AT: North Korea Aggression

AT: North Korea Aggression

(June 23, 2009 “Dealing With the New Japan: Washington Wont’ Take “No” for Answer”. http://conservablogs.com/bandow/?p=1701)

It's the same strategy that Washington should adopt elsewhere around the globe. The Marine Expeditionary Force stationed on Okinawa is primarily intended to back up America's commitment to South Korea. Yet the South has some 40 times the GDP of North Korea. Seoul should take over responsibility for its own defense. Even more so the Europeans, who possess more than ten times Russia's GDP. If they don't feel at risk, there's no reason for an American defense guarantee. If they do feel at risk, there's no reason for them not to do more--a lot more.
North Korea wouldn’t Use a nuclear weapon, to many complications

Quester, Professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland, 2005 (George Quester, Professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland, Spring 2005, Naval War College Review, If the Nuclear Taboo gets broken, https://portal.nwc.navy.mil/press/Naval%20War%20College%20Review/2005/Article%20by%20Quester%20Spring%202005.pdf)

Yet on the more positive note, the history of successful nuclear deterrence suggests that nations have indeed been in awe of nuclear weapons, have been deterred by the prospect of their use, even while they were intent on deterring their adversaries as well. Would the nations that have been so successfully deterred (sinceNagasaki) fromusing nuclear weapons not then be stopped in their tracks once deterrence had failed, once the anticipated horror of the nuclear destruction of even a single city had been realized?2 Another of the more probable scenarios has been a use of such weapons by North Korea, a state perhaps not quite as “undeterrable” as the suicidal pilots of 11 September 2001 but given to rational calculations that are often very difficult to sort out. This use could come in the form of a North Korean nuclear attack against Japan, South Korea, or even the United States.3 The nearest targets for a North Korean nuclearweaponwould be South Korea and Japan, but therewould be many complications should Pyongyang use such weapons against either.

Moreover, the North’s one-time military allies, Russia and China, both recognized Seoul as the cold war concluded. The ROK now does more business with Beijing than with America. The likelihood of either Moscow or Beijing backing North Korea in any new war is somewhere between infinitesimal and zero. The rest of East Asia would unreservedly stand behind South Korea.

VAN SUSTEREN: Is any risk they're going to turn it towards Seoul? I mean, there's -- I mean, it -- I mean, it's not that far away. And if they're really so unwilling and irrational, why do we think they're rational and won't hit Seoul?

BOLTON: Well, I think, fundamentally, they recognize that if they were to attack South Korea, particularly if they were to use chemical or biological weapons, the retaliation would be unbelievable. Secretary Colin Powell, when he was a civilian, after he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, used to say to people that if North Korea ever attacked the south with chemical or biological weapons, that we would turn North Korea into a charcoal briquette. And I think even they understand that.

AT: North Korea-South Korea War

Sunhyuk Kim (an associate professor in the Department of Public Administration at Korea University) and Wonhyuk Lim (a fellow at the Korea Development Institute and a nonresident fel­low at the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washing­ton, D.C.) 2007: How to Deal with South Korea. http://www.twq.com/07spring/docs/07spring_kim-lim.pdf

Most importantly, the anti-Communist, that is, anti–North Korean, pro­paganda that maintained a sense of emergency and repressed pro-democracy movements during the Park and Chun authoritarian regimes no longer proves persuasive. Meanwhile, the withering of the North weakens the argument that South Korea needs to maintain positive relations with a strong patron such as the United States to deter an aggressive North. Finally, the horrific images of undernourished children during the North Korean famine of the late 1990s have had a significant impact on the South Korean psyche, undermining the traditional image of North Korea as a belligerent neighbor ready to attack South Korea at any moment.

At the same time, economic and social ties between the North and South are growing stronger. Since the historic summit between then-President Kim Dae-jung and Chairman Kim Jong-il in June 2000, there have been a series of successful collaborative projects between the South and the North. Railroads are being connected, and an increasing number of South Koreans are visiting North Korean tourist attractions. In 2005 alone, nearly 300,000 South Korean tourists visited Mt. Kumgang, which that year turned a profit for the first time. At the Kaesong Industrial Complex, just north of the de­militarized zone, South Korean companies employ more than 10,000 North Korean workers to make clothes, shoes, and many other products for the countries’ mutual benefit. It would be an exaggeration, however, to claim that South Korea no longer regards North Korea as a threat. Although they see North Korea as a needy neighbor, South Koreans do not dispute that it is also a potential troublemaker that can wreak havoc on the Korean peninsula and around the globe.

Doug Bandow, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute, 3/26/10 “South Korea Needs Better Defense” Forbes, http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11628

Kim Yong Hun, Reporter, 6-02-10, “Consistent Strength is Key, Say Experts”, http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk00400&num=6449

In political circles the notion of it being a choice between war and peace is being promoted by pro-North Korea and left-wing forces with the Democratic Party at their center, leading the office of the President to reiterate, "We do not want war," and the ruling Grand National Party to add, "Even though tensions are rising, there is no possibility of a full frontal clash between North and South Korea."Some domestic and foreign media are also publishing concerns about the possibility of war and hypothetical war scenarios. Indeed, the South Korean government has backtracked on one of its countermeasures already; to restart psychological warfare activities like loudspeaker broadcasts and the distribution of leaflets. North Korea strongly rejected this, stating a readiness to attack any such activities, and for this reason the Ministry of National Defense postponed the resumption of leafleting. They appear to be trying to avoid a worst case scenario. Yet, while the “Northerly Wind” and war crisis claims spread and spread, experts of all hues agree that war is highly unlikely. In order to back this assertion, experts mostly point to the nature of the Kim Jong Il dictatorial government, the existing deterrent against North Korean attack, primarily delivered through the ROK-US military alliance North Korea’s relationship with China, which seeks stability in the region, and the domestic condition of North Korea itself. Hwang Jang Yop, the president of Committee for Democratization of North Korea and a former secretary of the ruling Chosun Workers’ Party, has said on innumerable occasions things like, "Maintaining the system is the most important thing to Kim Jong Il. He would never do anything like start a war or reform the economy, things which could destroy the system."Kim Hee Sang, chairman of the Korea Institute for National Security Affairs and a former Ministry of National Defense aide has said, "Kim Jong Il is a cowardly dictator who values his own life above everything else, so he will unite the country via building tensions instead of via a full-scale war which would destroy the system." Kim Yeon Soo, a professor at Korea National Defense University, agrees with these sentiments. "Kim Jong Il’s strategy for South Korea does not include war,” Kim says. “Escalation, which will bring a deadly crisis, is wanted by neither North nor South Korea, and, especially to maintain Kim Jong Il’s system, a war cannot be risked. They are just threatening by pretending to be tough."