Now that Donald Trump has passed the 6 month mark and the continuing campaign to make his governing impossible continues, we are witness the celebrated nullification of federal laws on a scale unprecedented since the Civil War from “Blue State America”. In fact, one could make the case the California is drifting towards secession; that state’s permanent Democrat governing class not wanting to be forced to enforce laws or conduct policies with which they disagree.

Which means that it may be time for the Red States to bolt for the exits and secede on their own from “Blue America”. One might question why Red (aka Republican) states would want to dissolve the country when they have more power nationally top to bottom than at any time within the last 100 years. They have the Presidency, both Houses of Congress, a sort of majority on the Supreme Court, complete governing control of 25 states and partial control in another 24. How could this, of all moments, be the right opportunity to exit?

This assertion rests specifically on three realities. The first is that the bureaucracy, far from consisting of disinterested, non-partisan, technocrats who are only executing the policies voted on by Congress, is full of liberal, liberal-left, and left-wing ideologues who necessarily move law in a left-wing direction, no matter who is in power (sometimes slower, sometimes faster, but generally always in the same direction). This means that regardless of elections, there is a permanent governing class in Washington, and that governing class is center-left. The result is that “taking our country back” isn’t going to be accomplished by elections alone, and our democratic choices, to the extent that they are center-right democratic choices, are bound to be hobbled, hindered, or stopped, whereas center-left democratic choices & policies will be implemented happily. The result has been, and will continue to be, a government that reflects the priorities of the political left, regardless of election results. To the extent that the Republican parts of the country want to live in country that either A.) reflects Republican priorities or B.) reflects the priorities of the voters, whether right or left, this won’t be accomplished by remaining part of the United States.

The second reality is that the left part of the political spectrum really does view the right side as deserving of second class status. They really don’t think that the Republican Party has the right to govern when it wins elections, except perhaps occasionally to the extent that a significant part of the Democrat Party signs off on a piece of legislation. A lot of the anger and fury regarding Trump’s win and the continued attempts to render him ineffective or to remove him from office by any means necessary has to do with the left side not really accepting the right side as an equal partner with equal political rights in the American experiment.

The third reality is that the left is in a rebellious mood and is using all means, fair & foul, to undo the election. From launching a campaign to intimidate the Electoral College into making Hillary President, to rioting to prevent conservative speakers from speaking on campus, to actual discrimination against conservative viewpoints on public university campuses, to judges overruling Trump policies just because it is Trump (as opposed to it being unconstitutional), the tactics of the left are seen as legitimate by them, and will be seen as illegitimate when (and there will be a ‘when’) they are employed by the right. You can be sure that the police won’t told to stand down when right-wing rioters are bashing the heads of left-wingers in.

The fourth reality is that once the left has control of the government again, they show every indication of being willing to use the power of the state to crush, persecute, and abuse those they don’t like (in some cases even those on their own side), in ways probably unprecedented in American history, with the exception of slavery. To that end, any attempt at secession with a left-wing government in charge is likely to be met with state-sanctioned force that could easily morph into a Civil War, ending the American experiment in a wave of bitter violence.

Given all of this, now when Republican power is at its zenith in roughly a century, would be the ideal time to secede. With so much political power concentrated in Republican hands at this moment in time, the Red states have something to bargain with to achieve a peaceful secession. In other words, lacking the political power at this moment to make the Red states comply with its wishes, Blue America has an incentive to allow the Red states to go their own way. At another point in time, the Red states may find themselves being governed by people who firmly believe that they deserve to be second-class citizens, and breaking away will be much messier. With that in mind, Red America might want to give serious consideration to formally declaring their independence.

Those currently arguing that the U.S. need not go to war to disarm North Korea are relying on the assumption that the U.S. can simply deter North Korea from actually using its nuclear arsenal based on our experience with the Soviet Union & China. On the surface, this argument has a lot to recommend it. Firstly, launching missiles at us or our allies would result in the annihilation of North Korea and presumably the death of Kim Jong Un and his family. Secondly, the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) strategy was successful with the Soviet Union and has continued to be so with Russia and China. And of course, there is the inherent rationality behind it; namely why would somebody blow up their own country? So as a strategy, it is assumed that MAD is bound to work.

But what if it doesn’t?

What if after, say, 10 years of building out his nuclear arsenal and building atomic bombs that he isn’t deterred? What if his strategic calculus is different than the China and the Soviet Union? What if, unthinkably, he was willing to accept the destruction of his country? While this might not be the most likely end point of a MAD strategy pursued vis-à-vis North Korea, it is important to recognize that there are not insignificant differences between the geopolitical calculus of China & the Soviet Union/Russia on one hand and North Korea on the other.

1.)    China and the Soviet Union were geopolitical players even without nuclear weapons.

Simply by the size of their conventional military in the case of the Soviet Union and the size of their population in the case of Communist China, these two countries were going to be geopolitical players and were/are always going to be difficult (if not impossible) for the West to conquer conventionally. While they developed a nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver them, at the very least this was done in order to prevent (from their perspective) potential nuclear blackmail by the United States. But by their very size and relative geopolitical position, a nuclear exchange caused by a first strike from the Soviet Union/China that resulted in the annihilation of the United States would also have resulted in the annihilation of the Soviet Union/China as well. Because the of quasi-religious nature of communist ideology present in the Soviet Union/China, the person(s) launching a first strike wouldn’t see themselves as destroying the United States and capitalism, but rather as going down in history as the person(s) who destroyed an emerging beautiful paradise (Soviet Union/China) that was going to advance mankind to unknown heights. The goal of bringing into existence a communist paradise on earth would only be served if the United States was destroyed while its adversaries remained intact. MAD created a strategic situation where this outcome was impossible, and so there was no benefit to launching a first strike.

2.)    China and the Soviet Union are/were run by political parties, and the leadership of these countries were drawn from those ranks.

What this means is that those who arrived at the top echelons of power had moved up through the ranks, had made alliances with others, done business with others, and had developed networks and connections that reached across the country. They had, at some level, developed a certain loyalty to their friends and the population in general. Understanding that even if they survived an annihilating nuclear strike their friends (and family) would not, actually served as a deterrent at some level to launching nuclear missiles except as an extremely last resort; an act to be undertaken only if one believed oneself to be under attack & with nothing left to lose.

Unfortunately, neither condition 1 nor condition 2 is present in North Korea. Without nuclear weapons, nobody is going to give a smidgen of thought to Kim Jong Un. While analysts are asserting that he wants nukes to prevent an outside attack in order to prevent his regime from being overthrown (which is certainly a likely motivation), I think short-shrift is being given to the motivation that possessing nukes also means that a tiny country, that is weak in so many ways, actually has to be handled with a seriousness completely out of proportion to its strength in other areas. In other words, North Korea with nukes matters. North Korea without nukes doesn’t.

In addition, there is the fact that North Korea is not governed the way the Soviet Union was and China is. Kim Jong Un didn’t get his position by rising through the ranks of the Party over many years through political skill and coalition building. He was awarded the position through heredity. North Korea, for all of its pretense at being a communist society, is really a monarchy/mafia-style state.  What this ultimately means is that Kim Jong Un’s friends & family (i.e. the people who he really cares about) likely consist of a relatively small number of people; perhaps a small enough number who could be holed up in a nuclear proof bunker deep enough underground to be able to survive a nuclear attack by the United States. Why this matters is that the ability of Kim Jong Un to be deterred from launching a destructive preemptive strike on the United States, once he has the nuclear capability to do so, depends upon whether it is more important to him personally to govern over a small, insignificant but for the possession of nukes country, or whether it is more important for him to go down in history as the man who destroyed the sole (Western) superpower and therefore irrevocably changed the course of world history.

At this point then, the question moves to whether he actually could destroy the United States through a nuclear attack. The answer to this question is that he couldn’t today. But someday (perhaps in 10 or 20 years) he would be able to do so if he is allowed to grow his nuclear arsenal. Perhaps by that time missile defense technology will advance to a point to where the U.S. would be impervious to missile attack, but we are not there now. If North Korea today had 100 nuclear missiles capable of striking any point on the U.S. mainland and launched them all at once, they would have the power to destroy the U.S. Sure, missile defense would destroy a few, but not nearly all of them. Even if one in five got through, enough to blow up the 19 largest cities in the U.S. plus Washington D.C., I don’t think one needs to doubt that the U.S. would effectively cease to exist as relevant country, along with 10% of its population and much of its finance (New York), technological dynamism (Silicon Valley), energy dynamism (Houston, Dallas), industry (Los Angeles, Chicago), and government (Washington D.C.).

All of this is not to say that Kim Jong Un and his nuclear missiles can’t be deterred through a MAD strategy. It is just to say that I don’t think that this strategy is as straightforward as it might appear to be on the surface. North Korea today is a different animal than either the Soviet Union or China. The geopolitical dynamics and governing structure are completely different, and the success of a strategy of MAD depends largely on the psychology of one man; a man that we don’t have a lot of information on. A MAD strategy could still work, but it is much riskier than what one might suppose.

Although the U.S. (and allies) are currently reviewing military options for dealing with North Korea, a conflict that would ultimately result in the regime being eliminated, one must also consider what the reaction of China and Russia are likely to be. There are unconfirmed reports that both Russia and China have begun feeding additional troops & equipment into the border area with North Korea. If true, then it means that either A.) The troops are preparing to deal with the anticipated flood of refugees from American attacks or B.) that Russia and China would launch their own invasion of North Korea once American attacks started.

With the commencement of an American/South Korean invasion, it would be clear to military leaders in Moscow & Beijing that whatever else might happen, the North Korean regime as it has existed for the last 65-70 years is finished. This means from Beijing’s (and to a lesser extent Moscow’s) perspective that their buffer state against having an American friendly government sitting on their border (and perennial thorn in America’s side) is about to disappear. Consequently, one or both China and/or Russia may opt to invade North Korea on their own in order to keep U.S./South Korean troops from advancing all the way up to the Yalu River (the border with China). While this would not be a repeat of the original Korean War in which Chinese troops pushed America back and effectively reconquered North Korea, it would mean that an American advance in the North would be halted by the presence of Chinese/Russian troops. In order to advance further and take all of North Korea, the Americans would essentially have to go to war with China/Russia, which of course we will not do.

One goal of the invasion would be to the secure the nuclear sites, which are in the north of the country, before U.S. or South Korean troops arrive. The reason is that if South Korea seizes the nuclear facilities, China & Russia will effectively have an America-friendly nuclear power sitting on their doorstep. This would be the worst of all possible outcomes from the Chinese perspective. This will mean a shift in the balance of power in East Asia away from China and in America’s favor.

The second goal of the invasion would be to gain control of as much territory as possible. In other words, keep the U.S. and South Korean troops as far south as possible. While it is unlikely that China and Russia would believe that they could hold onto Korean territory (i.e. maintain a smaller buffer zone between their borders and the new, more northern, “South Korea” border), holding Korean territory would give them a say in post-war negotiations as to what the re-united Korean peninsula would look like (i.e. regarding future American military bases, etc. etc. etc).

China has been trying to prop up the North Korean regime because it acts as a buffer with South Korea and it causes the U.S. headaches. Faced with losing these advantages, China (and possibly Russia) is likely to take action to try and salvage as much as they can out of the situation. As ironic as it may seem, China and Russia could end up joining with the U.S. and South Korea in ultimately taking out the North Korean regime.

Of course, they could also sit tight and simply decide to deal with the inevitable stream of refugees. But faced with a collapsing regime, there would be many benefits that would accrue to Russia and China by joining in on the invasion. Therefore, I think that that this would be their likely course of action.

As the rhetoric has heated up and North Korea has launched missile test after missile test, it has become obvious to even the most obtuse that there is no way that North Korea is going to give up its nuclear weapons peacefully. While this has been obvious for years, diplomats have been pretending (and hoping) that somehow, in spite of everything, North Korea could be talked out of its nuclear weapons program. This was always going to be unlikely given the last 20 years of world history which has taught dictators that those with nuclear weapons survive and those without might not. However, now that the North is coming closer to a ballistic missile that could possibly carry a nuke to the U.S. mainland, kicking the can down the road and hoping for a diplomatic miracle doesn’t seem to be a viable option any longer.  While a military intervention is going to create major geopolitical, economic, and social havoc, allowing the North the capacity to threaten the U.S. with nuclear blackmail constantly is simply not something the U.S. can countenance.

So to that end, what sort of military pressure can the U.S. bring to bear to topple the regime and end the threat.

The Battlefield:

The first things to recognize is that apart from its missiles, the only major threat to major population centers that the North possesses is its artillery, which in some cases is only 35 to 40 miles away from the capital, Seoul. Neutralizing this threat in the first hours of the conflict would need to be a major priority. But even so, despite predictions from people who don’t know what they are talking about, North Korean artillery would not be able to flatten Seoul. So, taking these threats into consideration, how would a military attack on and destruction of the North Korean regime actually play out?

The Start:

The first thing is that the war needs to start suddenly and without warning. Although starting by launching cruise missiles at a military parade in broad daylight would have the advantage of likely taking out Kim Jong Un and much of his military brass in one fell swoop, the war should be started at night with soldiers in their beds. The artillery positions nearest Seoul, as well as missile launch sites, need to be saturated with high explosives within the first minutes, and to the extent possible, rendered inoperable. Furthermore, cruise missiles should be launch at critical infrastructure (bridges, electricity grids, radar facilities, roadways, military airfields, civilian airfields, etc.) to disrupt movement, and if possible, jam cell phone signals and radio communications. Especially airbases need to be rendered inoperable by cratering the runway making them unusable and by destroying as many planes on the ground as possible. In short, the North Korean air force needs to cease to exist quickly.

The Next Step:

A military build-up on the Korean Peninsula would be noticed and allow the North Koreans to prepare for war. This makes the next step tricky, because you don’t want them mobilized for war when the attack happens. A well-noticed build-up would allow us to have everything we need in place thereby making the invasion more effective and the ultimate outcome all but assured. However, it would allow North Korea time to marshal its forces and calibrate its missile and artillery to meet the coming invasion and to inflict as much damage (including nuclear damage) as possible by a regime who is dying anyway. They might even be provoked to try and launch a preemptive invasion of the South to try and take over the South before we had enough forces built up in the area.

Consequently, the best option would be to launch a sudden, amphibious 1944 France-style invasion along the western coast of North Korea. The objective would be to try and cut off Pyongyang from the rest of the country. Encircling Pyongyang and cutting off communications with the outside world to the extent possible can hamper the ability of the regime to direct the battle. Faced with losing everything, the regime could disintegrate and take out the dictator on their own. In any case, being cut off from the chain of command means that the army will find it difficult to conduct any sort of operations beyond a local static defense. A society like North Korea where one wrong decision can mean the end of your life has very likely created an army not used to taking initiative. In a fast-moving battle, they simply won’t be able to react quickly to changing circumstances.

In any case, an immediate threat to Pyongyang could, to the extent that the North Korean army was still capable of launching offensive operations, force them to turn their attention to combating the threat to their own capital as opposed to launching an invasion of the South. While much is made of the 1 million man North Korean army (roughly 2/3’s of which is located near the frontline De-Militarized Zone (DMZ)), South Korea has a 500,000 man army itself. Its equipment is superior to North Korea and it would likely be able to effectively defend South Korea from any attempted invasion from the North.

Actual Ground Invasion:

In fact, the South Korean military would likely be called upon to conduct an invasion of the North relatively shortly after the start of hostilities to push the North Koreans back from Seoul. The South Korean forces would likely be more flexible and able to conduct fast-moving offensive operations. While the going would be tougher as the Korean terrain doesn’t lend itself easily to fast moving armored formations (like the deserts of Iraq), the complete control of the air that the U.S. will have achieved means that moving north will be much easier than the terrain would likely otherwise allow. In addition, South Korean logistics systems will be largely intact thereby furthering advance.

During this time, psych-ops such as dropping leaflets and transmitting other messages to North Koreans urging them to surrender should be done. Having plenty of food on hand and logistics systems in place to handle these prisoners will be key.

Nuclear Facilities & Mobile Missile Launchers:

The largest difficulty with any of this is the fact that the nuclear facilities are largely in the northern part of the country and difficult to get to. These facilities will have to have their own section dedicated to neutralizing them. The launch sites can be obliterate, even perhaps by using our own tactical nukes, although I don’t think we would have to go that far. But air assets would need to be standing by for the duration of the war to make sure none of these missiles left their launching pads.

The bigger challenge would be the mobile missile launchers. Tracking these down and destroying them would be a job for the special forces. In Iraq in 1991, special forces teams had some success in tracking down and destroying mobile Scud missile launchers that Saddam was using to attack Israel. But he was also able to get off some launches as well. Given that some of these mobile launchers could have a nuke on it, the detection and elimination of these is of paramount importance.

The Likely Result:

Although much is being made of how large the North Korean army is, the simple fact is that militarily it simply would not be able to stand-up to overwhelming military assets that the U.S. along with South Korea would be able to bring to bear. I suspect that within 72 hours to 168 hours (3 to 7 days), the North Korean military would cease to function as a coherent fighting force. The country has been living off its glory from a war that was fought 65 years ago. And even then, North Korea was effectively beaten but was bailed out by the Chinese at a time when the U.S. and opposing militaries (Chinese and Soviets) were more evenly matched. There won’t be a Chinese army crashing across the Yalu River to push the Americans back to the 38^th Parallel and prop up the North Korean regime this time.

Furthermore, even putting up some sort of token military or guerilla resistance assumes that the population has a belief in the government or system on whose behalf it is fighting. In addition, in order to function in a fast moving battle space requires that junior officers be able to take initiative to changing conditions on the ground. The simple fact that taking initiative in North Korea is a good way to get yourself killed by the regime means that North Korean society simply isn’t one that is going to produce a military capable of operating flexibly in battle outside of approved channels. With much (if not all) of the communication channels (and possibly leadership) disrupted or eliminated within the first hours, the ability of the North to mount any kind of defense will be seriously curtailed.

The unknown piece is whether North Korea will be able to get off a shot with its nukes. That is the major risk in this operation.

The Aftermath:

The aftermath of a conquered North Korea would be difficult to predict. A country that has been abused, brainwashed, and malnourished for 3 generations leaves nobody who would even know how to operate in the modern world with a modern economy. The effects of the last 70 years will still be seen 100 years from now. Initially, the fortified border would need to be maintained to avoid having North Koreans streaming to the South. A new North Korean government would have to be set up to maintain order, under the auspices of the U.S. and South Korea. With a breakdown in the distribution system, famine might be wide spread. We really don’t know.

Whatever happens, it would certainly be a complete mess. But with the regime in the North being what it is and having access to the weapons that it has, leaving the status quo is looking like less of a viable option.

(Turning Points Appear To Be Reversible, But They Aren’t)

This is the second installment of a two-part series

So, if Donald Trump isn’t reversible, why not? The first reason has to do with the way people are reacting to his election. Whatever the months since the election have shown us, they have shown us first that personality and temperament aside, Donald Trump is a generic Republican in many ways. In other words, most of what he has actually done (as opposed to his rhetoric) are things that virtually any Republican President would have done. To the extent that his actions and policies have differed from other Republicans, they have differed in a leftward direction (personal support for gay marriage and no desire to make it illegal again, less free trade, etc). The continued resistance on the left is not to a fascist (to the extent that term means anything other than “something I hate”), but rather to a Republican President. From the attempts to intimidate the Electoral College, to judges overruling the travel pause (don’t call it a ban, because that is not what it actually is) simply because Donald Trump issued it, people are refusing to accept the outcome of a legitimate election. Given that there is no evidence that Russia “hacked” the election in the sense that they manipulated vote totals, this election was legitimate.  What people are doing is actually refusing to accept, as Americans have traditionally done, an outcome inconsistent with their desires. Instead, we get leaks, protests, and mob violence, precisely the sort of things that one sees in banana republics. The fact is that this just gives license to those on the other side who will do the same things, and feel justified in doing it the next time that their candidate does win. We don’t go back from that.

The second reason is that the factors that led to Donald Trump have been building for decades. I am not just talking about sections of the country that have been ignored as jobs have moved overseas, it is also the cultural snobbery comes at these folks through the national media and film industries that has been grating. After George W. Bush won reelection in 2004, in large part from a surge in what the press dubbed “values voters”(i.e. religious, traditional people), the press started to make some noises about trying to understand these folks. Nothing came of it. Instead, the press and the cultural elite have been content (and in some cases gleeful) in describing these struggling people as backwards, hateful, misogynist, and stupid for holding to a whole laundry list political opinions and values that the elite has no use for. These folks sense that the elite hate them, wish they weren’t there, and that the elite feel these folks deserve to be mocked, abused, and have bad things happen to them for thinking the way that they do. Furthermore, these folks feel put upon for holding values and opinions that virtually all of America held 30 years ago (and in the case of same-sex marriage, a position that virtually every Democrat leader held at some point in their lives). In short, they feel mistreated, and the cultural elite honestly do give off the impression that these forgotten people deserve to be mistreated.

The third reason we aren’t going back is that the institutions of government are more and more being politicized and being turned against one specific segment of the political spectrum. The IRS, a feared organization, has been used to suppress conservative political activities for several years. And even if you don’t believe that to be the case, conservatives do, and that is all that matters. Conservatives have tended to be the law & order party. Believing that you are being targeted for no other reasons than your political beliefs is a quick way to learn contempt for governmental agencies and the people who inhabit them. And recently, an attempted mass assassination for Republican members of Congress was basically minimized by the FBI as a political matter. Again, perception is everything, and the perception of many on the right is that law enforcement doesn’t really give a s**t if conservatives get shot. The point is that conservatives are ceasing to view the U.S. government as legitimate. Those on the left are yelling that Donald Trump is “Not My President”. Increasingly those on the right are starting to look at Washington and think “Not My Government”.

In conclusion, the deterioration of the socio-political environment in this has been driven by a decline in trust. Although trust in institutions has been declining for 40 years, most of this decline (politically speaking) was in the area of politicians. However, now it appears that large fractions of conservatives are starting to lose faith in the fundamental fairness of the governing institutions themselves. This sort of trust is not easy to rebuild and would require a shake-up in very people staffing these agencies, the likes of which no Western country has seen. This is not likely to happen. Consequently, the country that we had before has changed irrevocably, with all of the baggage that is likely to bring.