In Brief

A private analyst points me to Victor Cha’s column in the The Chosun Ilbo titled We Have No Plan, where Cha argues there is no plan if North Korea collapses tomorrow. His suggestion?

. . .the U.S., in my opinion, should be responsible for securing all weapons of mass destruction and missiles sites, while South Korea would be in the lead on humanitarian assistance and domestic stabilization. Once the U.S. and South Korea reach agreement, they should then coordinate trilaterally with Japan to deal with potential refugee flows and additional logistics issues related to humanitarian aid.

Once the three allies reach a common understanding, then Washington and Seoul need to engage with Beijing.

To think Washington and Seoul take the lead on this and engage Beijing after the event is a little out there. My colleague puts it better:

I think the scenarios he comes up with are rubbish in thinking that the South or the US (and even Japan!) would have an interventionist role (China of course would have the largest and key external role – it would step in as fast as its military mobilization would allow, under coordination with the KPA). The commentators have ignored that the most likely scenario is a home-grown NK political solution with a heavy military component, ala Poland 1980s.