America Threatens to Give North Korea What it Wants: Panic Ensues

[DaShi]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/16/in...ia/16KORE.html

DMZ Twist: U.S. Retreat Unsettles North Korea
By JAMES BROOKE


EOUL, South Korea, June 10 — When the Pentagon announced its plans to pull American troops away from the border with North Korea, attention focused mostly on South Korea and its objections to losing the protection of the so-called tripwire. What was largely overlooked were the protests from the party that felt most threatened by the change: North Korea.

The tripwire, it seems, works both ways.

Ever since the armistice ending the Korean War was signed on July 27, 1953, North Korea has bitterly denounced the presence of American garrisons near the border. While the 700,000 North Korean soldiers in the border area outnumber the 14,000 American troops by 50 to 1, North Korea implicitly accepted the real strategic value of the tripwire: if the North Koreans ever repeated their surprise attack of 1950, American deaths would draw the United States into a second Korean War.

In a new twist, North Korea now fears that if the United States rolls up its human tripwire, it will free the United States to bomb nuclear sites near Pyongyang, the capital. In the military chess game on the Korean Peninsula, by moving American troops out of range of North Korea's border artillery, the United States gains a strategic advantage.

"Our army and people will answer the U.S. arms buildup with a corresponding powerful deterrent force and its pre-emptive attack with a prompt retaliation to destroy it at the initial stage of war," North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said recently.

Alexandre Mansourov, a former Russian diplomat in Pyongyang who now teaches at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii, translated North Korea's concerns, saying, "If the U.S. pulls out of the bases, North Korea knows that the U.S. is preparing a pre-emptive strike."

Removing the tripwire deprives North Korea of two other critical strategic advantages. Without the American bases near the demilitarized zone, North Korean military leaders lose the chance to drape themselves in nationalist colors by killing large numbers of Americans. Lacking those American targets, North Korea would have to resume threatening to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire," which would undermine its stated desire for harmonious relations with South Korea.

In addition, China, which increasingly sees North Korea as an economic millstone, is likely to oppose strongly any attack on South Korea, which is now one of China's top five trading partners and foreign investors.

For their part, South Koreans, by and large, are almost as nervous as the North Koreans. While the public image of South Korea is which often focuses on anti-American protests, polls indicate that a largely silent majority want the American troops to stay put.

Calling the tripwire "a psychological defense line" against North Korea, a group of 133 National Assembly members, about half the total, have begun a drive to collect 10 million signatures to oppose the move.

To reassure the South Koreans, the United States promised to continue to carry out training in areas near the demilitarized zone.

This American pledge "will mean that U.S. troops will continue to play the role of a tripwire to deter war," said South Korea's assistant defense minister for policy, Lt. Gen. Cha Young Koo, in an effort to sell the public on the unpopular deal that he was forced to accept.

For Americans, this concept is glaringly out of date in light of the war in Iraq, where much of the attack was waged by long-distance bombs and cruise missiles instead of soldiers climbing out of trenches. In an age when American and British forces took over Iraq in three weeks and lost fewer than 200 soldiers, the idea of leaving 14,000 troops exposed to withering bombardments seems nonsensical.

"The term or concept of tripwire is an antiquated one and doesn't bear a lot of relevance to current data," Adm. Thomas B. Fargo, commander of the American Pacific Command, said recently in Tokyo. "When you have missiles that go hundreds of miles or actually thousands of miles; you can threaten a porch or an airfield a couple of hundred miles away, forces that are tens of miles away don't constitute a tripwire. So that's a term that I think has outlived its usefulness."

But not, perhaps, to the North Koreans.

How horrible for North Korea! They'll have to use a new excuse to develop nuclear weapons. And don't forget the poor South Korean children. What will they have to protest against? This just isn't fair.

[BeBro]

Don´t Panic. In case of a war, those imperialist Americans will commit suicide at the gates of Pyongyang

[SlowwHand]

North Korea sucks, and is a land of morons.

[BeBro]

When North Korea complains now about less US troops, send some divisions over there. To calm them down even more, park tanks directly in Pyongyang

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by BeBro
When North Korea complains now about less US troops, send some divisions over there. To calm them down even more, park tanks directly in Pyongyang

You could be Secretary of Defense if you keep that up.

[Seeker]

US off-duty interviewed in the pub by Joong-Ang say this will lead to the North concentrating more on rockets. They can hit farther south with only pathetic SCUDs (and a few other things).

Basically this is an excellent move by the US I believe. It will hit the NK military in their weak spot, accurate long range anything. Can the change or increase their spending to make more and better guided missiles? I think it will squeeze them big time.

This is a 'capitulation' to the north and anti-US korean faction that makes the US hand stronger. In a year, the 37 000 'hostages' (the militarily useless inf division) will be out of range, so that the North would have to come out from their bunkers and mountains onto the plains where air power would kill them. It pretty much ends the North Korean strategy of breaking out fast and doing a ww ii style encirclement.

On the down side it means the only card they have left is making better missiles and nukes.

[Cruddy]

There's just no pleasing some people.

Mind you, a change in a border situation that's been static for 50 years would be upsetting.

Hey, that article mentions an armistice in 1953. What armistice? I thought it was a ceasefire, not a peace agreement.

[SlowwHand]

Cease-fire, so what?
Didn't you learn from the Iraq debacle that too few people comprehend the term ?

[BeBro]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
You could be Secretary of Defense if you keep that up.

Can´t wait to see the headlines "Eurocom leads US-Ministry of Defense"

I´d impose my Neocom ideas everywhere then....

[DinoDoc]

Does this mean the Soth Koreans "like" us again? Or are we going to have to wait until the DPRK talks about drowning Seoul in a Sea of Fire like the article described?

[BeBro]

Hm, I sometimes think the North Koreans are just "sabre-rattling" (sp?) to get a better postion in negotiations, but sometimes their behaviour seems rather irrational to me.

[DinoDoc]

That's why I'm waiting for the Sea of Fire statements to start.

[Oerdin]

NK demands US with draw forces.
US withdraws forces.
NK screams the evil imperialists are making things worse.

[Seeker]

South Korea is a country of 55 million or so.

There are lots of people who love America, and lots who don't.

Currently, their torn between a few things:

1. YAAAY! Not (as many) Us soldiers tearing up the country.

2. ****....the local liqour and prostitution industries are going to fold

3. Double ****...the US is riding Roh Moo Hyun's ass about increasing military spending....d'oh, less americans, we have to buy all those F-15s for ourselves...(or be like the Japanese and Canada and just forget about all that war stuff...less of an option for SK)

4. It's unclear how many are going and how long it will take and where they are going. On the one hand Koreans would like bases to be way out in the boonies but on the other hand US bases create a major (dodgy) economy around them.

[Dis]

This is such great news pulling away from the DMZ. The best thing the Bush administration has done in a while.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
North Korea sucks, and is a land of morons.

Dislike it's government, fine, but don't demonise a country's population...you are becoming the same victim of this mentality yourself...those in glass houses you know

[Arrian]

NK demands US with draw forces.
US withdraws forces.
NK screams the evil imperialists are making things worse.

And this is different from their behavior in the past how? They pull this **** all the time.

But we're expected to bend over backwards to accomodate them. **** that.

I really hope the SK government grows a spine in the near future.

-Arrian

[Main_Brain]

which is now one of China's top five trading partners

Like Russia to Germany before barbarossa?

[Dis]

we could really give them what they want and actually attack them

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Arrian
I really hope the SK government grows a spine in the near future.

Fat chance.

[Arrian]

I know, Dino, I know. But I can still hope.

-Arrian

[Q Classic]

what do you define as "growing a spine"?

[CerberusIV]

Is the US now trying to do to NK what it did to the Soviets when Reagan was President? I mean raise the game so that running a military that is capable of doing anything becomes so expensive for NK that the country cannot support it and they either have to change their ways or face a collapse.

[Seeker]

What does a 'collapse' look like?

The population is stratified into different classes and highly controlled there. Millions of the 'worker drone' class could die and it wouldn't affect the bosses much more than creating paperwork.

And don't waste time thinking about the people 'rising up', they'd be slaughtered.

I think a 'collapse' would be once shortages started affecting the officer class, which would mean for the common people it would be REALLY bad.

[CerberusIV]

It really comes down to whether the NK system can produce a Gorbachev figure who will recognise that it can't go on and will front the changes. I have my doubts and suspect this could end in rather more than tears for all concerned.

Unless a large chunk of the army leadership decides to have a popular revolution Romanian style. Again, it doesn't seem likely.

Presumably it will largely come down to what the PRC decide is in their best interests.

[Q Classic]

a "go ba chap"? (one way to koreanify the name~) not likely. the dear leader views himself as the hero of the nation, and doesn't take very well to anybody who could conceivably rival him in power.

meaning, nobody is in line for succession, so his death would result in a good bit of uncertainty and power-plays among the higher ups.

in any case, the end of nkorea would still result in years of hardship on both sides of the 38th parallel.

[Az]

"go ba chap"? I am sorry, but...

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
what do you define as "growing a spine"?

At this point? Demanding reciprocity for the aid they give the DPRK would be enough to satisfy me.

[Q Classic]

At this point? Demanding reciprocity for the aid they give the DPRK would be enough to satisfy me.

although they haven't actually started cutting off aid, president no (more commonly romanized roh) has started to threaten that the south will be unable to continue assisting the north if the north doesn't denuclearize.

During talks last month between Pyongyang and Seoul, South Korean officials warned they might, in fact, make their own economic aid contingent on better behavior. According to a South Korean official, the message from Seoul was "we will no longer automatically supply everything to our brethren. We will not provide a blank check."

while not yet official policy, things are looking that way, especially after losing a lot of national support because of nkorea's actions.

[mindseye]

Brilliant strategic move! Why can't we have more like this?