Islamic State On The Korean Peninsula

“As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don’t know we don’t know” - Donald Rumsfeld, United States Secretary of Defense.

What comes after Kim Jong-un? That is the question.

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defence under George W. Bush during the 2003 Iraq invasion, said something that greatly amused pundits, he said: “As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” While pundits and comedians were amused insofar as this could be a punchline when they tell their next joke at a party, the person who studies international dynamics, to make predictions on the next security threats, must take a different instruction from the “unknown unknowns” quote.

Donald Rumsfeld was trying to make the case that they should invade Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to obviate the danger of the “unknown unknowns” threat from Saddam Hussein. In hindsight, it was a disingenuous and cynical claim, because as it turns out, the invasion caused more instability and suffering than any unknown Saddam Hussein capability. This is not lost on analysts who notice that, the result of the invasion, was suffering for the Iraqis, and the creation of a hitherto unheard of armed group that now threatens Europe at will – the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

With the knowledge we now have of how things turned out in Iraq and Libya, after United States regime change actions there, we can make the case – with mathematical certainty – that if the United States attacks North Korea as threatened, the outcome is knowable. The United States thinks it can make a decapitating strike on the North Korean Supreme Leader. This will then lead to the population being freed from a dictatorship and thus there will be no retaliatory strikes from North Korean Rocket Forces. The problem with that line of reasoning is that experience belies it. It is no longer a case of unknown unknowns what will happen after regime change action, but known knowns: civil war and rise of armed non-state actors in those ungoverned spaces.

What will happen if the United States attacks North Korea, is that North Korea’s Rocket Forces will retaliate with missiles against South Korea and Japan – a situation which will put over 20 million people directly in harm’s way. But even if this danger was not there, and Kim Jong-Un could be removed by force, wherever a power vacuum has occurred, non-state armed groups have invariably filled the vacuum. We have never heard of a single terrorist attack in North Korea, but this will not be the case once the monopoly on the legitimate use of force is taken away. And with Islamic State being the umbrella of choice for those aggrieved by the West, it is not inconceivable that terrorist attacks against Western interests will start happening on the Korean Peninsula, if use of force is pursued as an option against North Korea. 

ISIS May Yet Punch Way Above Its Weight

The Russian Su - 24 All Weather Bomber that was shot down by Turkey in Syria on 24 November 2015.

If the unthinkable - nuclear war - were to happen over Turkey's downing of a Russian bomber jet in Syria, then ISIS will have punched way above its weight in style. The fable that readily comes to mind in illustration, is the African folk tale: The Hare, the Elephant and the Hippopotamus. 

The True Condition of Air Safety In The Decade 2011 - 2021

EI - ETJ. The MetroJet Airbus A321 - 200 Aircraft that crashed over the Sinai Desert while operating as Flight 7K9268. Picture Credit: Al Arabiya English.

All governments are essentially cut from the same cloth. If the governments of Egypt and Russia can help it, they will pass off the recent MetroJet plane crash in the Sinai Desert as having been caused by a technical fault rather than by an act of terrorism. Egypt's concern will be its image and tourism industry, while Russia will not want ISIS to claim to have the capability of striking back at Russia at a time and place of its choosing. 

The French, British, German and Emirati governments are not taking any chances and have announced a ban on their flag carriers flying over the Sinai. There is an element of the Russia vs the West in the announcement of this precaution, but that element is not relevant to the subject of this post: the true condition of the air safety environment in this decade.

ISIS has claimed to have downed Flight 7K9268 using surface to air missiles but, this is not credible as ISIS does not have the missile systems to strike at aircraft at cruising altitudes. The danger to aircraft landing and taking off from North Africa is, however, very real as 20 000 Man Portable Air Defence Systems  (MANPADS) were looted during NATO's toppling of Colonel Gaddafi in 2011. So, the full stock of the fallout from that NATO misadventure is yet to be taken.

What is credible, at this stage, is that a bomb may have been placed on the Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg flight before take off. I worked on the airside for the airline for a considerable time and know for a fact that the one thing that protects passengers is not so much the security screening equipment, but the people who man those systems. If a greater section of the population is disaffected, as all those who supported the Muslim Brotherhood are, you install the best security equipment in vain as there are ways to bypass it. Further danger will come when non state actors get access to air  defence systems more sophisticated than MANPADS.

The true condition of air safety, therefore, is that it is unravelling. What has largely caused this to happen is United States military adventurism and disregard for the cornerstone of international order that is non-intervention in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. United States actions have started, and will continue to create ungoverned spaces where non state actors will have missile systems capable of bringing down aircraft at previously unassailable heights. Of course, the transatlantic routes, the European airspaces and Asian airspaces will still be safe - for now.