What Victory Means

Even if, as I think likely, we defeat North Korea without a war, the price will be high.

When we consider the threat posed by a nuclear-armed North Korea to its neighbors and the threat that North Korean proliferation of missiles and nuclear technology, it would be wise to remember the price of victory. And I'm not talking about the price of defeating North Korea on the battlefield. If North Korea is nearing collapse (as I've been hoping and expecting for several years now), it will be one helluva mess.

The South Korean army will be very busy in the north. Feeding people. Arresting officials. Getting agriculture going. Building infrastructure. And quite possibly fighting an insurgency of former North Korean spooks who don't want to lose. The army as a whole is not the top dog in the regime scheme of things, and I think could even see itself as the nation's savior by deposing the regime.

But this would be for their own sake, really, and not necessarily a pro-West move. I just wonder if the North Korean army can be trusted to remain in uniform? Their assistance in policing, reconstruction, and agriculture could be very important. With the top tier arrested, and the rest of the army not considered a pillar of the regime (relying on spooks and nukes), an army for the most part stripped of all but small arms and a clip of ammo might be the difference between a victory we can afford and one that in the short term will have the impact of defeat.

But do remember that nuclear proliferation, conventional war, nuclear war, revolution, or collapse will all be ugly affairs for us. I can almost understand why South Koreans would rather let their northern brethren suffer for decades to come rather than pay the price of saving them--even under the best cases of revolt or collapse.

But this is where our objectives diverge. While South Korea may see a collapsed North Korea as not much worse than North Korea invading the south; we see a North Korea that survives to threaten us directly with nukes, threaten directly our allies with nukes; and proliferate missiles and nuclear technology or even weapons as far worse than a North Korean collapse and in my view worse than a North Korean invasion of South Korea that South Korea will defeat with our help.

It's all about national objectives, here. We worry about our citizens and South Korea worries about their citizens. Indeed, I worry about the long-term impact of a nuclear North Korea on our South Korean alliance. There are worrisome trends in this sphere that are really just bizarre.

Lovely decade we're having, eh?