Korea is not Iraq, granted. But its a no-brainer that the Juche regime has studied US difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan and realizes that cultural exploitation is an effective strategy for weakening the US position on the pen.

Arabs tend toward dogmatism and a static culture. Asians seem much more pragmatic and syncretist. The big picture for me as a Soldier is that (a) culture and religion matter in warfare; and (b) our government, DoD and military institutions do a poor job of operationalizing culture.

The tensions between antiChristian nK and zealously missionary sK Churches will be a factor in nK sooner or later.

Lastly, the main similarity to Iraq is that our cultural necessity is both with combined operations with our allies (RoK) and understanding our enemy (DPRK). As an OIF vet, my strongly held position is that the DoD is struggling with the new post-Cold war paradigms of 21st century conflict in which people are part of the battle field. So its not that I am looking to superimpose an OIF template on the KTO, but rather anticipate the same cultural achilles we experienced in OIF and OEF and try to develop predictive analysis for this theater that informs our operations adequately.

Your blog has been a super-educational and informative source in my research, and I commend you for your astute analysis and friendly demeanor.

Many thanks for the stimulating dialogue!

KCJ

In Korea, it’s the impact of nationalism, race, and han that you can’t overstate. And if you even understand what han is — that’s one concept that probably translates better into Arabic than English — you’re already halfway there.

“Then there are the deeper ways of thinking. We will find plenty to surprise us in how such an unprecedented and sustained mass-mindfuck affects the way people think. I’m betting on an epidemic of madness and crime — prostitution, drugs, gambling, scams, banditry, gangs.

And then we will have our first images of the camps, the famine, the mass migrations, and the epidemics of disease they will spread. The West and South Korea will feel overwhelming pressure to solve grave humanitarian crises have been neglected for decades. (China will find ways to take advantage of this). Southern carpetbagging, much of it exploitive, will generate resentment and impede economic reconstruction.

New cults will spring up to supplant the vacuum left by the old Cult. The climate will be right for the rapid spread of fanatical religious and political movements that promise hope through a combination of social cohesion and some sort of “afterlife,” either secular or spiritual. Of all of the likely alternatives, I see Christianity as being the most socially beneficial.”

This is right on target: “The West and South Korea will feel overwhelming pressure to solve grave humanitarian crises have been neglected for decades.” And there is the connection to Iraq and Afghanistan as well – two nations in miserable disrepair that the western political constituencies impatiently demanded immediate results for – and nearly got it.

My analysis leads me to believe that the remarkable zeal of the Christian missionaries and evangelists from sK will cause a powerful surge of activity in nK the moment conditions are even semi-permissive. This will itself create short term problems (security/rejection by some) and long term solutions (as Josh alludes to above) in institutions and social healing.

As to my cred, I am active duty and work in the field of religion – I’ll stop there, as this is an unclassified website and there are only so many possibilities should the enemy want to actually locate me. I have worked extensively in the field of counterinsurgency the past 3 years including a year in Iraq. I also worked at the US Army Combined Arms Center during the draft of FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency and FM 3-0 Operations.
My boss is a doctrine expert from the same HQs.

Unfortunately in my research, I have not uncovered much in the way of predictive analysis on post-KJI conditions on the pen. Most everything here is geared for the big 5027 fight, and not much else. I can say with some certainty that no one on the military side of the house seems to be taking religion int consideration at all. After the dramatic failures in OIF regarding Islam and the clerics and the bloody ramifications of proceding without the prerequistite religious and cultural knowledge, I am erring on the side of a robust religious analysis for the Korean Theater of Operations (KTO). Should our analysis turn out to be unneccessary, so be it. But in the event that some type of cultural intelligence is needed, and none is available in deliverable format, we may cause more problems than we solve at the beginning.

The sK Forces will be the main effort in stabilizing a post-KJI Korea. But even they need deliberate application of all means of cultural, social and religious analysis to that daunting task. As partners, USFK need to understand both Koreas – as an ally fighting side by side and a stability force among a people who have been taught to hate America, Christianity and capitalism for 60 years.

I hope all the readers had a chance to open the links provided above. As to KJI’s popularity, this CSM article seems to believe that KJI is quite the populist – which concerns me.

Have at you!

lunge

I think the posts documenting the regime’s Cult indoctrination, however, miss the point. I don’t think anyone is questioning that the regime is trying its damnedest to keep the iron boot on everyone’s head, and the increased emphasis on Cult probably reflects the regime’s recognition that economic and social control are dissolving. The fact that the regime is desperate to enforce the Cult doesn’t mean that people will believe in it. It’s probably a reflection of the opposite. For example, the myth of North Korean prosperity was a cornerstone of the Cult. North Koreans know a lot more about life in South Korea and China now than they did even five years ago, and they’re comparing what they see to their own lives.

I saw the NGEO show of which you speak and think that’s quite easily explained in one word: fear. The minders showed up in advance and choreographed the appropriate Cult of Kim adorations, and stuck around to make sure all was as ordered.

I still believe that most of the people have quit believing in most of the Cult. Sure, the amount of discontent and disbelief probably vary with region, social status, and demographics like age and gender. I also think that most North Koreans cling to selected elements of the Cult — nationalism and racism are persistent things in all societies — but not the divinity or nativity nonsense, or the prosperity nonsense. I think Kim Il Sung still has significant but unquantifiable residual popularity. I also think Kim Jong Il is deeply unpopular, and everyone in North Korea correlates his ascendancy to hard times that have stayed hard. No doubt, there’s a lot we don’t know and won’t know until the collapse. I’m sure there are some things they still believe or don’t know that would surprise us, but inside, I think most of them privately doubt most elements of the Cult and survive with doublethink.

Then there are the deeper ways of thinking. We will find plenty to surprise us in how such an unprecedented and sustained mass-mindfuck affects the way people think. I’m betting on an epidemic of madness and crime — prostitution, drugs, gambling, scams, banditry, gangs.

And then we will have our first images of the camps, the famine, the mass migrations, and the epidemics of disease they will spread. The West and South Korea will feel overwhelming pressure to solve grave humanitarian crises have been neglected for decades. (China will find ways to take advantage of this). Southern carpetbagging, much of it exploitive, will generate resentment and impede economic reconstruction.

New cults will spring up to supplant the vacuum left by the old Cult. The climate will be right for the rapid spread of fanatical religious and political movements that promise hope through a combination of social cohesion and some sort of “afterlife,” either secular or spiritual. Of all of the likely alternatives, I see Christianity as being the most socially beneficial.

In the longer term — 20-50 years — North Korea will start to emerge from its despair and regenerate, based primarily on the determination and intelligence of its people, but also on the technological advancement and capital of the South. Peoples who survive hard times have a tendency to produce a higher-than-average number of extraordinary individuals, and it’s extraordinary individuals in business, science, and government who organize nations into great economies and world powers.

It will be interesting to see how close that prediction comes 5-10 years from now.

One final note, KCJ: play on the level with us here. You can’t simultaneously boost your cred with cryptic references to your occupation without actually opening that topic up for discussion and questions about the basis of your knowledge. If it’s a big secret, then I’d prefer you just didn’t refer to it. If it’s not a big secret, then share what you can and claim your cred honestly.

This is a National Geographic documentary about an opthamology surgeoun allowed in to nKorea to perform optical surgery for nKorean patience. This is part 7 when the patients have the eye patch bandages removed. The documentary crew are astonished to see all thanks, praise and worship immediately given to Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il as this video demonstrates.

Warning: this video is bizarre and very disturbing.

“”The cult of personality campaign is more extensive today than in 1985,” says former South Korean foreign minister Han Sung Joo, who visited Pyongyang this past October, and in 1985. “Unlike the Stalin and Mao personality cults, there is a deification and a religious emotional element in the North. The twinned photos of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are everywhere. Every speech says Kim Il Sung is still alive. I think if I stayed another two weeks, I might even see Kim Il Sung. The country worships someone who is deceased, as if he is alive.”

Kim Jong Il has upgraded his deification strategies to strengthen the family cult system. Western reports often detail Korea’s unique “juche ideology” – a theology of Kim worship, repeated hourly and daily, reminding Koreans they are insolubly bound to the Kim family and must erase foreign influence from their minds.”

Full article here