A Perspective from Japan

Is North Korea on the Verge of Collapse? Why the U.S. Is Deploying Stealth Fighters to South Korea and Japan

 

Cultural News, February 2007

 

By Motoaki Kamiura, Military Analyst

Translated by Alan Gleason

 

    The F-22 Raptor, the U.S. Air Force’s newest stealth fighter, has never been deployed overseas. But on February 10, twelve of the planes will arrive at Okinawa’s Kadena Air Base. The Japanese Foreign Ministry has announced that the aircraft and their squadron will be stationed at Kadena for three months.

 

     Another U.S. squadron of 15 to 20 F-117 fighters has already been at Kunsan Air Base in South Korea since January 11, with an announced deployment of four months.

 

    Both the F-22 and the F-117 are state-of-the-art stealth aircraft, capable of penetrating the dense antiaircraft network North Korea has installed along the Demilitarized Zone, and of attacking North Korean military installations.

 

    The three months from mid-February to mid-May during which these planes will be stationed in both Japan and South Korea are precisely the period when North Korea will face a severe food crisis. Crops (primarily rice and potatoes) harvested last fall will run out before the winter is over. But it will still be far too cold to grow anything, and people will either endure hunger until spring or starve to death.

 

    Once the weather warms up a bit, however, starving North Koreans will venture out in search of food. If they cannot obtain it then, riots are likely to occur. Potential trouble spots include grain storehouses in each district of the country, trains carrying foodstuffs, and harbors where ships with emergency food supplies from overseas are docked. Food riots erupting in any of these places would spread quickly across the entire country.

 

     If food riots or a coup d’etat should occur and the present regime begins to collapse, there is a concern that some factions of the North Korean military could engage in reckless maneuvers in the belief that South Korean and U.S. forces were attacking. The purpose of those stealth fighters in Japan and South Korea is to attack any out-of-control North Korean units in such an event.

 

    The forward deployment of stealth aircraft in these two countries is a strategy of deterrence that will be repeated every spring from now until the North Korean regime collapses. It is also part of the American military’s new 21st-century policy of rapid deployment of combat units normally stationed in Guam, Hawaii, or the continental U.S. to Asia or the Middle East in the event of crisis. This strategy is a significant part of what the U.S. refers to as the “transformation” of its military.

 

Motoaki Kamiura is a Tokyo-based military analyst. When the world is in crisis, he appears frequently on national television programs.

  

   Alan Gleason is an editor, writer, and Japanese-English translator. He lives in Tokyo.