Victory conditions in a Korean war

Over on the Twitter, Noah Smith wrote: 

"We're going to lose to North Korea??", people who have obviously never read the history of the Korean War are asking me

— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) April 5, 2017

The context is a discussion of whether the Trump administration might use a war with the DPRK to prop up its sagging fortunes. I tend to think not. That said, it is possible that we might strike the North, setting off a war. Which would be horrible. But a defeat?

Since I do know a few things about the Korean War, I had to admit that I had no idea what he was talking about. It seemed like one of those annoying slatepitchy provocations.

North Korea can, at best, sustain an offensive for eight weeks. During that time, it would be trying to punch through the most-heavily defended line on Earth with outdated equipment and no air support. North Korea could and would devastate South Korea, not least through massive artillery barrages against occupied areas, but the country could not defeat the South. (See Robert Farley.)

So maybe he is averring that a counteroffensive into the North would be a slow and terrible thing? Maybe he was. And it would be. A good friend of mine from Fort Benning, Curtis Marmolejo, spent a long chunk of time patrolling the DMV. What kept him awake at night, more than the fear of a North Korean army barreling over the border, was the possibility that North Korea might collapse forcing him to go North. And if that scenario is bad, a contested invasion would be worse.

But it still would not be a defeat. It is hard to see how an all-out counteroffensive could end in anything other than regime change.

And while some people may find it fun to concoct scenarios of Chinese intervention, the PRC is not going to try to rescue a collapsing regime that just started a war with the ROK and USA. 

But there is a way in which an attack on the North could amount to defeat. The North could respond to an American airstrike ... judiciously. Artillery barrages that avoid populated areas. SOF operations. A confrontation over the Yellow Sea blue crab fishery. Something else. And then after just enough time to establish that a war is indeed on, the North declares victory and sues for peace with Chinese support. The ROK government agrees, not wanting to see Seoul wrecked. 

This would not be easy. It might not work, tactically or operationally. It certainly might not work strategically. (Worst case.) But it is a scenario that could be portrayed as a defeat for the United States.

Thing is, the above is not what Noah seemed to have in mind. It certainly has nothing to do with anything that actually happened in 1950-53. So again, Noah, please, what the hell did you have in mind??

Comments

[Dave K]

What constitutes losing the war?

I can't imagine any reasonable endstate that would be considered a "loss".

Perhaps a loose nukes scenario? Or high US civilian losses in the Pacific?

I'm grasping here.

[Noel Maurer]

Excellent question. Noah Smith, who started this, admitted on Twitter that what he had in mind when he stated that the U.S. would lose was Chinese intervention. Why China would do intervene or why Chinese victory was assured he left unsaid.

Since he clearly doesn't really care about this topic, I won't bother to explain why those two assumptions are very dubious. There are some links above, which I am unfairly annoyed to realize that Noah did not click.

To answer your question, I define "victory" in domestic political terms. A war in which the U.S. attacked the DPRK, the DPRK responded proportionately, and the U.S. was then forced to back down and accept the status quo ante would be chalked up as a "loss" at home.

But, to your inevitable objection, Dave:

Even a political master with a full understanding of South Korean and American politics would have trouble pulling off the strategy I outlined. The real-world DPRK almost certainly can't. So I find the idea of the U.S. losing (in the political sense) a limited armed exchange on the peninsula unlikely in the extreme. A much more likely scenario is that everything spins out of control resulting in a horribly destructive war that we "win," but pyrrhically.

Still, the kind of political loss I described is possible, albeit unlikely.

What's not possible is a replay of Korean War 1, which is what Noah had in mind. If he shows real interest I'm happy to discuss why a replay is even less likely than my scenario.

But right now I'm assuming Noah was just making a sort of humblebrag based on the (likely true) assumption that most of his readers have forgotten that Korean War 1 really pit a U.S.-Commonwealth coalition against the People's Liberation Army and the 64th Fighter Aviation Corps of the Soviet Air Forces. See? I can out humblebrag anyone but an real military historian on the topic of the Korean War.

[Matt McIrvin]

I kind of assumed that by a loss, he meant the pyrrhic victory in a horrible destructive war in which we win all the major battles, but the political outcome is still bad. That's more the norm than the exception for recent large US wars, isn't it?

[Noel Maurer]

It is, that's true. But my intuition is that the aftermath of a second Korean War would feel rather different. Both Koreas would be in ruins and the human cost would far outweigh any gains, but I don't think the United States will find itself facing an insurgency.

Absent a running drip-drip of casualties from a guerrilla conflict that we neither can nor need to win, I suspect the end of a second Korean War will feel like an old-fashioned victory no matter how pyrrhic the reality. After all, it wasn't like WW2 left Europe all that well off.

Not that victory helped George H.W. Bush any. Hell, it barely helped Harry Truman.

[Dave K]

Once a few hundred civilians die, it is very hard politically to return to status quo ante bellum or anything like it. The DPRK's likely use of non-conventional offensive operations makes that problem worse in my opinion.

A U.S. military loss against the DPRK is highly unlikely. Unexpectedly high casualties and TF Smiths are plausible. Perhaps that constitutes a loss in Noah's mind?

[JKR]

I presume after a conclusion of hostilities that leaves South Korea in ruins there would be a massive emigration of Korean refugees to the US, that our alliance with Japan would be finished, and that the reunited Korea, despite our troop presence, would quickly become a Chinese satellite (sort of like Iraq became a satellite of Iran). Probably the next day the Republic of China would petition for immediate readmission to the PRC. Sounds like a loss to me.

[Noel Maurer]

Why would the alliance with Japan be finished?

[Dave K]

I'm not certain why everyone assumes a successful ROK would automatically absorb the DPRK. There are a few other plausible possibilities. The democratic/patriotic forces pushing for reunification will run into strong countervailing economic, military and social considerations.

In addition I wouldn't assume the diplomatic situation post bellum. A lot of that will depend on the road to war and the conduct of China and Russia during the war.

I'd also say that how "ruined" the ROK is could vary greatly based on conditions during the war.