Sydney analyzes the just released CNAS report on roles and missions by the their active duty military fellows.  I think it is worth reading and debating.  I have one comment to offer on Sydney's analysis and "competition" (Sydney's word) between the Army, Marine Corps, and SOF in Phase Zero operations.  Excerpt:

So-called Phase Zero Operations, in which US troops train foreign forces, conduct exercises with them, and even quietly help them secure their countries. Historically, Special Operations Forces did the small-scale, low-profile, long-term work in the shadows, while the four services occasionally showed up for big high-profile exercises. But after 9/11, the “Big Army” andMarine Corps both had to build up Afghan and Iraqi forces, expertise they don’t want to lose. Now now they are to some extent competing (my word, not the authors’) with each other and with SOCOM for Phase 0 business around the world, especially in the high-profile Pacific. “The Department of Defense needs to provide the services guidance on their primary mission responsibilities in Phase 0 operations,” the four officer write, “instead of letting the services make their own decision about the force size and mix required.”

What is really required is simply to use the right forces for the right missions.  The Army, Marine Corps, and SOF are different forces with different capabilities (and as an old boss used to say "jointness does not equal sameness" - our joint force is better by having the right mix of different capabilities rather than trying to make the organizations that make up the joint force the same or do the same things, but I digress).  While DOD does need to provide service guidance what is really necessary to prevent "competition" (which of course is not always bad but in this case might lead to redundancy vice efficiency among capabilities) is a comprehensive strategy with supporting campaign plans that will determine the right mix of capabilities and forces to support the strategy.  i think the DOD guidance will end up being focused on force structure and budget with "competition" to employ their capabilities in support of the geographic combatant commands in order to justify their force structure and share of the resource pie.  In effect there is a lot of push, but is there a real pull from the combatant commands and the chiefs of mission for these capabilities?  Again more fundamentally, are we developing a comprehensive national strategy and regional campaign plans and country team mission strategic plans that will call for and then orchestrate the right service capabilities to accomplish the required ends of the strategy?

V/R

Dave

SecDef Should Crack Whip On Cyber, Drones, & Training Foreigners

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. on January 24, 2014 at 4:39 PM

http://breakingdefense.com/2014/01/secdef-should-crack-whip-on-cyber-drones-training-foreigners/

A Croatian soldier and a Minnesota National Guardsman train together for Afghanistan.

Yesterday, four mid-grade military officers — one from each armed service – made a remarkable public recommendation to their boss, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel: It’s time to force the four services back into clearly demarcated “lanes” and reduce overlap between them as budgets shrink and competition escalates. They focused on three high-priority areas:

1. Cybersecurity, the one area of the budget that’s actually growing. As a result, all four services are training “cyber warriors” and creating “cyber” units — but with no clear guidance from the Defense Department on which service should specialize in what, so everyone is doing a bit of everything. “The services risk building similar capabilities in different ways to conduct the same mission,” the co-authors write, “[with] significant duplication and overlap.” Their (tentative) solution: take away some of the services’ authority to “train, equip, and organize” cybersecurity personnel and give it to the interservice Cyber Command. That step would raise CYBERCOM to a status currently enjoyed only by Special Operations Command (SOCOM), halfway to being a full-scale independent service.
2. Drones, aka “unmanned aircraft systems” (UAS). “Currently,” they write, “the four services are developing 15 separate UAS platforms of varying weights, speeds and altitudes” (see exhibits 1, 2, 3, and 4), as well as “42 separate UAS payload development programs… [and] 13 ground control stations.” While they stop short of a specific recommendation here, the co-authors do note regretfully  that the current UAS Task Force lacks “authority over the services for programmatic consolidation or termination.” (Hint, hint?) They also speak approvingly of the much-derided 1947 Key West agreement, which among other things defined what kind of (manned) aircraft each service could fly.

(Continued at the link below)

http://breakingdefense.com/2014/01/secdef-should-crack-whip-on-cyber-drones-training-foreigners/

Google Looks to Ballooned Future for Internet (for north Korea)

Good for Eric Schmidt.  Have to like the name of the project.  Perhaps a well chosen one with a double meaning.

But on a serious note this is the kind of creative thinking for influence operations we need.  I wonder if the north will use its SA-2s to try to shoot down these balloons?

V/R

Dave

Google Looks to Ballooned Future for Internet

http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?num=11415&cataId=nk03600

Kim Bang Hyun, Editor, Bait [student magazine]  |  2014-01-23 19:11

Google recently revealed a new project that could pose a threat to the regime of Kim Jong Eun. “Project Loon” [http://www.google.com/loon/] uses superpressured helium balloons to provide networked wireless Internet services to inaccessible areas. Last summer Google tested the project in New Zealand, but says that some of the primary beneficiaries could be citizens of closed countries, a category that includes North Korea.

The balloons float 20km up in the stratosphere, where they move with the wind to form a network transmitting a signal that people on the surface can pick up via a special antenna. The balloons are self-contained: high enough not to be damaged by daily weather phenomena or aviation, they run on solar power, and each can survive for 100+ days due to their rugged construction.

If the project were to have a decisive effect on the people of North Korea, Google would thus be remembered as one of the leading protagonists in bringing and end to the Kim dynasty. Of course, there is no evidence whatsoever that this is their intention. Rather, Google pursues radical innovations for their own sake, and takes large, future-orientated gambles; changing the world is a byproduct.

Ironically, one of many things that already make Kim Jong Eun rather uncomfortable is the flying of leaflets into the North suspended beneath far more primitive balloons. The far-reaching power of these anti-regime leaflets should not be underplayed, and nor should their cost:effect ratio. As such, the North Korean regime reacts sensitively to the launching of such leaflets, and cites them as one cause of worsening North-South relations.

However, they are limited in the sense that is hard for them to physically reach people in interior regions of the country, including Pyongyang.

What if Project Loon were to transmit similar content? This would resolve the distance issue at a stroke. The people of North Korea could be receiving many, many leaflets, always unseen. And if the North were to shoot down the balloons, would the problem disappear? The internet-beaming solar-powered balloons are cheap to produce, whereas the cost of shooting them down one by one would be huge. As a result, the regime would be rendered helpless in the face of web-based leaflets raining down upon its head.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt visited North Korea in January 2013, whereupon he criticized the restrictions placed on the Internet in the country. The North Korean side appeared to ignore him. We know not whether Google had North Korea in mind as it pushed forward with its balloon project thereafter. Either way, the power elite in Pyongyang is evidently at pains to disaffirm the value of innovation, and does not recognize the signs of change coming right under their own noses.

* This Guest Column is an abridged version of one that appeared in Korean on January 23rd. Opinions expressed in Guest Columns are not necessarily those of Daily NK.

From Die Welt.  This is of course based on Turse's recent article on USSOCOM. However, although it repeats some of Turse's sensationalism (or alarmism as the author puts it) it has a little better balance.  Note the British military analyst Rogers' discussion of remote control warfare. We should note that I believe USSOCOM is no longer using the phrase "Global SOF Network."  I thought James Woolsey's dragon and snake analogy is interesting (and somewhat ironic give the historical moniker of snake eaters).  Although the phrase it takes a network to defeat a network has entered the world of buzz phrase bingo I think Pavel makes an important statement about what the majority of SOF is doing in the world:

That much is confirmed by Barry Pavel, vice president of the Atlantic Council think tank who served on the National Security Council (NSC) for both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. "It takes a network to fight a network," he told DW, adding that most of what SOCCOM does involves cooperating with foreign governments, rather than direct military action. "The largest proportion of USSOCOM is the engagement function - either training, or helping them to get a better sense of how to deal with their own internal threats."

But they do not get to the heart of a key issue until the conclusion where Pavel says:

Pavel agrees that there is a case to be had for a legitimate debate, but also warns about the possible repercussions. "To the extent you make it transparent you actually reduce their effectiveness to a degree. It depends on what you're talking about in terms of transparency."

V/R
Dave 

MILITARY

US expands reach of clandestine Special Ops

http://www.dw.de/us-expands-reach-of-clandestine-special-ops/a-17379164

The US military is expanding secretive Special Forces at an ever faster rate. Few know the exact reach of these Special Ops, but there are thought to be 11,000 officers on active missions in 80 countries at any one time.

The US is taking over the world - but not with mass armies and awe-inspiring firepower, but by stealth, with undercover teams of highly-trained, heavily-armed soldiers in night-vision goggles. Sometimes these Special Operations, like the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011 or last year's abduction of a suspected al Qaeda chief in Libya, become major news events, or the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary, but few people realize the actual extent of "Special Ops" around the world. Reporter Nick Turse of the website TomDispatch.com has written several articles trying to establish how extensive the use of Special Forces is - his guess is that around 11,000 officers are active in 80 countries at any one time.

Occasionally, Turse's pronouncements sound a little alarmist. "The ambitiousness of the creeping decision to bring every inch of the planet under the watchful eyes of US military commanders should take anyone's breath away," he writes. "It's the sort of thing that once might only have been imaginable in movies where some truly malign and evil force planned to 'conquer the world' and dominate Planet Earth for an eternity."

McRaven has presided over a massive expansion of Special Forces

But the massive recent expansion of US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) - the integrated military command established in 1987 in the wake of the Iran hostage crisis - is undisputed. Since 2001, USSOCOM's personnel count has grown from 33,000 to well over 63,000 in 2012, and is set to increase further to above 70,000 by 2015. "To put that in perspective, by that time the entire British army will be under 90,000," said Paul Rogers, military analyst at the UK-based Oxford Research Group.

Special Ops - the future of the military

This is part of the vision of USSOCOM chief Admiral William McRaven, who last year presented his new plan: "Special Operations Forces 2020: The Global SOF Network." Not only does USSOCOM include components in all four branches of the US military - it is also embedded in the intelligence community. According to McRaven himself, speaking at a panel discussion at Washington's Wilson Center in 2013: "I have folks in every agency here in Washington, DC - from the CIA, to the FBI, to the National Security Agency, to the National Geospatial Agency, to the Defense Intelligence Agency."

As a result, writes Turse, "SOCOM is weaving a complex web of alliances with government agencies at home and militaries abroad to ensure that it's at the center of every conceivable global hotspot and power center. In fact, Special Operations Command has turned the planet into a giant battlefield, divided into many discrete fronts."

No dragons but snakes

This proliferation of Special Forces is often seen as a direct reaction to the failure and subsequent unpopularity of large-scale occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, the trend goes back much further - at least to the end of the Cold War, a time when incoming CIA chief James Woolsey famously said, "Yes, we have slain a large dragon [the Soviet Union], but we live now in a jungle filled with a bewildering variety of poisonous snakes."

Suspected al Qaeda leader al-Liby was seized in Libya last year

That much is confirmed by Barry Pavel, vice president of the Atlantic Council think tank who served on the National Security Council (NSC) for both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. "It takes a network to fight a network," he told DW, adding that most of what SOCCOM does involves cooperating with foreign governments, rather than direct military action. "The largest proportion of USSOCOM is the engagement function - either training, or helping them to get a better sense of how to deal with their own internal threats."

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.dw.de/us-expands-reach-of-clandestine-special-ops/a-17379164

Bring back the MATA course at the US Army Special Warfare Center and School:  See page 34 of the Joint Staff Decade of War Report: http://blogs.defensenews.com/saxotech-access/pdfs/decade-of-war-lessons-learned.pdf

V/R

Dave

Giving Advising its Due

by Carl Forsling

Journal Article | January 22, 2014 - 3:57pm

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/giving-advising-its-due

• Add new comment
  
•  
 
• 
  
• 
  
• 

Giving Advising its Due

Carl Forsling

Almost every conflict the United States has fought since Korea has involved advising foreign forces.  In Vietnam, advising was how we got into and out of that war.  In Bosnia, Kosovo, and Haiti, Americans have trained foreign units at the tactical level.  In Iraq (the second time around) and Afghanistan, enabling foreign militaries to assume security responsibilities on their own has been a key part of the operational and strategic goals.

The special operations forces doing this mission, such as the US Army Special Forces and the Marine Foreign Military Training Unit, are well-resourced and given wide freedom of action.  However, those units do not perform the preponderance of training and advising foreign forces in major theaters, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan.  That has been the job of an assortment of conventional troops given this extraordinary mission.

The final success in those campaigns does not rest upon the battlefield victories of large American units.  It rests in the abilities of host nation security forces.  Good advisors, increasing the capabilities of host nations, are worth many times their numbers in line units. 

In spite of this fact, the selection, training, and employment of advisors does not reflect either the stated or actual importance of the mission.

For example, most of advisor team leaders assigned to advise Afghan commanders of battalion-level or higher are greatly different from those assigned to command American battalions.  An American battalion commander is board selected, once to be a lieutenant colonel and again to be a commander.  After he completes his tour as a commander, he will likely attend a top level school, be it the Army War College or the Marine Corps War College, followed by another tour in a high-level staff before being promoted to colonel.

By comparison, the advisor to a host nation commander may as well be randomly selected.  He could be an officer just finishing a tour at an operational unit, waiting for the three years he needs to move.  He could be an officer passed-over for promotion.  He could be basically anyone.

The rest of his advisor team was likely also grabbed from units for any number of similar reasons.  His officers were those who, at best, happened to be between assignments, and at worst, were those who were unneeded or unwanted at their home units, be that for them getting out of the military or for being on a commander’s excrement list.  His enlisted were also likely not in key billets or crucial to their home units.

In addition, save for a few select billets, such as logistics or communications, most advisors are not working within their specialties, so they are losing credibility within their community every day they are on the job.  Advisor duty is not seen as a career-enhancing or broadening billet.

As currently designed, advisor duty is not going to attract the sort of individual that the military institution values.  Nor does it promote those individuals within the institution afterwards.  That shows the priority associated with it, and that the grand words given honoring the importance of host nation security forces are just that.  Words.  Making an effort to professionalize advisor duty will greatly increase its effectiveness.

Several steps can be taken to professionalize advisors within the conventional forces of the US military.  Those start by holding the duty in high esteem.  Typically, advisor teams are organized one grade below the unit they are advising—teams led by majors advise battalion-level elements, those led by lieutenant colonels advise regimental-level elements, and so on.  Lieutenant colonels advising large units should be selected for advisor duty by a formal board, just as lieutenant colonels are selected for battalion command.  Only those lieutenant colonels who have previously served as advisors should be considered to lead advisor teams at the regimental-level or higher.  Upon completing a tour leading a regimental-level advisor team, they should be eligible for top level schools and considered for colonel alongside their line commander counterparts.  Over time, having an additional track for assession to the senior ranks will encourage top officers to volunteer for advisor duty.

(Continued at the link below)

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/giving-advising-its-due

I would never make a prediction on when the Kim Family Regime will collapse (or even if it will because it might attack the ROK first).  However the conditions are worse than they have ever been.  At the risk of beating the dead horse and as I always I do I would invoke and modify Sun Tzu's dictum of "never assume the enemy will not attack but make yourself invincible" or in the case never assume the north will not collapse but instead prepare for the contingency.  I would say that it is the height of irresponsibility to not conduct planning and preparation for regime collapse.  And I would say that if the reporter is correct and collapse is not imminent then we should still begin preparations now as we will be much better prepared when it does happen.  The problem with the skeptics who say since they have not collapsed and we have been talking about it since 1996 or that collapse is not imminent is that it gives a way out for policy makers and strategists to not focus on the problem and wait until there is a crisis.  Effective planning and preparation now  (or if we had begun preparations vice planning only in 1996) could pay big dividends for the ROK and the ROK/US alliance when collapse finally occurs.

Reporter: North Korean collapse not imminent

Geopolitical concerns of other nations stand in the way of reunification, correspondent says

http://www.nknews.org/2014/01/reporter-north-korean-collapse-not-imminent/

BY ROB YORK , JANUARY 22, 2014

      

   

HONOLULU – North Korea will not collapse until the Korean Peninsula is reunified, a journalist and long-time observer of the peninsula said Tuesday.

Furthermore, reunification is not imminent due to the geopolitical concerns of other nations with a stake in the Korean Peninsula’s future.

Ivan Zakharchenko has spent years covering both North and South Korea, starting with time spent as a correspondent with Russia’s ITAR-TASS news agency in the 1980s. He reported from Seoul in the mid-1990s following the collapse of the USSR, spent another one-year stint in Pyongyang after that, and today is based in New York covering the United Nations for the RIA Novosti news agency.

Zakharchenko spoke at the Center for Korean Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa on North Korean stereotypes, comparing them to what he has witnessed in the North.

“The problem of unification of the Korean Peninsula is not Korea itself,” he said. “It is the geopolitical situation. It doesn’t matter what Koreans themselves want.”

One stereotype he challenged is that North Korea’s collapse will take place within a few years. He pointed out that this has been incorrectly predicted many times before, and that the nations around North Korea are in no hurry to see it come to pass.

“South Korea is not ready for the sudden collapse of North Korea,” he said. “Japan is afraid of a unified Korea. It will be a very strong competitor for them.”

China, on the other hand, may worry that a unified Korea will attempt to claim territory from the Goguryeo kingdom (37 B.C.-668 A.D.), some of which lay in present-day Manchuria.

Russia, Zakharchenko said, is more or less supportive of unification, as it would benefit from reduced tensions in the area and would not share China’s concerns of the loss of a buffer state between it and a U.S. ally where American troops are stationed.

After his presentation, Zakharchenko told NK News that the collapse of the North Korean state would place U.S. policymakers in a difficult position. The purpose of stationing military personnel in the South actually has more to do with China’s growing power, rather than confronting North Korea, he said. The end of the Pyongyang regime, he said, would be uncomfortable for them because it would make this harder to deny.

Much of the tropes he sought to debunk during his presentation revolved around the official state ideology of the regime. North Korea, he said, does not follow communist ideology but a form of subjective nationalism allowing it to shift alliances as circumstances dictate. And rather than a communist ruling class, he compared it with a monarchy, with a hereditary transition akin to the kingdom predating the Japanese colonization of 1910-1945.

Zakharchenko also challenged perceptions regarding standards of living in the country, stating that citizenry could be spotted eating grass, not necessarily due to malnutrition, but because there were plants Koreans on both sides of the DMZ actually enjoyed eating.

He also said that the conciliatory approach of Sunshine Policy taken by South Korean presidents Kim Dae-jung (1998-2003) and Roh Moo-hyun (2003-08) had been more successful, resulting in fewer confrontations with North Korea than the policies of their conservative successors Lee Myung-bak (2008-2013) and Park Geun-hye (2013-present).

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.nknews.org/2014/01/reporter-north-korean-collapse-not-imminent/

Jackpot or Crackpot? Park on Korean Reunification

Dr. Foster is providing the conventional wisdom.  But his fundamental assumption must be examined:

Common sense says that the two massive initial outlays required – raising Northern incomes and rebuilding infrastructure – will constitute a prolonged and crushing fiscal burden, even if both are ultimately in part also investments: in human and physical capital respectively.

We should consider how the ROK plans to achieve reunification.   A more realistic assumption is that it is going to take a generation or more to undo the extreme damage that has been done to the north Korean people and to the physical infrastructure.  Yes it is going to be expensive and yes it is going to be hard and more importantly it is going to be necessary and the right thing to do.  The key is really the ROK plans for unification and an understanding of the realistic timelines for changing the conditions in the north.  Most importantly the plans should not assume immediate absorption but a gradual transition from two systems, to a confederal system to a unified country while working to change the economic system and developing the infrastructure.  I do agree with President Park that reunification could be a jackpot.  Think about the planned cities that the ROK has built (e.g.,New Sango city near Incheon airport).  Think of being able to conduct deliberate planning for the north to develop the right industries in the right places while exploiting (in a positive way) the natural resources of the north.  I am willing to bet that the Korean people can make reunification work.

V/R

Dave

• January 22, 2014, 6:10 PM

Jackpot or Crackpot? Park on Korean Reunification

By Aidan Foster-Carter

http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2014/01/22/jackpot-or-crackpot-park-on-korean-reunification/

Getty Images

South Korean President Park Geun-hye speaks during a press conference at the Presidential Office on January 6, 2014 in Seoul. Ms. Park outlined her policy plans for the new year.

The demure Park Geun-hye rarely startles. Yet South Korea’s president did just that on Jan. 6.

In her first press conference after almost a year as president, Ms. Park raised eyebrows by calling Korean unification a “jackpot”. The usual fear of vast costs has it wrong, she argued. Rather, this will be “a chance for the economy to make a huge leap.”

She didn’t elaborate, but cited Jim Rogers in support. The US.. investment guru reiterated his own bullishness on a joint Korean future on Jan. 14: “… South Korea’s capital and technical skills, and North Korea’s labor and natural resources, [can] make Korea grow exponentially.”

Park’s jackpot talk gained her rare praise from the South Korean liberal opposition. Democratic Party leader Kim Han-gil said he was “glad [she] helped break the common misconception that reunification is a cost.” But Kim added a crucial condition: “Only a gradual and peaceful reunification is a blessing. Reunification by absorption [after] a sudden change in North Korea could be a catastrophe.” Or to be more technical, reunification will be path-dependent.

All this taps into a long-running debate. Conventional wisdom views Korean reunification by whatsoever means as hugely expensive. A year ago Seoul’s Ministry of Strategy and Finance  put the cost at 7% of GDP for a decade, or $80 billion annually. Other estimates run much higher. Four years ago in The Wall Street Journal, Peter Beck reckoned $2 to $5 trillion, over 30 years.

Common sense says that the two massive initial outlays required – raising Northern incomes and rebuilding infrastructure – will constitute a prolonged and crushing fiscal burden, even if both are ultimately in part also investments: in human and physical capital respectively.

The obvious real-life precedent supports this. By 2009 German reunification had cost $1.9 trillion, even though the initial West-East GDP gap was far less than in Korea. South Korea’s central bank puts South Korea’s GDP in 2012 as 38 times the North’s, or 19:1 per capita.

Yet Park can cite Goldman Sachs on her side. A 2009 research paper predicted that by 2050 a unified Korea could have the world’s eighth largest GDP, overtaking Germany and Japan. Its author, Kwon Goo-hoon, posits China and Hong Kong as a better model than Germany.

Contrarianism is always welcome, but two big questions arise. Kwon’s premise “assume(s) a peaceful and gradual economic integration between North and South Korea”. That’s like the one about the scientists stranded on a desert island with only an old-style can of baked beans. The physicist can’t open it, but the economist has the answer: “Let us assume a can-opener.”

(Continued at the link below)

http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2014/01/22/jackpot-or-crackpot-park-on-korean-reunification/

An anecdote:  Back in 1997 or 1998 when we were briefing the planning efforts for CONPLAN 5029 for north Korean Collapse and Instability we had a briefing with the DEPSECDEF, John Hamre.  After we describe the threats, possible scenarios, and contingency plans for each scenario he turn to me and said he had only one question.  "How much will this cost the US government?"  I was taken aback.  We had done a lot of detailed contingency planning but had never considered the cost to the USG. I gave him the only answer I could.  "Sir, I do not have any idea."  He replied, "Well I am the DEPSECDEF and my portfolio is budget and resources and I have to know how this is going to cost."  I told him we would get back to him.  And I am sure I still owe him an answer so perhaps I will send him this article as a partial response.

V/R

Dave

Kim Jong Un’s $5 trillion price worth unification’s benefits

BY WILLIAM PESEK

BLOOMBERG

HTTP://WWW.JAPANTIMES.CO.JP/NEWS/2014/01/18/BUSINESS/KIM-JONG-UNS-5-TRILLION-PRICE-WORTH-UNIFICATIONS-BENEFITS/#.UTTBZWQO5CR

• JAN 18, 2014
  ARTICLE HISTORY
• PRINT
• SHARE

As Park Geun-hye searches for ways to compete with China and Japan, the South Korean president is eyeing a rather surprising ally: Kim Jong Un.

“Unification will allow the Korean economy to take a fresh leap forward and inject great vitality and energy,” Park said on Jan. 10. “People would even sing, ‘We dream of unification even in our dreams.’ “

The idea isn’t as dippy as it sounds. Economists generally rate Park’s first year in office as a dud. She arrived at the presidential Blue House with big talk of building a more “creative” economy. Yet her plans to empower small and medium-size companies and to rein in the family-run conglomerates, or chaebol, that dominate the economy remain embryonic.

As her second year begins, Park must accelerate efforts to restructure Korea’s outdated and top-heavy growth model. Folding unification into the strategy is audacious. In theory, combining the South’s capital and technology with the North’s human and natural resources could create a powerful growth engine.

Of course, this entire discussion hinges on Kim’s willingness to remove the soldiers, artillery and barbed wire that continue to line the demilitarized zone. Kim’s recent purge of his No. 2, Jang Song Thaek, suggests the 30-something dictator has no interest in rapprochement. Convincing the Dear Leader to turn his back on Stalin and face capitalism will be no easy sell.

Park could face an equally tough sales challenge with her own people, who have less and less interest in dealing with the Kim Dynasty.

I was in Seoul in April 2013 when Kim precipitated what many characterized as Park’s Cuban missile crisis. His threats to carry out pre-emptive nuclear strikes against the U.S. and South Korea had governments around the globe on edge, markets gyrating and credit-rating companies ready to pounce. For young Koreans — those for whom war in the 1950s is the stuff of dry textbook passages and who feel little connection to those above the 38th parallel — it was the last straw.

The share of South Koreans who view unification as necessary fell to 54.8 percent in 2013 from 57 percent a year earlier, according to Seoul National University. The ratio is falling more precipitously among Koreans ages 19 to 29 — to a scant 40.4 percent.

The under-30 crowd worries primarily about bearing the cost of reunification. Absorbing 24 million impoverished people who’ve never had a bank account, touched a decent computer or visited a modern dentist would be a breathtaking challenge. In February, Park’s Finance Ministry vastly low-balled the price tag. Anyone who thinks this can be done for $591 billion or less if the process occurred around 2020 is as delusional as a North Korean peasant convinced that Kim is God.

Take the long-standing $2 trillion to $5 trillion estimate by North Korea experts, including Peter Beck of the Washington- based Atlantic Council. Even these guesstimates are likely to prove very conservative as reunification begins.

Pyongyang is a complete black box. Really, Dennis Rodman knows more about the state of play there than World Bank President Jim Yong Kim. There also are no precedents. Germany’s reunification, for example, was far less daunting, and even there costs vastly exceeded estimates, having reached at least $2 trillion so far. East Germans in 1990 were infinitely more plugged in to the global economy than North Koreans are now. Nor did they suffer from crushing poverty.

West German officials didn’t have to worry about a big store of nuclear weapons just on the other side of the Wall, or more than a million brainwashed and agitated soldiers. Given how disastrously dissolving Iraq’s military went, this must be handled wisely.

Reunification won’t pay for itself. Sure, North Korea has coal, copper, gold, manganese, tungsten, uranium, zinc and other underground riches. But big checks will have to be written by South Korea, the U.S., Japan, Europe and, of course, China, Kim’s main enabler. China will hate Park’s push to join forces with Kim’s people. It would put American boots right on China’s northeast border and rob the Communist Party of a key means of keeping Washington and Tokyo off balance.

(Continue to the article at the link below)

HTTP://WWW.JAPANTIMES.CO.JP/NEWS/2014/01/18/BUSINESS/KIM-JONG-UNS-5-TRILLION-PRICE-WORTH-UNIFICATIONS-BENEFITS/#.UTTBZWQO5CR