In Korea, Planning for the Worst: Mass Evacuation
Dec 20 2010, 11:33 AM ET
17
As
the Korean peninsula enters what U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates calls "a difficult and potentially dangerous time," the
long-dormant Korean conflict is rumbling back into the public
consciousness. Government officials from the U.S., South Korea, Japan,
the Philippines, and other states throughout the region are planning
for the worst-case scenario: renewed war, perhaps nuclear, and a massive
exodus from South Korea. If tensions continue to escalate, hundreds of
thousands of foreign civilians living in South Korea will flee, sparking
one the biggest mass-evacuations since the British and French pulled
338,000 troops out of Dunkirk in 1940.
Even under the best
conditions, a mass evacuation is no easy task. In July 2006, as a battle
brewed between Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah militants, the U.S.
took nearly a month to evacuate 15,000 Americans. According to the
Government Accountability Office, "nearly every aspect of State's
preparations for evacuation was overwhelmed", by the challenge of
running an evacuation under low-threat conditions in a balmy
Mediterranean summer.
Evacuating a Korean war-zone would be far harder. And the U.S. would likely
have no choice but to ask China for help.
If
North Korea launches another artillery strike against South Korea--or
simply hurls itself at the 38th parallel--the resulting confrontation
could trigger one of the largest population movements in human history.
According to one account,
140,000 U.S. government noncombatants and American citizens would look
to the U.S. government for a way out. And that's just the Americans.
Hundreds of thousands of South Korean citizens and other foreign
nationals would be clamoring for any way off of the wintery, dangerous
peninsula.
In the absolute worst case, tens of millions of South
Koreans and hundreds of thousands of foreigners, some wounded, some
suffering from chemical, biological or even radiological hazards, will
flee in the only direction available to them: south. The country's
transportation system would be in nationwide gridlock as panicked
civilians avail themselves of any accessible means of travel. In this
desperation and chaos, the U.S. military has the unenviable mission of
supporting and evacuating U.S. citizens, all while waging a fierce
battle along the DMZ.
The U.S. does have a plan. In the event of
an evacuation, the State Department and U.S. military say that the U.S.
will instigate a prepared noncombatant evacuation operation. The first
stop for an evacuee would be a prearranged assembly area for
registration, a search, and an identity check. Then, assuming
transportation is available, evacuees would be sent by whatever means
the military can arrange to relocation centers farther down the
peninsula to wait for transportation out of South Korea. Finally, U.S.
civilians would gather at evacuation points where they will leave by sea
or air to foreign "safe havens," such as Japan, or to the United
States. The plan openly admits that things won't go smoothly, even
instructing civilians to surrender their personal vehicle to the U.S.
military upon arrival to an assembly area because the U.S. military may,
in desperation, turn to civilian transport.
On paper, everything
looks good, but as Korean tensions increase, the U.S. will have to get
serious about evacuation planning. A successful wartime evacuation of
the Korean peninsula can be done, and has been before. Sixty years ago
this month, as Chinese troops pushed United Nations forces back from the
Chinese border, an international fleet of 193 ships rescued around
196,000 soldiers and Korean refugees from Hungnam over just two weeks.
However, modern-day evacuees would be far slower and more cumbersome
than the well-trained amphibious force that made the Hungnam operation
possible. Instead, the evacuation will be more like Dunkirk, where,
largely unbidden, a disorganized fleet raced into threatened, shattered
harbors to pull whomever they could to safety.
Countries around
the globe with civilians or officials in South Korea would look to the
U.S. first for evacuation support. But with a war to fight; wounded,
contaminated, or infectious casualties to deal with; and amphibious lift
resources at a premium, there would not be enough space for all who
wish to leave.
Ironically, China, for all it has done to enable
the present Korean crisis, may pose the best, last hope for many
evacuees. With Korean, Japanese and American transport ships likely to
be fully committed to the military conflict, the only other untapped
Asian source of heavy amphibious sealift is China. Though often
dismissed by military analysts as little more than a garnish for a
"million-man swim" to Taiwan, China's amphibious assault fleet could
rescue many stranded non-combatants. China's massive civilian fleet
offers another possible resource. Plenty of Chinese ships will be
available, able to respond if allowed to enter South Korean waters.
Over
the course of the past month, the Philippines, one of many countries
that lack the resources to carry out a timely evacuation of their
Korean-based ex-patriots, has been debating how it could meet the
challenge of transporting some 60,000 Filipino temporary workers out of a
Korean crisis. For cases like this, where evacuation support will fall
far short of demand, China's armada of over fifty relatively modern
medium-range amphibious vessels, capable of moving over 20,000 people in
a single, albeit uncomfortable and slow voyage, would be an enormous
boon.
A Chinese rescue fleet poses a political, operational and
symbolic headache for South Korea, the U.S., and Japan. Chinese
assistance with a Korean evacuation would be an enormous political coup
for Beijing. Even modest Chinese support during a high-profile
humanitarian emergency could do a lot to blunt wider Asian concerns over
China's naval expansion and territorial ambitions. And in the case of
the Philippines, a timely humanitarian gesture by the People's
Liberation Army's Navy would strengthen Chinese influence there and
maybe even reconcile a festering territorial dispute over their
contested South China Sea islets - to China's favor. But the defenders
of South Korea would not have any other choice than to ask for China's
assistance. No other help is available.
Chinese participation in
a Korean contingency is the kind of scenario that makes U.S. policy
makers in the region wince. But such are the ugly compromises that must
be made if the U.S. and other countries fail to plan now, while there is
still time to prepare, for how to get potentially-threatened nationals
out before the Korean peninsula lurches over the precipice.
Image: Local residents from Yeonpyeong island arrive at the port in Inchon,
west of Seoul, on a police vessel on November 24, 2010 after being
evacuated the day after a military strike on the island by North Korea. By
Yoshikazu Tsnuo/AFP/Getty.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/12/in-korea-planning-for-the-worst-mass-evacuation/68276/
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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