This weekend’s report that the United States and South Korea have drawn up plans for the collapse of the North Korean regime is misleading in one sense — OPLAN 5029 has existed for years; what has changed is the reality of American military commitments elsewhere, the deepening misery of North Korea, the profound difficulty of any occupation, and the belated realization of the South Koreans that planning cannot be delayed any longer. The realization takes on new urgency with the obvious decline of Kim Jong Il’s health, but its impetus is the end of ten years of leftist rule in the South, and with it, the end of a head-in-the-sand approach to the Kim Dynasty’s failings, crimes, and fundamental instability.
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