An undesirable Consequences of War with North Korean

An undesirable Consequences of War with North Korean

By E. Stanley Ukeni

Although the Russians and the Chinese have in recent weeks stepped up diplomatic efforts to forestall a possible military confrontation between the United States and the North Korean regime, some danger of an unintended full blown armed conflict in the Korean peninsula still remains.

On the face of it, some of the recommendations being proposed by the Chinese and Russian foreign ministries seem like a reasonable solution that provides a framework for the inception of negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang—aimed at establishing a much needed compromise in the seemingly intractable political quagmire.

However, I get the sense that the joint proposal being offered up by the Russians and the Chinese to deescalate the growing tension is fraught with challenges that may make its workability unattractive to the contending parties. So, in essence, there seems to be a stalemate even before any sort of bilateral dialogue begins.  

I decided to write this particular article to highlight the possible undesirable consequence of the adoption of the military option in resolving the Korean dilemma. I think that sometimes—perhaps, due to irrational exuberance, policy hawks do not quite thoroughly factor in the law of unintended consequence in their decision making process. 

In the course of this recent crisis with North Korea, a number of right-leaning pundits on the US side have suggested such drastic solutions to the crisis as surgical preemptive military strikes on key North Korean military installations and the decapitation of the North Korean leadership. These are really bad ideas, with potential disastrous consequence—far beyond the Korean peninsula.

In an attempt to paint a stark picture of the magnitude of devastation and loss of life that would occur in the event of a war between the US military and the Army of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) , the United States’ Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Army Staff, Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, while speaking at the Aspen Security Forum held in July 2017, warned that, a full blown military conflict between the United States and North Korea would be ‘unlike any we have experienced’.

He continued, “Many people have talked about military options against North Korea with words like ‘unimaginable’. I would shift that to ‘horrific’. It would be a loss of life unlike any we have experienced in our lifetime—and I mean anyone who’s been alive since World War II has never seen the loss of life that could occur if there’s a conflict on  the Korean Peninsula.”

This warning is coming from a man who understands war and the potential carnage it would unleash far better than most people on earth—and definitely far better than those political pundits who are quick to advocate the use of the military option to degrade the North Korean’s nuclear and missile advancements.

Sure, the DPRK’s mad rush to acquire nuclear weapons and to develop increasingly more sophisticated and advanced Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) is a most disturbing and dangerous threat to the peace and security of our world—particularly the United States of America.

However, in seeking to evolve a desirable solution to this seemingly intractable North Korean quagmire, the United States’ political and military leadership should factor into their calculus the Nation’s long-term strategic interests. As the world’s preeminent economic and military power, I’m not sure that it is in the interest of the United States’ to upset the current global geopolitical configuration, which favors America over the other emerging powers.  

Why do I proffer this? Well let’s consider the possible consequence of an ill-conceived military adventure in the Korean peninsula, which many military analysts have suggested would push our world to the brink of an unthinkable catastrophe.       

Obviously, the United States military possess in its arsenal far more fire-power than the North Korean army can hope to muster. But that said, it is a well-known fact that the DPRK’s armed forces does possess a formidable arsenal of missiles, artillery and multiple-rocket launchers—enough to rain down death and destruction on millions of the civilian population of Seoul at the inception of conflict. The same fate would likely be visited on the civilian population of Pyongyang. This is an unacceptable nightmare scenario—one that must be avoided, if possible.   

Fearing that an American-backed South Korean military victory over North Korea would see the United States’ military eventually deploy advanced offensive and defensive weapon systems within the territory of the unified Korea, China and Russia—which shares geostrategic land borders with North Korea, would most undoubtedly intervene in the conflict—on the side of the North Korean army, as they did during the Korean War of 1950-53. These will remarkable influence the calculus of the war.    

Of course the United States armed forces would most likely prevail against the Chinese and Russian backed North Korean army, but the cost in lives to prevail would be unlike any the world has experienced.

In my opinion, a major war in the Korean Peninsula will, for sure, realign the geopolitical configuration of East Asia in unpredictable ways. There is a real possibility that a Korean peninsula war would quickly evolve into a broader Sino-American conflict—and potentially escalating into World War III. Nobody wants that, and the world definitely does not need it.

Some would ask how I leaped to this conclusion. Well, here is my thinking. It’s reasonable to imagine that a war on the Korean Peninsula would destabilize all of Asia. If so, it does then makes geostrategic sense to advance a hypothesis that already powerful regional powers would want to exploit the instability to their advantage. 

In this case, it seems strategically reasonable to suppose that the Chinese leadership would opt to take advantage of the regional instability that will ensue to move to forcible retake Taiwan, and cement a formidable military presence in East and South China Seas, in a bid to create a defensive, and potentially offensive, air-defense ring of steel around the Chinese mainland. And perhaps, even venture to establish a regional—maybe even broader, military preeminence.

The Russians might decide to move decisively against the Baltic States and Ukraine—and perhaps even Poland and Romania, in a push to militarily expand its territorial spheres political and economic of influence.

And those are just a few of the predictable geopolitical realignment that may occur as a consequence of a Korean Peninsula military campaign. There are yet untold number of possible unpredictable consequences that may unfold. For instance, other piranha States—perhaps in Africa, South America, South Asia and even the Balkans, might decide to take advantage of the global instability to venture on irrational military adventurism of their own to settle old scores. The world could quickly turn into a dystopian nightmare.

So in contemplating an appropriate means of dealing with the North Korean menace, the overwhelming consideration should not merely be driven by the fear of North Korean Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) being able to potentially hit the United States’ mainland. There should also be a focus on considering the possible unraveling of the strategic balance of global power, which currently overwhelmingly favors the United States of America.

In conclusion, it does seem to me that even if a United States-backed South Korean army were to decisively win a second Korean War, the victory would, in my opinion, be a Pyrrhic one. This is probably why previous United States’ administrations had opted to pursue a policy of strategic deterrence and containment, rather than opt for a military solution to the Korean crisis. I consider this policy quite prudent.

Sure the current status quo on the Korean peninsula is not particularly desirable, but the unintended consequences of a full blown Korean war would be incalculably more catastrophic than what currently exists.        

I don’t think that the blusterous rhetoric of the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, no matter how caustic it sounds, is enough to risk the unraveling of the strategic balance of power that has for more than half-a-century ensured global peace and security—for the most part at least.  

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Authored by E. Stanley Ukeni, © 2017. All Rights Reserved. This material and other articles or stories posted on this blog site may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed, in whole or in part, without prior expressed written permission from the author, E. Stanley Ukeni.

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Photo Credits: AP