The North Korean question Vol.3 – Inter-Korean military tension amidst regional and global fault lines
This post follows on thoughts described in “The North Korean question – military power, nukes and the will of a regime” published on June 3rd, 2009 and “The North Korean question Vol.2 – Yeopyeong artillery attack or bullying big time” published on November 26th, 2010. The post focuses on the international dimension of recent events, and the likely military implications of deploying the USS George Washington-led aircraft carrier task force to the Yellow Sea.
Tensions in and around the Koreas are boiling once again. The Peninsula was in the focus of history once already, and the possibility of return of high-intensity conflict cannot be excluded. If this wouldn’t be enough, the Korean Peninsula is in the epicenter of powerful geopolitical fault lines that are already producing uncertainty, which makes the world community holding its breath while looking at signs of escalation of the conflict. It’s not, however the chances of full war mode but the stakes that are high.
Relations between China and the United States were already low well before this last Northern attack, despite the myth that “ChinAmerica”, the supposed integration of the Chinese and American economies has brought so many dependencies on both sides of the Pacific that any meaningful tension least conflict is impossible between the two powers. Trade is there, it is huge, and in many ways it’s the main engine of the world economy. But China is not the only Eastern Asian country the United States wishes or can trade with, so Chinese trade can – with some pain – be substituted. Also, as Eastern Asian share of global trade and overall global economic activity rises, it is central for American strategy to control it, as American power is in large part built on controlling and thus enabling global trade. Not coincidentally, it is central for Chinese strategy to control Eastern Asian trade and trade routes between the Middle East and Africa and Eastern Asia, too.
Sea trade routes the United States and China are eager to control. Map by Laura Canali , Heartland.
This would push the US Navy out of the area, and this sets the two powers on a collision course. Putting trade aside, the unlikely but uncharmeing prospect of long-term Chinese domination of Asia or Eurasia is the worst scenario the United States can think of, since only a Eurasian power – the like the Soviet Union was – can possibly challenge the still-existent American global domination.
Chinese and Japanese relations are also low. Incidents like Chinese fishing boats seized by Japanese coast guard, anti-Japanese demonstrations in China and the opposite in Japan are only symptoms of underlying tensions. Part of that is historic, since the Chinese – as both the Koreas – have really bad memories about crazy Japanese soldiers colonalising them before and in WW2. But the main issue is, again, geopolitical. The smaller fault line is that the two cannot agree on their sea border since oil and gas was found near disputed island chains. The two energy-hungry Asian powers cannot surrender the prospect of some own – for the Japanese the only own – hydrocarbon reserves. But the real issue is the rise of China in the last over 30 years and the stagnation of Japan in the last 10 years that has brought the two economies on par in GDP terms. That keeps the question of who the leading Eastern Asian nation is open. It cannot be both.
The disputed maritime border between China and Japan, full of much needed riches. Source: Stratfor
China has already made clear that it doesn’t want US Navy presence in and near its waters, and the US seemed to temporarily respect that will. It has cancelled participating in the annual South Korean “Honuk” war game to make US-Chinese economic discussions run smooth. But the prospect of further North Korean agression against South Korea, a core American ally has pushed the United States towards backing South Korea’s military position by deploying the USS George-Washington led aircraft carrier strike group from Yokosuka, Japan.
Nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington. Photo: Fremantle Ports
The aircraft carrier is the symbol of American global domination. It brings a carrier air wing that outmatches most national air forces, and the task force, complete with destroyers and cruisers equipped with the Aegis air defense system (designed to counter large-volume air assaults agains the carriers), is always a force to reckon with. It reminds the Chinese to the painful fact that the United States can be anywhere, while China could never threaten Washington, D.C. with conventional forces.
Let’s see what we are dealing with! The USS George Washington carries Carrier Air Wing Five, which consists of two strike fighter squadrons equipped with F/A-18E Super Hornets, one with the two-seater F/A-18Fs and one with older F/A-18C Hornets, altogether some 48 strike fighters. The air wing is complete with early warning and electronic warfare aircraft. It is not exactly clear what the composition of the task force is, one source says that escorts are USS Cowpens (CG 62), USS Lassen (DDG 89), USS Stethem (DDG 63) and USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62), another says USS Cowpens (CG 63), USS Shiloh (CG 67), USS Stethem (DDG 63) and USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62). That means that the aircraft carrier is escorted by four Aegis-equipped vessels but we cannot know if three or four of those are Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD)-enabled. BMD is a likelyeffective defense against Chinese anti-carrier ballistic missiles, a top threat identified by US Navy strategists. It’s not to say that China will attack the carriers, but the symbol of US Navy assets confidently operating in Chinese backwaters is powerful.
rleigh Burke-class Destroyer USS Stethem (DDG 63) approaches USS George Washington (CVN 73). Photo: US Navy
A carrier task force in a narrow area like the Yellow Sea could be highly effective. Jets taking off from the carrier and Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from escorts and the likely accompanying nuclear submarine can hit any target in North Korea. Indeed air defense is the Achilles’s heal of the North, as vintage equipment cannot effectively fight modern air forces.
But ultimately, the aircraft carrier deployment is a bluff, equally targeted against North Korea and China. While the carrier strike group could do enormous harm with its smart munitions to North Korea – it could in theory, with the right intelligence assets take out the Northern leadership, for example – ultimately it’s far from enough to assist the South against a Northern invasion, and, as we noted in an earlier post, it cannot forestall the annihilation of a good part of Seoul by Northern artillery fire. What cannot still be known is that how determinded the United States and South Korea are to set the next red line the North cannot cross much firmer than the previous ones. We need to look for signs strong enough to make our judgement confident. Say, a proclamation by the US President that America is ready to use tactical nukes along the Northern border to take out the thousands of artillery peaces to make South Korea’s advance northward feasible. Short of something of this magnitude, the Northern wolves will keep on provoking their Souther brethren.
All involved, except North Korea itself and possibly China wants North Korea to vanish as peacefully as possible, making way for South Korea’s prepared legions of “progressors” to integrate that suffering peace of land to the wealth zone. Also, it is doubtful if China could stand being at war at all, as the country is already filled with discontent that would erupt as trade is shut off, with the West canceling its imports from China and the US Navy blocking Chinese import of hydrocarbons and raw materials from the Middle East and Africa. This would bring the all-powerfull Chinese economy to its knees in a few months. That cannot be made good by nationalist, warlike feelings. So if the US plays its cards right and it seemingly is, China might not have another option but to use its leverage on North Korea to pull back and behave.
