​Quotes of the Day:

“As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.”

- Arthur Clarke

"There is but one thing of real value - to cultivate truth and justice, and to live without anger in the midst of lying and unjust men."

- Marcus Aurelius

"Nothing is more securely lodged than the ignorance of the experts."

- Friedrich August von Jayek

1. Ministry refutes DP's claim military's action against N.K drone infiltration was armistice breach

2. U.S. satellite may possibly fall around Korean Peninsula

3. Senior U.S. State Department official due in Seoul to discuss supply chain, IRA issue

4. N. Korea again on virus alert as cases rise in S. Korea, China

5. Defector group says it will use drones for leaflet campaign against N. Korea

6. South Korea's Indo-Pacific strategy broadens focus from northern threat

7. A Korean War Wall of Remembrance Set Hundreds of Errors in Ston

8. Three individuals accused of working with North Korean agents

9. Yoon threatens to send drones 'deep' into North Korea

10. [Column] Checking U.S. protectionism (view from South Korea)

11. North Korea’s evolving nuclear threat: too great to deter?

12. Kim Jong Un’s Vow of ‘Exponential’ Bomb Output Looks Overblown

13. Japan, South Korea Wonder: How Strong Is the US Nuclear Umbrella?

14. ＜Inside N. Korea＞ Cadres shocked by massive personnel shakeup that brings more young people into official positions

​

​1. Ministry refutes DP's claim military's action against N.K drone infiltration was armistice breach

​I do have to ask what effect was the South trying to achieve? Simply a demonstration of the South's own capability? The need to "do something" in response?

​

Ministry refutes DP's claim military's action against N.K drone infiltration was armistice breach | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 김수연 · January 8, 2023

SEOUL, Jan. 8 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's defense ministry on Sunday refuted the main opposition party's claim that the South's action against North Korea's latest drone infiltration was a violation of the armistice agreement that halted the 1950-53 Korean War.

Earlier in the day, the Democratic Party denounced President Yoon Suk Yeol's order for the military to send its own unnamed vehicle to the North in response to the North's Dec. 26 drone incursion as a "whimsical and sloppy" move that violated the armistice agreement.

"Our military's sending of a drone into the North was a corresponding step in terms of the right to self-defense, as North Korea blatantly violated the armistice agreement by sending drones across the military demarcation line and into northern parts of Seoul," the defense ministry said in a message to reporters.

The ministry said the self-defense action by the South's military was not in violation of the armistice treaty and taking issue with the move is "inappropriate."

Last month, five North Korean drones intruded across the inter-Korean border, with one of them having flown over northern Seoul, but the South's military failed to shoot them down. The defense ministry belatedly admitted last week that one drone entered a no-fly zone around the presidential office.

The U.N. Command has convened a special team to investigate North Korea's drone infiltrations due to the possibility of an armistice breach. It did not specify whether its probe would only cover the North's action or could include the South's response.

This undated file photo shows a North Korean drone that was found in Inje County, Gangwon Province, in 2017. (Yonhap)

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 김수연 · January 8, 2023

2.  U.S. satellite may possibly fall around Korean Peninsula

Quite a name:  A "budget" satellite.

U.S. satellite may possibly fall around Korean Peninsula | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 김보람 · January 9, 2023

SEOUL, Jan. 9 (Yonhap) -- The South Korean science ministry on Monday warned that a retired U.S. satellite could possible fall on the Korean Peninsula and its vicinities later this day.

Launched in 1984, the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) is falling to Earth after completing its decadeslong mission to study how the Earth absorbed and radiated energy from the sun.

The Ministry of Science and ICT said the ERBS is forecast to crash back down to Earth around 12:20-1:20 p.m. and the Korean Peninsula is included in the regions that the satellite would fall toward.

The ministry said the majority of the satellite will burn up upon re-entry to the atmosphere but asked Korean people to remain cautious about some components that will likely survive the process and reach the surface.

This photo by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration shows the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

brk@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 김보람 · January 9, 2023

3. Senior U.S. State Department official due in Seoul to discuss supply chain, IRA issue

Senior U.S. State Department official due in Seoul to discuss supply chain, IRA issue | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 이원주 · January 9, 2023

SEOUL, Jan. 9 (Yonhap) -- Jose Fernandez, the U.S. under secretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment, is scheduled to arrive in South Korea on Monday for consultations on a range of bilateral economic issues.

Fernandez is the first senior U.S. official to visit Seoul this year, which marks the 70th anniversary of the South Korea-U.S. alliance.

He plans to meet Lee Do-hoon, Seoul's second vice foreign minister, on Tuesday to discuss ways to boost bilateral cooperation.

The two sides are expected to discuss economic security issues, such as strengthening supply chain resilience, as well the easing of discriminatory provisions for Korean-made electric vehicles in the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). They plan to hold a joint press conference following their meeting.

The IRA, signed into law by U.S. President Joe Biden in August, gives up to US$7,500 in tax credits to buyers of electric vehicles assembled only in North America, sparking concerns that Hyundai Motor and Kia Corp. could lose ground in the U.S. market.

At the 7th Senior Economic Dialogue last month, Lee and Fernandez signed a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to continue constructive discussions to address Seoul's concerns on the impact of the IRA.

Fernandez will also meet officials from U.S. and South Korean companies, and hold a roundtable on women in business with the American Chamber of Commerce.

U.S. Under Secretary for Economic Affairs Jose Fernandez (L) speaks with South Korea's Second Vice Foreign Minister Lee Do-hoon at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 12, 2022, in this file photo provided by the foreign ministry in Seoul. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

julesyi@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 이원주 · January 9, 2023

4. N. Korea again on virus alert as cases rise in S. Korea, China

north Korea is obviously vulnerable, especially now that China is opening up.

This bears watching. We should be especially concerned if there is an outbreak within the military,

N. Korea again on virus alert as cases rise in S. Korea, China | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 김수연 · January 9, 2023

SEOUL, Jan. 9 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has called for strengthening quarantine measures against the COVID-19 pandemic, citing the fast spread of the virus in such neighboring countries as South Korea and China, according to its state media Monday.

The state-run Korean Central Television reported Sunday that virus cases shot up in the winter season in the South, China and Japan due to the fast spread of omicron subvariants, saying, "The virus situations in those regions are the most serious in the world."

It called on North Koreans to step up quarantine measures against the COVID-19 pandemic in a bid to "thoroughly" prevent infections.

The North has recently raised its guard against the latest spike in virus cases in the South and China apparently due to concerns that potential imported infections could further deal a blow to its economy.

In August last year, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared victory against the COVID-19 crisis, claiming the pandemic was brought under control three months after the county reported its first virus case in May 2022.

In September last year, Kim called for a vaccination campaign against COVID-19 and advised people to start wearing masks in November as immunity levels could fall around October.

North Korea's Korean Central Television reports on Jan. 8, 2022, that COVID-19 cases have shot up in South Korea, China and Japan during the winter, in this image captured from footage from the TV station. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

sooyeon@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 김수연 · January 9, 2023

5. Defector group says it will use drones for leaflet campaign against N. Korea

As I have previously recommended I would buy 1000 commercial drones from Amazon (or if available from a vendor in Korea) load them with USB drives and cell phone handsets and line up escapees and those who seek a free and unified Korea along the south boundary fence of the DMZ and fly drones north as.far as possible. I would fly drones with handsets to each of the front line military commanders with pre-programmed numbers to be able to call their South Korean military counterparts across the DMZ. I would contract Korean Telecom to increase the cell phone infrastructure along the southern boundary of the DMZ to be able to reach as far into north Korea as possible. In addition to flying drones with cell phone handsets I would also have South Korean soldiers drop off bags of cell phone handsets along the military demarcation line during their daily routine patrols. Again the phones would be pre-programmed with numbers to contact military counterparts in the South as well as apps and websites that will be useful for Korean soldiers in the north to have access to information. Leaflets and loudspeakers are visible symbols of transmitting information but more can be done with electronic means.

Defector group says it will use drones for leaflet campaign against N. Korea | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 이원주 · January 9, 2023

SEOUL, Jan. 9 (Yonhap) -- A North Korean defectors' group said Monday it plans to fly unmanned aerial vehicles soon carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.

Park Sang-hak, head of the Fighters for Free North Korea (FFNK), told Yonhap News Agency that his group will use drones to send the anti-Pyongyang leaflets "at the earliest date possible," citing difficulty in flying them in the usual giant plastic balloons during the winter.

He did not elaborate on when his group would send the leaflets. In April 2020, he claimed that his group had flown a drone carrying leaflets to the North's capital.

Park's remarks came as five North Korean drones intruded into the South's airspace late last month, with one of them even entering a no-fly zone around the presidential office in the central Seoul district of Yongsan.

The conservative Yoon Suk Yeol administration warned that it would suspend a 2018 inter-Korean agreement on reducing military tension if North Korea violates the South's territory again. The unification ministry earlier said it has also begun a legal review on resuming loudspeaker broadcasting and the distribution of anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.

Since the revision of the Development of Inter-Korean Relations Act in 2021, the South's government has banned the sending of propaganda leaflets across the border, with violators subject to a maximum prison term of three years or a fine of 30 million won (US$24,100).

This photo shows one of the balloons containing 1 million anti-Pyongyang leaflets that Fighters for Free North Korea, a Seoul-based organization of North Korean defectors, claimed it sent toward North Korea in the South Korean border town of Gimpo, north of Seoul, on April 25-26, 2022. The leaflets contain the photo of South Korean President-elect Yoon Suk Yeol. The group provided this photo. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

julesyi@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 이원주 · January 9, 2023

6. South Korea's Indo-Pacific strategy broadens focus from northern threat

South Korea's Indo-Pacific strategy broadens focus from northern threat - Breaking Defense

South Korea's strategy says the ROK will "nurture a sounder and more mature relationship as we pursue shared interests (with China) based on mutual respect and reciprocity, guided by international norms and rules."

breakingdefense.com · by Colin Clark · January 6, 2023

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol delivers a speech during his news conference to mark his first 100 days in office at the presidential office on August 17, 2022 .(Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

SYDNEY — South Korea has made a strategic commitment to engage with Japan, the United States and other like-minded states in working to promote something akin to a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” as a key component of its first Indo-Pacific strategy, an important shift towards Seoul becoming more of a regional player, analysts tell Breaking Defense.

“The new strategy demonstrated for the first time the ROK’s aspiration to play a greater strategic role in the broader Indo-Pacific region amid the US-China strategic competition, beyond its traditional focus on East Asia and Southeast Asian region,” Yuka Koshino, an expert on Japan and the rest of Asia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said. The strategy uses this somewhat awkward term — a “Global Pivotal State” — to encapsulate what South Korea aims to become.

While the new South Korean strategy does not use the term “Free and Open Indo-Pacific, which Japan, the United States and other Pacific powers use, Koshino notes, it does contain “elements” of the concept, something Japan acronymizes as “FOIP.”

“However,” Koshino writes in an email, “It is still early to say that ROK made a commitment to the shared FOIP vision between US, Japan, Australia, India and other like-minded countries until we see greater engagement with the regional security and economic architecture, such as the discussions around the Quad, the application to join the CPTPP [Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership], and an upgrade of the US-Japan-ROK trilateral cooperation to include concrete actions beyond simply responding to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.”

One of the most intriguing parallels with Japan’s strategy toward China, which is really what FOIP is all about, is the new South Korean strategy’s focus on Taiwan.

“The mention of the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the recognition of the importance of improved relations with Japan for regional solidarity are great steps to contribute to the ongoing efforts to enhance regional security cooperation and are welcomed by these countries,” Koshino said.

The emphasis on the Taiwan Strait was the most surprising aspect of the strategy, she said, marking a “significant step for the ROK given the sensitivity around its relations with China and previous exposure to economic coercion from China.”

The strategy’s underpinning is recognition of the tremendous importance of shipping and sea lanes.

“Particularly, the Indo-Pacific represents approximately 78% and 67% of our total exports and total imports, respectively. The fact that the majority of our top 20 trading partners are located in the Indo-Pacific and that 66% of our foreign direct investment is destined for the Indo-Pacific clearly reflect our close ties with the region,” the official English version of the South Korean strategy says. “The Indo-Pacific region is also home to many key strategic shipping routes. Most of our trade depends on sea lines of communication, with a significant portion going through the Strait of Hormuz, the Indian Ocean, the Malacca Strait, and the South China Sea. In particular, the South China Sea is a key sea route, accounting for around 64% and 46% of our crude oil transport and natural gas transport, respectively.”

China has aggressively staked out much of the South China, illegallydeclaringthat it has historic and legal claims to it, which a UN tribunal rejected.

The US welcomed the strategy document, released Dec. 27, with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan saying “The ROK’s goal to expand its cooperation with other allies and partners across the Indo-Pacific will strengthen our shared ability to advance international peace, security, and promote nuclear nonproliferation. The strategy will also enhance the region’s economic security networks, cooperation in science and technology, and engagement on climate change and energy security. We are grateful for President Yoon’s and the ROK’s leadership, and congratulate the people of the ROK on their new strategy, which will help the United States and our partners advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous Indo-Pacific.”

Local Relations

Still, the South Korean strategy does not take a hard line toward China, saying instead that “it neither targets nor excludes any specific nation.” The strategy goes so far as to say South Korea will “nurture a sounder and more mature relationship as we pursue shared interests (with China) based on mutual respect and reciprocity, guided by international norms and rules.”

That last phrase about norms and rules is key.

“Whether it will be possible for the Yoon administration to achieve a positive relationship with China based on the principles of inclusion and reciprocity while maintaining its alignment with the United States in favor of the rule of law and liberal international order will be a major test of Yoon’s Indo-Pacific strategy,” opined Scott Snyder, an expert on Korea at the Council on Foreign Relations, in a posting on Korea on Point, a site run by the Sejong Institute think tank.

However, South Korea has historically treaded carefully with China, a key economic partner that has shown a willingness to use economic pressure on Seoul. In 2017, Beijing retaliated to the placement of a US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea by banning Chinese tourists, a move that inflicted heavy economic damage on South Korea.

Remarkably, given the tortured history of the two countries, the South Korea strategy says “improved relations with Japan is essential for fostering cooperation and solidarity among like minded Indo-Pacific nations.”

Snyder noted that a Nov. 2022 trilateral statement by the US Japan and South Korea “offers a new platform for simultaneously addressing peninsular and regional threats. In this respect, South Korea’s Indo-Pacific strategy will enable the country to gain regional help in dealing with North Korea while expanding cooperation with other countries to address challenges to stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.”

But even in a strategy about the Indo-Pacific, South Korea could not ignore North Korea. The fact the strategy was executed makes clear how much broader the ROK understands its regional — even global — role to be.

“Most significantly, South Korea’s Indo-Pacific strategy underscores the extent to which South Korea must simultaneously manage both peninsular and regional security risks through the pursuit of a dual strategy that addresses both the North Korea and China threat. South Korea cannot afford to ignore the North Korea threat, but it also can no longer afford to treat North Korea as a threat to South Korea’s security and prosperity to the exclusion of rising dangers to regional security,” Snyder wrote.

So how is North Korea likely to view this and how might it react?

“The DRPK will likely view closer ROK-Japan security cooperation as a challenge to its nuclear and missile ambitions. The recent US-Japan-ROK Summit held on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Cambodia agreed on the intention ‘to share DPRK missile warning data in real time’, which will greatly improve Japanese capabilities to detect and assess missiles from DRPK,” Koshino said. “This comes on top of recent developments in Japan’s security policy to acquire counterstrike capabilities.”

She argues that the Indo-Pacific strategy broadly marks “a shift from the Moon administration’s focus and optimism to improve relations with North Korea to a more realistic approach to deal with the regional security and economic challenges arising from the changing strategic environment driven by the US-China great power competition.”

For his part, Snyder offers markers to track to judge how well the strategy succeeds:

“South Korea’s cultivation of trade, aid, investment, and people-to-people ties with regional partners in Southeast Asia including but not limited to Vietnam (South Korea’s leading trade and investment partner in the region) and its ability to manage continued trade relations with China in spite of geopolitical headwinds will determine the success or failure of South Korea’s Indo-Pacific strategy.”

breakingdefense.com · by Colin Clark · January 6, 2023

7. A Korean War Wall of Remembrance Set Hundreds of Errors in Stone

Excerpt:

The error-riddled list of names was supplied by the Defense Department. 

A Korean War Wall of Remembrance Set Hundreds of Errors in Stone

nytimes.com · by Dave Philipps · January 9, 2023

The Wall of Remembrance at the Korean War Veterans Memorial may be missing about 500 names, according to family members of Korean veterans. Credit...Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

An arc of gleaming black granite slabs etched with 36,634 names was unveiled on the National Mall over the summer, built to honor American service members who died fighting in the Korean War.

People like Frederick Bald Eagle Bear, an Army corporal who was killed as he rallied his infantry squad to fend off an enemy attack. And Walder McCord, a bomber pilot who crashed during a night mission. And John Koelsch, a helicopter pilot who was shot down trying to rescue another pilot, died in captivity and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

But Lieutenant Koelsch’s name is spelled wrong, Lieutenant McCord’s name is not on the wall at all, and the name of Frederick Bald Eagle Bear, a member of the Lakota tribe, is so mangled that the polished granite lists him as Eagle B F Bald.

There are hundreds more mistakes like those.

“It’s just a damn mess — full of old bookkeeping errors and typos,” said Hal Barker, a historian who, together with his brother, Edward Barker Jr., maintains a vast online repository of information about the conflict, a trove known as the Korean War Project.

The brothers estimate that the $22 million wall of remembrance — an addition to the 27-year-old Korean War Veterans Memorial — contains 1,015 spelling errors. It also incorrectly includes 245 names of service members who died in circumstances totally unrelated to the war, they say, including a man killed in a motorcycle accident in Hawaii and another who drank antifreeze thinking it was alcohol. And it includes one Marine who lived for 60 years after the war and had eight grandchildren.

Beyond that, there are about 500 names that should be listed but are not, according to the Barkers. They say that the official roster used for the wall was so slapdash that they cannot find much rhyme or reason to who was included and who was left out.

For example, records show that when Lieutenant McCord’s bomber crashed, nine crew members aboard were killed, but the names of only three are included on the wall. In another case, a Navy plane collided with an Air Force plane off Japan, killing both pilots; the Navy pilot is on the wall, but the Air Force pilot is not.

Hal Barker, left and Ted Barker, his brother, started the Korean War Project, a repository of information about the conflict and the Americans who fought in it.Credit...Nitashia Johnson for The New York Times

How did it all go so wrong? Through the shared missteps of several federal agencies and a veterans’ group that failed to devote the time, money and scrutiny needed to prepare an accurate list, probably ensuring that even more time, money and scrutiny will be required to fix it.

The granite slabs were erected by the Korean War Veterans Memorial Foundation to recognize a largely forgotten conflict that left more than a million people dead and a country divided. The money for the project was largely provided by the government of South Korea. Like other monuments on the mall, the slabs are maintained by the National Park Service. The error-riddled list of names was supplied by the Defense Department. And no one seems to have checked it.

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The foundation declined to comment. The park service deflected blame to the Defense Department. The Defense Department declined to make decision makers available for comment. In response to questions from The New York Times, it acknowledged that there were errors on the wall, saying in a statement that compiling an accurate list was “challenging.”

“We encourage all family members or concerned citizens to notify the Department of any names that were omitted, misspelled, or included in error,” the statement said, adding that the department would work with the park service to make any necessary corrections or additions, though they did not offer any details of how the granite could be fixed.

The brothers said they could think of no options but tearing out the slabs and starting over.

It is not the first time the department has botched casualty figures from the conflict in Korea, where three years of bitter fighting ended in stalemate and an armistice in 1953. For nearly 50 years afterward, the official number of American dead from the conflict was 54,246, a number published in history books, quoted in speeches and etched in stone when the Korean War memorial was unveiled. But in 2000, the Pentagon acknowledged that the figure included all troops who had died anywhere, for any reason, during the war years, and that the true number of war deaths was 36,516.

Before the carving started on the new wall of names, the Barker brothers repeatedly warned planning commissioners, military officials and eventually even the White House about problems with the list, records show. But the process lumbered forward.

“No one bothered to check it before they set it in stone,” said Edward Barker Jr., who goes by Ted.

War memorials that recognize thousands of people were once rare. Arches and obelisks built to honor generals and faceless victories predominated for hundreds of years. And while plaques bearing local names of the fallen have been a familiar small-town sight since the Civil War, national war memorials did not center on exhaustive lists of the dead.

In recent generations, however, engraved lists have come to be almost expected, as society grew more focused on individuals. Major memorials like those for the Vietnam War and the Sept. 11 terror attacks now prioritize listing masses of people name by name.

But as the Korean War wall of remembrance shows, efforts to be inclusive can instead call attention to who was left out. Should the wall include a nurse killed in a plane crash on her way to the war zone? What about a Marine who died by suicide a month after coming home? Even with the best proofreading, any attempt to recognize all who died in as complex an event as a war will inevitably involve hard decisions.

For that reason, the National Park Service repeatedly opposed adding the Korean War memorial wall when it was proposed. The service had already waded through controversy over the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, just across the Mall’s reflecting pool, where factions faced off over who deserved to be listed. Years of arguments and lobbying led to the addition of more than 380 names to that granite wall, including one man who died 28 years after he was wounded in Vietnam.

“There is not always agreement on those names to be included,” the parks service’s deputy director for operations at the time, Peggy O’Dell, warned at a congressional hearing in 2016. “Choosing some names and omitting others causes a place of solace to become a source of hurt.”

Erika Doss, a professor of American studies at the University of Notre Dame who has written extensively about monuments, said that Americans increasingly see recognizing individuals as critical. “We see ourselves as a nation of individuals, so listing the names becomes unifying,” she said. But she wondered how so solemn a gesture could have gotten so flawed this time. She asked, “Didn’t they have an editor?”

The mistakes might have attracted little notice if not for the Barker brothers.

Ted, 77, and Hal, 75, both 5-foot-6 and partial to loose jeans and white running shoes, share a two-bedroom apartment outside Dallas where, over the years, more and more living space has been ceded to their research. Walls are covered with bulletin boards. Out-of-print books and binders stuffed with obscure infantry rosters weigh down sagging shelves. Hal’s bed is little more than a cot, pushed into a corner to make room for a sprawling homemade desk with six computer monitors where he maintains their project’s website.

The brothers began what they readily admit has become an obsession more than 40 years ago, hoping to better understand their father, Lt. Col. Edward L. Barker, a Marine pilot whose portrait hangs in their hall. He was often brooding and quick to anger, Hal said: “A good Marine, but a bad father.”

The colonel, who died in 2009, had a uniform that gleamed with ribbons, including a Silver Star, but Hal said that whenever the brothers asked what he did in the Korean War, their father responded, “None of your damn business.”

Hal majored in history in college, and after graduating, he sought out veterans who could tell him about his father. That led to collecting oral histories of nearly forgotten battles. Ted got involved as the project grew, and the brothers created the website in 1995 to share their findings. The site has grown to thousands of pages of maps, photos and profiles, crowdsourced by veterans and their families and meticulously curated by the brothers.

In the 1990s, as part of their research, the Barkers started cobbling together a list of all Americans who died in the war. It was based largely on military personnel records entered on IBM punch cards in the 1950s. The cards had room for only a limited number of characters, and could not accommodate hyphenated or multi-word surnames like Bald Eagle Bear, so hundreds of names got scrambled.

Much of the data has since been converted to modern digital files, but the errors introduced in the punch-card era endured. So the brothers started checking their list against personnel files, census rolls and gravestones — work that has taken years.

“People ask us how we could spend so much effort doing this,” Ted Barker said. “I say, how could we not? We feel we owe it to these guys.”

Around 2010, a group of veterans running the Korean War Veterans Memorial Foundation began lobbying to add a memorial wall to the existing monument. When the foundation asked the Barkers for names, the brothers said they could supply a list but warned that a lot of correction work would still be needed.

The foundation pushed ahead, and in 2016, despite National Park Service opposition, Congress authorized the wall. Tucked in the legislation, though, was something the park service insisted on. Because the park service feared that a protracted public process like the one for the Vietnam memorial would yield another divisive mess, the law required that the office of the Secretary of Defense decide on and issue the list of names, all at once with no outside input.

In a statement, the park service said the accuracy of the list was the responsibility of the foundation and the Defense Department. That statement concluded, “We will continue to work with those organizations to ensure that the names engraved on the memorials are as accurate as possible.”

The National Park Service’s legislative provision created a problem: All the Pentagon had were its old, error-ridden records, without the Barkers’ corrections. The brothers say they emailed the Defense Department repeatedly to offer their services, but the department was largely unresponsive.

Then the brothers noticed something odd happening: The Korean War Project website started to be visited thousands of times a day by computers associated with civilian researchers hired by the Defense Department. The brothers grew suspicious that the Defense Department might be paying people to vacuum up their decades of research, rather than engaging directly with them, so in 2020 they sharply limited access to the data and the corrections they had made.

The Defense Department did not respond to questions about the brothers’ suspicions.

The foundation, whose leaders by now were in their 80s and 90s, pushed the government to deliver a list, as required by law, so the memorial wall could be completed.

The foundation did not make leaders available for comment for this article.

The Pentagon delivered its list in 2021. When the Barkers saw proofs of what would be carved into the granite, they again raised the alarm but said they received little response.

Truth be told, the brothers agreed, they never liked the idea of a wall of names. It not only draws dividing lines among the dead, they said, it ignores those who lived — men like their father who came home but were forever scarred by their experiences.

“A wall should have never been done,” Ted Barker said. “But now that it has been done, we need to get it right.”

nytimes.com · by Dave Philipps · January 9, 2023

8. Three individuals accused of working with North Korean agents

We must keep in mind a large element of the regime's political warfare strategy is to conduct subversion of South Korea.

Monday

January 9, 2023

 dictionary + A - A 

Three individuals accused of working with North Korean agents

https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/01/09/national/northKorea/South-Korea-North-Korea-agents/20230109180331394.html

Police and the National Intelligence Service (NIS) conduct a raid on the home of a senior official of the Progressive Party’s Jeju branch last month for collaborating with North Korean agents in violation of the National Security Act. [NEWS1]

Three South Koreans affiliated with the minor Progressive Party and a farmers' group in Jeju are under investigation for allegedly establishing an underground network that collaborated with North Korean agents for over five years.

Police confirmed Monday that it conducted a raid on the homes and offices of a former senior official of the small leftist Progressive Party branch in Jeju, a current senior official of the party and the secretary-general of the Korean Peasants League's Jeju branch last November and December for alleged violation of the National Security Act. The raid was conducted in coordination with the National Intelligence Service (NIS). 

The Jeju Provincial Police Agency said it is in the process of conducting digital forensic analysis on the items seized, including mobile phones and computers. 

In July 2017, the former Progressive Party official is suspected of having met with a North Korean agent from its ruling Workers' Party's Cultural Exchange Bureau — a North Korean espionage department that recruits South Korean sympathetic to Pyongyang — in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The Cultural Exchange Bureau was formerly known as the 225th Bureau, responsible for training agents to infiltrate South Korea and establish underground political organizations aimed at spreading unrest. 

This individual reportedly received several days of training by the North Korean agent on establishing an underground organization, its operation plan and communications methods. 

He allegedly recruited two others to form an underground organization that allegedly carried out orders from North Korea for the past several years through last November to promote antigovernment activities. 

Police claim that other directives included a push for the suspension of joint exercises between Seoul and Washington and opposition to advanced weapons systems from the United States, based on their digital forensic analysis of the seized items. 

The individuals are also accused of praising the North Korean regime at a movie screening in February 2019. 

On Nov. 9, the NIS requested cooperation from the Jeju police to search the former party official's home and the raid expanded to the two other individual's homes and office on Dec. 19. 

They are accused of violating Article 7 of the National Security Act, which stipulates that a person who praises, incites or propagates the activities of an antigovernment organization can be punished by imprisonment for up to seven years. They are also accused of having violated Article 8 of the Security Act, which punishes by imprisonment for up to ten years individuals who make contact, including meetings or correspondence, with a member of an antigovernment organization or a person who has received an order from it.

The three individuals have denied the allegations and refused to answer NIS summons for questioning. 

"Meeting a North Korean agent in Cambodia in itself is a violation of the National Security Act," said a police official Monday. 

Depending on the results of the NIS analysis of the confiscated items, the scope of the investigation may be expanded. The code name of their underground organization is reportedly written on the documents obtained by the police and the NIS.

Separately, the NIS and prosecutors also conducted multiple raids on individuals in Jeju, Seoul, South Gyeongsang and North Jeolla suspected to have formed a pro-North, antigovernment group. 

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]

9. Yoon threatens to send drones 'deep' into North Korea

But what effect will the South seek to achieve by sending drones north? I hope it includes an information component. Information is an existential threat to the regime.

Monday

January 9, 2023

 dictionary + A - A 

Yoon threatens to send drones 'deep' into North Korea

https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/01/09/national/northKorea/Korea-North-Korea-drone/20230109173611196.html

Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Byung-joo makes remarks on last month's North Korean drone intrusion at the National Assembly in Yeouido, western Seoul on Friday. [YONHAP]

Seoul could send drones deep into North Korea if Pyongyang stages another drone incursion into the South, a high-ranking presidential official told the JoongAng Ilbo on Monday.

“If the North sends unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) into South Korea again, we will not just respond passively by shooting them down,” the official said on condition of anonymity. As part of its response, Seoul would send its own drones “deep into North Korea in accordance with the principle of proportionality,” he said.

“We may send UAVs as far as Pyongyang and the launch station at Tongchang-ri,” he continued in a thinly-veiled warning to the North. 

Tongchang-ri in North Pyongan Province is home to the North’s Sohae Satellite Launching Station, where the regime launched a test satellite on Dec. 19 as part of a what it called a final test for the development of its first reconnaissance satellite.

Another official from the presidential office told the JoongAng Ilbo that President Yoon Suk Yeol “ordered the establishment of a drone unit under the command of the South Korean armed forces and the production of small stealth drones within the year.”

In the immediate aftermath of last month’s drone invasion, Yoon ordered two or three drones to be sent into the North for every drone that infiltrates the South.

The president’s directive was criticized on Sunday by Democratic Party (DP) spokesperson Park Sung-joon, who called it an “impromptu and pathetic response” that would violate the armistice that ended hostilities in the 1950-53 Korean War.

The high-ranking presidential official who spoke to the JoongAng Ilbo bristled at the DP spokesman’s statement.

“Which country does the DP serve, and how could they put out such a statement?” he asked, arguing that “exercising our right to self-defense against North Korean provocations is not a violation of the armistice under international law.”

The Defense Ministry and conservative People Power Party (PPP) also issued statements over the weekend that took aim at the DP for criticizing the president’s response measures.

“The flight of our military’s drones into the North is a corresponding measure undertaken as part of our right to self-defense,” a ministry spokesman said in a written statement sent to reporters on Sunday.

The ministry statement argued that forceful measures were required in response to clear violations of the armistice by the North, which included breaching the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) with drones and sending them as far as central Seoul. 

The ministry also said that the armistice does not limit the authority of military commanders to “exercise the right to self-defense in responding appropriately to clearly hostile acts.” 

Chung Jin-suk, the PPP’s interim chief, singled out the DP for criticism during a party leadership meeting on Sunday.

“The Democratic Party is pouring out bizarre, absurd remarks,” Chung said, arguing that the DP “is acting in a way that makes it resemble a North Korean mouthpiece.” 

PPP floor leader Joo Ho-young also blasted the DP, arguing that “it is the Democratic Party's intention to tie our hands and let the North do as it pleases.”

BY PARK TAE-IN, MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]

10. [Column] Checking U.S. protectionism (view from South Korea)

Conclusion:

In a national science and technology meeting last October, President Yoon Suk Yeol vowed to promote 12 strategic technologies, including quantum computing, next-generation nuclear reactors, bioengineering, artificial intelligence, robotics, aerospace and hydrogen. He took the right direction.

Monday

January 9, 2023

 dictionary + A - A 

[Column] Checking U.S. protectionism

https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/01/09/opinion/columns/US-trade-protectionism/20230109195022631.html

Ahn Ho-young

The author, a former Korean ambassador to the U.S., is chair professor of Kyungnam University and a member of the diplomacy and security division of the JoongAng Ilbo Reset Korea campaign.

American political scientist Edward Luttwak published an essay entitled “From Geopolitics to Geo-economics: Logic of Conflict, Grammar of Commerce,” which drew attention to neo-mercantilism around the end of the Cold War. A New York Times column by Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman reminded me of what Luttwak argued three decades ago. In December, Krugman wrote a piece defending the Joe Biden administration turning its nose at the World Trade Organization (WTO) for its finding that protectionist tariffs levied under the last Trump administration against Chinese imports for national security were illegitimate. Trump abused the 1948 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Article 21, which enables a nation to take protectionist actions for “essential security interests.” The U.S. bending the rules to pursue its goals could raise the risk of protectionism expanding worldwide, Krugman said, but nonetheless added, “I think the Biden administration is doing the right thing. The GATT is important, but not more important than protecting democracy and saving the planet.”

Krugman is among many American opinion leaders who support the black-and-white approach even when the U.S. can uphold international rules and democracy at the same time. These changes in American thought raise concerns for three reasons.

First of all, it can have an adverse impact on the international economy. The U.S. led the Bretton Woods system after World War II to ensure free trade because trade protectionism after World War I had deepened a postwar global depression. Going against the model it designed could bring about grave consequences to the global economy.

Second, there are the ramifications of the U.S.-China economic disengagement. Many thought that U.S. economic containment could have less impact on China due to the intricate connections between the two largest economies since the Cold War. But Krugman’s argument suggests that decoupling between the two economies could be deeper than expected.

Lastly, the impact on the Korean economy cannot be minor. South Korea is an open economy. If geopolitics guide U.S. external economic policy, the Korean economy would be hit hard. So what can Korea do?

It must first enhance dialogue with policymakers in the U.S. administration and Congress as well as opinion leaders like research institutes and media organizations. Dialogue would be more effective if it admits geopolitical as well as economic repercussions. American scholars on U.S.-China relations say that the biggest strength of America against China is its respect for international order based on rules and liberalism and alliance with mutual values.

In other words, the rule of the law is the core value of the international order. Most U.S. scholars won’t be able to retort the argument that America can sustain its supremacy when it stays by the rules.

Second, it is important to build consensus among nations with similar views. Many countries that worry about trade protectionism by the U.S. are the countries who strive to defend the rules-based international order, particularly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They are European Union member countries and Canada, Japan and Australia. They have invited South Korea to the Group of Seven and NATO summits. Senior officials from these countries have been visiting Korea. Seoul must work harder with these nations to sustain WTO authority and promote agendas focused on preventing a return to trade protectionism.

Third, Korea must strive to keep up its technological edge. That is crucial not just for the economy, but for geopolitical reasons. In its Workers’ Party convention last January, North Korea declared it would develop tactical nuclear weapons, not just strategic ones. The country changed its nuclear doctrine last September, shifting the role of its nuclear weapons to “offensive” from “defensive.” Since then, doubts about the U.S nuclear umbrella have deepened in South Korea. The U.S. nuclear umbrella must be reliable. To help ensure a nuclear deterrence, Korea must strengthen the values in the alliance through unrivalled competitiveness in high tech areas like semiconductors and batteries.

In a national science and technology meeting last October, President Yoon Suk Yeol vowed to promote 12 strategic technologies, including quantum computing, next-generation nuclear reactors, bioengineering, artificial intelligence, robotics, aerospace and hydrogen. He took the right direction.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.  

11. North Korea’s evolving nuclear threat: too great to deter?

Can we demonstrate the will to respond and more importantly, does Kim Jong Un believe we will respond and end the regime if Kim employs weapons of mass destruction? (Because we will)

Excerpt:

“The classic cycle is that North Korea builds capabilities so as to give itself leverage for future negotiations,” she says. “This time, however, Kim Jong Un appears determined to force the world to recognise North Korea as a nuclear weapons state at all costs — and he has his own schedule.”

North Korea’s evolving nuclear threat: too great to deter?

Kim Jong Un’s growing arsenal is setting the scene for a risky game of military one-upmanship with the US and its east Asian allies

Financial Times · by Christian Davies · January 8, 2023

In his last known letter to a US president, an emotional Kim Jong Un rebuked Donald Trump for carrying out scheduled joint military exercises with South Korea.

“I am clearly offended, and I do not want to hide this feeling from you,” Kim wrote in August 2019. “If you do not think of our relationship as a stepping stone that only benefits you, then you would not make me look like an idiot that will only give without getting anything in return.”

The letter marked the end of a turbulent period in US-North Korean relations that included Trump’s threat to inflict “fire and fury like the world has never seen” upon the east Asian dictatorship and culminated in a series of historic meetings between the two men.

Having failed to secure the sanctions relief and security guarantees he was seeking, however, Kim has eschewed diplomacy ever since — focusing instead on upgrading his nuclear weapons programme.

Now, in spite of tough international sanctions and extreme self-imposed isolation during the coronavirus pandemic, experts warn that North Korea has made such rapid progress with its military goals that existing arrangements for the defence of South Korea, Japan and the US could soon be rendered obsolete.

“North Korea is on its way to perfecting its nuclear programme,” says Sue Mi Terry, a former CIA analyst who heads the Asia programme at the Wilson Center think-tank in Washington. “I think there is a serious risk that a North Korean crisis could erupt while we are all focused on China potentially invading Taiwan.”

Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump meet in 2019, during which time the US president threatened Pyongyang with ‘fire and fury like the world has never seen’ © Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Kim is showing no signs of slowing down. In his New Year’s address, he declared he would “exponentially increase” nuclear weapons production in 2023 and stressed his willingness to use his nuclear arsenal for offensive as well as defensive purposes.

Pyongyang’s advances in weapons development, and its adoption of a more aggressive nuclear doctrine, have prompted Seoul and Tokyo to seek greater reassurance from its US allies, who responded with increased patrols of nuclear-capable military assets on and around the Korean peninsula. The Biden administration has also vowed to “end” the Kim regime if it ever used nuclear weapons.

But some analysts worry that a strategy to meet strength with strength risks making conflict even more likely.

“Every time the Americans do something to reassure the South Koreans that they are prepared to defend them, they weaken their assurances to the North Koreans that they are not preparing to attack them,” says Sheen Seong-ho, a professor of international security at Seoul National University. “The North Koreans are sending the message that they are not prepared to go down without a fight.”

Preparing for battle

Cigarette in hand, a beaming Kim last month oversaw North Korea’s first known test of a large-diameter solid rocket motor at a test site in the country’s western North Pyongan province.

The test brought his regime a step closer to acquiring a solid-propellant intercontinental ballistic missile that, unlike liquid fuel missiles, can be fuelled in secret before they are deployed, giving adversaries far less time to conduct a preventive strike.

It is one of many recent examples of Pyongyang approaching or crossing key technical thresholds that are making its nuclear arsenal increasingly versatile and difficult to destroy or defend against.

North Korea has tested the Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile which has an estimated range of 15,000km — within striking distance of the US mainland. It has also tested a rocket fitted with a conical “manoeuvring re-entry vehicle”, or MaRV, which is potentially harder to intercept and destroy than a standard ballistic warhead.

Kim Jong Un watches a missile launch last year in North Korea, which has tested the Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile with an estimated range of 15,000km — within striking distance of the US © KCNA via Reuters

But the development that most worries policymakers in Seoul, Tokyo and Washington is North Korea’s new generation of lower yield tactical and battlefield nuclear weapons.

On New Year’s Day, North Korea test-fired its “super-large multiple launch rocket system”, which Kim has claimed can strike anywhere in South Korea.

These lower-yield weapons “can be used more precisely to target specific enemy assets such as ports, airfields, ships, or concentrations of troops,” says Ankit Panda, a nuclear weapons expert at the Carnegie Endowment think-tank in Washington.

Not only is their threshold for use much lower than for ICBMs, he adds, the decision to use them is more likely to be delegated to field commanders, “increasing the risk of an accident, miscommunication or miscalculation resulting in nuclear use”.

In a 20-day period between late September and early October, North Korea launched 15 newly developed missiles capable of delivering tactical nuclear warheads as part of a simulated nuclear attack on South Korean and US assets.

The launches, attended by Kim himself, included short-range ballistic missiles fired from mobile road and rail platforms and another fired over Japan from a site near the border with China.

“North Korea fired more than twice as many missiles last year as were launched during the entirety of the reigns of former leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il put together,” says Jeongmin Kim, an analyst with Seoul-based information service NK Pro.

“It is no longer strictly accurate to describe these launches simply as ‘tests’,” she adds. “Rather, North Korea is demonstrating to its adversaries that its nuclear forces are operational and ready to use.”

In September, Kim adopted a more aggressive nuclear policy that outlines an unusually low threshold for use, such as pre-emptive strikes in a range of vaguely-defined scenarios.

The law stipulates that in the event of an attack on the “state leadership and command organisation”, a North Korean nuclear strike would be launched “automatically and immediately” — suggesting Kim has already envisioned scenarios where command and control could be delegated over parts of his arsenal.

The policy enshrines comments made by Kim in April and reiterated at this month’s party congress that beyond the “primary mission” of preventing war, his nuclear weapons had a “secondary mission” if his country’s “fundamental interests” were threatened.

This has exacerbated fears that North Korea increasingly sees its nuclear arsenal as a means to engage in nuclear blackmail against the South — or even to start and win a conflict.

“This is not the first time North Korea established a nuclear policy law, but in the past they said it was for deterrence purposes,” says Kim Gunn, South Korea’s special representative for Korean peninsula peace and security affairs. “But [now] they say it is not only for deterrence, but [also] for a pre-emptive strike, and the conditions are very much arbitrary, which means they can use their tactical nuclear weapons at the time of their choosing.”

‘Iron-clad commitment’

Some critics believe the Biden administration has not paid enough attention to North Korea, particularly as it remains preoccupied with Ukraine and increases its focus on China.

A senior US official said the administration has made multiple efforts to engage with North Korea, and that it has been clear that Washington was willing to negotiate without preconditions. But he said the response from Pyongyang since the Biden administration came to office could be summed up as “pretty much radio silence”.

That has left the US with few options other than to focus on reassuring their allies.

In recent months the US has deployed fighter jets and B52 bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons to the Korean peninsula as part of a commitment made by US defence secretary Lloyd Austin in November last year to send nuclear-capable assets to the region on a “constant” and “routine” basis.

These shows of force are designed to reassure policymakers in Seoul of Washington’s “ironclad commitment” to South Korean security.

People in Seoul watch a North Korean missile test on TV. In September, Pyongyang adopted a more aggressive nuclear policy that outlines an unusually low threshold for use © AP

But Seukhoon Paul Choi, a former strategist at the US-South Korea joint warfighting headquarters, says the US is prioritising symbolic gestures over substantive changes to the way the alliance operates.

“The US still seems to see the problem as primarily an issue of ally psychology, rather than as a transformed security challenge,” says Choi, now a nuclear security fellow at the Rand Corporation think-tank in Washington.

He notes that South Korean policymakers remain unsure of Washington’s thinking surrounding the circumstances in which the US might use nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula, feeding anxiety in Seoul as to whether the US would really risk North Korean nuclear retaliation against one of its own cities by coming to South Korea’s defence.

That concern is shared by many in the Japanese national security establishment. Sugio Takahashi, head of defence policy division at the National Institute for Defense Studies in Tokyo, says that the US, South Korea and Japan need to conduct exercises that simulate a scenario in which nuclear weapons are used.

“The reality is very little such preparations are actually taking place and there is awareness both in Japan and South Korea that they need to make progress on this front,” says Takahashi.

Panda, of the Carnegie Endowment, says there will always be a limit to the reassurance that US policymakers can offer their east Asian counterparts regarding America’s willingness to use its nuclear weapons as the ultimate decision resides solely with the president.

A senior US official disputes the notion that Washington is not communicating sufficiently with its allies on nuclear use, calling the level of co-ordination “truly extraordinary”. The US has also updated its national defence strategy to warn Pyongyang that “any nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies and partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of that regime”.

But Panda dismisses the US commitment as “braggadocio”, recommending that Washington adopt greater ambiguity about the severe consequences that would follow nuclear use by Pyongyang.

“We don’t make these types of threats against our other nuclear adversaries, including Russia and China,” he says. “We are lying to ourselves if we think that is credible.”

Choi agrees. “It is pure hubris for the US always to talk about deterring North Korea without acknowledging that North Korea has itself acquired the capabilities to deter the US.”

When asked if the US would follow through with its commitment to end the regime in the event of North Korean nuclear use, South Korean nuclear envoy Kim Gunn says: “That’s what they said. So when it is said, don’t try to test it.”

As well as a “kill chain” policy of pre-emptive strikes in the event of an imminent attack, South Korea is also publicly committed to an escalatory response as part of its “massive punishment and retaliation” doctrine.

The policy of responding with up to three times the force of the initial attack was developed after a North Korean artillery bombardment in 2010 of South Korean troops stationed on Yeonpyeong island near the disputed western maritime border between the two Koreas.

Choi argues that South Korea’s hardline stance has been vindicated by the fact that North Korea has not attempted an attack of comparable severity since Yeonpyeong island. “Ambiguity is often overrated,” Choi adds.

The USS Ronald Reagan sails off Korea in September. In a 20-day period around the same time, North Korea launched 15 missiles capable of delivering tactical nuclear warheads as part of a simulated nuclear attack on South Korean and US assets © South Korean Defence Ministry/AFP via Getty Images

But he acknowledges that there is an “irreconcilable tension” between the US and its east Asian allies that could yet emerge if a similar incident were to occur in 2023.

“South Korea fears being abandoned by the US in the event of a conflict, while the US fears being dragged into a conflict by South Korea,” says Choi. “Washington needs to reassure South Korea but in moments of crisis also feels the need to restrain it. The tension can be managed, but it will always be there.”

‘Strategic malpractice’

Neither South Korea nor Japan are backing down in the face of North Korean provocations.

In November, South Korea conducted a test of its new long-range surface-to-air missile interceptor system, or L-SAM, while Japan also successfully tested its new Standard Missile-3 ballistic missile interceptor system.

The tests, conducted within a few days of one another, followed a trilateral summit in Cambodia between South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol, Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida and US president Joe Biden, at which they pledged to intensify real-time information sharing and co-operation in response to the growing North Korean missile threat.

The senior US official says North Korea’s aggressive actions and rhetoric had made it easier to deepen trilateral engagement with its east Asian allies, describing it as a “striking” change.

“I cannot think of a period . . . where we have been as closely lashed up and synced with [South Korea] and Japan as the past two years,” the official says.

But the two countries are also seeking to bolster their own independent defence capabilities, amid fears that American voters could elect a future leader who does not share Biden’s commitment to east Asia’s defence.

“It is not unreasonable for the South Koreans to be concerned about abandonment, given that President Trump was talking about pulling US troops out of South Korea just a few years ago,” says Sue Mi Terry, noting that South Korea and Japan are also concerned about the challenge posed by an increasingly assertive China.

Japan’s new national security strategy, which will be backed up by a ¥43tn ($322bn) defence budget, envisages the development of a new “counter-strike” capability that could allow it to attempt to destroy enemy missiles before they launch.

Japanese government officials say this counter-strike capability would justify Tokyo’s deeper involvement in discussions with US and South Korea regarding North Korea. But Seoul has privately expressed concerns that Tokyo is set to acquire the ability to trigger a conflict in the Korean Peninsula.

South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol, who at a summit with Japan’s Fumio Kishida and US president Joe Biden pledged to intensify information sharing and co-operation in response to the North Korean threat © YNA/dpa

For US policymakers, a more pressing concern is whether failure sufficiently to reassure South Korea of its reliability as an ally will lead to Seoul deciding to acquire an independent nuclear weapons capability of its own, potentially forcing Japan to follow suit.

Go Myong-hyun, senior fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, says US officials have succeeded, for the time being, in convincing their Korean counterparts that there is still a “range of options that needs to be exhausted first”.

He adds that South Korea and the US should not abandon their joint military exercises and displays of strength, no matter how much it upsets the North Korean regime. “It is imperative that the North Koreans reach the conclusion that the possession of nuclear weapons will do nothing to help them achieve their political goals,” Go says.

In Ankit Panda’s view, however, the fundamental problem is that the US and its allies are using the threat of punishment to deter North Korea from using its nuclear weapons, while simultaneously attempting to compel Pyongyang to give them up altogether — a lack of coherence that he says amounts to “strategic malpractice”.

That raises the uncomfortable question of whether Washington, Seoul and Tokyo can ever seriously engage with North Korea on reducing the risks of a conflict as long as they continue to insist that their ultimate goal is North Korea’s denuclearisation.

Kim Gunn, South Korea’s nuclear envoy, insists that Kim Jong Un will eventually return to the negotiating table: “They are more isolated diplomatically, and at the same time their economic situation is worse and worse. As time goes by, what [other] option does North Korea have?”

But Jeongmin Kim of NK Pro questions whether time is really on the side of the US and its allies, noting Kim’s proven willingness to allow his people to suffer while pressing on with his nuclear weapons programme.

“The classic cycle is that North Korea builds capabilities so as to give itself leverage for future negotiations,” she says. “This time, however, Kim Jong Un appears determined to force the world to recognise North Korea as a nuclear weapons state at all costs — and he has his own schedule.”

Financial Times · by Christian Davies · January 8, 2023

12. Kim Jong Un’s Vow of ‘Exponential’ Bomb Output Looks Overblown

Excerpts:

“The door to negotiations, as the North Koreans put it last fall, is closed,” said Soo Kim, a specialist on North Korea who previously worked at the Central Intelligence Agency. 

“Kim Jong Un’s justification, of course, lies in the hostile policies of the US and South Korea — a long-used pretext to substantiate the DPRK’s pursuit of its own hostile policy and path of nuclearization,” she said, referring to North Korea by its formal name.

Kim Jong Un’s Vow of ‘Exponential’ Bomb Output Looks Overblown

• North Korea steadily turns out fissile material for bombs
• Country may look to modernize its machinery to increase output

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-08/kim-jong-un-s-vow-of-exponential-bomb-output-looks-overblown?sref=hhjZtX76

ByJon Herskovitz and Sangmi Cha

January 8, 2023 at 4:00 PM ESTUpdated onJanuary 8, 2023 at 9:15 PM EST

Kim Jong Un rang in the new year the way he likes best — with a fresh threat to dramatically expand North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. This one is almost certain to fizzle. 

Kim used a speech published on Jan. 1 to call for an “exponential increase” in the country’s stockpiles of atomic weapons, implying output at an unprecedented pace. The North Korean leader also called for the mass production of so-called tactical nuclear weapons that could be used on the battlefield against US forces and their allies. 

While Kim has repeatedly surprised his doubters with the expansion of his missile program, his heavily sanctioned state appears to lack the domestic capacity to quickly double, triple or quadruple his production of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium. At best, he could hope to ratchet up his output of fissile material, which non-proliferation experts estimate could be used to arm about a half dozen bombs each year.

“We do not know what Kim Jong Un actually means with the ‘exponential increase’ in the production of fissile material, but in the nuclear industry, such an increase normally takes place gradually,” said Olli Heinonen, a distinguished fellow with the Stimson Center think tank in Washington.

United Nations sanctions bar North Korea from importing a large array of components needed to quickly ramp up production. Without outside supplies, Kim’s regime must rely on a limited production network that includes an aging nuclear plant for making plutonium and a uranium-enrichment facility at its crown jewel Yongbyon nuclear site.

Proliferation experts believe there’s a second suspected uranium-enrichment facility near Pyongyang and UN agencies say there are two uranium mines and a pair of uranium-concentration plants supplying the system.

“We’re guessing about a lot. But the bits we know and have evidence for are signs they could be ramping up,” said George William Herbert, an adjunct professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. “Underground centrifuge plants are particularly hard to detect or destroy,” he said, adding there is a possibility of doubling the production rate.

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All told, experts believe that’s enough to produce about six to eight nuclear bombs annually, although much depends on the configuration of warheads and the level of production loss during the enrichment process. Estimates for North Korea’s total stockpile of warheads range from 20 by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, to 40-50 from the Arms Control Association to more than 100 in a Rand Corp. analysis. 

• READ MORE:Kim Jong Un Vows Nuclear Buildup to Take On US, South Korea
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Of course, even one atomic bomb in Kim’s possession is unacceptable to the US, which has a long-stated goal of the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula. But a lack of warheads does undermine the practical value of Kim’s increasingly wide array of nuclear-capable missiles, which experts have said likely tally more than 1,000. 

The US is concerned about Kim’s comments on escalating his nuclear arms production, Brigadier General Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said at a news briefing in Washington last week. “It just demonstrates the destabilizing impact that these kinds of comments and the actions have,” he added. 

One way for North Korea to boost its nuclear stockpile is to ramp up production of lower-yield tactical weapons that require less fissile material. It could also try to further develop its own centrifuges and other required machinery, said Heinonen, who has served as the deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog. 

“Technology they have used successfully in the missile program, if applied to centrifuge rotors, may increase your capacity by 50% without requiring any additional space,” Heinonen said. They could just replace old centrifuges gradually with more advanced ones, he added.

Satellite imagery from 2021 indicated the uranium-enrichment plant at the Yongbyon nuclear complex had been expanded. Weapons expert Jeffrey Lewis wrote on his Arms Control Wonk website last year that this probably indicated North Korea planned to increase production there by as much as 25%.

Lewis said in a recent email that he suspects, “after 20 years, North Korea can probably manufacture its own centrifuge components just as Iran does — but they’ve never shown us that infrastructure.”

Kim Jong Un's Missile Program

Types of ballistic missiles tested by the North Korean leader

Sources: South Korean Defense Ministry, Center of Nonproliferation Studies

Note: Data as of Dec. 31, 2022. Suspected ICBM test on March 16, 2022 and Nov. 3, 2022, ended in failure; one of three missiles tested on May 25, 2022 likely ended in failure.

North Korea’s nuclear program is shrouded in secrecy, with foreign experts forced to rely on satellite imagery and state media reports to assess its production capacity. The IAEA hasn’t been able to access Yongbyon or any other location in North Korea since April 2009 and the country hasn’t let in Western nuclear experts at all since Kim took power more than a decade ago.

“They don’t need to rely on imports as they have their own equipment to produce fissile materials independently,” said Sangmin Lee, director of the North Korean Military Research Division at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses based in Seoul. 

The US and South Korea have warned that Kim is likely preparing for his first test of a nuclear bomb since 2017, as he seeks to demonstrate his ability to develop smaller tactical weapons. For now, Kim has rebuffed calls for talks by US President Joe Biden and South Korean leader Yoon Suk Yeol, declaring in a September speech that he would “never give up” his nuclear weapons. 

“The door to negotiations, as the North Koreans put it last fall, is closed,” said Soo Kim, a specialist on North Korea who previously worked at the Central Intelligence Agency. 

“Kim Jong Un’s justification, of course, lies in the hostile policies of the US and South Korea — a long-used pretext to substantiate the DPRK’s pursuit of its own hostile policy and path of nuclearization,” she said, referring to North Korea by its formal name.

(Updates with Pentagon spokesman.)

13. Japan, South Korea Wonder: How Strong Is the US Nuclear Umbrella?

There should be no ambiguity. The only problem is that we cannot prove our commitment with absolute certainty until we are actually faced with the decision where we must employ our nuclear weapons.

But the fact that we have some 78,000 troops in Korea and Japan should demonstrate our commitment.

Japan, South Korea Wonder: How Strong Is the US Nuclear Umbrella?

Concerns over the United States’ extended deterrence are growing in Tokyo and Seoul.

thediplomat.com · by Takahashi Kosuke · January 7, 2023

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There are growing concerns in both Japan and South Korea over the United States’ extended nuclear deterrence, or nuclear umbrella.

For one thing, the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has given East Asian policymakers and publics a big reason to believe that, in order to avoid a nuclear war, the United States will not take direct military action against nuclear-armed nations such as Russia. It is well remembered that U.S. President Joe Biden ruled out the option of U.S. military intervention in the early stage of the Russian invasion in 2022. He repeatedly vowed not to send U.S. troops to Ukraine. This sharply contrasts with the Gulf War (1990–91), when then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded neighboring Kuwait and the United States-led coalition directly fought against Iraq.

This reinforces Tokyo’s and Seoul’s suspicions that the U.S. nuclear umbrella may have some “holes” and fail to provide real protection against other nuclear-weapons states, including China and North Korea, as well.

For another thing, Japan and South Korea need an enhanced nuclear deterrent to be provided by the United States because their neighbors, Russia and North Korea, began to issue direct threats to use tactical nuclear weapons in 2022.

Moreover, China, which does not hide its ambition to unify Taiwan by force, is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal. It is likely to have a stockpile of about 1,500 warheads by 2035, according to the Pentagon’s annual report on Beijing’s military developments, published in November.

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In such a severe security environment, non-nuclear weapons states Tokyo and Seoul can no longer remain at peace without the United States’ strong nuclear deterrent. For them, the biggest lesson of the Ukraine war is that any country that is not under the nuclear umbrella of the United States can be easily invaded by a rogue state.

In Tokyo, such concerns have been often raised by former high-ranking national security officials. Most notably, in November, retired admiral Kawano Katsutoshi, the longest-serving chief of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces’ Joint Staff under the Abe Shinzo administration, cast doubt on the effectiveness of the current U.S. nuclear deterrence. He proposed that Tokyo have various options, such as nuclear sharing with the United States.

“Regarding the United States’ nuclear umbrella, even if Washington says, ‘you don’t have to worry about it,’ a suspicion crosses my mind. Is it really okay?” Kawano said in a speech in Tokyo on November 20.

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“Even if the U.S. government says it will guarantee it 100 percent, a US president changes every four or eight years. It’s a democratic country, so its domestic public opinion always sways. The U.S. Congress is greatly influenced by public opinion,” Kawano said.

The retired admiral specifically pointed out that former U.S. President Donald Trump used to profess Americans shouldn’t sacrifice their lives to fight for other nations under his “America First” policy.

The late Abe Shinzo, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, said in late February 2022 that Tokyo should break a long-standing taboo and hold an open discussion on nuclear weapons – including a possible “nuclear-sharing” program similar to that of NATO – in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In Seoul, there is also an increased sense that a more muscular approach is necessary to secure peace on the Korean Peninsula. Now 71 percent of South Koreans are in favor of developing Seoul’s own homegrown nuclear weapons, according to a poll conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in 2022.

Most recently, different opinions on the issue of the U.S. nuclear arsenal seem to have emerged between the leaders of the United States and South Korea.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said in a South Korean newspaper interview published on January 2 that Seoul and Washington are discussing possible joint exercises using U.S. nuclear assets.

“The nuclear weapons belong to the United States, but planning, information sharing, exercises, and training should be jointly conducted by South Korea and the United States,” Yoon said in the interview with the Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

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But when U.S. President Joe Biden was asked at White House on January 2 whether Washington and Seoul are discussing joint nuclear exercises, he replied, “No.”

“As the president said, we are not discussing joint nuclear exercises. [South Korea] is a non-nuclear weapons state,” a White House National Security Council spokesperson also said on the same day.

But in response to Biden’s remarks, South Korea’s presidential office again said in a statement that the allies are “in talks over information-sharing, joint planning and the joint implementation plans that follow with regard to the operation of U.S. nuclear assets to respond to North Korea’s nuclear weapons.”

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The different framings represent the competing interest of both governments. While the Biden administration wants to soft-pedal any notion of nuclear-sharing with a non-nuclear weapons state, South Korea’s government feels an urgent need to demonstrate to its public that Seoul is an equal partner in the U.S. extended deterrence equation.

To deal with the growing nuclear threats posed by China, North Korea and Russia, an unswerving U.S. commitment to extended nuclear deterrence through the full range of U.S. defense capabilities is becoming increasingly essential. Otherwise, more and more people would argue that both South Korea and Japan should stand on their own without relying entirely on the United States – even if that means developing their own nuclear weapons.

CONTRIBUTING AUTHOR

Takahashi Kosuke

Takahashi Kosuke is Tokyo Correspondent for Janes Defence Weekly.

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thediplomat.com · by Takahashi Kosuke · January 7, 2023

14. ＜Inside N. Korea＞ Cadres shocked by massive personnel shakeup that brings more young people into official positions

Hmmmm..... I missed this analysis. Maybe there will be change with new young blood. (I say this. only half in jest and I am not holding my breath. Certainly the article does not give us much hope). I am normally bullish on young people coming to power everywhere but I guess many in the north are like a lot of the older power holders around the world - they think the young are "dimwitted.!"

Excerpt:

“There’s a lot of people who are unhappy about dimwitted young people being appointed as cadres because there’s a belief that their lack of flexibility will lead to a stressful and tiring work environment.”

＜Inside N. Korea＞ Cadres shocked by massive personnel shakeup that brings more young people into official positions

asiapress.org

Cadres showing enthusiastic support for Kim Jong-un, who visited the testing site for the Hwasong-17 with his daughter. Published in the Rodong Sinmun on November 20, 2022.

Starting in late 2022, the North Korean government has been conducting a major shake-up of personnel in regional administrative agencies, state-run companies, and Workers’ Party organizations. North Koreans are expressing surprise at the noticeable increase in young people being appointed into official positions. (KANG Ji-won / ISHIMARU Jiro)

North Korea calls the human resources management of cadres ganbu saeop. A reporting partner told ASIAPRESS in late December that North Korea’s government is actively replacing cadres in state-run factories, enterprises and collective farms.

“The government appears set to completely replace even those cadres who were considered just a little problematic during this year (2022). Those leading the replacements are high-level cadres in the provincial party committees, and they are bringing in a lot of young people as mid-tier cadres. There are even young people who have recently been discharged from the military being selected for cadre positions, causing shock among many officials.”

◆ Young people appointed to low-level cadre positions in the Workers’ Party

There are generally two kinds of cadres who exist every organization in North Korea: cadres who deal with working-level administrative matters, and cadres affiliated with the Workers’ Party. All state-run enterprises and collective farms have party organizations. This recent shakeup in the party ranks focused mainly on administrative cadres; however, there appears to have been a considerable number of party cadres replaced as well.

“At iron factories in Hyesan, the party cell secretaries in their late 40s were largely replaced by younger people. There was even a newly appointed party cell secretary in his early 30s,” a Yanggang Province-based reporting partner told ASIAPRESS.

※ The lowest-level party organization in North Korea is called a “cell.” The head of a cell is a “cell secretary.” These kinds of organizations are commonly created in state-run enterprises.

◆ Is this all part of Kim Jong-un’s attempt to bring about generational change in government and party ranks?

Why did North Korea suddenly conduct this personnel shakeup? Reporting partners in the country gave the following explanations:

“The provincial party committee says that we need to identify talented people and cultivate them into those who can work effectively. That’s why the personnel shakeup was so audacious. That being said, (the new appointments) will, for the time being, be limited to only mid-tier cadre positions, not high-level positions with authority.

“The government is focused on appointing enthusiastic workers who are willing to take risks, rather than people who are concerned about what others think and are opportunists.

“Appointing young people (into cadre positions) is aimed at monitoring the implementation of party policies by the older generation, correcting things that have gone wrong, and encouraging competition (between the older and younger generations).”

According to the reporting partners, most of the young people who have been appointed to administrative cadre positions are “party members, college graduates, and former soldiers.” Given that these people would have been imbued with the values of the Kim Jong-un era, the regime likely aims to replace cadres appointed during the Kim Jong-il era.

◆ Young cadres are “dimwitted”

However, people in many workplaces are not particularly happy about the appointment of young people into cadre positions. One of the reporting partners told ASIAPRESS:

“There’s a lot of people who are unhappy about dimwitted young people being appointed as cadres because there’s a belief that their lack of flexibility will lead to a stressful and tiring work environment.”

※ ASIAPRESS communicates with its reporting partners through Chinese cell phones smuggled into North Korea.

asiapress.org

​

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

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com