The Korean Civil War: March-April 2028

While the first two months of the war could best be characterized as the preparatory phase, or perhaps the guerilla phase, with all sides of the conflict engaged in fierce urban and rural guerilla fighting, the next two months could be declared the phase of centralization.

A number of sides or participants in the conflict didn’t have a sole person to “rally the flag” around, so to speak. On the pro-government side, the anti-communist militias and the private contractors had no organizer or overarching organizing body from which to take power from. On the communist side, after KINA operations devastated the Politburo Presidium, the new Politburo remained in the shadows, so as to prevent decapitation strikes. On the pro-democracy side, the KDU by its very nature had no overall leader outside of a nominal National Organizing Committee, and the protests were unified solely by their issues with the government.

This was deemed suitable for the first months of the war. However, as the war continued and morale began to waver, more and more consideration was placed behind a “unifying figure.”

For the anti-communist militias, this would come in Koo Dae-hyun and the National Anti-Communist League (NACL). While the anti-communist militias originally were disunified and, practically speaking, just a bunch of angry former political prisoners with guns, the NACL allowed for a degree of unification and coordination. Koo Dae-hyun, a former Northern dissident and political prisoner turned militant, was deemed a suitable public face for the cause.

For the private contractors, who were largely disjointed and, although broadly hired by the chaebols, un-unified in their action and by-in-large a non-factor for the first few years of the war, they would be unified behind the Sejong Group, a newly formed private military corporation. The Sejong Group would quite intentionally have no public leader or public backers, instead being funded through secretive money transfers from chaebols, but the introduction of a broad system of organization and chain-of-command would help the private contractors greatly. The Sejong Group has been reported as taking inspiration from the Russian Wagner Group - primarily through government affiliation and simultaneous government deniability, though the business entities behind the Sejong Group are more mysterious.

For the communists and the Worker-Peasant Red Guards, the Politburo Presidium would keep its members private; however, they would also publicly elect Kim Yo-jong, sister to the now deceased Kim Jong-un, as General-Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and Supreme Commander of the Red Guards - making the last prominent member of the Kim family once again the focal point for the WPK and the WPRG. Kim Yo-jong is the last of the “Baekdu Bloodline” deemed to be suitable for command, with Kim Jong-un dead, his daughter and former Supreme Leader of the DUK Kim Ju-ae captured, Kim Jong-un’s other children and spouse missing or dead, and Kim Pyong-il and Kim Jong-chul considered “incapable” of command. While Kim Yo-jong’s public proclamation as General-Secretary brought renewed vigor to the Red Guards amidst brutal NACL retaliatory attacks, it also provides a figure for the NACL and the government to target.

The Korean Democratic Union would have significantly more difficulty in finding leadership, primarily due to the fractured and politically disunited nature of the KDU’s local militia branches. Members of the nominal military leadership branch, the National Organizing Committee, were deemed unfit for political leadership primarily due to their “national insignificance” - they simply weren’t well known enough. Instead, factions grew up around the various political branches of the KDU’s militia. Around 15,000 unified around a broad “centre-left” coalition, rallying around former Premier Moon Jae-in as a figure of Korean democracy. However, the former Premier’s controversial nature led to the other 10,000 militiamen broadly unifying around Lee Jun-seok of the People Power Party, Ahn Cheol-soo of the People Party, and other local political figures. The lack of elections, simultaneous with the lack of political unity, further fractured the KDU’s ability to contest with the other parties of the civil war. Functionally, the 10,000 strong split, broadly unified behind an assortment of national and local centre-right to right-wing figures, is known as the National Korean Democratic Union.

Combat in the third and fourth months would not waver too much from trends in the open months, with guerilla warfare continuing.

In the North, coordination between Heonbyeong special operatives, the 707th Special Mission Group, and the new National Anti-Communist League would see the Red Guards immensely cowed. By this point, the Red Guards’ strategy of a modified protracted People’s war would have to be entirely scrapped as it became more and more evident that the Korean National Army would not be sending thousands into the mountain strongholds of the Red Guards. The focus of the first few months on this strategy would be a severe detriment to the Red Guards, especially as their initial supplies began drying up, and they were forced into venturing out of the mountains for supplies once more. Local villages - even those who had been previously friendly to the Red Guards in earlier months - began to refuse to help the Red Guards, now fearing NACL reprisal attacks, and on more than one occasion previously friendly local villagers coordinated with the NACL to set up surprise attacks on the Red Guards. The advent of spring led an initiative to begin farming in the more welcoming, lower parts of the mountains, but KAI T-50 air raids at night would render these efforts in vain.

By the end of March, 2028, the Red Guards’ stockpiles were depleted. Ammunition, food, medicine, and other materials were beginning to run out. So, in desperation, the Red Guards launched their first major offensive - the Rason offensive.

Rason was an obvious target of the Red Guards, primarily due to the distance of Rason from the pro-government operational headquarters in Pyongyang. Like other local administrative departments in the North, following Seoul’s emergency centralization initiatives, Rason was primarily governed by the Mayor and protected by the local police. On April 2nd, 2028, 8,000 Red Guards descended on the city from all sides, and by the end of the next day the local police had retreated from the city, as well as the new administrators. The Red Guards set about constructing defensive structures, as well as ransacking houses and grocery stores for more supplies. A debate broke out among Red Guard commanders, about whether to remain in Rason and defend it, or retreat and claim a tactical victory. In the end, the former won out.

The seizure of Rason was a major embarrassment for the government, and Rason came under heavy strategic bombardment on April 4th, lasting for the rest of the battle. Attempts at creating barricades along the main entrances to the city were destroyed by KNAF units within the hour. It was only after, on April 6th, the building in which Red Guard high command was meeting in was annihilated with a well-placed guide missile, that Red Guard commanders began to realize that they’d made a mistake. However, as they attempted to retreat out back towards the mountains, they found their way blocked by heavy gunfire and accurate mortar/artillery fire. Unbeknownst to them, in the past five days, Heonbyeong, special forces, and NACL units had flocked en masse to Rason - to make an example, to both the Red Guards and to the KDU. As near 15,000 combined militiamen, secret military police, and special forces surrounded the city from land, three Ulsan-class frigates and dozens of other smaller patrol boats surrounded the city from sea. With Rason completely surrounded, and the KNAF bombardment only intensifying as the days passed by, the situation was dire.

Two weeks later, Rason was emptied. Red Guard units had either been killed, deserted, or surrendered, and on April 21st the last remaining member of High Command was blown up in a precision airstrike. Rason was liberated, and the lowering and subsequent burning of the old DPRK flag would provide an excellent PR boost to Seoul.

As a whole, the Rason offensive was a resounding failure for the Red Guards. Costing thousands of lives - as well as a number of skilled guerilla commanders who’d been forced along - the Red Guards who remained in the mountains failed to get any of the collected supplies. As such, the current situation for the Red Guards is as dire as ever. Still being gradually forced further and further into the mountains, and with equipment and food rationing getting harsher and harsher, morale is low. Desertion is increasingly common.

Most of the violence in these months was in the North. In the South, the KDU was primarily attempting to reorganize itself around a variety of political leaders, with the National Organizing Committee attempting to stop a full military split. Initially, the National Organizing Committee wanted to do this by seizing a city such as Pohang or Gyeongju - however, the Rason failure of the Red Guards quickly put that idea out of mind. Overall, the KDU was involved in basic clashes with GKA paramilitaries all across the south of the South, to varying results. The GKA were still better trained and better equipped, and thus managed to push the KDU out of previous strongholds such as Gimhae and Ulsan, but the KDU currently still maintains a powerbase along a thin strip of the eastern coastline.

Protests in the South have lessened in intensity, just by the simple virtue of everything dragging out for so long. Tens of thousands still pour out into the streets on the weekends, but there is only very little violence. Instead, civilians have begun to bunker down even further - with community self defense brigades engaging in skirmishes with the Red Guards and KDU alike, especially as the two groups grow increasingly desperate for supplies.

Overall, as the second two months of the civil war come to an end, it’s clear that this war will not be escalating into a full blown traditional war. The primary opponents to the government - the Red Guards in the North and the KDU in the South - have seen varying levels of success, with the most dismal failures coming from attempts to engage in more traditional warfare. The Red Guards are the closest to capitulation, as they a) lost a significant amount of men and morale in the failed Rason offensive, b) have been under a sustained and gradually intensifying bombing campaign in the mountains for months, and c) begin to run out of supplies. The KDU, though fewer in number and splintered, have a) higher morale, as they didn’t take such a crushing loss as the Red Guards did, and b) more supplies, by virtue of their lower number and the fact that they are not trying to kick it in the mountains.

Cumulative Casualties