The True Cost of War in Korea

The true cost of war goes beyond
military expenditures.

There’s been a lot of talk about how to deal with North Korea lately, and much of it seems to envision armed conflict. Some think that South Korea could triumph militarily on its own, or with a modicum of US air support. Others envision China weighing in on the ground to effect regime change. The White House has dispatched carrier groups to the area as a show of force – but really, what are the prospects that a military solution would succeed, or be adopted?

First, it’s useful to consider a couple of items regarding the current US response to the crisis.

1. The naval show of force by South Korea and the US is likely to only inflame the situation, which started when an earlier exercise by the South culminated in some of their artillery pieces firing into waters which the North claims as its own.
2. Putting fleets into this area raises the distinct possibility of another Cheonan-style submarine attack; ask anti-submarine warfare officers, and you’ll discover that the strong currents and heavy silt in the Yellow Sea makes detecting and prosecuting submarine threats very difficult.
3. Given that “face” is an important concept in Asian politics, this type of brinksmanship is highly unlikely to do anything except aggravate the North, and shift Chinese perceptions against us.

Now, let’s talk about why South Korea hasn’t (and won’t) go to war over this incident, why China won’t intervene against the North, and why we shouldn’t consider it either.

Lots of folks have done a bit of strategic and tactical calculus and concluded that North Korea could be beaten in a conventional war. Perhaps, but such a war would not be nearly as simple as Iraq, given the terrain, the weather, and the North Korean IADS (integrated air defense system). Ignoring, for a moment, the probability that a significant guerilla conflict might follow “victory”, the real cost to the winner would be absorbing the responsibility for 24 million destitute North Koreans.

Consider for a moment the disparity in wealth between the North and South. South Korea’s approximately 49 million people enjoy a per capita income of about $30,000 USD, compared to $1900 for their Northern kin. Studies have indicated a $3 trillion dollar price tag and a 10-year timeline to bring incomes in the North to even 60% of those in the South, and the example of Germany suggests that high unemployment and mass migrations will be just a few of the economic challenges that will drive the cost even higher.

That is the reason the South has not pushed especially hard for a peaceful reunification, and it’s why they literally can’t afford to start a war with the North – because it would cost their citizens about 1/3 of their annual income to establish a degree of equality in distribution of wealth; and that’s before considering the economic impacts of bringing a third of the newly-unified population from a Human Development Index rating of 75 up to South Korea’s number 12 ranking.

This is not to say that if faced with total war, the South would not fight, and fight well – but it should clarify the reason why provocation short of an all-out assault across the DMZ are unlikely to be answered with force.

And what about China, the US, and Coalition actions. Could the Red Army swarm across the Yalu again, this time to unseat their former allies? Physically possible, but it won’t happen, and not because, as some have stated, China wants a “buffer zone” between her borders and those of the democratic South Korea. Simply put, North Korea is one of the 5 remaining Communist regimes, and China is another. Solidarity and “face” must be maintained, so China will not take its own military action, and might again intervene in a major conflict to obtain a resolution favorable to the North, or one that at least maintains the status quo.

The idea that China would act as part of a coalition against North Korea in a major conflict is fraught with technical difficulties – NATO weapon systems identify Chinese aircraft as “threats.” Communications would be a barrier as well – the best that could be hope for would be a World War II style “rush to Berlin”, but coordinated operations would be difficult to implement.

So, what’s a superpower to do? Stay out of the Yellow Sea and avoid provoking the North further, or giving their sub commanders a greater selection of targets. Stop treating North Korea like a willful child, and start bilateral negotiations in good faith. Remove the trade barriers and sanctions that contribute to their national poverty, and wake up from the pipe dream that if we just wait long enough, the North will collapse. With its economy growing at a steady 3 percent annually over the last decade, that’s just not going to happen. 

Style over Substance: Obama's Indonesian Address

The view from the cheap seats during President Obama’s speech at the University of Indonesia revealed a US preference for style over substance, insofar as Indonesia is concerned. The President’s use of Indonesian idioms throughout his smoothly delivered speech, and frequent references to his boyhood here clearly resonated with the crowd, which had been carefully screened and selected from numerous educational institutions throughout Indonesia and bussed to the speech site several hours earlier.

But his delivery of thoughts on his 3 key themes, development, democracy, and religion, were received without a great deal of applause. This may have had something to do with the fact that he made neither any concrete offers to aid Indonesia in the first area, nor asked the Indonesian people to assist America throughout the world with its unique positioning and experience relative to the latter two themes.

Contrast this to China, the target of Presidential asides such as “prosperity without freedom is just another form of poverty.” That regional hegemon has just pledged $6.6 billion dollars of badly-needed aid to improve Indonesia’s strained infrastructure, but the United States, despite Obama’s characterization of America and Indonesia as being “neighbors across the Pacific” has offered no such tangible support. The US has offered the Indonesian government a $300 million dollar grant to acquire 2 more squadrons of US-made F-16 fighters, but Indonesian Air Force generals are still debating the long-term costs of maintenance, which they would be required to bear.

Likewise, though he touched on the foundering negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel, calling for an “outcome that is just and in the interest of both sides… two states, living side by side in peace and security” he made no call for Indonesia to involve itself more deeply in the process, despite the fact that the country which boasts the greatest Muslim population in the world has a great deal of experience in negotiating difficult questions regarding emerging states, as evidenced by the relatively recent birth of Timor Leste, and the process that resulted in Aceh remaining a part of Indonesia, albeit with greatly extended autonomy in several areas of governance.

In the end, “Mas Obama” (literally, brother) gave the Indonesian people enough of what they wanted (a bit of nostalgic auld lang syne about chasing goats and water buffalos through the rice paddys) and nothing that they didn't (such as any mention of recent torture incidents by the Army in Papua) to make his visit a relatively successful one.

Still, there were plenty of lost opportunities here that have not been lost on the Indonesian people and press. Compared to India, where he spent 3 days, his less-than-24-hour trip was, well, less than 24 hours. He made no visit of either of the recent disaster sites, Mount Merapi or the Mentawai Islands, pledged no disaster relief funds, and committed to no major economic, military, or foreign policies, in stark contrast to India where he promised to support a bid for a seat on an expanded UN Security Council.

The Indonesian proverb “Gajah mati meninggalkan gadingnya, macan mati meninggalkan belangnya, manusia mati meninggalkan namanya” means that when the elephant is gone, it’s remembered for its tusks, the tiger for its stripes, but a man, only by his deeds. And at the end of the day, even a President is just a man, and only time can tell whether, with respect to Indonesia, Obama will be remembered as a man of action, or simply a well-loved brother who left home to make good in a foreign land.

Finland is Not in Asia, and Neither is Voldemort

Andrew Krepinevich’s latest opinion page in the Wall Street Journal misses the mark, and falls short to splash into the veritable sea of similar pieces regarding China’s designs in the Western Pacific.

He begins the article by invoking the spectre of the Cold War, but the “Finlandization” he describes is simply what all regional hegemons attempt to do with smaller neighbors – persuade them to support the hegemon’s foreign policy objectives.

If Krepinevich is to be believed, only the dubious advantage of the American military presence in Western Europe prevented this from becoming the lot of all European states. Ipso facto, a strong US military presence in Asia is the only way for America to prevent China from shaping the region’s foreign policy.

Unfortunately, the Western Pacific in 2010 is nothing like Western Europe in 1980. The US cannot provide a credible military advantage in this theater – even if it wasn’t bogged down in land wars elsewhere. The long-standing “cult of the carrier” has seen the American hare caught napping by the side of the road, long since passed by a slow and steady Chinese tortoise that has been willing to re-imagine naval warfare in the Western Pacific. While American Naval power was viewed in an expeditionary nature in the 1994 doctrine of “Forward… From the Sea”, China’s can very easily be condensed to “Fire… From the Shore.”

Lord Nelson opined in the Age of Sail that “a ship’s a fool to fight a fort” – acknowledging the superior firepower that shore-based weaponry could bring to bear on ships of the line. There’s nothing new under the sun, and technology has once again put the advantage firmly on shoreline – and this has implications that go far beyond China. Any country (or non-state actor) with a few million dollars in hand can purchase “missiles in a box” that will seriously challenge current expeditionary military capabilities – even those of regional hegemons such as the US, China, and Russia.

Krepinevich appears to acknowledge this fact in the middle of his article, yet makes no solid recommendations for changing the seemingly inevitable shift in military power. The remainder of the article has the obligatory China-bashing – they didn’t acknowledge North Korea’s role in sinking the Cheonan (we did, but took no real action to punish the alleged perpetrators) and characterizes the country as Voldemort – the root of the Navy’s concerns about “assured access”, but one that is not officially named in reports such as the current Quadrennial Defense Review. He closes by stating that:

Washington's longstanding allies and friends in the Western Pacific want a stable military balance in the region that will encourage Beijing to pursue its goals according to accepted international norms of behavior.

But there hasn’t been a balance of power in the Western Pacific since 1945 – the US has always been militarily predominant in this theater. The rise of Chinese military power is only now beginning to create a balance – and it is a balance that will inevitably shift to favor China – no surprise, as any test of military might in the waters immediately adjacent to the North American land mass would tend to favor the US.

It’s long past time to stop kvetching about the military aspect of China’s “peaceful rise” and acknowledge that rather than taking on the improbable challenge of matching their military, we should start laying the groundwork for bilateral cooperation in the defense sector – open ourselves to China as a true ally and partner, rather than continuing to regard them as Voldemort – the enemy least mentioned, but most feared.

The Real China Challenge

Peter Brookes’ editorial in the New York Post is the latest such article to imply that the United States, embroiled in small wars and facing cuts to its massive defense budget may not have a future military that can “meet the China challenge.” The real challenge with regards to China is getting senior U.S. military officials, especially in the Navy, to view China as a strategic partner rather than a competitor.