Repeatedly Failed Imperial Wet Dreams on a “Possible Collapse of North Korea”
Author’s note: This is my critique on ‘the possible collapse of N. Korea’ (an abridged speech at the Heritage Foundation) by Bruce W Bennett, a researcher at the Rand Corporation.
It all began when I wrote a critique, ‘It takes two to tango’, on Dr. Pak, Moon-J’s article at www.peacemaking.kr/english about his allegation that ‘the US and China are planning to divide the North Korea territory into two and occupy it when the Kim Dynasty collapse in a ‘soft-landing’ fashion.
I first thought the scenarios plotted were like a Hollywood movie scripts that the plan might have been a half-baked product of a bored intern at the US State Dept., a frosh who poked fun at the foreign policy of the US. However, one of my friend living in LA has given me a web-link in which the plan was actually originated from the 300 plus-page research paper by Mr. Bennett, a well-paid researcher of the Rand Corporation, whose clients include the Governments of Japan and S. Korea, US Pacific Command and Defense Department.
As a senior analyst/rainmaker at the Rand Corporation that claimed to be an influential think tank closely related to the US ‘Defense Industrial Complex’ for many decades, Mr. Bennett arguably has been quoted as a doyen of Far Eastern Asian study by his clients and cohorts.
Strangely, his umpteen time visits to the region have not specifically indicated that he has ever been in N. Korea…as lots of scholars/analysts/researchers remain/work as a ‘desktop warrior’ or an ‘armchair general’, I assume that his total lack of first-hand knowledge/on-site experience on the nuclear-armed N. Korea has caused him to fall deep into the wet dream of benign collapse scenario that copied the West German absorption of East Germany…that is, it’s like a blind man groping over the pachyderm that could leave a stamp of big foot on his face in the future. ‘Caveat Emptor’ would be a wise advice for his clients.
When Alexander the Great scolded a pirate “How dare you molest the sea?”, The pirate replied: “How dare you molest the whole world? Because I do it with a little ship only, I am called a thief; you, doing it with a great navy, are called an Emperor.”
When Bruce W Bennett stood at the podium of the Heritage Foundation for the lecture on the ‘possible collapse of the N. Korean Regime’, his soft and mild mannerism appears to be quite a contrast to what his shadowy/US Government-financed employer with a strong military ties, the Rand Corporation, has presented in hawkish/imperial/hegemonic approaches in the US foreign policy over several decades…
I mean, on the surface, he emanated a well-versed/academic/affirmative sense of high-minded intellectual that may be a selling-point to his clients, the Governments of South Korea and Japan, and the US Defense Department, Pacific Command, and USFK. (The MC at the speech emphasized that Mr. Bennett has been in the Northeast Asia region umpteen times (as many as 90 times) in that I only envy about his one-million-plus air-mileages in aggregate, but I am not sure whether he could claim as a doyen of the Korean conflict without stepping on the tarmac of the Sun-an Airport in Pyongyang.)
His possible collapse scenarios of the North Korea are: 1. The Kim dynasty is overthrown by the military putsch. 2. The Kim’s authority is challenged by the powerful elites but no one manages to control the entire country and N. Korea becomes a warlord state. 3
The Kim family decide that the nation is a failed state that should unify peacefully with Southerner on S. Korean Government terms (he dubbed this case as a soft-landing.) The collapse might also occur in a relatively benign manner as impossible as it seems today…as in the past similar to that of the East Germany.
In any case, the North Korea would be left with a political vacuum and becomes a leaderless nation with over 1.3 million active military personnel armed with nuclear capability.
In addition, there would be a pandemonium like an outbreak of a Civil War, the wide spread of starvation and diseases, massive refugee flows across borders both north and south, ‘loose’ nukes and other forms of WMD escaping towards overseas, and ongoing military insurgency/violence throughout the country
He emphasized that ‘best-case’ collapse scenario demonstrates that even benign assumptions produce extremely demanding force requirements for stabilizing a collapsed North Korea, and more pessimistic scenario assumptions would “increase force requirements and would lengthen the duration of stabilization mission.”
And he declared that, even though the S. Korean military should take the lead in stabilizing North Korea, Uncle Sam would be the major player as “a highly interested actor by virtue of its alliance, ties, interests, and capabilities” of the invading forces plus a mop-up operation in post-collapse stabilization period. He frankly admitted that “the US is a regional hegemon with a declared commitment to maintain stability in the Asian-Pacific region.”
In addition, he did not forget about the Chinese nightmare and dread over the North Korean collapse for a variety of reasons: a shared border, Jilin province of Korean Autonomous Prefecture, refugee flows, and the North’s role of buffer zone between the USFK and the People’s Army of China.
Here, we find his speech has three-tier approaches…and his first approach was like having a wet-dream based on the narratives of Western colonialism and American imperial adventurism: by suggesting that the N. Korea might collapse in a way the East Germany was absorbed by the West Germany reminding audiences that no one predicted the way the East Germany had collapsed benignly and absorbed peacefully.
His ‘Soft-landing’ scenario of the N. Korean collapse has been pervasive among many hawkish/neo-conservative think tank researchers like the Brooking’s Institute who have no first-hand/on-site experiences on the Kim Dynasty…they are a gaggle of wet-dreamers whose mindsets were still soaked with the verses of ‘White Man’s Burden’ by Rudyard Kipling and regarded the N. Korea as nothing more than a strategic site in pursuing the ‘Pivot to Asia’ China containment policy and the “Full Spectrum Dominance” of the US imperial adventurism.
These desk-top warriors/armchair generals have already been oblivious about the past historical baggage of the Vietnam War where all-mighty Superman ran away with his tail between his legs.
In addition, Mr. Bennett has never raised with issue that is critical/decisive in assuming collapse scenario over the nuclear capabilities of the Kim dynasty: he does not seem to want his clients (S. Koreans and Americans whose sons/daughters stationed in the peninsula and in the vicinity) too scared to think twice the cold reality that the North Korea might elect a ‘Samson Option’ as a last resort as Israelis, the American gendarme in the Middle East, has been blackmailing/harassing/bombing Arabs with impunity.
The Israeli Defense Minister, Gen. Moshe Dayan once said: “Israel must be like ‘a mad dog’ too dangerous to bother. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes down.”
In short, contrasting the collapse scenario of North Korea with rather that of nuke-less East Germany has a deliberate intent to ignore ‘a mad dog’ North Korea’s nuclear weapons capability that renders an illusory comfort and euphoria for the Western ditto-heads and the S. Korean ‘sheeple’.
In his second approach, he emphasized that US participation of the stabilization mission in post-N. Korean collapse would be an important ‘humanitarian intervention’ for the distressed N/S Korean population for the sake of regional peace.
In other words, he was salivating wolfishly that the American involvement in post-collapse mop-up operation might require a lengthy mission of permanent occupation in the Northern part of Korean peninsula… he has a hutzpah to tell Koreans that Uncle Sam might have to remain on the whole peninsula ad infinitum, even though he admitted that “there has been a deep-seated anti-American sentiment existing not only in North Korea where people have been raised on a diet of anti-American vitriol and also many people in the South blaming Americans for the division of the nation in 1945.”
However, you may attribute his mindset of imperial haughtiness that is prevalent among American neo-conservative think-tank wonks to a subservient/slavish history of the past S. Korean Governments as a vassal state, dispatching thousands of mercenary army to Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan where Uncle Sam needed a little help from his satellite/client/puppet states for exporting a neo-colonial version of ‘Democracy’ to these nations.
His third approach of the collapse scenarios factors the probability of Chinese intervention in the decisive role of stabilization in the North…suggesting that Chinese People’s Army would rush down south crossing over Yalu/Tumen Rivers to get hold of Yeongbyun Nuclear Site and Capital City of Pyongyang while the combined forces of US/S. Korea crossing the DMZ to meet Chinese Army in the middle of Northern country… and they would shake hands and exchange beers, a scene that could only be manufactured in the Hollywood film settings.
He positively assumed that Chinese would not sit on their hand while the North Korea goes down the drain reminding that China is N. Korea’s sole military ally, as specified in 1961 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Military Assistance.
However, he tried hard to paint the Chinese military intervention as benign/friendly/cooperative ventures that the Western governments would welcome Chinese People’s Army as a partner in post-collapse operation as if the US and China were two peas in a pod, insinuating that both invading parties would rather benefit in the strategic point of military operation…again he is having a wet dream that China would not even shed Crocodile tears over the collapse of nuke-armed neighbor country, if China were allowed to have northern half of North Korea and to keep the trade relationship with the US intact, ignoring the reality that China prefers the status quo rather than facing the 800 pounds Gorilla snooping over their fence.
In essence, his lecture is a suggestion about how Uncle Sam, the reigning power of world, may amicably share the North Korean carrions with an emerging new super power, China, avoiding a nasty fight that may impinge upon the regional peace, stability, and global economy.
He did not seem to care much about what the S. Koreans look forward to…because Uncle Sam has kept them already in his back pocket for over half a century.
In this perspective, his imperial wet dream seems not to be as baseless or illusory as it seems as far as S. Koreans themselves are concerned…all the S. Korean Governments since its establishment of the nation, Republic of Korea, have been on a short leash tied to the American Flag under the constant supervision of US Marshal, Uncle Sam.
Like a dog leashed on the peg, you feel a constraint that you are being leashed, only when you try to go beyond the boundary of permitted by Uncle Sam…otherwise, you are free jigging around in a ‘Kangnam Style’ within the allowed perimeter, playing, singing, coupling, and wagging your tail so that you feel you are a free/independent/sovereign nation. (Making you feel free/happy/sovereign while still chained to an imperial peg is a beauty, delicacy, essence, effectiveness, finesse, and attractiveness of the neo-colonialism.)
In the event of the war, S. Korea have no other choice but to follow what Mr. Bennett’s wet dream scenarios projects under the tight leash by the Marshal, Uncle Sam, as newly-elected Park’s regime begs again her master for keeping the wartime operational power of S. Korean Army in perpetuity.
In addition, there is a clear mismatch in contrasting the Kim dynasty with the East German state…you need an on-site inspection/observation to recognize/accept the stark differences between two countries that most of the desktop researchers in the West does not bother to have: N. Korea is not a namby-pamby/wishy-washy pushover at all like Granada, Panama, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Philippines, Libya, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, Syria, et al that Uncle Sam violated their sovereignty at will.
They have rebuilt the nation from the ashes of the US carpet-bombing raids during the Korean War in 1950s to the member of the Nuclear Club, overcoming a variety of sanction, oppression, invasion, and interference by Uncle Sam that no other nations around the world had ever encountered.
They are not even on their knees as yessa-massa to their only ally China as if their bootlicking Southerners always ‘Cry Uncle’: they do not need a Chinese nod in executing either a war or a ‘Samson Option’…they do have an only choice of ‘Do-or-Die’ hard-landing, not like Mr. Bennett’s wished-for/hoped-for soft-landing scenarios.
With this picture in perspective, you could easily come to the conclusion that Mr. Bennett’s scenarios on the possible collapse of N. Korean regime have no more merits than having a complacent ‘nocturnal emission’ that would only make his clients happy and content with an illusory confidence over the looming crisis… “Don’t worry too much, Folks.
Everything will turn out to be OK. The Kim Dynasty will eventually collapse. Let’s just prepare for ‘soft-landing’.” As if no one predicted the East Germany collapsed, you never know whether Kim and his ilk would elect a suicidal nuclear attack on S. Korea, Okinawa, Japan, or Guam as the last resort, unless they are not dumb enough to ignore what happened in Iraq, Libya, Panama, and other places around the world.
Then the Korea War in 1950s would be just an ‘hors d’oeuvre’ compared with what a ‘Sampson Option’ would cause to the regions and people…
It’s a damn stupid/foolish thing to corral a nuclear-armed rat into a corner with no escaping hatch.
During the Roh MH regime years ago, his Unification Minister said: “We must see the US Forces in Korea (USFK) as a constant.” He also indicated that the USFK would remain in Korea even after the reunification of two Koreas, and it currently remains a ‘non-negotiable’ subject because the US occupation is a necessary element for the national defense of the S. Korea.
Conversely it is bizarre/unconscionable to deny the same right of N. Korea’s nuclear weapons capability as a constant at the same time as one of their deterrent weapons against the US military aggression. Let’s engage with Kim without any pre-conditions like “Abandon your A-bomb!” or “Cry Uncle!”
I would like to remind you, Mr. Bennett that Kim is not your House Negro, a hat-in-hand toady, a kowtowing factotum, or a sycophant comprador as if Madam President of S. Korean Government is most likely to be one of them. He is the head of the sovereign state (the DPRK) whether you’d like to admit it or not.
Or if you’d really like to have the N. Korea de-nuclearized, then suggest them a comparable counter-offer such as the immediate withdrawal of the USFK from the peninsula and let the S. Korean Government engage with the Northern brothers without your hegemonic interference.
Jaw to jaw is always better than war to war. There is only one way to win the war in the Korean peninsula: that is to avoid it. I know you, Mr. Bennett/intellectual carpetbaggers/neo-con warmongers could leave the peninsula without remorse or sorrow because you have a place to go to live, when Korea becomes un-inhabitable, un-worthy, and un-exploitable after the nuclear conflagration… but we, Koreans, have no other place to live but to stay and raise our family here. (You’ve left Saigon without hesitation when you lost the war in 1975. Didn’t You?)
I am pretty sure that you would never take all 50 million S. Koreans with you on boats crossing the Pacific Ocean. Would you?
Oy Vey! Now I hallucinate as if I am having a wet dream of swimming across the vast ocean heading for the California beach.
What a Pity!
Mr. Dale Han is one of the frequent contributors for The 4th Media. Mr. Han can be reaced at pepesojourner@hotmail.com