti-ship exercise), though the actual direction of fire is unclear. One report says southward.66 Another says to the west.67 Yet another has it to the southwest.68
In fact, as far as the North was concerned, the direction was irrelevant because in any case the shells landed in their territorial waters. And therein lies the rub. The DPRK argues that if it tolerated the exercise it would be relinquishing its claim to the waters.
The enemy fired shells from the islet which is so close to the territory of the DPRK that it is within each other's eyeshot despite the fact that there are so many mountains and rivers, sea waters and islets in south Korea. This powder-reeking saber-rattling cannot be construed otherwise than a politically motivated provocation.
The enemy is claiming that they fired shells southward from the islet in a bid not to get on the nerves of the DPRK but Yonphyong Islet is located deep inside the territorial waters of the DPRK away from the maritime military demarcation line. If live shells are fired from the islet, they are bound to drop inside the territorial waters of the DPRK side no matter in which direction they are fired because of such geographical features.
The ulterior aim sought by the enemy is to create the impression that the DPRK side recognized the waters off the islet as their "territorial waters", in case that there was no physical counter-action on the part of the former.
Herein lies the crafty and vicious nature of the enemy's provocation.
The army of the DPRK took such a self-defensive measure as making a prompt powerful strike at the artillery positions from which the enemy fired the shells as it does not make an empty talk. [emphasis added].69
As can be seen from the map (fig 1), the DPRK seems to accept ROK control of the island (but not necessarily sovereignty), but it rejects any claim over the surrounding sea.
It would appear that the DPRK claim to these waters has much to justify it; the Northern Limit Line is manifestly iniquitous; it is unilateral and provocative and should have been abolished years ago. But does that justify the DPRK artillery barrage?
An important point here is the number of warnings that were given and the nature of the ROK military exercise. We have already quoted the public statements, and mentioned a telegram, but the North also claims it made a telephone call to the South:
The south Korean puppet warmongers' firing of shells into the territorial waters of the DPRK side in the West Sea of Korea on Nov. 23 was a premeditated and deliberate military provocation from A to Z and a war action in fact.
On Nov. 22, the south Korean puppet forces made no scruple of announcing that they would fire shells into the territorial waters of the DPRK side with artillery pieces they deployed on Yonphyong Island while staging Hoguk exercises for a war of aggression against the DPRK, straining the situation on the Korean Peninsula.
In this connection the DPRK side sent a telephone notice to the south Korean puppet military at 8 a.m. on Nov. 23, strongly urging it to immediately cancel the plan for firing shells into the territorial waters of the DPRK side. In the notice the DPRK side seriously warned that if it paid no heed to this demand, it would face a resolute physical counter-strike and would be held fully responsible for all the ensuing consequences.70
This telephone call, and the previous public warnings, have received very little coverage in the Western media, but they were reported by the Seoul newspaper Korea Herald quoting ROK military sources:
In the morning [of the clash], the North sent a telephone message to the South, saying “The North would not just sit back if the South fired shots into the North Korean territorial waters,” according to JCS [South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff] officials.71
We do not know how explicit that warning was, but since it was a telephone call, the Southern officer could presumably have sought clarification.
Moreover, other reports indicate that the ROK military was aware that that DPRK had moved artillery into position. This was then followed by practice shooting:
A senior military said several hours before the shelling began the North Korean military deployed one battery of six 122-mm MLRS shells and later two batteries of 12 112-mm MLRS shells. It also carried out preparatory shooting practice just before the attack. "As far as I know the South Korean military was aware of this," he said.72
It seems fair to assume that the local ROK military commander was aware of the possible consequences if the firing exercise went ahead. Whether he relayed this to higher levels and asked for confirmation to go ahead we do not know, but it seems likely. There was no great time pressure and taking action which would result in the first artillery exchange since the Korean War would surely have been referred up to higher levels.
The warning/foreknowledge issue become even more convoluted with revelations on 1 December that South Korean intelligence had known since August that the North would respond. The Director of the National Intelligence Service [NIS] gave testimony to a closed-door session of a committee of the National Assembly.
Members of the National Assembly Intelligence Committee quoted NIS Director Won Sei-hoon as saying the agency knew from wiretapping that the North Korean regime ordered the military to prepare to attack the five islands in the West Sea. He said the NIS submitted the intelligence report to President Lee Myung-bak.[emphasis added]73
The phrase ‘prepare to attack’ implies, and is meant to imply, a Northern provocation, an unprovoked assault. In fact, we have from another story a much more plausible formulation:
The [Asahi Shimbun] quoted the source, who is familiar with North Korea-China relations, as saying, "Early last month, the North Korean military issued instructions in Kim Jong-un's name to senior military commanders to get ready to counter the enemy's provocations any time." The source quoted an unnamed North Korean Army officer as commenting on the artillery attack on Yeonpyeong. "It had been planned. We had been preparing for that for a long time." [emphasis added].74
This countering of what the North regarded as a Southern provocation is consistent with the published and telephone warnings. It gives a quite different take on who was provoking whom. This did not prevent the Chosun Ilbo, which ran the story, from heading it ‘Kim Jong-un 'Ordered Attack in Early November'. Not the first time a newspaper has mendaciously given a headline which is contradicted by the actual story. In fact, the Chosun Ilbo, which has a virulent ideological position, often does this.75
The assertion that the NIS submitted the intelligence report to President Lee Myung-bak has to be taken cautiously. From the public account we do not know whether he was given it personally, and the warning drawn to his attention. It may have just been passed to his office, and he may never have read it. That is a generous interpretation. Whether Lee was aware personally, it is clear that the North Korean warning that they would retaliate if the exercises took place was known at the highest levels of the South Korean command.
Events of the day
The actual sequence of events is more complex than most press reports and commentaries suggest. According to the Korea Herald, the Northern shelling started at 2.34pm, but was perhaps not the ‘massive onslaught’ that it was often called:
“As the North fired coastal artillery shells at around 2:34 p.m. into waters off the Yeonpyeong Island as well as on the island, we immediately fired back in full accordance with combat rules,” said Lee Hong-kee, chief director for joint operations at the JCS, in a press briefing. [emphasis added]76
Either the accuracy of the Northern artillery was poor, or firing into the water was deliberate.
According to the report, here is the sequence of events
This raises some intriguing questions.
•Did the North fire simultaneously at the island and into the sea, or did the land fire come later?
•Did the North fire onto the island only after the Southern counterattack on its positions?
•Why did the South make a telephone call asking the North to stop if it had already done so?
•Did the North recommence firing sometime after 3.42 pm?
•As of 9.30 pm we have three civilians reported with minor injuries but subsequent reports give two dead. Were the dead amongst these three, or were they discovered later?
The ‘fog of war’ no doubt produces confusion but these discrepancies suggest that we have not had the full story by any means.
The quite erroneous claim that this was an ‘unprovoked attack’ by the North has been repeated so many times by ROK officials, and by the media, that even independent-minded analysts such as the American investigative journalist Tim Shorrock have been taken in.77
The other main canard in the official narrative concerns civilians. The theme is set at the top with statements from Lee Myung-bak. On 29 November he gave a short address to the nation: ‘During a seven-minute speech Lee expressed outrage over the North's ruthless attack on civilians, calling it an "inhumane" crime [emphasis added].’78
Others were more circumspect. A JCS spokesman called the firing ‘indiscriminate’:
“This provocation is a premeditated, intentional illegal attack in violation of the U.N. Convention, the Armistice Agreement and the inter-Korean non-aggression accord. It is also an inhumane atrocity, in which it indiscriminately fired shells into unarmed civilian residential areas.”79
Song Min-soon, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade and currently a Democratic Party (i.e. opposition) member of the National Assembly attacked what he called an ‘outrageous indiscriminate artillery attack against civilians and military alike.’80
The American author and Korea specialist John Feffer wrote of a ‘disproportionate response’ which killed ‘two civilians and two soldiers’.81
Early reports (such as the Korea Herald one above) mention only minor civilian injuries, though they talk of a ’civilian area’:
..killing two South Korean marines, wounding 16 soldiers and three civilians, and damaging homes and facilities. This was the first time since the Korean War that the North has fired artillery shells on a civilian area in South Korea.82
‘Civilian area’ is a rather elastic term. Most military bases have civilians living in the vicinity, some more than others. The giant US headquarters in South Korea, Yongsan Garrison, occupies 2.5 sq km in the centre of this city of 10 million people; the site was originally developed by the Japanese Imperial Army.
By 24 November the casualties changed to four – two military and two civilians. ‘In addition to the two marines killed, the bodies of two men, believed in their 60s, were pulled from a destroyed construction site, the coast guard said. At least 18 people - most of them troops - were injured.’83
It was not stated where this construction site was in relation to the marine camp. If it were on the other side of the island, then that would indicate fire that was either indiscriminate or highly inaccurate. If it were close by, or even on the camp, then this would be quite different.
It is clear that the main target was the Marine camp, as this quotation from the JCS indicates:
Many landed on a military camp but others on a civilian village on the island. Flames and thick columns of smoke were seen rising above the village and a nearby mountain. "The North must have carefully premeditated the provocation against the camp," a JCS officer speculated.84
A K-9 Marine artillery base on Yeonpyeong Island under attack by North Korea on Tuesday /Courtesy of the Ministry of Defense ["N.Korean Shelling 'Aimed for Maximum Damage to Lives, Property'." Chosun Ilbo, 26 November 2010.
The Washington Post went one step further and reported that ‘Most of the shells landed on a military base on Yeonpyeong island [emphasis added].’85
However, most reports either did not mention the marine base, or gave no details. For instance, another Washington Post article talked of ‘civilian-inhabited Yeonpyeong Island’ without any reference to the marine base.86 In fact the military installations were significant as a New York Times article makes evident.
… [Yeonpyeong Island] houses a garrison of about 1,000 South Korean marines, and the navy has deployed its newest class of “patrol killer” guided-missile ships in the Western Sea, as the Yellow Sea is also known.87
This New York Times article gave the civilian population as 1,600 but this was later revised down to 1,350.88 Most appear to be connected, as one might expect, to fishing (the area is famous for crabs); how many work on the base is unclear.
The most detailed, technical, assessment of the artillery duel is given by the US ‘geopolitical intelligence’ company STRATFOR. It released a report, accompanied by a pdf file showing satellite images taken after what it called the ‘North Korean attack on Yeonpyeong Island’.
The STRATFOR reports are interesting partly for what they reveal, but also for what they hide or obscure, and for what might be considered a surprising lack of geopolitical intelligence in an organisation in the business of selling intelligence. It admits that ‘A [South Korean] battery of six K9 155 mm self-propelled howitzers, which was conducting live-fire drills on a Yeonpyeong Island military base, fired some 80 rounds.’
And then, a bit further down:
Significantly, the South claims its Yeonpyeong Island drill was not part of the larger Hoguk exercises under way simultaneously throughout South Korea. North Korea has occasionally protested these drills — including recently — and claims dozens of shells fell in North Korean waters near the island, provoking it to fire. However, as the North does not recognize the Northern Limit Line and considers the entire island and its surrounding water to be North Korean territory, it does not seem to be clear that this particular incident was any more provocative than any other drill.89
This is a curious argument. Hoguk and the other military exercises over the decades have taken place in South Korean territory or international waters. This one was being held in what the North considered to be DPRK territory. It was not merely provocative from a military point of view, but as they made clear in their statement of 24 November, from a legal one as well. That is a very important distinction which differentiated the Yeonpyeong exercise from others.
Although the STRAFOR report mentions the military base in passing, it is absent from the satellite images document. We have satellite photos of destroyed houses, but nothing that shows the base, which is not even identified. Since the base was the main target of attack, and early reports focused on military dead and wounded, this is a rather telling omission.
The STRATFOR report and images do, however, throw considerable light, albeit inadvertently, on the issue of civilian casualties. It would appear from this, and other sources, that the North Korean fire was not very accurate. The North Koreans either exclusively, or mainly (it is not clear which), used Multiple Launch Rocket System [MLRS] artillery. These are, as the name suggests, basically a bundle of tubes which can fire rockets. Interestingly, it is said that they can be traced back to the 15th century Korean hwacha (‘fire vehicle’), which could fire a hundred or more projectiles in one salvo.90 The most famous example in modern times was the Soviet Katyusha, used in the Second World War and nicknamed the ‘Stalin organ’.91 The Americans used them in 1991 in the Gulf War, and the ROK military is equipped with them.92
MLRS can deliver formidable devastation but are not very accurate, especially the older versions with which the KPA is equipped:
The initial barrage consisted of 150 rounds, followed by 20 more intermittently — meaning that while a full battalion appeared to be in position, a fully armed single battery could have conducted the entire attack. Of these 170 rounds, 80 struck Yeonpyeong Island, though 20 failed to detonate…..
With a few modern exceptions, artillery rockets are unguided and achieve results through massed fires rather than exceptional accuracy. Here, North Korea had no opportunity to register targets or adjust fire based on input from forward observers; South Korea has subsequently conjectured based on the targets that the North’s maps of military positions on the island may have been dated. The failure of so many rounds to reach the island and a dud rate of roughly a quarter of those that did suggest issues of quality control in manufacture and/or poorly controlled storage, as well as the potential for there to have been issues in the fire direction or on the gunline.93
So it would appear that the reason that shells fell on the town was not so much that that the firing was indiscriminate, as that it was inaccurate.
The North Koreans do not have a monopoly on this, indeed there was anger in the ROK National Assembly Intelligence Committee when they were presented with the satellite photo (Fig 5) which showed that Southern shells fired from their much more accurate howitzers had missed their target, the North Korean artillery positions: ‘Committee members reportedly reacted angrily since they show impact points scattered mainly in paddy and dry fields.’94
In this satellite photo released by the U.S. private intelligence agency Stratfor, rice paddies and fields in North Korea bear traces of South Korean artillery shells ["Spies Intercepted Plans for Yeonpyeong Attack in August ". Chosun Ilbo, 2 December 2010.
There was also much dispute about the damage suffered by the North. The DPRK has released no statement about casualties. In the South, some pointed out that ROK military equipment was far superior and more deadly and hence there must have been many casualties, while others pointed to various satellite photos showing hits missing targets.95
Sometimes military action is intended primarily to terrorise and demoralise the civilian population – the London blitz, the firebombing of Tokyo, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the ‘shock and awe’ bombing of Baghdad prior to invasion – are just a few well known examples. If the DPRK fired on Seoul to unleash ‘a sea of fire’ it would be the civilian population that would be hit, and the military impact would be secondary. However, much military action is aimed primarily at the enemy military, and if this occurs in a populated area, civilians become, in the US euphemism, ‘collateral damage’. Clearly the distinction between the two is often blurred in practice, and it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to be sure, but the available evidence suggests that the target for the North Korean fire was the marine base and that civilian casualties and damage were accidental.
There are several reasons for assuming this. Firstly, the inaccuracy of the MLRS. Secondly, if the intention had been to cause civilian causalities as a warning about the consequences of Lee Myung-bak’s confrontational policy – ‘today Yeonpyeong, tomorrow Seoul’ – we would expect that point to be made. There is little point in giving a warning unless it is reasonably explicit. I can find no indication that the DPRK has made any suggestion that the Yeonpyeong incident carried such a lesson for the people of the ROK. On the contrary, the public statement expressed regret for civilian casualties and laid the blame on the Southern side:
The DPRK side warned several times against the enemy's plan for shelling in the sensitive areas around Yonphyong Island and sent a telephone notice on the morning of the very day the incident occurred as part of its superhuman efforts to prevent the clash to the last moment, but the south side preempted the firing of shells into the territorial waters of the DPRK side. The enemy side, however, has kept silent about all these facts.
Moreover, it is now working hard to dramatize "civilian casualties" as part of its propaganda campaign, creating the impression that the defenceless civilians were exposed to "indiscriminate shelling" all of a sudden from the DPRK side.
If that is true, it is very regrettable but the enemy should be held responsible for the incident as it took such inhuman action as creating "a human shield" by deploying civilians around artillery positions and inside military facilities before the launch of the provocation.
The fact that there were human casualties inside the military base clearly proves itself the ulterior intention of the enemy. . .96
This statement brings up a third factor. The claim about a ‘human shield’ doesn’t carry much weight. Civilians live on the island for historical and economic reasons and there is no reason to suppose that they were used to shield the military. However, the claim that civilian casualties occurred within the camp is not implausible. Civilians must have worked at the camp. Indeed, one report from the United States said of the shelling that ‘this resulted in the killing of two South Korean soldiers and two civilian contractors working on a military base’ [emphasis added].97 As with the Cheonan incident we need a proper, impartial, investigation if we are to draw any firm conclusions, but as with the Cheonan no such investigation is likely.
It is interesting to note that the DPRK statement does not claim that it suffered any civilian casualties, merely that enemy shells ‘dropped in the area close to civilian houses’. North Korean propaganda is frequently portrayed as dishonest and deceitful. Here is surely a case where it would have been to their advantage, in terms of international opinion, to fabricate civilian casualties, but they did not do so.
Finally, it should be remembered that the ROK military on Yeonpyeong Island are not just ordinary soldiers, they are Marines, an elite force trained for amphibious assault. Indeed, back in 2009 Rodong Sinmun commented on the buildup up in the area.
The puppet military reinforced warships and armed forces along and near the "northern limit line in the West Sea" and formed a "task force to be ready to go into action in half an hour" and deployed it on Yonphyong Islet [emphasis added].98
The road behind, the road ahead
There have been frequent naval clashes around the Northern Limit Line, indeed it seems likely that it has been preserved by the current ROK and US authorities for that purpose. President Roh moo-hyun and Chairman Kim Jong Il, at their summit on 4 October 2007 agreed to a ‘special peace and cooperation zone in the West Sea’, but this peace initiative was overturned, as so many others, by incoming president Lee Myung-bak.99
Preserving the NLL as an area in which incidents are likely to occur is one thing, but utilising the NLL deliberately to create an incident is another. Warnings and intelligence reports aside, it must have been known that a military exercise within the NLL area would be provocative. The legal implications, moreover, made it intolerably provocative. This suggests that the crisis was planned, not necessarily in great detail, but with sufficient surety of outcome. This reading is quite consistent with Lee Myung-bak’s policy, which is one of building up tension in order to precipitate a crisis on the peninsula that would lead to a collapse of the DRPK, and its absorption by the ROK.
The DPRK is well aware of this, hence the reaffirmation of the zero tolerance policy at Yeonpyeong. On 23 November, in the aftermath of the clash, the KPA issued a communiqué which reiterated the policy:
It is a traditional mode of counter-action of the army of the DPRK to counter the firing of the provocateurs with merciless strikes.
Should the south Korean puppet group dare intrude into the territorial waters of the DPRK even 0.001 mm, the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK will unhesitatingly continue taking merciless military counter-actions against it.100
This is a calculated policy of brinkmanship that is designed to avert war by threatening war. The danger is, of course, that the momentum of events will bring war about. That, unfortunately, is becoming ever more likely
Lee Myung-bak is a consummate politician. He has set things in motion to produce, and replicate crisis, while giving the appearance of being reluctant. His address to the nation on 29 November used the same rhetorical device as Antony’s speech about Julius Caesar, in which he states “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him,” but of course is doing just that; he wants to turn the crowd against the killers of Caesar but has to dissemble. Lee combined ‘humility’ with an aggressive stance in such a way as to suggest he was reluctant to exacerbate the situation but was being forced into it.
President Lee Myung-bak’s address Monday is being summarized as consisting mainly of “humility toward the people of South Korea” and an “ultra-hardline response to North Korea.” Analysts say it shows the president’s perception of the current crisis facing him and its solution following the North Korean artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island.
Although even North Korea acknowledged the attack to be a “provocation,” President Lee has faced harsh criticism domestically. Surveys show that more than 70 percent of South Koreans, conservative and progressive alike, feel that the military and Lee Myung-bak administration did not respond appropriately at the time of the attack. The fact that the president began his address Monday with what amounted to an apology to the people of South Korea reflected a consideration of this situation. [emphasis added]
The performance so impressed the reporter from the liberal Hankyoreh that he made the manifestly false statement that ‘North Korea acknowledged the attack to be a ‘provocation’ (on its part).
Throughout the crises of 2010, especially over the sinking of the Cheonan and then Yeonpyeong, Lee Myung-bak adroitly fanned the flames while giving the impression that he was attempting to put them out. In respect of the Cheonan incident President Obama was reported as saying, ‘I think President Lee has shown extraordinary restraint given these circumstances.’101
To be sure, this was a public statement and politicians often say in public the opposite of what they think in private. However, there does seem to be a consensus among Western observers at least that Lee is a reluctant warrior being driven into taking steps by the provocative obduracy of the North.102 Consider, for instance, this STRATFOR interview where the interviewer comments: ‘I talked to three former [US?] envoys to Seoul this week and all of them agreed that South Korea had handled this in a pretty cool and sensible fashion.’103
The South Korean public is rather more sceptical.
One of the WikiLeaks cables [09SEOUL59] illustrates the confusion in the minds of US officials:
President Lee is determined not to give in to North Korean pressure. Our Blue House contacts have told us on several occasions that President Lee remained quite comfortable with his North Korea policy and that he is prepared leave the inter-Korean relations frozen until the end of his term in office, if necessary. It is also our assessment that Lee's more conservative advisors and supporters see the current standoff as a genuine opportunity to push and further weaken the North, even if this might involve considerable brinkmanship.104
On the one hand we have Lee facing up to North Korean pressure, but we also get the admission that the ‘current standoff’ ( this was in 2009) is seen as ‘ a genuine opportunity to push and further weaken the North, even if this might involve considerable brinkmanship’.
Lee’s brinkmanship is, in fact, far more profound and aggressive than the US diplomat realised. Both North and South are engaging in brinkmanship, but the nature of the two is very different. Pyongyang is far poorer and weaker than its adversaries, which include not merely South Korea but the United States, and Japan.105 North Korea’s brinkmanship is therefore inherently defensive. It is designed to protect the country (or regime) from attack and conquest. That does not mean that it is wise, or will be successful, that is a matter of debate. But it is important to recognise its essential characteristic of defensiveness.
South Korea’s brinkmanship, on the other hand, is offensive. It is designed to bring about the collapse of the DPRK and its takeover by the ROK. Lee Myung-bak does not have to do this. His immediate predecessors (Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun) had very different policies. Indeed, his aggressive brinkmanship is arguably a new development because even in the days of the military dictatorship, while there was hostility towards the North because the balance of forces if anything favoured the North at that time, there was not such an aggressive policy.
We discern three factors that may be propelling Lee Myung-bak to accelerate the buildup of tension on the peninsula.
•A desire to renew the anti-North momentum after the relative failure of the Cheonan incident. His setback in the May elections, the widespread public scepticism about the investigation, and the failure to get the UN Security Council to condemn North Korea must rankle. The Yeonpyeong incident is seen as away to rekindle anti-North Korea sentiment.
In his address on 29 November he specifically made the point: ‘There was a split in public opinion over the torpedoing of the Cheonan. Unlike that time, our people have united as one this time.’106
•Despite frequent assertions of implosion and crisis, the DPRK is not facing collapse. Whilst sanctions must have caused huge damage, the economy appears to be recovering. Certainly Pyongyang, from personal observation on a visit in November 2010, is manifestly economically improved over my last visit three years ago, with more motor vehicles, bicycles, and shops. The electricity supply is much better and there is a very noticeable increase in street lighting. These observations are broadly corroborated by many recent American visitors.107 If the South is to take over the North then something must be done to reverse this recovery.
•Time is not on Lee Myung-bak’s side. His term of office comes to an end on 25 February 2013 and under the present constitution he is ineligible to run again. Moreover, there are indications that because of demographic changes the conservative ascendancy represented by the Lee administration may not be sustainable and South Korea might then move to more progressive administrations. The older generation, with childhood memories of the Korean War embellished by decades of indoctrination during the military dictatorships, is dying off. The younger generation is more educated and less persuaded by the notion of a threat from the north.108
Since the North’s brinkmanship is defensive, it is reactive and this leaves the initiative in the hands of the South. Seoul has reinforced its forces on the island at the NLL and has announced that there will be artillery exercises from Daecheong Island, and again on Yeonpyeong.109 It seems inevitable that Pyongyang will feel compelled to respond. The new ROK Defence Minister, Kim Kwan-jin, has threatened what he calls ‘self-defense air raids’ in the event of another clash; ‘self defense’ being used in a euphemistic sense reminiscent of Japanese defence posture.110 It will be recalled that Article 9 of the Japanese constitution prohibits the establishment of armed forces, so the Japanese army, navy and air forces all have ‘self-defense’ in their titles thus solving the constitutional problem, while allowing them over the years to push the boundaries of what is considered defence.
Kim Kwan-jin’s air strike policy is all part of what the New York Times rather approvingly, and with a professional use of euphemism, called a new ‘muscular military posture’.111 The implications of this new policy are obvious. Not merely has the South great superiority in aircraft, but the new rules allow great flexibility for escalation.
However, there are limits to the ROK military’s freedom of action. There is the legal issue of operational control – when would war be deemed a war and thus trigger US control of the ROK military? Even before that stage is reached, the ROK air force is dependent on US intelligence to operate. Thus any serious escalation of the situation on the Korean peninsula would require US endorsement.
Would this be forthcoming? Unfortunately, there is evidence to suggest that it would. The Obama administration has termed its policy towards Korea as one of ‘strategic patience’.112 It might be better described as ‘strategic paralysis’. It appears to have effectively relinquished control of events to Lee Myung-bak while thus far ruling out bilateral or multilateral negotiations with North Korea.113 It might be said that ‘strategic paralysis’ is not confined to US Korea policy, and rather is the defining characteristic of Obama foreign policy. But perhaps nowhere is this more perilous than in Korea.
Because ultimately Korea is China. A second Korean war would, like the first, soon become a Sino-American war.114
This is a revised version of an article that appeared at Pyongyang Report Vol 12 No 1, December 2010 posted here.
Recommended citation: Tim Beal, Korean Brinkmanship, American Provocation, and the Road to War: the manufacturing of a crisis, The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 8, Issue 51 No 1, December 20, 2010.
This article is part of a series commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the Korean War.
Other articles on the sixtieth anniversary of the US-Korean War outbreak are:
• Mark Caprio, Neglected Questions on the “Forgotten War”: South Korea and the United States on the Eve of the Korean War.
• Steven Lee, The United States, the United Nations, and the Second Occupation of Korea, 1950-1951.
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Notes
1I am very grateful for comments and corrections from Don Borrie, Steve Gowans, Ankie Hoogvelt, and Peter Wilson. This revised version owes much to the comments of Mark Selden and John McGlynn All mistakes, of course, remain my responsibility.
2Zbigniew Brzezinski, "America and China’s first big test," Financial Times, 23 November 2010.
3Siegfried S. Hecker, "Lessons Learned from the North Korean Nuclear Crises," Nautilus Policy Forum Online 10-055 (2010), ———, "A Return Trip to North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Complex," Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University 2010, Siegfried S. Hecker, "Return trip to North Korea (presentation)" in Korea Economic Institute (Washington, DC: 2010).
4This is the Northern spelling; for simplicity I have used the Southern spelling throughout.
5Praveen Swami, "Analysis: Why apocalypse won't be now," Global News, 23 November 2010.
6Editorial, "China must exert influence on Korea," Evening Standard, 23 November 2010.
7The usually meticulous Gregory Elich writes of the live fire exercise from Yeonpyeong that ’this was not the first time that such drills had been conducted’ but previous drills may not have used live shells, and in any case did take not take place in tandem with a major military exercise. Gregory Elich, "Spiralling out of Control: The Risk of a New Korean War," Global Research, 4 December 2010.
9"KPA Supreme Command Issues Communique ", KCNA, 23 November 2010.
10Hyuk-chul Kwon, "Joint drills will be far from NLL, military reports," Hankyoreh, 27 November 2010.
11"N.Korea Cites S.Korean Drill as Excuse for Attack," Chosun Ilbo, 24 November 2010.
12Tania Branigan, "North Korea shells South Korean island," Guardian 2010.
13"S. Korean authorities' intensified military provocations," KCNA, 28 February 2000.
14"Report of KPA Navy Command," KCNA, 9 June 2004.
15"Spokesman for KPA Navy Command Issues Statement," KCNA, 28 March 2008.
16"Statement Released by Spokesman of DPRK Foreign Ministry ", KCNA, 24 November 2010.
17Nan Kim and John McGlynn, "Factsheet: WEST SEA CRISIS IN KOREA," The Asia-Pacific Journal 49-1-10 (2010).
18Jae-hoon Lee, "Clinton announces new sanctions against N.Korea," Hankyoreh, 22 July 2010.
19Ha-won Jung, "Minister: Transfer of wartime control may be delayed," JoongAng Ilbo, 25 June 2010, "DPRK criticizes U.S. delay in transferring OPCON to South Korea," Xinhua, 1 July 2010.
20Min-seok Kim and Myo-ja Ser, "U.S. will command military exercise," JoongAng Ilbo, 17 June 2010, Sung-ki Jung, "USFK to retake control over drill with ROK," Korea Times, 17 June 2010.
21Dick K. Nanto, Mark E. Manyin, and Kerry Dumbaugh, "China-North Korea Relations," Congressional Research Service, 22 January 2010.
22Rick Rozoff, "U.S. Tightens Missile Shield Encirclement Of China And Russia," Global Research, 4 March 2010.
23Kwon, "Joint drills will be far from NLL, military reports."
24"Construction of USS George Washington," US Navy.
25David Guttenfelder and Jean E. Lee, "US, SKorea launch war games," Washington Post, 28 November 2010.
26"War Maniacs Warned Not to Run Amuck," KCNA, 15 March 2009.
27Jung-eon Park, "N.Korea fires artillery shells toward Yeonpyeong Island, killing two marines," Hankyoreh, 23 November 2010.
28There have been suggestions that the US withdrew from Hoguk after the clash
29"31st Marine Expeditionary Unit," Wikipedia, "31st Marine Expeditionary Unit home page," (link), "31st MEU reflects on 2009," US Marine Corps News, 11 December 2009, Rebekka S Cpl.. Heite, "31st MEU's long-range raid capabilities tested," US Air Force (Andersen Air Force Base), 15 April 2010.
30Tetsuo Kotani, "Tip of the Spear: the 13 Missions for US Marines in Okinawa," PacNet 43 (2010).
31Ji-sook Bae, "Seoul not safe from artillery attacks," Korea Times, 26 November 2010.
32Alexander Frolov, "Iraq War from a Historical Perspective," International Affairs (2010).
33"U.S. to blame for derailing process of denuclearisation on Korean Peninsula," KCNA, 12 May 2003.
34Tim Lister, "North Korea's military aging but sizable," CNN, 25 November 2010.
35It is difficult to gauge the KPA capacity. The North has a motive for boasting about it , but there is also an incentive for the South to exaggerate; "N.Korea 'Has 180,000 Special Forces Ready to Cross into South'," Chosun Ilbo, 16 June 2010.
36"South Korea-U.S. "Combined Forces Command" Should Be Disbanded Forthwith," KCNA, 10 November 2008.
37"Former S Korean leader 'rowed' with Clinton," BBC, 17 January 2003.
38Jong-goo Lee, "Interpreter Works 27 Years for Korea-US Summits," Korea Times, 23 June 2005.
39"Seoul Simulated Bombing of N.Korean Nuclear Plant," Chosun Ilbo, 6 June 2005.
40Bill Gertz, "U.S. speeds attack plans for North Korea," Washington Times, 3 November 2006.
41Jae-yun Shim and Jin Ryu, "Roh Tries to Curb Hawkish US Policy," Korea Times, 14 November 2004, Dong-ho Yoo, "`US May Launch Surgical Strikes on NK'," Korea Times, 5 October 2004.
42Niall Ferguson, "America, the fragile empire," Los Angeles Times, 28 February 2010.
43"Protests across U.S. to demand: "No New Korean War!"," ANSWER Coalition, 27 November 2010.
44For a good analysis of the NLL in the context of the Yeonpyeong clash see Stephen Gowans, "US Ultimately to Blame for Korean Skirmishes in Yellow Sea," What's Left, 5 December 2010.
45Jon M. Van Dykea, Mark J. Valencia, and Jenny Miller Garmendia, "The North/South Korea Boundary Dispute in the Yellow (West) Sea," Marine Policy 27, no. 2 (2003).
46"DPRK Takes Merciless Action to Defend MDL ", KCNA, 13 November 2009, Sang-hun Choe, "Korean Navies Skirmish in Disputed Waters," New York Times, 10 November 2009.
47"South Korea deviated from previous rules of engagement in West Sea clash," Hankyoreh, 11 November 2009.
48Nicole Finnemann, "The Sinking of the Cheonan," Korea Insight, 1 April 2010.
49Van Dykea, Valencia, and Garmendia, "The North/South Korea Boundary Dispute in the Yellow (West) Sea."
50John Barry Kotch and Michael Abbey, "Ending naval clashes on the Northern Limit Line and the quest for a West Sea peace regime," Asian Perspectives 27, no. 2 (2003).
51"KPA navy command's important communique," KCNA, 23 March 2000, "Northern Limit Line rejected," KCNA, 2 August 2002.
52"DPRK Foreign Ministry's Spokesman Blasts U.S. Delaying Tactics in Solution of Nuclear Issue," KCNA, 28 March 2008.
54Mark Thompson, "There's No Business Like the Arms Business," Time, 14 September 2010, Richard F. Grimmett, "Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 2002-2009," Congressional Research Service, 10 September 2010, Roula Khalaf and James Drummond, "Gulf states in $123bn US arms spree," Financial Times, 20 September 2010.
55Hazel Smith, "North Korea Shipping: A Potential for WMD Proliferation?," East-West Center: AsiaPacific Issues, no. 87 (2009).
56"Russia’s Cheonan investigation suspects that the sinking Cheonan ship was caused by a mine in water," Hankyoreh, 28 July 2010.
57There is an extensive, and growing, literature on this theme. See, for example: John McGlynn, "Politics in Command: The "International" Investigation into the Sinking of the Cheonan and the Risk of a New Korean War," The Asia-Pacific Journal 24-1-10 (2010), Sakai Tanaka, "Who Sank the South Korean Warship Cheonan? A New Stage in the US-Korean War and US-China Relations " Asia-Pacific Journal (2010), Seunghun Lee and J.J. Suh, "Rush to Judgment: Inconsistencies in South Korea’s Cheonan Report," The Asia-Pacific Journal 28-1-10 (2010), Mark E. Caprio, "Plausible Denial? Reviewing the Evidence of DPRK Culpability for the Cheonan Warship Incident," The Asia-Pacific Journal 30-4-10 (2010), "Russia’s Cheonan investigation suspects that the sinking Cheonan ship was caused by a mine in water.", Tae-ho Kwon, "South Korean government impeded Russian team's Cheonan investigation: Donald Gregg," Hankyoreh, 4 September 2010.
58"The Best Weapons Are Useless if Strategy Is Inept," Chosun Ilbo, 1 December 2010.
59Keith B. Richburg and William Branigin, "North Korea fires artillery at South Korean island of Yeongpyeong," Washington Post, 23 November 2010.
60"Spokesman for KPA Navy Command Issues Statement."
61Ibid.
62"N.Korea Cites S.Korean Drill as Excuse for Attack."
63"S. Korean Accused of Dangerous Provocations ", KCNA, 4 June 2010.
64"KPA Command Vows to Counter S. Korean Drill by Physical Retaliation," KCNA, 3 August 2010.
65"Yeonpyeong Island: A history," Telegraph, 23 November 2010.
66"Seoul Warns of 'Severe Punishment' Over N.Korean Attack," Chosun Ilbo, 24 November 2010.
67Richburg and Branigin, "North Korea fires artillery at South Korean island of Yeongpyeong."
68"N.Korea Cites S.Korean Drill as Excuse for Attack."
69"Statement Released by Spokesman of DPRK Foreign Ministry ".
70"Panmunjom Mission of KPA Sends Notice to U.S. Forces Side," KCNA, 25 November 2010.
71Sang-ho Song, "N.K. artillery strikes S. Korean island," Korea Herald, 23 November 2010.
72"Military Knew of N.Korean Artillery Move Before Attack," Chosun Ilbo, 26 November 2010.
73"Spies Intercepted Plans for Yeonpyeong Attack in August ", Chosun Ilbo, 2 December 2010.
74"Kim Jong-un 'Ordered Attack in Early November'," Chosun Ilbo 2010.
75On 3 December it ran a story about an interview Russian Prime Minister Putin gave in the United States in which it was reported that ‘Putin said that he finds the situation in the Korean Peninsula "very acute and disturbing"’. The headline was ‘N.Korean Attack 'Acute and Disturbing,' Says Putin’.
76Song, "N.K. artillery strikes S. Korean island."
77Tim Shorrock, "Obama's Only Choice on North Korea," The Daily Beast, 24 November 2010.
78"Lee Blasts N.Korea's 'Inhumane' Attack on Yeonpyeong Island," Chosun Ilbo, 30 November 2010.
79Song, "N.K. artillery strikes S. Korean island."
80Min-soon Song, "Back to the basics on national security," Hankyoreh, 26 November 2010.
81John Feffer, "Transparency Fundamentalists," World Beat, 30 November 2010.
82"Seoul Warns of 'Severe Punishment' Over N.Korean Attack."
83Hyung-jin Kim and Kwang-tae Kim, "SKorea boost security after NKorea attack," Wistv, 24 November (updated 25 November) 2010.
84"Seoul Warns of 'Severe Punishment' Over N.Korean Attack."
85Richburg and Branigin, "North Korea fires artillery at South Korean island of Yeongpyeong."
86Keith B. Richburg, "U.S., South Korea begin military exercises, as China calls for emergency talks on North Korea," Washington Post, 28 November 2010.
87Mark McDonald, "‘Crisis Status’ in South Korea After North Shells Island," New York Times, 23 November 2010.
88Ian Johnson and Martin Fackler, "China Addresses Rising Korean Tensions," New York Times, 26 November 2010.
89"Satellite Imagery: Tactical Details of the Korean Artillery Exchange ", Stratfor, 30 November 2010.
91"The Devastating Power of N.Korea's MLRS Artillery," Chosun Ilbo, 26 November 2010.
92"S.Korea to Stage Fresh Firing Drill on Yeonpyeong Island," Chosun Ilbo, 30 November 2010.
93"Satellite Imagery: Tactical Details of the Korean Artillery Exchange ".
94"Spies Intercepted Plans for Yeonpyeong Attack in August ".
95"Extent of NK damage remains uncertain," Chosun Ilbo, 26 November 2010, "Military suggests counterfire caused 'many casualties' in N. Korea ", Yonhap, 2 December 2010, Sung-ki Jung, "Satellite image shows damages in NK artillery site," 2010, "Military Defends Response to N.Korean Attack ", Chosun Ilbo, 3 December 2010.
96"Who Is to Wholly Blame for Armed Clash in West Sea of Korea," KCNA, 27 November 2010.
97Kim and McGlynn, "Factsheet: WEST SEA CRISIS IN KOREA."
98"S. Korean Bellicose Forces' Military Maneuvers Censured ", KCNA, 20 May 2009.
99Paul Liem, "Honor the Cheonan Dead with Peace," Korea Policy Institute, 3 June 2010, Jon Van Dyke, "The Maritime Boundary between North & South Korea in the Yellow (West) Sea," 38 North, no. (2010).
100"KPA Supreme Command Issues Communique ".
101"Obama On North Korea: North Korea's attack on the South Korean corvette, the Cheonan, is unacceptable. ," Voice of America, 1 July 2010.
102I was told by a NZ official in a discussion about the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong incidents, and the military exercises, that he thought that both South Korea and America were behaving with great restraint.
103Rodger Baker and Colin Chapman, "Agenda: With Rodger Baker," Stratfor.com, 3 December 2010.
104Cablegate, the WikiLeaks repository of leaked US cables was down when I tried to verify this, presumably because of a denial of service attack, and this extract comes from Peter Lee, "Dear Leader's designs on Uncle Sam," Asia Times Online, 4 December 2010.
105Kyoko Hasegawa, "Japan, US to conduct biggest ever military drill," AFP, 2 December 2010, Eric Talmadge, "US, Japan begin war games; China denounces drills," Washington Post, 2 December 2010.
106Myung-bak Lee, "Address to the Nation by President Lee Myung-bak on the Shelling of Yeonpyeongdo by North Korea," Cheong Wa Dae [ROK presidential office], 29 November 2010.
107Leon V. Sigal, "Can Washington and Seoul Try Dealing With Pyongyang for a Change?," Arms Control Association, November 2010.; Robert Carlin and John W. Lewis, "Review U.S. policy toward North Korea," Washington Post, 22 November 2010.; Hecker, "Lessons Learned from the North Korean Nuclear Crises.", ———, "A Return Trip to North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Complex.", ———, "Return trip to North Korea (presentation)". Jack Pritchard and Nicole Finneman, "North Korea Reveals Uranium Enrichment Facility and Light Water Reactor," Korea Economic Institute, 2 December 2010.
108Timothy Savage, "Demography is Destiny: Why South Korea Hasn’t Seen the Last of the Sunshine," 38 North, 12 August 2010.
109Sei-young Lee, "S.Korea to resume artillery exercises on Yeonpyeong," Hankyroreh, 2 December 2010.
110Se-young Lee, "Defense minister-designate voices support for self-defense air raids," Hankyoreh, 4 December 2010.
111Mark McDonald, "South Korean Outlines Muscular Military Posture," New York Times, 3 December 2010.
112Glenn Kessler, "Analysis: North Korea tests U.S. policy of 'strategic patience'," Washington Post, 27 May 2010, John Pomfret, "U.S., allies working on new North Korea strategy," Washington Post, 16 September 2010, Jackson Diehl, "Obama's foreign policy needs an update," Washington Post, 22 November 2010.
113Joel S. Wit, "Don’t Sink Diplomacy," New York Times, 18 May 2010, John Feffer, "North Korea: Why Engagement Now?," 38 North, 12 August 2010, Christine Ahn and Haeyoung Kim, "Sixty Years of Failed Sanctions," Korea Policy Institute (2010), Mike Chinoy, "No Hostile Intent: A Look Back at Kim Jong Il’s Dramatic Overture to the Clinton Administration," 38 North (2009), Sigal, "Can Washington and Seoul Try Dealing With Pyongyang for a Change?.", Carlin and Lewis, "Review U.S. policy toward North Korea."
114 This is a major theme of my forthcoming book tentatively entitled ‘The Cheonan Incident: On the brink of war in East Asia’
Theatre of War and Prospects for Peace on the Korean Peninsula on the Anniversary of the Yeonpyeong Incident
Tim Beal
Keywords: Yeonpyeong Incident; Lee Myung-bak; South Korea; North Korea; Military buildup; US containment of China; Collapse
Russian dolls
23rd November 2011 was the first anniversary of the artillery exchange between the two Koreas around the island of Yeonpyeong off the west coast of Korea. The artillery battle in 2010 was the first such since the Korean War armistice and brought the peninsula to a state of heightened tension.1 With the Lee Myung-bak administration mulling an invasion of the North in the event of a collapse of the DPRK, a local conflict could easily explode into war. The last year has seen a lopsided arms race with South Korea dramatically increasing its military capabilities on a scale the North cannot match. The South Korean military are under American ‘wartime’ control, and since for technical reasons as well they cannot engage in war without US support, the Americans would be automatically involved in any war. A US-ROK invasion of the DPRK would almost certainly force China to intervene, as it did in 1950. A second Sino-US war would have calamitous, consequences.
South Korean sailors on exercises in the West Sea (Source)
But things are not quite as they seem. Whilst the dangers are real, the portrayal of what has been happening is based on layers of deception. Just as the 2010 incident was not the result of an unprovoked, surprise attack as South Korea claims, so too the massive commemorative exercises of 2011 were really a matter of theatre, designed to raise tension but not, at this stage, precipitate conflict and certainly not, as was claimed, to deter an attack from North Korea. However, like Russian dolls, rhetoric and gestures on the Korean peninsula take place within the context of US-China contestation. The theatre of war in Korea (“We will deter North Korean aggression”) nestles inside a theatre of peace (“The United States is not bent on containing China”).2 The rhetoric of this theatre of peace is as deceptive as that of the theatre of war and whilst there is not space here to go into details about US strategy, it is clear that Lee Myung-bak’s Nordpolitik is only acceptable to Washington because it is compatible with, and reinforces, the containment of China, of which tension over North Korea is an integral part.3 However, crucial as this US-China context is, Korean politics have their own specific dynamic, and that is the focus of this article.
Anniversary of a battle
Deception and knowledge, as the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Zi pointed out, is at the heart of war. Know yourself, know your enemy, deceive and destroy. These arts were much in evidence in recent theatrical displays around the island of Yeonpyeong, off the west coast of Korea.
23rd November 2011 marked the 1st anniversary of the Yeonpyeong Incident, an artillery duel between the two Koreas which was the first since the Korean War, and which, many believe, brought the peninsula perilously close to war. However, what happened on 23 November, in 2011 and in 2010, was not quite what it seemed.
Smoke from artillery fire Yeonpyeong Island, 23 November 2010 (source)
There are two main conduits of information about events on the Korean peninsula. One is North Korea’s official, state news agency, Korea Central News Agency (KCNA), headquartered in Pyongyang. KCNA would make Goebbels sigh; it is pretty hopeless as a propaganda medium. Its (English language)releases are usually uninformative and wooden. Sometimes when it reproduces communiqués from the Foreign Ministry the arguments are lucid and coherent, but statements from the military tend to be flowery and blustering.
The other conduit is Yonhap News Agency, South Korea’s official voice, headquartered in Seoul. It too is government controlled though newspapers that use its services are too polite to point that out. Yonhap is much better resourced than KCNA and its English is good. Its articles are professional and informative. It tells a much better story. However, that does not mean it tells a more accurate story. Indeed its description of the Yeonpyeong Incident, and its anniversary, are deeply deceptive. As is its coverage of the Cheonan Incident of 2010. The South Korean naval ship Cheonan sank, killing 46 of its crew. The issues remain controversial, but it probably having detonated a South Korean mine. This was falsely blamed on North Korea and the government went as far, it would appear, of fabricating evidence.4 The Cheonan and Yeonpyeong incidents were major propaganda issues for the Lee Myung-bak government in Seoul, and Yonhap is the vehicle by which the government line is articulated and disseminated. Scratch an article in the South Korean press, or most of the international media, and you will usually find Yonhap provided the original.
South Korean F-15K. This outperforms any North Korean fighter (source)
But this is a business of more than lies and deception, though they figure strongly. It is also about the names of islands being rendered into English in a number of different variants, about a sea called both the Yellow Sea and the West Sea, about the NLL, the MDL, and yes, ’ the West Sea Special Zone for Peace and Cooperation’. In other words what is needed is a bit of background to what is quite a complicated situation.
The contested boundary in the West Sea
Yeonpyeong (Yonphyong is the North’s English version) is one of the four main islands held by South Korea off the North Korean coast. These islands were occupied by the United States during the Korean War and after the armistice was signed in 1953 they were handed over to the South Koreans. The US, worrying that South Korean president Syngman Rhee would reignite the fighting (he opposed the armistice and wanted the Americans to continue the war and reunite Korea under his control), unilaterally established the Northern Limit Line (NLL). This demarcation line, instead of extending the ceasefire land on land in a straight line out to sea, curved up the North Korea coast and embraced the offshore islands (Fig 1).5The North Koreans subsequently proposed their own line, the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) which did, in effect, extend the demilitarised zone (DMZ) in a straight line out to sea, separating the two sides.6 The two lines placed the islands on different sides of the line.
Fig 1. Sea of contention: the NLL,MDL, and the DMZ. Source: Beal, Tim. Crisis in Korea: America, China, and the Risk of War. London: Pluto, 2011.
The Northern Limit Line is a problem. It is not accepted by North Korea and it cuts off their fishing boats from rich crab grounds. It has no legal basis, as has been admitted in private by the Americans, including Henry Kissinger.7 After the Yeonpyeong incident of 2010 many commentators, including the staunchly pro-American International Crisis Group, argued that it should be abandoned and replaced by a line acceptable to both North and South.8 The North’s Military Demarcation Line is an obvious choice, but a problem remains. The North does not contest the South’s control of the offshore islands and it has suggested the solution to be lanes of access (Fig 2).
Fig 2. The NLL (A), MDL (B), and lanes of access (source)
One important point to note is that the North considers the waters surrounding these islands, down as far as the MDL, to be theirs. This was a key issue in the 2010 confrontation.
When the South’s Roh Moo-hyun and the North’s Kim Jong Il met for a summit in October 2007 they agreed, amongst other things, to set up ‘The West Sea Special Zone for Peace and Cooperation’.9 This was scrapped by Lee Myung-bak when he came into office the following year. If there were joint management of fishing and transportation in this area (it is the gateway to the Northern port of Haeju) and the area was demilitarised, the likelihood of a serious clash would be radically reduced. This was obviously not part of Lee’s game plan. It seems that he wanted clashes as part of his strategy to produce a crisis that would lead to a collapse of North Korea and its takeover by the South. If the area had been demilitarised, the artillery incident of November 2010 would not have taken place. However, far from demilitarising the area, Lee continued and even expanded the military presence on the offshore islands, and this expansion was greatly increased after November 2010.10
Falsehoods and spin
The South Korean version of the Yeonpyeong Incident contains at least two important inaccuracies. One is a deliberate falsehood, and the other more a matter of spin.
Firstly the falsehood. It is claimed that the North Korean shelling on 23 November was a ‘surprise’. This has been reiterated so often that even liberal newspapers such as the Hankyoreh repeat it. Thus we read, in 2011, that:
North Korea’s surprise artillery attack on Nov. 23, 2010, brought major changes to the thinking and routine of military personnel stationed on Yeonpyeong Island. K9 artillery company members alternate over three shifts a day at artillery installations. The barracks is just 150 to 200 meters away, but they eat and sleep by the artillery in order to be able to fire back within five minutes in the event of a North Korean provocation. The situation is difficult, but no one complains. The prevailing view is that they were taken unaware once before, and they need to respond comprehensively if another opportunity arises.11
Reading this one would get the impression that the South Korean soldiers were calmly going about their daily routines on 23 November when out of the blue the North Koreans opened fire. Not so. The North was reacting to a ‘live fire’ exercise conducted by ROK marines on Yeonpyeong. It had issued a number of warnings prior to the exercise, including a phone call on the morning of 23 November.12 We do not know how explicit the North’s warnings were, although it did threaten a ‘resolute physical counter-strike’.13 The exercise at Yeonpyeong happened at the same time as, but was not officially part of, a massive South Korean military exercise called Hoguk (defending the country). This involved:
… some 70,000 troops, 50 warships, 500 warplanes, and 600 tanks in the areas of Seoul, surrounding provinces and the West Sea. The war game included large-scale aerial and naval drills, including landing operations in the West Sea.14
The US was also scheduled to be involved in the exercise.15 Of particular concern to North Korea was the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) which is charged with seizing nuclear assets in the event of an invasion of the North.16 However, whilst Hoguk certainly raised tensions (as it was presumably intended to) it was not directly linked to the North Korean action. This was related specifically to the live fire exercises and their implications for sovereignty in the waters around Yeonpyeong.
If live shells are fired from the islet, they are bound to drop inside the territorial waters of the DPRK side no matter in which direction they are fired because of such geographical features.
The ulterior aim sought by the enemy is to create the impression that the DPRK side recognized the waters off the islet as their "territorial waters", in case that there was no physical counter-action on the part of the former.
Herein lies the crafty and vicious nature of the enemy's provocation.
The army of the DPRK took such a self-defensive measure as making a prompt powerful strike at the artillery positions from which the enemy fired the shells as it does not make an empty talk.[Emphasis added]17
This appears to have been the first time that South Korea had conducted live fire exercises in this area, so for North Korea it was a test case.18 It was clearly a provocation, by the South but to what degree they anticipated the consequences is unknown. Did they think that the North would not react, thereby strengthening their territorial claims? Did they just blunder into it, not heeding warnings and not passing those up the chain of command?19 Or did they welcome the prospect of a clash in order to stoke up tension and perhaps precipitate a crisis? We don’t know, but we can be sure that South Korea was not the victim of an unprovoked, surprise attack as it has portrayed itself. North Korea could well be accused of over-reacting, or perhaps walking into a trap, though it should be remembered that many more Northerners than Southerners have been killed by enemy fire in these waters over the years.20
A re-enactment in 2011 of the 1950 Inchon landings by which the US outflanked North Korean forces and took Seoul.Similar landings are a feature of contemporary US-South Korean military exercises. (source)
The other misrepresentation was over ‘civilian casualties’. President Lee Myung-bak, for instance, in an address to the nation expressed outrage over the North's ruthless attack on civilians, calling it an "inhumane" crime’.21 Much was made of ‘civilian casualties’ – ‘Along with the two young Marines, two civilians were killed in the first North Korean attack on South Korean territory since the 1950-53 Korean War’.22 The reality was that these two unfortunate civilians were contractors working on the military base, and among the 18 wounded on the island that day, only three were civilians.23 Indeed the South Korean government refused to recognise the dead contractors as ‘men of national merit who sacrificed themselves’, a quasi-military designation requested by their families; dead civilians make better PR.24 We do not know how many casualties the North suffered in the exchange of fire, or whether civilians were hit by the South Korean counter-attack.25
That was November 2010. Things were not what they seemed, certainly not as they were portrayed by the South Korean government, its Yonhap news agency, and accepted by most of the international media. The Wikipedia entry on ‘Bombardment of Yeonpyeong’ has a long list of governments around the world most of whom seem to have accepted the South Korean line.26
Anniversary commemorations
Forward now to 2011 and the anniversary which was marked on both side of the border in distinctly different ways. There were reports of Kim Jong Il visiting an army unit – the ‘Command of KPA Large Combined Unit 233 in the western sector of the front’ – presumably in the vicinity of Yeonpyeong.27 The message was that we will retaliate if attacked, but there do not appear to have been any military exercises, or demonstrations in Pyongyang.
Kim Jong Il inspecting the North Korean People’s Army’s 789 Unit (source)
The Korean People’s Army (KPA) issued a bombastic statement:
They [South Korean military] should be mindful that If they dare to impair the dignity of the DPRK again and fire one bullet or shell toward its inviolable territorial waters, sky and land, the deluge of fire on Yonphyong [Yeonpyeong] Island will lead to that in Chongwadae and the sea of fire in Chongwadae to the deluge of fire sweeping away the stronghold of the group of traitors.28
Chongwadae is the presidential office of South Korea, situated in Seoul.
One perhaps should not get too exercised about the ethics of all of this. After all, the Americans do this every day, assassinating political leaders around the world in what is euphemistically called ‘high value targeting’.29 In practical terms it is a different matter. The Americans have drones which are accurate enough to engulf a few family members, colleagues, and unfortunate villagers in the deluge of fire, whereas if North Korea really shelled Chongwadae that would mean attacking Seoul. And the US uses its drones in countries which cannot retaliate, whereas an attack on Seoul would mean war.
But the statement should not be taken literally. It was a rhetorical flourish akin to a Maori haka before an All Blacks rugby game. This was a piece of theatre responding to what was happening on the other side of the border which was also designed to frighten, excite, and impress whilst at the same time making it known that it was just theatre.
The Yeonpyeong incident in 2010 provided a big boost for the South Korean government. Many people, especially the young and better educated, had remained very sceptical about the government’s version of the Cheonan incident.30 The ruling party had also done badly in the June 2010 elections despite (or because of) the Cheonan fabrication.31 The Yeonpyeong incident did much to restore the government’s standing as there was a lot of public anger at what was perceived to be an unprovoked attack.32 Indeed, there were reports that some changed their mind over Cheonan after Yeonpyeong.33
A US Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM). South Korea is scheduled to buy 170 of these stealth cruise missiles in 2012 (source)
It was inevitable that the government would seek to capitalise on the anniversary. And did they ever.
SKorea flaunts firepower year after NKorean attack
South Korean attack helicopters screamed through the skies above the Koreas' disputed Yellow Sea waters Wednesday in a display of power exactly a year after North Korea launched a deadly artillery attack on a front-line island……
Wednesday's drills involving aircraft, rocket launchers and artillery guns took place off Baengnyeong Island, another front-line territory near the disputed maritime border, and were meant to send a strong message to North Korean rivals stationed within sight just miles (kilometers) away.
The exercises represent far greater firepower than the South Korean military mounted last year…34
Massive Military Drill Marks Yeonpyeong Attack Anniversary
South Korea is holding a massive military drill on Wednesday involving cutting-edge F-15K fighter jets and K-9 long-range artillery pieces to mark North Korea’s shelling of Yeonpyeong Island a year ago.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff on Tuesday said the exercise will be held "under real conditions" to deal with North Korean provocations. The F-15K fighter jets will train firing SLAM-ER air-to-ground missiles with a range of 278 km capable of knocking out targets in North Korea. …
Marines stationed on the island will follow their new directives of responding first with a volley of rounds from their K-9 howitzers and only then reporting the incident to their commanders.
Army Cobra attack helicopters and Navy vessels will wrap up the drill by attacking North Korean special forces troops approaching Baeknyeong Island aboard hydrofoils.35
Wow! Hold onto your hats boys, we’re off to World War III!
Well not quite. Looking at the small print we see that this is more like a film than the real thing.
At 1 p.m., a mock marine firing exercise is being held with crew-served weapons such as the K9 self-propelled artillery. A hypothetical North Korean response with a launch of dozens of rounds of 122 mm artillery at the Gaemeori area 12 kilometers off Yeonpyeong Island is planned for 2:33 p.m [Emphasis added].36
And again
The JCS [South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff] said the exercise will begin with the Yeonpyeong Marine Unit simulating firing its K-9 self-propelled howitzers and other artillery in a regular exercise at 1 p.m. Then at 2:33 p.m., the time when North Korea began firing at Yeonpyeong a year ago, the JCS will simulate North Korean launching shots from its artillery base in Kaemori [Gaemeori], only 13 kilometers from Yeonpyeong….
The JCS said the Yeonpyeong Marine Unit will simulate bombing Kaemori base five minutes after the North's first strike, and the South's fighters will also launch missiles.
The JCS said the simulated drill will wrap up with the shooting down of a North Korean aircraft attempting to land on Baengnyeong Island, using an AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter and other naval and aerial weapons….
The Army said in a statement that the Capital Corps exercise will involve simulated firing drills with self-propelled guns and ground-based air defense weapons, under the scenario of North Korean maritime infiltration and aerial provocation.37
South Korean marines on patrol on Yeonpyeong Island, 22 November 2011 (source)
So no live firing of the sort that brought North Korean retaliation in 2010. So no possibility of South Korean forces ‘fir[ing] one bullet or shell toward [North Korea’s] inviolable territorial waters, sky and land’. So no ‘sea of fire in Chongwadae’.38 All smoke and mirrors. The South Korean government made a big splash about the anniversary but did it in such a way that the North had no ‘legitimate’ reason for taking action. The word ‘legitimate’ in this context raises all sorts of arcane issues which are not entirely legalistic in the Western sense but perhaps relate more to Confucian concepts of acceptable behaviour. The North did not respond to the South’s resumed live fire exercise in December 2010 because the other side was :
……firing shells left unused during the military provocation on November 23 after shifting by stealth the waters to be a scene of the projected shelling and its target (sic).39
This might mean that the South was firing not into what the North considered its territorial waters but into the ‘lane of access’ (see Fig 2). The fact that the South merely finished off the shells left over from the first exercise seems to have been a factor, but why is unclear. By the time of the anniversary it seems that both sides had reached some unspoken agreement about what was acceptable, and what would cross the line in the sand. Simulations were annoying, but bearable; live fire might have been another matter.
However, from the point of view of the South, simulations provided the necessary drama and photo opportunities.
South Korean (US made) Patriot surface to air missiles (source)
Sustaining and increasing tension
It is all really to do with sustaining and increasing tension, partly in order to precipitate some further military clash that might in turn lead to a takeover of the North. It is also designed to instil in the South Korean population a feeling of being under threat from the North.
Thus we have the military build-up in the West Sea:
While the situation at the very front is one of fighting spirit based in hostility, the military leadership is moving to fortify the five West Sea islands. In June, a Marine-centered Northwest Islands Defense Command was set up, and an additional budget of 100 billion won ($87.2 million) for 2011 was allocated just for reinforcement of military strength around the islands. An additional 1,000 military personnel were stationed there, and K9 units were more than doubled. Also brought in was an AH-1S Cobra attack helicopter with Vulcan and grenade-launching capabilities, a multiple rocket launcher and new Artillery Hunting Radar (ARTHUR), and daytime and nighttime observation equipment for monitoring the front. Plans are under way to bring in Spike missiles, tactical aerial vehicles, and unmanned reconnaissance aircraft.40
A lop-sided arms race
What has been happening in the West Sea is but a microcosm of a quite astounding increase in South Korean military capabilities. Just in the last few weeks alone there have been a number of reports in the Seoul media highlighting this. Interestingly, much of this buildup, like the construction of the naval base on Jeju island for the US navy (denied of course), is clearly aimed at China.41 Thus:
South Korea is developing a supersonic cruise missile that can be used to attack aircraft carriers, Aegis ships and up-to-date destroyers.42
Since North Korea does not have aircraft carriers, Aegis ships or destroyers of any vintage, let alone up-to-date ones, the conclusion is obvious and is surely not lost in Beijing.
The Dokdo, South Korea’s helicopter assault ship, designed for amphibious landings.North Korea has nothing comparable. (source)
Following a 6 December report that ‘Korea to purchase 170 stealth cruise missiles next year’, the following day a report indicated that 150 bunker buster bombs were being purchased.43 The South Korean military naturally comes out publically with stories that the North has more troops and in various fields more hardware than the South, but even if the numbers were correct the disparity in quality of equipment between the two sides (let alone bringing the Americans into the calculation) is overwhelming.44 An article in the right-wing Seoul paper Chosun Ilbo in August exulted:
The North has fallen sharply behind South Korea in terms of airpower. Experts conducted a simulated war game and found that South Korean and U.S. fighter jets could overpower North Korean aircraft and gain control of its airspace within three days. …
Some 70 percent of North Korea's fighter jets are MiG-15, 17, 19 and 21s that were built in the 1950s to 1960s. A lack of fuel has prevented pilots from training properly, and a shortage of parts has left the aircraft in bad shape. ..
No North Korean aircraft is capable of taking on the F-15K.
The difference in airpower is expected to widen further with the South planning to bring in four more E-737 "Peace Eye" airborne early warning and control aircraft next year.45
Perhaps the area where advanced technology has the most leverage is in airborne (or space) intelligence and surveillance equipment such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and the early warning and control aircraft mentioned above. Here South Korea has a clear edge thanks to its access to US technology (in the diagram the E-737 still carries American markings).
In general, as a South Korean military strategist recently put it in an article for the [US] Naval War College Review: [North Korea] is poor and small, uses ageing and obsolete weapons, and lacks sustainment capabilities.46
High-tech equipment is not everything, as this strategist acknowledged, but as, for instance, the rapid US conquest of Iraq at the start of the war demonstrated, it can be devastating.
The best measure of the quality of equipment for countries such as the Koreas is the amount of military imports. Here the South is far in the ascendant. Over the last five years alone South Korea was the world’s third largest arms importer, and when one considers that the competition includes India, Saudi Arabia, and China, that is saying something.47 Between 2000 and 2008, according to the World Banks’s World Development Indicators, South Korea imported a hundred times as much military equipment as North Korea; $9,682 million against $98 million.48
A South Korean Type 209 submarine. Three of these, worth $1.1 billion, are being sold to Indonesia. South Korea far outstrips North Korea in arms sales and purchases. (source)
The specific buildup of equipment and marines on the West Sea islands is justified by reference to the 2010 clash and by creating scare stories such as the idea that North Korea is poised to invade the islands:
Analysts said North Korea has brought in thousands of additional special forces soldiers for overseas invasion and hovercrafts, while South Korea is stepping up its exercises in anticipation of a surprise land attack by North Korea.49
‘Analysts’ in this context presumably means spokespersons for the military. A glance at the map (Fig 1) will show how implausible a land attack is, except perhaps as a counterattack to neutralise attacking forces in the case of an invasion of the North. It should be noted that the troops on these islands are not some sort of decrepit Home Guard but marines, specially selected and trained amphibious assault troops.50 From the South, the offshore islands in the West Sea could conceivably lie on the road to Pyongyang, and a landing from them would outflank Northern forces along the DMZ. But for the North, the islands lead nowhere except out to sea. Moreover, given the South’s sea and air superiority, an invading force from the North would be isolated and easily mopped up.
One consequence of this geographical asymmetry is that the West Sea is a good place for the South Korean military to build up tension without much risk of it getting out of hand, unless they so desire.
Dangerous times lie ahead
Whether they do desire an explosion, so that the situation in the West Sea goes from tension to conflict, presumably depends on their reading of the state of affairs in Pyongyang, in Washington, in Beijing, and to a lesser extent in Moscow. If it is considered that serious fighting there will produce a crisis in Pyongyang leading to a collapse, or what could be portrayed as such, and if this is endorsed by the Americans (and no military action is possible without the Americans) then we might see a provocation to which the North would be forced to react. That still leaves the Chinese reaction. The right wing press and the government in South Korea (and friends in the US) frequently claim that China (and Russia) would not oppose the takeover of the North.51 Sometimes they wheel out a tame Chinese academic to offer reassurance:
"I believe China will call for a diplomatic solution even if the North is attacked by South Korea or the U.S.," [Prof. Chu Shulong of Tsinghua University] said. "Most Chinese don't think a reunited Korea would stand against China, even if the U.S. keeps stationing troops or bases on the peninsula. China won't mind Korean reunification, even if it is led by South Korea."
In reality such acquiescence is unlikely.
So it comes down to a game of bluff and feint to see the reactions in Pyongyang, Washington, Beijing and Moscow. At the same it is necessary to keep things stirred in the South, to make people think they are under threat and need exercises such as those at Yeonpyeong to keep them safe.
This time it was all theatre, but next time, through miscalculation or because of a perception of changing opportunities, it may be the real thing. No longer theatre, just war. That perception of changing opportunities turns to some extent on what happens in that larger theatre of Sino-US and Sino-Russian-US interaction. Here, although the rhetoric of peace still prevails, the underlying theme is becoming increasingly belligerent as the United States, facing setbacks in the Middle East, ‘moves back to Asia’.52
Dangerous times lie ahead and the likeliest place for a second Sino-American war remains the Korean peninsula.53
Tim Beal is the author of North Korea: The Struggle Against American Power, Senior Lecturer (emeritus) at Victoria University of Wellington, he is the editor of The Pyongyang Report and an Asia-Pacific Journal Associate.
This is an updated and expanded version of Pyongyang Report V13 N2, 6 December 201154
Recommended citation: Tim Beal, 'Theatre of War and Prospects for Peace on the Korean Peninsula on the Anniversary of the Yeonpyeong Incident,' The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 51 No 1, December 19, 2011.
For articles on related themes see
See Seunghun Lee and J.J. Suh, “Rush to Judgement: Inconsistencies in South Korea’s Cheonan Report,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, 12 July 2010.
Tim Beal, “Korean Brinkmanship, American Provocation, and the Road to War: the manufacturing of a crisis,” The Asia-Pacific Journal,” 20 December, 2010.
Wada Haruki, “From the Firing at Yeonpyeong Island to a Comprehensive Solution to the Problems of Division and War in Korea,” 13 December, 2010.
Paik Nak-chung, “Reflections on Korea in 2010: Trials and prospects for recovery of common sense in 2011,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, January 10, 2011.
John McGlynn, “Politics in Command: The "International" Investigation into the Sinking of the Cheonan and the Risk of a New Korean War,” June 14, 2010.
Tanaka Sakai, Who Sank the South Korean Warship Cheonan? A New Stage in the US-Korean War and US-China Relations, May 7, 2010.
This essay was occasioned by the anniversary on 23 November 2011 of the Yeonpyeong Incident. A longer essay on the current situation on the peninsula, within the context of contemporary geopolitics, is under preparation.
Tim Beal’s most recent book, Crisis in Korea: America, China and the Risk of War was published by Pluto Press in 2011. Details are available here.
Beal, Tim. Crisis in Korea: America, China, and the Risk of War. London: Pluto, 2011.
———. "Korean Brinkmanship, American Provocation, and the Road to War: The Manufacturing of a Crisis." The Asia-Pacific Journal 8, no. 51:1 (20 December 2010).
Beck, Peter. "North Korea in 2010: Provocations and Succession." Asian Survey 51, no. 1 (January/February 2011).
Chomsky, Noam. "The Threat of Warships on an "Island of World Peace"." Truth-out.org, 7 October 2011.
Davies, Michael. "High Value Targeting - Organization Vs. Leadership." Pynx, 30 October 2011.
Dobbins, James, David C. Gompert, David A. Shlapak, and Andrew Scobell. "Conflict with China: Prospects, Consequences, and Strategies for Deterrence." Rand Corporation, 10 October 2011.
"Extent of Nk Damage Remains Uncertain." Chosun Ilbo, 26 November 2010.
"Full Text of Inter-Korean Agreement." Korea TImes, 4 October 2007.
"Gov't Mulls Turning Baeknyeong into Forward Deployment Base ". Chosub Ilbo, 30 November 2010.
Hardy, John. "The Value in High Value Targeting." Pynx, 23 September 2011.
Hart-Landsberg, Martin. "What's Happening on the Korean Peninsula?" Global Research, 4 January 2011.
International Crisis Group. "North Korea: The Risks of War in the Yellow Sea." Asia Report N°198 (23 December 2010).
Joint State/Defense message. "Rokg Legal Memorandum on Northwest Coastal Incidents (Cable to Us Embassy Seoul)." State Department, 22 December 1973.
Jung, Sung-ki. "Satellite Image Shows Damages in Nk Artillery Site." Korea Times, 2 December 2010.
Kate, Daniel Ten, and Peter S. Green. "Defending Korea Line Seen Contrary to Law by Kissinger Remains U.S. Policy." Bloomberg, 17 December 2010.
Kim, Duk-Ki. "The Republic of Korea’s Counter-Asymmetric Strategy: Lessons from Roks Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island." Naval War College Review 65, no. 1 (2011).
Kim, Hyung-jin. "Skoreans Dismissed Intel North Might Attack Island." Washington Post, 2 December 2010.
Kim, John. "The Artillery Duel in Korea: Missing Facts and Historical Context in the Military Clash of Nov. 23." Korea Policy Institute, 18 March 2011.
"Kim Jong Il Inspects Kpa Large Combined Unit Command." KCNA, 25 November 2011.
Kim, Nam. "Korea on the Brink: Reading the Yo˘Np’yo˘Ng Shelling and Its Aftermath." Journal of Asian Studies 70, no. 2 (May 2011).
Kissinger, Henry. "Cable to Us Embassy, Seoul." State Department, February 1975.
Klare, Michael T. "Playing with Fire: Obama's Threat to China " Al Jazeera, 10 December 2011.
Oliver, Christian, and Geoff Dyer. "China Could Accept Korean Unification." Financial Times, 30 November 2010.
Oppenheim, Robert. "Introduction to the Jas Mini-Forum “Regarding North Korea”." Journal of Asian Studies 70, no. 2 (2011).
"Panmunjom Mission of Kpa Sends Notice to U.S. Forces Side." KCNA, 25 November 2010.
"Press Conference on Issue of Mdl at West Sea of Korea." KCNA, 26 August 1999.
"Preventive Priorities Survey: 2012." Center for Preventive Action, Council on Foreign Relations, 8 December 2011.
"Reunified Korea Would Be a Better Partner for Russia, China." Chosun Ilbo, 7 November 2011.
Richardson, Ben, and Saeromi Shin. "South Korea Faces Domestic Skeptics over Evidence against North." Bloomberg Businessweek, 29 May 2010.
"Russia Expects N.Korea to Collapse by 2020 ". Chosun Ilbo, 4 November 2011.
"S. Korea Remembers Island Shelling in Solemn Ceremony." Yonhap, 24 November 2011.
"S.Korean Navy Says New Base Will Not Host U.S. Military Vessels." Chosun Ilbo, 6 October 2011.
Son, Won-je. "Military Prepares for Exercises near N.Korean Border." Hankyoreh, 23 November 2011.
"South Korea: The Shifting Sands of Security Policy." International Crisis Group Asia Briefing N°130 1 December 2011.
"Spies Intercepted Plans for Yeonpyeong Attack in August ". Chosun Ilbo, 2 December 2010.
"Statement Released by Spokesman of Dprk Foreign Ministry ". KCNA, 24 November 2010.
"Supersonic Cruise Missile in Development." Chosun Ilbo, 17 August 2011.
Tisdall, Simon. "Wikileaks Cables Reveal China 'Ready to Abandon North Korea'." Guardian, 29 November 2010.
"Two Civilians Found Dead on S. Korean Island Shelled by N. Korea." Yonhap, 24 November 2010.
Underhill, Francis "Defusing Western Coastal Island Situation." State Department, December 1973.
Van Dyke, Jon "The Maritime Boundary between North & South Korea in the Yellow (West) Sea." 38 North, 29 July 2010.
Van Dyke, Jon M., Mark J. Valencia, and Jenny Miller Garmendia. "The North/South Korea Boundary Dispute in the Yellow (West) Sea." Marine Policy 27, no. 2 (March 2003).
World Development Indicators 2010. Washington: World Bank, 2010.
Yoo, Cheong-mo. "Election Defeat Casts Gloom over Lee Administration, Ruling Party." Yonhap, 3 June 2010.
Notes
1 Tim Beal, "Korean Brinkmanship, American Provocation, and the Road to War: the manufacturing of a crisis," The Asia-Pacific Journal 8, no. 51:1 (2010).
2 Mark Landler, "U.S. Is Not Trying to Contain China, Clinton Says," New York Times, 14 January 2011.
3 Because of the obvious parallels with Germany, nordpolitik is often used as a label for South Korea’s policy towards the North. See for instance Robert Oppenheim, "Introduction to the JAS Mini-Forum “Regarding North Korea”," Journal of Asian Studies 70, no. 2 (2011). However, this use of German should not obscure the considerable differences between the two situations.
4 This is covered in detail in my book Tim Beal, Crisis in Korea: America, China, and the risk of war (London: Pluto, 2011).
5 Jon M. Van Dyke, Mark J. Valencia, and Jenny Miller Garmendia, "The North/South Korea Boundary Dispute in the Yellow (West) Sea," Marine Policy 27, no. 2 (2003); Jon Van Dyke, "The Maritime Boundary between North & South Korea in the Yellow (West) Sea," 38 North, 29 July 2010.
6 "Press conference on issue of MDL at West Sea of Korea," KCNA, 26 August 1999.
7 Daniel Ten Kate and Peter S. Green, "Defending Korea Line Seen Contrary to Law by Kissinger Remains U.S. Policy," Bloomberg, 17 December 2010; Henry Kissinger, "Cable to US embassy, Seoul," State Department, February 1975; Francis Underhill, "DEFUSING WESTERN COASTAL ISLAND SITUATION," State Department, December 1973; Joint State/Defense message, "ROKG LEGAL MEMORANDUM ON NORTHWEST COASTAL INCIDENTS (Cable to US embassy Seoul)," State Department, 22 December 1973.
8 International Crisis Group, "North Korea: The Risks of War in the Yellow Sea," Asia Report N°198 (2010).
9 "Full Text of Inter-Korean Agreement," Korea TImes, 4 October 2007.
10 "Gov't Mulls Turning Baeknyeong into Forward Deployment Base ", Chosun Ilbo, 30 November 2010.
11 Soon-hyuk Lee, "Costly reinforcement heightens tensions on Yeonpyeong Island," Hankyoreh, 22 November 2011.
12 This is covered in some detail in Beal, "Korean Brinkmanship, American Provocation, and the Road to War: the manufacturing of a crisis."
13 "Panmunjom Mission of KPA Sends Notice to U.S. Forces Side," KCNA, 25 November 2010.
14 John Kim, "The Artillery Duel in Korea: Missing facts and historical context in the military clash of Nov. 23," Korea Policy Institute, 18 March 2011.
15 Nam Kim, "Korea on the Brink: Reading the Yonp’yong Shelling and its Aftermath," Journal of Asian Studies 70, no. 2 (2011).
16 Tetsuo Kotani, "Tip of the Spear: the 13 Missions for US Marines in Okinawa," PacNet 43(2010).
17 "Statement Released by Spokesman of DPRK Foreign Ministry ", KCNA, 24 November 2010.
18 Martin Hart-Landsberg, "What's Happening On The Korean Peninsula?," Global Research, 4 January 2011.
19 "Spies Intercepted Plans for Yeonpyeong Attack in August ", Chosun Ilbo, 2 December 2010; Hyung-jin Kim, "SKoreans dismissed intel North might attack island," Washington Post, 2 December 2010.
20 The Wikipedia entry on the Northern Limit Lines gives 53 dead on the North and 54 of the South, but the latter seems to include the 46 on the Cheonan; "Northern Limit Line," Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Limit_Line.
21 "Lee Blasts N.Korea's 'Inhumane' Attack on Yeonpyeong Island," Chosun Ilbo, 30 November 2010.
22 "S. Korea remembers island shelling in solemn ceremony," Yonhap, 24 November 2011.
23 "Two civilians found dead on S. Korean island shelled by N. Korea," Yonhap, 24 November 2010.
24 Hyo-sik Lee, "Families of Yeonpyeong civilian victims want national merits," Korea Times, 1 December 2010.
25 "Extent of NK damage remains uncertain," Chosun Ilbo, 26 November 2010; "Military suggests counterfire caused 'many casualties' in N. Korea ", Yonhap, 2 December 2010; Sung-ki Jung, "Satellite image shows damages in NK artillery site," Korea Times, 2 December 2010.
27 "Kim Jong Il Inspects KPA Large Combined Unit Command," KCNA, 25 November 2011.
28 "KPA Supreme Command Warns S. Korean Military Not to Act Rashly," KCNA, 24 November 2011.
29 John Hardy, "The Value in High Value Targeting," Pynx, 23 September 2011; Michael Davies, "High Value Targeting - Organization Vs. Leadership," Pynx, 30 October 2011.
30 Ben Richardson and Saeromi Shin, "South Korea Faces Domestic Skeptics Over Evidence Against North," Bloomberg Businessweek, 29 May 2010; "Most S.Koreans Skeptical About Cheonan Findings, Survey Shows," Chosun Ilbo, 8 September 2010.
31 Chi-dong Lee, "Main opposition heading for stunning victory in local elections," Yonhap, 3 June 2010; Cheong-mo Yoo, "Election defeat casts gloom over Lee administration, ruling party," Yonhap, 3 June 2010.
32 Peter Beck, "North Korea in 2010: Provocations and Succession," Asian Survey 51, no. 1 (2011).
33 "South Korea: The Shifting Sands of Security Policy," International Crisis Group Asia Briefing N°130 1 December 2011.
34 Jin-man Lee, "SKorea flaunts firepower year after NKorean attack," Associated Press, 23 November 2011.
35 "Massive Military Drill Marks Yeonpyeong Attack Anniversary," Chosun Ilbo, 23 November 2011.
36 Won-je Son, "Military prepares for exercises near N.Korean border," Hankyoreh, 23 November 2011.
37 "Military drill planned on anniversary of Yeonpyeong shelling," Yonhap, 23 November 2011.
38 "KPA Supreme Command Warns S. Korean Military Not to Act Rashly."
39 "KPA Supreme Command: World Should Know Who Is Provoker," KCNA, 20 December 2010.
40 Lee, "Costly reinforcement heightens tensions on Yeonpyeong Island."
41 "S.Korean Navy Says New Base Will Not Host U.S. Military Vessels," Chosun Ilbo, 6 October 2011; Noam Chomsky, "The Threat of Warships on an "Island of World Peace"," Truthout.org, 7 October 2011.
42 "Supersonic Cruise Missile in Development," Chosun Ilbo, 17 August 2011.
43 Tae-hoon Lee, "Korea to purchase 170 stealth cruise missiles next year," Korea Times, 6 December 2011; ———, "Seoul to deploy 150 bunker busters," Korea Times, 7 December 2011.
44 "N. Korea adds more tanks, artillery guns to arsenal," Korea Times, 18 September 2011.
46 Duk-Ki Kim, "The Republic of Korea’s Counter-Asymmetric Strategy: Lessons from ROK's Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island," Naval War College Review 65, no. 1 (2011).
48World Development Indicators 2010, (Washington: World Bank, 2010).
49 Lee, "Costly reinforcement heightens tensions on Yeonpyeong Island."
50 For a photo of them practising such a thing, in a joint exercise with the Americans, see the cover of Crisis in Korea
51 Simon Tisdall, "Wikileaks cables reveal China 'ready to abandon North Korea'," Guardian, 29 November 2010; Christian Oliver and Geoff Dyer, "China could accept Korean unification," Financial Times, 30 November 2010; "Russia Expects N.Korea to Collapse by 2020 ", Chosun Ilbo, 4 November 2011; "Reunified Korea Would Be a Better Partner for Russia, China," Chosun Ilbo, 7 November 2011.
52 Michael T. Klare, "Playing with fire: Obama's threat to China " Al Jazeera, 10 December 2011; Willy Lam, "China pitches a fork at invading 'Pacific President'," Asia Times Online, 8 December 2011.
53 James Dobbins et al., "Conflict with China: Prospects, Consequences, and Strategies for Deterrence," Rand Corporation, 10 October 2011; Yuan Luo and Robert M. Farley, "Sino-US war unlikely but not impossible " Global Times, 15 November 2011; "Preventive Priorities Survey: 2012," Center for Preventive Action, Council on Foreign Relations, 8 December 2011.
54 I am grateful for the valuable comments of JJ Suh and Mark Selden for this revision, and to Ankie Hoogvelt, Don Borrie, and Peter Wilson for proofreading the original
14 November 2011 — This is Tim Beal’s second book on North Korea. Beal, a retired academic from New Zealand who has written extensively on Asian politics, published North Korea: The Struggle Against American Power in 2004 making the case that Pyongyang was both badly misunderstood and mistreated by accident and design. Crisis in Korea paints a similar, albeit updated, picture over a wider canvas. Crisis in Korea seeks to explain the Cheonan incident—in which a South Korean corvette was sunk by a mysterious explosion in March 2010—and the shelling of South Korea’s Fortress Island Yeonpyeong by North Korea the following November. Beal’s main thesis is that South Korea’s hard-line leader Lee Myung-bak is leading the world towards a Second Korean Civil War when President Lee can finally achieve his predecessor Syngman Rhee’s ambition to ‘March North’ and unite the country by force, aided and abetted by US neo-cons keen to promote regime change and an Obama Administration that has taken its eye off the ball distracted as it is by Afghanistan and Iraq.
Beal challenges head on the conventional wisdom in the West about Pyongyang. For him, the North was not responsible for the sinking of the Cheonan, and the barrage against Yeonpyeong was a response to provocations by Seoul. Simultaneously, the U.S. is continuing to use its military power—and the 60 year long economic embargo—in an attempt to drive the North Korean economy into the ground. Washington is planning its attack against a North that no longer has neither the ability nor ambition to drive the Americans off the Peninsula by force, while wildly exaggerating the extent and effectiveness of Pyongyang’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) programmes. Beal has a point. Seoul already spends more on its military that the North’s total Gross Domestic Product, while the combined military expenditure of the US, Japan and South Korea is more than 250 times bigger than that of Pyongyang.
Beal could have added that while the North may be the world’s ninth nuclear weapons power— after Israel—it’s a gnat to Washington’s elephant. The U.S. has 100,000 times more nuclear firepower in its Trident fleet alone than Pyongyang demonstrated with its October 2006 Test. In addition, neither of Pyongyang’s two tests to date were successful. Both were ‘fizzles’ rather than bangs: the nuclear explosions reached criticality before the plutonium was optimally compressed causing the core to prematurely break up before a large part had undergone fission resulting in a massively reduced yield. Furthermore, with one failed and two only partly successful launches of Taepodong 2, Pyongyang doesn’t have a reliable launch platform. Even if it did work in its present configuration, the payload capacity is incapable of carrying the North’s current weapon, thus leaving U.S. nuclear strategists to ponder that Pyongyang’s only use for its half a dozen nuclear bombs is to destroy and delay invading U.S. forces on the ground in the North.
As Crisis in Korea explains, the last couple of years has heard sabre-rattling as loudly in Seoul as Pyongyang. The Lee administration in the South turned its back on the rapprochement of its two previous Presidents in favour of confrontation. Both the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island incidents are the consequence of a disputed maritime border. The Northern Limit Line (NLL) is a South Korean unilaterally imposed border that not even Washington acknowledges. The Cheonan was in these disputed waters when it was hit by an explosion that resulted in the death of 46 of its crew. Earlier incidents over the previous decade that favoured Seoul—one of which at least according to South Korean sources had led to the deaths of more than a hundred North Koreans—barely made the news. Beal goes further. He doesn’t just explain the incident, but rather exonerates Pyongyang completely, claiming the explosion was not the responsibility of the North, but rather a conspiracy against it. Nevertheless, the circumstantial evidence is strong. The South’s Joint investigation Group certainly ‘sexed up’ the dossier to strengthen its case and there were those in both the Swedish and British Foreign Ministries who thought that their experts seconded to the investigation were in danger of being taken for a ride. The best one might claim for the North might be the Scottish ‘not proven’.
The most prominent victim of the whole drama was Japanese Democratic Party Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. Elected on a platform that promised the removal and relocation of US bases in Okinawa he bent to pressure from Washington and reneged on his promise when the Pentagon argued in the immediate aftermath that their current deployment was essential to protect Japan from an increasingly threatening North Korea. Consequently forced to resign it gave US neo-cons back-to-back wins. However if Cheonan was not proven, Yeonpyeong was literally a smoking gun. The question then is not whether but why? Endless speculation doesn’t get away from the fact that the South Korean Navy was conducting live firing exercises into disputed waters within twelve miles of the North Korean coast that the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea designates as territorial sea. Despite, apparently, a call on the hot-line asking the South to desist firing continued, triggering the perhaps not unexpected response.
Crisis in Korea is a well-written and referenced book making some powerful points, even if it goes a conspiracy theory too far for me. Beal will serve to balance the neo-con fantasies that gave George Bush his ‘axis of evil’ sound bite. There is a threat. Washington and Seoul run a whole cocktail of military exercises which scale up from reinforcing the South, through coping with instability in the North through to outright regime change a la Iraq. Both sides are aware that this war of attrition applies the lessons the US learnt from the collapse of the Soviet Union to North Korea. Forcing Pyongyang to maintain high levels of military expenditure keeps the civilian economy weak and the population hungry for a change. As Madelaine Albright said with respect to Iraq, the death of half a million children was worth it. Yet Pyongyang won’t go quietly. Any approaching collapse will lead to military adventurism and anyone who thinks that Beijing is going to stand by and let the U.S. march its troops up to the Yalu River should stop watching Fox News or buying the Murdoch press. Most likely long before Washington moves, the Chinese will intervene to ‘tweak’ the regime in Pyongyang to ‘save the revolution’ and make it safe for Market Leninism. We might not even know until it’sover. However if Seoul and Washington get this wrong, the next Korean War will again see China head-to-head with the United States.
Glyn Ford is a former Euro-MP and author of North Korea on the Brink.
Crisis in Korea; America, China, and the Risk of War, Tim Beal (Pluto Press, August 2011)
Is the US Deliberately Thwarting Korean Reconciliation?
by Stuart Jeanne Bramhall / April 1st, 2013
According to the Radio New Zealand website Dr Tim Beal, a retired lecturer in Asian studies at Victoria University, the US may be using its current military exercises in South Korea to deliberately thwart that country’s efforts to strengthen political and economic ties with North Korea. Beal is the author of the 2005 North Korea: the Struggle Against American Power. The book traces the warming of US-North Korean relations that occurred under Clinton, as well as the turnaround that occurred when George W Bush declared it an official member of the “Axis of Evil.” Dr Beal is also the vice-president of the New Zealand Democratic Republic of (North) Korea Friendship Society, an organization that arranges exchange visits between North Korean and New Zealand teachers and other professionals.
Beal reminds us that Park Geun-hye, recently elected as South Korea’s first female president, ran on a platform of strengthening her country’s engagement with North Korea. She is the first president to do so since President Kim Dae Jung (1998-2003), author of the Sunshine Policy that won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000.
Bush’s Fear of Korean Unification
We get a very different picture of North Korea here in the South Pacific than Americans do. Normally the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize gets lavish coverage in the corporate media. Not so with the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize winner — nor the Sunshine Policy he won it for.
The goal of the Sunshine Policy was an improved economic union between the two countries (like the European Union) that would allow each of them to retain their political independence. In addition to allowing for easier visitation across the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) that divides the Korean peninsula, it also provided for massive humanitarian aid as a prelude to substantial South Korean business investment in the north. The possibility of having access to the North’s young, regimented workforce was extremely attractive to South Korea’s corporations.
Over a period of approximately eight months, economic cooperation between the two countries progressed to the point that they jointly build a railroad crossing the DMZ and established the Mount Kumgang Tourist Region in North Korea, enabling a million South Koreans to visit and reconcile with family members they hadn’t seen since the end of the war. The visits ended in 2008 following a shooting incident (in which a South Korean tourist was shot) and Lee Myung-bak’s election to South Korean presidency. Lee myung-bak supported George W Bush’s hawkish hard line policy towards North Korea.
In January 2002 Bush effectively ended South Korea’s Sunshine Policy with a State of the Union address in which he virtually declared North Korea an enemy state by including them in his so-called “Axis of Evil.” At the time a number of analysts believed his administration worried about the economic powerhouse, second only to China, a unified Korea represented.
North Korea’s (understandable) response was to strengthen its nuclear capability, as a deterrent to what they perceived as a likely US invasion (there are already 37,000 US troops stationed in South Korea). A year later, South Korean officials would openly accuse the US deliberately sabotaging the Sunshine Policy, by demanding the US military be given the names of all civilians who crossed the DMZ. North Korea, long opposed to the presence of any US troops in the DMZ, refused to accept this requirement. Thanks to intervention from South Korean diplomats, it was eventually relaxed, and US troops withdrew to Camp Bonifas, just south of the DMZ. At present the troops in the DMZ are mainly Swiss and Swedish serving under UN auspices.
Obama’s Korean Policy
With Park Geun-hye’s recent election as president, there is clearly strong support in South Korea for renewed rapprochement with the North. As well as hope that his second term (when he no longer faces re-election), would see Obama leaning more towards dialogue, like Clinton, than the hawkish rhetoric of his immediate predecessor. Thus far that hope seems to be misplaced.
Dr. Stuart Bramhall is an American child and adolescent psychiatrist and political refugee in New Zealand. Her works include a young adult novel The Battle for Tomorrow about a 16 year old girl who participates in the blockade and occupation of the US Capitol and a memoir, The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee. Email her at: stuartbramhall@yahoo.co.nz. Read other articles by Stuart Jeanne.
This article was posted on Monday, April 1st, 2013 at 8:00am and is filed under Anti-war, GWB, Korea.