In the wake of all the rumors about Kim Jong-il’s health, Japan has decided to up date their contingency planning for the Korean peninsula:
After a five-year hiatus, the Japanese government is reviewing its crisis management plans in preparation for contingencies on the Korean Peninsula, which include evacuating Japanese from South Korea and accommodating refugees from North Korea, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported Sunday.
“To prepare for contingencies in North Korea in the wake of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s ill health, Japan plans to re-examine the process of evacuating the Japanese (from South Korea) and an emergency alert system,” the daily said. “Due to the difficulty of sending Self-Defense Forces to Korea, the Japanese government has worked out a plan to use Japanese civilian aircraft and rely on the U.S. military for the evacuation of the rest.” [Chosun Ilbo]
I find it interesting that the Japanese government is relying partly on the US military to evacuate their citizens. According to the article there are up to 100,000 Japanese that would need to be evacuated from Korea. Personalliy I think the US military would have a hard time evacuating all of its own citizens from the peninsula if hostilities were to break out much less thousands of Japanese citizens.
What I am most curious about is what is Japan’s role if North Korea should collapse?
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2:41 am on September 23rd, 2008 1
The Japanese may prefer the US to ‘help’ evacuate thier citizens to sending thier own forces. (By help, I mean pay).
If the Japanese SDF went to S.Korea in event of a conflict with the DPRK, it may just be possible that the DPRK and ROK forces might band together and fight Japan!
3:08 am on September 23rd, 2008 2
With about 70% of foreign businesses leaving or planning to leave Korea, this doesn’t surprise me. And yes, I know the differences.
8:36 am on September 23rd, 2008 3
As to the Japanese, they have the same problems that the US had at the start of the DPRK invasion of the South in March 1950. MacArthur only had authority at the start to the coast of Korea. Thus the air evacuation of the civilians by air were unprotected until they reached the east coast of Korea. The US had to wait for approval from the JCS before it could cross the border. There was NO Mutual Defense Treaty until 1953 and the US was stymied. Likewise in today’s world, the Japanese have no Mutual Defense Treaty with the ROK (because of its Peace Constitution) and can’t cross into Korean territory. In effect, they can’t come and rescue their folks.
You know I’m wondering whether the US has some realistic plans for evacuating its own folks before it considers helping the Japanese. The last NEO trip from Pusan to Takeshima (I think), hit a whale. But I don’t believe this is realistic for those folks up North. If war was imminent, the roads will be clogged and getting the Seoul folks (where the majority of US citizens are) to Pusan will be a damn near possibility.
About five years ago they did a test with a US Navy ship into Ansan that seemed to have gone off well. At the time, they said it was a test for NEO evacuation. Haven’t heard anything more. Even if they used Pyeongtaek Harbor, it would be better than planning to get to Japan via Pusan.
The bottomline question — if the US can’t help get its own citizens out of Dodge in an emergency, how can it be expected to help the Japanese?
8:38 am on September 23rd, 2008 4
“…will be a damn near possibility.”
Meant to say, “…will be a damn near impossibility.”
2:09 pm on September 23rd, 2008 5
I would imagine that major NEO plans are in place to evacuate American Citizens and their dependents when the time comes, but with the best laid plans, they turn to sh#t when the first shot is fired.
As I have “Gamed” this scenario time and again…I see the choke points, lack of advanced warning, lack of helo-support (forget the roads unless we are willing to literally push civilians aside, but then again, Koreans will all of the sudden become very Pro-American when the hordes are inbound and demand that we take them with us
), and accountability of cats & dogs (civilians/dependents), as being some of the major obstacles.
Now throw in attacks at key evacuation centers/points (airfields/ports) and you have one major Goat F#@k.
The best option IMHO is to have a plan, a backup plan, an Aw-Sh@t plan, and lastly “Its every man for himself plan (commonly refered to as an E & E plan).
2:25 pm on September 23rd, 2008 6
On another note, it is not uncommon for other nations to request that a cerain country help evacuate their citizens. I think the latest event was Lebanon, where the Marines & Navy pulled out U.S. citizens & others on a case by case basis.
What I have noticed is that piss ant nations, who in normal times are very Anti-American, will suddenly come crawling to the U.S. DoS begging for the cost-free evacuation of their citizens (the Philippines comes to mind, among others), then/if it happens, there will barely be a Thank you, before they are back to their old ways. This practice should be aborted immediately and advanced notice given of the same.
If you cannot be a good friend in peacetime, then do not even think we will be your friend in the time of war!
Since Japan has had a long free ride from the U.S. military, there is no doubt that they would still try & coast on this relationship in order to get their citizens out of Korea…I’m sure politics would be played, i.e. bases, etc.
Still, it would be an interesting operation to be involved in when/if the balloon goes up.
Just the kind of guy I am.
8:03 am on September 25th, 2008 7
This is why the Bush Doctrine is the only realistic doctrine - at the first sign of a possible N. Korean incursion, blow the regime up. People like to condemn our invasion in Iraq, but they rarely feel like owning up to what a 2008 Saddam/Uday/Qusay regime would like like (are you listening, Obama supporters?).
The only we we successfully NEO our people let alone third country nationals is for there to be no long range missiles raining down on Seoul and no N Korean SOF blasting holes in our rear operations. The only way to prevent either scenario is to create conditions for the collapse of the regime from within and then rapidly invade by beach landing, parachute insertion, highway domination and surgical strikes against the NKorean AF and C2 nodes.
Its a bleak scenario, but the alternatives are a lot of dead civilians, some of them dependents of US DoD employees.
12:54 pm on September 25th, 2008 8
MSG Crusty:
I would start by completly occupying the Chinese/N. korean Border with a two prong sea attack by the Marines and parachute/air mobile assault of the inland airfields by Army until we had completly sealed in the N. koreans, plus that little spit of land connecting Russia w/N. korea.
Then it would just be a matter of bombing the Hell out of them, followed by a well-coordinated ground campaign, followed by mop up operations. The goal would be to totally annihilate the N. korean militart & government since they are so brainwashed they would be beyond salvaging.
I would give S. Korea a dealine to have taken over the North, when we would be pulling out.
1:40 am on September 26th, 2008 9
Brother Calm Seas:
We won’t be the main effort in a regime change mission in North Korea - the ROK military will. If it happens tonight, we have C2 over the whole thing. But the ROKs have to make it happen.
We cannot determine a timeline for disengagement - as we have learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the shrill screeds of leftist politicians wailing “bring them home!” A certain presidential candidate keeps repeating that we can “end this war” by “pulling our troops out”. I don’t know what planet he is living on but I was in the Korean War museum on Tuesday and the tour guide was explaining each exhibit. We got the one that commemorates the 1950 invasion of the North Korean People’s Army and she explained that “the withdrawal of American Forces from South Korea was the precipitating event that led to the PKA invasion.”
Instructive.
7:54 am on September 26th, 2008 10
MSG Crusty@9
“We won’t be the main effort in a regime change mission in North Korea - the ROK military will. If it happens tonight, we have C2 over the whole thing. But the ROKs have to make it happen.”
Back in 2005, Oplan 5030 was the one where the US would affect regime change and then hand it over to the ROK, but that plan was supposedly “shelved” because of the heat it drew. I guess things have changed in the USFK since 2005. The folks on the DMZ used to say they were going to saddle up and head north if the North was stupid enough to try to invade the South. Now I guess the USFK is going defensive and falling back…interesting.
OFF TOPIC: If the guide at the museum had explained how an “Occupation force” could remain in a “liberated nation” — not a “defeated nation” like Japan and Germany — then that would be instructive.
South Koreans use history any way they want. They piss and moan that the Occupation Force was there in the first place — then piss and moan that the Occupation Force left.
12:31 pm on November 12th, 2008 11
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