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Quotes of the Day:
"It is the great triumph of genius to make the common appear novel."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Thus among the Chinese, the most ancient, and, from long Experience, the wisest of Nations, Honour does not descend but ascends. If a Man from his Learning, his Wisdom or his Valour, is promoted by the Emperor to the Rank of Mandarin, his Parents are immediately intitled to all the same Ceremonies of Respect from the People, that are establish’d as due to the Mandarin himself; on this Supposition, that it must have been owing to the Education, Instruction, and good Example afforded him by his Parents that he was rendered capable of Serving the Publick. This ascending Honour is therefore useful to the State as it encourages Parents to give their Children a good and virtuous Education. But the descending Honour, to Posterity who could have had no Share in obtaining it, is not only groundless and absurd, but often hurtful to that Posterity, since it is apt to make them proud, disdaining to be employed in useful Arts, and thence falling into Poverty and all the Meannesses, Servility and Wretchedness attending it; which is the present case with much of what is called the Noblesse in Europe."
- Benjamin Franklin quoted in "The US Founders and China: The Origins of Chinese Cultural Influence on the United States," by David Wang, (Access HERE)
"When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity."
- John F. Kennedy
1. N. Korea fires 2 short-range ballistic missiles into East Sea: S. Korean military
2. Former President Lee, ex-South Gyeongsang governor tapped for presidential pardons
3. N. Korea has offered arms to Russia's military group Wagner: U.S.
4. North Korea denies news report of munition supplies to Russia
5. South Korea condemns North for selling arms to Russian military
6. N. Korea denounces U.S.-led UNSC discussions against its missile launches
7. Will North Korea Really Do a Full-Range ICBM Test?
8. Seoul restaurant suspected as secret Chinese police station said to close next month
9. North Korea’s Nuclear Missile Arsenal Is a Clear Threat to America
10. Training scenarios to be adjusted as North threat evolves
11. The Next Big Thing? North Korea Ground Tests ICBM-sized Solid Rocket Motor
12. South Korea expects more military drills with US next year
13. Arms tests vs war drills ad infinitum in Korea
14. Defector: Hundreds of North Korean Boats with Defectors Forcibly Returned to North Korea in 2017 & 2018
15. Why asking 'how old are you?' isn't rude in South Korea
16. More missing North Koreans amid colder weather and food shortages
17. ＜Inside N. Korea＞ Kim Jong-un regime strengthens state-run food store network to sell food at prices cheaper than markets
18. China Relations Key to Situation in North Korea
19. Don’t Isolate North Korea
20. Securing America - Frank Gaffney With Col. David Maxwell, Suzanne Scholte and Dede Laugesen
1. N. Korea fires 2 short-range ballistic missiles into East Sea: S. Korean military
I think Kim launched these two missiles just to make all the think tanks revise their missile counts for the end of historic year roll-ups.
(2nd LD) N. Korea fires 2 short-range ballistic missiles into East Sea: S. Korean military | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by 송상호 · December 23, 2022
(ATTN: UPDATES throughout with military's explanation)
SEOUL, Dec. 23 (Yonhap) -- North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) into the East Sea on Friday, the South Korean military said, less than a week after its launch of two medium-range ones.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the launch from the Sunan area in Pyongyang at 4:32 p.m., and that the two missiles flew some 250 kilometers and 350 km, respectively. It did not provide other details.
The launch came after the South and the United States staged air drills, involving America's B-52H strategic bombers and F-22 stealth jets, on Tuesday in a show of force following the North's missile launches Sunday.
The JCS denounced Friday's launches as an act of "significant provocation" that harms peace and stability not only on the Korean Peninsula but also in the international community, and a "clear" breach of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
"We condemn them and call for an immediate stop," the JCS said in a text message sent to reporters. "Our military will maintain a solid readiness posture based on capabilities to respond overwhelmingly to any North Korean provocations."
On Sunday, the North launched what Seoul officials called two medium-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea.
The following day, it claimed the launch was part of a military reconnaissance satellite development project, while unveiling a plan to finish preparations for its first such satellite by April next year.
Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, took umbrage Tuesday at South Korean experts doubting if the North has mastered the atmospheric reentry technology for its intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
She also hinted at the possibility of the North firing an ICBM at a standard angle -- rather than a lofted one -- to prove the country's ICBM technology.
This year, the North has fired more than 60 ballistic missiles, a single-year record, as it is forging ahead with its stated weapons projects, such as developing hypersonic missiles and solid-fuel long-range ones.
sshluck@yna.co,kr
yunhwanchae@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by 송상호 · December 23, 2022
2. Former President Lee, ex-South Gyeongsang governor tapped for presidential pardons
(LEAD) Former President Lee, ex-South Gyeongsang governor tapped for presidential pardons | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by 김은정 · December 23, 2022
(ATTN: CHANGES headline, lead; UPDATES throughout with more details; REPLACES photo)
SEOUL, Dec. 23 (Yonhap) -- The Ministry of Justice decided Friday to recommend year-end presidential pardons for former President Lee Myung-bak, former South Gyeongsang Province Gov. Kim Kyoung-so and other high-profile politicians, sources said.
The ministry's amnesty review committee held a meeting and finalized the list of candidates for presidential clemency, which will be granted next Wednesday.
Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon plans to report the list soon to President Yoon Suk Yeol, who is widely expected to accept the request at a Cabinet meeting slated for next Tuesday. The special pardons will take effect the following day, according to ministry officials.
Lee, whose 17-year sentence for corruption was suspended due to health issues, will be given pardon with reinstatement, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.
Kim, a close associate of former President Moon Jae-in, is likely to be paroled without reinstatement, which would bar him from running for elections until May 2028.
The former governor has been serving a two-year sentence on opinion-rigging charges, and his sentence is set to end in May next year.
Also on the list was Choi Kyung-hwan, a former finance minister who was given a five-year prison term in 2019 for corruption charges, according to the sources.
Three former National Intelligence Service chiefs, who were imprisoned for providing the agency's off-the-book funds to former President Park Geun-hye's aides, were also tapped for parole, they said. Won Sei-hoon, who served as the spy chief under former President Lee, is likely to be given the special pardon.
ycm@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by 김은정 · December 23, 2022
3. N. Korea has offered arms to Russia's military group Wagner: U.S.
The regime will sell to anyone. It will be interesting to try to track these weapons and see how well they perform in the hands of Russian mercenaries. If they perform well it will be good advertising for further nK weapons sales. But if they perform poorly we could use that for influence operations purposes.
(3rd LD) N. Korea has offered arms to Russia's military group Wagner: U.S. | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by 이치동 · December 23, 2022
(ATTN: UPDATES with S. Korea's response in paras 9-10)
SEOUL/WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 (Yonhap) -- The White House said North Korea has delivered an arms shipment to a private Russian military company, the Wagner Group, for use in the Ukraine war.
John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesperson, told reporters Thursday (U.S. time) that North Korea completed an initial shipment of weapons to Russia, including infantry rockets and missiles last month.
"We can confirm that North Korea has completed an initial arms delivery to Wagner, which paid for that equipment," he said, expressing concerns that Pyongyang is planning to deliver more military equipment.
North Korea has flatly denied continued allegations that it has had arms transactions with Russia.
The Wagner Group, owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, denied the U.S. view as "gossip and speculation," according to foreign media reports.
U.S. officials say Moscow appears to have been increasingly relying on Wagner amid a setback in the protracted war with Ukraine. They say an estimated 50,000 paramilitaries have been deployed by Wagner to support the war in Ukraine.
"In certain instances, Russian military officials are actually subordinate to Wagner's command," Kirby said. "It's pretty apparent to us that Wagner is emerging as a rival power center to the Russian military and other Russian ministries."
North Korea's arms exports are banned under U.N. Security Council resolutions against Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs.
In response, South Korea's foreign ministry condemned the "arms trade" between North Korea and the firm, saying it harms peace and stability in the international community in direct violation of the resolutions.
Meanwhile, the North's foreign ministry on Friday issued another statement refuting a Japanese media report that the North has transported munitions to Russia by rail.
The Tokyo Shimbun reported the previous day that the North transported artillery shells and other munitions via train linking the North's northeastern border city of Rason with Khasan in neighboring Russia.
"The Japanese media's false report that the DPRK offered munitions to Russia is the most absurd red herring, which is not worth any comment or interpretation," an unnamed spokesperson at the North's foreign ministry said in the English-language statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency.
DPRK is the acronym for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The North's official condemned the continued U.S. accusation of the North's arms supplies to Russia as "groundless," calling it a story that was "cooked up by some dishonest forces for different purposes."
sooyeon@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by 이치동 · December 23, 2022
4. North Korea denies news report of munition supplies to Russia
Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter Accusations.
Friday
December 23, 2022
dictionary + A - A
North Korea denies news report of munition supplies to Russia
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2022/12/23/national/northKorea/north-korea-russia-seoul/20221223090315518.html
North Korea on Friday denied a Japanese media report that it has transported munitions to Russia by rail.
An unnamed spokesperson at the North Korean foreign ministry said the North has never had any arms transactions with Russia which has staged war with Ukraine, according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
"The Japanese media's false report that the DPRK offered munitions to Russia is the most absurd red herring, which is not worth any comment or interpretation," the official said in an English-language statement carried by the KCNA.
DPRK is the acronym for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Tokyo Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper, reported Thursday that the North transported artillery shells and other munitions via train linking the North's northeastern border city of Rason with Khasan in neighboring Russia.
North Korean arms exports are banned under UN Security Council resolutions.
Yonhap
5. South Korea condemns North for selling arms to Russian military
Friday
December 23, 2022
dictionary + A - A
South Korea condemns North for selling arms to Russian military
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2022/12/23/national/northKorea/korea-north-korea-arms/20221223160701910.html
This photo provided by North Korea's state media Korean Central News Agency, shows what it says a test of a rocket with the test satellite at the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground in North Korea on Dec. 18, 2022. [AP/YONHAP]
South Korea condemned the North for selling arms to Russian military company Wagner Group.
“The South Korean government paid attention to the White House's announcement that North Korea sold infantry rockets and missiles to the Russian company Wagner Group last November, and condemns North Korea and the Wagner Group, which are undermining peace and stability in the international community by blatantly violating the Security Council resolutions,” it said in a statement Friday.
“We condemn the arms trade.”
All arms trade with North Korea is prohibited in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1718.
The White House told a group of reporters in Washington DC on Thursday that North Korea made “an initial delivery” of arms to Wagner that included infantry rockets and missiles.
These weapons, the White House said, were to support Russia’s military operations in Ukraine.
Both Pyongyang and Wagner have denied the reports.
The Wagner Group was established in 2014 after Russia annexed the Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.
“The Korean government, along with the international community, is continuing its efforts to block North Korea's illegal arms trade and lead the faithful implementation of the resolution by all UN member states,” said the Foreign Ministry in Seoul.
BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]
6. N. Korea denounces U.S.-led UNSC discussions against its missile launches
Of course China and Russia will protect the regime from the UN Security Council. But this gives us another opportunity to highlight the complicity of those two in support nK malign activities.
(LEAD) N. Korea denounces U.S.-led UNSC discussions against its missile launches | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by 장동우 · December 23, 2022
(ATTN: UPDATES with Seoul foreign ministry's response at bottom)
SEOUL, Dec. 23 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's foreign ministry on Friday slammed the U.S. push for a presidential statement of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) condemning the regime's recent missile provocations.
The United States has reportedly produced a draft of the document and circulated it among the other members of the UNSC. It features a strong condemnation of North Korea for its saber-rattling, including the launch last month of a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile.
An unnamed spokesperson for the ministry said the U.S. is now trying to "cook up" a UNSC presidential statement condemning its "exercise of the right to self-defense," according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
"The DPRK has already and clearly warned that such foolish attempt of the U.S. may entail a very undesirable consequence," the spokesperson said in an English-language statement carried by the KCNA.
DPRK is the acronym for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The spokesperson added Pyongyang is closely watching what it described as "reckless moves of the U.S."
A presidential statement of the 15-nation UNSC is one step below a resolution, requiring a consensus of all members. The U.S. bid for the document is an alternative to the adoption of another resolution against Pyongyang, which is opposed by China and Russia, the council's permanent members with veto power.
In response to the North's statement, the Seoul foreign ministry said Pyongyang's repeated nuclear and missile provocations are in direct violation of a number of UNSC resolutions.
The ministry added South Korea will not tolerate such provocations and vowed to work closely with the international community to hold the North accountable for its provocations.
odissy@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by 장동우 · December 23, 2022
7. Will North Korea Really Do a Full-Range ICBM Test?
Excerpts:
North Korea has launched a record-high number of missiles this year. In October, Pyongyang flew a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan for the first time since 2017. The regime also resumed ICBM launches after a five-year hiatus. Kim’s vitriolic remarks against those questioning North Korea’s capabilities suggest the regime may conduct a full-range ICBM test over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean.
The regime would also be motivated to fly a missile over Japan to signal its displeasure with Tokyo’s new national security policy. On Dec. 16, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida released Japan’s new national security and defense strategies, which expressed Japan’s intention to develop its first-ever counter-strike policy using long-range missiles. Tokyo previously interpreted its peace constitution as precluding offensive capabilities.
Will North Korea Really Do a Full-Range ICBM Test?
19fortyfive.com · by Bruce Klingner · December 21, 2022
Kim Yo-jong, the North Korean leader’s powerful sister, signaled that the regime may conduct a full-range ICBM flight to demonstrate unambiguously the survivability of its reentry vehicles carrying nuclear weapons. Such a launch would further inflame regional tensions and trigger strong allied responses. Pyongyang also harshly criticized Japan’s new national defense strategy, including Tokyo’s plans to develop counter-strike capabilities, and warned ominously of unspecified future actions.
On Dec. 18, North Korea launched two missiles to test its first military reconnaissance satellite’s ability to acquire and transmit imagery. The regime subsequently released low-resolution, black-and-white photos of Seoul and announced that preparations for an operational reconnaissance satellite will be complete by April 23, 2023.
South Korea disparaged the poor quality of the imagery, presumably shot during the tests. Kim Yo-jong, who serves as deputy director of the Korea Workers’ Party propaganda department, promptly sneered at Seoul’s criticism and emphasized the technical achievement of the test launch itself. Subsequent flights, she said, would use more capable and expensive cameras.
In January 2021, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un vowed to develop a reconnaissance satellite, along with solid-fuel, long-range missiles, and multi-warhead ICBMs. On Dec. 16, Pyongyang tested a static rocket engine that could serve as the booster for a solid-fuel ICBM.
Kim Yo-jong also bristled at expert assertions that North Korea has not yet proven its ICBM reentry vehicles can protect nuclear weapons from the intense heat of reentering the earth’s atmosphere on a parabolic trajectory. The CIA, however, assessed that Pyongyang’s ICBM reentry vehicles would likely perform adequately if flown on a normal trajectory to attack U.S. targets.
To date, North Korea has launched all of its ICBMs on high-angle, lofted trajectories so as to not fly over neighboring countries. The 6,000-kilometer apogee of the Hwasong-15/17 flights is assessed as enabling the missiles to reach anywhere in the continental United States.
North Korea has launched a record-high number of missiles this year. In October, Pyongyang flew a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan for the first time since 2017. The regime also resumed ICBM launches after a five-year hiatus. Kim’s vitriolic remarks against those questioning North Korea’s capabilities suggest the regime may conduct a full-range ICBM test over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean.
The regime would also be motivated to fly a missile over Japan to signal its displeasure with Tokyo’s new national security policy. On Dec. 16, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida released Japan’s new national security and defense strategies, which expressed Japan’s intention to develop its first-ever counter-strike policy using long-range missiles. Tokyo previously interpreted its peace constitution as precluding offensive capabilities.
North Korea characterized the counter-strike policy as rearmament of the “war criminal state [and] a wanton violation of the UN Charter and serious challenge to the international peace and stability.” The regime declared it could take a “resolute and decisive military step” to defend its sovereignty and warned Tokyo of a “shudder to be felt soon.”
Pyongyang’s latest comments follow several months of high-level North Korean and allied military actions. The U.S., South Korea, and Japan resumed large-scale military exercises after a four-year lull which triggered extensive North Korean military activity close to the inter-Korean border. After North Korea’s reconnaissance missile launch, the U.S. and South Korea flew nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and the F-22 stealth fighter jets in combined military drills with South Korean warplanes near the Korean Peninsula.
In September, North Korea passed a new law codifying its nuclear doctrine. Pyongyang declared that nuclear weapons would be used in response to, or perceived preparations for, any nuclear or non-nuclear attack by the United States or its allies on regime leadership, nuclear command structure, or important strategic targets.
Washington and its allies pledged a resolute response to any additional North Korean military provocations, such as a nuclear test or ICBM flight. Options include an even higher tempo of rotational deployments of U.S. nuclear-capable strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula. North Korea would likely respond with additional provocative actions raising the risk of inadvertent military clashes.
Author Expertise and Experience: Bruce Klingner specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center. Klingner’s analysis and writing about North Korea, South Korea and Japan, as well as related issues, are informed by his 20 years of service at the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Klingner, who joined Heritage in 2007, has testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
19fortyfive.com · by Bruce Klingner · December 21, 2022
8. Seoul restaurant suspected as secret Chinese police station said to close next month
How are we exploiting these Chinese activities around the world?
The restaurant has received media attention after the Spain-based human rights watchdog Safeguard Defenders insisted early this month that China was operating more than 102 clandestine police stations in 53 countries, including South Korea, to monitor and repatriate dissidents living in exile.
Seoul restaurant suspected as secret Chinese police station said to close next month | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by 유청모 · December 23, 2022
SEOUL, Dec. 23 (Yonhap) -- A Chinese restaurant in southern Seoul, suspected of having functioned as a secret Chinese police station, is said to discontinue business next month, restaurant officials said Friday.
The restaurant has received media attention after the Spain-based human rights watchdog Safeguard Defenders insisted early this month that China was operating more than 102 clandestine police stations in 53 countries, including South Korea, to monitor and repatriate dissidents living in exile.
South Korean counterintelligence authorities have reportedly been collecting information on the restaurant and its business conditions, with a possibility in mind that it may be the base of a secret Chinese police organization here.
But Beijing's foreign ministry and the restaurant have denied the allegations.
One restaurant official said its operation will continue only until the end of this month. "The planned closure is not related to the news on secret police stations. We'll be closing business, because a yearlong lawsuit is now over," said the official, adding everyone will leave on Jan. 1 due to an eviction request.
Previously, the restaurant announced on its website it will be temporarily closed from Jan. 1-31 next year due to interior work.
At present, public access to the restaurant is restricted, as it has posted a notice saying "Only guests with reservations are accepted. Please understand."
ycm@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by 유청모 · December 23, 2022
9. North Korea’s Nuclear Missile Arsenal Is a Clear Threat to America
The buried lede - linkage of Taiwan and north Korea situations. We cannot compartmentalize the security challenges of East Asia. We need to ensure we make sound assumptions rather than ones that allow planners to separate the problems.
Excerpts:
It’s no longer possible, if it ever was, to consider Taiwan and Korea as separate combat theaters, as they were in 1950. The profound advances in the weapons fielded by North Korea and China put “paid” to that notion. Yet we always speak of them separately. Horizontal escalation across the littoral could be seen as advantageous. Coercing, or attacking Japan, forces a choice between defending the mainland and defending 100s of islands to the southwest, otherwise known as the prefecture of Okinawa. U.S. air, land and sea forces in Japan would have to choose between deploying to Korea or to the vicinity of Taiwan.
Work is needed to reinforce and modernize our deterrence.
North Korea’s Nuclear Missile Arsenal Is a Clear Threat to America
19fortyfive.com · by Wallace Gregson · December 22, 2022
North Korea couldn’t remain quiet in the shadow of the Ukraine invasion by their former patron. It demanded attention with a record-setting series of missile launches in 2022.
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It’s likely that these were more demonstrations than pure tests. Indeed our intelligence agencies are keen on knowing what foreign guests were attending. There are good business reasons for this. North Korea’s clandestine, black market arms trade in small arms alone is reportedly worth more than $6B. Ballistic and other missiles of various ranges and types, including “hypersonic” missiles, missiles with evasive maneuvering trajectories, and heavy weapons, are also on offer, providing critical cash flow to the regime.
North Korea’s apparently successful nuclear weapons development, touted as necessary to deter the U.S., offers high potential for coercion. Trading in nuclear material and technology is lucrative. Given past capability surprises, it’s likely that they will achieve a submarine-launched ballistic missile capability, expanding their potential nuclear threat.
What to do about North Korea remains a vexing challenge. Since the early 90s, the United States, South Korea, and other allies alternatively tried isolation, pressure, and deterrence at one extreme, and engagement at the other. North Korea defied our best efforts, and even conducted deadly provocations to highlight their apparent immunity.
China and Russia have always found North Korea useful – to a point. UN and U.S. sanctions break down, despite fearsome descriptions as “strongest ever”, on the landward borders and through clandestine criminal maritime smuggling. Our allies and friends want our continued support, specifically including deterrence. They also want our continued restraint, even in the wake of deadly provocations, like the sinking of the ROKN ship Cheonan or the axe-murder assassination of Captain Art Bonifas USA, and 1st Lieutenant Mark Barrett, USA, in the DMZ’s Joint Security Area.
Simply put, nations near North Korea know that they are likely to become collateral damage in any fight. Sometimes muddling through is the least bad course of action among a series of unpalatable options.
So, what is different now? We see China’s increasing coercion of Taiwan driven by a leader who may have achieved lifetime tenure despite covid and financial stressors, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine currently foundering on unexpected resistance amidst questionable Russian military performance, and the China-Russia “no limits” friendship and cooperation. Iran joins the fray as a weapons supplier to the Russians, this time with unmanned aerial vehicles, among other things. This replays, at a different level, Iran’s Explosively Formed Projectile technology gift to combatants in the War on Terrorism.
It’s no longer possible, if it ever was, to consider Taiwan and Korea as separate combat theaters, as they were in 1950. The profound advances in the weapons fielded by North Korea and China put “paid” to that notion. Yet we always speak of them separately. Horizontal escalation across the littoral could be seen as advantageous. Coercing, or attacking Japan, forces a choice between defending the mainland and defending 100s of islands to the southwest, otherwise known as the prefecture of Okinawa. U.S. air, land and sea forces in Japan would have to choose between deploying to Korea or to the vicinity of Taiwan.
Work is needed to reinforce and modernize our deterrence.
Author Expertise and Experience: Lieutenant General Wallace “Chip” Gregson joined The Roosevelt Group as a Senior Advisor after over 30 years of service in the U.S. Marine Corps. Prior to retirement, Chip served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Asian and Pacific Security Affairs. He also served as Commanding General of Marine Corps Forces Pacific and Marine Corps Forces Central Command. He led and managed over 70,000 Marines and Sailors in the Middle East, Afghanistan, East Africa, Asia, and the United States.
19fortyfive.com · by Wallace Gregson · December 22, 2022
10. Training scenarios to be adjusted as North threat evolves
Some significant reporting on ROK/US CFC training planned over the next year. What I understand is happening is that the command is establishing a new normal for training and sustaining a high state of readiness to support deterrence and defense. The training is forecasted well in advance and will take place whether or not north Korea conducts a provocation and this readiness training will no longer appear to be conducted as a reaction to north Korean activities. This puts us in a better position to control the narrative and not give the appearance that we are in a reactive mode and that it is north Korea trying to control the conditions and make the alliance react. This is an important effort to undermine the regime's political warfare and blackmail diplomacy strategies. Most importantly it is another public indicator that Kim's strategies are failing.
Thursday
December 22, 2022
dictionary + A - A
Training scenarios to be adjusted as North threat evolves
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2022/12/22/national/defense/Korea-Defense-Ministry-Lee-Jongsup/20221222184258933.html
Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup addresses a meeting of top military brass at the Defense Ministry in Yongsan District, central Seoul on Wednesday. [DEFENSE MINISTRY]
South Korea and the United States will implement training scenarios that account for advances in North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programs in their field exercises next year, according to the South Korean defense ministry.
The ministry said that Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup discussed the new scenarios and other defense policy priorities at a Wednesday meeting with top military brass at the Defense Ministry in Yongsan District, central Seoul.
Joint training exercises by the South Korean and U.S. militaries next year will include the Ssangyong amphibious exercise and are expected to be at the same level as the Foal Eagle field training exercise, which was suspended in 2019 during a détente in inter-Korean tensions, according to the ministry.
The armed forces "have decided to expand and increase joint field training during allied exercises for the first half of next year, while deepening and developing procedures for theater-level exercises by crafting realistic training scenarios that reflect North Korean’s advancing nuclear and missile threats,” the ministry said in a press release.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his sister Kim Yo-jong have signaled in recent months that Pyongyang will move to develop solid-fuel ballistic missiles and deploy tactical nuclear weapons to frontline units.
Although the Defense Ministry press release did not specify details about the training scenarios, or what contingency plans they entailed, Lee emphasized that the United States would employ the full range of its military capabilities, including its nuclear deterrent, to ensure the security of South Korea.
But Lee also stressed that South Korea should take responsibility for leading a ground response to a North Korean attack.
“To ensure that we can respond sternly and perfectly to any North Korean provocation, I particularly emphasize the maintenance of a posture to respond immediately on the ground for a definite win in any combat,” the press release quoted Lee as saying.
Meanwhile, a defense ministry spokesman said Thursday that South Korea and the United States are mulling a large combined live-fire demonstration next year to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the establishment of their alliance.
“Next year, the allies mark the 70th anniversary of the alliance’s founding. For this occasion, we are weighing various ways to highlight our military’s stature and the South Korea-U.S. alliance’s overwhelming deterrence capabilities against North Korea,” Defense Ministry's spokesman Jeon Ha-gyu said at a regular press briefing, adding that a combined joint live-fire demonstration was one of the options being considered.
The exercise would be the first of its kind to be held in six years, with the last show of such firepower having taken place in Pocheon, Gyeonggi in April 2017, amid high tensions on the peninsula.
Large live-fire demonstrations typically involve thousands of troops, as well as artillery pieces and other formidable weapons systems, to highlight the allies’ combined firepower.
BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]
11. The Next Big Thing? North Korea Ground Tests ICBM-sized Solid Rocket Motor
The regime certainly wasn't a solid fuel ICBM.
The Next Big Thing? North Korea Ground Tests ICBM-sized Solid Rocket Motor
https://www.38north.org/2022/12/the-next-big-thing-north-korea-ground-tests-icbm-sized-solid-rocket-motor/?utm_source=pocket_saves
North Korea reportedly conducted the first static (ground) test of a large solid-propellant rocket motor on December 15. This is the first direct indication it is developing a propulsion system usable in solid-propellant intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) or ICBM-range submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). It also shows important progress toward these systems, which the Kim regime announced as a priority in January 2021. Solids are safer to handle in the field than liquids, and solid ICBMs are easier to conceal in land-mobile deployments.
The new rocket motor may be intended for an ICBM-range solid SLBM rather than an ICBM, or the same motor could be used in both types of systems. Subs carrying such missiles would be safer from attack than shorter-range systems that must deploy closer to anti-submarine threats, but still substantially less survivable and cost-effective than North Korean land-mobile ICBMs.
Kim Jong Un reportedly referred to developing a new system “in the shortest span of time,” suggesting we could see the flight testing of any new long-range solid missile relatively soon. We can expect the North to conduct more static motor tests in the near term, and probably to display any new ICBM at future military parades. It is unclear how many static tests would be needed before Pyongyang would be prepared to conduct the first full flight test or what political calculations will affect that timeline. However, based on North Korea’s history, one successful flight test may be sufficient for a new missile system to be deployed.
Information to Date
On December 17, North Korea issued a statement reporting a December 15 static (ground) test of a “high-thrust solid-fuel motor with a thrust of 140tf [metric tons]” at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station.[1] The accompanying photographs revealed a large-diameter solid propellant rocket motor mounted in a new horizontal rocket engine test stand, and the static test of such a motor underway.[2] The reportedly successful test included the motor’s “thrust vector controlling feature.”
The “test of strategic significance” was said to be “guided…on the spot” by Kim Jong Un, who was also featured in the photographs, and was explicitly linked to “the five priority tasks facing the strategic weapon field under the five-year plan for the development of defense science and weapon systems set forth by the Eighth Party Congress.” According to the statement, the test “provided a sure sci-tech guarantee for the development of another new-type strategic weapon system” that Kim reportedly expected “would be made in the shortest span of time.”
Analysis
The reported thrust level and apparent size of the motor seen in the photographs (about 2.2 meters in diameter[3]) are consistent with the first stage of an ICBM or a long-range SLBM. (The statement does not tie the motor to a specific type of missile system.) If the new motor does provide 140 metric tons of thrust, that would be greater than the first stages of the US Minuteman III (about 102tf) and Chinese DF-31 (about 120tf) ICBMs.[4] North Korea might need more thrust if the overall structure weight and/or payload weight of a new missile system is heavier than for these foreign ICBMs.[5]
Although the statement mentioned thrust vector control (TVC), which all ballistic missiles use to move or deflect the rocket exhaust to control the direction of powered flight, no TVC system was apparent in the photographs. There did, however, appear to be space around the rocket nozzle to accommodate key components (actuators) for the most modern TVC method, a gimbaled nozzle.[6] Such a nozzle is flexible at its base and moved by the actuators to change the direction of the rocket exhaust. The lack of any jet vanes or vernier engines at the aft end of the motor (other TVC methods previously used by North Korea), and the use of gimbaled liquid-propellant engines on the Hwasong-15 and -17 ICBMs, lend credence to the intention to use gimbaling with the new solid motor.
The horizontal rocket engine test stand depicted in the photographs matches the one built at Sohae starting only in early November 2022.[7] (This is the first horizontal test stand at Sohae, on the west coast, and is about the same size as the earlier one at Magunpo on the east coast.) The rapid construction of the test stand and its apparent use so quickly after completion suggest relatively recent decisions to give the rocket motor and its associated missile development and testing high priority. This is reinforced by Kim’s direct association with the motor test and its linkage to the “five priority tasks” of the Eighth Party Congress—which include solid-propellant ICBMs and ICBM-range SLBMs.[8]
Implications
North Korea is making progress in operationally advantageous solid ICBMs. This test is the first direct indication that North Korea is developing a propulsion system usable in solid-propellant ICBMs, and shows important progress toward that objective. Such ICBMs always made sense for Pyongyang, even prior to the parading of what appeared to be mock-ups of solid ICBMs in 2017 and the decision to “push ahead with the development of solid-fuel engine-propelled inter-continental underwater and ground ballistic rockets” at the January 2021 Party Congress. Solids are safer to handle in the field than liquids (especially if deployed on mobile launchers) and have a much smaller logistical footprint that makes field-deployed mobile missile units easier to conceal. Solids also could avoid operational problems stemming from the relatively low boiling point and high freezing point of the liquid oxidizer used with the North’s current liquid-propellant ICBMs.
Outside analysts often tout solids as being more survivable than liquids because the latter need to be fueled prior to launch, supposedly delaying launch and leaving liquids vulnerable to preemption during fueling. But this advantage of solids is overstated: North Korea would almost certainly have dispersed its mobile liquid missiles from garrison during the crisis period highly likely to precede a conflict, either already fueled or fueling them in “hide sites” prior to hostilities.
Reliable large solid motors are technically difficult to produce consistently, though, involving as much art as science. The extraordinary boost-phase success rate of the North’s new generation of smaller solid short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs, the KN-23, -24, and -25) may indicate that Pyongyang has now acquired sufficient production experience—and perhaps also sufficient know-how from Russian and Chinese entities—to make ICBM-size solid motors a viable proposition. North Korea’s production capacity for large solid motors is unknown, particularly given its conventional warfighting requirements for hundreds of solid SRBMs.
The new engine could also be used for ICBM-range solid SLBMs. The new rocket motor may be intended for an ICBM-range solid SLBM rather than an ICBM, or the same motor could be used in both types of systems. The primary significance of such an SLBM would be the ability to strike targets in the US from North Korean waters (on either coast), farthest away from Allied anti-submarine warfare (ASW) assets, and potentially covered by some North Korean naval and air defenses. Such SLBMs would be much more survivable than shorter-range systems that would have to deploy closer to hostile ASW forces and without naval/air cover in order to strike the US—but still substantially less survivable than North Korean land-mobile ICBMs. It also would be difficult for the North to produce enough missile submarines to carry enough ICBM-range SLBMs to provide a meaningful capability; land-mobile ICBMs are much more cost-effective for Pyongyang.
Submersible lakebed launchers like the one North Korea used in September to launch a KN-23 SRBM might be more survivable and cost-effective than missile subs, but still appear inferior to land-mobile basing. For example, rail-mobile launchers, which North Korea has also used with the KN-23, would appear to be ideal for a solid ICBM—especially if the North is limited in obtaining or producing enough ICBM-sized road-mobile launchers. As with the USSR/Russia and India, rail-mobile missiles probably would augment rather than substitute road-mobile systems.
More testing soon…and possibly deployment. Kim’s reference to developing a new strategic system “in the shortest span of time” suggests we could see the flight testing of any new solid ICBM or ICBM-range SLBM relatively soon. At a minimum, we can expect the North to conduct more static motor tests in the near term, and probably to display any new ICBM at the military parade expected soon. It is unclear how many successful static tests of the new motor (not to mention the probable second and third-stage motors of any new strategic missile) would be needed before Pyongyang would regard the first full flight test as technically advisable. In any case, Kim’s political calculations would almost certainly drive the ultimate timing of a first flight test. Based on North Korea’s history, one successful flight test may be sufficient for a new missile system to be deployed.
- [1]
- “Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un Guides Important Test of Strategic Significance,” Rodong Sinmun, December 17, 2022.
- [2]
- By convention, solid-propellant propulsion systems are rocket “motors” while liquid-propellant systems are rocket “engines.”
- [3]
-
Tianran Xu, “DPRK Unveils Its Solid-Propellant ICBM Motor,” Open Nuclear Network, December 16, 2022. https://opennuclear.org/publication/dprk-unveils-its-solid-propellant-icbm-motor.
- [4]
- Ibid.
- [5]
-
Taepodong, Twitter Post, December 15, 2022, 5:54 p.m., https://twitter.com/stoa1984/status/1603523862414622720.
- [6]
- Ibid.
- [7]
- Solid-propellant rocket motors are typically tested horizontally, and liquids vertically. This is the first horizontal engine test stand at Sohae. Past tests have been conducted at the Magunpo facility on the east coast. Both stands are about the same size.
- [8]
- “On Report Made by Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un at Eighth Party Congress of WPK,” Korean Central News Agency, January 9, 2021.
12. South Korea expects more military drills with US next year
This is a significant development. I do not ever recall forecasting the number of major events over an upcoming year. Normally exercises are not made public until about 30 days prior to execution. Of course that gives us the appearance that we are reacting to the north's provocations. As I wrote previously this take the initiative away from the north and undermines Kim's political warfare and blackmail diplomacy. This is an important influence operation.
Excerpt:
The upcoming plans also include deploying unnamed U.S. strategic assets to the region, as well as conducting more than 20 joint military drills, according to the ministry. It said the drills will place an emphasis on “realistic” combat scenarios in light of the threat from North Korea.
South Korea expects more military drills with US next year
Stars and Stripes · by David Choi · December 22, 2022
U.S. and South Korean navy SEALs enter a building during an assault exercise in Coronado, Calif., Dec. 1, 2022. (Daniel Gaither/U.S. Navy)
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea — South Korea plans more than 20 joint military drills with its U.S. ally next year in the wake of increased North Korean missile testing, the Ministry of National Defense announced Wednesday.
South Korea’s military in 2023 will be “deepening and expanding defense cooperation” with the United States to prepare for North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats, the ministry said in a news release. The announcement followed a biannual meeting between the country’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup.
Reinforcing the alliance with the U.S. is one of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s six “peace through strength” initiatives, according to the ministry; others include cultivating the defense industry and improving the military’s ability to react to “omnidirectional threats.”
The initiative broadly aims to make advances in the country’s defense sector to address regional threats, namely North Korea.
U.S. Forces Korea did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment on the ministry’s announcement.
Yoon, leader of the conservative People Power Party, took office in May. He soon restarted a number of large-scale military drills with the U.S., including Vigilant Storm, previously known as Vigilant Ace, a five-day aerial exercise with roughly 240 aircraft on Oct. 31 to Nov. 4. Large-scale drills like these were paused when then-Presidents Moon Jae-in and Donald Trump held peace talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in 2018 and 2019.
The upcoming plans also include deploying unnamed U.S. strategic assets to the region, as well as conducting more than 20 joint military drills, according to the ministry. It said the drills will place an emphasis on “realistic” combat scenarios in light of the threat from North Korea.
The U.S. and South Korean military are also considering “a variety of measures to … display the alliance’s overwhelming deterrent against North Korea” to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of Korean War hostilities in 1953, including a joint live-fire demonstration, a military official said during a press briefing on Thursday.
South Korean officials customarily speak to the media on the condition of anonymity.
The ministry added that in addition to the drills, Seoul and Washington will work closely to continue developing Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, the largest U.S. military base overseas.
The base serves the headquarters for USFK, U.N. Command, Eighth Army, 2nd Infantry Division, and U.S.-South Korea Combined Forces Command. Roughly 28,500 American troops are stationed in South Korea, the majority of them at Humphreys.
The announcement comes amid North Korea’s unprecedented firing of roughly 70 missiles in 34 missile tests so far this year. North Korea has also conducted other military displays, including flying numerous aerial sorties near the border with the South and firing hundreds of artillery rounds into the sea.
U.S. and South Korean senior officials have said throughout the year that North Korea has fully prepared to conduct its seventh nuclear test, its first since 2017.
North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency says its military tests are a defensive response to the South’s alliance with the U.S. and alleges the two allies are raising tensions in the Korean Peninsula.
South Korea’s military has frequently responded to the North’s missile launches and artillery firings with its own shows of force during Yoon’s presidency. Two days after North Korea launched two medium-range ballistic missiles on Saturday, U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bombers and F-22 Raptors flew with South Korean F-35A Lightning IIs and F-15K Slam Eagles in the Korea Air Defense Identification Zone.
Stars and Stripes reporter Yoo Kyong Chang contributed to this report.
Stars and Stripes · by David Choi · December 22, 2022
13. Arms tests vs war drills ad infinitum in Korea
I hope our public affairs professionals can engage Mr. Salmon and other journalists to explain this. He gets it wrong. The purpose of forecasting these training events is so that the "tit for tat" does not continue.
Arms tests vs war drills ad infinitum in Korea
Tensions hardly rising but local and global drivers mean the tit-for-tat status quo will endure for the foreseeable future
asiatimes.com · by Andrew Salmon · December 22, 2022
SEOUL – While real-life carnage unfolds across Ukraine, the phony war continues predictably on, around and above the Korean peninsula.
The actions of recent days may hearten jingoes and depress peaceniks on both sides.
On December 14, the US announced that a Space Force command unit had stood up inside US forces based in South Korea. In Ukraine, the space domain has proven crucial, providing satellite data for Kiev’s network-centric precision munitions.
On the same day, North Korea tested a solid-fuel engine for its missiles and on December 16 test-fired two medium-range ballistic missiles. On December 18, it offered apparent proof – images of South Korean cities – of its nascent reconnaissance satellite capability.
On December 20, the US deployed B-52 strategic bombers and F-22 stealth fighters to the skies just south of the peninsula to drill with South Korean F-35 and F-15 fighters.
For headline writers in multiple media, these developments represent “rising tensions.” For cynics, they are signs that the peninsula’s status quo drags on. For South Koreans, they are business as usual.
And don’t expect any major change in the new year: There is more of the same to come.
F-35s are part of the deterrent force South Korea deploys against North Korea. Photo: AFP / Belga Yorick Jansens
Roll on 2023
On December 20, South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup said South Korea and the US will conduct 20 training exercises in 2023, including amphibious assault drills. The decision was taken to “expand the scale and types of combined field drills…in light of advancing North Korean nuclear and missile threats,” Lee said.
Seoul announced today that it is mulling major joint artillery drills in 2023 to mark 70 years of the bilateral alliance, which was signed as the smoke from the Korean War cleared in 1953. The last time such drills were held was in 2017.
Between 2018 and 2021, multiple training drills were put on hold under Seoul’s progressive Moon Jae-in administration. This happened, firstly, to enable diplomacy with North Korea, and, latterly, due to Covid-19 risks.
But under the conservative Yoon Suk-yeol administration, which took office in May, drills have restarted with a vengeance. While joint drills are essential to ensure military interoperabilities and overall credibility, they are a red rag to North Korea.
Pyongyang considers drills to be war preparations. The country has borrowed heavily from Soviet-Russian doctrine, and in February this year, Moscow did, indeed, use winter exercises to pre-deploy units for its Ukraine invasion.
Meanwhile, there are continued expectations among Pyongyangologists that North Korea will soon conduct what would be its seventh nuclear test – albeit, this alarm bell has been ringing constantly, and so far incorrectly, since the beginning of 2022.
At a time when differences between the authoritarian bloc and liberal democracies appear to be solidifying on the global chessboard, the peninsula’s status quo looks to be further cemented. Yet this dire outlook is not reflected in fear in South Korea.
People at a railway station in Seoul on September 28 watch a television news broadcast showing file footage of a North Korean missile test. Photo: AFP / Jung Yeon-je
All quiet on the Korean front
While generals, politicians and editors fret over “tensions,” nobody is digging bunkers behind South Korean apartment complexes, nor are shocks decimating South Korean capital markets.
“This is the unique nature of Korean society: We live right next to North Korea,” said Chun In-bum, a retired South Korean general. “It is like living next to a volcano, but if you don’t have the option to move, you just continue and hope for the best.”
“For the US, it is like a fire across the river – but that is different from your house burning,” Chun continued. “For South Koreans, it is such a nightmare that ignorance is bliss so we act as if nothing is wrong.”
Another Seoul resident agrees.
“There is proximity and geography and force deployed close together, with historical animosity – we live in the shadow of that,” said Dan Pinkston, an American international relations professor at Troy University.
But he added that he does not fear his home being hit by a missile: “It’s not so much tension, its clickbait,” he said.
In fact, one of North Korea’s recent developments might actually lessen tensions.
“If you look even at US analysts’ writings, they paradoxically say that North Korean spy satellites might make the situation more stable,” said Andrei Lankov, a Russian specialist in North Korea who teaches in Seoul’s Kookmin University.
“North Korea is afraid of attack as they don’t get reliable intelligence in real-time so rely on agents who are unreliable,” Lankov explained. “If they have real reliable information, they are less likely to worry over sudden attacks so the chance of confrontation goes down.”
Still, Lankov admits that Pyongyang’s apparent advances in solid fuel engines increase risk.
Liquid fuel missiles need to be fueled up before being launched, providing defenders with both a warning and a window of opportunity to pre-empt them. Solid fuels lessen the vulnerability of a missile that requires time to take on propellant at or near its launch site before being fired.
Seoul lies within artillery range of North Korea – but remains largely indifferent to the threat. Photo: Andrew Salmon / Asia Times
Cold War 2.0
Outside the peninsula, virtually all indications are that the gap between the authoritarian bloc and the liberal democracies is widening to a chasm.
Moscow’s assault upon Ukraine has unified the Global North, with prosperous democracies as far distant from the action as Australia, Japan and South Korea joining North America and Western Europe in funneling aid and arms to Kiev.
Iran is providing direct military aid to Russia, indications are increasing that North Korea is supplying munitions and missiles, and China is providing diplomatic backing, if not more.
Meanwhile, the US, constantly fretting over a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan, is upping its semiconductor embargo on Beijing. As part of that chip war, Washington is rail-roading its allies into a struggle that could end up costing their chip companies scores of billions of dollars.
And Japan, after two years of discussion since abandoning its Aegis Ashore missile defense system in 2020, last week formally announced plans to create a missile-based counterstrike force to balance potential Chinese, North Korean and Russian threats.
Given these various signs of global bifurcation, up-arming and technological weaponization, there seems little likelihood that the Korean Peninsula – which was from 1950-53 the site of a civil war that spiraled into a murderous Cold War hot war – will break free of the wider trend.
That is true even though Pyongyang might like to widen its economic dependence beyond Beijing.
“The North Koreans would be far more comfortable outside the Chinese sphere of influence,” Lankov said. “But none of their opposite numbers is willing to make concessions strong and attractive enough for them to engage in negotiations.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un greets Chinese President XI Jinping during a state visit to North Korea. Photo: AFP / KCNA via KNS
Amid this big-picture backdrop, the Korean peninsula remains a pivot point of compressed big-power confrontation. And stakeholders have selfish interests: The Kim regime seeks to entrench its survival while arms manufacturers benefit from the threat that the up-arming regime represents.
All this argues for a continuance of rising-falling tensions as North Korea hones its weapons and military systems, and for continued deterrence efforts as South Korea and the US shore up their alliance.
“The Korean peninsula is a microcosm but what are the choices? Appease, acquiesce, sign a peace treaty and give them what they want – or prepare for the worst?” Pinkston said of the conundrum facing strategists. “If liberal democracies did nothing and just took it on the chin, that would be unusual.”
Follow this writer on Twitter at @ASalmonSeoul
asiatimes.com · by Andrew Salmon · December 22, 2022
14. Defector: Hundreds of North Korean Boats with Defectors Forcibly Returned to North Korea in 2017 & 2018
Graphics and photos at the link.
3 More Defectors Forced to Return to North Korea by the Moon Government in 2018; Defector: Hundreds of North Korean Boats with Defectors Forcibly Returned to North Korea in 2017 & 2018
PUBLISHED DATEDECEMBER 19, 2022
2022-12-19, Tara O
https://eastasiaresearch.org/2022/12/19/3-more-defectors-forced-to-return-to-north-korea-by-the-moon-government-in-2018-defector-hundreds-of-north-korean-boats-with-defectors-forcibly-returned-to-north-korea-in-2017-2018/?utm_source=pocket_reader
The Moon Jae-in Administration (10 May 2017-9 May 2022) sent back 2 fishermen defectors to North Korea against their wishes in 2019, and the defectors say they were executed upon return. This case was widely reported, but it was not the only instance.
In December 2018, the Moon administration sent back 3 North Korean defectors against their will to their certain death, another defector Kang Chol-hwan said on his YouTube channel, Pyongyang 24 Hours, on December 20, 2019 (Seoul time). Kang explained that Japan found the boat with the defectors in the Sea of Japan / East Sea near Dokdo (Takeshima), the sea area jointly administered by both South Korea and Japan, and was investigating it, but the Moon Administration, after receiving information from North Korea’s Defense Security Bureau (Bowiguk, counter-intelligence) that the boat is headed to Japan, sent the South Korean Navy destroyer Gwangweto the Great to intercept the defector boat and force it into South Korean waters. (0:34) Kang was certain that the soldier defectors would have made their intent to defect clear to South Korean authorities, if there was an investigation, but they were forcibly sent back by the Moon administration after only 3 days. (6:18) They were killed in miserable condition in a basement jail cell of North Korea’s Defense Security Bureau a week after they were sent to North Korea, according to Kang. (7:08)
The two dark blue areas between South Korea and Japan are joint fishing areas between the two countries. (The dark blue area between Korea and China are joint fishing area between South Korea and China.) The defector boat was going from Wonsan-Kalma toward Noto Peninsula, Japan, and was found in the joint fishing area between South Korea and Japan.
Kang stated that there were two assassination attempts against Kim Jong-un just before the above incident at sea. The first one was revealed by North Korea’s Defense Security Bureau, which announced that an anti-regime, anti-communist organization conspired with foreign powers to eliminate “Choigo Jonum” (Supreme Majesty) and released a photo of a military tribunal. (1:40) Kang clarified that an anti-North Korean regime organization that includes some members of North Korea’s Defense Security Bureau attempted to assassinate Kim Jong-un via explosives at an event at Pyongsung City, South Pyongan Province. (1:22) It failed.
There was another attempt in the Wonsan-Kalma area. Kalama is on the coast and is the location of Kim Jong-un’s key tourist resort development project. To build the beach resort, North Korean authorities mobilized 120,000 soldiers and 20,000 local residents for unpaid and harsh labor. Some of these mobilized soldiers became discontent and decided to eliminate Kim Jong-un if he visits the area. (2:47)
Their plans were discovered and these groups of soldiers were arrested wholesale, except for 4 key members, who succeeded in escaping the area in a boat. (2:45) During the escape 1 of the 4 escapees died on the boat. Instead of steering toward the south, the defectors went toward Japan, passing the Dokdo (Takeshima) Islands. They feared that if they went to South Korea, the Moon government would send them back to North Korea. Their fear came true.
Kang explained that it is because the intended destination was Japan, as the current from Dokdo flows toward Japan, and they did not want to go to South Korea under Moon Jae-in, whose position is pro-North Korea. (3:45) Numerous Koreans defected from the north via boats, but the Moon Jae-in government, which came to power in 2016, sent them back. (3:56)
Indeed, about 250-258 wooden boats from North Korea carrying defectors were sent back to North Korea in 2018 alone, with a similar number of boats returned in 2017, according to Kim Tae-hee, a defector. She and other defectors protested in front of the Ministry of Unification, when Lee In-yong (이인영), known for his Jusapa (KimIlSungism) background, was the Unification Minister and Suh Jeong-bae (서정배), was his Chief of Staff. (Note: Suh Jeong-bae apparently is still at the Unification Ministry, continuing many of Moon Jae-in’s pro-North Korea policies.)
The Japanese authorities discovered the boat and confirmed that there were 4 on board. (5:13) Kang stated that the Republic of Korea (ROK) Navy Gwanggaeto destroyer arrived and forced the boat toward South Korean waters, even targeting its fire control radar upon the Japanese surveillance aircraft, chasing it away. (4:53)
Kang is referring to the incident on December 20, 2018 when there was indeed a North Korean fishing boat that the Korean authorities said was being rescued. This incident made the headlines because the Japanese patrol aircraft pilot was threatened by the fire control radar pointing at it from the ROK Navy warship, which can be interpreted as a hostile act because it places the target, in this case the Japanese P-1 aircraft, in imminent danger.
According to Japan’s Maritime Self Defense Force,
“At around 3 p.m. (JST) on December 20, 2018, a fixed-wing patrol aircraft (P-1), belonging to the Fleet Air Wing 4 of the Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) (Atsugi), conducting intelligence collection and warning and surveillance, was irradiated by a fire-control radar from a Republic of Korea (ROK) Navy’s destroyer off the coast of the Noto Peninsula. Fire-control radars are directed at its target immediately before firing, and to aim it at foreign aircraft is an extremely hazardous act that may cause unintended consequences.”
The P-1 pilot tried to communicate with the ROK Navy through 3 different channels and asked the ROK Navy “what is the purpose of your act?” The ROK Navy never replied. A fire control radar is a type of radar used to track a target for the purpose of calculating a firing solution in order to commence an attack, and was extremely threatening to the pilot. It is the kind of radar one uses when there is an intention to shoot down the aircraft with missiles. In some cases, it could be construed as an “act of war.” The pilot stated he was about 5,000 meters away from Gwanggaeto.
When responding to the MSDF’s claims, the Moon government kept on changing its statements about what happened. Initially, the ROK Navy denied using a fire control radar, but instead claimed it was another type of radar used to search for a North Korean fishing boat. Japanese officials pointed out that the frequencies were different for those radars. The South Korean Navy then admitted using the fire control radar, but claimed it was to find the North Korean fishing vessel, and was not “intended to target the Japanese patrol aircraft.” The FC radar is not designed to search over a wide area, but to focus on a very specific target. The Moon administration then denied using the radar at all. The story changed again, saying it was the camera next to the fire control radar, that was used to take the photograph of the Japanese P-1 aircraft, but that the radar was off. The Moon administration even went into an aggressive mode by spokesperson accusing the Japanese P-1 for flying “too low,” and demanded an apology.
From the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force video
The Moon administration’s incoherent responses and denial prompted Japan to release a video of the incident, an unusual move by Japan. Unlike the Moon administration’s claim that the ROK warship was searching for the North Korean fishing boat, the ROK Maritime Police’s ship Sambong already was near the boat and even deployed two rubber boats to surround the fishing boat, before the ROK Navy warship arrived.
ROK Ship Gwanggaeto appeared to the 10 o’clock and 5,000 meters from Japan’s patrol aircraft, P-1
The Japanese patrol aircraft captured this scene and the aircraft’s radar warning receiver (RWR), which sensed the fire control radar, went off with a loud tone after Gwanggaeto destroyer arrived. The loud tone from RWR occurred several times in the video.
In August 2022, which is after Moon Jae-in’s presidency ended, it was revealed that the Moon government ordered ROK Navy ship captains to respond aggressively to Japan’s sea patrol aircraft flying close to them at low altitudes, such as by fire control (추적) radar. This is an extremely hostile and dangerous policy set by Moon, but one that would delight China and North Korea. It is unclear whether this policy is still in effect in the South Korean Ministry of National Defense. Interestingly, this order does not apply to Chinese and Russian aircraft, which violated the KADIZ (Korea Air Defense Identification Zone) numerous times.
Why Would Moon Jae-in risk a conflict with Japan over a boat with defectors? It appears the Moon administration wanted to hide what was occurring. It succeeded by chasing away the Japanese surveillance aircraft, preventing it from making further observations. The Moon administration may also wanted to prevent the defectors going to Japan; Japan would not have sent them back to North Korea.
What happened afterwards has not been widely reported in the media, like so many other cases of defectors escaping North Korea by boats, and then being forced to return to North Korea by the Moon administration. The Moon government kept the story about the two fishermen defectors forcibly repatriated to North Korea in 2019 hidden, until a relevant phone text message was photographed and made public. At that time, a ROK Lieutenant Colonel sent a text message to Kim Yu-geun (김유근), who was the 1st Deputy to the National Security Advisor (국가안보실 1차장) at the Blue House, about sending the two young defectors to North Korea at 3 p.m. on November 7, 2019. On that day, Kim was called to the National Assembly for a hearing, where a photographer captured his phone text message screen.
The context and the fate of the three North Korean military officers, who escaped North Korea, but were captured by the South Korean warship sent by the Moon Jae-in government, would also have been unknown in South Korea. Now Kang Cheol-hwan explains the backstory that they were part of an anti-Kim regime group. It turns out that there was an interview by a former Japanese official about the boat floating at sea on December 20, 2018, which was carrying four North Korean military officers, who escaped after attempting to assassinate Kim Jong-un. Admiral Katsutoshi Kawano, former Chief of Staff of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces’ Joint Chief of Staff, stated, “Attempts by the North Korean military to assassinate…Kim Jong Un in the Wonsan-Kalma region had been unsuccessful. Four people escaped that day and were headed to Japan by sea.” He also stated the South Koreans deployed the Gwanggaeto destroyer after North Korea made an emergency hotline contact via the then-newly established inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong (which North Korea blew up later), requesting the boat (and those fleeing after the failed attempt) be returned.
This is a serious case. This case, along with hundreds of other cases of forcible return of defectors to North Korea, most likely to their deaths, should be investigated. Defectors from North Korea automatically receive South Korean citizenship per the ROK constitution, and should be accorded the rights and responsibilities of ROK citizens, including protection by the South Korean government. Human rights and national security reasons also require investigations. We need a full accounting of every Korean returned to North Korea in the 5 years of the Moon administration.
15. Why asking 'how old are you?' isn't rude in South Korea
A cultural PSA.
Why asking 'how old are you?' isn't rude in South Korea – DW – 12/21/2022
Emmy Sasipornkarn
12/21/2022December 21, 2022
Asking someone you've just met how old they are may be impolite in many cultures, but in South Korea it's one of the first questions people ask one another. Why is knowing someone's age so important for South Koreans?
DW
In South Korea, people are more conscious than most when it comes to age. It's hard not to be, given that there are three different ways to count it.
According to the traditional Korean system, South Koreans are considered one year old at birth and they collectively turn one year older on New Year's Day, regardless of when their birthday is.
For most legal and administrative purposes, South Koreans have used the international age system since 1962. But when it comes to the legal age for drinking, smoking, or serving in the military, they use the "calendar year" system, which subtracts the birth year from the current year.
The use of various systems can create conditions that are ripe for confusion, most recently during the coronavirus pandemic, when eligibility for vaccinations lacked clarity.
But authorities hope those clouds of uncertainty will clear in June 2023, when the country will begin using the international age system only on official documents.
Many support the change, rejoicing at suddenly becoming a year or two younger, while others have greeted the news with a sigh of relief.
"The Korean age system is convoluted and confusing, even for a native Korean," Sophie Choi, a South Korean, told DW.
For many, age may be just a number, but it is not a matter that is taken lightly in South Korea.
How old are you?
"'What year were you born?' is a typical conversation starter when we first meet someone," Choi said, noting that age can define people's interactions.
This age-based relationship starts early, on the playground, according to Pympon Park, a Thai mother married into a Korean family in Seoul.
"I once told my daughter to go play with her 'friend' but my mother-in-law corrected me, saying that child is actually her senior," she said.
An age difference of just one year, or less, is meaningful in South Korea. "Even twins set out who is older and who is younger," Jieun Kiaer, a professor of Korean linguistics at the University of Oxford, told DW.
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Social relations based on age in modern-day Korea are a legacy of Confucian teachings that emphasize respect for one's elders.
Younger people are expected to show respect to those who are older, according to Robert Fouser, a former professor at Seoul National University.
Language reflects hierarchical structures
Age also determines how polite Koreans need be in their speech and actions.
"You cannot even say 'it's raining' in a neutral way," said Kiaer, explaining that every sentence in Korean shows "whether you believe you are of higher, lower, or equal rank."
There are two main speech styles in Korean: banmal, the casual form typically used with family, close friends, and someone younger; and jondaemal, the respectful way of speaking used with strangers, colleagues, and someone older.
To complicate matters further, shifting between the two forms with the same person is not uncommon.
Children might use banmal with their parents in private, "but if a neighbor were to visit, they would talk to their parents politely," said Kiaer, who explores the topic in her upcoming book, "The Language of Hallyu: More than Polite."
Understanding the hierarchical system
While age usually determines how one person addresses another in South Korea, there are other factors to take into account as well, such as gender, socio-economic status and workplace seniority.
"Many Korean diaspora and immigrants to Korea find it very difficult to integrate into Korean society because they are not able to navigate the hierarchical system," said Kiaer.
Assessing and reassessing the relationship between two people happens constantly, she added, and their linguistic choices might change according to the balance of power and solidarity between them.
For Park, finding the right speech style is a delicate matter that needs to be handled with a lot of care to avoid causing offense.
"You always second guess yourself, so to avoid the hassle I only use casual language with my husband," said the 32-year-old.
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Shifting to casual talk
Informally addressing someone older without first asking permission can lead to trouble.
Lee, a Seoul resident, compared strangers addressing him casually to being sworn at.
"It's insulting. When that happens, and it did a few times, I need to fight back," the 45-year-old told DW.
According to Kiaer, it is "extremely important" to show proper respect to elders in South Korea and "conflict or even violence" can ensue when they aren't addressed politely.
Service industry workers, in particular, are often on the receiving end of banmal-related issues, with altercations between young people working in the sector and men in their 60s and 70s frequently making the news.
"Older men in Korea are so concerned with receiving the right respect that they have even committed murder over the use of banmal," Kiaer added.
Will South Korea's rigid hierarchy change?
A January 2022 study by the South Korean polling and consultancy firm Hankook Research showed that 71% of South Koreans endorsed simplifying the age system, with some even hoping that it would help "reduce conflict and confusion in the culture of hierarchy based on age."
Even so, most doubt that scrapping the Korean age will have an impact on the "strictly settled" culture of hierarchy.
"People will continue to establish hierarchy as they always have regardless of which age system they use," Fouser observed.
Choi also believes "hierarchy is here to stay in South Korea" and nothing short of "a complete cultural reform" will fix the system.
While a change is unlikely, Kiaer sees the move as "a step in the right direction" since it shows the country "is thinking about what elements of Korean history are lingering in its present."
"The issues caused by speech styles in Korea are so severe that we cannot sit around and wait for language and society to evolve over time," the linguist said.
Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru
DW
16. More missing North Koreans amid colder weather and food shortages
The suffering in the north is just unbelievable. I know I keep saying that but we must not become numb to it.
More missing North Koreans amid colder weather and food shortages
Beggar children are found frozen or starved to death in crowded public places.
By Jieun Kim for RFA Korean
2022.12.22
rfa.org
As the temperature drops far below freezing in North Korea and food becomes more scarce, large numbers of people have gone missing, and sources told Radio Free Asia that some of them have either starved or frozen to death.
Temperatures in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong have fallen to at least -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit) and homeless people are increasingly at risk from the severe conditions, a resident of the province told RFA’s Korean Service Monday on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“We found a body yesterday morning. He probably died the night before,” said the source. “I saw the body, a dead boy, his clothes were in tatters and his belly was exposed. The dead bodies of kotjebi keep appearing.”
Kotjebi, or flower swallows, are homeless beggar children who, like the birds of their namesake, wander from place to place in search of food. The source said that food shortages increase the number of kotjebi on the streets of many cities.
“The kotjebi go here and there, begging and stealing in crowded places like train stations, and many of them are found dead these days,” the source said.
Kotjebi first appeared in large numbers during the 1994-1998 North Korean famine that by some estimates killed more than 2 million people, or 10% of the country's population.
The government has tried to deal with the problem by setting up shelters for them.
“The police ordered citizens to report any kotjebi to the shelter, because they are damaging to the socialist vision,” the source said. “But residents say that if they want to decrease the numbers of kotjebi, they need to first solve the food shortage.
“Socialist vision doesn’t mean anything to people who are on the brink of starvation due to lack of food,” he said, adding that even if they send them to the shelters, they will likely die anyway.
“There is no food there. The shelters cannot even feed them and they just lock them in cold rooms. They are likely to starve or freeze to death there,” the source said.
Part of a missing persons flier distributed by the safety department in Seungho County, North Hwanghae Province, North Korea. Credit: RFA
The cold weather is not only detrimental to homeless children on the streets. Even the employed are deserting their homes and workplaces to subsist on hunting and fishing in remote areas because they cannot afford to buy food, and many of these people have gone missing, according to an official of a judicial agency in North Hwanghae province, south of Pyongyang.
“In response, the judicial authorities are distributing leaflets … to the police department and the neighborhood watch units in each region, saying they are looking for missing residents,” said the official, who declined to be named.
One worker surnamed Kim, who was suffering from malnutrition, left his home in July and went missing in October, the official source said.
“The county’s social security department designated five missing people, including Kim, as wanted persons,” the second source said. “The social security department … is treating this person, who can’t even walk well, as a criminal for suddenly disappearing.”
The official said that even though many of these people are actually searching for food in the wild, the authorities label them criminals, claiming that they are trying to escape across the border to China.
The wanted lists are first sent to the areas of the country near the border, he said.
“Authorities say they are asking for the cooperation of residents to ensure social safety,” the official said.
“However, residents who see the wanted list know that these are just people who go to remote areas to avoid starving to death.”
Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
rfa.org
17. ＜Inside N. Korea＞ Kim Jong-un regime strengthens state-run food store network to sell food at prices cheaper than markets
The regime trying to "compete" with markets to undermine them.
＜Inside N. Korea＞ Kim Jong-un regime strengthens state-run food store network to sell food at prices cheaper than markets
asiapress.org
(FILE PHOTO) A man on a bicycle carries food purchased in a farming village on a bicycle into a city. Photographed in October 2010 in South Pyongan Province. North Korea currently heavily restricts people bringing food out of agricultural areas. (ASIAPRESS)
◆ In December, stores sell food at prices 2/3 of those found in markets
Over the past several years, the Kim Jong-un regime has implemented a policy aimed at having the state monopolize food distribution in the country. The policy has strongly suppressed the circulation of white rice and corn into local markets with a view to centralize food distribution in state-run food stores.
In mid-December, ASIAPRESS conducted investigations regarding these state-led efforts in North Pyongan Province, Yanggang Province, and North Hamgyung Province.
In all those areas, the price of white rice (6,000 won) and corn (3,000 won) in the markets was generally the same, but state-run food stores sold white rice (4,200 won) and corn (2,200 won) for less than at markets (prices are for one kilogram; 1,000 South Korean won equals around 6,400 North Korean won).
State-run food stores carry limited stocks, selling just a set amount per month to local households. A reporting partner in North Hamgyung Province said on December 20, “State-run stores sold 10-days’ worth of food per household in December. Meanwhile, laborers who work at factories or enterprises got 3-5 days’ worth of corn per person.
“People welcome (the state-run food stores) because they’re cheaper than markets, but they don’t have enough (stock on hand). The authorities are essentially telling people to make up for the shortfall themselves, but many people lack the cash to do so. Government officials say that the state will provide people with sufficient supplies of food starting in January, but nobody believes that.”
The Kim Jong-un regime began operating state-run food stores in 2019 with a view to monopolize the state’s control over food distribution. (ISHIMARU Jiro)
※ ASIAPRESS smuggles Chinese cell phones into North Korea to communicate with its reporting partners.
(FILE PHOTO) A closed state-run food store. No bags of rice can be seen. Taken by ASIAPRESS in Hyesan, Yanggang Province, in November 2012.
asiapress.org
18. China Relations Key to Situation in North Korea
How long has ve been saying this? When has China ever helped South Korea and the US solve security problems? China's help consists of telling us to make concessions to the regime.
China Relations Key to Situation in North Korea
A recent edition of the party newspaper makes that very clear.
thediplomat.com · by ISOZAKI Atsuhito · December 23, 2022
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The Rodong Sinmun is obviously the organ of the Workers’ Party of Korea, but the October 24 issue of the newspaper was so peculiar that one might assume that it had been published by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The top of the front page showed a congratulatory message sent by Kim Jong Un to Xi Jinping upon the latter’s election as the Party’s General Secretary at the 20th Party Congress of the CCP. Reports about Kim’s activities usually appear above the fold on the front page of the newspaper, and congratulatory messages in themselves are not unusual, but Xi Jinping is the only foreign leader to have been given the qualifier “respected.”
Not only that, but the contents were high praise indeed. For instance: “Please accept my warmest congratulations to you … I am convinced that the CCP and the Chinese people would win shining victory in the new journey for maintaining and developing socialism with the Chinese characteristics and for building a comprehensively well-off modern socialist state under your leadership.” This contrasts with the cold congratulatory message sent to the Party Congress five years ago, when relations between China and North Korea had deteriorated considerably following North Korea’s repeated nuclear tests.
Yet that wasn’t the biggest surprise. Next to the congratulatory message was an editorial titled “Celebrating the Future of the Chinese Communist Party and the People, Dedicated to the Leadership of Comrade General Secretary Xi Jinping.” Rodong Sinmun editorials are not published every day, but appear at least once every two weeks. Usually the editorial praises Kim’s achievements and calls for loyalty, appeals to the legitimacy of party policies, or promotes national unity. Rarely does it go into diplomacy or the situation in other countries. But the October 24 editorial chose to focus on China’s internal politics.
It begins with the sentence “The 20th Party Congress has successfully concluded, becoming a brilliant stop on the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics.” It goes on to heap lavish praise on Xi Jinping’s achievements in other areas, such as poverty eradication and measures against infectious diseases, before concluding, “The friendship between North Korea and China, which has a long history and tradition, will continue to be maintained under the wise leadership of the Supreme Leaders (Suryeong) of the two parties and two countries, developing further and responding to the needs of the times.” The term “Suryeong,” originally used for Kim Il Sung, is a special term that came into use for Kim Jong Il after his death and for Kim Jong Un only two years ago. But now it is also being deployed for the leader of a neighboring country.
Meanwhile, page four contained a full page titled “Comrade Xi Jinping’s Report.” This is the first time at least since the end of the Cold War that the situation in another country has been reported in such detail, and it shows just how much importance North Korea is attaching to friendly relations with China. As North Korea entered the COVID-19 pandemic at a time when its dialogues with the United States and South Korea were at an impasse, China is the only country it can rely on for economic assistance, including medical aid. Even before the pandemic, more than 95 percent of North Korea’s total trade was with China.
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China-North Korea land trade has long been all but non-existent because of measures to prevent the spread of COVID, but some maritime trade has continued. North Korea’s chief import is raw materials for agricultural fertilizers. In addition, about 500,000 tons of crude oil is sent annually by pipeline. As North Korea struggles to achieve self-sufficiency, Chinese support is indispensable.
On November 22, Xi Jinping sent a reply expressing his gratitude and emphasizing the growing importance of China-North Korea relations. The more heartfelt the text, the more pressure it puts on North Korea to exercise restraint, which puts the spotlight on the seventh nuclear test, the first since September 2017. More than half a year has already passed since North Korea completed preparations for an underground nuclear test, and they are said to be in the “countdown phase.” Why has this period of self-restraint continued despite Kim Jong Un personally issuing a major directive to develop nuclear weapons at the 8th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea in January 2021?
The sole reason is that Beijing, which turns a blind eye to missile launches but is resolutely opposed nuclear tests, is keeping an eye on it. China is concerned about a “nuclear domino” effect, in which North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons leads to rising public support for the acquisition of nuclear weapons in South Korea, Japan, and even Taiwan. Not only that, but since North Korea’s nuclear test site is not far from the border with China, and going ahead with the test could cause an earthquake in China, with a risk of radiation leakage.
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As stated in the new nuclear doctrine presented on September 8, Kim has sole authority to make nuclear-related decisions. He continues to carefully consider whether to prioritize the political and diplomatic interests of North Korea’s friendship with China, or to favor North Korea’s own military interests, as he plans the timing of the test.
thediplomat.com · by ISOZAKI Atsuhito · December 23, 2022
19.Don’t Isolate North Korea
Frank and I do not always agree but I read everything he writes. As I have written I think concession will cause Kim to believe his strategy is a success. I think we have to show him his strategy is failing and cannot be successful. That is the only way to alter his behavior or cause the elite and military leadership to try to get Kim to alter his behavior.
But I could be wrong so Frank makes an argument that must be considered.
Conclusion:
The Biden administration will need to offer North Korea a more full-throated, less equivocal olive branch to transform the vicious cycle of provocation into a virtuous cycle of accommodation. North Korean denuclearization may well be an impossible goal, but if it were to happen, it would not be through coercion. Despite his hard-line stance, Yoon has already recognized the need for a bolder appeal through incentives, having offered Kim an “audacious” plan that would provide significant economic and security incentives in exchange for denuclearization progress. But North Korea scoffed at the proposal, recognizing correctly that only Washington, not Seoul, can guarantee what Pyongyang really wants. The United States has an opportunity to offer something that is both truly audacious and in its own interests: a push for peace.
Don’t Isolate North Korea
Why Another Pressure Campaign Would Be a Mistake
Foreign Affairs · by Frank Aum · December 22, 2022
North Korea’s flurry of military activity this year has put it back in the international spotlight. Stuck in a diplomatic stalemate with the United States and a self-imposed COVID-19 lockdown since early 2020, the reclusive nation has conducted more than 60 ballistic missile tests, its highest annual total ever, including its biggest and longest launches to date. In September, North Korea enshrined in a new law the right to use preemptive nuclear strikes to protect itself. And there is growing fear that the country will carry out a seventh nuclear test in the near future—its first since 2017.
This inflammatory behavior has the United States and its allies scrambling for appropriate countermeasures. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has emphasized the need to pursue additional sanctions and shore up defense and deterrence capacities “so we’re not standing still in the face of provocations.” In October, Cho Hyun-dong, a high-ranking official in South Korea’s foreign ministry, went further, vowing an “unparalleled scale of response” if North Korea followed through on a detonation. In the meantime, the United States and South Korea have responded by augmenting their joint military exercises and deterrence demonstrations, such as deploying the USS Ronald Reagan near the Korean Peninsula.
This slow-motion crisis has contributed to a gnawing sentiment among many analysts in Washington that the policy of “denuclearization”—in which Pyongyang would agree to give up its nuclear weapons program—has failed. Instead, this camp argues, the United States should accept North Korea as a nuclear state.
But abandoning denuclearization is still premature for several reasons. Pyongyang has not explicitly articulated U.S. acceptance of its nuclear status as a precondition for returning to talks, only that Washington drop its “hostile” policy that warranted North Korea’s nuclear weapons development in the first place. Also, North Korea may have recently announced that it would never bargain away its nuclear weapons, but it made this claim before, only to recommit to denuclearization in the 2018 Singapore statement, an agreement that it has yet to renounce. Moreover, the United States has not yet exhausted the range of promising options for coaxing better behavior from Pyongyang. Officially acknowledging North Korea as a nuclear weapon country could also precipitate nuclear weapons development in South Korea, Japan, and other countries. Perhaps most important, from a U.S. political standpoint, accepting North Korea’s nuclear status would be a nonstarter since it would effectively mean normalizing diplomatic and economic ties with a nuclear pariah state—something Congress would never support. And so denuclearization must remain a U.S. policy goal, even if an aspirational, long-term, or fig-leaf one, to ensure the viability of an ultimate deal with North Korea and the nonproliferation regime.
Today, policymakers should focus on coming up with a new plan to get North Korea back to the negotiating table. It is unclear why the United States continues to rely on a pressure-based, coercive approach that has failed to improve the security of the United States and its allies. During the last 15 years, North Korea has advanced from a rudimentary to full-fledged nuclear weapon country. Moreover, U.S.-North Korean relations have worsened from promising to nonexistent. There is little mutual understanding or trust, and the tensions between them are contributing to a growing regional arms race that increases the risk of nuclear war. Nearly 70 years after the end of the Korean War, it is long past time for the United States to change tack. It should go on a peace offensive to get back to talks, with the goal of pursuing peaceful coexistence and denuclearization in parallel.
A FAILED POLICY
Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, the United States has dealt with North Korea largely through diplomatic isolation, economic pressure, and military deterrence. Pyongyang began to seek bilateral talks with the United States in the 1970s to replace the armistice, which ended the war, with a peace agreement, but Washington remained wary of North Korea and its desire to remove U.S. troops from South Korea. The United States was also trying to manage relations with its ally South Korea, which did not want to be excluded from talks, and broader strategic matters related to the Cold War.
Washington finally began engaging with Pyongyang in 1992, after North Korea started developing a nuclear weapons program, which led to a period of consistent—albeit turbulent—negotiations over the next 16 years. Sufficient progress on denuclearization eventually led to various milestones in improved relations, including a 1996 proposal for peace talks by U.S. President Bill Clinton and South Korean President Kim Young-sam, reciprocal visits by Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok of North Korea and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 2000, and a performance by the New York Philharmonic in Pyongyang in 2008.
By 2009, however, the United States returned to its position of deep skepticism. After the collapse of the six-party talks and North Korea’s second nuclear test in May of that year, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned against “buying the same horse twice” and suggested the United States increase pressure on Pyongyang. In December, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted a policy of “strategic patience” to wait for talks on the United States’ preferred terms. The two sides eventually resumed negotiations in 2011 culminating in the February 2012 “Leap Day” deal, under which North Korea agreed to temporarily halt its weapons testing and nuclear activities, but two months later, a North Korean satellite launch in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birthday of Kim Il Sung, the country’s founder, scuttled the agreement.
When Washington engages with Pyongyang, North Korea tends to behave better.
U.S. officials have grown tired of Pyongyang’s propensity for brinkmanship and its unwillingness to denuclearize. They have been chastened, too, by the hollow summitry that took place between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Today, Washington appears to have resigned itself to managing the North Korea problem rather than trying to solve it. Other than the brief negotiations in 2011–12 and 2018–19, three successive U.S. administrations have relied on a global pressure campaign to tighten the vise on North Korea while stopping short of instigating war. The United States has persuaded countries to downgrade diplomatic relations with North Korea, ramped up its military deterrence posture, increased interdiction and law enforcement measures, and cut off North Korea’s access to the dollar-based international financial system. Washington also spearheaded the imposition of major multilateral sanctions on North Korea in 2016 and 2017. These measures banned all of the country’s publicly reported exports, such as coal, textiles, and seafood.
This approach has succeeded in achieving limited goals. The Korean Peninsula has avoided war, and cross-border conflicts have been limited to relatively small incidents, such as North Korea’s 2010 shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, and harder-to-attribute provocations, such as an incident in 2015, when land mines exploded inside the demilitarized zone, wounding two South Korean soldiers. In addition, the Kim regime’s ability to generate hard currency, at least through legitimate means, has been significantly curtailed. North Korea’s exports to China, its main trading partner, decreased 88 percent to $209 million in 2018 and dropped another 78 percent t0 $48 million in 2020 as a result of the country’s pandemic lockdown measures.
On the other hand, the United States’ approach has fallen short in realizing many other important goals. The glaring failure is North Korea’s continued possession of enough fissile material to produce around 50 nuclear weapons and the ability to build six more each year. The pressure campaign also has not deterred North Korea from conducting progressively successful tests of larger yield nuclear devices and various delivery mechanisms, including long-range ballistic missiles, multiple warhead payloads, mobile launchers, and underwater systems. Nor has it prevented North Korea from using illicit means to circumvent sanctions, such as covert smuggling, ship-to-ship transfers, and cybertheft.
Perhaps the most worrisome aspect of the United States’ lack of progress is its inability to improve diplomatic relations and enhance mutual understanding with North Korea. Given that Pyongyang is insecure, isolated, and impoverished—but also nuclear armed—Washington should be taking steps to strengthen engagement, reduce misperceptions, and build mutual trust to lower the risks of a nuclear war. If threat is a function of intent and capabilities, and the capabilities have become intractable, then it is imperative that the United States mitigate North Korea’s negative intent. For that, isolation, pressure, and deterrence are ill-suited tools.
GET ENGAGED
Thirty years of empirical evidence indicates that although pressure may inflict pain on North Korea, it does not engender positive behavior. Instead, when the United States applies a hawkish policy against North Korea, it responds negatively. Between February 2012 and April 2018, the United States held no official negotiations with North Korea—the longest absence of bilateral engagement during the last three decades—and instead embarked on an intensified pressure campaign. Notably, the United States responded to North Korean adventurism in 2012 and 2013 by increasing the number of B-2 and B-52 bomber flights, sending a carrier strike group to South Korea, and dispatching a nuclear submarine to visit the southeastern city of Jinhae. During this period, however, North Korea countered with the greatest advances in its nuclear weapons program, including four nuclear tests and over 90 ballistic missile tests. Today, the administrations of U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol have adopted an almost identical approach, agreeing to “expand the scale and scope of combined military exercises” and “deploy strategic U.S. military assets.” Not surprisingly, North Korea has embarked on its historic missile-testing spree.
Conversely, when Washington engages with Pyongyang, the evidence shows that North Korea tends to behave better—not perfectly, but better. A 2017 study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found a strong correlation between engagement and a decrease in North Korean provocations. Consider the period between 1994 and 2002, when the two countries complied with the Agreed Framework (a deal in which Pyongyang froze its nuclear activities at its main Yongbyon site in exchange for heavy fuel oil and civilian nuclear reactors) and engaged in peace and missile talks. North Korea conducted only one missile test and reprocessed no plutonium. Or take 2011–12 and 2018–19, when the two sides were engaged in negotiations. North Korea refrained from nuclear and missile testing. Kim himself has acknowledged this reciprocal relationship, saying in 2021 that North Korea will approach the United States on the principle of “power for power and goodwill for goodwill.”
Engagement is clearly desirable. But how do the two countries get back to the table? The past pattern is not encouraging. Pyongyang would seek favorable talks through saber rattling, and then Washington would reciprocate with its own military flexing, bringing both countries to the brink of war before Washington warily engaged to avert catastrophe. The goal today should be to skip the unnecessary brinkmanship and proceed directly to negotiations. Understandably, the Biden administration argues it has already reached out to North Korea multiple times, to no avail. From North Korea’s perspective, however, U.S. outreach may appear disingenuous when the overall U.S. posture signals hostility. Biden told Congress in 2021 that he would deal with North Korea through “diplomacy as well as stern deterrence,” which North Korea viewed as a chiding continuation of the “hostile” U.S. policy. A year later, Biden and Yoon’s decision in Seoul to expand deterrence measures, which Pyongyang finds threatening, reinforced the perception of insincerity. When asked during the May summit if he had a message for the North Korean leader, Biden replied tersely, “Hello. Period.”
GO FIRST AND GO BIG
Instead of passively dreading a nuclear test as a fait accompli, the Biden administration should proactively offer bold measures to entice North Korea back to talks. A body of literature suggests that unilateral conciliatory gestures can help dissolve mistrust and spur rapprochement, especially when offered first by the stronger country. The scholar Charles Kupchan has argued that the initiator’s relative strength puts it in a better position to make accommodations since it has greater confidence that it can weather costs if the target state does not reciprocate. In the present case, the United States has the strongest diplomatic, economic, and military foundation in the world, especially when combined with South Korea’s. This should allow it to take diplomatic risks.
The Biden administration could begin by announcing a new approach that explicitly reinvigorates the two countries’ commitment in the Singapore statement to establish new U.S.-North Korean relations. This policy should be accompanied by unambiguous conciliatory gestures—for example, a moratorium on the deployment of U.S. strategic assets. Washington could also temporarily reduce military exercises, show a willingness to declare an end to the Korean War, offer sanctions relief in exchange for commensurate denuclearization measures, end the ban on U.S. citizens traveling to North Korea, and provide humanitarian aid and COVID-19 vaccines. At the same time, Biden could convey good faith and dangle the offer of a summit in a letter to Kim. Most of these measures were already implemented or on the table during the Trump negotiations, and none would materially undermine U.S. national security. This approach would also keep denuclearization as a long-term U.S. goal but would not require it as an immediate concession for U.S. accommodation.
These moves have their risks, but these can be mitigated. Employing so-called snapback provisions—clauses that reimpose sanctions if a country fails to comply with an agreement—when offering sanctions relief protects against the risk of noncompliance. An end-of-war declaration could be negotiated so it has no legal effect on the armistice agreement and the United Nations Command (UNC)—the U.S.-led international force that fought against North Korea and China during the Korean War whose legitimacy is challenged by North Korea, China, and Russia—until certain security milestones are achieved. U.S.-South Korean military exercises could be pared down to reduce their provocative aspects, such as the deployment of carrier strike groups and strategic bombers and threats of “decapitation strikes” against North Korean leadership, without meaningfully sacrificing military readiness. But ultimately, Washington must take calculated risks to escape the current quagmire.
There is precedent for U.S. unilateral gestures leading to détente. In the early 1990s, the United States withdrew nuclear weapons from South Korea, suspended joint military exercises, and held senior-level talks with North Korea—all of which led Pyongyang to sign major diplomatic, denuclearization, and nuclear safeguard agreements. In 2018, likewise, Trump met with Kim and suspended combined military exercises. Both decisions were viewed as major concessions, but they allowed the Singapore statement to be realized.
The Biden administration will need to offer North Korea a more full-throated, less equivocal olive branch to transform the vicious cycle of provocation into a virtuous cycle of accommodation. North Korean denuclearization may well be an impossible goal, but if it were to happen, it would not be through coercion. Despite his hard-line stance, Yoon has already recognized the need for a bolder appeal through incentives, having offered Kim an “audacious” plan that would provide significant economic and security incentives in exchange for denuclearization progress. But North Korea scoffed at the proposal, recognizing correctly that only Washington, not Seoul, can guarantee what Pyongyang really wants. The United States has an opportunity to offer something that is both truly audacious and in its own interests: a push for peace.
- FRANK AUM is Senior Expert on Northeast Asia at the United States Institute of Peace and Former Senior Adviser on North Korea at the U.S. Department of Defense.
Foreign Affairs · by Frank Aum · December 22, 2022
20. Securing America - Frank Gaffney With Col. David Maxwell, Suzanne Scholte and Dede Laugesen
Securing America - Frank Gaffney
With Col. David Maxwell, Suzanne Scholte and Dede Laugesen
DAVID MAXWELL, Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, former Special Forces Colonel, United States Army, former Instructor, National War College, @DavidMaxwell161
- An update on North Korea’s nuclear missile program
- How much do North Korea’s missile tests cost?
- Why the U.S. needs to keep enforcing sanctions on North Korea
https://www.securingamerica.tv/with-col-david-maxwell-suzanne-scholte-and-dede-laugesen-2/?fbclid=IwAR2x-s_JqupV2OVw7EvL1SJ4EcLgQ1mApe6cM4z4mxDLDaeQAMsdkoOtiB0
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