This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

One cold and stormy night, I started binge watching North Korean defectors telling their harrowing stories of escape on YouTube. Like Robert Kennedy once said, “Democracy might be lousy, but we never had to put up a wall to keep people in.”

So, I saw this story this morning from the UK. About ten thousand North Korean soldiers massing to be sent to Ukraine. A marriage made in heaven. Mr. Stan Laurel meet Mr. Oliver Hardy! These North Korean defectors told tales of going on maneuvers and each being allowed to fire one round from their gun. (train, train, train!) March, march, march! Trucks? No, we walk wherever we go. If you act right, I’ll show you our machine gun. (circa 1950) We aren’t allowed to take it out of the box though.

Grueling pointless assignments and political indoctrination leveraged by threats and intimidation. Nothing builds brand loyalty quite like getting your ass beat for asking a question. There are no written reprimands. I hit you and you hit the floor! If you try to escape, they will go after your family! And still they try to run anyway.

Oh good! Said the Russian General never, green troops are coming! Troops with a serious language barrier. Troops unsure of what they are about to face. Troops trained for 1950 about to meet 2024. Troops trained to march pretty and guard airfields from imaginary enemies. Led by officers whose political connections are more important than their military skill. The old, “You’ll win by fighting harder. They may have advanced weapons and numbers on us, but we have team spirit!”

I would wager there are no contingency plans to bring these North Korean troops home anytime soon or ever will be. Just cast them away as cannon fodder. But it dangerously expands the war. And now, all bets are off. Russia brings in ten thousand North Koreans. What’s to stop the Ukrainians from bringing in two thousand Royal Marines or French helicopters dropping assault troops. US barriers to deep missile strikes inside Russia could disappear.

Sadly, with Russian casualties averaging 1,200 per day the Koreans will hardly be noticed. And could possibly be more of a hindrance than a help. Untrained green troops guarding your flank. Sleep tight! But for Vladimir, this is a have to and not a want to. The gross incompetence of the Russian military has burned through fifty years of Soviet military hardware and supplies. So now Russian troops attack on dirt bikes and golf carts.

Vladimir is playing a double game. He needs more manpower but doesn’t want to declare a general mobilization. A general mobilization will turn the public against Vladimir. This was a “Special Military Operation” not a damn protracted war! But now it is. The same thing happened to LBJ!

Estimates are Russia will run out of equipment and or manpower by mid-2025. That’s zero day when nothing is left. But the military situation could turn critical long before the end comes. A couple of thousand Koreans guarding five miles of front could run like chickens in the face of advancing modern Western troops.

The Russian air force is on its last legs with most of its air fleet more than twenty years old. It wouldn’t take long for maintenance issues to arise. Like the Black Sea fleet was pushed off the water, the Russian air force has been pushed further and further east. By the use of drones, the Russian air fleet has had to migrate for safer points east. Making it harder to launch their glide bombs. Spending more time in the air and giving any wandering F-16 something to shoot at.

Russia has effectively lost the use of Crimea. That was a Russian war goal and they’ve lost it. They’ve lost control of the Black Sea and most of the Black Sea Fleet. The Russians once threatened an amphibious invasion of Ukraine, today they don’t dare show their flag on the water.

The Russians report a critical shortage of artillery shells. So, they attack without artillery with the same expected results. An estimated 675,000 Russian casualties just to hold the line. Ten thousand Koreans means twenty to thirty thousand extra meals per day. Can Russian logistics handle that assignment? With bribes in the Russian military commonplace, I’m going to guess with a no. What are you Koreans to me? Got any money or Vodka?

Yet there is another problem both Putin and LBJ share. You can’t tell a Ukrainian from a Russian, just like you couldn’t tell the North Vietnamese from the South. A high ranking Russian officer was assassinated on the streets of Moscow. The war has now come home to the big city. Sleep tight, you high ranking Russian officers! If they can get to you inside Moscow, you can be got whenever the Ukrainians have the time or the inclination.

Each event only heightens the pressure on the Russians. Putin needs warm bodies for his cauldron of death. And so, buys them from the only dictator on earth evil enough to sell his citizen’s lives for technology transfer and cheap oil.

Bye! So long, don’t forget to write and tell us how you are getting along in Ukraine. Is it cold? Is the snow deep? Is the food any good? Are you getting enough to eat? Are the Russians friendly? Gee, I wonder why he never writes us back?

At the current rates of Russian fatality in Ukraine the North Korean soldiers will be lucky to survive two weeks in combat, accomplishing nothing and dying needlessly by the thousands. The greatest crime is fighting a war already lost or a dictator killing thousands to just buy himself another day on the throne.  

“There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.”
― Sun Tzu