By It is good to see planning for the eventuality continuing to take place, but I don’t know if a provincial government in exile is really the best way of going about this:
Seoul wants the provisional governments of five North Korean provinces and a related committee to join annual South Korea-U.S. joint exercises. They are to take part in a drill to practice stabilizing the North and transferring power to a civilian administration after a hypothetical North Korean invasion has been successfully defeated and the North overrun.
Once power is transferred to a civilian administration, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security and the provisional governments will take charge of replacing North Korean government agencies.
“The plans for operations to stabilize North Korea in the wake of a full-scale war or a sudden change in the North are taking more concrete shape,” a government source said Sunday. “As part of the plans it wants the committee for the five northern Korean provinces and other agencies to join the Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise.” The next drill takes place this August. [Chosun Ilbo]
My concerns with a provincial government is that I think very few people within North Korea would look at the government as being legitimate since these government figures will have lived for many years if not decades outside of the country. I really think that creating the perception that the North Koreans are not being subjugated by the South after any possible regime collapse is important. r
I still think it would be better to reestablish the local governments after regime collapse using local leaders within North Korea and then augment them with trained North Korean defectors to assist them. Over time these North Korean defectors could gain creditability with their North Korean peers this way and then eventually hold political offices. In the short term the regime elite within North Korea will not feel that Kim Jong-il is their only option to maintain their current level of influence and that they have a say in post-unification North Korea.
For example the mayor of a North Korean city would probably not be too happy to see the Kim regime replaced if he knows that he is going to be disposed by some North Korean defector that hasn’t been in the country for 20 years and he is relegated to working some menial labor job because of his prior connection to the Worker’s Party. Now if this same person knows that he will continue to be the mayor and can expect help and resources unlike anything he has had before to rebuild his city than maybe his thinking will be different, but maybe I am wrong.
What does everyone else think is provincial government in exile the way to go?
She hasn’t seen...
7:42 pm on May 17th, 2011 1
I agree. We tried the whole government in exile thing with Korea (Rhee Syngman) and Iraq (Ahmed Chalabi). The result was putting Japanese collaborators in charge of one and creating an insurgency of unemployed Baathists in the other – complete opposites. You’ve got this issue of all your guys with technical knowledge of the infrastructure that is there and what makes the human terrain function that HAD to absolutely be loyal to the party to get anywhere. In Eastern Europe, a lot of your former elites that are still current elites who had the revolutions were communist party members because you HAD to be a member of the party. Also, in Japan, you had the “reverse course” which put back in a lot of the old power elite. There’s a tradeoff between the technical know-how of the old regime and keeping the country functioning versus firing the old regime and installing democracy on terms in the interest of the nations doing the stabilities operations. Anyway, in North Korea’s case there is too much anti-foreign indoctrination for non-Korean stability operations to be successful in the short term. South Korea’s focus should be on keeping guys with the technical know-how to get essential services restored and training a civil defense force that prevents retribution killings and maintains internal peace while the political process is being built up. So basically, the priority should be restoring infrastructure and making sure people aren’t killing each other while sorting out their political differences. The US needs to get the hell out of North Korea after the counterattack and provide logistical and technical support and advisors for the stability operations. The first US soldiers going into the North, if requested, should be Korean American so the North Koreans can slowly absorb the initial shock. Ethnicity and Nationality are a MAJOR ISSUE in this scenario because of how the internal propaganda has been set up. I’m also for maintaining security on who passes through the border, North and South Koreans should have passes and screenings by the local governments on both sides to cross over, as agreed upon by both sides.
The main thing I worry about in this scenario is China creating and supporting a sattelite party that messes with the internal political processes in a way that hurts the post-war peninsuala.
1:24 am on May 18th, 2011 2
I agree, a government in exile is NOT the way to go. The big problem will be educating the north Korean populace in general on how the world really works. They’re all living in the 1960′s and 70′s mostly and bringing them up to speed will be a real problem for whoever takes over.
3:40 am on May 18th, 2011 3
Get the economy rolling so North Korans can eat super-sized fast food and buy noisy, flashy crap while supplied with constant lowest-denominator entertainment…
…and 90% of the problems will be solved.
…and I’m not joking.
4:32 am on May 18th, 2011 4
Provisional provincial governments are not a good idea. The provincial leaders will have to be people known and respected by the North Korean public. The whole thing has to be done in a way that doesn’t leave the North Koreans thinking they’ve been conquered by outsiders. They must not be humiliated.
It must also be done in a way that doesn’t look to China like a threat. That’s hard, because China’s idea of a threat may be different from ours, or different from South Korea’s.
Tom, how should the Republic of Korea deal with a collapse of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea?
2:42 pm on May 19th, 2011 5
Doesn’t anyone expect retribution/bloodbath after a government collapse in the north?