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Category: Reconstruction

February 2, 2010

Rand: South Korea Still a Military Parasite

Years ago, I quoted extensively from a Rand report on then-President Roh Moo Hyun’s plans to cut the ROK military budget and settle into a cozy military and economic parasitism on the country Roh’s supporters loved to hate. But now that Roh is a fading bad memory, the alliance stands on firm ground again, right? Wrong: The ROK has become one of the wealthiest countries in the world, with a strong economy. Yet despite this economic strength, the ROK still...

Categories An Alliance?/Reconstruction/ROK Military
October 14, 2009

Interview with Kim Young-il, Executive Director of PSCORE

People for Successful COrean REunification (PSCORE; 성공ì ì¸ 통일을 만들어가는 사람들, aka 성통만사) is a small NGO that works on “democratization, human rights and social issues. [They] hope to bridge the gap between South Korea, North Korea and the international community.” They mostly aim their programs, such as essay contests, a one-on-one tutoring program, a summer English camp, and cultural outings, at students, but they’ve held at least one seminar for the public at large (last Spring). Mark your calendars...

Categories Defectors/Democracy/Human Rights/Reconstruction
September 30, 2009

Must Read: North Korea Contingency Planning and U.S.-ROK Cooperation

Although it seems to have genetic origins in plenty of other things I’ve read by Lankov, Noland, etc., combining and updating some already excellent works only makes the Asia Society’s / U.S.-Korea Institute’s final product even better. I’ll quote the executive summary and let you read the rest on your own: – Current internal dynamics in North Korea suggest a growing need for international cooperation on contingency planning, led by policy coordination between South Korea and the United States. –...

Categories Reconstruction/Regime Change
September 10, 2009

Open Radio: China Prepares N. Korea Occupation Force

Open Radio, one of the broadcasting services that edits the reports of North Koreans and broadcasts them back into their homeland, claims that the force is being composed from ethnic Koreans in China: According to the source, Shenyang and Jangchoon districts have special force with a size of a brigade. There is also a force composed only of Korean-Chinese, while the size of this force has not been confirmed. These forces were created in order to respond to any sudden...

Categories China & Korea/Reconstruction
August 27, 2009

Preventing Another “Three Kingdoms” Era

In The National Interest, Michael Green, the NSC’s primary Asia advisor during President Bush’s first term outlines a series of scary stages that he thinks are approaching rapidly as Kim Jong Il withers away and North Korea dies with him. The lines of fracture in such an opaque regime are extremely difficult to predict, of course, but most of Green’s analysis makes sense to me. First, Green says the current regime can’t be stabilized in the long term, and that...

Categories Kremlinology/Reconstruction/Regime Change
July 14, 2009

Suzanne Scholte: A War Crimes Tribunal for North Korea

With the mounting evidence that Kim Jong Il won’t burden this world for long, the civilized world faces the prospect of inheriting jurisdiction over people who’ve done some pretty awful things: On a recent trip to Seoul, a North Korean mother told me she and her 14-year-old daughter fled North Korea but were separated in China. The mother waited in China to reunite with her daughter only to discover that Chinese security agents had forced the girl back to North...

Categories Human Rights/Reconstruction
July 3, 2009

After the Collapse

Michael O’Hanlon of Brookings, who (imho) did his best work on Iraq, refocuses on what happens after Kim Jong Il goes off to meet Saddam. Unlike me, O’Hanlon thinks a major U.S. troop presence in North Korea is inevitable. I think it’s just about the last thing we need: The notion that the United States could somehow outsource most of this DPRK stabilization mission to its South Korean ally falls apart the minute one begins to consider the immediate stakes...

Categories Reconstruction
February 16, 2009

20% of Arriving N. Korean Refugees Need Psychological Treatment

It’s because of statistics like these that no one should underestimate the difficulty of Korean reunification: The most common ailments among North Korean refugees are dental disease followed by tuberculosis, according to Hanawon, the government-run institution for North Korean refugees. [….] Some 20 percent of inmates also need psychological treatment after leaving the institution, Hanawon said. Many also still owe money to brokers who arranged their defection to the South and experience discrimination. Here’s this week’s “we are one” moment:...

Categories Reconstruction/Refugees
January 24, 2009

A Smaller Army, in More Ways Than One

Chronic food shortages will considerably reduce North Korea’s pool of military recruits in the coming years, with nearly a quarter of young adults unfit for service due to malnutrition-related mental disabilities, a U.S. intelligence report said. [Yonhap] Malnutrition may also be taking an intellectual toll on North Koreans: The famine of the 1990s has caused severe cognitive deficiencies among young North Koreans, said the report by the National Intelligence Council that used studies from several U.S. intelligence agencies. I doubt...

Categories NK Military/Reconstruction
November 18, 2008

Who Needs a Contingency Plan? Everyone Near North Korea

The most persuasive evidence I’ve yet seen that there is a real danger of instability in North Korea comes from the people who probably have the best intelligence about events in Pyongyang: The Chinese military has boosted troop numbers along the border with North Korea since September amid mounting concerns about the health of Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, according to US officials. Beijing has declined to discuss contingency plans with Washington, but the US officials said the Peoples’...

Categories Reconstruction/Regime Change
March 31, 2008

LiNK: Project Real Sunshine

[Update:  LiNK reports that they’ve extended the deadline to sign up for Project Real Sunshine through April 7th.]   [Correction:   A reader points out that I’ve confused two LiNK projects, “Project  Real Sunshine” and  the “Chollima Leadership Program.”  My apologies.  The Chollima  Leadership Program  is  actually the  one I  described in the post below; Project True Sunshine is an advocacy project,  which I should have remembered.  Fortunately, Andy Jackson didn’t get confused and put up a perfectly fine post.]...

Categories Activism/Reconstruction/Refugees/Regime Change
February 19, 2008

S. Korea’s Next Unification Minister Denounced as “Collapsist” and “Neocon”

The left-wing Hankyoreh is predictably disgruntled about the new Unification Minister: Nam [Joo Hong] is your typical member of the “school of collapse. He has consistently claimed that there are signs that a sudden situation could arise in the North, saying that it has problems in five major areas, including food, energy and succession. Immediately after the February 13 agreement was made, he said that the crisis management ability of the leadership in Pyongyang was reaching a breaking point. Naturally...

Categories An Alliance?/Korean Politics/Reconstruction/Regime Change
February 4, 2008

U.S., ROK Forces Will Draw up Contingency Plans for N. Korea Unrest

It’s about time: The Defense Ministry is planning to create a joint plan with the United States to cope with possible internal unrest in North Korea after the Lee Myung-bak administration comes into office.   According to military sources, the ministry reported last month a US-Korea joint plan to the transition committee in preparation for possible contingencies in North Korea from March to the end of this year. [….]   “The current administration was too conscious of North Korea to...

Categories An Alliance?/Reconstruction/Uncategorized
January 8, 2008

MUST READ: ‘Finding America’s Role in a Collapsed North Korean State’

[Update:   Is this an invitation to Munich?  China promises to  “cooperate” with the West, but admits that it might move into North Korea to “restore order,” and for strictly humanitarian reasons, of course.  We all know what humanitarians rule the People’s Republic of China.] Not a moment too soon, as the Red hordes mass to  reclaim the Outer  Koguryo Autonomous  Zone, there is a much-needed advancement of the discussion of the future former North Korea.  It comes  from  U.S....

Categories China & Korea/Reconstruction
March 7, 2007

Andrei Lankov on Triggering a North Korean Revolution

Update:   Here.  It’s a must-read. You have to see this one (via The Marmot).  In a logical  follow-on to “The Natural Death of North Korean Stalinism,” Professor Andrei Lankov offers practical suggestions for exploiting and  accelerating  a trend he identified previously — the  political decline of the Kim Dynasty.  I’ve previously  called Dr. Lankov arguably the  Western world’s only genuine North Korea expert; he’s one of those rare people  you can listen to for hours in rapt attention without  even...

Categories Deprogramming/Reconstruction
February 26, 2007

The Death of an Alliance, Part 65: Beyond Dependency, Toward Reunification

[Update:   In the course of a whiney tirade about how America “betrayed” South Korea, Kim Dae Joong also calls for a national conversation about South Korea becoming more self-sufficient in its own defense.  I’d suggest to Mr. Kim that it’s a wee bit early to declare South Korea fully abandoned by America while we still have 29,000 of our people there.  Kim also  admits that the (elected) South Korean government got the deal it wanted, and in light of...

Categories An Alliance?/Reconstruction/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
February 5, 2007

We Are (Not) One

When I reported to Korea for my first tour there, I recall walking around Yongsan with another Army officer looking at all the Korean civilians and wondering how many were North Korean  sleeper agents.  Hey, even paranoid people have enemies.   I remember that officer saying, “I don’t claim to be able to tell North Koreans from South Koreans.”  I laughed, but that was before I actually met any people I knew to be North Koreans.  My views have since...

Categories Korean Society/Reconstruction