Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners



Quotes of the Day:

"It's a heavy burden to look up at the mountain and want to start the climb."
- Abby Wambach

"Hence most of the matters dealt with in this book are composed in equal parts of physical and of moral causes and effects. One might say that the physical seem little more than the wooden hilt, while the moral factors are the precious metal, the real weapon, the finely-honed blade."
- Carl von Clausewitz

"Aside from what we have discussed above, we can point out a number of other means and methods used to fight a non-military war, some of which already exist and some of which may exist in the future. Such means and methods include psychological warfare (spreading rumors to intimidate the enemy and break down his will); smuggling warfare (throwing markets into confusion and attacking economic order); media warfare (manipulating what people see and hear in order to lead public opinion along); drug warfare (obtaining sudden and huge illicit profits by spreading disaster in other countries); network warfare (venturing out in secret and concealing one's identity in a type of warfare that is virtually impossible to guard against); technological warfare (creating monopolies by setting standards independently); fabrication warfare (presenting a counterfeit appearance of real strength before the eyes of the enemy); resources warfare (grabbing riches by plundering stores of resources); economic aid warfare (bestowing favor in the open and contriving to control matters in secret); cultural warfare (leading cultural trends along in order to assimilate those with different views); and international law warfare (seizing the earliest opportunity to set up regulations), etc., etc In addition, there are other types of non-military warfare which are too numerous to mention. In this age, when the plethora of new technologies can in turn give rise to a plethora of new means and methods of fighting war, (not to mention the cross-combining and creative use of these means and methods), it would simply be senseless and a waste of effort to list all of the means and methods one by one.'
- Unrestricted Warfare, 1999

1. Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: June - KOREA
2.​ U.S. to adjust military posture against N. Korea's provocation: envoy​
3.​ S. Korea, U.S., Japan to hold vice ministerial meeting in Seoul next week​
4.​ Swearing-in ceremony for new U.S. ambassador to S. Korea held​
5.​ Outrage as North Korea takes helm of world disarmament body​
6.​ N. Korea has done more than any other nation to undermine nonproliferation regime: State Dept. ​
7.​ Kim Jong Un Congratulates Queen Elizabeth After Exchange of Letters​
8.​ <Inside N. Korea> Facing the spread of starvation, N. Korean authorities distribute food for free in some urban areas​
9.​ Rural North Koreans turn to deer blood, counterfeits as COVID meds go to Pyongyang​
10.​ New sanctions against North Korea are a hard lift, so US needs a Plan B, experts say.
11. ​Around 20 residents of South Hwanghae Province die due to starvation
12. N. Korea warns that a major crisis point in the COVID-19 outbreak could come in June or July
13. Making sense of North Korea’s covid mystery — and its menace
14. Beijing and Washington Need a Joint Plan for North Korea’s COVID-19 Disaster
15. Why some South Koreans want their own nuclear bomb
16. North Korea set for nuclear test, says US official




1. Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: June - KOREA



Korea
By David Maxwell

Previous Trend: Neutral
On May 20 to 22, President Biden visited South Korea for a summit with his newly inaugurated counterpart, Yoon Seok-yul. The two leaders agreed to reinvigorate combined military training and succeeded in strengthening the alliance after five years of declining military readiness and friction between Biden’s and Yoon’s predecessors. The Biden-Yoon summit was an important step in implementing the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy while remaining focused on the full range of threats from Pyongyang, particular extended deterrence of North Korean military threats to its southern neighbor. The summit’s joint statement outlined important economic, technology, cyber, and security initiatives as well as alliance cooperation beyond the Korean Peninsula. South Korea committed to investments in semiconductor, battery, and biopharmaceutical production in the United States.
As Biden wrapped up a trip to Japan following his summit with Yoon, Russian and Chinese aircraft penetrated South Korea’s Air Defense Identification Zone, likely to show their displeasure with the summits, underscoring that Seoul and the ROK-U.S. alliance face complex threats from “all sides.”
On May 23, North Korea launched three ballistic missiles. China and Russia blocked UN Security Council resolutions condemning the launches. There are continued reports of activity around the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, and there is speculation that the North may resume nuclear weapons testing. In an interview following the summit, President Yoon stated unequivocally that there will be no more appeasement of Pyongyang. This indicates that the Biden and Yoon administrations are in synch on how to approach the threat from North Korea.

2.​ U.S. to adjust military posture against N. Korea's provocation: envoy​

Five big issues (among a number of others):

Potential nuclear and missile provocations
Alliance military readiness
Chinese and Russian UN Security Council vetos
COVID outbreak in the north.
Alliance willingness to engage and negotiate

Excerpts:
"We are preparing for all contingencies in close coordination with our Japanese and ROK allies," he said at the outset of a trilateral meeting here with his counterparts.
Furthermore, he added, "We are prepared to make both short and longer term adjustments to our military posture as appropriate and responding to any DPRK provocation and as necessary to strengthen both defense and deterrence to protect our allies in the region." DPRK is the acronym for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and ROK stands for the South's one, the Republic of Korea.
...
The diplomats expressed regret over the U.N. Security Council's recent failure to adopt a U.S.-proposed resolution on imposing new sanctions on the North due to vetoes by China and Russia.
Still, they reiterated a commitment to exploring ways for resuming dialogue with Pyongyang to achieve the ultimate goal of the complete denuclearization of the peninsula.
They also shared concerns over the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak in North Korea and called on the Kim regime to accept their existing offer for humanitarian assistance to support its antivirus fight.

(LEAD) U.S. to adjust military posture against N. Korea's provocation: envoy | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by 김은정 · June 3, 2022
(ATTN: UPDATES throughout with more details, remarks; CHANGES headline, photo; ADDS byline)
By Kim Eun-jung
SEOUL, June 3 (Yonhap) -- The United States is set to make adjustments to its military posture to counter North Korea's continued provocations and threats, Washington's point man on Pyongyang said Friday.
Sung Kim, special representative for North Korea policy, pointed out Washington's assessment that the unpredictable regime is preparing for what would be its first nuclear test in more than four years at its Punggye-ri testing site.
"We are preparing for all contingencies in close coordination with our Japanese and ROK allies," he said at the outset of a trilateral meeting here with his counterparts.
Furthermore, he added, "We are prepared to make both short and longer term adjustments to our military posture as appropriate and responding to any DPRK provocation and as necessary to strengthen both defense and deterrence to protect our allies in the region." DPRK is the acronym for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and ROK stands for the South's one, the Republic of Korea.
"We want to make clear to the DRPK that its unlawful and destabilizing activities have consequences and that the international community will not accept these actions as normal," Kim added, as he had a trilateral meeting with Seoul's top nuclear envoy Kim Gunn and Takehiro Funakoshi of Japan.

The session was meant to demonstrate the united front of the regional powers against the North's missile and nuclear brinkmanship. Such a face-to-face tripartite meeting of their top nuclear envoys marked the first since the one held in Hawaii in February and the first since the launch of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration, which has vowed to get tough on the recalcitrant North.
The North has fired a series of ballistic missiles including a long-range one late last month. It has even reportedly completed preparations for its seventh underground nuclear test, while the timing is just a matter of a political decision to be made by leader Kim Jong-un.
The South Korean envoy said Pyongyang would face "reduced security" and "prolonged isolation" if it sticks to the provocative mode, which would only worsen its already dire economic situation.
"North Korea's relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons will only end up strengthening our deterrence. This will ultimately run counter to Pyongyang's own interest," he said.
Funakoshi stressed the importance of a coordinated approach, expressing hope for advancing the trilateral security cooperation under the new South Korean government.
The diplomats expressed regret over the U.N. Security Council's recent failure to adopt a U.S.-proposed resolution on imposing new sanctions on the North due to vetoes by China and Russia.
Still, they reiterated a commitment to exploring ways for resuming dialogue with Pyongyang to achieve the ultimate goal of the complete denuclearization of the peninsula.
They also shared concerns over the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak in North Korea and called on the Kim regime to accept their existing offer for humanitarian assistance to support its antivirus fight.
"Our DPRK policy has been very clear in viewing the humanitarian developments as a separate issue from making progress on achieving the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," the U.S. official emphasized.
ejkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by 김은정 · June 3, 2022


3.​ S. Korea, U.S., Japan to hold vice ministerial meeting in Seoul next week​

We are really pressing forward with trilateral cooperation. At some point some day it would be great to have a trilateral alliance. But that may be a dream too far at least for the foreseeable future.

S. Korea, U.S., Japan to hold vice ministerial meeting in Seoul next week | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by 김은정 · June 3, 2022
SEOUL, June 3 (Yonhap) -- South Korea, the United States and Japan will hold a vice ministerial meeting in Seoul next week to discuss the security situation on the Korean Peninsula, and other regional and global issues, Seoul's foreign ministry said Friday.
Wendy Sherman, deputy U.S. state secretary, will make a three-day trip to South Korea beginning Monday, two weeks after U.S. President Joe Biden's visit for a summit with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, according to the ministry.
Sherman will meet her South Korean counterpart, Cho Hyun-dong, on Tuesday, and they will be joined by Japan's Takeo Mori for a tripartite session Wednesday, it noted.
The three are expected to discuss ways to expand trilateral cooperation for stronger deterrence against North Korea's nuclear and missile threat, and other regional and global issues amid China's rising assertiveness and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The trilateral meeting at the vice-ministerial level was last held in Washington D.C. in November, and it will be the first under the Yoon administration that was launched last month.
On Friday, the top nuclear envoys of the three nations met in Seoul and vowed close coordination against North Korea's provocations amid speculation over its preparation for a nuclear test.
ejkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by 김은정 · June 3, 2022


4.​ Swearing-in ceremony for new U.S. ambassador to S. Korea held​

Good news. Now we need an Ambassador for north Korean human rights. (and so does South Korea)

(LEAD) Swearing-in ceremony for new U.S. ambassador to S. Korea held | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by 김은정 · June 3, 2022
(ATTN: UPDATES with Goldberg's comments in 3rd para)
SEOUL, June 3 (Yonhap) -- Philip Goldberg has been formally sworn in as U.S. ambassador to South Korea, the U.S. Embassy in Seoul said Friday, as he plans to arrive here "later this summer."
"Ambassador Goldberg brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to strengthen our growing global partnership," the embassy tweeted with a photo of Goldberg taking an oath at the State Department in Washington D.C.
In a video message posted after his swearing-in ceremony, Goldberg said he is "so proud and honored" to assume the post and that he is looking forward to his new duty.
The department said in a media note Wednesday (U.S. time) that Goldberg will arrive in South Korea later this summer. It did not specify a date.
Last month, the U.S. Senate approved his nomination
Goldberg, a career diplomat, previously served as ambassador to Colombia and worked as coordinator for Implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution on North Korea from 2009-2010.

yunhwanchae@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by 김은정 · June 3, 2022

5.​ Outrage as North Korea takes helm of world disarmament body​
It is really amazing that the UN could sanction a country for a specific reason and then allow it to chair an organization that is charged with overseeing the specific issues.

 

Outrage as North Korea takes helm of world disarmament body
Countries use North’s elevation in rotating presidency to chastise Pyongyang over recent missile tests and feared preparation for fresh nuclear test
The Guardian · June 2, 2022
North Korea skipped the diplomatic niceties for a combative tone as it took the helm of the Conference on Disarmament.
“My country is still at war with the United States,” declared Pyongyang’s ambassador, Han Tae-Song.
Around 50 countries have voiced their outrage that the nuclear-armed North Korea is being tasked with chairing the world’s most foremost multilateral disarmament forum for the next three weeks.
North Korea took over the rotating presidency of the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament on Thursday, according to a decades-old practice among the body’s 65 members following the alphabetical order of country names in English.
But despite the automatic nature of North Korea’s presidency of the conference, dozens of non-governmental organisations had urged countries to walk out of the room in protest.
There was no dramatic exit, but many nations opted to send only lower-level diplomats, while the US, the EU, Britain, Australia and South Korea, among others, took the occasion to chastise Pyongyang over its numerous ballistic missile tests and feared preparation for a fresh nuclear test, the first since 2017.
“We remain gravely concerned about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s reckless actions which continue to seriously undermine the very value of the Disarmament Conference,” said the Australian ambassador, Amanda Gorely, speaking on behalf of the group of countries.
The decision to remain in the room should not in any way be interpreted as “tacit consent” of North Korea’s violations of international law, she said.
Pyongyang’s ambassador, who opened Thursday’s meeting, held exceptionally in the UN’s distinctive human rights chamber in Geneva, merely responded: “The president takes note of your statement.”
In Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price said that North Korea’s role called the body’s utility into doubt.
“It certainly does call that into question when you have a regime like the DPRK in a senior leadership post, a regime that has done as much as any other government around the world to erode the non-proliferation norm,” he said.
North Korea, one of the most militarised countries in the world, has carried out a number of missile tests since the beginning of the year.
The US and South Korea say it fired three missiles, including possibly its largest intercontinental ballistic missile, hours after Joe Biden closed a visit to the region late last month.
The US and others have warned that Pyongyang is preparing its first nuclear test in five years.
In Thursday’s joint statement, Gorely urged North Korea to “observe a moratorium on nuclear test explosions”.
After repeatedly “taking note” as president of the criticism, Han, the North Korean ambassador, took the floor in his national capacity to insist on North Korea’s right to defend itself against US “threats”.
Pyongyang, he pointed out, remained officially at war with the US since the 1953 ceasefire that ended combat and split the Korean peninsula.
“No country has the right to criticise or interfere in the national defence policy” of North Korea, he said.
The Conference on Disarmament, which is not a UN body but meets at its headquarters in Geneva, is a multilateral disarmament forum that holds three sessions a year.
It negotiates arms control and disarmament accords and focuses on the cessation of the nuclear arms race.
The Guardian · June 2, 2022


6.​ N. Korea has done more than any other nation to undermine nonproliferation regime: State Dept. ​

Yep. There is not much more to say.

N. Korea has done more than any other nation to undermine nonproliferation regime: State Dept. | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by 변덕근 · June 3, 2022
By Byun Duk-kun
WASHINGTON, June 2 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has done more than any other country to undermine the global nonproliferation regime, a state department spokesperson said Thursday, amid fears that Pyongyang may soon conduct a nuclear test.
State Department Press Secretary Ned Price made the remarks after North Korea assumed the rotating presidency of the Conference on Disarmament.
"North Korea has been far from a responsible actor when it comes to matters of nonproliferation," Price said when asked to comment on North Korea's leadership at the Geneva-based conference in a daily press briefing.
"In fact, North Korea has been profoundly destabilizing visa vie the global nonproliferation norm," he added.
North Korea is set to serve as president of the conference over the next three weeks under the decades-old tradition of the 65-member conference, according to reports.
Its leadership, however, comes amid concerns that the North may soon conduct what will be its seventh nuclear test.
Military and intelligence officials in Seoul and Washington have said Pyongyang appears to have completed "all preparations" for a nuclear test and that it may only be gauging the timing.
Price noted North Korea's presidency raised questions about the utility of the conference when asked.
"It certainly calls into question when you have a regime like the DPRK in the senior leadership post, a regime that has done (more than) any other government around the world to erode the nonproliferation norm," said Price, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
North Korea conducted its sixth and last nuclear test in September 2017.
Price said the U.S. and its allies will continue to hold North Korea accountable for any destabilizing acts such as a nuclear test.
"We think it is important, especially in the aftermath of the most recent ballistic missile launches, that the international community including the U.N. system make very clear a statement of accountability and hold the DPRK to account for its nuclear weapons program, for its ballistic missile programs," he said.
North Korea has staged 17 rounds of missile launches this year.
The U.S. earlier sought to pass new U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea, but its efforts have so far been blocked by China and Russia, both veto power-wielding permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and close allies of Pyongyang.
"We encourage all member states to fully implement existing resolutions. and will continue to work with our allies and partners to uphold the sanctions on the DPRK," he added. "We will continue to work with our treaty allies in the ROK. along with allies and partners around the world including those within the U.N. system to hold the DPRK to account."
ROK stands for the Republic of Korea, South Korea's official name.
bdk@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by 변덕근 · June 3, 2022


7.​ Kim Jong Un Congratulates Queen Elizabeth After Exchange of Letters​

Perhaps we can enlist the Queen to lead denuclearization negotiations. Kim must think they are peers since he is considered royalty in north Korea.

Kim Jong Un Congratulates Queen Elizabeth After Exchange of Letters
  • Appears to be first direct message from Kim to Queen Elizabeth
  • Greetings took a turn last year with message from Elizabeth
June 2, 2022, 10:30 PM EDT

Kim Jong Un congratulated Queen Elizabeth II on the anniversary of her ascension to the throne, as the young North Korean leader sent his first public message to the 96-year-old monarch.
“I extend my congratulations to you and your people on the occasion of the National Day of your country, the official birthday of Your Majesty,” North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said of the note that was sent Thursday from its 38-year-old leader.
Pyongyang sent greetings to Queen Elizabeth after North Korea and the UK established diplomatic relations in 2000. Most were dispatched from the cadre who served for decades as the president of the presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, Kim Yong Nam. He started off in 2001 and “wished the Queen good health and happiness,” on the occasion of her official birthday.
The exchange of greetings took a turn last year when Queen Elizabeth sent a congratulatory note to Kim Jong Un for a national day celebration. While a Buckingham Palace spokesperson told CNN such a message had “been done before,” a database search indicated it was the first time the message was mentioned in North Korea’s official media.
Queen Elizabeth, who saw a parade featuring soldiers on horseback and a flyover by military aircraft as part of the festivities, will skip a national thanksgiving service Friday due to “some discomfort,” the Guardian reported.
Kim Jong Un, who in recent weeks has been busy trying to stamp out a Covid wave that may have stemmed from a military parade in Pyongyang, has not been seen in public for several days. His luxury yacht appears to have traveled from a marina at his mansion to a secluded island, specialist service NK News reported Thursday, citing satellite imagery.

8.​ <Inside N. Korea> Facing the spread of starvation, N. Korean authorities distribute food for free in some urban areas​

Another indicator of potential instability. I do not think this means the public distribution system is resuming.

Excerpt:

Facing an increase in public discontent along with the deaths of elderly people and even children due to starvation, the authorities finally began distributing food. ASIAPRESS confirmed through several reporting partners throughout North Korea that food distributions took place in the northern region of the country, including in some urban areas. ASIAPRESS was unable to determine whether the distributions of food are being conducted nationwide.

<Inside N. Korea> Facing the spread of starvation, N. Korean authorities distribute food for free in some urban areas
An example of North Korea’s overexaggerated efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19. In the photo, people are wearing protective suits while working to repair a dyke along the Yalu River. Taken by ASIAPRESS in October 2020.
North Korean authorities distributed food to people in a number of cities starting on May 22. Anxiety has risen in the country as many people have been unable to acquire food due to urban lockdowns and quarantines amid efforts by the authorities to contain COVID-19. There have even been deaths caused by the lack of food. The food distributions appear to be a belated attempt by the government to head off more tragedy.
(KANG Ji-Won, ISHIMARU Jiro)
◆ Deaths by starvation occur due to lockdowns and quarantines
The Kim Jong-un regime acknowledged an outbreak of COVID-19 on May 12. The disease control measures the regime implemented soon after led to the closure of markets, people being quarantined in their homes, and even entire cities or districts being locked down. Bans on movement made it difficult for many people to obtain food.
Facing an increase in public discontent along with the deaths of elderly people and even children due to starvation, the authorities finally began distributing food. ASIAPRESS confirmed through several reporting partners throughout North Korea that food distributions took place in the northern region of the country, including in some urban areas. ASIAPRESS was unable to determine whether the distributions of food are being conducted nationwide.
In a state-run food store in a county in North Hamgyung Province, one kilogram of white rice went for KPW 4,000 and one kilogram of corn went for KPW 2,000 as of around May 22. The store sold five days’ worth of food for families at a price slightly cheaper than market prices were before the lockdown. According to a reporting partner in the county, “Households facing starvation were given a couple of days’ worth of food for free.”
※ KPW 1,000 is around KRW 184.

9.​ Rural North Koreans turn to deer blood, counterfeits as COVID meds go to Pyongyang​

Desperation.

Rural North Koreans turn to deer blood, counterfeits as COVID meds go to Pyongyang
A rural black market of ineffective remedies has emerged as treatments are in short supply.
By Jieun Kim, Hyemin Son, and Changgyu Ahn for RFA Korean
2022.05.31
North Korea is sending most of its reserve medicines to the capital Pyongyang, leaving rural citizens in the lurch, with many turning to alternatives and counterfeits, as the country copes with waves of COVID-19 cases.
After two years of denying the pandemic had penetrated its closed borders, North Korea in May declared a “maximum emergency” and acknowledged the virus had begun to spread among participants of a large-scale military parade the previous month.
Medicine to treat the disease is in short supply and the stocks that are available are getting sent to Pyongyang, home of the country’s wealthiest and most privileged citizens. The drug shortage has left an opening for a black market of unproven traditional medicine to emerge, with some citizens offering dried deer blood as a COVID remedy. Counterfeit versions of fever reducers like aspirin and acetaminophen are also on the rise, sources said.
“All pharmacies are open 24 hours a day in this maximum emergency, but there is a huge difference between Pyongyang and the provincial areas, so people out here are really dissatisfied,” a resident of the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“Expectations were high as the central quarantine command had intensive discussions where they agreed to quickly distribute the reserve stocks of medicines for the emergency, but we were greatly disappointed when that medicine was given to people in Pyongyang and to the military,” he said.
In the city of Sinuiju, which lies across the Yalu River border from China, no one can find even basic medicines like fever reducers and painkillers, the source said.
“Reserve medicines were supplied in very small amounts to hospitals, and pharmacy shelves are empty,” he said.
“At least some pharmacies in Sinuiju are stocked with herbal medicines used as a cold medicine, but county-level pharmacies are completely empty. However, the pharmacies are ordered to be open 24 hours a day unconditionally,” he said, adding that salespeople and security guards are sitting around at the pharmacies day and night, even if they have nothing to sell.
In the city of Chongjin in northeastern province of North Hamgyong, patients complaining of a high fever and cough have increased, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.
North Korea lacks adequate testing capabilities to confirm coronavirus cases but has been tracking numbers of patients reporting “fever.”
“An acquaintance who is a doctor at a provincial hospital told me that even when patients with coronavirus symptoms come to the hospital, they are unable to receive the proper treatment because there is no medicine,” said the second source.
“According to my acquaintance, medicines are normally supplied to hospitals and pharmacies in Pyongyang, and patients with fever in Pyongyang are receiving intensive treatment at quarantine facilities. But even though pharmacies in Chongjin are open 24 hours a day, but there is no medicine or only herbal medicines whose efficacy has not been verified. So it is not helpful to patients at all,” he said.
“They complain saying, ‘Are Pyongyangers the only citizens of the state? Is it okay for us in the provinces to just die?’” the source said.
To deal with the shortage of medicine in the provinces, people are turning to the black market, where unproven traditional remedies like deer blood are sold.
In Pyongysong, South Pyongan province, north of Pyongyang, people are illegally selling deer blood from their homes, touting its medicinal properties as effective against COVID-19, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.
“The types of deer blood traded on the black market are raw blood and dried blood powder. Raw blood in a tiny penicillin bottle is 10,000 won [about US$1.80], and powdered blood in a penicillin bottle is 5,000 won [about US$0.90],” she said.
“If you catch a deer, you can drain its blood. Then you put the blood in a plastic bag,” she said. “Raw blood spoils, so it’s hard to sell. So, people dry the blood and sell it. When a deer gives birth, there is placenta coming out. They also dry it and sell it as a treatment for coronavirus.”
The deer blood remedy is available in North Pyongan as well, a resident there, who declined to be named for safety reasons, told RFA.
She said that rather than catching the deer in the wild, the workers on a deer farm that supplies meat and other byproducts for Kim Jong Un, his family, and other high-ranking officials, are illicitly selling the blood on the black market.
“The musk or placenta of deer are vacuum packed and usually sent to the Central Committee, but the people who work there are secretly selling it.”
Counterfeit medicines that look like the real thing but have no effect at all are also being sold. Fakes have made their way to the local marketplaces in Chongjin, a source there told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“The authorities are making a fuss saying they are responding to coronavirus by releasing the national reserve medicines, but there’s still a shortage here so counterfeiters are taking advantage of this opportunity,” the second Chongjin source told RFA.
“A few days ago, the head of the neighborhood watch unit circulated a notice from the district to each household. The notice warns of the fake drugs out in circulation. There are many people around me who bought fake medicines and suffered from taking them,” the second Chongjin source said.
“There are various types of counterfeit medicines, such as antipyretic analgesics such as aspirin and acetaminophen [Tylenol], and multivitamins, which are frequently sought by people to treat coronavirus infection. A friend from my workplace had a fever, so he bought acetaminophen at the market and took it for two days. But it was fake and didn’t work at all,” the second Chongjin source said.
The counterfeit was indistinguishable from the real deal, according to the second Chongjin resident.
“I saw the fake medicine that my friend bought. The packaging looked quite real. It appears to have been made using a pharmaceutical factory facility, with foreign characters engraved on one side of the pill. I’ve heard that medicine dealers bribe pharmaceutical factory officials and rent factory equipment at night to make fake medicines secretly.”
Traveling merchants bring the fakes to distant parts of the country where they know there is a shortage, a resident of Taehongdan county, in the northern province of Ryanggang, told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.
“Last week, some people in my neighborhood bought aspirin and other meds from a travelling merchant who visited our village. One of the people with cold symptoms took the medicine, but it did not work. So he showed the aspirin and multivitamins he bought to the doctor,” the Ryanggang source said.
“The doctor tested it by biting a pill and burning it. He then said the multivitamins tasted wrong and the aspirin was too hard, so it seems as if the medicines were fakes made of wheat flour.”
Though North Korea has acknowledged that the virus is spreading inside the country, it has only reported a handful of confirmed COVID-19 cases. Data published on the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center showed North Korea with only one confirmed COVID-19 case and six deaths as of Tuesday evening.
The country is, however, keeping track of numbers of people who exhibit symptoms of COVID-19.
About 3.6 million people have been hit by outbreaks of fever, 69 of whom have died, according to data based on the most recent reports from North Korean state media published by 38 North. Around 3.5 million are reported to have made recoveries, while around 182,900 are undergoing treatment.
The state-run Korea Central News Agency reported Sunday that the country’s powerful Political Bureau positively evaluated the national pandemic response, saying the pandemic situation was “being controlled and improved across the country.”
Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.


10.​ New sanctions against North Korea are a hard lift, so US needs a Plan B, experts say.​

Did some say "Plan B?" "Maximum Pressure 2.0: A Plan B for North Korea," https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2019/12/3/maximum-pressure-2/

We need a holistic long term strategy focused on the real problem not the symptoms and we cannot be a one trick pony and use only one tool.

The root of all problems in Korea is the existence of the most evil mafia- like crime family cult known as the Kim family regime that has the objective of dominating the Korean Peninsula under the rule of the Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State. 

The only way we will see an end to the nuclear, missile, and military threats and the human rights abuses and crimes against humanity is through a strategy to solve the "Korea question" (para 60 of the Armistice) and lead to the only acceptable durable political arrangement: A secure, stable, economically vibrant, non-nuclear Korean peninsula unified under a liberal constitutional form of government with respect for individual liberty, the rule of law, and human rights, determined by the Korean people. A free and unified Korea or, in short, a United Republic of Korea (UROK).

New sanctions against North Korea are a hard lift, so US needs a Plan B, experts say.
China and Russia last week blocked a UN effort to punish North Korea for missile tests.
By Soyoung Kim for RFA Korean
2022.06.02
The Biden administration must look beyond the United Nations for ways to deter North Korean provocations while China and Russia wield veto power, analysts told RFA.
China and Russia last week vetoed a bid by Washington at the U.N. Security Council to sanction North Korea for its recent ballistic missile launches. The other 13 council members supported the resolution.
“The Biden administration needs to pivot to Plan B,” Anthony Ruggiero of the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies told RFA’s Korean Service.
“The administration’s U.S. sanctions last week were a weak response to North Korea’s six ICBM tests,” he said, suggesting that its May 27 announcement of unilateral sanctions on two Russian banks, one individual and a North Korean company would have little effect.
“Biden must rebuild the diplomatic, military, and economic pressure campaign against Pyongyang outside the U.N. Security Council,” Ruggiero said.
Washington has promised to push for more U.N. sanctions if Pyongyang were to test its seventh nuclear weapon, which U.S. and South Korean intelligence believes it is preparing for.
“We absolutely will,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said on Tuesday when asked whether the Biden administration would act on its pledge.
She also blasted China and Russia for voting down last week’s sanctions bid.
“This was an unthinkable abdication of their responsibilities to the council and to protecting international peace and security,” she said. “Now they will have to explain their dangerous choice to the General Assembly.”
Soo Kim, a policy analyst at the California-based RAND Corporation, told RFA that such U.S. efforts at the U.N. are mostly bids to impress upon the global community “that the DPRK weapons activity still stands as a persistent and growing threat to not only the region but to international stability.”
“Realistically, the Beijing-Moscow pushback on North Korean sanctions is a major obstacle to exacting punishment on the Kim regime for its weapons provocations,” she said. “The U.S. is aware that, at this point, getting China and Russia’s cooperation on sanctions is impossible. So Washington is probably not intending for any major breakthroughs on this front.”
While sanctions are indeed necessary, Kim said, the U.S. would do better to seek an alliance outside of the U.N. to address concerns over North Korea’s weapons development.
“It’s one thing to discuss plans for extended deterrence in the region – this will not stop or deter North Korea’s weapons ambitions,” she said.
Written in English by Eugene Whong.


11.​ Around 20 residents of South Hwanghae Province die due to starvation​

The effect of the COVID paradox - the regime trying to mitigate the effects fo COVID while taking advantage of the opportunity COVID provides to further oppress the Korean people in the north to prevent resistance.


Around 20 residents of South Hwanghae Province die due to starvation - Daily NK
Most of the dead had long depended on wild greens and porridge made of grass during lean times in the spring, but lockdowns prevented them from foraging for mountain greens
By Kim Chae Hwan - 2022.06.03 3:00pm
dailynk.com · June 3, 2022
North Korean farmers in South Hwanghae Province cleaning up a damaged farm field after Typhoon Lingling in 2019. (Rodong Sinmun)
Around 20 South Hwanghae Province residents have recently died due to starvation, Daily NK has learned. The lockdowns that the North Korean government has imposed around the country as part of its fight against COVID-19 have proved tragic for those unable to find food.
“People have been dying recently in Sinwon County and other rural areas, and most of those deaths are due to starvation,” a source in South Hwanghae Province told Daily NK on Tuesday.
According to the source, most farming families in the province face food shortages. After last year’s crops were ruined by drought and floods, many families only received a couple months’ worth of food rations.
Given these circumstances, more and more people have been starving to death in families that failed to lay aside food reserves before the country was locked down following the recent outbreak of COVID-19, the source said.
In some rural parts of Sinwon and Paechon counties, there have been bans on movement and markets have been shut down. These measures have led to the starvation deaths of more than 20 local residents, the source said.
Most of the dead had long depended on wild greens and porridge made of grass during lean times in the spring, but lockdowns kept them from foraging for mountain greens. They could do little but endure the gnawing hunger at home until death came, the source said.
According to the source, farm workers in Paechon County have been struggling to make it through each day as rations from last year run out, and many of them are too famished to work on the farm, despite this being the busy season.
“I keep hearing about people who have collapsed or starved to death since the government lockdown. But instead of taking any meaningful measures, officials have been sitting on their hands and simply tinkering with the intensity of the lockdowns,” the source said.
“People living along the [China-North Korea] border can get by on money sent from South Korea or China. But since the people of [South] Hwanghae Province depend on farming for their livelihoods, there’s basically no way out of the current dilemma unless the government resolves the food shortages,” he added.
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
dailynk.com · June 3, 2022

12.​ N. Korea warns that a major crisis point in the COVID-19 outbreak could come in June or July​



N. Korea warns that a major crisis point in the COVID-19 outbreak could come in June or July - Daily NK
“The government called on people to remember that if they neglect to wear masks because it’s hot in summer, the virus could spread sharply and infections could accelerate,” a source told Daily NK
By Jong So Yong - 2022.06.03 3:26pm
dailynk.com · June 3, 2022
A photo published in state media on May 31 of North Korean officials wearing protective suits. (Rodong Sinmun-News1)
North Korea’s State Emergency Anti-epidemic Command (SEAC) recently issued an order to disease control agencies throughout the country warning that a “major crisis point” in the COVID-19 crisis could come in June or July.
A Daily NK source in North Hamgyong Province said Wednesday that SEAC issued the order to provinces, cities and counties nationwide on May 26. Predicting a major crisis point in June or July, the order called on people to stay sharp, warning that “work in all sectors must not fall behind.”
According to the source, the order primarily emphasized that since party and state agencies, enterprises, farms, universities and all other sectors were experiencing crises due to the “infectious disease,” people must push forward with quarantine measures and keep doing their work “without retreating.”
Above all, the order called on people to finish up work on the farms during the “optimal period,” calling farming a “task that cannot be delayed.” It also called for construction projects, plans to develop the civilian economy, and school classes to continue without interruption.
“The government called on people to remember that if they neglect to wear masks because it’s hot in summer, the virus could spread sharply and infections could accelerate,” said the source. “It also called for the balanced redeployment of medical professionals from big hospitals to clinics and quarantine stations so that they will be able to respond quickly to outbreaks during the summer.”
The order demanded that health workers treat other infectious diseases going around each province “as the state would take responsibility for drugs and disinfectants,” he added.
The order also called for everyone to coalesce under unitary government command to “stabilize the social atmosphere” by September through strong efforts to bring down the fever infection rate.
In particular, the order called on quarantine authorities to closely watch people who have been in quarantine and to categorize them as “people with immunity.” Quarantine authorities were also ordered to ensure that people who again come down with fevers remain in quarantine for just three days instead of the standard ten.
Additionally, the order called on the authorities to establish a clear system separating the quarantined and the re-quarantined, and to keep track of the ratio of quarantine cases that have fully recovered so that life can return to a less restrictive “normal quarantine system” in each province by September.
“The government predicts infections to be widespread primarily in June and July and secondarily until September, and called on each province to simultaneously prepare for a prolonged medical battle and quickly transition to a normal quarantine system,” the source said.
SEAC also called for swift measures to combat seasonal diseases so that they do not make matters worse.
The source said the order concluded by telling provincial quarantine agencies and officials to think of present times as a “test platform,” warning that “if a stronger strain enters the country, they will need to wage a new struggle once again.”
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
dailynk.com · June 3, 2022


13.​ Making sense of North Korea’s covid mystery — and its menace​

Excerpts:

But international public health officials warn that there is no way to corroborate those claims. This week, a top official at the World Health Organization raised concerns that things may actually be getting worse inside the impoverished country, which has a fragile health care system, limited supplies and no coronavirus vaccines.
“This is not good for the people of [North Korea]. It is not good for the region. This is not good for the world,” said Michael Ryan, WHO emergencies chief. “We assume the situation is getting worse, not better.”
When the latest outbreak was first announced, Ryan warned that with its poor health infrastructure and lack of vaccines, North Korea could become a breeding ground for new variants that could threaten peoples beyond its borders.
Expert analyses, limited trade data, satellite imagery and the accounts of North Korean defectors and informants provide clues to help make sense of the gravity of North Korea’s covid crisis — especially as authorities assess whether to lift the lockdown as the outbreak supposedly ebbs.
Making sense of North Korea’s covid mystery — and its menace
By Michelle Ye Hee Lee and 
June 3, 2022 at 7:15 a.m. EDT
The Washington Post · by Michelle Ye Hee Lee · June 3, 2022
TOKYO — It’s always been difficult to get an accurate picture of what’s going on inside North Korea, one of the most closed-off countries in the world. But its handling of the covid crisis has been particularly enigmatic, with potentially long-lasting ramifications for the welfare of its people — and neighboring countries — amid a worsening humanitarian crisis.
North Korea’s self-proclaimed “public health crisis” appears to have mysteriously subsided as quickly as it spread, according to state media. Less than three weeks after announcing its first official positive covid case that led to an “explosive” spread of fever symptoms afflicting more than 3.7 million (out of population of 25 million), North Korea is heralding a rapid fall in new cases and a “favorable turn” in epidemic response.
But international public health officials warn that there is no way to corroborate those claims. This week, a top official at the World Health Organization raised concerns that things may actually be getting worse inside the impoverished country, which has a fragile health care system, limited supplies and no coronavirus vaccines.
“This is not good for the people of [North Korea]. It is not good for the region. This is not good for the world,” said Michael Ryan, WHO emergencies chief. “We assume the situation is getting worse, not better.”
When the latest outbreak was first announced, Ryan warned that with its poor health infrastructure and lack of vaccines, North Korea could become a breeding ground for new variants that could threaten peoples beyond its borders.
Expert analyses, limited trade data, satellite imagery and the accounts of North Korean defectors and informants provide clues to help make sense of the gravity of North Korea’s covid crisis — especially as authorities assess whether to lift the lockdown as the outbreak supposedly ebbs.
Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, North Korea reported zero positive coronavirus cases — a dubious claim, given outside reports of likely exposure along its border with China. But on May 12, North Korea reported its first positive case of the BA.2 subvariant of omicron. It has since diligently released daily updates on the spread of “fever,” an apparent euphemism for potential covid cases due to its lack of testing capacity.
The sudden change in behavior has experts wondering: Why did North Korea decide to disclose its cases now? Have covid cases really improved as rapidly as it claims?
The exodus of foreigners in the pandemic means the full impact of covid may not be known for many years, until aid workers can reenter and new defectors can provide firsthand accounts. For example, the extent of the 1990s famine in North Korea was not known until researchers interviewed the wave of defectors who fled in its aftermath.
Kim’s announcement of the spread of covid indicates the outbreak could no longer be contained quietly at local levels, especially given the heavy concentration of cases in its capital of Pyongyang, where the elites reside, said Rachel Minyoung Lee, a former intelligence analyst and an expert in North Korean media propaganda.
In fact, North Korea used an extremely rare, if not unprecedented, term to describe a crisis to its domestic audience, Lee said: the “great upheaval since the founding of the state.” Kim has also provided unusually detailed information about infection numbers and deaths, which risks inviting the public’s disbelief, she said.
The question is: Why?
One reason may be to project the regime’s control over the outbreak through its national public health campaign, and to show that he takes concerns in Pyongyang seriously, experts say.
This week, North Korean authorities “positively assessed” the control of the virus and reviewed plans to ease restrictions, according to state media. If North Korea’s figures are accurate, its fever cases sank to below 100,000 in recent days, a significant drop from nearly 400,000 in late May.
Tae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat based in London who defected in 2016, said it is “quite probable” that the virus’s spread slowed down because of Kim’s containment policy. In the past three weeks, Kim “has been depicted as the heroic and benevolent savior of the nation.”
“This is how North Korean governmental propaganda manipulates the situation in favor of the Kim Jong Un regime in any and every case; there is a crisis but it shall be solved and overcome by the dear leader who is benevolent, wise and capable like a god,” said Tae, now a South Korean National Assembly member.
When the pandemic first broke out, North Korea quickly halted land-based trade with China and banned travel between its provinces. But in the first quarter of 2022, it reopened to low levels of trade with China, which may have exposed it to covid.
Cases began spreading in April, state media said. A massive military parade on April 25 may have contributed to the spread as soldiers from across the country traveled to Pyongyang to practice and perform, said Ryu Hyun-woo, North Korea’s former ambassador to Kuwait who defected in 2019.
“The military parade on April 25 in Pyongyang appears to have been a fertile ground for a super-spreading event,” Ryu said. “The military parade gathered tens of thousands of people from capital Pyongyang and different parts of the country. A large number of people were seen without masks, which shows a complacency among North Koreans about covid-19 at that time.”
Even as North Korea reports a decline in cases, it has emphasized quarantine measures, a sign that the regime does not feel the situation has stabilized yet, said Lee, the former intelligence analyst.
Meanwhile, the quality of life for ordinary North Koreans outside of the privileged Pyongyang area appears grim. Kim’s lockdown order came amid what the United Nations believes is a worsening food and medication shortage caused by its border closure.
The country’s public health situation “is the worst one can imagine,” Ryu said, describing a lack of supplies, proper sanitation and reliable electricity even in the country’s top hospitals for Pyongyang residents.
Lockdown fatigue is spreading among many residents, said Lee Sang Yong, editor in chief of Daily NK, a Seoul-based website that reports from informants inside North Korea. Those who had fever were ordered to quarantine at home, with no way to access food from the outside, he said.
“In areas under stringent lockdown, people were starving to death as access to new harvests or market purchases were restrained by the lockdown measures,” Lee said.
Kim also needs workers to focus on the rice-planting season, and has an incentive to tout success in controlling the virus, Lee said. The supply of rice harvested in the fall is dwindling, and North Korea appears to be experiencing a prolonged drought — which does not bode well for this autumn’s harvest and could deepen the severe food crisis.
Satellite images of North Korean rice fields suggest delays in meeting the country’s planting targets compared to last year, said Chung Song-hak of South Korea’s Kyungpook University.
Rice-planting appeared to be only about two thirds complete in images of five main rice fields this month, lagging behind a nearly 90 percent completion rate during the same period last year, according to Chung.
This week, state media reminded the public that North Korea endured the 1990s famine and other hardships, and can overcome its current challenges.
“This is the strong fighting spirit peculiar to the Korean people pushing ahead with the anti-epidemic struggle and the economic construction simultaneously,” it urged.
Kim reported from Seoul.
The Washington Post · by Michelle Ye Hee Lee · June 3, 2022



​14. Beijing and Washington Need a Joint Plan for North Korea’s COVID-19 Disaster


In the plans for north Korean instability and collapse that we wrote in the 1990s humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) was one of the major contingencies we planned for. Although the strategic situation with CHina is much different now, even back then we considered how CHina might act in every contingency and asked the question: could China effectively contribute to HA/DR contingencies? I hope the ROK/US planners at CFC are reviewing and updating the current contingency plans for HA/DR.

Beijing and Washington Need a Joint Plan for North Korea’s COVID-19 Disaster
Foreign Policy · by Doug Bandow · June 2, 2022
An expert's point of view on a current event.
As Pyongyang claims success, the World Health Organization raises serious doubts.
By Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
The empty streets near the Pyongyang Railway Station
The empty streets near the Pyongyang Railway Station are seen as people stay away due to a lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19 in Pyongyang, North Korea, on May 27. Kim Won Jin/AFP via Getty Images
As a COVID-19 wave engulfs North Korea, the question of reunification is moving to the fore. Tragically divided in the aftermath of World War II, the peninsula essentially suffered through a low-grade civil war in the decades since the Korean War ended.
Stitching together the two very different Koreas long looked improbable. However, North Korea is ill-prepared for a viral tsunami. Although it is premature to predict the Kim Jong Un dynasty’s doom, it would be foolish not to prepare for the possibility.
North Korea is one of only two countries that made no effort to vaccinate its people. (Eritrea, oft called the North Korea of Africa, is the other.) North Koreans are at significant risk, having suffered through persistent malnutrition and occasional starvation. The country’s health care system is decrepit, and its society is impoverished. The system might be at its most vulnerable ever: The regime effectively sanctioned itself by sealing its borders against COVID-19.
As a COVID-19 wave engulfs North Korea, the question of reunification is moving to the fore. Tragically divided in the aftermath of World War II, the peninsula essentially suffered through a low-grade civil war in the decades since the Korean War ended.
Stitching together the two very different Koreas long looked improbable. However, North Korea is ill-prepared for a viral tsunami. Although it is premature to predict the Kim Jong Un dynasty’s doom, it would be foolish not to prepare for the possibility.
North Korea is one of only two countries that made no effort to vaccinate its people. (Eritrea, oft called the North Korea of Africa, is the other.) North Koreans are at significant risk, having suffered through persistent malnutrition and occasional starvation. The country’s health care system is decrepit, and its society is impoverished. The system might be at its most vulnerable ever: The regime effectively sanctioned itself by sealing its borders against COVID-19.
Although the extent of the infection in North Korea is unknown, Pyongyang admitted to hundreds of thousands of “fever cases” apparently contracted before emergency isolation orders were issued. (According to the Associated Press, Kim directed “a thorough lockdown of cities and counties and said workplaces should be isolated by units to block the virus from spreading.”) If caused by the easily transmissible omicron variant, these numbers were expected to be merely the start. Although omicron is mild for those who are vaccinated, it can be deadly for the unvaccinated. And the North Korean health care system would be quickly overwhelmed by even a mild wave. Kim appears to have stumbled into a perfect storm, with catastrophe possible.
However, the regime soon declared that fever cases were down and that only 69 people had died due to COVID-19. Since the government was “successfully overcoming” the disease, Kim partially ended Pyongyang’s lockdown. These claims are improbable at best. In contrast, the World Health Organization’s emergencies chief, Michael Ryan, yesterday stated, “We assume the situation is getting worse, not better.”
Unfortunately, given the potential for disaster, the world should assume the worst. Obviously, help should be provided even though the time is too late to prevent an infectious wave. This should be unconditional, aimed purely at saving lives rather than seeking political leverage. South Korea has already offered aid but received no response. The United States, Japan, and China should also step forward. However, China itself is vulnerable, reliant on a zero-COVID policy while its home-produced vaccines offer only middling protection and its large elderly population lags in getting vaccinated. Beijing might hesitate to send anyone to North Korea, which would risk bringing the virus back home. Moreover, North Korea’s dilapidated medical infrastructure makes mass vaccination and treatment difficult.
Pyongyang could face a crisis akin to the deadly famine it suffered from a quarter century ago, which killed prodigiously, with estimates running between 225,000 people and 3.5 million people. Indeed, North Korea is arguably in worse shape today, under much stricter sanctions, reinforced by its own border closure, and enforced by shoot-to-kill orders.
What if the pandemic overwhelms North Korea?
State authority ruptured during the famine when the government proved unable to feed its people. The situation could be much worse this time. Depending on who in authority has been vaccinated, important party cadres and leaders, security personnel, and senior military officers all might become sick or even die.
None of this is certain to happen. The regime survived the famine. And even dictators sometimes luck out. Nevertheless, the United States, South Korean, and Japan should begin systematic but quiet discussions about how to respond to North Korean instability and/or collapse. Even if this remains an outside possibility, it would be a crisis that could overwhelm the existing order in East Asia. And COVID-19 may well not be the only disaster to hit the north in an era of climate change and political uncertainty. There are many objectives, including meeting humanitarian needs; fostering peaceful transitions to a liberal, democratic order; and collecting weapons of mass destruction, especially nukes, as well as missiles and any other weapons posing significant danger to the surrounding people.
However, the overriding strategy, which would best achieve the rest, should be reunification. It would heal the post-World War II division, which was necessary to avoid a Korea united by communism under Soviet occupation (and ultimately, Moscow’s appointee, Kim Il Sung). Uniting with South Korea would bring North Korea into an established democracy that has demonstrated resilience despite its relative youth. This process would provide the best path for economic development as well. Reunification would also facilitate disarmament and denuclearization, though Seoul’s express commitment would be required, given popular support for acquiring nuclear weapons.
Reunification is far from a guaranteed outcome, however. Indeed, German reunification demonstrated the inevitable complex challenges that would face Koreans on both sides of the old border. South Korean enthusiasm for reunification flagged after seeing the cost reunification had on West Germany. A younger population with less connection to North Korea might be especially wary of taking on the added burden of a country ravaged by COVID-19. The new South Korean government should begin engaging civil society about the possibility and plan to meet likely contingencies.
The North Korean people’s consent also would be necessary, of course, and should not be taken for granted. Local elites would lose their privileged positions—party officials who I’ve met over the years told FP they did not want their nation to be “swallowed.” Even those who’ve suffered the most from past misrule might be suspicious of a takeover from afar. Other powers would need to simultaneously defuse a crisis and treat a suffering people with respect. Issues of truth and reconciliation—balancing the harm done to North Korea’s people by the regime with the need to find some role for officials and others who know how systems work—would be long and difficult.
The task would be easier if the allies united behind reunification. The joke among cynical observers is that many Japanese love Korea so much that they prefer to keep two of them. Although there is hope of better relations between the newly elected government in Seoul and Japan after years of bitterness caused by fights over historical issues, the latter still might be wary of a larger Korean neighbor seemingly united mostly by ancient antagonism toward Tokyo. The United States and South Korea should address Japanese concerns to ensure full cooperation.
Finally, it would be vital to engage Beijing. Fear of chaos, including mass refugee flows—it is easier to go north to China and cross the Yalu or Tumen Rivers than head south and get through the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)—might incline Beijing to intervene to stabilize the country, if not the regime. Chinese analysts fear not only the humanitarian difficulties of coping with refugees but that an influx of Koreans could restart ethnic issues on the border. Even if it wasn’t China’s intent, Chinese involvement could end up preserving a separate North Korean state. A confrontation with South Korean and U.S. troops moving north from the DMZ would be dangerous. Open communication channels with Beijing would be especially important in a crisis.
More fundamentally, the Chinese have no desire to see a united Korea allied with the United States, hosting U.S. troops, and acting as part of an Asian containment system. China also might be concerned about preserving economic interests in North Korea. As a result, Beijing might act specifically to forestall reunification.
Winning Chinese assent to reunification, especially if China acted first in a crisis, might require concessions from the allies: for instance, a U.S. commitment to withdraw its troops, a South Korean promise of military neutrality, and/or a Japanese pledge to forgo formal military ties with Seoul. It’s better to begin exploring such topics, however delicate, before a North Korean implosion.
Although the United States could not force reunification, it could help ensure the most favorable circumstances to encourage it. The U.S. State Department should organize three-way talks, including Japan, and prepare an approach to China.
In Washington everything is treated as urgent even when it is not. Preparing for a possible North Korean health emergency and even state collapse actually is urgent. Ultimate responsibility for implementing a new political order on the peninsula would lie with South Korea. But Washington would have its own part to play in the slow healing of a long divide.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of several books, including Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World.

​15. Why some South Koreans want their own nuclear bomb

It pains me to read comments that there is a loss of confidence in the Us c commitment as well as comments about trading LA for Seoul. What does anyone think will happen if we withdraw troops and end extended deterrence because we fear trading LA for Seoul. Do we think that will prevent conflict? Is that really the best way to protect LA?

Why some South Koreans want their own nuclear bomb
N Korea’s growing nuclear capabilities and doubts over US defence commitments raising support for the South to have its own atomic weapon.

Al Jazeera English · by Zaheena Rasheed
Seoul, South Korea – Hours after US President Joe Biden left Tokyo following a five-day tour to Japan and South Korea last week, officials in Seoul sounded the alarm over the launch of a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile test from North Korea.
If confirmed, the launch of an ICBM – a weapon that is capable of reaching the continental United States – will mark Pyongyang’s second such missile test this year. With denuclearisation talks stalled, the governments of South Korea and the US are also warning that the impoverished nation may be preparing for a nuclear test – its first in five years and seventh overall.
On the streets of Seoul, however, most South Koreans responded to the latest launches with a shrug of the shoulder. In Myeondong, the city’s bustling centre, Kim Min-yi, a 49-year-old housewife said the North’s stepped up tests were “their way of saying ‘we need help’ or ‘let’s have a talk’”. Lee Yun-yi, a Catholic nun, said it looked like a “desperate gesture” for help over the country’s sanctions-fuelled economic crisis as well as its first confirmed COVID-19 outbreak.
While resigned to the North’s growing nuclear and missiles arsenal, most people said they wanted President Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office on May 10, to respond firmly.
“We need to be stern in our response, but we also need to be careful at the same time not to encourage further provocations,” said Chae Soon-ok, an academic. “I think that South Korea should develop its own nuclear weapons – not for the purpose of launching an attack, but for national defence.”
Park Jung-bin, a 23-year-old student, agreed.
“Why are we letting our enemy upgrade their main weapon?” she asked. “South Korea has been facing off with North Korea for decades. We’ve tried to talk to them, but the North keeps testing its nuclear weapons. Owning a nuclear weapon is more efficient. ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’.”
Chae and Park’s views, once a topic for the political fringe in South Korea, are increasingly mainstream, according to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. A poll by the US-based think-tank in February found that as many as 71 percent of South Koreans favour acquiring their own nuclear weapon – mainly because North Korea has continued to develop its weapons programme in defiance of global sanctions and censure.
From larger weapons meant for strategic use, North Korea has now developed tactical weapons that can be used on the battlefield, “with low yields and less nuclear fallout and with which they can attack South Korea, and also Japan,” said Jaechun Kim, a professor of international relations at South Korea’s Sogang University.
“This is all the more problematic, because the North has developed all sorts of vehicles, long range as well as short-range missiles, with which they can deliver these nukes to South Korea,” he said. While South Korea “remains very vulnerable, it is “unfortunately, largely reliant on the US extended deterrence,” he added, referring to a pledge by Washington – the South’s main security ally – to use its nuclear, conventional and defence capabilities to deter attacks on its allies.
Will the US risk LA for Seoul?
The US has maintained a formal deterrence commitment to South Korea since it intervened in the Korean War of 1950-53 to push back invading troops from the North.
It also deployed tactical nuclear weapons to South Korean territory in 1958 to deter any renewed attacks, but pulled them out in 1991 as part of a bid to persuade Pyongyang to allow international inspection of its nuclear facilities. At the time, Washington pledged to protect the South – which had abandoned its own nuclear ambitions and had signed on to the treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) – using nuclear bombers and submarines based in the Pacific Ocean and the continental US.
But now, with the North’s ever-increasing nuclear and missile capabilities, analysts say there is “lingering doubt” in South Korea about whether the US’s deterrence strategy is good enough to defend the country – especially as North Korea now claims to have a “second-strike” retaliatory capability against the US.
“Many South Koreans harbour suspicion ‘whether the US is going to risk Los Angeles to save Seoul’,” said Kim. “So, my take is that unless something more substantial – such as redeployment of American tactical nukes to South Korea – there is going to be constant demand by many South Koreans to develop our own nukes.”
The United States and South Korea hold joint training exercises in May. South Koreans are increasingly wondering whether US support is enough to ensure their defence [South Korea Defence Ministry via AP Photo]
Yoon, the South Korean president, on the campaign trail had said he would ask the US to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons to the country. He has since backtracked, affirming in a joint statement following Biden’s visit, a commitment to the “complete denuclearisation” of the Korean peninsula. But the pair also agreed to expand the scope and size of their military exercises to deter North Korea.
And following Pyongyang’s May 25 salvo of missiles, the US and South Korean militaries fired missiles of their own to show their “ability and readiness to precision-strike the origin of the provocation with overwhelming power”.
Still, after the policies of former US President Donald Trump – who raised questions over Washington’s commitment to South Korea’s defence, including by demanding that Seoul pay billions more dollars to support the 28,500 American troops stationed there – some South Koreans now believe their country is better off pursuing an independent defence strategy, instead of relying on a third country’s “nuclear umbrella”.
“I think that Korea should try to strengthen national defence by developing new weapons, but this should exclude help from US. We should search for ways to strengthen security without involving third country,” said a 25-year-old man who recently finished his mandatory military service. “We should have our own nuclear weapons.”
Others milling about at Seoul’s waterfront Yeouido Park also said acquiring a nuclear weapon would increase South Korea’s international standing and prestige. “Because South Korea is stuck between powerful nations such as China, Russia and Japan, it is our priority agenda to strengthen national defence,” said Jung Yoo-jin, a 21-year-old student. “Korea should begin to have their own weapons since South Korea is now one of the strongest economic countries in the world,” said Lee Mee Yun, 22.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has also hardened attitudes about nuclear weapons, said Lee Sung-yoon, a Korea expert at the Fletcher School at the Tufts University in the US.
“The situation in Ukraine is a reminder that in the end, you’re on your own. I mean, when somebody invades you then you have to defend yourself and others. Even treaty allies may think twice before putting their own people, their own troops in danger,” he said.
“The broad international environment, Russia’s war in Ukraine and the growing North Korean nuclear capabilities and threats all point to the logical conclusion in South Korea, one would think that, hey, can we really depend on US deterrence? Or just in case, do we need to come up with a plan B, which is … going nuclear?”
“I think we’re moving more and more on that trajectory.”
Al Jazeera English · by Zaheena Rasheed


16. North Korea set for nuclear test, says US official




Whether he tests a 7th nuclear weapon will depend on the need to test to advance the program as well as if he thinks he can achieve strategic effects beneficial to the regime in the form of maximum pressure on the alliance to coerce sanctions relief. But if he thinks he can, he will have miscalculated. I think President Yoon’s statement following the ROK-US summit that there will be no more appeasement of the Kim family regime speaks for the alliance. Kim must know that he cannot succeed through coercion. He has to come to the decision that his only option is to come to the table and negotiate in good faith as a responsible member of the international community. But that is contrary to his nature.

It is imperative that the US demonstrate strategic reassurance and strategic resolve which it has been doing during this year of north Korean missile launches. Despite Putin’s War in Ukraine and Chinses activities in the South China Sea and its threats to Taiwan we have deployed strategic assets to Guam and are preparing to do so again. We have deployed F-35s to Okinawa. We have steamed a carrier battle group in the East Sea. The US can walk and chew gum at the same time and can employ its military instrument of power around the world as necessary.

When we think about these issue we should continue to ask these questions:

Do we believe that Kim Jong-un has abandoned the seven decades old strategy of subversion, coercion-extortion (blackmail diplomacy), and use of force to achieve unification dominated by the Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State in order to ensure the survival of the mafia like crime family cult known as Kim family regime?

In support of that strategy do we believe that Kim Jong-un has abandoned the objective to split the ROK/US Alliance and get US forces off the peninsula? Has KJU given up his divide to conquer strategy - divide the alliance to conquer the ROK?
The answer to these questions is no. The Kim family regime has been executing the strategy from its playbook for 7 decades.

The strategy is two- fold: One the one hand the use of political warfare and blackmail diplomacy to subvert the ROK government, undermine the alliance and use blackmail diplomacy (the use of increased tension, threats, and provocations, to gain political and economic concessions - and specifically in the near term: sanctions relief). The second is the development of advanced warfighting capabilities to be employed in campaign plan to attack and occupy South Korea and dominate the Korean peninsula under the rule of the Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State to ensure survival of the Kim family regime.

According to some escapees from the north Kim Jong-un has experience the greatest failure of the regime since the Korean War and that is his failure to get sanctions relief. He told the elite and the military leadership that he could "play" Trump and Moon," but he was unable to co-opt or coerce them into giving sanctions relief.

Although tactics and operational approaches change the strategy remains the same. There is no evidence that he has changed the regime's objectives

The political warfare approach and the advanced warfighting capabilities approach are not mutual exclusive. They are in fact mutually supporting and reinforcing. The development of advanced warfighting capabilities, nuclear weapons and missiles in particular, support the political warfare strategy and blackmail diplomacy.

North Korea set for nuclear test, says US official
The Korea Times · June 3, 2022
Kim Gunn, center, South Korea's special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, his U.S. counterpart Sung Kim, right, and Japanese counterpart Takehiro Funakoshi pose before their meeting at the Foreign Ministry's office in Seoul, Friday. AP-Yonhap

By Jung Min-ho

The top nuclear envoys of South Korea, the United States and Japan met for the first time in Seoul Friday since President Yoon Suk-yeol took office last month amid growing nuclear and missile threats from North Korea.

Speaking to reporters before their meeting, the senior diplomats ― Kim Gunn, Sung Kim and Takehiro Funakoshi ― all underscored the importance of a "firm and united" response to the North's military threats. They also urged Pyongyang to return to the table for talks, offering help for its fight against COVID-19 and food crisis.

"Our trilateral cooperation is essential for responding to challenges posed by North Korea," Kim Gunn, the South's special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, said. "North Korea's relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons will only end up strengthening our deterrence. This will ultimately run counter to Pyongyang's own interests."

The trilateral meeting comes just a week after the three countries' foreign ministers ― Park Jin, Antony Blinken and Yoshimasa Hayashi ― pledged to cooperate to effectively respond to North Korea's threats following a Seoul-Washington summit that vowed the same.

Sung Kim, the U.S. special representative for North Korea, said that U.S. intelligence believes that the North is preparing its Punggye-ri test site for what would be its seventh nuclear test.

"This assessment is consistent with the DPRK's own recent public statements. We are preparing for all contingencies in close coordination with our Japanese and ROK allies," Kim said. "Furthermore, we are prepared to make both short and longer term adjustments to our military posture as appropriate in responding to any DPRK provocation and as necessary to strengthen both defense and deterrence to protect our allies in the region."

Kim Gunn, center, South Korea's special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, his U.S. counterpart Sung Kim, center at right, and Japanese counterpart Takehiro Funakoshi, center at left, attend their meeting at the Foreign Ministry's office in Seoul, Friday. AP-Yonhap

This year alone, he added, the North has launched 23 ballistic missiles, all of which violate international law, escalate military tensions and destabilize the region.

"Our bottom line has not changed. Our goal remains the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. And we want to make clear to the DRPK that its unlawful and destabilizing activities have consequences and that the international community will not accept these actions as normal," he said.

Funakoshi, director-general of the Asian and Oceanian affairs bureau of Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expressed concern that North Korea is not just continuing but "accelerating" its nuclear and missile capabilities.

"The (May 25) launch, which was a combination of an ICBM class and one with irregular trajectory, this was another violation of the U.N. Security Council resolutions and we need to respond in a resolute manner," he said.

The South Korea and U.S. nuclear envoys said they were ready to support North Korea in its fight against COVID-19, saying they would view humanitarian issues separately from making progress on the complete denuclearization of North Korea.


The Korea Times · June 3, 2022









De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
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David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Personal Email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
Web Site: www.fdd.org
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
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FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."
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