|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
A lesson in so-called forever war is deep background for this week’s celebration of the seven-decade-long U.S.-South Korea bilateral alliance.As U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol meet in Washington their nations have cause to celebrate. Ranking economies by GDP, the U.S. (population 330 million) is No. 1 and South Korea (52 million) is No. 12 (possibly 10).
But behind the photo-ops aides are discussing North Korea’s nuclear threats and communist China’s regional and global threats.
Difficult fact: The Korean War remains unfinished business. When media claim Afghanistan was America’s longest war, they ignore the frozen war on the Korean peninsula and the American troops still there, pulling guard duty.
The July 27, 1953, Korean Armistice Agreement established a ceasefire. Seventy years later there is no peace treaty.
Around 2.6 million human beings died during the war’s most intense combat (June 1950-July 1953). One million South Korean civilians died (estimated). North Korea lost a million soldiers and civilians. The U.S. military lost 37,000 killed in action.
In November 1950, the Chinese Communist Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) invaded North Korea and attacked American units. By July 1953 the PLA had suffered an estimated 600,000 dead.
So, here’s a fact relevant to 2023 and the Biden-Yoon meeting: At its height the Korean War was a war between the U.S. and communist China.
The PLA withdrew after the armistice. The U.S., however, didn’t cut and run. The war didn’t end. North Korea, backed by communist China and Russia, waged “gray zone war” — terror, firefights and infiltration in 1990s Pyongyang added threats of nuclear war.
We’ve a relic Cold War stand-off. Behind North Korea is an imperialist and expansionist communist China. The U.S. still stands with South Korea.
Celebration aside, is the U.S.-South Korea alliance secure?
Media report Biden wants to emphasize America’s commitment to deterring North Korean nuclear attack.
That’s good, but belated and, to my mind, another example of Biden attempting to avoid responsibility for making the world a more dangerous place than it was in January 2021. The Biden administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal disaster damaged America’s reputation for reliability, strength and leadership in crisis. Globally deterrence took a hit.
In February I wrote a column discussing the possibility of South Korea and Japan acquiring nukes. They have the technology.
When Russia invaded Crimea in 2014 it violated an agreement guaranteeing Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. In 1994 Ukraine had the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal. Ukraine traded its nuclear weapons for mutual security guarantees.
In January of this year, after North Korean drones penetrated South Korean territory, Yoon said South Korea may deploy tactical nuclear weapons “or possess its own nuclear capabilities” if North Korean threats intensify.
I am certain the Afghanistan debacle told Russia’s Vladimir Putin that Biden’s weak, feckless leadership meant he could launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine and suffer no serious consequences.
Remember, Biden urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to flee. That’s a fact. Zelenskyy didn’t cut and run. Ukrainians fought and are still fighting.
Deterrence in eastern Europe definitely failed on Biden’s watch.
South Korea needs U.S. support. The U.S. needs allies and South Korea is a first-class ally with a world class economy, superb military forces and rock stars (K-pop rules Asia). South Korea is also a nation in arms. Its citizens are prepared to fight. Invaders will face organized, well-trained and supplied popular resistance forces. (I rate Finland, Israel and now Ukraine as other proven nations-in-arms.)
South Korea offers a lot to a larger coalition or alliance. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue is an unofficial coalition of Japan, Australia, America and India. All four regard China as a “disruptive actor” (Japan’s phrase) in the Indo-Pacific.
In March 2020, South Korea attended the first “Quad Plus” meeting, as did diplomats from New Zealand and Vietnam.
Very promising, but no matter the diplomatic arrangement, South Korea’s first defense priority is eliminating North Korea’s nukes.
As long as there is someone else’s wealth to steal communism will never end. For the common good of coarse.
It’s very unlikely that the people trapped in oppressive murderous tyranny of Joun Un know about the right and righteous British philosopher, John Locke.
For this philosopher ideas do apply to terribly oppressed people of North Korea . For Mr. Locke taught that any good government has the duty to ensure the security and safety of its citizens. Yet when a tyranny is the people in the tyrannical government do have every natural and ethical right to overthrow that terrible and oppressive tyranny/ government. This is their nature right .
The Communist regime of North Korea, which is heinously evil enough, but It’s also a dictatorship that is also a personality cult which has the people mind programmed to fanatically revere it’s tyrant Kin Jong -Un . The people trapped and forced to exist under the burden of this brutal, cruel, oppressive and murderous tyranny have been thoroughly brainwashed to love Kim Jong -Un with a unquestioning, blind, devoted love that an extremely fanatical pagan might love by a pagan for a pagan god. The people refer to him as “Our Great leader” and “Our Dear leader.”
Likewise, they ,very much ,praise him and even bow down to his image. This mind control of the people is hideous, sad and tragic. This wicked tyrannical mind control may be answered by the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson who had declared “I have sworn upon the alter of God eternal hostility against all every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
Furthermore, the people of is national Kim Jong –Un/ Marxist cult and allowed no outside sources of information and all this regime “school’s”‘ are propaganda and indoctrination centers . This last point is a reminder the Thomas Jefferson had a good and valid idea when he had written “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppression of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
“South Korea Knows The Korean War Isn’t Over.” It is very good that South Korea knows this fact. Here are four things that South Korea must do to prevent & survive a North Korean attack. 1) Enact strong laws that prohibit giving aid and comfort to the enemy or producing unrest in order to create seditious acts directed against the nation. Tyrants and communist dictators mainly use these techniques to undermine an adversary over a long period of time. Colleges & universities are quite often hotbeds of sympathy for this activity.. 2) Stay vigilant. Constant aggressive vigilance over domestic and external threats to nationnal security. Take immediate actions to eliminate any threats. 3) Develop a robust persistent propaganda campaign directed against North Korea’s regime that undermines the support of the populace for the regime. 4) Maintain a strong defense that shows the enemy the cost that he will endure if South Korea’s sovereignty & security are threatened.