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Prospect of a Second Korean War

Omar Alansari-Kreger

The scenario you had described exposes intricate technicalities based on what
we already know about Korea and the demilitarized zone to date. Since the end of the
Korean War, geo-political policies that are drawn between North and South Korea
revolve around tactics of military mobilization. One fact that hasnt changed about the
North Koreans derives almost entirely from the sheer strength of numbers they have at
their immediate disposal. The primary advantage that has worked in favor of North
Korean interests over the decades has always been and will continue to be the
maintenance of quantitatively superior forces on the ground level. Despite the resilience
of that particular strength there are also standing weaknesses within the North Korean
military orbit; since the proclamation of the Peoples Republic, the North Koreans have
always managed to secure one tactical advantage while letting another fade only to
virtually decompose in the process.
It is no secret, the North Korean military is equipped by technologies that are
quite dated since the bulk of its fighting force was armed and proliferated during the
Cold War. A slight series of modifications doesnt stand as a qualitative comeback and
such revisions are often confined to elite mobilizations within the North Korean Military
Command. The million dollar question to address specifically concerns the tolerable
costs of war. In other words, once the demilitarized zone goes hot will the Republic of
Korea, combined together with its American Allies, be able to hold off millions of North
Korean conscripts spilling over the border at one simultaneous moment? It is no secret
that the bulwark of South Koreas defense against a belligerent North rests almost
entirely on the shoulders of the United States; that indication obviously alludes to the
fact that American lives will be at stake. In addition to what is already known about
North Koreas conventional military capabilities a great deal of emphasis must be
directed toward its unconventional angles as well.
On that note there have been reports of North Korean invasion tunnels
elaborately dug underneath the demilitarized zone and the fact that Seoul is within
North Korean artillery range depicts just how catastrophic the situation can be especially
when millions of civilian lives are threatened. It would be rather facile for the North
Koreans to amass such an effort of constructing those tunnel systems since they are
almost entirely off the grid far from the prying lenses of spy satellites. We both know that
North Korea is essentially a giant gulag state that has the ability to mobilize its entire
population as a standing force for slave labor. It has done so before and it must be
assumed that the regime will continue to exercise the same tactics to date; I speculate
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that it would be virtually impossible for the North Korean state to exist without it. If there
is ever a Second Korean War, ideological fanaticism will be the most potent weapon of
the North just as it was in the last war.
If North Korea combined with its Chinese comrades have managed to survive
this long it is almost certain that the essence of both feats have been achieved through
utter fanaticism of unprecedented proportions. Since Chinas crash course with
capitalism the spirit of Maoist camaraderie isnt exactly what it once was during 1950s
and as a result the Chinese of the twenty-first century may treat North Korea as a
greater liability to its long term geo-political interests. The rouge ferocity of North Korea
puts that nation in a position where it will refuse hegemony of any kind. Similar to the
Japanese, the Koreans continue to maintain a thread of distrust when dealing with the
Chinese which is why hegemony from China will be viewed in the same way as if it were
from the United States.