Ancient Chinese general’s strategies should guide U.S. in dealing with N. Korea

From an interview I did earlier this week.  Always good to think about Sun Tzu.

V/R

Dave

Ancient Chinese general’s strategies should guide U.S. in dealing with N. Korea

By Lou Kilzer 

http://triblive.com/usworld/nation/3809650-74/north-south-korean#axzz2PsqtGzIU

Published: Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 12:01 a.m.
Updated 4 hours ago 

Five centuries before Christ, Sun Tzu wrote “The Art of War,” which teaches enduring principles of combat:

Position troops so the enemy must face the sun. If an enemy leaves a door open, rush through. If outnumbered, retreat.

The book by the ancient Chinese general and military strategist is well-known among those in the military and in the business world. Its underlying theme was the axiom, “All warfare is based on deception.”

It is through this lens that Americans and others must view the situation with young North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. For if he has not yet had time to digest Sun Tzu, his generals certainly have, experts say.

A wise general who wanted to attack wouldn't announce it beforehand. He wouldn't pound war drums for weeks, giving an enemy time to reinforce already superior forces. He definitely wouldn't say he intended to incinerate several American cities and then move missiles into firing position in broad daylight.

Even launching a medium-range missile out to sea — which North Korea may do Wednesday — or at any time — is not really intended to ignite a war, experts told the Tribune-Review.

This is a bluff, said David Maxwell, associate director of the Center for Security Studies at George Washington University.

“The North Koreans read Sun Tzu,” said Maxwell, a retired Special Forces colonel who served five tours in South Korea. “I don't think they want to go to war at all. This is not how you go to war.”

Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii, agreed. The North Koreans, he said, “do not want to go to war.”

But Maxwell, Roy and other experts interviewed by the Tribune-Review over the recent course of rising North Korean stakes each separately used the exact same word — “miscalculation” — to describe deep concerns about what could happen.

“This situation is the most serious since the Korean War in the 1950s,” said Ellen Kim, a Korean scholar with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

DOUBLE THE DANGER

The danger, Kim and the other experts say, is two-fold. First, the North's rhetoric this time is so bizarre that to do nothing after such a build-up would involve a loss of face. Likewise, Kim Jong-un may launch a missile to sea to save face, Kim said.

Losing face is one of the most dreaded things for a Korean or others in East Asia. In the Koreas, the concept is known as Kibun. There is no literal English translation, but it means to disrupt the balanced harmony in a relationship by hurting someone's pride or causing them to lose dignity.

South Korea's new leader, Park Geun-hye, “has made it clear that she will respond,” Kim said. Maxwell, Roy and Kim agree that opinion has changed in South Korea since 2010, when the North killed 50 South Koreans by sinking the naval ship Cheonan and firing shells at the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong.

The second danger is that in the past, South Koreans responded to threats from the North with nonchalance that often surprised people in the West. Not anymore, said Kim, who was raised in the South. “They killed Koreans.”

“If the North launches a kinetic operation (against the South), the South Korean military is going to respond,” Maxwell agreed.

The key, he said, is that the reaction be strong, swift and “at the point of provocation.” If it is delayed or non-proportional, it could produce a dreaded miscalculation.

Chinese leaders have soaked up Sun Tzu since grade school. Nowhere in “The Art of War” does it say a great power (China) should let a minor one (North Korea) determine the timing or place of a conflict with a deadly enemy regardless of any agreement.

Unlike the past, China has remained mostly quiet as the United States and its friends beef up forces in the region. The carrier USS John C. Stennis is paying a visit to the newly welcoming port of Singapore. B-2 stealth bombers made practice bomb runs during a visit to South Korea as part of annual war games with its ally that the North has blamed for its rancor. The most advanced fighter jets in the world, F-22s, are landing in the South.

(Continued at the link below)

http://triblive.com/usworld/nation/3809650-74/north-south-korean#axzz2PsqtGzIU