There is No Shock and Awe Preemption When It Comes to North Korea

Regarding the possibility of a preemptive U.S. attack on North Korea, my question to anyone advocating such a course of action is -- Why do you think China won't intervene, as it did in 1950, to prop up its ally?

That question is taken up by Oriana Skylar Mastro, a warfare-state academic at Georgetown U., in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs. The title of the article, "Why China Won’t Rescue North Korea: What to Expect If Things Fall Apart," is misleading in that it conjures up images of the Chinese standing back and watching while the Kim regime is bombed into submission by U.S.-South Korean shock and awe.

The conservative professor's article is actually down to earth and reasonable, but not sanguine when it comes to U.S. options. China might not be wedded to the survival of the Kims, but it has been planning for and is ready to secure the nation's nuclear arsenal. A better title of the article would have been: "China Will Not Rescue Kim Jong-un, But It Will Invade North Korea and Secure the Country's Nuclear Arsenal and Territorial Integrity If Things Fall Apart."

That's a sobering message for American Exceptionalists and neoconservatives. Basically it tells us case closed. There is no shock and awe preemption when it comes to North Korea.

Hence David Sanger's article published Sunday, "A Tillerson Slip Offers a Peek Into Secret Planning on North Korea," outlining the Trump administration's pitiful attempts to blunt the impact of professor Mastro's article by having Tillerson claim that the U.S. also has plans to secure North Korea's nuclear devices. Sanger notes that

But the reference to planning for North Korean collapse, while not drawing wide notice, caught the attention of those who have been drawing up military plans for a number of possible scenarios, including American pre-emptive strikes. Asked whether Mr. Tillerson had referred by mistake to entreaties to the Chinese that previous administrations kept secret, Steven Goldstein, the new under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, said it was quite deliberate.

“The secretary reiterated the position he has taken in meetings with Chinese counterparts,” he said. “He would like the U.S. and Chinese military leaders to develop a plan for the safe disposition of North Korea’s nuclear weapons were the regime to collapse.” He added: “While the secretary has never advocated for regime change, we all have an obligation to be prepared for any scenario.”

There is no indication that the Chinese have responded, or that military officials have met — though Beijing would almost certainly keep that secret if it occurred.

According to current and former American officials, the contingency plans to seize North Korea’s nuclear arsenal have grown in complexity in recent years, largely because the North Korean arsenal has grown.

There are competing estimates among American intelligence agencies over how many weapons the North possesses. Most estimates range from 15 to 30 nuclear devices, but the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is responsible for protecting American troops on the Korean Peninsula, projected this year that the number could be in excess of 50.

The North is presumed to have undertaken an elaborate effort to hide the weapons. The result, one senior military official said recently, is that even if dozens of weapons were seized and deactivated, there would be no way to determine whether many more were still hidden away, perhaps under the control of surviving members of Mr. Kim’s military.

In the secret American rehearsals of how to execute a seizure of the North’s weapons — more of which are planned for the first half of next year, officials say — speed is of the essence.

Finding those weapons, landing “render safe” teams to disarm them and airlifting them out of the country would be a difficult enough task in peacetime. But the American planning assumes a three-way scramble to seize both weapons and territory, involving Chinese troops who may find themselves facing off against the United States and its South Korean allies.

“Washington should assume that any Korean conflict involving large-scale U.S. military operations will trigger a significant Chinese military intervention,” Oriana Skylar Mastro, a professor of security studies at Georgetown University, wrote this month in the journal Foreign Affairs, in a provocative article titled “Why China Won’t Rescue North Korea.”

China, she wrote, “will likely attempt to seize control of key terrain, including North Korea’s nuclear sites,” most of which are within 60 miles or so of the Chinese border. Because of geographic advantage, they would probably arrive long before American forces.

In the past, American planning was based on an assumption that China would come to the aid of North Korea, as it did during the Korean War nearly seven decades ago. But Ms. Mastro, who also advises the United States Pacific Command, wrote that today “the Chinese military assume that it would be opposing, not supporting, North Korean troops.”

Her analysis mirrors what is increasingly becoming the dominant thinking among American military planners. That has made the secret discussion that Mr. Tillerson alluded to all the more vital. Curiously, some Chinese academics have begun writing about the need for the United States and China to prepare a joint strategy. Such public airing of the issue would have been banned in Chinese publications even a few years ago.

In other words, the prevailing military-academic opinion is that regime change in North Korea will likely expand Chinese power, as regime change in Iraq has expanded Iranian power.

Nonetheless the Trump administration continues to goad North Korea into some sort of reaction that can be used to justify a U.S. attack. (See Sanger's latest, "U.S. Accuses North Korea of Mounting WannaCry Cyberattack.) Warfare appears to be the only foreign policy of the United States.