Small Wars Journal

03/07/2021 News & Commentary – Korea

Sun, 03/07/2021 - 1:29pm

News & commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and published by Daniel Riggs.

1. Scaled-down joint drills with U.S. start Monday

2. Seoul's leniency on Pyongyang worries some in international community

3. Quo Vadis, CVID? (Korea)

4. N.K. leader calls on local party officials to bring 'clear changes' for the people

5. S. Korea, U.S. extend defense cost-sharing talks for another day: source

6. S Korea, US scale back drills over virus, N Korea diplomacy

7.  Is South Korea changing its calculus over Japan as Moon Jae-in counts down his days in office?

8. North Korea warning: WW3 fears sparked as Kim Jong-un 'continues nuclear activity'

 

1.  Scaled-down joint drills with U.S. start Monday

koreajoongangdaily.joins.com · by Sarah Kim

It pains me to read the rhetorical gymnastics concerning these annual, routine, very necessary, defensive exercises.

We have cancelled, postponed, and scaled abc exercises to "support diplomacy" for the past three years and there has be no reciprocity in terms of reducing north Korean training exercises or its offensively postured forces on the DMZ with the 70% of the 4th largest army in the world deploy between the DMZ and Pyongyang. As we speak the nKPA is conducting its annual winter training Cycle bringing its forces up to the highest state of readiness at the optimal attack time of MArch when the ground is still hard from the winter freeze and the rice paddies are not yet planted in the South. This is why for years we conducted Team Spirit at this time which until its last exercise in 1993 was the largest exercise in the free world.

We should keep in mind this training is defensive in nature, designed to train the ROK/Combined Forces Command and its subordinate components in the defense of the ROK in response to a north Korean attack. All of north Korea's complaints are simply hypocritical. It is the north that trains for an invasion of the South while the combined forces train for the defense against the north. north Korea is not threatened by these exercises and its actions in response to them have only one objective : to drive a wedge in the ROK/US alliance with the ultimate goal of removing US troops from the peninsula. If you cannot train then US troops cannot remain in the peninsula. As Confucius said: "To send untrained people to war is to throw them away."

I think it is also important to note the importance of the command post computer simulation exercises. We have a concept in the military that is called multi-echelon training. Basically it means you must conduct the right type of training at the appropriate echelon. The higher echelon level the less effective is field training and the more effective is computer simulation. The larger the scale of the exercise the less value it has on the tactical forces at the lower echelons and the tip of the spear. The more effective training for the higher echelons the less effective for the lower echelons and vice versa. The purpose of this training is to train the Commanders and staff at the highest levels. Computer simulation offers a much more challenging and complex training for the higher levels. Think of it this way. The tactical forces are like football and soccer players or golfers. They have to practice every day to maintain their skills because training is perishable. The ROK and US military field training and live fire exercises at the tactical levels all year around. The training at the CFC and component level is much more intellectual than a bayonet charge (with apologies to T.E. Lawrence for borrowing his description of irregular warfare because it applies well to the higher echelons of command). This of the higher echelons as Paduk (or Go) or chess players. They have to think and act strategically and provide direction to the stones or chess pieces conducting the actual fire and move against the north Korean forces. However, no field training can come anywhere near to replicating the complex problems the higher echelons have to solve in terms of intelligence, planning, orders, and execution. The computer simulation run by thinking humans provide the realistic and complex problems the higher echelons must grapple with. So not one should denigrate the command post computer simulation exercise as being some kind of lesser form of training. And again, to emphasize, these exercises are defensive in nature. They are also necessary to prepare the future Combined Forces Command for OPCON transition when a Korean general will command the CFC someday in the future when the agreed upon conditions are met.

Lastly let me comment on the comments that field training exercises are not being conducted because of the COVID risk. Although it may seem counterintuitive at first the command post training is actually more dangerous in a COVID world. You will have thousands of ROK and US military personnel at multiple command posts around South Korea in bunkers rebreathing recirculated air. A COVID outbreak is more likely among people working indoors in close confines breathing recirculated air than among troops in the field who are dispersed conducting military training outdoors. This is why personnel from the US still had to be quarantined for 14 days and everyone participating has to be regularly tested. The good news of the ROK/US CFC demonstrated it is possible to conduct an effective and safe training exercise as they conducted the last command post computer simulation training last August with no COVID outbreak.

The bottom line is we have tested Kim Jong-un since June 2018 when Trump unilaterally announced cancellation of an exercise. We have cancelled, postponed, and scaled back exercises in support of diplomacy but there has not been any reciprocity or positive response from Kim Jong-un. To not conduct training would be the height of irresponsibility because it will put the ROK at great risk. We should not be swayed by north Korean rhetoric. We have to do what is right to ensure the security of the ROK and the protection of US interests in the region. And the right thing to do is to train correctly at all echelons.

 

2. Seoul's leniency on Pyongyang worries some in international community

The Korea Times  · by Kang Seung-woo · March 7, 2021

Yes, as it should. The South's actions are based on the flawed strategic assumptions about the nature and objectives of the Kim family regime. Kim does not share Moon's vision for peace and reconciliation. However basing policy and strategy on such an assumption is dangerous for the security of the ROK. The Biden administration must address this with the Moon administration and they must align and agree upon realistic assumptions and not those which are designed to support an agenda.

It must begin with answering these questions:

Do we believe that Kim Jong-un has abandoned the seven decades old strategy of subversion, coercion-extortion (blackmail diplomacy), and use of force to achieve unification dominated by the Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State in order to ensure the survival of the mafia like crime family cult known as Kim family regime?

In support of that strategy do we believe that Kim Jong-un has abandoned the objective to split the ROK/US Alliance and get US forces off the peninsula? Has KJU given up his divide to conquer strategy - divide the alliance to conquer the ROK?

 

3. Quo Vadis, CVID? (Korea)

The Korea Times  ·  by Yun Byung-se  · March 7, 2021

A good run down of the various names of our Korea "policies." 

Excerpt: "Often times, each U.S. administration comes up with a new catchphrase or slogan on North Korea following such a policy review. Since the first North Korean nuclear crisis in 1993, I have witnessed diverse U.S. approaches, such as stick and carrot, thorough and broad approach, bold approach, broad concept, comprehensive approach, strategic patience, and maximum pressure."

But let's just stop deluding ourselves and admit this:

The only way we are going to see an end to the nuclear program and threats as well as the human rights abuses and crimes against humanity being committed against the Korean people living in the north by the mafia-like crime family cult known as the Kim family regime is through achievement of unification and the establishment of a United Republic of Korea that is secure and stable, non-nuclear, economically vibrant, and unified under a liberal constitutional form of government based on individual liberty, rule of law, and human rights as determined by the Korean people. In short, a United Republic of Korea (UROK).

 

4. N.K. leader calls on local party officials to bring 'clear changes' for the people

en.yna.co.kr · by 이원주 · March 7, 2021

Perhaps Kim Jong-un is hearing the criticism we are leveling against him. The suffering of the Korean people in the north is solely a result of the deliberate policy decisions of Kim Jong-un. (the decisions of the Kim family regime over three generations and 7 decades).

But what he is really doing here is setting up the local party officials for future blame. He will be able to say he told those officials to "make changes" for the people. Their failure to do so effectively will result in KJU using them as scapegoats while maintaining his reputation (according to the Propaganda and Agitation Department) as the benevolent dictator. 

This is about enhancing KJU's reputation and setting up the ability to deflect blame.

Excerpts:

“He also called on the secretaries to carry out their tasks "in any case without fail," saying that the people and other officials will be keeping an eye on them with greater expectations after they attend the first-ever workshop.

In a photo session at the workshop, Kim was seen standing in the third row in between other officials, in an apparent show of friendliness and confidence. Kim usually sits in the front row and at the center in other photo sessions.”

 

5. S. Korea, U.S. extend defense cost-sharing talks for another day: source

en.yna.co.kr · by 이원주 · March 7, 2021

Hopefully, this means both sides are negotiating hard but in good faith. I remain optimistic. But I urge the ROK and US diplomats to have a strong IO plan to explain to the press, pundits, politicos, and public why this agreement is important for each country and how it is good for the people of both countries.

 

6. S Korea, US scale back drills over virus, N Korea diplomacy

actionnewsjax.com · by Hyung-Jin Kim

See my previous comments about scaling back, postponing, or cancelling exercises in "support" of diplomacy and the results from the past three years of doing so. Also, a command post (in a bunker with recirculated air) is a higher risk for COVID than field training. 

 

7. Is South Korea changing its calculus over Japan as Moon Jae-in counts down his days in office?

SCMP · by John Power · March 7, 2021

I certainly hope it is. Both Moon and Suga need to pledge to make national security and national prosperity the priority while working to manage the fall out from historical issues. Strong national leadership is required in both countries.

 

8. North Korea warning: WW3 fears sparked as Kim Jong-un 'continues nuclear activity'

Express · by Claire Anderson · March 6, 2021

Good clickbait title.

But on a serious note if there is a conflict on the Korean peninsula it will have global effects.

 

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“The United States cannot reshape other countries in its own image and that, with a few exceptions, its efforts to police the world are neither in its interests nor within the scope of its resources. This whole tendency to see ourselves as the center of political enlightenment and as teachers to a great part of the rest of the world strikes me as unthought-through, vainglorious and undesirable.”

- George F. Kennan

 

“The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts, the proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes, of which I have only been able to point out the most important, have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his wants, his education, and everything about him seem to unite in drawing the native of the United States earthward; his religion alone bids him turn, from time to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. Let us cease, then, to view all democratic nations under the example of the American people.”

- Alexis de Tocqueville

 

"The station which we occupy among the nations of the earth is honorable, but awful. Trusted with the destinies of this solitary republic of the world, the only monument of human rights, and the sole depository of the sacred fire of freedom and self-government, from hence it is to be lighted up in other regions of the earth, if other regions of the earth shall ever become susceptible of its benign influence. All mankind ought then, with us, to rejoice in its prosperous, and sympathize in its adverse fortunes, as involving everything dear to man. And to what sacrifices of interest, or convenience, ought not these considerations to animate us? To what compromises of opinion and inclination, to maintain harmony and union among ourselves, and to preserve from all danger this hallowed ark of human hope and happiness."

-Thomas Jefferson

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