The final phase of the Korean war draws near.

The recent attacks from North Korea on South Korea seem designed to show its own military leaders that the son of Kim Il-sung has what it takes to succeed him and lead their country.

North Korea is really a military dictatorship. The military of North Korea is the all important to the Kim dynasty. Those in the military are taken care of first even if it means the rest of the nation starves. That might explain why North Korea has to keep up the tensions with South Korea. It helps them justify the huge military class that keeps the nation suppressed under tyranny.

The North Koreans have a formidable military although most of their equipment is cold war era and would not match up against the weapons of the South Koreans and its allies. Therefore, if there is any war the South Koreans and its allies would defeat and take over the North but the damage to the Seoul  area of 25 million people would be devastating since Seoul is in range of the world’s largest artillery force. Seoul is the reason why North Korea gets away with bullying the South. The destruction of much of Seoul is really not an acceptable loss to South Koreans.

It seems the strategy of North Korea is to consistently threaten war with the hope that this threat will lead to them obtaining material concessions for peace. They have been pretty good at using their nuclear program to sucker the United States into giving them aid. There are different views on whether they could actually weaponize any nukes at this point, but the nuclear program continues to develop.

The North Koreans have been pushing South Korea to the brink lately with the sinking of a ship and the shelling of an Island. At some point this could lead to a measured military response against North Korea. After that happens who knows what North Korea will do? It could quickly become an all out war.

I have said in my 2010-2020 worlds trends forecast that North Korea will not survive the decade, I don’t think I have this wrong. I think the leaders are delusional and they will make a fatal mistake. They take appeasement and inaction to their provocations as a sign of weakness. But, any nation will only take so much. Then when they get whacked in return, they will overreact with their delusions of grandeur and start a war.

Some of the top leaders in N. Korea are not rational beings. They probably look at war games that are fixed so that they always win. So, they might actually believe they could win a war. But, North Korea is isolated nobody in the world would help support North Korea if they started a war. On the other hand, South Korea would have American and Japanese support among others. So the outcome is obvious although it will be a bloody and expensive war.

I do not known when this war will happen but since North Korea seems incapable of making peace I think the final phase of the Korean war draws near.

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10 thoughts on “The final phase of the Korean war draws near.

  1. If North Korea starts the war they mainly will scream about all the refugees coming across their border. China is not going to risk losing their main outlets for their exports over North Korea.

  2. Don I too share your belief that China would probably stay out of a conflict on the Korean Peninsula..provided it stays there and does not move across the border. Who knows though? I mean they did intervene in the first conflict, but their economy was not directly tied into the USA at the time. Do you think a war with NK would help our economic situation or hurt it? Thanks again.

  3. China no longer needs the US. Much of our former consumption has been replaced by their own and other countries’ consumption. China is the only reason we have not eliminated NK’s nukes. NK gets about 80% of their food/supplies from China as it is. I personally don’t think there will be any war there, but if there is, you can bet China will support NK with either troops or weapons or both. They will not stay neutral.

    Any conflict/war with NK will hurt the United States much more than it will hurt China.

  4. Steve, I totally disagree with Frank

    China exports to the United States STILL exceed their imports by over 200 billion dollars a year. It would not just be the United States either. The Korean war is a UN action and if goes hot again it would be the world against North Korea. Japan and South Korea and Europe are also main buyers of Chinese products. China has a long way to go before its people can consume what they manufacture. First, they will have to pay their people a decent wage to buy the products, but instead they keep their currency and wages so low that over half of the nation is still living in poverty just like in the 50’s. I wish Frank would provide links to experts that support his views that China has replaced their exports with their own consumption. It simply is wrong. Chinese consumption is actually going down it was only about 35 percent of the Chinese economy last year.

    There is an unsustainable rate of manufacturing and economic expansion in China today, if they now lost their main markets the Chinese economy would collapse and civil war would be likely.The Chinese leaders are already scared of any slow down and that is why they keep their currency so low.

    A war with North Korea would temporary simulate weapons building and employment but it would also accelerate debt problems. The real burden would be on South Korea. It would lead to their debt default and that could lead to an alliance with China (believe it or not). I think by 2030 China will be the head of a South East Asia fascist union.

    China only supports North Korea because they do not want a U.S. ally on their borders. They know the Kim dynasty is bad news, but for them the total collapse of North Korea into ciaos is almost as bad news as a South Korean takeover. Nevertheless, the collapse of North Korea is just about inevitable. The conditions are so bad that North Korea needs these tensions to keep the army and the people diverted from the real problem. It won’t be long before the aging North Korea army will need rubber-bands and glue to keep their equipment together (if they only could find some rubber and plastic).

    China would only get involved if the UN and the US were stupid enough to encourage the Chinese to occupy North Korea. With Obama in charge, I guess anything is possible.

  5. My original post said, “Much of our former consumption has been replaced by their own and other countries’ consumption.” Note the, “other countries.”

    In short, we cannot survive economically without China. But China can survive without the United States. ?

  6. Yeah, but most of the other main importers are not going to be buying Chinese goods either if they aided North Korea in any Korean war 2.0. Japan and South Korea are two of the other main importers of Chinese goods.

    I think America would actually be better off without importing from China. We need to rebuild our own manufacturing. But, meanwhile there is plenty of spare manufacturing capacity in the world to buy from. If you are suggesting the Chinese could wreck the dollar by dumping the $800 billion they hold how come the Fed thinks it can dump $2.5 trillion and not destroy the dollar? The real danger to America is not China supporting N. Korea.

  7. You might find this WikiLeak on North Korea and China interesting.

    In highly sensitive discussions in February this year, the-then South Korean vice-foreign minister, Chun Yung-woo, told a US ambassador, Kathleen Stephens, that younger generation Chinese Communist party leaders no longer regarded North Korea as a useful or reliable ally and would not risk renewed armed conflict on the peninsula, according to a secret cable to Washington.

    Chun, who has since been appointed national security adviser to South Korea’s president, said North Korea had already collapsed economically.

    Political collapse would ensue once Kim Jong-il died, despite the dictator’s efforts to obtain Chinese help and to secure the succession for his son, Kim Jong-un.

    “Citing private conversations during previous sessions of the six-party talks , Chun claimed [the two high-level officials] believed Korea should be unified under ROK [South Korea] control,” Stephens reported.

    “The two officials, Chun said, were ready to ‘face the new reality’ that the DPRK [North Korea] now had little value to China as a buffer state – a view that, since North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006, had reportedly gained traction among senior PRC [People’s Republic of China] leaders. Chun argued that in the event of a North Korean collapse, China would clearly ‘not welcome’ any US military presence north of the DMZ [demilitarised zone]. Again citing his conversations with [the officials], Chun said the PRC would be comfortable with a reunified Korea controlled by Seoul and anchored to the US in a ‘benign alliance’ – as long as Korea was not hostile towards China. Tremendous trade and labour-export opportunities for Chinese companies, Chun said, would also help ‘salve’ PRC concerns about … a reunified Korea.

    “Chun dismissed the prospect of a possible PRC military intervention in the event of a DPRK collapse, noting that China’s strategic economic interests now lie with the United States, Japan and South Korea – not North Korea.”

    There is more good stuff in the full article.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/29/wikileaks-cables-china-reunified-korea

  8. China will fight for North Korea but will make a separate peace agreement giving it parts of North Korean territory and the removal of American forces from the peninsula and possible Japan as well.

  9. Nah, China does not want the headache of even the refuges coming from North Korea, yet be burdened with administrating a starving people in North Korea. They would rather see South Korea unite the peninsula and foot the expense themselves as long as China can be the boss man in the area and America is out.

    Japan calls its own shots. With all the plutonium that Japan has from its nuclear reactors and from France and with its space program technology Japan could become a major nuclear power almost overnight if they lost confidence in the US. The Japaneses would be much more than China can handle and aging advanced countries like Japan can be dangerous because they will develop new weapons of mass destruction technology to make up for their declining number and to keep their way of life..

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