Quotes of the Day:
“The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
If you find your opponent in a strong position costly to force, you should leave him a line of retreat as the quickest way of loosening his resistance. It should, equally, be a principle of policy, especially in war, to provide your opponent with a ladder by which he can climb down.
-Sir Basil H. Liddel-Hart (Strategy, 1954)
"Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical. If it is to your advantage, make a forward move; if not, stay where you are. Anger may in time change to gladne ss; vexation may be succeeded by content."
-Sun Tzu
1. N. Korea issued navigational warning for East Sea in indication of missile launch preparations
2. Seoul Isn’t Kabul
3. Helluva time to sell a US-North-South Korea alliance
4. N.K. nuclear talks will fall behind on U.S. priority list due to Afghan situation: expert
5. Post-Kabul worries
6. Experts split over impact of US pullout from Afghanistan on N. Korea issue
7. N. Korea investigates State Academy of Sciences for possible involvement in manufacture of narcotics
8. DMZ ceremony marks 45th anniversary of American soldiers’ axe slaying
9. American Columnist Under Fire For Comparing South Korea To Afghanistan's Tragic Situation
10. Controversial remarks on N. Korea amid Afghan situation
11. North Korea Warns Citizens Not to Speculate About Leader’s Health After Weight Loss
12. Doubts over alliance
13. Court orders seizure of Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy's assets in S. Korea over forced wartime labor
14. North Korea is a Nuclear Weapons Power: Should the U.S. Accept Reality?
15. North Korea calling
1. N. Korea issued navigational warning for East Sea in indication of missile launch preparations
All warfare is based on deception whether conventional, irregular, or political warfare.
I wonder if the regime is shaping the conditions - is this something to get our attention? Will they conduct a missile test as a provocation or will this be used to support the course of action that does not conduct a provocation so the regime can call that a "concession" because it exercised self restraint? And with that "concession" they will demand sanctions relief. Or was there bad weather or technical difficulties that scuttled an intended launch?
N. Korea issued navigational warning for East Sea in indication of missile launch preparations | Yonhap News Agency
By Oh Seok-min
SEOUL, Aug. 19 (Yonhap) -- North Korea had declared a no-sail zone for ships off the east coast earlier this week, sources said Thursday, indicating that it had plans to launch missiles amid an ongoing combined exercise between South Korea and the United States.
The navigational warning was issued for Sunday through Monday for northeastern regions in the East Sea, according to the military sources. Such an advisory is usually issued ahead of missile launches or other weapons tests to warn vessels to stay clear of certain areas expected to be affected.
But no actual ballistic missile launches or artillery firings took place during the period, according to officials at Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
Many have predicted that the communist country could carry out provocative acts to protest joint military exercises under way between South Korea and the U.S. The North has long denounced such drills as a rehearsal for invasion.
Last week, the North slammed the South and the U.S. for going ahead with the exercise, saying it will "make them realize by the minute what a dangerous choice they made and what a serious security crisis they will face because of their wrong choice."
The JCS said that no peculiar movements by North Korea have been detected, but sources said that the North Korean military has conducted trainings near inter-Korean border areas in response to the ongoing Korea-U.S. exercise.
"We are closely monitoring military moves by North Korea while maintaining a tight readiness posture in close coordination with the U.S." a JCS official said. On Monday, the U.S. military flew the E-8C, or JSTARS, and other surveillance aircraft over the Korean Peninsula.
This year's summertime computer-simulated exercise does not include outdoor drills and involves a smaller number of service members than previous ones amid the COVID-19 pandemic and peace efforts involving North Korea, according to the defense ministry.
The last known major missiles test took place in March this year, when the North fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea days after Seoul and Washington staged their springtime combined exercise.
(END)
2. Seoul Isn’t Kabul
Three points:
First is it is in US strategic interests to deter war. We know from Hwang Jong-yop that it is the presence of US troops that deters the Kim family regime from attacking the South. The regime knows it cannot win a war against the South with the US supporting it. But out. seven decades long successful deterrence cannot lead us to complacency. There is absolutely no evidence that the regime has abandoned its strategy of subversion, coercion/extortion (blackmail diplomacy) and use of force to dominate the peninsula under the Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State to ensure the survival of the mafia-like crime family of the Kim family regime.
Second, an end of war declaration is dangerous path and should not be entered into unless there are specific security agreements to enhance the security of the ROK, reduce north Korean threats on the peninsula and around the world (proliferation, cyber attacks, illicit activities) and an end to the human rights atrocities in the north (e.g., freeing of all the prisoners in the gulags). The legislation that is working its way through congress should include such requirements before any end of war declaration is made or a peace regime established. Without these provisions an end of war declaration simply supports Kim Jong-un's political warfare strategy which include a key line of effort which is to establish the conditions to drive US forces foff the peninsula (thus removing the deterrent capability which lead to near certain conflict)
Third, any changes to force structure on the Korean peninsula should be based on the answer to this question: How should the ROK and US deploy the optimal forces structure and organize, train, and equipment their units to provide the optimal deterrence and defensive capability and the ability to win a war for the regime chooses to attack the South? Any changes to US forces structure must be in support of the correct answer to this question. This is important for the very important supporting narrative and information campaign that must be built and decided upon and executed BEFORE any force structure changes occur.
Seoul Isn’t Kabul
An expert's point of view on a current event.
Withdrawing U.S. forces from South Korea is unlikely, but fresh thinking in Washington could lay the groundwork for a new security architecture on the peninsula.
By Clint Work, a fellow with the Stimson Center’s 38 North Program.
Then-U.S. President Bill Clinton uses binoculars to look across the Demilitarized Zone into North Korea with two U.S. soldiers during his trip to South Korea on July 11, 1993. LUKE FRAZZA/AFP via Getty Images
After 20 years, U.S. forces are leaving Afghanistan. The Afghan government has collapsed, and Kabul has fallen to the Taliban. The Afghan withdrawal has drawn historical comparisons. South Vietnamese veterans see echoes of their earlier experience when an American-made military collapsed after being left with little support, and before Kabul fell, the New York Times reported on the potential “specter of evacuations of the U.S. and other Western embassies, like the scene that preceded the fall of Saigon in 1975, when Americans were evacuated from a rooftop by helicopter.”
The Afghan withdrawal also raises questions about U.S. global force deployments in general. When then-President Donald Trump initiated the Afghan pullout and simultaneously reduced forces in Germany, many in the foreign-policy establishment and Congress wrung their hands. It was, they cautioned, the beginning of the steady abdication of long-standing postwar commitments. South Korea, too, was seen as a potential candidate for U.S. disengagement given Trump’s overt skepticism about keeping troops there, alongside his extortionist demands for greater cost-sharing from Seoul.
After 20 years, U.S. forces are leaving Afghanistan. The Afghan government has collapsed, and Kabul has fallen to the Taliban. The Afghan withdrawal has drawn historical comparisons. South Vietnamese veterans see echoes of their earlier experience when an American-made military collapsed after being left with little support, and before Kabul fell, the New York Times reported on the potential “specter of evacuations of the U.S. and other Western embassies, like the scene that preceded the fall of Saigon in 1975, when Americans were evacuated from a rooftop by helicopter.”
The Afghan withdrawal also raises questions about U.S. global force deployments in general. When then-President Donald Trump initiated the Afghan pullout and simultaneously reduced forces in Germany, many in the foreign-policy establishment and Congress wrung their hands. It was, they cautioned, the beginning of the steady abdication of long-standing postwar commitments. South Korea, too, was seen as a potential candidate for U.S. disengagement given Trump’s overt skepticism about keeping troops there, alongside his extortionist demands for greater cost-sharing from Seoul.
Trump or others like him may continue to raise a simplistic but compelling point: that U.S. troops were never meant to be in Korea permanently.
Trump and his potent brand of America First politics remain a powerful force in U.S. politics. It’s not hard to imagine Trump (or a Trump-like candidate) running for office in 2024, once again challenging U.S. allies and foreign-policy orthodoxies such as the need to maintain a globe-straddling military basing system.
Trump or others like him may continue to raise the simplistic but compelling point, namely, that U.S. troops were never meant to be in Korea permanently. Yet, 70 years later, roughly 28,500 of them are still there. Withdrawing isn’t a likely prospect or a good idea as things stand—but if the United States is willing to approach the Korean Peninsula more imaginatively, it may get to a point where withdrawal is a realistic possibility.
The Biden administration’s global posture review is currently taking stock of where forces are based and determining if those locations are the best places to base them. It’s not clear whether this will affect U.S. forces in South Korea. But in the near term, political obstacles in that country are already keeping U.S. forces from accessing major training facilities and limiting their ability to conduct training maneuvers and live ammunition usage, which are essential for military readiness.
As a result, the redeployment of certain forces, such as Apache attack helicopter crews, to Japan or Alaska for training is possible. In the longer term, U.S. strategists are also recalibrating how U.S. forces in Korea fit within an Indo-Pacific strategy now centered on hypercompetition and possible conflict with China, raising the need to increase the strategic flexibility of peninsular forces for wider regional contingencies.
But shifting U.S. forces from Korea would be a much stickier, and trickier, business than even the painful withdrawal from Afghanistan—and one that would signal a far more fundamental rethinking of Washington’s vision of the global order.
Although the U.S. force presence in Korea has certainly evolved over time, through various periods of reduction and realignment, it has been a fundamental pillar of the security architecture on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia since 1950. There is path dependence to it. It’s sticky. It’s hard to change.
Thus, when U.S. forces there are reduced or realigned, it usually means something larger is afoot (e.g., the Nixon Doctrine, the end of the Cold War, the global war on terrorism). But if Washington were ever to see a complete withdrawal from South Korea, it would signal a truly fundamental shift in U.S. foreign policy—one far more notable than the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Still, there has long been an enduring tension between the commitment embodied in the U.S. force presence in South Korea and the skepticism with which U.S. policymakers and lawmakers have viewed it. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have consistently sought to reduce the commitment, pass more of the defense burden to Seoul, and make more flexible the U.S. forces stationed there—essentially, to move away from having one command devoted to deterrence and defense of a single U.S. ally. Just as consistently, though, successive administrations have encountered bumps in the road.
In a previous article for Foreign Policy, I explored how former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s abortive troop withdrawal policy foundered. As is the case of any failed policy, Carter’s faced numerous sources of opposition, some of which were specific to the international context and domestic politics of the late 1970s.
However, behind such contextual factors was the enduring stickiness of the U.S. presence and its embeddedness in the security architecture and psychology of the Korean Peninsula and wider region. Throughout the interagency process, officials slow-walked and subverted the policy for this very reason.
Those factors have undergirded the U.S. force presence in Korea for decades and limited policymakers’ ability to reimagine it. It has served as a sort of keystone in the regional arch, holding other U.S.-coordinated arrangements in place.
As the thinking goes, too precipitous a reduction or full withdrawal, and various interconnected spillover effects will follow: the loosening of deterrence on the peninsula, driving North Korean misperception and possibly aggression; South Korean retaliation against such moves or Seoul’s potential development of an indigenous nuclear weapons program; Japanese insecurity and rearmament; arms racing and proliferation throughout the region; and skepticism about U.S. credibility writ large.
The irony is that most of these same spillover effects have occurred even with a sustained U.S. presence or perhaps because of it. Seoul doesn’t have nukes (the Ford administration shut that down in the mid-1970s), but Pyongyang does and can now theoretically target the continental United States and all of South Korea, Japan, and Guam.
A burgeoning regional arms race is well underway, including increasingly robust Japanese military capabilities, steady advancements in China’s littoral capabilities and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, and Washington’s shift from a fits-and-starts rebalancing to Asia to a more robust Indo-Pacific concept and strategy firmly centered on China.
To be sure, without a sustained U.S. presence, things could be worse. Maintaining the U.S. presence in South Korea (and boosting it in the region) isn’t so much about avoiding a security dilemma as it is facing that dilemma with the proper U.S. capabilities and allied controls in place. It’s about maintaining relative sway over the course of events on the peninsula and in the region.
The U.S. presence in Afghanistan lacked the strategic geography, formative history, treaty commitment, and surrounding alliance system of the U.S presence in Korea. However, just as in Afghanistan, there’s no viable military solution in Korea.
The eventual armistice that ended the war was a cessation of hostilities but not a true peace. A military solution was forsworn, but a militarized framework remained. The long-range objective of U.S. policy was to find a political path toward a unified and independent Korea. Yet pending achievement of that elusive endpoint, the short-term objective took precedence, keeping U.S. forces in place and fostering a position of allied strength to deter future aggression.
The short-term objective has held for nearly 70 years and successfully deterred another Korean War. However, it hasn’t deterred the development and deployment by both sides of military capabilities that have increased tensions and would make such a war unimaginably destructive—and that have profoundly constrained U.S. policymakers’ ability and willingness to reimagine a different type of political relationship on the peninsula. So much time, effort, and resources have been put into deterrence (and deployment of advanced weaponry) as to crowd out other possibilities.
Trump undermined alliance cohesion, sent incoherent signals on deterrence and the U.S. force presence, and ultimately maintained a maximalist line with North Korea.
Trump’s approach was promising if ephemeral. He appeared willing to countenance a new type of political relationship. But in the actual course of events, Trump and his administration undermined alliance cohesion, sent incoherent signals on deterrence and the U.S. force presence, and ultimately maintained a maximalist line with North Korea. Trump was neither a credible alliance partner for Seoul nor a negotiating partner for Pyongyang.
Official Washington is grappling with the failures of Trump’s approach but also the obvious fact that there is no return to the status quo ante. Trump may have failed, but so, too, have successive administrations before him. This does not mean Washington should withdraw U.S. forces to meet Pyongyang’s demands, but it can take certain risks to try to establish a new and different type of political relationship.
As retired Gens. Vincent Brooks and Ho Young Leem argued recently in Foreign Affairs, U.S. and South Korean leaders should adopt a policy of “strategic deliberateness,” an early phase of which includes declaring an end to the state of war with North Korea. The end-of-war declaration isn’t a treaty and doesn’t replace the armistice agreement. The declaration is a powerful symbol that “would represent a fundamental change to politics on the Korean Peninsula” and possibly provide the space necessary for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to pivot, Brooks and Leem write.
Withdrawing U.S. forces from South Korea or acting as if you might (as Trump repeatedly did) undermines stability and the negotiating process. But if that process consists of a genuine effort to establish a new relationship and if it’s done with steady intention and a cohesive alliance, it could eventually lead to a place where removing U.S. forces from Korea doesn’t seem so unimaginable. It may very well lead to a place where historic developments overpower historical inertia.
Clint Work is a fellow with the Stimson Center’s 38 North Program. He is currently engaged in research on the history and evolution of the U.S. force presence on the Korean Peninsula and the transformation of the U.S.-South Korean alliance in the post-Cold War era. Twitter: @clintwork1
3. Helluva time to sell a US-North-South Korea alliance
Bradley Martin takes General Brooks and General Leem to task for their recent article..
Two points. I miss the late Stpehen Bradner. He was a mentor to us all. We need someone in Korea to replace him (of course he is irreplaceable as no one alive has his depth of Korean experience - there is no one who served in Korea as long as him from I think 1955 until 2011 or so).
Second, other than the one article with the rumor that is linked below, I have not heard any rumors about General Brooks being considered as the US Ambassador to Korea. My assessment remains that I think other than the SECDEF we are going to have very few former military officers in key administration roles.
Excerpts:
How the American general latched on to his rather starry-eyed view I don’t know. A partial explanation may lurk in the fact that, in 2013, well before Brooks took command at Seoul’s Yongsan Base in 2016, Stephen Bradner, for decades the American civilian who had advised UNC commanders (he had a realistic view of North Korea’s leaders and knew where the bodies were buried) had retired and moved home to Rhode Island.
Let’s hope the Biden administration, rumored to have considered Brooks for the ambassadorship in Seoul, takes a closer look at his policy ideas.
Helluva time to sell a US-North-South Korea alliance
Where do we begin to deal with suggestions that are not merely half-baked but out-and-out pie in the sky?
Talk about unfortunate timing. Just as we were about to witness the lightning total collapse of America’s Afghan “ally” in the face of advances by the Taliban, a pair of retired generals began a media campaign to make North Korea the third member of what is now a bilateral alliance between South Korea and the United States.
In a Foreign Affairs magazine article published in late July, General Vincent Brooks and General Leem Ho-young, former commander and deputy commander, respectively, of the US-South Korean Combined Forces Command, set out a series of steps to take on the way to sealing a “Grand Bargain.”
Then-US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (C) on March 17, 2017, with General Vincent Brooks (R) and General Leem Ho-young as North Korean soldiers look on at the border village of Panmunjom. Photo: AFP / Lee Jin-man
“Pyongyang’s economic distress offers a chance for peace,” they argue while acknowledging that it won’t be easy.
In the final phase, Seoul and Washington would move beyond a peace treaty and completely integrate North Korea into the alliance-led order. South Korea would take the lead as North Korea’s primary provider of trade and direct investment. For its part, the United States would become North Korea’s second-leading trading partner and primary enabler of international financing. An economic plan would chart out Pyongyang’s long-term economic growth, and the South-North free-trade agreement could be expanded into an Indo-Pacific trade partnership – giving North Korea access to markets across Asia.
These steps would cement the new economic order in Northeast Asia, improving the quality of life for millions of people. Militarily, a permanent peace plan would offer security by verifying that Pyongyang was complying with its international obligations and had destroyed its nuclear weapons. And politically, this reimagined relationship with North Korea would craft a new balance of power that diminishes China’s influence across the region.
Sounds lovely but, honestly, where do we begin to deal with well-meaning suggestions that are not merely half-baked but out-and-out pie in the sky?
“An alliance with the United States, South Korea and North Korea?” is the raised-eyebrows initial reaction from Seoul-based Michael Breen, a Briton who watches North Korea and is the author most recently of The New Koreans. “Really? Be careful what you wish for.”
Breen confesses, “I think Afghanistan has made me grumpy.”
“My first thought,” he adds, ” is that each new proposal, with new players and newly assigned officials and newly assigned reporters to write about it, perks everyone up again to jump on what they don’t realize is the same old merry-go-round.”
His reference is to the perennially appealing notion that a peace treaty formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War would be the key to aligning North Korea’s interests with those of its longtime enemies.
A picture taken in 1951 at Panmunjom shows communists and US liaison officers discussing a Korean War armistice. One was finally worked out in 1953 but it amounted to a ceasefire, not a formal peace treaty. Photo: AFP
“There’s not going to be progress on this front until there is a power shift in Pyongyang,” Breen says. “And, frankly, I’m not sure that we want progress – at least not an alliance with North Korea on the same side as South Korea and the US – without getting China on board and I can’t see that happening at least until Xi [Jinping] goes.”
How the American general latched on to his rather starry-eyed view I don’t know. A partial explanation may lurk in the fact that, in 2013, well before Brooks took command at Seoul’s Yongsan Base in 2016, Stephen Bradner, for decades the American civilian who had advised UNC commanders (he had a realistic view of North Korea’s leaders and knew where the bodies were buried) had retired and moved home to Rhode Island.
Let’s hope the Biden administration, rumored to have considered Brooks for the ambassadorship in Seoul, takes a closer look at his policy ideas.
Moon & Co are eager to cater to Kim Jong Un, hoping for a newsmaking breakthrough in North-South ties that could influence South Korean voters to prolong left-nationalist rule after Moon is term-limited out of office this coming May.
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un meets South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in as US President Donald Trump looks on in Panmunjom on June 30, 2019. Photo: AFP / Brendan Smialowski
Over the weekend Seoul’s Korea Herald ran an interview with Leem by Choi Si-young in which Choi expressed some skepticism about the two generals’ proposals. Leem’s answers suggest he’s not as much of a pushover as Moon appears to be.
Still, the military man was peddling pretty much the old wish list as if it were realistic policy. Here are some sample exchanges:
The Korea Herald: Your pitch doesn’t seem new. What makes you think it will work?
Leem Ho-young: Timing. North Korea wants help with its economy now more than ever, and that’s a sign our help would work this time if we offer it. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un fears social upheaval caused by economic distress and understands that’s a threat to his rule. He wants engagement. He has been careful with his language on US President Joe Biden. In October last year, Pyongyang showed off a new intercontinental ballistic missile, but it didn’t call Washington an imperialist aggressor or sworn enemy as it did the previous time, in September 2018.
Very poor argument. The North Koreans are careful with their language and then they’re not. It means nothing either way. Do the rulers really care that the people are starving due to economic mismanagement? Not a lot, I’d say based on 44 years of North Korea watching.
KH: Do you see China getting on board with this proposal?
LEEM: The fact the US and China are not on favorable terms means the US has more to gain than to lose in trying this economic initiative. It draws Pyongyang closer to its side and away from Beijing, which will work to Washington’s advantage when it is seeking to put checks on Beijing. We will have to make the US see this initiative is worth giving a shot to avoid being trapped in the current unacceptable status quo.
Come on! North Korea’s Kims have been playing big powers off against one another since the communists took over the Chinese mainland in 1949. And the Chinese have kept the North Koreans more or less in their pocket for much of that period. We’re going to disrupt those longstanding patterns of behavior?
David Straub, a retired US diplomat who knows Korea extremely well, tells me he is “appalled that a former top ROK general should not understand the United States any better than that. The idea that the US would ally with North Korea against the PRC is ludicrous. Just one of many hair-brained ideas in this interview. His very last answer, however, is reasonable but sounds as if written by an entirely different person than the one who said the things just above that:”
KH: How is this economic agenda any different from the Moon Jae-in government’s approach?
LEEM: Two things. What is it that the Moon administration is trying to ultimately achieve through economic engagement? That has been unclear. Has the government ever called out North Koreans on something they’ve done wrong? I don’t think so.
Moon seeks engagement for engagement and there has been no change since the 2018 inter-Korean summits where the two Koreas shook hands on denuclearization. The government was business as usual when North Koreans killed our fisheries official in September last year.
What’s worse is North Koreans got us thinking that the annual military drills between Seoul and Washington now threaten inter-Korean peace efforts. Talks have taken place many times despite the drills. North Koreans have learned to get their way, and we’ve let them.
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un meets South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in and US President Donald Trump at Panmunjom on July 1, 2019. Photo: AFP / KCNA via KNS
Bruce E. Bechtol, Jr, author of Defiant Failed State and other books on North Korea, explains in an email why offering concessions would not change behavior in Pyongyang: “The Kim regime, as we now know it, would take all the concessions they could get and then walk away – and it won’t matter how bad their economy is.”
Bechtol, a political scientist at Angelo State University in Texas, says the Kim family would not permit the loosening of its now-rigid controls over North Korean society that would necessarily accompany any real shift into the political-economic camp of the country’s current enemies.
“To concede to something like this would mean the end of their power and the DPRK as we now know it,” Bechtol says, using the initials for the North’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “The only way that is going to happen is if the Kim family regime falls. If that happens, North Korea could collapse quickly anyway.”
Bradley K. Martin is the author of Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty.
4. N.K. nuclear talks will fall behind on U.S. priority list due to Afghan situation: expert
Look, the Biden administration is giving Kim the opportunity to act as a responsible member of the international community. The ball is in his court. If he wants to negotiate the US is ready and willing to do so without preconditions.
But we cannot want to negotiate more than Kim. If so we forfeit any leverage we might have. We also cannot beg and grovel and make concessions to try to entice Kim to negotiate. If we do so Kim will simply assess his political warfare strategy a success and he will continue to execute.
N.K. nuclear talks will fall behind on U.S. priority list due to Afghan situation: expert | Yonhap News Agency
By Yi Wonju
SEOUL, Aug. 19 (Yonhap) -- Nuclear talks with North Korea will fall behind on the priority list of the United States for the next several months as Washington is expected to focus on dealing with the aftermath of its troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, an expert said Thursday.
Harry Kazianis, a senior director at the Center for the National Interest think tank, made the point in an online seminar, saying a big crisis involving refugees and abductions could follow the withdrawal of the U.S.' troops from Afghanistan.
"I think it is very clear that (Afghanistan) will be the United States' top national security priority at least for the next few months, and obviously what that will do is push down all other priorities, including North Korea, for at least the next several months," he said.
Also putting the North Korean nuclear issue on the backburner are domestic issues like fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccination, Kazianis said. He predicted relations between the U.S. and North Korea are unlikely to be bright in the short to medium-term.
Frank Jannuzi, head of the Mansfield Foundation, also said the North could provoke the U.S. with a new round of muscle-flexing, including deploying a ballistic missile submarine, as Seoul and Washington prepare for elections next year.
"The DPRK may try to exploit this situation, deliberating provoking the U.S. in an effort to undermine alliance solidarity," he said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and the North have been stalled since the Hanoi summit between former President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in 2019 ended without a deal.
julesyi@yna.co.kr
(END)
5.
Excerpts:
As things stand, the North Koreans are so weak economically, so hard hit by Covid-19, that they’re in no shape to fight anyone, but not so weak as to be incapable of creating tensions along the demilitarized zone. Back in the mid-1990s, even a massive famine that decimated an estimated 3 million people did not stop their investing funds and manpower into producing nukes and the missiles to fire them at targets near and far.
Rising demands for stopping the exercises show the remarkable ease with which North Korea can bend Moon to its will.
Writing in Foreign Affairs, the former U.S. military commander in Korea, General Vincent Brooks, and the former Korean General Leem Ho-young, Brooks’ deputy with the Combined Forces Command in Seoul, stressed that Washington and Seoul must “work on cementing their own alliance” in order “to approach North Korea from a position of strength, denying Pyongyang the advantage of facing an incoherent alliance.” Troops, they wrote, need “access to the few training areas available for maneuvers and live ammunition usage, which are key to maintaining military readiness.”
Such thinly disguised warnings don’t seem to have much impact on Moon and his advisers. Nothing could be more disconcerting than the disconnect on critical matters. Since talking to Moon at the White House in May, President Joe Biden has not been noticeably interested in North Korea. Indeed, according to the Congressional Research Service, he may be considering “partial sanctions relief in exchange for partial steps toward denuclearization.”
One would like to assume sanctions relief would be predicated on Kim accepting verification, which he has adamantly refused to do. With Biden having been exposed as a weak leader by precipitously withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan, however, one can never be certain what he would do in a crisis.
In the wake of bitter recriminations over Afghanistan, Biden looks unlikely to muster the courage to do anything that could cause frisson with Moon over North Korea. He may want to wait out the turmoil in the South and see who comes out on top in next year’s presidential election, but differences over how to deal with Kim Jong-un are bound to cloud the outlook in uncertain days ahead on the whole North Korean issue.
Thursday
August 19, 2021
Post-Kabul worries
Shim Jae-hoon, Donald Kirk
Shim Jae-hoon and Donald Kirk are Seoul-based journalists. This was originally published by the Asia Sentinel.
The way the U.S. abandoned Afghanistan after spending trillions of dollars sends a sobering message to other parts of Asia facing potential security threats such as South Korea, Taiwan and even Japan.
So far, the Taiwanese are determined to safeguard their country by developing a solid base for a democratic, representative form of government, paying for their defense, hewing close to a pro-American line of security in the Pacific. Taiwanese are doing all this even within a whisker of the Chinese Leviathan.
Similarly with Japan. Its postwar economic endeavors, pro-American alliance, the Japanese people’s consensus that they stand at the forefront of Asian security in the face of regional hegemonic powers like China and Russia all have helped keep the conservative Liberal Democratic Party in power for seven long decades. Now Japan, having broken its unspoken taboo of keeping defense spending below 1 percent of GDP, has emerged as a formidable line of defense in the western Pacific.
The only problem spot is South Korea, for whose freedom the U.S. has invested so many dollars and lives. Despite the fact that North Korea has developed and acquired nuclear weapons, the government of President Moon Jae-in mouths empty slogans of peace and detente while undermining the U.S.-Korean alliance, cutting down annual military exercises, hinting that the U.S. should wink and accept the nukes as fait accompli.
North Koreans are executing their favorite power play in dealing with the United States and South Korea. It’s another version of the wedge in which they sow divisions between the U.S. and South Korea and between conservatives and liberals in the South.
Kim Yo-jong, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister and vice director of the Workers’ Party, delivers her brother’s letter to President Moon Jae-in in a visit to the Blue House on the sidelines of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics in South Korea. [YONHAP]
The current gambit is the North’s demand that South Korea call off this month’s annual military exercises with U.S. troops. As it is, the war games are playing out on computers, and the warriors are chair-bound Americans and Koreans making sure they’re on the same wavelength in case holy hell does break out on the Korean peninsula.
The days when U.S. and South Korean troops trained in vast areas south of the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas while warplanes zoomed above and naval vessels fired from offshore are long gone. Donald Trump stopped all that after his summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un in Singapore in June 2018, when he suddenly called off that year’s war games without bothering to warn his own defense secretary.
A new crisis is slowly building with the North threatening to create trouble ahead of the election next year of a new South Korean president to succeed Moon, obsessed as he is with the notion of leaving a legacy as the leader who brought about reconciliation with the North. North Korean Army Gen. Kim Yong-chol, whose reputation as a tough guy goes back to his ordering the sinking of the South Korean naval vessel the Cheonan in 2010 with a loss of 46 men aboard, left no doubt he has something else in mind.
“We are keenly watching the military exercises,” he stated. “We will make the South feel how dangerously it is pushing itself closer to an enormous security crisis.”
Implicit in Kim Yong-chol’s message is that the North, caught in the grip of famine, has little to lose in war while the South will lose everything. His goal is to blackmail Seoul into stopping the exercises, weaken Seoul’s alliance with the United States, and break out of the debilitating sanctions regime.
With little to show after more than four years in office, Moon is vulnerable to such hard line posturing precisely because he has invested so much of his prestige and resources on achieving rapprochement with Kim. By saying little in response, Moon seems to be wavering, presumably anxious to save the fruits of goodwill created by letters he secretly exchanges with Kim.
The North’s threats are effective among members of the governing party in Korea’s National Assembly, dozens of whom signed a statement requesting a reduction of the joint exercises. If they had their way, they would cancel them.
Speculation now is that Moon is anxious to have Kim Jong-un accept his invitation to visit Seoul prior to the next presidential election in March in a triumphant show of success for his North Korean policy. Veteran analysts in Seoul believe Kim could accept such an invitation in light of the grave economic crisis he faces under the current sanctions, whose impact Kim himself has acknowledged. Food shortages, he has said, place his country “in tense condition.”
Were Kim to agree to visit Seoul, he would surely exact a high price for such a ground-breaking visit — not just more food aid but an end to all UN-imposed sanctions, which are killing his economy, plus an end to future military exercises with the United States, all in exchange for declaring an end to underground nuclear tests or tests of long-range missiles, neither of which he’s conducted since late 2017.
The progressive liberal Moon has always shown a soft spot for Kim, but opposition conservatives are determined to stop him from impressing this line on Washington or on domestic voters ahead of the election. They are convinced no bona fide deal is possible with Kim after all the failed denuclearization agreements over the years.
Conservatives want nothing short of denuclearization on verifiable conditions as do Washington and Tokyo. At home, South Korea is in a period of tense unrest over Moon’s dealings with the North, splitting the country between left and right. Mounting clashes between the two sides are a boon for Kim Jong-un. Koreans — notably the middle class — are developing a genuine concern for the future, now even more after the abrupt departure of the U.S. from Afghanistan.
As things stand, the North Koreans are so weak economically, so hard hit by Covid-19, that they’re in no shape to fight anyone, but not so weak as to be incapable of creating tensions along the demilitarized zone. Back in the mid-1990s, even a massive famine that decimated an estimated 3 million people did not stop their investing funds and manpower into producing nukes and the missiles to fire them at targets near and far.
Rising demands for stopping the exercises show the remarkable ease with which North Korea can bend Moon to its will.
Writing in Foreign Affairs, the former U.S. military commander in Korea, General Vincent Brooks, and the former Korean General Leem Ho-young, Brooks’ deputy with the Combined Forces Command in Seoul, stressed that Washington and Seoul must “work on cementing their own alliance” in order “to approach North Korea from a position of strength, denying Pyongyang the advantage of facing an incoherent alliance.” Troops, they wrote, need “access to the few training areas available for maneuvers and live ammunition usage, which are key to maintaining military readiness.”
Such thinly disguised warnings don’t seem to have much impact on Moon and his advisers. Nothing could be more disconcerting than the disconnect on critical matters. Since talking to Moon at the White House in May, President Joe Biden has not been noticeably interested in North Korea. Indeed, according to the Congressional Research Service, he may be considering “partial sanctions relief in exchange for partial steps toward denuclearization.”
One would like to assume sanctions relief would be predicated on Kim accepting verification, which he has adamantly refused to do. With Biden having been exposed as a weak leader by precipitously withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan, however, one can never be certain what he would do in a crisis.
In the wake of bitter recriminations over Afghanistan, Biden looks unlikely to muster the courage to do anything that could cause frisson with Moon over North Korea. He may want to wait out the turmoil in the South and see who comes out on top in next year’s presidential election, but differences over how to deal with Kim Jong-un are bound to cloud the outlook in uncertain days ahead on the whole North Korean issue.
6. Experts split over impact of US pullout from Afghanistan on N. Korea issue
Enticements? What enticements? And if we offer enticements how do we think Kim will assess that? (hint: his political warfare strategy is successful).
Excerpts:
Ever since the Hanoi summit between then U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un ended without a deal in February 2019, the nuclear negotiations have made little progress.
"I wouldn't be surprised if the U.S. had already let Pyongyang know some of its possible enticements, perhaps also via Seoul given the exchanges between the two Koreas in recent weeks and months," Pacheco Pardo said.
"I think that the Biden administration has shown that it is serious about addressing the North Korean nuclear issue, even if it isn't a top priority. And this would include specifying possible enticements to North Korea."
However, Soo Kim said that to jumpstart nuclear talks at this point may not be in the U.S.'s best interests, although the North Korean nuclear issue remains a key challenge for the administration.
"The administration has probably learned lessons from the Trump administration's handling of the nuclear negotiations; the question is, do they want to repeat the same mistakes ― especially in light of recent developments in Afghanistan? And how much bandwidth does Washington have at this point to focus on another long-term challenge?" she said.
Experts split over impact of US pullout from Afghanistan on N. Korea issue
Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman speaks on the situation in Afghanistan at the State Department in Washington, D.C., Wednesday. AP-Yonhap
Remains to be seen if Sung Kim will offer enticements to Pyongyang
By Kang Seung-woo
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is drawing mixed responses here, on speculation that it could leave room for Washington to concentrate efforts on the North Korean nuclear issue that has been put on the back burner under the new Joe Biden administration.
Despite completing its policy review of Pyongyang in April, the Biden administration has shown few signs of efforts to engage the Kim Jong-un regime, unlike Biden's predecessor who held summits with the North's leader on three occasions.
"The Biden administration has clearly shown its willingness to work with allies, including South Korea. And the Moon Jae-in government has successfully helped to put North Korea on the Biden administration's radar, among others, by supporting Washington's China policy," said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, professor of international relations at King's College London.
"So I think that the Biden administration not only has more room to focus on North Korea now, but Seoul can actually help to continue to draw Washington's attention to this issue."
However, Soo Kim, a former CIA analyst now with the Rand Corp., said it was too soon to foretell due to problems ensuing from the withdrawal.
"As of now, the U.S.'s pullout from Afghanistan doesn't appear to have resolved the longstanding security and political challenges, so the expectation that this would free up more time and space for Washington to concentrate on other issues seems premature," Kim said.
"There will be a lot of other consequential issues and challenges to deal with, so if anything, I think the U.S. will need to give more attention to settling the Afghanistan issue, like it or not."
In the wake of the U.S. pullout, Biden has been under fire for the decision, leaving South Korea and other allies wondering whether they can trust the United States. Pacheco Pardo said the South Korean government needs to step up efforts to ease the concerns.
"The sudden withdrawal from Afghanistan will embolden officials and experts in South Korea who think that Seoul should follow its own policy, including towards North Korea," he said.
"So even though I don't expect the Moon administration to stop coordination with the U.S. when it comes to Pyongyang, it will have to address the concerns of those who think that Washington isn't a reliable partner and that it only focuses on its own interests."
Marines assigned to the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit await a flight to Kabul, Afghanistan, at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Tuesday. AP-YonhapSung Kim, the U.S. special representative for North Korea, is expected to arrive in Seoul, Saturday, for a four-day visit, his second visit in two months. This is fueling speculation that the U.S. may offer something to incentivize North Korea to take further steps toward denuclearization.
Ever since the Hanoi summit between then U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un ended without a deal in February 2019, the nuclear negotiations have made little progress.
"I wouldn't be surprised if the U.S. had already let Pyongyang know some of its possible enticements, perhaps also via Seoul given the exchanges between the two Koreas in recent weeks and months," Pacheco Pardo said.
"I think that the Biden administration has shown that it is serious about addressing the North Korean nuclear issue, even if it isn't a top priority. And this would include specifying possible enticements to North Korea."
However, Soo Kim said that to jumpstart nuclear talks at this point may not be in the U.S.'s best interests, although the North Korean nuclear issue remains a key challenge for the administration.
"The administration has probably learned lessons from the Trump administration's handling of the nuclear negotiations; the question is, do they want to repeat the same mistakes ― especially in light of recent developments in Afghanistan? And how much bandwidth does Washington have at this point to focus on another long-term challenge?" she said.
7. N. Korea investigates State Academy of Sciences for possible involvement in manufacture of narcotics
No one is safe in north Korea.
Excerpts;
The source said the Ministry of State Security headquarters is carrying out the inspections as a joint effort with local ministry branches and the branches of the Ministry of Social Security “in accordance with the state’s will to completely root out illicit drug use.” He said the inspections are scheduled to last three months, and that the units undergoing inspection are facing them with trepidation.
In particular, North Korea has laid down the rule that it will catch everyone who has illegally sold or distributed the chemical cyanbenzyline, a major ingredient in the manufacture of drugs. So scientists and researchers at the State Academy of Sciences who handle materials used to manufacture drugs reportedly “feel nervous” as well.
N. Korea investigates State Academy of Sciences for possible involvement in manufacture of narcotics - Daily NK
Locals who have been using narcotics to treat diseases amid shortages of cold medicine are blaming the state for “forcing us to use narcotics like wonder drugs"
By Jong So Yong - 2021.08.19 11:27am
Since North Korea passed legislation to prevent drug-related crimes, the country’s authorities have been inspecting units capable of involvement in the manufacture of narcotics, especially the State Academy of Sciences and its regional branches.
A source in Pyongyang told Daily NK on Monday that after a plenary meeting of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People’s Assembly adopted the “Law of the DPRK on the Prevention of Drug-related Crimes” in early July, the government has been singling out for inspection particular units that could involve themselves in the manufacture of drugs.
The inspections have been ongoing since the start of the month.
According to the source, these are not spot inspections. Rather, North Korea ordered inspections of specific research institutions, including the State Academy of Sciences and its Pyongsong and Hamhung branches, as the first inspections in the execution stage of the new anti-drug law.
The source said the Ministry of State Security headquarters is carrying out the inspections as a joint effort with local ministry branches and the branches of the Ministry of Social Security “in accordance with the state’s will to completely root out illicit drug use.” He said the inspections are scheduled to last three months, and that the units undergoing inspection are facing them with trepidation.
Kim Jong Un poses with staff of the State Academy of Sciences in 2014. / Image: Rodong Shinmun
In particular, North Korea has laid down the rule that it will catch everyone who has illegally sold or distributed the chemical cyanbenzyline, a major ingredient in the manufacture of drugs. So scientists and researchers at the State Academy of Sciences who handle materials used to manufacture drugs reportedly “feel nervous” as well.
People at scientific research institutions believe almost no one is safe in these inspections because most researchers are involved in drugs. Accordingly, they think the level of punishment will depend on how tough or lenient the inspection bodies are.
Locals who have been using narcotics to treat diseases amid shortages of cold medicine are blaming the state for “forcing us to use narcotics like wonder drugs.”
“Locals are complaining that they have been making due for almost 30 years with narcotics, and if you cut even those off, they’ll have nothing to treat illnesses with,” said the source. “Due to the coronavirus, you can’t find Chinese drugs, and narcotics are openly traded like they are ordinary cold medicines. People are saying even law enforcement doesn’t think it’s a big deal as long as there’s no roaring trade with drugs crossing the border, and it’s only the leadership that’s making an issue of this.”
The source further reported that the authorities have ordered investigations of manufacturers such as Sunchon Pharmaceutical Factory and Hungnam Pharmaceutical Factory, as well as chemical supply companies, when the inspections of research labs are completed.
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
8. DMZ ceremony marks 45th anniversary of American soldiers’ axe slaying
Lest we forget these two Americans and the brutality of the Kim family regime.
DMZ ceremony marks 45th anniversary of American soldiers’ axe slaying
Troops of U.N. Command render salutes during a ceremony on the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone on Aug. 18, 2021, marking 45 years since the killing of two U.S. officers at the site. (David Choi/Stars and Stripes)
CAMP BONIFAS, South Korea — Service members from the U.S. and South Korea on Wednesday afternoon paid tribute to two American soldiers who were axed to death by North Korean troops 45 years ago.
On Aug. 18, 1976, Capt. Arthur Bonifas, a Joint Security Force company commander, and 1st Lt. Mark Barrett, a platoon leader, were slain while trimming a tree at the Joint Security Area of the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.
The U.S. soldiers, part of the United Nations Command, were dispatched to trim a poplar tree that obstructed a watch tower’s view of a checkpoint near a bridge. Dubbed the Bridge of No Return, it was frequented by troops of U.N. Command and soldiers of North Korea’s Korean People’s Army, who, at the time, taunted and provoked each other, according to the command’s security battalion.
Bonifas and Barrett, part of a 10-man U.N. Command security team, were sent with workers to trim the tree after the North Korean side was informed of their intent. Nonetheless, a North Korean officer on site told the U.N. troops to cease their operation. The officer summoned roughly 30 additional troops, who attacked Bonifas’ team without warning.
The killings shocked President Gerald Ford, who ordered the tree felled three days later in Operation Paul Bunyan. Combat troops and engineers cut down the tree in roughly 45 minutes without incident as American forces throughout the peninsula stood by on alert.
In a ceremony Wednesday, troops of U.N. Command placed flowers and wreaths at the site where the tree once stood. U.S. Army Lt. Col. Rick Luce, the Security Battalion-Joint Security Area commander, described the memorial as an “important part of our history.”
“Being here at this battalion and at that location is historically relevant,” Luce said to Stars and Stripes. “It’s an honor to be up here. It’s an honor to walk on the same ground as those UNC soldiers.”
Luce, whose younger brother was killed in combat in Afghanistan, also reflected on losing a family member in a war zone.
“I acknowledge what it’s like to lose a family member,” Luce said. “We’re very proud of the Bonifas and Barrett family. It’s a time of remembrance. We don’t want to forget.”
Capt. Lee Chang Rok of the South Korean army took part in Wednesday’s event and said the memorial was one of many sacred traditions in the Joint Security Area.
“I have to work hard so that the efforts of my seniors and comrades are not in vain,” Rok said, referring to Bonifas and Barrett.
Bonifas’ legacy continues through his family. His daughter, who was 6 years old when he died, reached the rank of captain in the Army’s nursing program.
Bonifas’ grandson, Spc. Andrew Arthur Bonifas, joined the Army in 2019 and serves as petroleum supply specialist with the 1st Squadron, 6th Cavalry Regiment, out of Fort Riley, Kansas.
“I wanted to join the military to follow my grandfather’s and my mom’s footsteps,” Andrew Bonifas said to Stars and Stripes in a phone interview Wednesday.
Andrew, who is currently stationed in Camp Humphreys, South Korea, visited Camp Bonifas during the July 4th weekend.
“It’s just really surreal,” he said.
David Choi
Subscribe to Stars and Stripes
9. American Columnist Under Fire For Comparing South Korea To Afghanistan's Tragic Situation
This is an example of a pundit getting well out ahead of his expertise. He has not responded because there is no excuse for is idtiotic comments.
American Columnist Under Fire For Comparing South Korea To Afghanistan's Tragic Situation
An American columnist for The Washington Post has become the target of severe criticisms after he tweeted about South Korea and the ongoing situation in Afghanistan.
Marc Thiessen is an author, columnist, and political appointee who has gained fame for vocalizing his conservative views on his social media accounts. He was also former president, George W. Bush’s speechwriter from 2004-2009. And while he has stepped on many American toes with his personal political views, one of his most recent tweets has angered Korean netizens for his comment regarding South Korea.
American columnist Marc Thiessen | Fox News
The author shared this tweet about South Korea on August 15, which was a response to another tweet that discussed the recent fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban. The conservative author shared that South Korea would also “collapse just as quickly without U.S. support.” He continued on by stating that there is “no American ally who could defend themselves without us.”
If South Korea were under this kind of sustained assault, they would collapse just as quickly without US support. There’s virtually no American ally who could defend themselves without us. https://t.co/mIqFN0Jxjb
And while the controversial columnist shared his personal viewpoint on the situation, many netizens were left angered by his insensitive comments, especially given the tragic circumstance that Afghanistan is currently facing. As a response, hundreds of replies began to flood his Twitter account countering his original tweet.
Not only did this gain traction in the states, but news about Marc Thiessen’s tweet began making headlines in South Korea, which naturally sparked quite a response from Korean netizens.
| theqoo
- “Huh? Go crawl inside a coffin.”
- “So that’s why Bush…”
- “This is why our country needs a nuclear bomb even though the other countries won’t let us. F*ck ㅠ”
- “This old ba*tard is really ignorant ㅋㅋㅋㅋ I’m glad he’s getting attacked.”
- “Of course it’s an American guy. If you don’t know anything, keep your mouth shut.”
- “But honestly, it doesn’t make sense for the American soldiers to withdraw.”
- “This is what a fool looks like.”
- “ㅋㅋ stu-pid.”
| IMDb
Marc Thiessen has not responded to the backlash he has been receiving regarding his tweet.
10. Controversial remarks on N. Korea amid Afghan situation
Yes, Rep Song's remarks are very troubling for a member of the Korean government. His reasoning will put the ROK at grave risk. And never assume the enemy will not attack. Make yourself invincible. - Sun Tzu.
Conclusion:
The civil war in Afghanistan clearly shows that the win or loss of war is not simply decided by physical military power. The Afghan government had superior troops and equipment over the Taliban thanks to the U.S.’s support. As leaders were heavily dishonest and corrupt and lost the will to fight, the country collapsed. Not being careless and showing one’s weaknesses to an enemy that has inferior fighting power are the key to security. It is concerning how South Korea’s security will be ensured as the leader of the ruling party disregards the currently-existing threats of North Korean nuclear weapons and makes claims that bring down the guard of people against the North.
Controversial remarks on N. Korea amid Afghan situation
Posted August. 19, 2021 07:55,
Updated August. 19, 2021 07:55
Controversial remarks on N. Korea amid Afghan situation. August. 19, 2021 07:55. .
“Pyongyang has an outdated weapons system. The North is more desperate to prolong its regime and survive as a country than have the capacity to attack South Korea,” Song Young-gil, the leader of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, said on his social media account on Wednesday. It was his rebuttal to an American columnist who argued that South Korea may collapse as Afghanistan did without the support of the U.S. by saying that the South has military superiority over the North.
Song’s claim that the North does not have the capacity to attack South Korea is close to the distortion of basic facts. He baked his claim by saying that Pyongyang has an outdated weapons system and cannot even procure the fuel needed to run its tanks and jets due to economic sanctions. However, he failed to mention the biggest threat that the North can pose, which is nuclear weapons. The North is estimated to already have 20 to 60 nuclear weapons. Even just one of them can bring an irreversible catastrophe to Seoul. Washington believes that Pyongyang now has the nuclear capacity to attack not only its southern neighbor but also the U.S. mainland. This was the reason that promoted the U.S. to engage in dialogue with the North. Given the circumstances, should we truly believe that the North does not have the capacity to attack the South?
As North Korea’s nuclear threat has grown significantly, maintaining the sufficient size of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) and conducting ROK-U.S. joint military exercises are essential to South Korea’s security. However, Song said that the USFK presents the overcapacity of the ROK-U.S. alliance’s military power in July last year as the head of the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee, which reveals the need to reduce the USFK. Does Song believe that the USFK is too big and the North Korean troops are too small on the Korean Peninsula? He also emphasized on Wednesday that wartime operational control (OPCON) should be transferred from the U.S. to South Korea as soon as possible. However, 74 members of the broader ruling side, including the Democratic Party of Korea and the Open Democratic Party, called for the delay of the ROK-U.S. joint military exercises, which are to evaluate the South Korean military’s OPCON capability. Their arguments are inconsistent.
The civil war in Afghanistan clearly shows that the win or loss of war is not simply decided by physical military power. The Afghan government had superior troops and equipment over the Taliban thanks to the U.S.’s support. As leaders were heavily dishonest and corrupt and lost the will to fight, the country collapsed. Not being careless and showing one’s weaknesses to an enemy that has inferior fighting power are the key to security. It is concerning how South Korea’s security will be ensured as the leader of the ruling party disregards the currently-existing threats of North Korean nuclear weapons and makes claims that bring down the guard of people against the North.
11. North Korea Warns Citizens Not to Speculate About Leader’s Health After Weight Loss
Kim's Health is a matter of state secrets.
The "Highest Dignity?" I had not heard that moniker before. Perhaps translation issue.
A resident of the city of Sariwon in North Hwanghae province, south of the capital Pyongyang, told RFA that neighborhood watch units there have also warned people not to gossip about Kim’s health.
“Although Sariwon did not convene an emergency meeting of residents to reassure them that the Highest Dignity is healthy, it did caution people in neighborhood watch meetings not to mention his health,” said the second source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.
North Korea Warns Citizens Not to Speculate About Leader’s Health After Weight Loss
Kim Jong Un is suffering alone during the national crisis, the government says.
2021-08-18
North Korea has warned citizens to refrain from talking about national leader Kim Jong Un’s health after he recently lost weight, calling such gossip as a “reactionary act,” sources in the country say.
Government authorities have been pushing the narrative that Kim, referred to as the “Highest Dignity,” is healthy, and that his recent weight loss shows him suffering alongside his people, who are struggling with chronic food insecurity made worse by the effects of a prolonged coronavirus pandemic.
Kim was noticeably thinner when he appeared in state media in June following a prolonged absence, and speculation among the public began.
RFA reported that at the time that authorities considered the spreading of rumors about the Kim’s health to be treason and launched investigations to find out where such talk began.
Their attempts to stop people from discussing Kim’s health have seemingly failed, however, sources told RFA.
“As stories of health problems related to the Highest Dignity’s weight loss spread among the residents, many of the neighborhood watch units here in Chongjin made official statements to the people at their weekly meeting, saying that it is a ‘reactionary act’ to talk about the leader’s health,” a resident of the northeastern port city said on Aug. 15.
“The neighborhood watch units also said the sudden weight loss is not due to a health problem, but rather that he is suffering in solitude for the sake of the country and people in crisis,” said the source, who requested anonymity to speak freely.
Some attendees at the meeting said they were heartbroken that their leader was suffering alone as the country faces its greatest crisis, but the attendees were only saying what the meeting leaders wanted to hear, the source said.
“This is the first time that authorities have felt the need to officially explain through neighborhood watch units in every region that the Highest Dignity has no health problems,” the source said.
“But on the other hand, some of the residents agreed, saying that Kim’s weight loss would not be a bad thing, as the way he appeared before he lost weight seemed to be more dangerous to his health,” said the source.
Cartoon by Rebel Pepper. Credit: RFA
A resident of the city of Sariwon in North Hwanghae province, south of the capital Pyongyang, told RFA that neighborhood watch units there have also warned people not to gossip about Kim’s health.
“Although Sariwon did not convene an emergency meeting of residents to reassure them that the Highest Dignity is healthy, it did caution people in neighborhood watch meetings not to mention his health,” said the second source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.
“They emphasized that it is prohibited to share any stories about the health of the leader, who they said had become emaciated due to the piling up of national affairs. But public suspicion that he has health problems has not subsided,” the second source said.
In one neighborhood watch unit meeting in June, the unit’s leader spoke for about 20 minutes how healthy Kim was, the source said.
“The atmosphere got all serious in that meeting for a moment, but as soon as it was over the residents started saying that things are better now, because before [Kim] had gained so much weight it had become difficult for him to walk,” said the second source.
According to the second source, it was unfathomable that people would so openly discuss their leader’s health during the rule of Kim’s grandfather Kim Il Sung (1948-1994) or that of his father Kim Jong Il (1994-2011).
“In some cases back then, the person who talked about the leader’s health problems was taken away along with his family to a political prison. But these days, everyone is aware of the Highest Dignity’s weight loss, so authorities are doing their best to keep people’s mouths shut,” he said.
“But there will be limits to completely blocking public opinion,” he added.
Whenever Kim Jong Un is absent from public view for an extended period, rumors of his ill health or plans for what may happen after his death circulate both inside and outside North Korea.
RFA reported in April 2020 during one such absence that people living near the Chinese border were spreading rumors that Kim was on his deathbed. At the same time, North Korea watchers in the West were speculating that Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, would be next in line to rule.
The rumors were quashed when a seemingly healthy Kim made a public appearance on May 1, 2020 and Kim Yo Jong was demoted in the next year, fueling further outside speculation over her level of importance within her brother’s inner circle.
Reported by Jeong Yon Park for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
12. Doubts over alliance
Seoul is not Kabul. But it is probably inevitable that people will question alliances after Afghanistan.
But in Korea it is absolutely NOT mutually exclusive to develop independent warfighting capabilities and strengthen the alliance. This we must do.
Excerpts:
But it is improper to compare South Korea to Afghanistan because there are big differences between the two countries. As ruling Democratic Party of Korea Chairman Song Young-gil pointed out, South Korea is a country with the world's sixth-strongest military and 10th-largest economy. Song stressed the need for Seoul to regain wartime operational control (OPCON) of South Korean forces from Washington. He also emphasized the importance of the nation establishing self-reliant defense readiness.
The Taliban's return to power offers a valuable lesson to South Korea. Most of all, the country should modernize its own military and strengthen its defense preparedness to fend for itself as the U.S. military cannot stay here forever. It is also necessary to beef up its alliance with the U.S., boost its strategic value and contribute more to regional security, stability and peace.
Doubts over alliance
Afghan turmoil undercuts US global leadership
The U.S.'s chaotic exit from Afghanistan is casting a dark cloud over President Joe Biden's pledge to reinforce alliances with other countries and restore his country's global leadership. Biden now faces criticism for abandoning his much-touted "America is back" catchphrase and returning to his predecessor's "America-first" agenda.
Criticism came after Biden defended his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and put the blame for the Taliban's rapid takeover of the war-torn country on the corrupt and incompetent Afghanistan government. On Monday he said, "I will not repeat the mistakes we've made in the past — the mistake of staying and fighting indefinitely in a conflict that is not in the national interest of the United States, of doubling down on a civil war in a foreign country, of attempting to remake a country through the endless military deployments of U.S. forces."
The remark was seen as affirming his position that the U.S. would not engage in any war which does not serve the U.S.'s interest. But it could be interpreted as a retreat from his security commitments to allies. It could also signal that his global strategy is focused on maximizing his country's interests just as former President Donald Trump did with his America-centric mantras.
What Biden said has prompted many people to wonder if U.S. troops will leave any host country anytime if it loses its strategic value, as was the case with Afghanistan. It also appeared to send a message that there are no permanent friends or enemies in the stark international arena. In addition, his remark has apparently implied that the U.S. can't keep playing the role of the "world's policeman" as it had done in the Cold War era.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan clarified that Biden has no intention to reduce U.S. military presence in South Korea or Europe. Yet some pundits point out that they cannot rule out the possibility that another troop withdrawal could take place in other U.S. allies' territories.
Marc Thiessen, the Washington Post's foreign policy columnist and former speech writer for former U.S. President George W. Bush, triggered controversy by saying that South Korea could experience similar consequences as Afghanistan if the U.S. pulls out its troops from the country. He tweeted Monday, "If South Korea were under this kind of sustained assault, they would collapse just as quickly without U.S. support. There's virtually no American ally who could defend themselves without us."
But it is improper to compare South Korea to Afghanistan because there are big differences between the two countries. As ruling Democratic Party of Korea Chairman Song Young-gil pointed out, South Korea is a country with the world's sixth-strongest military and 10th-largest economy. Song stressed the need for Seoul to regain wartime operational control (OPCON) of South Korean forces from Washington. He also emphasized the importance of the nation establishing self-reliant defense readiness.
The Taliban's return to power offers a valuable lesson to South Korea. Most of all, the country should modernize its own military and strengthen its defense preparedness to fend for itself as the U.S. military cannot stay here forever. It is also necessary to beef up its alliance with the U.S., boost its strategic value and contribute more to regional security, stability and peace.
13. Court orders seizure of Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy's assets in S. Korea over forced wartime labor
Obviously this is not helpful. Zero steps forward and two steps backward.
(LEAD) Court orders seizure of Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy's assets in S. Korea over forced wartime labor | Yonhap News Agency
(ATTN: UPDATES with responses from Seoul and Tokyo in last 4 paras)
ANYANG, South Korea, Aug. 19 (Yonhap) -- A South Korean court has ordered the seizure of Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.'s assets here to provide compensation to forced wartime labor victims' families, according to judicial sources Thursday.
According to Haemaru Lawfirm, the Anyang branch of Suwon District Court, just south of Seoul, recently ordered the seizure of about 850 million won (US$725,000) worth of bonds the Japanese company owns in LS Mtron Ltd., a South Korean industrial machinery manufacturer.
The value is the equivalent of the total 340 million won of damages ordered to be provided to four victims of Japan's forced labor during World War Ⅱ in a 2018 Supreme Court ruling, as well as approximate losses incurred from the delay of the compensation.
Earlier this month, the surviving families of the victims asked the court to seize Mitsubishi Heavy's bonds in Korea after confirming business transactions between the Japanese firm and the local machinery manufacturer.
The request was made to move forward the top court's landmark verdict in 2018 that ordered Mitsubishi Heavy to pay 80-150 million won in damages to each of the victims that filed the suit.
The Japanese firm has refused to follow the ruling, citing "legal obstacles to forcible execution of the order."
"We request Mitsubishi Heavy to admit to the historical fact (of forced labor) and apologize and deliver compensation to its victims," the law firm representing the plaintiffs said.
"If Mitsubishi Heavy continues to refuse to follow court orders, we will collect its bonds from LS Mtron based on the collection order," it added.
In Tokyo, the Japanese government immediately denounced the South Korean court ruling as an outright violation of international law and warned of serious ramifications if it is enforced.
Japan's top government spokesperson, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato, was quoted as telling reporters a possible liquidation of Mitsubishi assets would push bilateral relations into a serious situation.
In this regard, a ranking official from Cheong Wa Dae, South Korea's presidential office, said Seoul was closely watching the latest developments.
"The government is listening to various opinions from all walks of life and closely consulting with the Japanese side to find a variety of reasonable solutions in consideration of the realization of the victims' rights and bilateral relations between South Korea and Japan," said the official.
nyway@yna.co.kr
(END)
14. North Korea is a Nuclear Weapons Power: Should the U.S. Accept Reality?
No.
I like Dr. Bruce Bennet's description of north Korea. It is a non-compliant, unsafe, nuclear experimenter.
I think it is a revolutionary and rogue power that is nuclear capable.
But the minute we recognize it as a nuclear power (and it would like to be recognized on par with Pakistan) the regime will double down on its political warfare strategy and we will never get to denuclearization or a solution to the Korea question, an end of human rights abuses, and peace on the Korean peninsula.
While Mr. Bandow and others will tout logic and reality, recognizing it as nuclear power is just another concession to the regime that further weakens the very little leverage we have. The regime will simply move on to its next demand and will do nothing positive in terms of reciprocity for such a "concession."
North Korea is a Nuclear Weapons Power: Should the U.S. Accept Reality?
If it is inconceivable that Kim is prepared to give up all his nukes, why continue demanding that he do so?
Sydney Seiler, a national intelligence officer in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, believes that North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons. Its objective, he observed, is to gain acceptance as a nuclear state.
He seemed almost irritated with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) saying it, “simply squandered away an opportunity to move forward with it, with the United States in a better relationship.” Despite Washington’s best efforts, Seiler complained, “We have made clear in all of our negotiations—what it is we expect from the North ... and what benefits would accrue to the DPRK.” Alas, “until now, the regime just has simply not wanted to take these exit ramps.” Indeed, in Seiler’s view at the failed Hanoi summit “once again, North Korea was unwilling to go down the credible path of denuclearization.”
However, Pyongyang isn’t acting irrationally. The greatest, if inadvertent, advocates of nonproliferation are the existing nuclear powers which have shown no inclination to yield their own nukes. India, Israel, and Pakistan all acquired nuclear weapons against Washington’s wishes.
Nuclear weapons have turned the DPRK into a global player of sorts. They offer prestige and the potential for extortion. More fundamentally, they are, Seiler allowed, “a capability that's designed to ensure the survival of the Kim regime. It's not necessarily good for the nation state but it's not meant to be. It's meant to pursue this―to protect the system and protect the regime.”
If this is the case, the odds of convincing the North to abandon its nuclear program are minimal. There is no more powerful impulse than self-preservation. Since dictators see themselves and, in the case of North Korea, the ruling dynasty, as synonymous with the nation, yielding a weapon necessary for self-preservation is tantamount to suicide.
Which necessarily raises doubts about the viability of a strategy based on denuclearization. If it is inconceivable that Kim is prepared to give up all his nukes, why continue demanding that he do so?
Still, Seiler rejected accepting the North as a nuclear power. He explained: “It is the abandonment of an ally with the Republic of Korea (ROK). It is a proclamation that we have given up on our global nonproliferation principles. It is a signal to other aspirants who are thinking―‘Should we or shouldn't we?’―that they can get away with it.”
None of these are persuasive reasons, however. The alliance with the ROK doesn’t require eliminating North Korean nuclear weapons, even though they greatly complicate the security relationship. Particularly ominous are estimates that within just a few years the North could have 200 nuclear weapons. However, not doing the impossible—ridding the DPRK of its nuclear weapons—does not constitute “abandonment.”
Nor does accepting the inevitable mean dropping nonproliferation as a priority. In regards to the latter, the U.S. already has done so. Washington opposed the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Israel but then responded with private acceptance, applying no punitive penalties once Israel acquired its arsenal. Today Washington never raises the issue, simply ignoring the embarrassing fact. And if the issue was officially raised, the Israeli embassy could host a celebratory party and most members of Congress would show up.
Washington took a less friendly stance toward India and Pakistan, but sanctions were a complete bust. The imperatives of confronting each other and China created enormous pressure on both to become nuclear powers. The U.S. eventually accepted their status, particularly that of India. Nonproliferation concerns fell by the geopolitical wayside, since treating New Delhi as an enemy would drive away an important counterweight to China without causing India to yield its nuclear weapons.
As for signaling other nuclear aspirants, Washington already has done so in two important ways. The first, as noted earlier, is accepting India, Israel, and Pakistan as nuclear powers. America has abandoned its principled nonproliferation policy which cannot be reclaimed.
The second, and equally important, factor was turning nuclear weapons into an essential deterrent for weaker states. Once American officials decided that they had been anointed by providence to run the world, they sent a message that the world was divided in two: countries that bombed other states, and countries that got bombed.
That played out in practice in Iraq (twice), Afghanistan, the Balkans, Libya, and more. However, Washington treated nuclear powers with much greater respect. As in, the U.S. did not attack them. The Libyan lesson was particularly powerful, since Muammar el -Qaddagi traded away his missile and nuclear programs for international respectability. For a time he was feted in Western capitals, but the moment he seemed vulnerable during the Arab Spring his new friends deserted him. Ultimately, he was pulled out of a storm drain in the city of Sirte and met an unpleasant end. The obvious lesson: Any dictator stupid enough to give up his nukes risked a similar fate.
Kim Jong-un evidently isn’t stupid. If there is any chance to get him to disarm, it requires convincing him that he would be safe from attack from the current and future administrations, even if an opportunity for regime change arrived. That would require more than empty words and meaningless gestures. The Singapore summit statement places the importance of a better bilateral relationship and improved regional environment before denuclearization, which North Korean officials have told me was intentional. And it makes sense though, of course, following those steps wouldn’t ensure that Pyongyang would then denuclearize.
As a matter of policy, there is no need for the Biden administration to formally and publicly acknowledge a nuclear DPRK. However, in practice Washington should accept reality and develop a policy of arms control, offering sanctions relief and other concessions to limit and, hopefully, ultimately reverse the North’s program. The final objective would be denuclearization. However, the immediate goal would be to forestall the world foreseen by the RAND Corporation and Asan Institute for Policy Studies—North Korea as a middling nuclear state, alongside India, United Kingdom, and even China.
Insisting that an existing nuclear power cannot be a nuclear power demonstrates the otherworldly character of current U.S. policy. The Biden administration should root relations with the North to current reality. Success still might prove illusive. However, at least there would be a chance for success.
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of several books, including Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World and co-author of The Korean Conundrum: America’s Troubled Relations with North and South Korea.
Image: Reuters
15. North Korea calling
Sigh... it was never not operational. The duty officer on the other side of Panmunjom simply did not have authorization to answer the phone.
Excerpts:
It is plausible that North Korea is using the re-engagement as a bargaining chip to situate itself in an advantageous position before talks resume. Putting détente on life support creates a sense of urgency in the South and the United States to accept North Korea’s terms before the window of opportunity closes. North Korea needs sanctions relief and it needs it immediately. The country has been frustrated by the lack of US concessions and it wants Washington to relax sanctions at a time when the North Korean economy is experiencing its worst crisis in 23 years. Government handouts to the North Korean people have been absent despite its efforts to set up state-run food shops to control the supply and price of rice. The China-North Korea border remains shut, and the value of foreign currencies has been in decline as North Korean businesses cannot trade with the outside.
If North Korea does not provoke hostility, despite the threats, it is in a good position to ask for something in return from South Korea and the United States. The North has made its stance clear after the reconnection of the communication lines that it wants sanctions relaxed on the exportation of minerals and the importation of refined fuels and daily essentials. Moreover, keeping North-South relations on good terms will help a pro-engagement candidate gain some advantage when the South Korean presidential election is held a little more than six months from now. Restraint will also garner support for South Korean private humanitarian aid groups to send assistance to the North and prevent international sanctions from undercutting humanitarian assistance.
Pyongyang will be upset at the bilateral drills, but it will exercise caution to prevent the situation escalating at a time of domestic vulnerability. It is still too early to rule out a virtual inter-Korean summit or a reestablishment of a liaison office in the next several months. The important question is what South Korea and the United States can offer in return for the North’s goodwill.
North Korea calling
The hotline between Pyongyang and Seoul is operational
again despite irritation at joint US military ops in the region.
Published 19 Aug 2021 14:00
Despite protests from North Korea, this week the United States and South Korea kicked off their annual joint military exercise. Korea watchers are worried that the decision to carry on with the drill spells trouble for the inter-Korean détente, which was only revived in July with the reestablishment of the communication lines. North Korea signalled its discontent by not answering calls from the South via the hotlines for more than a week, and threatened to make the United States and the South pay for their provocations.
North Korea’s irritation over the US-South Korea military exercises is to be expected. But what is surprising is its July decision to restart the inter-Korean hotlines and its admission to a series of letter exchanges with South Korean President Moon Jae-in that have been taking place since April. North Korea is well aware that Moon cannot cancel the exercises – they are important for the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) back to the South Korean military from Washington, one of Moon’s promises during the first days of his presidency. If North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un really is interested in re-engagement, why should his government threaten to cease interaction before reaping any rewards? The answer may lie in North Korea’s negotiating tactics, rather than in the threatening nature of any bilateral drills, as North Korea claims. North Korea’s behaviours around another US-South Korea exercise in March may shed some light on its current statements.
Moon and Kim began to exchange letters on the third anniversary of the April 2018 inter-Korean summit.
North Korea has long tried to persuade the United States and South Korea to cancel joint drills by leveraging the ongoing talks. But to no avail. In January this year, Kim again raised the issue of the joint drills, condemning them as a violation of the 2018 Inter-Korean Military Agreement, and making the restoration of inter-Korean détente dependent on Moon’s response. In March, Kim’s sister Kim Yo-jong threatened to shut the door on the South, pointing to the US-South Korea drills as the catalyst. Later that month, North Korea fired multiple short-range missiles to demonstrate its seriousness.
But, contrary to predictions, the North went no further with its provocations and in April, Moon and Kim began to exchange letters on the third anniversary of the April 2018 inter-Korean summit. Those letters would later lead to the resumption of the hotlines and discussions over a reopening of the joint liaison office in July. Pyongyang’s overtures to Seoul took place regardless of the fact that Moon continued to keep the OPCON transfer on track.
President Joe Biden at a media conference with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on 21 May 2021 at the White House. This week the United States and South Korea kicked off their annual joint military exercise (Cameron Smith/White House/Flickr)
North Korea’s behaviour will not be different this time, either. Just as it did in March, the North will issue threats to punish the United States and South Korea, and there is a possibility that it will test some short-range missiles. But other signs show that Pyongyang will continue to embrace détente with Seoul and exercise restraint. For instance, North Korea’s statements at the ASEAN Regional Forum in early August did not directly target Washington or Seoul. Kim Yo-jong’s threats did not mention any specific actions, which leaves the possibility of dialogue open. North Korea also pointed to the United States as the main culprit, rather than South Korea, in the joint drills and called for US troop withdrawal to give peace a chance.
It is plausible that North Korea is using the re-engagement as a bargaining chip to situate itself in an advantageous position before talks resume. Putting détente on life support creates a sense of urgency in the South and the United States to accept North Korea’s terms before the window of opportunity closes. North Korea needs sanctions relief and it needs it immediately. The country has been frustrated by the lack of US concessions and it wants Washington to relax sanctions at a time when the North Korean economy is experiencing its worst crisis in 23 years. Government handouts to the North Korean people have been absent despite its efforts to set up state-run food shops to control the supply and price of rice. The China-North Korea border remains shut, and the value of foreign currencies has been in decline as North Korean businesses cannot trade with the outside.
If North Korea does not provoke hostility, despite the threats, it is in a good position to ask for something in return from South Korea and the United States. The North has made its stance clear after the reconnection of the communication lines that it wants sanctions relaxed on the exportation of minerals and the importation of refined fuels and daily essentials. Moreover, keeping North-South relations on good terms will help a pro-engagement candidate gain some advantage when the South Korean presidential election is held a little more than six months from now. Restraint will also garner support for South Korean private humanitarian aid groups to send assistance to the North and prevent international sanctions from undercutting humanitarian assistance.
Pyongyang will be upset at the bilateral drills, but it will exercise caution to prevent the situation escalating at a time of domestic vulnerability. It is still too early to rule out a virtual inter-Korean summit or a reestablishment of a liaison office in the next several months. The important question is what South Korea and the United States can offer in return for the North’s goodwill.
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
