By Oh Young-jin
Two weeks after North Korea’s artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island in the West Sea, citizens in the South remain shell-shocked, still ensnared by a collective sense of insecurity, much of it derived from the government’s inability evident during the fiery hours of bombardment to defend the nation and properly protect people’s lives.
The government’s priority should now be to channel this public anger toward the real enemy ― North Korea.
For this end, political maneuvering is taking place at all levels of society. President Lee Myung-bak condemned Pyongyang using the strongest terms for its act of unprovoked invasion, while the new Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin ordered the Armed Forces to take stern counteraction in self-defense in the case of future attacks.
Ideas, new and old, are also being reignited in public discourse. The formation of a new Marine command is being considered to beef up defenses on the frontline islands including Yeonpyeong and an extension of the period of compulsory military service is being suggested.
In the political arena, a new national narrative is being voiced centered on national security. What appears to be political wrangling ― the opposition parties’ criticisms and the ruling camp’s rebuttals ― is serving, in a sense, the healthy purpose of providing checks and balances in governance.
In time, if past experiences serve as any guide, public distrust will eventually ebb and people will return to their regular daily lives. It is likely that the memory of the Yeonpyeong disaster will be pushed to the realm of our subconscious.
However, the overhaul of the government will have just begun.
The work should be about making an objective assessment about what went wrong with the system that caused the North to attack our territory and kill our people with pinpoint accuracy, while escaping the damage of a counterattack.
This soul-searching process should be separate from the public discourse and involve a group of wise men in a secret setting with its sole purpose of preparing not an effective, immediate counterattack but finding ways of neutralizing Pyongyang’s war-making ability with a long-term perspective.
At the top of the group’s agenda list should be how to energize the Armed Forces into an effective fighting machine.
If Pyongyang’s torpedo attack that killed 46 sailors on board the Cheonan, the frigate patrolling in the western sea border, in March, cast a serious doubt about the military’s preparedness, the Yeonpyeong attack proved it beyond a doubt.
Now it is known that only three of the six self-propelled howitzers guns manned by the Marine detachment fired back with two initially rendered inoperable from the damage due to the North Korean shelling. The remaining one had a problem with its firing system. Astonishingly, when the shelling began, the guns were turned southward rather than northward at their targets.
More dismal is the fact that even when the gunners shot on pre-coordinated targets in the North, satellite photos showed later, there were few effective hits. Its artillery tracking radar turned out to be obsolete, requiring 20 minutes to just even get booted up.
Finding fault with the equipment, however, would only scratch the surface of the problem. It is mental preparedness among the top military brass and rank-and-file members of the Armed Forces that should be addressed.
Multiple causes for such military laxity can be found, with the current government opting gladly to blame the 10-year liberal rule of the previous two administrations.
However, politicizing is only counterproductive. Above all, it looks juvenile that the incumbent, already three years into his five-year tenure, shifts the blame to his predecessors, whenever the chips are down.
Besides, a dose of secrecy is pivotal to bringing about a fundamental approach to ensure success in galvanizing such a recalcitrant organization as the Armed Forces.
Ironically, the plan to make the military an effective war machine can begin by appointing a civilian defense minister. The Armed Forces is the most cloistered club of soldiers, being extremely resistant to change. Its success in frustrating outside efforts to reform it can be, among other things, traced to the tradition of appointing one of their own, often retired Army generals, as the defense chief.
Generals may argue that there is no civilian who could match career flag officers in military expertise but the current situation, seen through the Cheonan frigate sinking and the Yeonpyeong fiasco, belies their claim.
From President Lee’s perspective, the usefulness of a civilian defense chief can’t be more obvious, when he remembered the confusion created by Kim Tae-young, Lee’s former defense minister, who spoke in public of a preventive effort to stem the escalation of the Yeonpyeong attack as the government’s top priority.
Kim’s remarks damaged Lee’s standing as commander in chief and raised questions again about his lack of military credentials. A civilian defense chief would have had a better chance of translating it into a more politically sensible narrative, saving Lee from the gauntlet he was forced to undergo.
Secondly, there seems to be no time to waste in starting an overhaul of the existing intelligence apparatus. The creation of a new control tower, a la director of the National Intelligence in the United States, created in 2004 as the result of the 9/11 terror attack.
The director, now retired Lt. Gen. James Clapper, plays the primary role of advising President Obama on intelligence matters, separately from and in collaboration with Leon Panetta, director of the Central Intelligence. Clapper also works as coordinator of the 16-member U.S. Intelligence Community. Despite some initial difficulty, Clapper provides an extra screening to bring more clarity to intelligence reported to Obama.
It is obvious that there was a big lapse of judgment in intelligence gathering and analysis that caused the Armed Forces to be unprepared for the Yeonpyeong attack. Reports have it that the military intelligence had eavesdropped in advance on North Korea’s activities and alerted the frontline units but obviously their warning was not strong enough. The National Intelligence Service (NIS) also did its part in the Yeonpyeong debacle by failing to have the rest of the government alerted, not noticing keenly enough that the North mounted uncalled-for provocations at a time of transition in leadership.
This alone calls for a redress of the way the intelligence community has worked.
I wish this Monday quarterbacking will not be sorely missed next time, God forbid, when the North attacks us again!