As the shelling of Yeongpyeong-do demonstrates, North Korea appears particularly edgy about US, ROK and Japanese military exercises these days. But even for the jaded, the level of vitriol surrounding this year’s Foal Eagle exercises seems higher than normal.
Dan Pinkston at the International Crisis Group in Seoul provides an interesting explanation on his new blog. US-ROK joint exercises have become more and more explicit about what is euphemistically called “contingency planning”: not just old-fashioned deterrence but the need for intervention. Among the scenarios are the demise of the Kim family and a coup d’état or civil war, social unrest and rebellion, and large-scale defections and out migration. A central preoccupation is that WMD would fall into the hands of rebel groups or rogue commanders; Pinkston traces the evolution of American and ROK units devoted to managing North Korea’s WMD (the US 20th Support Command [Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and High Yield Explosives] based at Aberdeen Proving Grounds and the ROK’s National Military Chemical Biological and Radiological Defence Command). Needless to say, the North Koreans are apoplectic.
But thinking about humanitarian intervention is getting much more sophisticated too. Everything you would ever want to know about the topic—and probably more—can be found in a report from the Mass Atrocities Response Operations Project at the Kennedy School. No wonder Pyongyang is nervous.
