Friday Food for Thought #4

Rise and Fall of Civilizations
Month 5, Week 1, Episode #4

You know, sometimes I think the world can't possibly get crazier than some of the fiction I've read over the years... and then a geopolitical crisis happens.  Honestly, it stuns me that in the modern world of the internet, cable tv, satellite killing missiles, and so forth that there are places in the world that remain so undeniably backward that it boggles the mind.  Among those places, is of course... the Degenerate Place Reserved for Kims, aka the Democratic People's Republic of Korea aka North Korea.

It is a nation based on a cult of personality around a single family: The Kims.  In many ways, the DPRK acts like an old fashioned asian style fiefdom with it's classes of warriors, serfs, and own noble family.  The internal economy is based not one any currency in truth but in the trade of food.  In some ways I'm reminded of feudal japan during the samurai era with it's system of forts and fields.

The escalating crisis on the Korean Peninsula is only the latest in a prolonged history of confrontation, escalation, and tensions.  Ultimately, the nation of North Korea can not continue to exist as it has, as either a combination of famine, international sanctions, or internal revolution are likely to topple the regime at some point.  The question then becomes, whether we can wait the 20, 30, 40, or 50 plus years that may take.

Additionally, you must remember that the isolation, propaganda, and culture that have developed in North Korea is one that is likely to heavily support the regime's stability event as the gap between the two Koreas grows wider by the year.  The generals and staff officers believe in their nation's own propaganda, inflating their capabilities, and fueling an honest belief by the North Korean command, that they can beat the combined forces of the United States and South Korea.

Which is a delusional belief, even if North Korea somehow managed to produce 10 missiles capable of reaching the west coast carrying 10 kiloton bombs, the combination of antiballistic missile defenses and North Korean likely technical failures would mean that we'd be relatively safe.  It's not possible for North Korea to produce a world ending salvo of nuclear missiles like the old soviet union.

I live in Fremont, Nebraska... around a 45 minute drive from Offutt AFB, which is the closest strategic target worth using a nuclear device against.  It's also outside the range of highest estimates of a North Korean ICBM.  While I'd be plenty safe at home, I do have a friend that works at Offutt, who might be in trouble if a bomb did fall there.  I don't see this possibly happening by North Korean hands.

Now, admittedly... the situation is not nearly as clean and neat if the North Koreans decided to wage a conventional war on the South, a much more likely scenario.  The North Korean military has something on the order of 1.1 million active soldiers, and the entire country is part of the reserves.  They possess around 3,000 tanks, thousands of infantry fighting vehicles, artillery pieces, hundreds of military aircraft, and the single largest submarine force on the globe.

Yes, they have more submarines then we do (Only a handful more at most, and all of them are diesel powered). There would no doubt be a very bloody conflict over there, but North Korea does not have sufficient fuel reserves to do much beyond driving into Seol and demanding South Korea surrender.

If they use nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons... well, our policy with that has been pretty clear since the first Gulf War. If you use WMD on us, we will turn your country into a parking lot.

As a writer, I look at this and come to the conclusion, that no matter how crazy I make the villains, the real world remains crazier.

All national cultures seem to have three stages of evolution, and North Korea has already entered the last stage.  Those stages are:

1.) Barbarism - Nations like the United States, Russian Federation, and Iran are good examples of nations that are at this stage. Despite it's name, barbarism is best described as a willingness to use force in international relations, and to view most any threat to it's sovereignty as an existential threat, often times resulting in preemptive force.

2.) Civilization - Often the shortest existential state for a national culture or identity, civilized nations are those that balance their approach.  Most nations that have a period they consider a 'golden period' or 'golden age' have already passed this stage.

3.) Decadence - The point at which nations tend to focus more on looking back at 'ages gone by' or have developed a leadership culture based on self enrichment rather than acting for the good of a country.  Eventually nations which have fallen into decadence will collapse and renew themselves with an age of barbarism.  The poster child for this stage is France, which has been in a decadent period since the napoleonic wars, it's most recent period of barbarism being the French Revolution, and it's most recent period of 'civilization' being during the reign of Napoleon.

This sort of information is great for a writer of fantasy and science fiction. In many ways Isaac Asimov's Foundation series is based on this idea of a cycle of history.  Unfortunately the collapse of a nation is always a painful and often times a rather bloody event.  Hopefully we can avoid a bloody convulsive last gasp war with North Korea.