A.N. Sorry for the delay, but this is the biggest update of the TL yet, so hopefully that counts for something. Updates might be a bit spotty, got a lot going on IRL but I’m still committed to this TL and have got some big plans for it. Hope you enjoy the update!
The Cold War seemed to predict an end to the decades of conflict which had plagued the 20th century. America was the undisputed hegemon, globalism and free trade made war less profitable and the rise of democracy across the globe made war far less likely. Yet, the Nineties featured many other violent conflicts, including those fought in Africa and Europe, but such wars lacked an ideological component, often fought against religious or ethnic violence, rather than ideological reasons. However, one war stands as an exception, the Second Korean War.
The Korean Wars represented the first and last war of the Cold War and the Second began with Kim Il-Sung’s death in the mid-1990s. The exact date of his death has been lost to history, with multiple clashing accounts between doctors, experts and testimonies stating he died in either October 1995 or February 1996. Yet, what is known, is that Il-Sung, who was morbidly obese and had suffered from many health problems throughout his life, suffered a severe health episode in 1994 (again, records are conflicting whether he suffered a heart attack or a stroke) which had left him paralysed, needing a wheelchair, and with severe difficulties speaking.
Il-Sung’s son and the heir apparent, Kim Jong-Il attempted to use his father’s health scare to replace his father and become the next leader. Military officials and bureaucratic leaders resisted this, fearing Il-Sung would recover and to maintain the illusion of stable leadership. Jong-Il, who was seen internally as overly autocratic, even more so than his father, had also grown increasingly unpopular among North Korean elites, who were organised by Kim Yong-ju and Hwang Jang-yop. Yong-Ju, Il-Sung’s younger brother, was an internal opponent of the cult of personality which had grown around his brother and instead sought a return to more traditional Marxism. Yong-Ju, already prominent in North Korea, used his brothers’ health episode to reconcile with him (caused by his demotion in favour of Jong-Il) and used this time wisely, slowly gained influence in the backrooms. Jong-Il's attempt to seize power, with his father still alive, was a major blow to Jong-Il's reputation and seemingly proved the fears of the military and bureaucratic elite.
The North Korean public were largely unaware of these backroom troubles, with Il-Sung’s heart attack and the severity of it being heavily censored by the North Korean media with his subsequent ‘recovery’ being trumpeted with multiple stories and videos featuring a healthy Il-Sung being fabricated. Those who owned TVs saw a healthy and vital leader, whilst those didn't continued on as they did before. Il-Sung also, whether due to his heart attack and health issues following, (through evidence uncovered during North Korean reconstruction) grew increasingly paranoid and angry, believing his heart attack to have been orchestrated by a foreign agent, or worse, by his own overly ambitious son.
As with most documents immediately preceding the North Korean Civil War, multiple conflicting accounts exist of the military takeover and a timeline has been impossible to verify. However, the widely accepted view is that when North Korean TV announced that Kim Il-Sung had died peacefully in his sleep in February 1996, and that an ‘emergency transition council’ had been established in the aftermath, marked the beginning of the 13-month-long North Korean Civil War. Jong-Il, who had been banished from father's company after his heath episode and on the backfoot, had found himself frozen out.
Jong-Il was undeterred however, collecting a loyal cadre of military officers and figures and launched a military coup against the emergency transition council. The year-long civil war afterwards (again it is unknown when Jong-Il was killed, with the best evidence pointing to April 1997) tore apart the nation and killed millions and exacerbated the deliberate northern famine of 1993-1997. The West looked on in shock and horror. South Korea began to prepare for a flood of refugees. China, having undergone a shift towards the West and Western values since the Tiananmen Protests, withdrew diplomatic and military support from the burning nation.
What escalated the North Korean Civil War into the Second Korean War was when a faction of North Korean troops loyal to Jong-Il, attacked and overran the Joint Security Area and the House of Peace on the 5 March 1997. Both buildings were housing refugees and political dissidents who were fleeing from violence. The likely target of the siege was Hwang Jang-yop, a prominent government official, who had criticised both Kim and the emergency government and attempt to defect to South Korea. The attack, dramatized in the opening scene of the Oscar winning film
Parallel, represented an act of war against both South Korea and the international peacekeepers guarding the refugees. So began the Second Korean War.
The US, largely organised through the leadership of Secretary of State Dick Cheney, who was both the most powerful and prominent figure in the Thompson Administration and would go on to become the longest serving Secretary of State since Cordell Hull, immediately retaliated to the flagrant breach of international law and the clear violation of the 1953 ceasefire. Launching air strikes against military positions in North Korea, US forces in tandem with South Korea who begun a rapid mobilisation of its troops, began to remilitarised the DMZ . The opening gambit was clear. The US attempted to destroy the offensive capabilities of the North to attack the South, whilst South Korea took the longer process of mobilising troops for an eventual retaliation to the 15 March siege.
The North Korean ‘emergency transition council’, which controlled most military positions close to the DMZ, ordered a retaliation to this mobilisation. From previously secret positions, North Korean troops begun the now infamous, “
Days of Death”. In barbaric and unthinkable ways, South Korea saw multiple chemical weapons attacks and bombings of Seoul and Incheon, which killed well over 200,000 civilians. South Korea, alongside the US, managed to destroy the artillery, missile sites and rocket launchers on the border at great cost, and managed to stop the worst of the attacks after two days. The losses were astronomical on all sides, but it represented a turning point in favour of the South and US.
The US sent a total of 160,000 troops to fight alongside South Korea, who mobilised 1,000,000 troops in response. By May 1997, with Britain, France, and Russia offering military, diplomatic and logistical support, the so-called “
Freedom Coalition” crossed the DMZ and landed troops on the beaches near Chongjin. By July 1997, US and South Korean military troops had occupied the capital city of Pyongyang. Fighting against a suboptimal and fractured Korean People’s Army, the predictions of a drawn out and deadly slog were largely overestimated. Outside the “Days of Death” and the siege of Pyongyang, casualties were minimal (or within expected parameters). The reason for this was, simply, the bulk of what remained of the North Korean People’s Army was woefully underprepared for conflict, with at least 70% of its troops malnourished and most missing equipment like bullets, guns and in some cases shoes.
As images were broadcast of the destruction, death, and famine on the Korean Peninsula, both in the North and South, calls grew louder for action to alleviate the suffering. Of particular focus of Bob Geldof, the founder of
Live Aid in 1985, was the man-made famine created in North and the seeming ambivalence of Coalition forces, who were focused on fighting and securing military supply lines. So, to raise further awareness of the suffering created by the wars, it was decided that Live Aid would return, this time as a series of charity concerts in multiple cities, broadcast simultaneously, live, across the globe.
Live Aid 2 ran for four days across eleven cities, with its proceeds being given to the South Korean government, NGOs, and relief agencies to help fund reconstruction efforts.
After the Fall of Pyongyang in August 1997, US and South Korean transitioned from invasion to occupation. Troops began anti-insurgency campaigns against Kim loyalists, in the rural north, who had received aid from the Chinese government. Outside of these insurgents, North Koreans, despite their seeming fanaticism towards the Kim regime, were largely peaceful and accepted the change in government. Most (North) Koreans saw their standards of living dramatically improve by the turn of millennium thanks to the end of the civil war, UN aid packages and charity.
South Korea, now formally known as Korea, was resistant to an immediate annexation of the North, fearing the cost and effort needed. Instead South Korea sought international support to administer the North. To gain this, and to provide the government with international legitimacy and recognition, the UN was authorised (begrudgingly by China, who ultimately preferred the UN to having the US or South Korea directly administer its neighbour) to form a protectorate in the region, which would last for 11 years. Kofi Annan became the administrator of the UN protectorate, and reconstruction began.
The UN protectorate forces and peacekeepers were mostly compromised of Chinese and Korean personnel, believed to be more capable of administering the province than the US. However, US troops still were prominent on the peninsula and acted outside of the UNnprotectorate, to fight insurgents, demilitarise the remaining North Korean army, militias, and loyalists, and provide material aid to the South for both rebuilding and for the eventual integration.
US troops would, from 1999, be gradually reduced by Thompson and his successor, before fully withdrawing in 2005, whilst (South) Korean troops would take over operational security in the former North the same year. In 2008, the protectorate was dissolved, and the North was fully integrated into the Republic of Korea.
