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Walking the Line an International Team of Investigators Studied the Wreckage of the Cheonan and Concluded That

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Walking the Line an International Team of Investigators Studied the Wreckage of the Cheonan and Concluded That 1 Walking the line An international team of investigators studied the wreckage of the Cheonan and concluded that the corvette had been blown out of the water by By Dr. John Bruni a North Korean torpedo, inferring an attack by a North Korean submarine. n the 26th RI0DUFKLQWKHµ<HDU Predictably, Pyongyang stridently denied any RIWKH7LJHU¶WKH 6RXWK.RUHDQVKLS wrongdoing. O ROKS Cheonan exploded, tearing the corvette apart and spilling all 104 sailors into the Nonetheless, in most parts of the world such an icy Yellow Sea. Forty-six sailors died, making it overt attack would be considered an act of war, the worst South Korean (RoK ± South Korea) but considering that no one wants a war on the loss of military personnel since the Korean War Korean peninsula, Seoul and Washington have (1950-53). been careful not to unduly inflame the political rhetoric. Yes, there has been mention of some The Cheonan had been patrolling waters form of retribution against the North, but considering that much of the North Korean military is on a hair-trigger alert and that the FRXQWU\¶V OHDGHUV ZKHQ FRUQHUHG DOZD\V EULQJ RXW WKH µPXWXDOO\ DVVXUHG GHVWUXFWLRQ¶ 0$' card, it is good diplomacy to let some things pass in the hope that tensions settle and people can get back to business. surrounding the contested Baengnyeong Island, However, when examining the Cheonan Incident DSODFHNQRZQWREHVHQVLWLYHWR1RUWK.RUHD¶V RQH FDQ¶W KHOS EXW WKLQN WKDW D GUDPD RI '35.¶V± WKH'HPRFUDWLF3HRSOH¶V5HSXEOLFRI Shakespearean proportion is heading our way Korea) marine resources. Initially, there was courtesy of the capricious North Korean speculation in the South Korean and supreme leader Kim Jong-Il and his coterie of international media that the explosion was equally mercurial advisors and supporters. But caused by a deliberate act of North Korean before we speculate where all this might be aggression, or perhaps a misplaced North heading, we need to pause and examine a little Korean sea mine. bit of history. 2010 © 2 The Korean War, a ghastly exercise in Soviet, x North Korean ± over 200,000 dead, over American anG &KLQHVH µUHDOSROLWLN¶ WRRN SODFH 300,000 wounded, and approximately in the early part of the Cold War and lasted three 120,000 Missing-In-Action terrible years. (MIA)/Prisoners of War (POW) The war was a brutal regional conflict that, like x South Korean ± over 130,000 dead, over that later and more widely celebrated conflict, 400,000 wounded, and approximately the Vietnam War, threatened to turn Asia into 32,000 MIA/POW the vortex of a global nuclear war between the then superpowers, the United States and the x Chinese ± over 300,000 dead, over Soviet Union. 350,000 wounded and approximately 21,000 MIA/POW Self-preservation of Soviet and American interests allowed both these major players to x UN Coalition ± over 40,000 dead, over limit the scope of the Korean War to the Korean 99,000 wounded and approximately peninsula, and, in spite of the military 17,000 MIA/POW intervention of Chinese forces on the side of the North Koreans in October 1950, the Truman With some 2.5 million civilians having been administration did not allow itself to be NLOOHG RQ ERWK VLGHV RI WKH LQIDPRXV µth provoked into pushing the war into China ± a 3DUDOOHO¶ WKH WHFKQLFDO ERUGHU EHWZHHQ 1RUWK move that might very well have invited the and South Korea before the outbreak of USSR to intervene to save their then Chinese hostilities), what was then loosely termed a allies and ideological fellow-travellers. µOLPLWHG ZDU¶ E\ &ROG :DU VWUDWHJLVWV ZDV LQ DFWXDOIDFWDQDVW\YLROHQWµIUHHIRUDOO¶$IUHH By the time the war ended in July 1953, North for all that ended in a stalemate. Korea had been pummelled into the ground; its industries razed; its farm land burnt and violated Interestingly, the war ended in an armistice (and by unexploded bombs, mines and artillery shells. DSDUW IURP D µ%DVLF $JUHHPHQW¶ HQGLQJ A succession of North Korean and Chinese hostilities between the DPRK and the RoK in assaults during the war also heavily damaged the 1991), there was no peace-treaty between North South, its capital Seoul and its surrounding Korea and the United States. This meant that countryside. Overall, the military casualty figure communist North Korean leaders sitting in their estimates for this war reads as follows: capital Pyongyang had to find a way to defend 2010 © 3 their regime from the possibility of South As post-war North Korea rebuilt itself by Korean/US subterfuge and even invasion. applying a localised model of a communist During the Cold War, this was not difficult. The µFRPPDQG HFRQRP\¶ WRSSHG XS E\ 6RYLHW DQG Kremlin was happy to lend a hand in support of Chinese aid grants, it eventually grew into a Kim Il-Sung, and his son and successor, Kim prickly ally for Moscow and Beijing. The notion Jong-Il. This support provided Moscow a useful that North Korea would independently launch strategic pawn with which to intimidate another war of unification against the South was Washington, or so the logic went. speculated freely among Western observers, and those in the corridors of power in Moscow and From 1953-91 Soviet economic, technical and Beijing. military assistance proved vital in keeping the North Korean leadership in place. Chinese Suspicions of unrestrained DPRK hostility were support also helped Pyongyang a great deal. The confirmed a number of times during the Cold &KLQHVH SROLF\ RI µVWUDWHJLF DPELJXLW\¶ LH War. There were the attempted assassinations of holding out the vague possibility of again South Korean presidents by North Korean intervening to save North Korea should the agents/sympathizers; the 1983 Rangoon (Burma) South Koreans and or the US start a war on the bombing by DPRK agents which killed 21 peninsula (why this might be so was never fully people, including 4 visiting RoK cabinet explained), kept a strategic tension on both sides ministers; the 1987 bombing of South Korean of the 38th Parallel which remains to this day. flight KAL 858 which resulted in the killing of 115 people; a spate of naval clashes along the North Korea was for all intents and purposes an poorly demarcated maritime border and not to economic and social basket case. Furthermore, mention the North Korean Army penetrations of LWV DJJUHVVLYH EXW KLJKO\ FDOFXODWHG µOLPLWHG the demilitarized zone (DMZ). All these offHQVLYH¶ SRVWXUH DQG LWV LQYHVWPHQW LQ DQ incidents seemed to underscore the maleficence autarkic (self-sustaining and independent) of North Korea and its leadership. However, military infrastructure, together with a during the Cold War, when push came to shove, militarized society, meant that over time, North Moscow could always rein in the North Koreans Korea developed a capacity to threaten South by threatening to pull the plug on its aid. Post- Korean and US forces stationed in the South 1991, this threat no longer applies. without recourse to external allies. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and aid shipments to Pyongyang ended, the North 2010 © 4 Korean leadership used its last real trump card, &KLQD¶V VXFFHVVIXO HFRQRP\ &RQVHTXHQWO\ µIXOO-VFDOH¶ EHOOLJHUHQFH WR EODFNPDLO China wants stability between the Koreas. neighbouring South Korea and the US into During the 1990s when the DPRK experienced economic concessions. massive crop failure and famine, North Korean UHIXJHHV VWUHDPHG LQWR &KLQD FDXVLQJ &KLQD¶V By threatening full-scale war every time the first major refugee crisis. Should the DPRK RoK, Japan and or the US curtail DPRK implode as a consequence of war or catastrophic interests, international attention is focussed on internal upheaval, the likelihood of tens of how to de-escalate the crisis. The prospects of thousands of North Koreans fleeing to China war are far too traumatic to contemplate. cannot be discounted. During the 1990s, North Korea cannibalized the The North Korean leadership on the other hand, remainder of its economy to build-up its while fighting to survive in isolation from the underground fortifications adjacent to the DMZ, international community, seeks to exploit any create a small nuclear arsenal (October 2006) perceived weakness in the US position in Korea; and increase its stocks of artillery and ballistic WKH 86 SRVLWLRQLQ-DSDQ-DSDQ¶V LQFDSDFLW\ WR missiles. This, together with the proximity of the more aggressively assert its interests in Asia, and 1 million-strong North Korean Army along the &KLQD¶VIHDURIDUHQHZHG.RUHDQUHIXJHHFULVLV DMZ (which is only 34 kilometres from the South Korean capital at its closest point) is For Pyongyang, now is the perfect time to make considered a credible threat to the survival of the a move. RoK, as well as to Japanese and American strategic interests in northeast Asia. American forces are bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan. The poor shape of the American As for China, it is no longer a reliable or even and global economies are forcing countries to desirable ally for the DPRK because now there reassess government spending, including are more things that divide Beijing from spending on their militaries. As austerity Pyongyang. For instance, China, while a measures begin to bite around the world, growing international player, is not interested in Pyongyang might conclude that ramping up overthrowing the established global balance of pressure on the peninsula will net it strategic and power. It might want to change aspects of it to perhaps even economic gains. After all, North accommodate Chinese interests, but destroying it Korea is not part of the global economy and outright would destroy the very foundations of needs to poach what it can by the threat of force 2010 © 5 alone. This is a stark fact. Presently North Korea global ramifications.
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