Quotes of the Day:

“Through research, we benefit from the insights of those within and beyond our special operations community. Research enables us to better understand the issues facing our world and explore what changes must be made across domains and capabilities to adapt for the future.” 

- CSM Shane Shorter and General Bryan Fenton, USSOCOM​, Special Operations Research Topics 2024 (Download HERE)

"Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less."

 – C.S.Lewis

“The good man does not grieve that other people do not recognize his merits. His only anxiety is lest he should fail to recognize theirs.” 

–​ Confucius

​1. Why Some Insiders Fear North Korea Will Fire Nukes This Year

2. ROK-US demonstrate enduring SOF relationship with first combined training of 2024

3. Peace activist, retired general fight for peace in Korea

4. Unification minister stresses importance of principle-based policy on N. Korea

5. Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: February

6. Over 90 pct of S. Koreans say N. Korea's denuclearization impossible

7. US’ Korea policy at critical juncture

8. YouTube election campaigns raise concerns over 'hatred business'

9. Kim Jong Un unveils nuclear ambitions

10. Over 60% of S. Koreans lack trust in US nuclear umbrella: survey

11. Korea to take part in U.S.-led space training event this month

12. N. Korea slams Seoul defense chief's anti-Pyongyang warning as 'catalyst' for clash

1. Why Some Insiders Fear North Korea Will Fire Nukes This Year

Donald Kirk interviewed many of us. Some of us disagree with the subtitle.

Why Some Insiders Fear North Korea Will Fire Nukes This Year

COUNTDOWN

Bolstered by his backers in Beijing and Moscow—where Putin is closer to him than ever—Kim Jong Un is looking to stage an attack and prepping for nuclear war.

Donald Kirk

Published Feb. 05, 2024 4:11AM EST 

The Daily Beast · February 5, 2024

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty

In his most intensive drive for power over the Korean peninsula since his father’s death more than 12 years ago, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is mounting a blitzkrieg of weapons tests and rhetoric. His goal: to convince both his own people and his enemies that he’ll risk a second Korean War to reunite North and South Korea under one-man rule.

Buoyed by his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kim is shipping artillery shells and missiles for Russian forces bogged down in Ukraine while spreading fears of a grand plan to take over South Korea. The dream is to fulfill the vision of his grandfather, regime founder Kim Il Sung, who tried and failed to conquer the South in the first Korean War.

Kim’s big talk, his decision to give up all pretense of dealing with South Korea, above all his dedication to a nuclear program capable of inflicting mass death from Northeast Asia to the U.S., has experts forecasting more and bigger weapons tests—on top of unremitting threats.

“It looks like Kim Jong Un is talking about absorption by conquest,” said Nicholas Eberstadt, long-time researcher at the American Enterprise Institute. “What’s changed since last year? We know that North Korea is preparing for nuclear war on the Korean peninsula.”

Eberstadt, talking to The Daily Beast, qualified that bold assertion by noting that South Korea, with a strong economy and a well-equipped military establishment, supported by its American ally, is far more powerful than the impoverished North Korea, whose 1.2 million troops are underfed, ill-equipped, and often used as slave labor on farms and construction projects.

“Do they really think they are ready to gamble on something like this?” asked Eberstadt. “I find it fascinating that he would gamble on six or seven decades of talk about unification by changing the party line of his grandfather,” Kim Il Sung, and his father, Kim Jong Il, “who were both talking about unification.”

Renouncing reunification of North and South Korea by negotiations and proclaiming South Korea “our principal enemy,” he ordered the destruction of the famous reunification arch that spanned the main entrance into Pyongyang from the south as a symbol of his shifting policy. The arch, which was completed in 2001, showed two women in traditional Korean dress leaning toward each other high above the highway, their outstretched hands holding an image of a map of all Korea. It was a familiar sight to visitors to the capital.

“It’s a U.S. election year and the North Korean leaders always like to make themselves heard on U.S. election years.”

— Victor Cha

The bluff and bluster, the rhetoric, the testing of ever more sophisticated weaponry prompts the critical question: Could this be the year Kim launches deadly missiles? The realization that Kim has America’s two biggest, deadliest foes, both nuclear superpowers, on his side has bolstered the argument.

“Knowing China and Russia have his back at the U.N. Security Council could embolden Kim Jong Un to even more provocative behavior,” Bruce Klingner, former CIA analyst and long-time Korea expert at the Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Beast. “North Korea could conduct its long-awaited seventh nuclear test—either of a new generation of tactical battlefield nuclear weapons or Kim’s promised ‘super-large’ weapon.”

Russia's President Vladimir Putin and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un attend a meeting at the Vostochny Сosmodrome in the far eastern Amur region, Russia, Sept. 13, 2023.

Artem Geodakyan/Pool via Reuters

China and Russia are sure to oppose all attempts at censuring or slapping new U.N. sanctions on North Korea, much less enforcing those already in place, but China’s President Xi Jinping is assumed to have dissuaded Kim from ordering a nuclear test since September 2017 when a hydrogen bomb blew up much of a mountain.

Alternatively, we may expect Kim to resort to more missile and artillery tests—and also foment “provocations” endangering “enemy” troops—“in the run-up to annual U.S.-South Korean large-scale military exercises in March,” said Klingner. In recent weeks he’s ordered the test of an underwater drone that might be tipped with a warhead, he’s sent a spy satellite circling the Earth, and he’s got a new reprocessing facility several times bigger than the old five-megawatt reactor up and running at the nuclear complex at Yongbyon 60 miles north of Pyongyang.

After North Korean gunners fired several cruise missiles off its west and east coasts, Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency said Kim supervised the launch of a new model submarine-launched cruise missile that soared over the waters between North Korea and Japan for two hours and three minutes.

Such tests have become almost routine under a regime that’s conducted more than 100 of them in the past two years. The overriding concern is that the missiles—and artillery—are growing ever more accurate and powerful as Kim looks for a pretext to finally shift from rhetoric about war to the real thing.

“The regime could also launch an ICBM over Japan and demonstrate multiple-warhead or re-entry vehicle capabilities,” Klingner observed. “To date, all ICBM launches have been on a near-vertical lofted trajectory to avoid flying over other countries.”

That estimate supports an analysis issued last year by the National Intelligence Council forecasting that Kim “most likely will employ a variety of coercive methods and threats of aggression” and “may be willing to take greater conventional military risks, believing that nuclear weapons will deter an unacceptably strong U.S. or South Korean response.”

All of which leads Victor Cha, long-time Korea analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, to observe there are “many rungs in the escalation ladder that Kim could climb before all-out war”—meaning he could look for ways to stir up fears among American policy-makers that may be forgetting him while focusing on shooting wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

A combination picture shows a missile launch, as the state media report North Korea tested its new land-to-air cruise missiles off its west coast, North Korea, Jan. 2, 2024.

KCNA via Reuters

Possibly the strongest sign that Kim cannot be totally serious when it comes to waging war, however, is that he’s selling missiles along with artillery shells and other weaponry to Russia that he might not want to spare if he were serious about preparing for attack.

“Why would he be hawking all of his ammo to Putin if he was about to go to war?” Cha asked. “This is not to say he won’t be firing a lot of missiles this year. It’s a U.S. election year and the North Korean leaders always like to make themselves heard on U.S. election years.”

Klingner agrees that the ammo sale is a clue. “While some experts speculate that Kim Jong Un has already made the strategic decision to go to war, Pyongyang would not have sent massive amounts of artillery munitions as well as dozens of its new KN-23 missiles to Russia if it were contemplating starting a war with South Korea,” he told The Daily Beast.

Rather, he said, it’s “more probable” that he’ll instigate “another tactical-level military clash along the demilitarized zone or maritime Northern Limit Line”—the line in the Yellow Sea below which North Korean vessels are banned. He may look for a quick hit, such as two attacks in the Yellow Sea in 2010 in which the South Korean frigate Cheonan was sunk by a torpedo, killing 46 sailors, and a small island off the North’s southwestern coast was shelled, killing two Korean marines and two contract workers.

It’s the likelihood of surprise as Kim looks for leverage in an American election year that arouses the worst fears—that and the possibility that an isolated shock attack could quickly escalate on the wings of Kim’s happiness over his deal with the Russians.

Then too, Kim, under severe pressure domestically to prove he’s a dynamic leader capable of relieving the poverty and nagging hunger that pervades the lives of most of the North’s 25-26 million people, may try to enhance his power and prestige by finally attacking the South.

Kim “might very well be under severe stress internally,” said David Maxwell, vice president of the Center for Asia-Pacific Strategy. “He may perceive threats from the elite and from the Korean people in the north.”

The real danger “lies not with a calculated deliberate attack,” said Maxwell, a retired army colonel who did five tours in South Korea with the special forces. “If he cannot maintain internal control and perceives the threat is unmanageable, he may believe his only option is to execute his campaign plan to unify the peninsula by force in order to ensure regime survival.”

Or perhaps Kim is following the old playbook of revving up a sense of genuine crisis, getting diplomats scurrying hither and yon, dragging the U.S., South Korea, and Japan reluctantly into yet another talkfest reminiscent of the six-party talks, including the U.S. and both Koreas as well as China, Russia and Japan. They sputtered on for nearly seven years, from 2002 to 2009 when North Korea cut them off after Kim Jong Il ordered the North’s second nuclear test in May of that year, two and a half years after the first nuclear test in October 2006.

Kim Jong Un, like his father and grandfather, “always wants to dominate the whole Korean Peninsula,” said Choi Jin-wook, president of the Center for Strategic and Cultural Studies in Seoul. “Negotiating with the U.S. and neutralizing is his goal.” Choi argues that Kim, exploiting “the sensitive point between Washington’s diplomatic reluctance and military capacity,” figures the U.S. “is reluctant to be engaged in another conflict” amid wars in Gaza and Ukraine. “Kim wants to make a provocation to negotiate with the U.S.,” said Choi.

“Provocation” is a watchword that analysts routinely predict. Two of them, Robert Carlin, a former chief of the Northeast Asia Division in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department, and Siegfried S. Hecker, former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, believe the word is not strong enough for what lies ahead.

“The situation on the Korean Peninsula is more dangerous than it has been at any time since early June 1950” when Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, ordered his troops to invade South Korea, they write in 38 North, a website that tracks North Korea from Washington. They may not know “when or how Kim plans to pull the trigger,” but say “the danger is already far beyond the routine warnings in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo about Pyongyang’s provocations,” and they don’t see the outpouring of harsh words from Pyongyang over the past year “as typical bluster.”

Pyongyang-watchers contacted by The Daily Beast, however, take a more nuanced view.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the Nampo Shipyard in North Korea in this picture released by the Korean Central News Agency on Feb. 2, 2024.

KCNA via Reuters

“At least some of this rhetoric is in response to the new allied focus on extended deterrence,” said Bruce Bechtol, former Defense Department intelligence analyst and author of numerous books and studies on North Korea’s leadership. The U.S., South Korea and Japan have formed a “nuclear consultative group” and “formalized much of the planning for how to respond to a North Korean nuclear attack,” said Bechtol. “Clearly Pyongyang sees this as a threat.”

Bechtol does not, however, “see North Korea launching a large-scale, ‘bolt-out-of-the-blue’ attack on South Korea, or on the USA using ICBM’s.” Rather, he predicted “renewed and focused testing of North Korean ballistic missile systems and perhaps even a nuclear test.”

“The North Koreans likely asked the Russians for advanced ballistic missile technology as part of the payment for the large numbers of artillery, shells, rockets, and SRBM’s that North Korea sold to Moscow,” he said. “Thus, the North Koreans will be anxious to show off that technology in 2024.”

“But an attack on the South, or the USA?” Bechtol asked. “Highly, highly unlikely,” he said, dismissing Hecker as “very smart on nuclear weapons” but “hardly an international security expert.” And, he added, “It goes without saying (but I will say it anyway) that I disagree with Carlin as well.”

At Ewha University in Seoul, Leif-Eric Easley, professor of international relations, noted that “Pyongyang has taken disproportionate steps including missile tests it says are preparations for nuclear war, while abolishing organizations for inter-Korean exchanges and labeling Seoul an enemy to be defeated.” Still, he said, “Many of Kim’s recent pronouncements are likely for domestic political consumption.”

In fact, said Easley, “South Koreans have, for many years, suspected that there could be no denuclearization and peaceful reunification as long as the Kim regime rules North Korea.” By “formalizing this in law, dashing hopes for reconciliation that had facilitated inter-Korean diplomacy, Kim’s motivation is probably not to start a war but to blame South Korea for the costly policies he employs to maintain power.”

“We should not downplay whatever comes from Kim’s mouth.”

— Kim Kisam, ex-South Korean National Intelligence Service

Evans Revere, who served for years as a senior U.S. diplomat in both Seoul and Tokyo, attributes what he calls Kim’s “latest gambit” to “four words: exasperation, fear, arrogance, and cunning.”

Kim, he said, “has found, much to his chagrin,” that South Korea’s current government, under the conservative President Yoon Seoul-yul, “is never going to play the old game of offering unilateral concessions, turning the other cheek when Pyongyang insults and threatens the South, accommodating North Korean excesses, and bending over backwards—all to keep dialogue going at almost any price.”

It’s for that reason, Revere surmised, that Kim “has decided to flip the script and declare that South Korea is not only no longer a partner for dialogue, reconciliation, and eventual reunification” but “is now an enemy state, an alien country that does not deserve to be called “Korean,” and a proper target of North Korea’s military might and its desire now to forcibly subjugate the South at the right moment.”

So doing, said Revere, Kim has “made clear that everything, including violence, is now fair game when it comes to dealing with the South.” His “more aggressive posture, missile testing, and new nuclear and conventional military moves are also driven by his concern” that U.S. relations with South Korea “are closer and stronger than ever” while trilateral cooperation among the U.S., South Korea, and Japan, “is growing quickly, U.S.-allied joint exercises are more robust and realistic than ever, and U.S. military power on and around the Korean Peninsula is robust and ready.”

Revere derides, however, what he called “the breathless tone of some experts declaring that North Korea is ‘preparing for war’”—a reference to the Hecker-Carlin article. North Korea’s “goal is survival, not suicide,” he told The Daily Beast. “The military balance is not in his favor and never will be. Kim Jong Un knows how another Korean War would end. He does not wish his “paradise” turned into an ash heap.”

Looking toward more endless talks that go nowhere, however, Revere said Kim “also knows that enough breast-beating, over-the-top-rhetoric, and threats will give the U.S. and its allies pause.”

US military Stryker armored vehicles participate in a joint live fire exercise between South Korea and the US at a military training field in Pocheon on Jan. 4, 2024.

Jung Yeon-je/AFP via Getty Images

He’s “giddy with confidence,” said Revere, because of “flourishing ties with Russia, Moscow’s payment for North Korean weapons, and visions of getting Russian technical support for its missile, space, and other programs.” Russia and China also “provide reliable cover” in the U.N. Security Council, “shielding him from efforts to impose new UNSC sanctions.”

Just as important, as intimated by Hecker and Carlin, is that “North Korea’s survival skills do not fail to impress,” said Revere. “Kim’s warlike rhetoric has convinced some American critics of Biden administration policy, who once argued that Pyongyang’s moves were purely defensive and North Korea only wanted better relations with the U.S., that North Korea is now on the path to an offensive war.”

Kim “must be smiling at his good fortune in enlisting the support of this key U.S. constituency in making the case that it is Washington, and not Pyongyang, that is at fault,” said Revere.

Moon Chung-in, a notable professor who advised the previous liberal South Korean administration on dealing with North Korea, has long espoused dialogue with the North. He disagrees with the rather extreme views of Hecker and Carlin but worries about incidents resulting from errors and miscalculations.

“War by plan is not imminent,” he told a forum at the Korea Society in New York. “Naval clashes can occur any time. North Korea has 12,000 artillery pieces along the demilitarized zone. We should come up with measures for stability and reducing risks.”

Bruce Bennett, veteran Korea analyst at the RAND Corporation, sees the aggressive policies of South Korea’s conservative President Yoon Seok-yul, also as challenging Kim to react harshly.

Yoon, after enthusiastically approving joint war games with American troops after his leftist predecessor, Moon Jae-in, stopped them, “has threatened major retaliation against any North Korean attack,” said Bennett. “Since Kim wants to undermine the U.S. alliance, Kim may try to further this objective by doing some form of limited attack, hoping for an escalated retaliation against which he will escalate, hoping to make Yoon’s actions appear reckless.”

The risks for Kim are high. “One problem Kim faces is identifying an initial attack that is sufficiently limited and/or plausibly deniable,” said Bennett. South Koreans “would find a deadly North Korean missile attack too extreme, likely yielding the opposite of the effect Kim wants.

Bennett cites any number of scenarios for a North Korean response short of all-out war. “Kim might try a non-lethal missile attack, such as firing a North Korean theater missile at an uninhabited island,” he said. Or Kim “could try a special forces attack, hoping that his personnel would not get caught. A third alternative would be a major cyber attack”—crippling a bank or disrupting the South Korean power grid.

“A North Korean attack becomes far more dangerous once Kim roughly doubles his current nuclear weapon and ICBM capabilities,” Bennett said, “but that is several years off.”

Markus Garlauskas, at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, citing North Korea’s “history of limited violence,” believes the U.S. and South Korea need “to have the capability of quick retaliation below the level of full-scale war.” It’s “in that space between provocation of war,” he said at the Korea Society forum, “where we should be focusing.”

The Chinese are believed to have been dissuading North Korea from staging another nuclear test. For all his talk, Kim has held off on what would be the North’s seventh nuclear test—its first since September 2017. “They were definitely talking about concerns about a nuclear test,” said Susan Thornton, a former State Department official, now at Brookings. Moreover, “They have been unhappy about the weapons sales to Russia.” Still, she said, “they were also unhappy about the U.S. approach to North Korea and think there should be discussions going.”

Bottom line: Ankit Pandit, nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, expects Kim “to keep up his missile exercises and developmental tests this year.” South Korea and the U.S. “should remain vigilant to possible limited attacks short of all-out war, too,” he warned. “Kim appears especially confident in the current context.”

There’s no denying Kim may stage an attack when least expected, as when North Korea invaded the South in June 1950. Kim Kisam, formerly with South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, told The Daily Beast, “We should not downplay whatever comes from his mouth.”

The North Korean leader is “now equipped with nukes and has piled up plenty of vehicles,” said Kim Kisam. “Highly likely, he maintains dozens of underground tunnels for surprise attacks. The more he feels his situation is dire, the more he’s tempted to attack the South.”

The Daily Beast · February 5, 2024

2. ROK-US demonstrate enduring SOF relationship with first combined training of 2024

Watch a news video of the training from Arirang News at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQJF7tbzwfY

ROK-US demonstrate enduring SOF relationship with first combined training of 2024

https://www.dvidshub.net/news/462987/rok-us-demonstrate-enduring-sof-relationship-with-first-combined-training-2024

Photo By Pfc. Yeonung Kim | Soldiers assigned to 3rd Brigade, Republic of Korea Special Warfare Command and U.S.... read more

SOUTH KOREA

01.31.2024

Story by Maj. Christopher Mesnard 

Special Operations Command Korea  

The end of January 2024 marked the completion of the new year’s first Joint Combined Exchange Training events conducted by U.S. Special Forces Command Korea aligned units. During the month, U.S. Navy Naval Special Warfare Command and U.S. Army Special Operations Command personnel partnered with their Republic of Korea counterparts, participating in various special operations forces-unique training events that enhanced both nations’ capacity to respond to a variety of complex situations.

The NSW team partnered with ROK Army Soldiers from the 701st Special Airborne Regiment and personnel from the ROK Special Operations Unit. Together, they honed their ability to conduct advanced reconnaissance techniques, use specialized and off-the-shelf capabilities, and knowledge of cover and concealment techniques through in-class and practical exercises.

At a separate location, U.S. Army Special Forces personnel assigned to the 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) trained with their counterparts from the ROK Special Warfare Command’s 3rd Brigade. The two-week-long training focused on mission planning, a marksmanship course, and special reconnaissance with the intent of calling for simulated long-range fire missions as a joint fires observer.

Training iterations like these build trust and confidence between ROK and U.S. SOF personnel should they ever need to respond to mutual defense requirements. During both teams’ training curriculums personnel focused on the ability to operate, communicate, and survive as cohesive units in austere environments.

The missions of SOF historically span all phases of competition. As a means to meet security needs before they arise, both the ROK and U.S. regularly invest in the people who can conduct unique special operations missions. These credible networks of people enable an integrated deterrence posture that complicates the decisions of those who may seek belligerent actions to destabilize the region while also posturing both nations to prevail should deterrence fail.

3. Peace activist, retired general fight for peace in Korea

I recall Lt Gen Leaf as Colonel Leaf, the Deputy J3 at USFK in the 1990s when he was the regular briefer describing the north Korean threat and how we would defeat it.

So this seems quite a 180 for the General. Needless to say I am not in agreement with their approach to north Korea. I do support diplomacy but only if we take a clear headed approach based on ana accurate understanding of the nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim family regime and act accordingly. We cannot apply traditional international relations theory or seek "win-win" approaches to the regime's use of political warfare. We need to use diplomacy to outplay the regime while sustaining a position of strength through sustained readiness training.

Peace activist, retired general fight for peace in Korea

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2024/02/04/hawaii-news/peace-activist-retired-general-fight-for-peace-in-korea/

• By Kevin Knodell  Feb. 4, 2024
•        
• 
  
• MARCO GARCIA / SPECIAL TO THE STAR-ADVERTISER
• Peace activist Christine Ahn, left, and retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Dan Leaf are working together to attain a peace agreement with North Korea. The pair met Thursday at the Pacific Club to discuss their work.
• 
  
• ASSOCIATED PRESS
• About 1,000 South Koreans rallied to denounce North Korea’s first nuclear warhead test in Taegu, South Korea, on Oct. 14, 2006. The banners read “Stop nuclear provocation by the North Korea.”
• 
  
• ASSOCIATED PRESS
• This photo provided by the North Korean government shows what it says is a test firing of a new anti- air missile in North Korea on Friday.

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The Korean War, which began in 1950 when the Soviet Union-backed North invaded the American-backed South, was halted by an armistice in 1953. But with no formal peace, the conflict never truly ended. Punctuated by periodic border violence, the stakes have raised significantly since North Korea tested its first nuclear warhead in 2006.

Today, as tensions boil and test missiles fly across the Korean Peninsula, an unlikely partnership in Hawaii between a longtime activist and a retired general is aimed at taking a different approach to bringing an end to the conflict.

Christine Ahn, an activist who was born in South Korea and immigrated to the United States, made international headlines in 2015 when her Honolulu-based organization Women Cross DMZ rallied 30 women to cross the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.

Dan Leaf is a retired Air Force general who once served as acting commander of all U.S. forces in the Pacific and went on to serve as director of Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Waikiki.

On face value, the two Hawaii residents seem as though they would have nothing in common. But Leaf said, “Step zero to any real progress on denuclearization, human rights, human conditions — anything really — is to achieve the peace agreement and end to the technical war. We come at that from decidedly different perspectives, but we meet right there.”

Ahn added, “I think we’ve seen that (there is) progress … when some kind of peace process is underway.” She said that such progress can include human rights issues, or regarding more cooperation between the North and South or between America and North Korea.

In Hawaii, North Korea’s missile program became a household issue on Jan. 13, 2018, when a false-alarm missile alert went out to cellphones across the state. The alert came during tensions as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and then-U.S. President Donald Trump traded threats and insults, with Trump boasting he would unleash “fire and fury” on the Korean Peninsula.

Tensions continue to escalate. In 2022, North Korea launched 95 ballistic and other missiles — more than any previous year — in a historic show of force. It was an election year, and South Koreans voted out then- President Moon Jae-in — who favored a conciliatory approach to relations with the North and sought to formally end the war — in favor of the conservative Yoon Suk Yeol, who favors a more hard-nosed approach.

The U.S. along with South Korea and Japan have boosted military ties in a show of force against the North.

But behind the scenes Ahn and Leaf have used their contacts across the worlds of politics, defense and diplomacy to lobby American officials and facilitate back-channel talks with North Korean officials in an effort to bring down the temperature.

“I’m a combat veteran. I’m not one of those ‘oh, what I did was wrong’ types; I don’t think what I did was wrong,” said Leaf. “But from my service in combat, I do know that war should be the last choice and only when all the other choices are even more awful.”

The way forward

Leaf said the U.S. needs to find ways to reestablish engagement with the North if security is the genuine goal.

“There needs to be a stated element of U.S. government policy that we’re seeking peace agreement — that is a nonhostile avenue for North Korean engagement,” he said. “That doesn’t take away from deterrence or the demand for denuclearization.”

Ahn and Leaf stress they don’t believe formally signing a peace agreement would end tensions. They argue it would be the first step in a generations-long reconciliation process.

Still, the prospect of reconciliation with the North Korean regime is a hard sell to some. Ahn’s activism in particular has been criticized in corners of both the U.S. and South Korea.

In an opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal last year, Ji Seong-ho, a conservative member of South Korea’s Parliament who was born in North Korea and escaped in 2006, called Ahn a “phony” peace activist and alleged she was driven by a desire to see the U.S. and South Korea lose influence to North Korea and China more than any commitment to peace.

Ahn responds, “The idea that if you are for peace, that you become an apologist for the regime, is a very tired old trope … I think we can all agree that this system needs to change. But the question is, how do you change the system? And so this is where I’ve had numerous debates with defectors.”

But Ahn said she understands why some survivors of North Korean abuses can be skeptical or even hostile to the idea of making peace with a regime they believe must face justice. When it comes to defectors whose traumatic experiences lead them to be suspicious of people like her, Ahn said, she has “enormous empathy for their situation.”

The North Korean refugee community has people with varied experiences that have led them to different points of view, and while a small number of them have pursued politics and public activism, many more prefer privacy after their ordeal as they try to integrate into the outside world.

Ahn said she also has friends in the community who support a peace agreement, in no small part because they hope to see relatives again.

Forcible returns

In December, a North Korean human rights conference held in Hawaii brought in U.S. and South Korean ambassadors for human rights in North Korea, along with several outspoken activists. A major talking point during the conference was reaction to the forced repatriation of several hundred North Korean refugees by the Chinese government in October. Escapees that return can face imprisonment, torture and in some cases execution.

U.S. Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Julie Turner told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that “calling upon the (People’s Republic of China) not to forcibly return North Koreans, and also helping to create pathways for those refugees to get to safe third countries is probably one of the more concrete ways that we can help advance the welfare and dignity of the North Korean people now.”

While deeply critical of Pyongyang, Turner echoes several of Leaf and Ahn’s arguments on a need for diplomacy, saying, “I want to leave the door open to cooperation-type efforts, even if that’s through proxy governments to work on issues that maybe the North Korean government doesn’t see as hyper confrontational.” She said governments like Vietnam, Cambodia, Mongolia and others have helped relay messages and shape the conversation.

During the conference in Hawaii, Leaf met with Turner and praised what he saw as her knowledge and good-faith efforts to promote the welfare of North Korean escapees.

But he was critical of some other participants in the conference and its overall tone. He singled out Morse Tan, dean of the law school at the evangelical Liberty University and a former diplomatic appointee in the Trump administration, who in an impassioned speech called for the arrest of Kim and the overthrow of his regime.

Leaf, an independent, said his concerns weren’t motivated by any partisan concerns and noted, “I’m interested in things that work; what was described isn’t going to work. Being angry about about Kim Jong Un and speaking loudly while carrying no stick isn’t going to help anyone.”

Using sanctions

The U.S. and its allies have tried to use sanctions to weaken the North Korean regime in hopes that it will give up its nuclear program or collapse in on itself.

Ahn singled out sanctions passed in 2017 by the U.N. Security Council targeting North Korea’s civilian economy as especially unhelpful.

“Why can’t we look at all these other factors that are actually making the conditions in North Korea unbearable, and that includes these kinds of failed policies of sanctions,” she said, in particular noting a ban on textile exports. “These officials claim to care about these people, but prove it. The policies that they’re advocating for are actually worsening the human rights conditions in North Korea.”

Turner defended sanctions, arguing that “the North Korean government is spending billions of dollars to advance its weapons program right now. If it wanted to, it could take that money and spend it to support the welfare of its people. Governments are supposed to serve the people. And here we have a government who is sending workers overseas who live and work in exploitative conditions that amount to forced labor.”

She added that “we are very focused on engaging with other governments on enforcement efforts, educating other governments on (North Korea’s) tactics for evading sanctions, and needing the cooperation and partnership of that global community is really important in terms for the sanctions to have the kind of full impact that we’re looking for.”

Critics of sanctions have argued that restricting North Korea’s ability to trade legally has only made the country embed itself into the world of transnational crime. North Korea has used hackers to steal money across the globe, and the country’s intelligence agencies have become deeply involved in drug smuggling and counterfeiting schemes to bring black market money into its economy. Meanwhile, its missile program has continued to advance with seemingly no impact.

Lack of information

Lee Shin-wha, a longtime international relations professor at Korea University who became South Korea’s ambassador-at-large on North Korean human rights issues in 2022, told the Star-Advertiser that a lack of information about what actually happens in the North is a major challenge for knowing what works.

“Since we don’t know exactly what is going on there, there are always controversies. And because of those controversies, there is always political division,” said Lee. “Within South Korea, there are some big debates over what we should do: engagement or accountability? But I think we need both.”

She said she’s interested in exploring more targeted sanctions on individual North Korean officials and agencies that would call out human rights abusers, while still allowing aid and forms of commerce that ordinary North Koreans can benefit from. However, she said, to make that effective, policymakers need a better idea of what’s going on in the North.

“That can be a combination of defectors’ accounts, (intelligence) and satellite imagery, and also some kind of comparative analysis with similar crises,” said Lee.

But Leaf and Ahn argue that part of the problem is that North Korea is treated as fundamentally distinct and uniquely isolated. Leaf compared American approaches to Vietnam and North Korea, pointing out that in the case of Vietnam, human rights has always been a point of contention.

“That didn’t stop us from 20 years of hard work to normalize relations and get to a strategic partnership, a comprehensive partnership, that is frankly amazing,” said Leaf. “Throughout that time, there’s been disagreement on many fronts, there have been difficult discussions on Agent Orange and the bombing and all the hard things of war. But we put the future as the priority, not the past and continue to discuss improvements in human rights.”

Ahn said there have been opportunities to have those conversations in the past. “When you have a situation where they don’t feel totally threatened, backed against the wall, that there actually is a process for them to engage that, they will. But we have to set the table, we have to create the conditions to do that,” Ahn said.

New stance

Recent developments could make that even more challenging.

In late December, Kim announced a “new stand on the North-South relations and the reunification policy.”

Pyongyang now sees the South as merely another foreign state, eliminating previous ideas of inter-Korean relations based on pan-nationalism.

Kim said, “South Korea at present is nothing but a hemiplegic malformation and colonial subordinate state whose politics is completely out of order, whole society tainted by Yankee culture, and defense and security totally dependent on the U.S.”

Throughout January, North Korean forces fired rockets and artillery into South Korean territory several times.

Leaf said that the turn by North Korea is “dangerous” and that the escalations are worrying. But at the same time, he said, North Korea’s recognition of South Korea’s government potentially opens the door to serious diplomacy and talks between the two to set the stage for finally establishing a formal peace agreement.

4. Unification minister stresses importance of principle-based policy on N. Korea

Principles and values are two of the keys to unification.

Also, the Minister recognizes the potential challenges from internal instability in north Korea.

Excerpts:

"Kim Jong-un is reversing the policy that his predecessors had pushed for," the minister said. "North Korea is a regime based on hereditary succession of power. ... we cannot rule out the possibility of Kim's actions bringing about an ideological vacuum."

The minister said North Korea will likely put the blame of the internal confusion on external factors, calling for strengthened deterrence against North Korea's possible military provocations.

In regard to North Korea's economic and social situations, Kim said more North Koreans have heavily relied on markets for their livelihoods amid the faltering food rationing system.

Unification minister stresses importance of principle-based policy on N. Korea

The Korea Times · February 5, 2024

Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho speaks in a roundtable session with the leaders of four policy research institutions, including the Institute for National Unification, the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, the Institute for National Security Strategy and the Korea National Defense University, at a hotel, in Seoul, Feb. 5. Yonhap

South Korea's point man on North Korea emphasized on Monday the importance of adhering to a principle-based policy at a time when the North is seeking to dial up tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho's remarks came as Pyongyang has been ramping up tensions on the Korean Peninsula in the new year — an election year for South Korea and the United States — with weapons tests and harshly worded rhetoric.

During a year-end party meeting, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un defined inter-Korean ties as relations between "two states hostile to each other" and vowed to "suppress" South Korea's whole territory in the event of a contingency.

"At times like this, the government will push for a firm and principle-based policy on unification and inter-Korean affairs that is rooted in Article three and Article four of the Constitution," Minister Kim said in a roundtable session with the leaders of four policy research institutions, including the Institute for National Unification and the Korea National Diplomatic Academy.

Article three in South Korea's Constitution stipulates that the territory of the Republic of Korea consists of the Korean Peninsula and its adjacent islands, while Article four calls for seeking unification and carrying out a policy of "peaceful unification" based on the "basic free and democratic order."

Kim said the government will closely monitor possible changes in the North Korean regime following its shift on inter-Korean affairs after the North Korean leader declared there is no point in seeking unification with the South.

As part of such a move, the North Korean leader ordered the removal of symbols of inter-Korean reconciliation, calling them "the remnants of the past era," including what he called an "eyesore" monument in Pyongyang built to mark late founder Kim Il-sung's blueprint for federation system-based unification.

"Kim Jong-un is reversing the policy that his predecessors had pushed for," the minister said. "North Korea is a regime based on hereditary succession of power. ... we cannot rule out the possibility of Kim's actions bringing about an ideological vacuum."

The minister said North Korea will likely put the blame of the internal confusion on external factors, calling for strengthened deterrence against North Korea's possible military provocations.

In regard to North Korea's economic and social situations, Kim said more North Koreans have heavily relied on markets for their livelihoods amid the faltering food rationing system.

The minister cited a report the unification ministry will release for the first time Tuesday, which is based on interviews with more than 6,300 North Korean defectors over the past ten years.

"The longer North Koreans stayed under the Kim Jong-un's rule before fleeing the North, the more they had a negative view about the regime," Kim said.

Nearly 60 percent of surveyed North Korean defectors said they are dissatisfied with the Kim Jong-un regime, and more than 50 percent of them oppose the hereditary power succession of the so-called Paektu bloodline, he added. (Yonhap)

The Korea Times · February 5, 2024

5. Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: February

Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: February

KOREA

https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/02/02/biden-administration-foreign-policy-tracker-february-3/#Korea

Anthony Ruggiero

Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program Senior Director and Senior Fellow

Trending Very Negative

Previous Trend:

Very Negative

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui visited Russia in mid-January, continuing the exchange of high-level envoys between the two countries. After Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited last July, Kim Jong Un traveled to Russia in September. Pyongyang has since provided Moscow with large amounts of military aid for its war against Ukraine, while Russia reportedly assisted North Korea with its first successful November military satellite launch. North Korean state media said Russian President Vladimir Putin told Choe that he is willing to visit North Korea soon.

In early January, the White House said Russia began using North Korean-provided ballistic missiles late last year. John Kirby, the National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications, threatened consequences for the arms transfers. The U.S. Mission to the United Nations issued a strongly worded statement, but neither Moscow nor Pyongyang blinked. The State Department issued symbolic sanctions that will do nothing to stop the Russia-DPRK relationship or the arms transfers.

North Korea is also bolstering its ties with China, on which Pyongyang relies for sanctions evasion. In late January, North Korea hosted a delegation led by a Chinese vice foreign minister. Last September, Chinese Vice Premier Liu Guozhong attended the 75th anniversary of North Korea’s founding.

The United States, Japan, and the Republic of Korea continued their trilateral engagement following the August 2023 Trilateral Leaders’ Summit at Camp David. In January, senior State Department officials met with their Japanese and ROK counterparts to discuss Indo-Pacific issues and North Korea.

6. Over 90 pct of S. Koreans say N. Korea's denuclearization impossible

​You hardly ever see polls this definitive. But I think the 90% are right - as long as Kim Jong Un and the Kim family regime remains in power there will be no denuclearization.

Over 90 pct of S. Koreans say N. Korea's denuclearization impossible | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by Yi Wonju · February 5, 2024

SEOUL, Feb. 5 (Yonhap) -- Nine out of 10 South Koreans are skeptical about the possibility of North Korea abandoning its nuclear program, a survey showed Monday, as the reclusive country continues to advance its nuclear weapons and missile programs.

According to the Gallup Korea poll of 1,043 adults, commissioned by the Chey Institute for Advanced Studies, 91 percent replied that the North's denuclearization was "impossible."

Of them, 41.4 percent considered denuclearization to be "not possible at all," while 49.7 percent said it was not possible.

In last year's poll, 77.6 percent of the respondents said they believed North's denuclearization was impossible.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C) visits the Nampho Dockyard building warships in South Pyongan Province, in this undated photo released by the North's Korean Central News Agency on Feb. 2, 2024. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

In the latest survey, 60.8 percent said it was unlikely for the United States to demonstrate nuclear deterrence on the Korean Peninsula in the event of a contingency at the risk of its own mainland being attacked by missiles, such as intercontinental ballistic missiles or submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

Some 39.3 percent of the respondents said it was likely for Washington to exercise extended deterrence to defend Seoul despite the risk.

The survey was conducted from Dec. 15 last year to Jan. 10 through one-on-one in-person interviews.

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

julesyi@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by Yi Wonju · February 5, 2024

7. US’ Korea policy at critical juncture

Key points:

It is crucial for the US and the international community to not solely see the North Korean nuclear issue as a problem bound to the Korean Peninsula or one South Korea should handle alone.

What South Koreans badly want is firm deterrence mechanisms against this nuclear threat before choosing a North Korea policy.

In this sense, South Koreans are thankful that the Washington Declaration and the Camp David trilateral summit upgraded the extended deterrence and opened the way for security cooperation among democratic nations.

If this does not suffice, the two allies need to study every necessary security measure, including redeployment of US tactical nukes, Korean-made nuclear-powered submarines and a nuclear-armed South Korea. Deciding policy lines comes next.

Lastly, I would like to ask Gallucci to remember that the 1994 Agreed Framework he initiated as the chief negotiator ultimately failed to stop the North’s die-hard nuclear ambitions.

Mon, Feb 05, 2024 page8

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2024/02/05/2003813092?utm

US’ Korea policy at critical juncture

• By Tae-woo Kim
• 
  
•  
•  
• While repeatedly threatening South Korea’s total destruction, North Korea has fired several cruise missiles in waters off its east coast and conducted a test launch of a solid-fuel, hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile on Jan. 14. If North Korea’s claims are accurate, it must be a maneuverable re-entry vehicle with a warhead capable of locating its target in the terminal phase. Throughout 2022, North Korea launched 103 missiles. Last year, it shot about 60 projectiles, including three intercontinental ballistic missiles.
• The reason for North Korea’s nuclear blackmail is its unchanging goal of coercing Seoul and eventual communist unification of South Korea. It desperately develops nukes capable of striking the contiguous US and Guam to neutralize the US-South Korea alliance — the biggest obstacle to communist reunification.
• Put differently, it wants the US to abandon South Korea out of fear. Meanwhile, China continues its military threats against Taiwan since its election on Jan. 13 of pro-US Democratic Progressive Party candidate Vice President William Lai (賴清德).
• Against this backdrop of heightened tensions over the Taiwan Strait and on the Korean Peninsula, former US assistant secretary of state for Political Military Affairs Robert Gallucci in his Jan. 11 article in The National Interest warned of the possibility of nuclear war in South Asia and suggested normalizing US-North Korea relations and setting aside the North Korean denuclearization and sanctions agenda. In South Korea, there are also “progressive” perspectives arguing to appease and assist North Korea for peace rather than quarreling over nukes or imposing sanctions.
• Surely, it is okay for Seoul to choose a conciliatory or firm stance toward the North as long as it is based on solid security.
• However, a conciliatory approach without security assurance would be problematic, as a mistaken policy in this nuclear era could mean the disappearance of South Korea.
• If Gallucci suggests peaceful relations with North Korea as a way to obtain security, he has gotten the equation completely wrong. If his argument represents the majority view among US policymakers, the agonies of countries hinging their fate on US alliances would only deepen.
• Some South Korean experts carefully scour the whole picture of a “Neo-Cold War” confrontation in which “rogue coalition” countries and their proxies intimately collaborate with one another to forcibly change the “status quo.” They take heed of the causal relations among armed conflicts in global hot spots such as Ukraine, Palestine, southern Lebanon and the Bab el Mandeb Strait, closely watching North Korea’s militaristic involvement everywhere.
• They worry about the West’s lack of military preparedness and decisiveness needed to confront rogue states wielding formidable, long-sharpened prowess. They watch in disquiet as the US continues to show reluctance to respond robustly to those on the rampage to destroy the international order in the Middle East.
• Understandably, South Korean pundits are extremely sensitive to what messages this sends North Korea. For example, the rogue state might perceive policy suggestions like Gallucci’s as evidence of a “fading America.” It might believe its nuclear gamble is succeeding in scaring Americans, and that Washington is beginning to accept it as a legitimate nuclear state. Such a scenario would invigorate North Korea to accelerate bombmaking and persist in destabilizing actions, rather than restrain them. It might feel tempted to start a war, doubting the credibility of the US’ defense commitment to South Korea.
• Given that North Korean nukes would immediately become priority targets for US-South Korea forces if a war breaks out, North Korea is likely to face a “use-it-now-or-lose-it” dilemma. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un must have tried to justify in advance such a pre-emptive use of nukes, which is why he openly redefined South Korea as the “the number one enemy state.” All these imply a high likelihood of first use of nukes in the early stages of a conflict. This is why a nuclear Armageddon might start in the Korean Peninsula in a worst-case scenario.
• It is crucial for the US and the international community to not solely see the North Korean nuclear issue as a problem bound to the Korean Peninsula or one South Korea should handle alone.
• What South Koreans badly want is firm deterrence mechanisms against this nuclear threat before choosing a North Korea policy.
• In this sense, South Koreans are thankful that the Washington Declaration and the Camp David trilateral summit upgraded the extended deterrence and opened the way for security cooperation among democratic nations.
• If this does not suffice, the two allies need to study every necessary security measure, including redeployment of US tactical nukes, Korean-made nuclear-powered submarines and a nuclear-armed South Korea. Deciding policy lines comes next.
• Lastly, I would like to ask Gallucci to remember that the 1994 Agreed Framework he initiated as the chief negotiator ultimately failed to stop the North’s die-hard nuclear ambitions.
• A policy failure at this time would be incomparably deadlier than in 1994. If the US’ incorrect choice of North Korea policy or strategy provokes the North’s tragic miscalculations, policymakers or experts like Gallucci might simply express regret and say, “Oops, it did not work as I thought.” At the same time, a Northeast Asian state that achieved both liberal democracy and prosperity by allying with the US might disappear from the map.
• Above all, most South Koreans, remembering the value of the 70-year-old alliance that has made South Korea’s survival and economic miracle possible, earnestly expect a “return of a strong America” this year.
• Tae-woo Kim is senior research fellow of nuclear security research at the Korea Institute for Military Affairs.

8. YouTube election campaigns raise concerns over 'hatred business'

YouTube seems to be one of the most important platforms in Korea.

YouTube election campaigns raise concerns over 'hatred business'

donga.com

Posted February. 05, 2024 07:38,

Updated February. 05, 2024 07:38

YouTube election campaigns raise concerns over 'hatred business'. February. 05, 2024 07:38. by 김은지 기자, 이승우 기자 eunji@donga.com.

One after another, election campaigns on YouTube are unfolding as candidates for the 22nd general election announce their candidacy and recruit party members through the platform. This trend has emerged alongside a growing number of prospective candidates who gain recognition via political YouTube channels popular among staunch supporters of ruling and opposition parties. However, concerns have been raised regarding the dissemination of conspiracy theories and false information, as well as the proliferation of hostile comments toward opposing camps, potentially exacerbating extreme political polarization.

Former First Deputy Director of the National Intelligence Service, Park Seon-won, the 4th candidate recruited by the Democratic Party of Korea for the upcoming general election, made an appearance on the YouTube channel 'Park Si-young TV' on Jan. 29. During his appearance, he commented on the attack on Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myeong, saying, "I believe this was not a one-person incident. How could such a crime occur without someone orchestrating it?" He further remarked, "While the government may seem to prioritize the ROK-US alliance on the surface, a closer examination reveals that it is leveraging this alliance to benefit Japan."

Former Namyangju Mayor Cho Gwang-han, a preliminary candidate for the Gyeonggi Namyangju constituency who joined the People Power Party in September of last year as the ruling party's 'first talent recruit', made an appearance on the conservative YouTube channel 'Lee Bong-gyu TV' on Jan. 31. During the broadcast, he said, “The conclusion I have come to is that Representative Lee Jae-myung is a person who should not even be a village chief. The public is too lenient regarding the true nature of him. He is a dangerous individual.”

Experts express concerns that the 'YouTube election campaign' trend might foster hate politics and give rise to what they term as 'hate business.' Cho Jin-man, a professor of political science and diplomacy at Duksung Women's University, said, “It's a vicious cycle where political polarization intensifies as individuals who align with the ideologies and preferences of political YouTube channels take center stage. It's a form of 'hate business' that consolidates supporters by presenting conspiracies as factual insights within the political landscape.”

한국어

donga.com

9. Kim Jong Un unveils nuclear ambitions

But we have always known Kim's nuclear ambitions. Now perhaps everyone will get on board and we can get on board dealing with the regime as it really is and not as we would wish it to be.

Kim Jong Un unveils nuclear ambitions

donga.com

Posted February. 03, 2024 07:24,

Updated February. 03, 2024 07:24

Kim Jong Un unveils nuclear ambitions. February. 03, 2024 07:24. by Jin-Woo Shin niceshin@donga.com.

In a revelation last September, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un introduced the 'Kim Kun Ok Hero Submarine,' saying, “Once armed with nuclear weapons, it transforms into a nuclear submarine.' Despite Kim Jong Un's confidence, a submarine armed with nuclear weapons doesn't necessarily meet the criteria for a true nuclear submarine. The designation of a proper nuclear submarine should be reserved for those utilizing a 'nuclear propulsion system.'

The 'Kim Kun Ok Hero Submarine,' initially revealed its hull partially in 2019, took a substantial four years to fully materialize. Kim Jong Un likely sought to instill a sense of threat into this traditional (diesel) submarine. He insisted that this new vessel could carry up to ten tactical nuclear missiles, emphasizing that the act of 'arming with nuclear weapons' qualifies it as a nuclear submarine.

However, Kim Jong Un also unveiled his ambition for “an advanced power system,” expressing a desire to develop a nuclear-powered submarine. In North Korea, the declarations of the– Kim Jong Un, a.k.a. “supreme dignity,” carry the weight of the constitution. His public commitment to building a nuclear-powered submarine implies the mobilization of human and material resources by North Korean authorities. At that time, South Korean intelligence agencies speculated that Kim Jong Un would “present advanced plans for a nuclear-powered submarine within six months.” This meant that Kim would do so for the sake of responsibility, even if they were deemed bluster or exaggeration.

Surprisingly, less than six months later, on Sunday, Kim Jong Un declared an 'important conclusion' regarding the execution plan for constructing a nuclear-powered submarine. This was interpreted to confirm detailed plans and schedules for constructing such a submarine.

A nuclear-powered submarine draws power from a nuclear reactor, operating more ‘covertly’ than diesel-powered counterparts as it doesn't need to surface frequently. These submarines are also larger in size. Among U.S. nuclear-powered submarines, the Los Angeles class weighs 6,900 tons, and the largest Ohio class weighs 16,000 tons. Nuclear-powered submarines are renowned for their speed and the ability to carry various nuclear weapons, earning them the title of the pinnacle of nuclear weaponry.

The fortunate part of this situation is that Kim Jong Un's claimed 'important conclusion' is likely a bluff. South Korean key officials assert that “North Korea hasn't secured crucial technologies for the core of a nuclear-powered submarine,” emphasizing that it remains “Kim Jong Un's hopeful vision.” It would be a long way for North Korea to present itself as a country possessing nuclear-powered submarines on the world stage, considering that only six countries currently hold such technology.

However, the immediate concern lies in the high-risk variables at hand. Kim Jong Un, actively providing military support to Russia, a nation known for its nuclear submarines, may overtly request submarine blueprints. Some observations suggest that Russian President Vladimir Putin may visit North Korea in the first half of the year. U.S. and South Korean authorities are closely monitoring the possibility of North Korea stealing nuclear submarine technology. North Korea targeted major South Korean shipbuilding companies with hacking attempts last year, indicating an interest in nuclear submarine technology.

If North Korea indeed possesses nuclear-powered submarine technology, it would dramatically alter the military landscape of the Korean Peninsula. Kim Jong Un, emphasizing “the urgent need of the era for the navy to be armed with nuclear weapons,” would likely perceive the accomplishment of this task as imminent. In South Korea, there may be a growing domestic demand for the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines. The Korean Peninsula could become a focal point of a military arms race, with the keyword being nuclear submarines."

한국어

donga.com

10. Over 60% of S. Koreans lack trust in US nuclear umbrella: survey

Not a good sign. The NCG has its work cut out for it.

Over 60% of S. Koreans lack trust in US nuclear umbrella: survey

koreaherald.com · by Ji Da-gyum · February 5, 2024

Respondents say they don't see current 3-way cooperation helping to relieve NK nuclear threat

By Ji Da-gyum

Published : Feb. 5, 2024 - 15:33

South Korea and the United States conducted a combined aerial exercise in conjunction with the deployment of US B-1B strategic bombers over South Korea on March 19, 2023.

Over 60 percent of South Koreans are skeptical that Washington would use its nuclear weapons in the event of a Korean Peninsula contingency, according to a survey conducted by the Chey Institute for Advanced Studies on Monday.

The research institute in Seoul, named after SK Group founder Chey Jong-hyun, released the findings of an in-person interview survey conducted on 1,043 Koreans from Dec. 15 last year to Jan. 10 this year, in collaboration with Gallup Korea.

According to the survey results, 60.8 percent of respondents provided a negative response when questioned about their belief in the US employing its "nuclear deterrent" to protect South Korea in the event of a contingency on the Korean Peninsula, even if it involved the risk of potential nuclear attacks from North Korea against the US mainland.

The question's wording included the assumption that North Korea had attained the capabilities to target the US mainland through the development of missile technologies.

The institute asked the same question in the previous survey conducted between November and December 2022. The positive response was 12 percentage points higher at that time, and 2.6 percentage points higher than those who said the US would not use nuclear weapons.

On growing skepticism toward US nuclear deterrence, Park In-kook, president of the Chey Institute for Advanced Studies, said the observed changes are presumed to reflect not a decline in our citizens' trust in the US but rather heightened concerns related to North Korea's advancement in nuclear weapons, its increasingly provocative stance, and anxiety over the upcoming US presidential election.

Graph by The Korea Herald

The survey results additionally revealed that 63.4 percent of respondents answered negatively when questioned about whether strengthened trilateral security cooperation among South Korea, the US and Japan through a Camp David summit could effectively resolve the North Korean nuclear threat. In contrast, only 36.6 percent said it would.

Park explained that the outcome suggested that the South Korean people think the "current level of trilateral cooperation falls short in effectively resolving the North Korean nuclear threat."

Monday's survey also showed that the perception that "North Korean denuclearization is impossible" increased significantly, with 91 percent of respondents saying so, compared to the previous survey's 77.6 percent.

In the current security situation, the perceived need for South Korea's independent development of nuclear weapons remains high. Of the respondents, 72.8 percent agreed it was necessary, though this was a slight decrease from the previous survey result of 76.6 percent.

Park suggested that the marginal decline of 4 percent could be attributed to the strengthened security cooperation with the US and Japan resulting from the Washington Declaration and the Camp David trilateral summit.

Among respondents advocating for the necessity of South Korea's nuclear armament, 40 percent cited "preparation for potential military provocations by North Korea with advanced nuclear capabilities" as the primary reason.

Additionally, 37.1 percent highlighted their "apprehension about the US exercising adequate military support, including the provision of the nuclear umbrella, in the event of North Korea's use of nuclear weapons" as their main reason for the endorsement.

The survey findings further indicated that 63.7 percent of respondents held the belief that former US President Donald Trump would not actively pursue resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue if re-elected in the November presidential election.

In response to inquiries about whether a re-elected Trump would advocate for an increase in defense cost-sharing and withdrawal of US forces in South Korea, mirroring his actions in 2016, 78.2 percent of respondents affirmed this possibility.

koreaherald.com · by Ji Da-gyum · February 5, 2024

11. Korea to take part in U.S.-led space training event this month

Monday

February 5, 2024

 dictionary + A - A 

Published: 05 Feb. 2024, 17:29

Updated: 05 Feb. 2024, 18:38

Korea to take part in U.S.-led space training event this month

https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-02-05/national/defense/Korea-to-take-part-in-USled-space-training-event-this-month/1974639

Participants in the Global Sentinel ’24 initial planning conference pose for a picture at the Vandenberg History Museum in California on March 1, 2023. [U.S. SPACE FORCE/LUKE KITTERMAN]

The Air Force and Korean space experts will join the U.S.-led multinational space training event Global Sentinel this month, the Air Force announced on Monday.  

Air Force officers, including members of the Air Force Operations Command in charge of space security, as well as members of the Army, Navy, Agency for Defense Development and Korea Aerospace Research Institute, will be taking part in Global Sentinel 2024 at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, the Air Force said in a statement Monday.

The Korean officers and experts will work with those from Japan, New Zealand and Australia during the training. 

Global Sentinel takes place every two years in the United States, bringing together experts on space surveillance, safety and security from nearly 30 countries worldwide.  

Korea participated in five previous Global Sentinel events.

This year, some 250 experts from 28 countries will participate in joint exercises responding to virtual scenarios in space, including satellite collisions.

The multinational training comes amid escalating U.S.-China rivalry in space security. 

Beijing launched an experimental spacecraft for the third time in December last year without specifying its mission other than that it would conduct space experiments and return to a designated landing site in China after being in orbit for some time, according to local reports.

Washington was planning to launch the military’s X-37B spaceplane into space on Dec. 14 last year — the same day Beijing launched its spaceplane Shenlong for the third time — but canceled the launch at the last minute due to unspecified technical issues.

The U.S. robot spaceplane was launched into orbit later on Dec. 28.

In recent years, Washington has expanded cooperation in space technology with its key allies in Asia, including Seoul and Tokyo.

It established a space command within U.S. Forces Korea in 2022 and was reportedly considering the same within U.S. Forces Japan.

Space cooperation was highlighted in trilateral meetings, including the Camp David summit between Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in August last year.

In their joint statement, the three leaders agreed to expand cooperation on open radio access networks and further enhance dialogue on space security cooperation, “particularly regarding threats in the space domain, national space strategies, and the responsible use of space.”

In recent months, Washington and Seoul have also jointly analyzed the extent of space cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang, including during their regular Space Cooperation Working Group meeting and joint tabletop exercise on space hosted in Seoul last September.

North Korea launched a space launch vehicle carrying a military reconnaissance satellite on May 31 last year, setting off air raid alarms across Seoul. In November last year, the regime launched a spy satellite into space, likely with technical aid from Russia. 

In recent years, South Korea has ramped up its space forces, particularly after Washington and Seoul agreed to abolish missile guidelines in 2021 that banned South Korea from developing and possessing any type of missile, including intercontinental ballistic missiles and advanced submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

The following year, South Korea established a new branch within the Joint Chiefs of Staff to focus on the space security domain.

Since October 2021, Seoul has successfully launched its domestically developed space rocket, Nuri, three times. The country is gearing up for the fourth launch in the second half of 2025. 

BY ESTHER CHUNG,LEE YU-JUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]

12. N. Korea slams Seoul defense chief's anti-Pyongyang warning as 'catalyst' for clash

The regime does not like anyone else to use rhetoric as strong as it does.

N. Korea slams Seoul defense chief's anti-Pyongyang warning as 'catalyst' for clash

koreaherald.com · by Yonhap · February 5, 2024

By Yonhap

Published : Feb. 5, 2024 - 10:12

North Korea launches a missile on Feb. 2. The country conducted what state media called a "cruise missile super-large warhead power test" and test-fired a new anti-aircraft missile. (KCNA)

North Korea on Monday denounced South Korea's defense minister over his latest warning that Pyongyang will face the end of its regime in the event it wages war, calling his remark a "catalyst" for a physical clash.

Minister Shin Won-sik warned on Jan. 24 that Pyongyang will face the end of its regime in the event it wages a war, hours after North Korea fired several cruise missiles into the Yellow Sea.

During his visit to the 17th Fighter Wing at Cheongju Air Base, 112 kilometers south of Seoul, Shin called on pilots to "be at the vanguard of removing the enemy's leadership at the earliest possible time and put an end to the regime" if Pyongyang opts for waging a war.

In a commentary, the North's Korean Central News Agency denounced Shin over what it called the "worst ludicrous statements" that could become a "catalyst" for a physical clash.

The North warned that Seoul should understand its "slander" and "war drills" carry the risk of ending its fate, according to the KCNA.

North Korea has been dialing up tensions on the Korean Peninsula in the new year -- an election year for South Korea and the United States -- with weapons tests and harshly worded rhetoric.

During a year-end party meeting, Kim Jong-un defined inter-Korean ties as relations between "two states hostile to each other" and vowed to "suppress" South Korea's whole territory in the event of a contingency.

Kim has also called for revising the country's constitution to define South Korea as the North's "primary foe" and announced the country will abandon its decadeslong policy of seeking reconciliation and unification with the South. (Yonhap)

koreaherald.com · by Yonhap · February 5, 2024

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com