Quotes of the Day:
"The Chinese leadership hoped that the world would soon forget the Tiananmen Square massacre. Our job in Congress is to ensure that we never forget those who lost their lives in Tiananmen Square that day or the pro-democracy cause for which they fought."
- Tom Lantos
“Our own generation is unique, but sadly so, in producing a school of thinkers who are allegedly experts in military strategy and who are certainly specialists in military studies but who know virtually
nothing of military history”
- Bernard Brodie, "The Continuing Relevance of On War" in Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1976), pp. 53-54.
“Until you learn to teach yourself you will never be taught by others.”
- J .F.C. Fuller
1. Sung Kim reaffirms U.S. commitment to denuclearization, support for N. Korea against COVID-19
2. Ukraine envoy hopes for weapons aid from S. Korea
3. S. Korean, U.S. navies hold combined exercise in waters off Okinawa
4.Three envoys say they're prepared for nuke test by North
5. Korea to expand role based on strong alliance with US: Yoon
6. US nuclear-powered supercarrier, S. Korean naval fleet conduct military drills
7. How safe is the Western world from North Korea’s state cyber hackers?
8. Perspective | Why I reclaimed my South Korean citizenship after losing it as a baby
9. What does North Korea's Kim Jong Un want from the Biden administration?
1. Sung Kim reaffirms U.S. commitment to denuclearization, support for N. Korea against COVID-19
Yes we have to focus on deterrence, defense, and denuclearization.
While need to sustain current efforts, we need to be able to look at the threats and challenges from around the world.
Sung Kim reaffirms U.S. commitment to denuclearization, support for N. Korea against COVID-19 | Yonhap News Agency
By Byun Duk-kun
WASHINGTON, June 3 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Sung Kim reaffirmed U.S. commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in talks with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, the state department said Friday.
Kim also urged Pyongyang to accept vaccine assistance to deal with its ongoing COVID-19 outbreak during his ongoing three-day visit to Seoul that will end Saturday (Seoul time).
Kim attended a trilateral meeting hosted by his South Korean counterpart, Kim Gunn, that also involved Japan's Takehiro Funakoshi.
The three "reaffirmed the importance of a robust trilateral relationship as the three countries work to achieve the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," department spokesperson Ned Price said of the meeting, held Friday (Seoul time), in a press release.
Kim's latest trip to Seoul followed the North's latest missile launches on May 24, which marked the 17th of their kind this year.
The top nuclear envoys of the three countries strongly condemned North Korea's missile launches as "destabilizing to the region and as violations of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions," the department spokesperson said.
"They called upon Pyongyang to immediately cease its unlawful and dangerous behavior and return to dialogue," added Price.
Intelligence officials in Seoul and Washington have noted the North may be preparing to conduct a nuclear test in the near future.
Sung Kim reaffirmed at the beginning of the trilateral meeting on Friday that North Korea appears to preparing for what will be its seventh nuclear test at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site.
North Korea conducted its sixth and last nuclear test at Punggye-ri in September 2017.
The special U.S. envoy also called on North Korea to work with the international community to address its ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, according to the department spokesperson.
"U.S. Special Representative Kim expressed concern about the impact of the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19 on the North Korean people and hope that the DPRK will respond positively to international offers of assistance," said Price.
DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
North Korea says nearly 4 million people with fever have been identified since May 12 when it reported its first suspected case of COVID-19.
The U.S. has said it has no immediate plans to share COVID-19 vaccines with North Korea from its own supplies, but that it will support any assistance to the impoverished country from U.S. or international aid groups.
(END)
2. Ukraine envoy hopes for weapons aid from S. Korea
This is another area where President Moon's call for Korea to "step-up" is needed. Perhaps they have tested the waters with the "indirect" approach with countries like Poland and Canada providing ROK equipment.
(LEAD) Ukraine envoy hopes for weapons aid from S. Korea | Yonhap News Agency
(ATTN: ADDS more info in 10th para)
SEOUL, June 3 (Yonhap) -- Ukraine's top envoy to Seoul on Friday expressed hope for weapons aid from South Korea to help fight the war with Russia.
Ukrainian Ambassador to South Korea Dmytro Ponomarenko made the remark to reporters after a meeting with Lee Jun-seok, the chief of the ruling People Power Party (PPP), ahead of Lee's planned visit to Ukraine together with a group of PPP lawmakers.
"I think this issue will be discussed as well during the visit of Lee to Ukraine," Ponomarenko told reporters.
The ambassador said he expects South Korea to be "more proactive" in regard to cooperation with Ukraine especially in the military field.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also made a similar request during a virtual address to South Korean lawmakers in April. Zelenskyy then said Ukraine needs various military technologies, including planes and tanks, and asked for South Korea's help.
South Korea has turned down calls for weapons aid, though it has agreed to provide non-lethal aid.
Ponomarenko said he expects the PPP delegation's visit to Ukraine to bring a positive result, saying that all bilateral cooperation agenda will be discussed when the delegation meets Ukraine officials.
Last month, the PPP said it will send a peace delegation to Kyiv to express support and solidarity to Ukraine, which will make it the first Asian political party to do so.
Ponomarenko said he was told by Lee that a message from President Yoon Suk-yeol will be delivered when the delegation visits Ukraine, though he does not think the message will be in the form of a letter.
But a presidential official said it appears unlikely Yoon will deliver a message through Lee.
The envoy added he expects Yoon and other government officials to attend an international conference on the reconstruction of Ukraine in Lugano, Switzerland, next month.
(END)
3. S. Korean, U.S. navies hold combined exercise in waters off Okinawa
Excellent.
S. Korean, U.S. navies hold combined exercise in waters off Okinawa | Yonhap News Agency
By Kang Yoon-seung
SEOUL, June 4 (Yonhap) -- South Korea and the United States staged a combined exercise in international waters off Okinawa this week, the military said Saturday, in yet another move highlighting the allies' joint defense posture.
The three-day exercise, which ended Saturday, was aimed at bolstering the allies' mission capabilities against North Korea's provocations, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
The Korean fleet included the 14,500-ton Marado amphibious landing ship, the 7,600-ton Sejong the Great destroyer, and the 4,400-ton Munmu the Great destroyer. The ships were on their way to Hawaii to participate in a U.S.-led multinational maritime exercise set to begin in late June.
The U.S. Navy also mobilized the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, the cruiser USS Antietam, the Aegis-equipped USS Benfold, and the replenishment tanker USNS Big Horn.
During the training, the allies carried out anti-ship, anti-submarine, logistics and maritime interdiction operations.
"Through the combined strike group exercise, South Korea and the United States have solidified the determination to respond to any provocations by North Korea sternly," the JCS said in a statement.
The JCS added that the exercise also demonstrated the U.S. commitment to providing "extended deterrence" to South Korea, referring to Washington's commitment to providing a full range of its military capabilities to defend its ally.
(END)
4. Three envoys say they're prepared for nuke test by North
Kim Jong-un's actions continue to drive trilateral cooperation.
Friday
June 3, 2022
Three envoys say they're prepared for nuke test by North
U.S. special envoy for North Korea Sung Kim speaks in a meeting with his Korean and Japanese counterparts in Seoul on Friday. [YONHAP]
Sung Kim, Washington's special envoy for North Korea, stressed that the U.S., Korea and Japan are “preparing for all contingencies,” including a possible seventh nuclear test by Pyongyang.
Speaking with his counterparts Kim Gunn, special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, and Takehiro Funakoshi, director-general for Asian and Oceanian affairs bureau of Japan’s Foreign Ministry, Sung Kim said that the United States “assesses that the DPRK is preparing its Punggye-ri test site for what would be its seventh nuclear test.”
DPRK stands for North Korea’s full name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“We are preparing for all contingencies in close coordination with our Japanese and ROK [Republic of Korea] allies,” Kim said at Korea's Foreign Ministry headquarters in Seoul.
“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.”
The meeting of the three nuclear envoys was the first since the inauguration of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration in Seoul last month, and followed 23 ballistic missile launches by North Korea this year, including of an intercontinental ballistic missile on May 25.
Funakoshi highlighted indications in the North that suggested an impending nuclear test.
“Amid such a situation where further provocation including a nuclear test is possible, we need to discuss in depth how we would respond to various situations,” he said, adding his concerns over the veto of a recent resolution at the UN Security Council to sanction the North for its recent provocations.
Russia and China vetoed the resolution, the first time since 2006 that UNSC members were split on such a resolution.
Signs that the regime is gearing up for a seventh nuclear test were perceived in satellite images last month of the Punggye-ri testing site, the site for all six previous nuclear tests.
The last nuclear test by the North was in 2017, after which it adhered to a moratorium on nuclear weapons and ICBM tests for what it called “confidence building” efforts for dialogue with the United States. That détente fell through with the collapse of the 2019 Hanoi summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Kim Gunn, who began his job three weeks ago, said that Pyongyang’s continued development of its nuclear program will “only end up strengthening our deterrence” and “reduce security for North Korea itself.”
The three envoys all said it is not too late for North Korea to choose dialogue and diplomacy.
“Taking opportunity of this occasion, I would like to express concern at the grave hardship faced by the North Korean people due to the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak,” Kim said. “I'd also like to reiterate our willingness to provide Covid-19-related humanitarian assistance to North Korea, as expressed by President Yoon Suk-yeol.”
“The only viable path forward for the DPRK is through diplomatic negotiations,” said Sung Kim. “I want to note that we continue to support humanitarian cooperation [including] the provision of Covid-19-related relief including vaccines to the DPRK. We hope the DPRK will respond positively to international offers of cooperation.”
Prior to the meeting, Kim Gunn met with his Japanese and American counterparts in bilateral meetings on Friday.
From left, Takehiro Funakoshi, director-general for Asian and Oceanian affairs bureau of Japan’s Foreign Ministry; Kim Gunn, special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs; and Sung Kim, U.S. special envoy for North Korea, in their meeting in Seoul on Friday. [YONHAP]
5. Korea to expand role based on strong alliance with US: Yoon
Stepping up. Stepping out.
Korea to expand role based on strong alliance with US: Yoon
Published : Jun 3, 2022 - 13:47 Updated : Jun 3, 2022 - 17:14
President Yoon Suk-yeol speaks at a meeting with former and current members of US academia in the presidential office on Friday. (Yonhap)
President Yoon Suk-yeol said South Korea seeks to develop the relationship with the US into a comprehensive strategic alliance at the global level and to expand its role based on their strong alliance, in talks with US academic figures on Friday.
His remarks reaffirm the agreement made in a summit with US President Joe Biden last month to upgrade the Korea-US alliance.
At the meeting with former and current members of US academia groups in the presidential office, Yoon said, “We plan to expand the role and responsibilities of South Korea based on the strong alliance.”
“Through long conversations with US President Biden, we confirmed that the development of the Korea-US alliance that we are pursuing is the same,” Yoon said, adding he is also very “satisfied.”
The president told the US groups that it is precisely “in the national interest” of South Korea to maintain and strengthen the international order based on norms of liberal democracy and a market economy.
“We look forward to your active support and help so that the Korea-US alliance can further develop based on the results of this summit,” he said.
The meeting was attended by acting US Ambassador to Korea Christopher Del Corso, the American Enterprise Institute’s senior fellow Paul Wolfowitz and Heritage Foundation founder Edwin Fuller.
6. US nuclear-powered supercarrier, S. Korean naval fleet conduct military drills
The Korean Herald is spinning this exercise for influence effects. (e.g.,"nuclear=powered supercarrier" "warning to north Korea" )
US nuclear-powered supercarrier, S. Korean naval fleet conduct military drills
Large-scale naval drills are conducted to send message to North Korea
Published : Jun 4, 2022 - 16:00 Updated : Jun 4, 2022 - 16:08
The US Navy‘s nuclear-powered supercarrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) and its strike group take part in the bilateral military exercises with the South Korean Navy’s fleet between Thursday and Saturday in the international waters southeast of the island prefecture of Okinawa, Japan. (South Korea`s Joint Chiefs of Staff)
A US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier staged military drills with South Korean warships to enhance the alliance’s combat readiness against North Korea’s mounting threats and demonstrate the US commitment to defend South Korea.
The US carrier strike group conducted the bilateral military exercises with the South Korean Navy’s fleet between Thursday and Saturday in the international waters southeast of the island prefecture of Okinawa, Japan, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff announced Saturday.
The US Navy’s nuclear-powered supercarrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group took part in the drills along with MH-60R anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare helicopters and F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets.
The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Antietam, the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold, and the Henry J. Kaiser-class fleet replenishment oiler USNS Big Horn joined the drills.
From South Korea, the 14,500-ton Marado amphibious assault ship, which is the South Korean Navy’s largest vessel, the 7,600-ton Sejong the Great-class Aegis destroyer equipped with SM-2 surface-to-air missiles, and the 4,400-ton Munmu the Great destroyer participated in the bilateral military exercises with Lynx multirole naval helicopters.
The bilateral drills were staged as the three warships and Lynx helicopters are heading to Hawaii to take part in the US-led multinational maritime exercise.
South Korea on Tuesday dispatched the largest-scale naval fleet and a brigadier general to the biennial Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) Exercise which is scheduled to be conducted in waters off Hawaii for 37 days from June 29 to Aug. 4.
Warning to N. Korea
The South Korean and US navies on Thursday kicked off the maritime drills with the meeting of military commanders on board the nuclear-powered supercarrier USS Ronald Reagan. South Korean Rear Adm. An Sang-min and Rear Adm. Michael Donnelly, the US commander of Task Force 70 and Carrier Strike Group 5, commanded the maritime exercises.
South Korea’s JCS spoke of the implications of the three-day large-scale naval drills for the South Korea-US alliance and the combined defense posture as well as its message to North Korea.
“South Korea and the US have solidified the determination to decisively respond to any kind of provocations by North Korea through the combined exercises with the carrier strike group,” the JCS said in a Korean-language statement.
“(The drills) also demonstrate the South Korea-US combined defense capabilities and the US’ strong resolve to fulfill its commitment to provide extended deterrence.”
The South Korean and US naval forces have “improved their capabilities to conduct combined operations in preparation for provocation by North Korea by carrying out various naval drills such as anti-air and anti-submarine warfare exercises, maritime logistics support training and maritime interception operations,” South Korea’s JCS added.
South Korea’s Navy had originally planned to distribute a press release on the military exercise, but instead, the JCS issued the statement to effectively deliver the message to the Kim Jong-un regime, The Korea Herald learned.
The US Navy's MH-60 helicopters take off from the flight deck of South Korea's 14,500-ton Marado amphibious assault ship. (South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff)
First time since November 2017
The South Korea-US bilateral exercise involving the US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was carried out for the first time since November 2017.
At the time, the USS Ronald Reagan, USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt strike groups conducted a rare three-carrier strike force exercise with South Korea’s Navy vessels in the East Sea.
The rare bilateral naval drills were staged after South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and his US counterpart, Joe Biden, in May agreed to expand the scope and scale of combined military exercises in and around the Korean Peninsula in view of North Korea’s escalating missile and nuclear threats.
After the first in-person summit, Biden and Yoon also committed to further strengthening deterrence against North Korea by reinforcing the South Korea-US combined defense posture.
The two leaders promised to seek ways to strengthen the viability of the US’ extended deterrence and deploy US strategic assets such as nuclear-powered aircraft carriers “in a timely and coordinated manner as necessary.”
South Korea’s JCS on Saturday warned that South Korea and the US “have always maintained full-readiness to ensure an overwhelming victory should North Korea make a provocation.” The JCS also emphasized that the two countries will continue to “reinforce combined defense posture based on the ironclad South Korea-US alliance.”
7. How safe is the Western world from North Korea’s state cyber hackers?
Not very.
The mafia-like crime family cult in action.
Excerpt:
In this way, hacking is just a new version of an old trick. North Korea’s spooks have long sought ways of circumventing its financial isolation. Under Kim Jong-un’s predecessor, Kim Jong-il, it simply printed its own counterfeit dollars. In The Lazarus Heist, White quotes one US state department official as saying: “We found billions of dollars in illicit funds being produced. It was like a separate economy. It was extremely well run. And what made it particularly interesting to me was that it came right under Kim Jong-il. He was the mob boss. He was the Tony Soprano. He was the Pablo Escobar. But he also was the head of state.”
How safe is the Western world from North Korea’s state cyber hackers?
A new book has charted the rise of Kim Jong-un’s hacking strategies – and its author says ‘Little Rocket Man’ is no joke
These days, when Cold War superpowers are squaring up over Ukraine, and revelations of shoot-to-kill policies in detention camps serve as a visceral reminder that China’s authoritarianism grows grimmer, it can be hard to get too worked up about little old North Korea. Even brandishing nuclear weapons, its rotund, baby-faced, spiky-haired leader, Kim Jong-un, can seem something of a joke – “Little Rocket Man”, as Donald Trump dubbed him in 2017.
But the North Korean regime does not take mockery well. And while its principal victims will always be its own 26 million-strong population who have, for decades, endured famine and poverty, it has in recent years developed a way of lashing out at the West that is not delivered by an ICBM: hacking.
“It’s a top-tier threat to the UK,” says Geoff White, author of a new book, The Lazarus Heist, which details the rise and rise of North Korean cyber warfare units from petty criminals to sowers of international mayhem. When it comes to cyber warfare, he says: “North Korea is a terrifying combination of very skilled people and a [regime] agenda to put and keep itself on the world map. There’s always a possibility it decides it’s going to get its revenge on the West by doing something very indiscriminate and very disruptive.” Or, as Rafe Pilling, who has studied North Korea for many years as principal researcher for the cyber security firm, Secureworks, puts it, “This is a country that has no red lines.” Which begs the question, how well are we protected?
Britain discovered the devastating capacity of the cyber threat in 2017 when, out of the blue, computers across the NHS were locked, and doctors and nurses trying to log on to register patients, or access blood results, X-ray and CT images, were greeted with the message: “Oops your files have been encrypted. Maybe you’re busy looking for a way to recover your files. But do not waste your time. Nobody can recover your files without our decryption service.”
It was a ransomware attack in which hackers take control of computers and their vital data, holding them hostage until a fee is paid to “unlock” them. Widely attributed to North Korea, the hack, which came to be known as Wannacry, left a third of NHS trusts either infected with the malicious computer code or having to disconnect computers to protect themselves. Almost 7,000 appointments had to be cancelled, including more than 100 urgent cancer cases. Only the freak intervention of a 22-year-old computer whiz in Ilfracombe, who spotted a “kill switch” in Wannacry, brought the attack to an end.
Marcus Hutchins, who helped stopped Wannacry, said: ‘It was clear that this was not targeted to the NHS. It was not even targeted at the UK. This was just hitting anything, everywhere in the world.’ Credit: Frank Augstein
But if, as most experts presume, Wannacry was the work of North Korea, it was by no means the country’s opening cyber salvo. In fact, it came about halfway through a decade of increasingly outrageous operations presumed to have been launched by North Korea’s state military – and which continue to this day. The sophisticated team thought to be behind them is now known as the Lazarus Group.
Perhaps inevitably, it was North Korea’s neighbour and rival, South Korea, that first felt the chill digital wind blowing from Pyongyang, back in 2013. Then it was major broadcasters and banks that were hit. As White notes, there had been “many physical incidents which had inflamed tensions between the two states. But now a new front was opening up in the conflict. North Korea’s military had discovered the Internet, and things would never be quite the same again”.
The next year, it was America – or more precisely, Hollywood – which was the victim, when Sony was humiliated by the release of a vast trove of hacked emails. In some, Sony’s co-chairman Amy Pascal described Angelina Jolie as a “minimally talented spoiled brat” and suggested that then-president Barack Obama might like the movie 12 Years a Slave. The hack was so devastating that, six weeks later, a café on the studio lot could still not accept card payments. In all, 8,000 computers had to be disconnected to prevent the carnage spreading further. And why Sony? Because it planned to release The Interview – a spoof film in which journalists who land a scoop invitation to meet Kim Jong-un are then recruited by the CIA to kill him. Sony might have considered it a joke. North Korea most certainly did not.
The more the “hermit kingdom” flexed its cyber muscles, the more it found it could get away with. Soon hackers were planning what White calls “a legendary heist, as though its hackers had watched Ocean’s Eleven”. The target: Bangladesh’s central bank. The loot: almost a billion dollars. The sheer audacity of the plot is dazzling. Planned for a year and launched over a holiday weekend, computer robbers accessed the SWIFT banking system through Bangladesh Bank and drained its account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. As always in such heists, it is the details that entrance. The hackers had established that any Fed queries to such large payments would be spat out of a single printer at Bangladesh Bank’s HQ in Dhaka, so they disabled it. When the printer was fixed, it did indeed churn out endless pages of queries from the Fed. But by then it was too late, the money was on its way. Indeed, only the chance use of a bank on Jupiter Street in Manila, in the Philippines, prevented Bangladesh losing the full billion, for Jupiter was also the name of a sanctioned Iranian ship, and that word alone raised red flags on the international bank transfer system.
Nor has Wannacry been the last of North Korea’s alleged hacks. For in the last five years, the dictatorship has surfed the swelling popularity of cryptocurrencies, attracted not just to the riches stored in digital “wallets” around the world, but to the ease with which they can be anonymously and tracelessly spirited away. Crypto, in other words, is easy to launder.
Indeed, for all its threat to the NHS, Wannacry was not actually a successful heist. Only ransoms totalling a few hundred thousand pounds were paid. But the scheme allowed the hackers to perfect their new, crypto, laundering technique.
Hospitals across the country were being hit by the ransomware attack simultaneously Credit: Andy Rain/EPA/Shutterstock
In the years since then, myriad crypto owners, dealers and traders have fallen victim to scams presumed to have emanated from North Korea. The aim is devastatingly simple: to make money. “On the whole, it’s not done for ideological reasons, but to raise currency,” says Alan Woodward, who has worked in the field for the UK Government, advises Europol, and is now a professor at the University of Surrey’s Centre for Cyber Security. “They haven’t got two beans to rub together and this is a good way of getting hard currency.”
Like traders at an investment bank, says Pilling, Northern Korean hackers are even thought to have profit targets to hit. “The big focus is on making money for the regime.”
In this way, hacking is just a new version of an old trick. North Korea’s spooks have long sought ways of circumventing its financial isolation. Under Kim Jong-un’s predecessor, Kim Jong-il, it simply printed its own counterfeit dollars. In The Lazarus Heist, White quotes one US state department official as saying: “We found billions of dollars in illicit funds being produced. It was like a separate economy. It was extremely well run. And what made it particularly interesting to me was that it came right under Kim Jong-il. He was the mob boss. He was the Tony Soprano. He was the Pablo Escobar. But he also was the head of state.”
Back then, the scams were intended to stave off bankruptcy. Today, there is a grimmer destination for the funds – North Korea’s nuclear programme. The value of the cryptocurrency hacks attributed to North Korea alone adds up to $1.3 billion (£1 billion). As White puts it, “Those nukes don’t come cheap.” Flush with such lucrative success, and more isolated than ever, no one thinks that North Korea is stopping now. So, in an already highly destabilised world, how safe is the West? Experts say there are two particular issues of concern. The first is that, for all Hollywood’s mockery, and much as we like to imagine North Korea as backward, its hackers are in fact extremely skilled. The country may be, as Woodward says, “only connected to the rest of the internet by a bit of wet string”, but its hackers are, in true authoritarian style, identified early for their mathematical talent, then trained up and wholly integrated into the military. Doing so is one of the only ways, in North Korea’s near feudal system, for the low-born to rise up the social ladder. “They have really smart people,” says Pilling. “There’s strict filtering from a young age, a whole process.”
The second problem is that North Korea and its leader represent a prickly, unpredictable foe, at once highly capable and yet so removed from the normal web of global relationships that they are not particularly worried about the repercussions of their actions.
“North Korea is not connected like other countries,” says Pilling. “This is already a heavily sanctioned country. The normal diplomatic and economic threats have already been exhausted.” Military retribution over hacking is hard to imagine, especially because attribution with 100 per cent certainty is so hard. Had Wannacry led to thousands of deaths in the NHS, says White, Britain would have been pushed to retaliate. “North Korea has sealed itself off and it’s hard to touch it. It’s slightly terrifying.”
Even brandishing nuclear weapons, its rotund, baby-faced, spiky-haired leader, Kim Jong-un, can seem something of a joke – but the North Korean regime does not take mockery well Credit: STR/KCNA VIA KNS/AFP
But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do. While painstaking investigations of hacks may not lead to prosecutions of hackers safely ensconced in North Korea, unveiling methods, codes, tips and tricks deployed by the Lazarus Group sheds light on dark secrets. Like blowing a spy’s cover, says Don Smith, at Secureworks Counter Threat Unit, “you impose costs on the bad guy, force them to retool; you burn their code, and they have to republish.”
For while the hackers’ malicious computer code itself may be concocted by whizzkids, the way it is delivered is often more akin to old-fashioned espionage, updated for a digital age. A human target must be convinced to open an email attachment containing the code. To do so, North Korean agents create detailed social media accounts and email addresses – convincing personas to dupe their victims. Once these personas are blown, revealed in investigations whose findings are shared around the world, they can never be used again.
The same goes for well equipped front companies, based abroad. Last year, Google published a blog detailing how North Korea’s hackers had been attempting to infiltrate the West’s own cyber security community, having created multiple Twitter profiles and a research blog “to build credibility and connect with security researchers”. Sharing the information sinks such efforts, which must be restarted from scratch. So while more moles are certain to pop up, at least a few are whacked. The big danger is that North Korea decides to deploy its cyber warriors to wage war rather than just steal stuff. The nature of the regime means it’s not easy to predict what might tip it over the edge.
“What will North Korea use its highly effective cyber capability for in future? That’s the worry,” says Smith. “When someone upsets them, they pursue things, shall we say, very vigorously. An example of something that could have caused a problem but to my knowledge didn’t is when the BBC announced it was going to broadcast shortwave radio into Korea, which could threaten the regime given they’ve got such controlled messaging. You just don’t know which of these things is going to get a reaction.”
When it comes to resisting such lashing out, “Britain,” says White, “is better prepared than many countries.” Together, GCHQ and the National Cyber Security Centre offer a degree of protection at a national level, “blocking websites and servers [built as traps by hackers] to try to protect us.” Meanwhile, the established financial sector, says Pilling, is “very well regulated, very well protected, spots things early. It’s a hard target”.
The problem is that while systems and software can be perfectly ring-fenced, this is, for all its computer elements, essentially a human problem. It only takes one employee in one department to open one dodgy email. “We’re always vulnerable because people are always vulnerable,” says White. “Though the grooming through social media profiles has got more sophisticated, the techniques ultimately are depressingly familiar – it’s still the phishing email.” And no one wants the government monitoring every computer – that way North Korean style authoritarianism lurks. Digital defence is a delicate balance.
What is certain is that the Lazarus Group is sure to keep sniffing out new targets, innovating. “They never stop surprising me though I’ve spent a decade studying them,” says Pilling. “You might have guessed that they would hit South Korea, but would you guess that they would target Hollywood a year later, or try to steal a billion dollars from a central bank a year after that, or take down the NHS. What’s next? There’s just no constraint on their thinking.”
“The best the Government can do is share information,” says Woodward. Hence organisations like the Cyber Security Information Sharing Partnership, which allows industry to share their experience of cyber attacks securely and confidentially. “It’s a case of being stronger together,” says Woodward. That, and all of the rest of us not opening dodgy emails.
8. Perspective | Why I reclaimed my South Korean citizenship after losing it as a baby
Perspective | Why I reclaimed my South Korean citizenship after losing it as a baby
Bryan Pietsch is a reporter covering breaking news for The Washington Post from its hub in Seoul. He previously covered breaking news for the New York Times in Colorado.
June 3, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
SEOUL — Underneath the plexiglass window at the immigration office, I presented the officer with my Korean resident card and my American passport. Like a bank teller handing over an envelope of cash, she slid me a certificate in return.
I couldn’t read what it said, but it had my American name on it, as well as my Korean one — some of the few words I can recognize in written Korean. A friend who came with to translate pointed to the bolded words that confirmed that I had successfully reinstated my Korean citizenship. Because of the pandemic, there was no pomp and circumstance: no pledge, no anthem, no handshake. I filled out some forms, the immigration officer handed me a flag and a mug, and off I went.
I left the immigration office as a Korean citizen, something I hadn’t been since I was a young child. I was brought from South Korea to the United States when I was 9 months old, adopted by an American family in Minnesota. When I was a few years old, I was naturalized as an American citizen. That entailed the forfeiture of my Korean citizenship, a decision I had no choice in as a toddler.
The document I received in the immigration office in Seoul brought me closer to regaining what I had lost. It was a first step toward reclaiming my Korean identity, a process that will bring its own challenges but nevertheless comes as a relief.
Growing up in middle America, I never really identified as Korean American, as I struggled to relate to the typical Asian American immigrant experience:my adoptive family’s ancestors were from Norway, Germany, France, Poland, Ireland and Canada. My family’s American immigration story was two or three generations back. I didn’t call my mother “Omma,” and I grew up around sauerkraut, not kimchi.
I always thought of citizenship as something you were either born with or aspired to. During my undergraduate studies in Phoenix, some of my classmates were DACA recipients, with stories similar to mine — we’d grown up in the United States from a young age, feeling at home there and maybe not knowing anywhere else — though our situations were materially different. I could live or work where I wanted to in America and enter and exit the country freely, while they had to tread carefully and have faith in American bureaucracy to allow them to stay.
Given all of that, it feels indulgent, and perhaps even a bit silly, to claim South Korean citizenship just 10 months after waltzing into the country. All the more so when you consider that I barely speak the language, know only the first two lines of the national anthem and don’t intend to make a home here. But I’m simply taking back what is mine — what was taken from me without my consent.
***
While the exact number is unclear, about 200,000 Korean children have been sent overseas for adoption since the 1950s. According to Global Overseas Adoptees’ Link, the group that assisted me in my reinstatement process, adoption agencies actively discouraged adoptive parents from maintaining Korean citizenship for their children while naturalizing them in their new countries.
GOA’L, as the organization is commonly known among adoptees, successfully lobbied South Korea to enact a 2011 law allowing adoptees born here to reinstate their citizenship without losing their adopted nationality. The law, GOA’L says, gives adoptees “the choice to restore their Korean citizenship as a basic right of the individual.” Before the law went into effect, adoptees who had reinstated or somehow maintained their citizenship had to choose by the age of 20 or 22, depending on gender, which citizenship they wanted to keep. For me, that would have felt like choosing which life to accept: the one I had been destined to live or the one that was created for me when I was brought abroad.
Regaining my Korean citizenship is not without its downsides. I lose tax perks for expatriates, can’t cash out my pension when leaving Korea as most foreigners are able to and cannot visit the English-speaking international clinic with public insurance, as I could before. I’ll need to do annual military readiness training, though I’m exempt from the nearly two years of service that other Korean men are obligated to perform. (When I tell people I reinstated my Korean citizenship, their first reaction is usually a gasp as they ask whether I knew about the military service requirement. I am exempt because I was adopted; I interpret the exception as a sort of mea culpa from the Korean government, which has moved in recent years to lessen the number of children it allows to be adopted outside its borders.)
Every international adoptee’s story and relationship with their native country are different. In my adult life, my relationship with Korea had come in the form of occasional trips to Korean restaurants and to H Mart for Korean snacks. It was a relationship of novelty and of convenience, not an innately held part of me.
Reinstating my citizenship was, in a way, an effort to force a permanent relationship between myself and Korea. I wanted to formally declare myself a person of the country, to carry its passport as a badge of honor and an escape hatch, should the need for one arise as political fires and actual blazes threaten to burn down my adopted country.
But I also wanted to revive my identity in Korea. Before I returned in July 2021, the last record of me was as an infant, with no information about who I had become since then. Now that child is an adult, a working journalist with a Korean bank account and an apartment in Seoul.
Being able to produce at any moment a Korean identification card or passport — or simply retort that I am a Korean citizen to anyone who doubts it — may seem like a small thing, but it feels like a powerful shield, a reminder that had my life not changed drastically at the age of 9 months, I could have been one of them. But perhaps I don’t need a reason to have reclaimed it. Perhaps rather than fawning over my fast pass to citizenship, I should be questioning why I had to come here to ask for it back in the first place.
A few weeks after receiving my citizenship, I went to the local community center to apply for my Korean identification card. The receptionist, speaking to my colleague who came along to translate, said foreigners needed to go to immigration for an ID card. My co-worker reassured her that I was Korean, just adopted.
As a government worker collected my fingerprints and my photograph, I considered how strange it must be for him to go through this process for someone who couldn’t answer the most basic questions in his language.
I was the first adoptee whose ID card application he had processed, he said. When we asked how he felt about the experience, he said he at first went about the task mindlessly, but the sight of my empty family registry gave him pause — an orphan registry, as most registries are filled with generations of family members. The barren document was a reminder of how I had left the country under unfortunate circumstances, he said, adding that he was glad I made my way back and that he wished me a prosperous life in Korea if I chose to stay.
But as an openly gay man, I likely won’t. Korea is a country whose homophobia threatens to drag down its hopes that Seoul will become a leading global, modern city. “Sexual minorities” are not widely accepted, with 54 percent of Koreans surveyed by the Korea Institute of Public Administration saying they would not want a friendly or romantic relationship with a sexual minority.
I am also doubtful that I will be able to conquer the challenge of being Korean while struggling every step of the way to feel like one. Jane Jeong Trenka, an adoptee who repatriated and has written about her experience in memoirs, put it best when she wrote: “In a country where ‘American’ is used synonymously with ‘white,’ my inability to speak fluent Korean combined with my inability to be white is a deformity. I am a sort of monster, a mix of the familiar with the terribly unexpected, like a fish with a human face or a chicken that barks.”
I look ambiguously Asian, prompting daily questions from Korean shopkeepers and restaurant owners about where I am from. Answering in accented Korean that I was born in Korea forces a puzzled face; explaining that I was adopted conjures a pitiful one. I often wish I could go about my life here — enjoying the country’s food, spunky people and four starkly different seasons — without a daily recollection of the complexities of my identity or the trauma from which my life began.
Of course, I am grateful for the privileges that my adoption has afforded me: a loving family, a wonderful childhood, an American education and native English proficiency, albeit with a slight Midwestern accent. But those perks don’t undo the original sin of my bifurcated life.
Neither does reinstating my Korean citizenship. It is, however, a first step in regaining one aspect of my Korean life that wasn’t, but could still be.
9. What does North Korea's Kim Jong Un want from the Biden administration?
You do have to love working with the media. The author of the article below asked me four questions and I provided these answers. This is all that ended up in the article:
"Kim will continue to develop and test advanced military capabilities, but he is unlikely to use them unless he is faced with loss of control, and he has no other options for trying to ensure regime survival," said David Maxwell, a senior fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.
I do not of course blame the author as he only has a limited word count and is subject to the editor's scalpel. I am not criticizing the process as I do provide a shotgun blast of information because; 1) I do not know what will hit the target or meet the author/editor's requirements and; 2) because hopefully the information that is not used in print will help provide background that will be useful in the future.
1. What is KJU's approach (or policy) to the Biden administration? [Has it differentiated from its overture on the Trump administration?]
First, 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.
2. What military options KJU may initiate on the Biden administration?
Kim will not initiate major military action against the South as long as the US demonstrates strategic reassurance and strategic resolve. an absolutely commitment ot extended deterrence, and a strong and readiness ROK/US military alliance. It is possible that he could conduct additional ICBM tests and even a 7th nuclear test. But a major kinetic attack is unlikely at least not beyond a Cheonan style attack or artillery shelling of P-Y DO as the regime did in 2010. But there can always be a miscalculation and escalation but the best way to prevent escalation is through demonstrated alliance military strength.
Kim will continue to develop and test advanced military capabilities, but he is unlikely to use them unless he is faced with loss of control, and he has no other options for trying to ensure regime survival. I could provide a long discussion of the potential for regime instability and collapse and the implications for the alliance and the region. The potential is much greater now than during the Arduous March of the great famine of 1994-1996 because of COVID and because of Kim Jong-un's deliberate policy decisions to prioritize his nuclear and missile programs over the welfare of the Korean people in the north.
3. What are the North's missiles threatening the security of the U.S.? [Could you explain what Pyongyang's missiles can directly target the U.S. mainland?]
I will defer to the missile experts, but the regime tested the Hwasong 14 and 15 in 2017. It is assessed that these may be able to reach the US homeland. In October 2020 the regime show what was initially thought to be a Hwasong 16 but this year the regime began calling it the Hwasong 17. We have never seen it tested so there is no way to know how close to being operational and to being field it is. We also do not have evidence of the regime being able to sufficiently miniaturize a nuclear warhead to mount on an ICBM. Some analysts also question whether the regime has perfected a re-entry capability.
4. How much leverage is KJU getting from China? [Does China's leverage on North Korea cause a security threat to the U.S.?]
Although China and north Korea are their only allies, there is not a lot of love between the two. Kim will not allow himself to be controlled by China through China could inflict great pain on the north by cutting off trade and aid. However, for the last two years Kim has unliterally cut trade with China due to COVID and the regime continues to survive.
However, China (and Russia) have been complicit in helping the north to evade sanctions. Both China and Russia benefit from the security problems the north causes for the ROK and the US. And they are pleased the north is showing solidarity with them on issues from China's global security plan and Putin's War in Ukraine. China and Russia are now providing "protection" of the north against UN Security Council Resolutions. A large part of the reason for this is to discredit the US and undermine US actions and not simply to protect north Korea.
But the bottom-line north Korea will always march to its own drummer and will not kowtow to China.
Here are some articles I have written that provide more substance. Feel free to quote from them as well.
How Joe Biden Can Push Back Against North Korea’s Political Warfare Strategy
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/01/how-joe-biden-can-push-back-against-north-koreas-political-warfare-strategy/
How To Respond To North Korea’s ICBM Test
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/03/north-koreas-icbm-test/
How To Prepare: North Korea Could Soon Test An ICBM Or Nuclear Weapon
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/03/how-to-prepare-north-korea-could-soon-test-an-icbm-or-nuclear-weapon/
What does North Korea's Kim Jong Un want from the Biden administration?
'Special Report' All-Star panel discuss the president's answers on dictator Kim Jong-Un
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SEOUL, South Korea – Kim Jong Un, the 38-year-old dictator of North Korea, has already crossed a U.S. red line with an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test in March and worries mount that in the coming days and months his next test could be a nuclear one. These moves come at a time when his country’s economy has been staggered by the U.S. and U.N. led economic sanctions and an outbreak of the coronavirus.
The hermit kingdom conducted its 17th round of missile testing last month – including an ICBM system test last week. In total, it has fired 29 missiles this year alone and officials in the administration are concerned that Kim is readying his military for a seventh nuclear test. It’s believed that his regime is in the final stages of preparation at its Punggye-ri nuclear site.
Three months after President Biden took office, the White House announced its new approach to North Korea, one centered on a "calibrated and practical approach" while maintaining the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula as its primary goal, after completing a months-long review of its North Korea policy.
People stand by a TV screen showing file footage of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, during a news program, at the Seoul Railway Station in South Korea on Aug. 2, 2019. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)
Meanwhile, North Korea has maintained its historically hostile "strength to strength" policy against the U.S., and Kim seems to be working on that assumption when it comes to the Biden administration. Kim's wish is for his country to be recognized as a legitimate nuclear-weapon state by the U.S. and the international community.
During his speech at a military parade on April 25, Kim reiterated the importance of strengthening nuclear power, showing his will to keep improving his nuclear weapons regardless of new economic sanctions that could follow from the United States and the United Nations as a countermeasure. He also opened the possibility of using his nuclear weapons as a preemptive measure against his adversaries, but experts do not see the possibility of Kim firing his missiles toward the U.S. mainland in a preemptive strike.
Observers believe the ultimate intention of the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests is to raise the ante at the negotiating table so Kim can draw more bargaining chips from Biden in exchange for lifting the economic sanctions if the nuclear talks are renewed.
Currently, North Korea’s Hwasong-14, Hwasong-15 and Hwasong-17 ICBMs are what U.S. officials perceive as a direct threat to the U.S. as those missiles are believed to be able to reach the mainland. The Hwasong-17, the North’s newest ICBM, is still in development while the other older Hwasong ICBMs are what have already been developed, according to North Korea.
This photo provided by the North Korean government shows what it says is a test launch of a hypersonic missile in North Korea on Jan. 5, 2022. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
"Could launch and would launch are two very different questions," said Jenny Town, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, and the director of Stimson's 38 North Program. Town said that although the North "would not launch missiles at the U.S. unprovoked or as a first strike," the missiles are capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.
Due to the North’s limited reports on the performance of its missile programs, it is highly challenging for outside experts to understand how accurate or successful the North’s earlier missile systems are.
If Hwasong-17 is successfully developed, it would be able to fly toward the U.S. while carrying multiple nuclear warheads. However, as Town stated, North Korea won't attempt to launch the missiles preemptively toward the U.S. but rather use them for its self-defense.
"Kim will continue to develop and test advanced military capabilities, but he is unlikely to use them unless he is faced with loss of control, and he has no other options for trying to ensure regime survival," said David Maxwell, a senior fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.
Chinese President Xi Jinping greets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on June 19, 2018. (Ju Peng/Xinhua via AP, File)
China and Russia, both permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, have opposed U.S. attempts at the world body to add new economic sanctions over the North’s ICBM tests this year. Under China’s leverage in the region, North Korea’s missile programs have steadily developed, leading some experts to question the effectiveness of economic sanctions intended to deter North Korea’s missile developments.
With China as its biggest trading partner and closest ally, North Korea is economically dependent on Beijing. Regarding the North’s missile tests, however, China’s leverage has not worked to prevent Pyongyang from crossing the red line set by the U.S. in March as it has so far tested its ICBM system more than three times this year.
"Even though the North’s nuclear and missile capabilities are mainly to deter a strike from the U.S. or South Korea, they also allow North Korea to deter any attempt from China to influence its decisions," said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor of international relations at King's College London. "I think that Beijing's uneasiness with Pyongyang's nuclear tests shows that North Korea has pursued this, and its missile programs regardless of China's views."
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
