Korea, wrote the famed German expert on geopolitics Baron Haushofer a century ago, was one of the world’s five most strategic areas. So it remains today, as China, Russia, Japan and the United States vie for influence on the peninsula and the waters around it.

The latest crisis over Korea began in March with an annual major military exercise by the US and South Korea designed to simulate an invasion of North Korea. The flight of US B-52 and B-2 heavy bombers 30 km from North Korea’s border was a clear warning to North Korea to cease its nuclear program.

Instead of the usual fulminations against the US and South Korea, the new North Korean dynastic regime of Kim Jung-un issue a blizzard of war threats that included nuclear strikes against the US – something that Pyongyang is quite unable to do. But the storm of hot air raised the danger of an accidental military clash that could quickly escalate to all-out war in which tactical nuclear weapons might well be used.

Until this past week, the Korea crisis has been more or less run by the US Pentagon. Amazingly, South Korea’s tough 600,000-man armed forces are under the command of a US four-star general 60 years after the end of the Korean War, backed up by 28,500 US troops that include a full heavy infantry division,

North Korea calls itself the “true Korea,” denouncing the South as “puppets of the US imperialists.” Interestingly, some studies show that many South Koreans share this view and are proud of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program though they want no part of its socialism and self-reliant policy known as “juche.”.

Now, the US has finally deployed its diplomatic muscle by sending the new Secretary of State John Kerry to Beijing to try to arm-twist China into clamping down on its errant bad boy, North Korea. The result was a joint communiqué calling on the US and China to jointly pursue the de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

China has long advocated this policy, so nothing new here. But the North American media hailed it as a breakthrough in the crisis. In fact, China is not happy with North Korea’s nuclear program, but Beijing considers an independent, stable North Korea essential for the security of its highly sensitive northeast region of Machuria.

Chinese strategists fear the collapse of the Kim dynasty in North Korea would lead to the US-dominated South Korea absorbing the north and even implanting US bases within range of Manchuria and the maritime approaches to Beijing. In 1950, China responded to the advance of US forces onto its Manchurian border, the Yalu River, by intervening in the Korean War with over 1.5 million soldiers.

The collapse of North Korea would also move South Korean and US military power 200 km closer to Russia’s key Far Eastern population and military complex at Vladivostok.

Accordingly, China’s strategy to date has been to talk moderation and issue occasional blasts at North Korea to appease the outside world and its major American trading partner while quietly ensuring that North Korea remains viable. China supplies all of North Korea’s oil, part of its food, and large amounts of industrial and military spare parts.

North Korea’s Kim Jung-un appears to have climbed too far out on a limb by issuing dire threats that include nuclear war. His problem is to climb back without losing too much face or appearing to be forced by the United States.

Prestige is a key factor in dictatorship. An obvious defeat can lead to the dictator’s fall. That’s why Hitler refused to retreat from the deathtrap at Stalingrad, rightly fearing such a loss of prestige and his mystique of military genius would encourage his domestic foes to move against him.

So Kim will likely need Beijing’s help in ending the crisis, and Beijing will be both happy to do so and end up in a position to demand useful concessions from Washington.

Beijing has been claiming that the US whipped up the current Korea crisis to justify deploying new military forces to Asia and emplacing more anti-missile systems in Alaska and a new one in Guam – all part of President Barack Obama’s much heralded “pivot to Asia.”

copyright Eric S. Margolis 2013

The United States and the two feuding Koreas could blunder into a real war unless both Pyongyang and Washington cease provoking one another.

Last week, two nuclear-capable US B-2 stealth bombers flew non-stop from America to South Korea, and then home. These ‘invisible’ aircraft can carry the GBU-43/B MOAB 13,600kg bomb that is said to be able to blast through 70 meters of reinforced concrete, putting North Korea’s underground nuclear facilities and its leadership’s command bunkers under dire threat.

Earlier this month, US B-52’s heavy bombers staged mock attack runs over South Korea – within minutes flying time of the North – rekindling memories of the massive US carpet bombing raids that devastated North Korea during the 1950’s Korean War. US-South Korean-Australian war games in March were designed to train for war with the North. The US media ignored these provocative exercises, but, as usual, North Korea went ballistic, foolishly threatening to attack the US with long-ranged missiles it does not yet possess.

We have grown jaded over the years by North Korea’s threats and chest-beating. But its recent successful nuclear test and work on a long-ranged missile have begun to add muscle to Pyongyang’s threats. No sooner was the new young North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, in power than the US, South Korea and Japan began testing him.

More important, the US-South Korea defense treaty calls on Washington to militarily intervene if war erupts between North and South Korea. Given present tensions, a border fight on the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), commando raids by North Korea’s 110,000-man special forces, air or naval clashes could quickly lead to full war.

North Korea has repeatedly threatened to flatten parts of South Korea’s capitol, Seoul, using 11,000 heavy guns and rocket batteries hidden in caves along the DMZ. North Korean commandos and missile batteries are tasked with attacking all US airbases and command headquarters in South Korea. The 28,500 US troops based in South Korea will also be a primary target.

North Korea’s medium ranged missiles are aimed at US bases on mainland Japan, Okinawa and Guam. North Korea’s tough 1.1-million man army is poised to attack south. Massive US airpower would eventually blunt such an advance, but that would mean moving US warplanes from the Gulf and Afghanistan. The US Air Force’s stocks of bombs and missiles are perilously low and its equipment showing heavy wear and tear.

The US has become accustomed to waging war against small nations whose ‘threat’ has been wildly overblown: Grenada, Somalia, Iraq, Libya. The last real war fought by the US, against Vietnam, was an epic defeat for American arms. North Korea is not an Iraq or Libya.

North Korea’s air force and navy would be quickly destroyed by US and South Korean air power within days of war. But taking on North Korea’s hard as nails army will be a serious challenge if it fights on the defensive. Pentagon studies show that invading North Korea could cost the US up to 250,000 casualties. So the US would be clearly tempted to use tactical nuclear weapons. But North Korea vows to nuke Japan if the US goes nuclear. And there is the threat of Chinese intervention.

The US would be wise to back off from this confrontation and lower tensions with North Korea. America’s empty Treasury can’t afford yet another war, having already blown $2 trillion on the lost wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. America’s armed forces, bogged down in the Mideast and Afghanistan, are in no shape to fight a real war in Korea. Just moving heavy armor and guns there would take months.

Now might be a good time for Washington to ease rather than keep tightening sanctions on North Korea. Pyongyang’s real objectives are to gain a non-aggression treaty with the US and direct, normal relations. Washington won’t hear of this, though it deals with other repellant regimes. American neocons are determined to overthrow North Korea’s regime, fearing it will send advanced arms to Israel’s Mideast foes.

Military forces on the Korean Peninsula are on hair-trigger alert. Flying B-2’s near the North is almost daring it to attack. Diplomats, not air force generals, should be running this largely manufactured crisis.
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copyright Eric S. Margolis 2013

February 9, 2013

On 30 January, a Chinese Jiangwei II-class frigate entered the disputed waters around the Senkaku Islands, a cluster of uninhabited rocks in the East China Sea claimed by China as the Diaoyu Islands.  A Japanese destroyer was waiting.

When the two warships were only 3 km apart,  the Chinese frigate turned on its fire control radar that aims its 100mm gun and C-802 anti-ship missiles and “painted” the Japanese vessel.  The Japanese destroyer went to battle stations and targeted its weapons on the Chinese intruder.

Fortunately, both sides backed down. But this was the most dangerous confrontation to date over the disputed Senkakus. Japan and China were a button push from war.

Soon after, a Japanese naval helicopter was again “painted’ by Chinese fire control radar.  Earlier, Chinese aircraft made a clear intrusion over waters claimed by Japan.

China’s Peoples Liberation Army HQ ordered the armed forces onto high alert and reportedly moved large numbers of warplanes and missile batteries to the East China Sea coast.

A US AWACS radar aircraft went on station to monitor the Senkaku/Diaoyus – a reminder that under the 1951 US-Japan  mutual defense treaty,  Washington recognized the Senkaku Islands as part of Japan and pledged to defend them if attacked.  Japan seized the Senkakus as a prize of its 1894-95 war with Imperial China.

China’s state-run media claimed the US was pushing Japan into a confrontation with Beijing to keep China on the strategic defensive.

Japan’s newly elected government led by conservative PM Shinzo Abe vowed to face down with China. Spasms of angry nationalism erupted in both feuding nations.  The Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam, who also claim the Senkakus, chimed in with their territorial demands.

A special Chinese crisis group led by new President Xi Jinping has been set up to deal with the Senkakus – meaning any clash there may be more likely to become a major crisis.

Shades of August, 1914, when swaggering, breast-beating, and a bloody incident triggered World War I, a conflict few wanted but none could avoid.

Japan is in a difficult situation over the Senkakus.  Its nearest air bases are in Okinawa, 500 km away;  Japan’s main airbases are 1,000 km further to the Northeast.  Japan’s F-15J strike aircraft have the combat range to cover the Senkakus but they cannot linger for long with full bomb loads due to the long distances involved.  By contrast, Chinese warplanes based on the coast near Fuzhou are well within range of the Diaoyus.

Japan’s defense architecture was built to stop an invasion by the Soviet Union.  Its so-called Self Defense Forces are able but not configured for long-range offensive operations.  China’s are.  They have been redesigned with a major amphibious invasion of Taiwan and a fight with the US Seventh Fleet in mind.

Unless  US carrier strike groups intervened,  Japan would probably face defeat in a clash with China over the islands, a fact that has Tokyo deeply worried.  This latest crisis again reminds Tokyo that it is naked before China’s nuclear weapons.  This week’s incursions over Northern Japan by Russian warplanes did nothing to calm Tokyo’s nerves.

However, war between China and Japan sounds as crazy and illogical as war between China and the US.  Japan is China’s largest foreign investor, having discreetly built much of China’s industry.  China is a major export market for Japan. A war against China would shatter Japan’s prosperity and force it to embark on a hugely expensive armaments campaign, including building nuclear weapons – which it has the capability to do in 90 days.

China has no desire to fight the United States unless absolutely necessary, and less to spark a US trade embargo. China holds over $1 trillion in US government debt. Beijing has no desire to panic all of East Asia.

A war over the Senkaku/Diaoyus would be like the 1998-2000 desert war between Eritrea and Ethiopia, described as “two bald men fighting over a comb.”  No matter how much fish swim around the Senkakus, or how much oil and gas may be found underwater, nothing justifies a war.

But, then again, nothing justified World War I that began by a murder in obscure Bosnia.  Pray for cool heads in Beijing and Tokyo.

30 Margolis

copyright  Eric S. Margolis 2013