I purloined the transcript from one of Dick Marcinko's interviews about the new book. It's supposed to get posted to the book's website soon. In the meantime, I'll post some here.
Hopefully it makes interesting reading.
Your new book, Rogue Warrior: Dictator’s Ransom, is set largely in North Korea. Was that a random choice?
Richard Marcinko: One of the things I’ve always tried to do in my fictional books is alert the general public to what’s going on outside of America. The plots come out of real dangers around the world. The books are a means to tell our citizens about the threats I see as a SEAL with a lot of CT [counter-terrorism] experience. I call it “fiction or prediction” – yes, the stories are mostly made up, but they depict situations and events that do exist or will very shortly.
I chose to focus on North Korea this time because it is a rogue – little ‘R’ – nation. They have very few ties to other countries with the exception of China and, though their relationship is not exactly ideal, South Korea. On the other hand, North Korea has one of the largest standing armies in the world. Unclassified estimates put the overall military force at one million men; that’s out of a total population of 23 million in a country about the size of Mississippi.
Just for comparison’s sake, roughly 2.3 million Americans serve in the U.S. military, including our reserves and the guy who mops the floor at the Pentagon every night. If we had the same proportion of people in uniform that North Korea does, our armed forces would have over 13 million members. And I’m not counting North Korea’s reserves and other components in my totals.
I can’t get into the debate about how many nuclear weapons North Korea has or may have; much of the information is highly classified. But anyone with access to the internet can use a search engine to find fairly knowledgeable sources who estimate they may have more than a dozen weapons. Even the optimists say they have at least six.
The world doesn’t know enough of North Korea’s internal functions nor goals. And the reverse is also true – North Koreans know nothing of the outside world. But here’s what we do know: The North Korean economy is in shambles. People are starving there. With hunger and the economy such serious issues, North Korea must turn to China, and Russia as well, for assistance. To help them get the aid that they want, they focus on us as a threat. In effect what they’re doing is giving China and Russia a chance to irritate us through a surrogate that anyone can flush without anyone missing them. North Korea is a "dispensable pawn" on the world stage. It’s what they have to do to eat.
It’s a dangerous game for us, and also for them. But with their people starving, they’re a cornered rat with nothing to lose in anything they attempt, whether it is invading South Korea or selling nuclear weapons to terrorist who will gladly pay for the toys.
The Bush administration has recently entered into an agreement with North Korea that, ultimately, should result in its getting rid of its nuclear weapons making capability. Do you think North Korea can be trusted to follow through on any agreements?
My answer is somewhere between “NO!” and “HELL NO!” It is not to their advantage. They will remain the tail attempting to wag the dog.
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