Finding America's Role in a Collapsed North Korean State

Summary

---

North Korea has been a U.S. adversary responsible for the deaths of thousands of American service members over the past 55 years, and it is the only country in the world that holds a commissioned U.S. naval vessel hostage.1 It also possesses stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, has an advanced ballistic missile program, and recently detonated a nuclear weapon. In his view, it will not be a single event, but rather a process with seven identifiable phases: * Depletion of resources. * Failure to maintain infrastructure around the country due to resource depletion. * Rise of independent fiefs informally controlled by local party apparatchiks or warlords, along with widespread corruption to circumvent a failing central government. * Attempted suppression of these fiefs by the regime once it feels that they have become too powerful. * Active resistance against the central government. * Fracture of the regime. * Formation of a new national leadership.10 Kaplan argues that North Korea reached phase four in the mid-1990s but was prevented from reaching phase five-insurrection-by the international food assistance, which effectively stopped the famine by 1998.\n The ROK military must stockpile rations, medicine, blankets, clothing, and other humanitarian relief supplies and be ready to deliver them instantly in the event of regime collapse.

See the full content of this document

Extract

---

Finding America's Role in a Collapsed North Korean State

IRAQI DICTATOR SADDAM HUSSEIN was an irritant to the United States and defied the international community over bis weapons programs for a decade, causing some U.S. leaders to push for removing him and transforming Iraq into a democratic state. Unfortunately, few of those leaders thought seriously about how to accomplish the second half of their aim; thus, we are going on our fifth year in Iraq with no end in sight. One lesson we should learn from this mistake is that we must plan now for stability operations in countries where the risk of regime collapse is greatest.

North Korea has been a U.S. adversary responsible for the deaths of thousands of American service members over the past 55 years, and it is the only country in the world that holds a commissioned U.S. naval vessel hostage.1 It also possesses stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, has an advanced ballistic missile program, and recently detonated a nuclear weapon. The nations within range of its medium-range missiles include 3 of the world's top 11 economies; combined, the 3 nations contain one-fourth of the world's population2 and are responsible for nearly one-fifth of the world's trade volume.3 Today, North Korea faces the very real threats of internal collapse or forced regime change. Either event would create one of the greatest humanitarian crises of modern...

See the full content of this document

---