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Quotes of the Day:
We know what the birth of a revolution looks like: A student stands before a tank. A fruit seller sets himself on fire. A line of monks link arms in a human chain. Crowds surge, soldiers fire, gusts of rage pull down the monuments of tyrants, and maybe, sometimes, justice rises from the flames.
– Nancy Gibbs
"Defeat is simply a signal to press onward."
– Helen Keller
A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.
– Ayn Rand
1. N. Korea fires multiple short-range ballistic missiles ahead of Trump inauguration
2. North Korea launches ‘several’ short-range missiles from weapons factory region
3. Spies, protests and Fukushima: inside North Korea’s plot to sow South Korea-Japan discord
4. South Korea unveils plans for new missile defense system to counter North Korea
5. N. Korea ranks 34th in global firepower ranking; S. Korea 5th
6. N. Korea's space law links civilian program with defense strategy
7. North Korean Air Defense System Revealed In Ukraine By Russian Friendly Fire Strike
8. Yoon’s Downfall: What It Means for Donald Trump’s Asia Strategy
9. “North Korean troops dispatched to Ukraine were not sent as cannon fodder, but as elite troops”
10. US experts: "Aid to Ukraine and loudspeakers to North Korea are foreign exchange crimes? An idea as dangerous as martial law"
11. Leaked data spark questions on number of North Korean casualties in Ukraine fight
12. How Biden Failed on Human Rights
13. S. Korea, U.S., Japan identify N. Korea behind US$659 million crypto theft in 2024
14. S. Korea to consult with Ukraine if captured N.K. soldiers seek defection to South: Seoul
15. Parliamentary committee questions Army chief, military commanders over Yoon's alleged insurrection
16. Human Rights Experts: “North Korean Troop Dispatch Tragedy Reveals Regime’s Severe Human Rights Suppression”
17. Trump wants to rekindle his Kim Jong-un bromance, but North Korea has other suitors now
18. [Trump's 2nd term begins] "Increased uncertainty in the US-ROK alliance... Will demand more burden from Korea"
19. North Korean Defectors Donate Relief Supplies to LA Wildfire Victims
20. Time for North Korea policy to shift focus to freedom, human rights
1. N. Korea fires multiple short-range ballistic missiles ahead of Trump inauguration
Again no surprise. Kim is singing "Don't you forget about me."
But what effect is he seeking to achieve? Is this part of his blackmail diplomacy, to use threats, increased tensions, and provocations to extort political and economic concessions? Or do these missiles simply need testing to advance a capability?
(2nd LD) N. Korea fires multiple short-range ballistic missiles ahead of Trump inauguration | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Minji · January 14, 2025
(ATTN: ADDS details throughout, photo; RECASTS headline)
By Lee Minji and Chae Yun-hwan
SEOUL, Jan. 14 (Yonhap) -- North Korea launched multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea on Tuesday, South Korea's military said, in a provocation staged just days before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the launch at about 9:30 a.m. from the Ganggye area in the North's Jagang Province and they flew about 250 kilometers before splashing into the sea. It did not specify the number of missiles fired.
Tuesday's launch marked the recalcitrant regime's second provocation this year, after it fired what it claimed to be a hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile on Jan. 6.
Given the flight distance of short-range ballistic missiles, they are usually seen as targeting South Korea.
But North Korea also fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles on Nov. 5 last year, just hours ahead of the U.S. presidential election.
This Nov. 5, 2024, file photo shows television footage of North Korea's launch of short-range ballistic missiles being aired at Seoul Station in central Seoul. (Yonhap)
In a year-end party meeting, North Korea declared it would carry out the "toughest" counteraction strategy toward the United States, claiming military cooperation among South Korea, the U.S. and Japan has expanded into a "military bloc for aggression."
The JCS condemned the latest launch as a "blatant" provocation that threatens peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, and vowed to maintain a firm readiness posture against the possibility of North Korea making a "wrong judgment."
"In preparation against additional launches, our military has strengthened our monitoring and vigilance, while closely sharing information on the North Korean missile with the U.S. and Japanese sides and maintaining a full readiness posture," the JCS said.
The JCS said it is monitoring the possibility of additional missile launches, noting it detected transporter erector launchers for firing missiles near the launch site.
Acting President Choi Sang-mok denounced North Korea's latest launch, calling it a clear violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and pledged a firm response based on the ironclad South Korea-U.S. alliance.
A new intermediate-range ballistic missile tipped with a hypersonic warhead is launched on Jan. 6, 2025, in this file photo released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency the following day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
mlee@yna.co.kr
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en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Minji · January 14, 2025
2. North Korea launches ‘several’ short-range missiles from weapons factory region
Since 600mm packets can reach Camp Humphreys (and were probably developed for that specific purpose after SECDEF Rumsefeld said let's move US forces out of Yongsan so they can be out of frontline artillery and missile range).
Maybe this is a welcome to the new ROK/US CFC Commander, General Brunson.
North Korea launches ‘several’ short-range missiles from weapons factory region
Launch from Kanggye comes eight days after intermediate-range hypersonic missile test to warn 'hostile forces'
https://www.nknews.org/2025/01/north-korea-launches-missile-for-second-time-this-year-seoul/
Colin Zwirko January 14, 2025
Four 600mm MLRS rockets were reportedly launched simultaneously during a drill | Image: KCTV (April 23, 2024)
North Korea launched “several” short-range ballistic missiles toward waters off the country’s east coast on Tuesday morning, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
The launch reportedly took place at around 9:30 a.m. KST from Kanggye, Jagang Province, a city known for hosting multiple important weapons factories. One is the Kanggye Tractor Factory, which makes the 600mm multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS) that North Korea claims is nuclear-capable.
The missiles flew “around 155 miles (250 km)” before landing in the East Sea (Sea of Japan), JCS said in a later update, without specifying how many were fired. It added that the ROK and U.S. “detected and observed North Korea’s missile launch preparations beforehand.”
Repeating a line used every time North Korea fires missiles over its own territory, JCS called the launch “a severe threat to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and a clear provocation.”
Japan’s prime minister’s office also posted an alert on social media at 9:39 a.m. KST, stating “North Korea has launched a suspected ballistic missile,” but deleted the post around 10 minutes later without an explanation, while the Japanese Coast Guard did not report on the launch, as it usually does.
Issues over tracking and counting the missiles could be due to the test involving a large number of missiles launched at once. Last May, for example, North Korea fired 18 of the 600mm MLRS from the runway of the Pyongyang airport.
The apparent launch is the DPRK’s second this year, following the test of a hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) last week.
Leader Kim Jong Un defended last week’s launch as having no negative effect on neighboring countries, while warning it was necessary to improve nuclear weapons development to counter “hostile forces,” referring to the U.S., South Korea and Japan.
Edited by Alannah Hill
Last updated on Jan. 14 at 1:49 p.m. KST with additional details from JCS
3. Spies, protests and Fukushima: inside North Korea’s plot to sow South Korea-Japan discord
There should be no doubt about north Korea's political warfare strategy. This is an excellent example of it in execution.
We (the ROK, Japan, and the US) must recognize its strategy, understand it, EXPOSE it, and attack it with a superior political warfare strategy.
Spies, protests and Fukushima: inside North Korea’s plot to sow South Korea-Japan discord
Newly uncovered court documents have revealed how North Korean spies exploited South Korean outage over Japan’s nuclear waste-water release
Julian Ryall
Published: 9:30am, 14 Jan 2025
When Japan announced its plan to release treated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant, the backlash was swift and fierce – especially in South Korea. But behind the anger lay a shadowy culprit: a North Korean spy ring tasked with inflaming tensions and fracturing regional ties.
Disguised as trade unionists, the agents orchestrated boycotts and exploited protests to incite anti-Japanese sentiment and sabotage the fragile alliance between Tokyo and Seoul, transcripts from a South Korean court case have revealed.
Four members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), South Korea’s largest labour federation, were sentenced in November to prison terms ranging from five to 15 years on charges of espionage.
Convicted under South Korea’s National Security Act, the unnamed men had been operating as agents of North Korea’s Cultural Exchange Bureau – a benign-sounding front for the 225th Department of Pyongyang’s ruling Workers’ Party, which specialises in foreign operations and recruitment.
The espionage ring’s anti-Japanese activities came to light after the newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun requested court documents detailing the agents’ orders. The records revealed that the group had received 89 directives from their North Korean handlers and submitted 13 detailed reports on their operations. Among their instructions was the order: “stir anti-Japanese public opinion and drive the confrontation between Japan and South Korea into an irreversible situation”.
What is tritium? The radioactive element that caused controversy during the Fukushima water release
This directive, issued in May 2021, coincided with Tokyo’s announcement that it would release treated water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean. Despite assurances from the International Atomic Energy Agency that the discharge met safety standards, the move sparked outrage across the region, with South Korea’s anti-nuclear and environmental groups leading the charge. The North Korean agents seized on the public outcry, amplifying anti-Japanese sentiment and encouraging protests.
“It is effective to formulate a tactical plan to intensify Japan-South Korean confrontations and vigorously implement it,” read one directive, according to the court documents. The agents were instructed to organise rallies outside the Japanese embassy, burn Japanese products, and spread propaganda calling the water release “nuclear terrorism”.
The campaign seemingly bore fruit. Protests erupted across South Korea in the lead-up to the Tokyo Olympics in July 2021, further fuelled by historical grievances over Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean peninsula and its military’s use of “comfort women” and forced labour during World War II. A widespread boycott of Japanese goods, already simmering since 2019, gained renewed momentum.
“North Korea hates to see any sort of close cooperation between South Korea and Japan, and they will do anything and everything they can to disrupt that,” Rah Jong-yil, a former South Korean diplomat and intelligence official, told This Week in Asia.
“They consider a close working relationship between Seoul and Tokyo in the areas of security, intelligence-gathering, trade and the three-way alliance with the US to be a danger to them.”
Protesters hold up banners in 2021 during an anti-Japan rally in front of a statue symbolising a wartime sex slave, or “comfort woman”, near the Japanese embassy in Seoul. Photo: AP
The agents’ cover as union leaders proved highly effective. With more than 1.2 million members, the KCTU has long been a powerful voice in South Korea’s labour movement, particularly among left-leaning factions.
According to Rah, many South Koreans still harbour lingering suspicions of Japan, viewing it as “potentially imperialist, militarist, authoritarian and with ongoing ambitions to invade and occupy the Korean peninsula”. These sentiments, he added, made it easier for Pyongyang to manipulate public opinion and derail any movement towards reconciliation between the two nations.
Court testimony revealed that the defendants had been operating under North Korean control for years, travelling to Cambodia and Vietnam as far back as 2017 to meet their handlers and receive instructions.
Their ultimate goal: to drive a wedge between South Korea and Japan at a time when both countries were beginning to strengthen ties to counter shared regional threats, including North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
The defendants, whose identities have not been disclosed, refused to cooperate with prosecutors during the trial at Suwon District Court and denied the charges through their lawyers. They are currently appealing their convictions.
Julian Ryall
FOLLOW
Julian Ryall never expected to still be in Japan 24 years after he first arrived, but he quickly realised its advantages over his native London. He lives in Yokohama with his wife and children and writes for publications around the world.
4. South Korea unveils plans for new missile defense system to counter North Korea
Is the image at the link meant to imply they are building an "iron dome" that will protect South Korea?
South Korea unveils plans for new missile defense system to counter North Korea
Military to invest $426M to develop L-SAM-II long-range interceptor as DPRK tests new advanced hypersonic weapons
Joon Ha Park January 14, 2025
https://www.nknews.org/2025/01/south-korea-unveils-plans-for-new-missile-defense-system-to-counter-north-korea/
A graphic showing how the L-SAM-II will operate within the Korea Air and Missile Defense (KAMD) network | Image: ROK Defense Acquisition Program Administration
South Korea has started developing an advanced long-range surface-to-air missile defense system to better counter North Korean threats.
Dubbed L-SAM-II, the system’s expanded capabilities are expected to provide improved early interception opportunities against incoming missiles, according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) on Tuesday.
DAPA stated in a press release that it expects the system to cost 567.7 billion won ($426 million) to develop, with the project set to be completed by 2028 in collaboration with 19 domestic defense contractors.
The launch of the new military project comes just a month after South Korean announced that it completed development of the original L-SAM, the country’s first indigenously produced upper-tier missile interceptor. That system began development in 2015 but suffered multiple delays, raising questions about whether the L-SAM-II will be completed on time.
While specific targeted performance metrics for the L-SAM-II remain classified for security reasons, Shin Seung-ki, a research fellow at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA), said the new system could increase South Korea’s overall probability of successfully defending against North Korean missile attacks.
“The new system is estimated to intercept incoming missile targets at altitudes well above 60 kilometers, compared to the 40-60 kilometer range of the original L-SAM,” the expert told NK News.
He added that the enhanced capabilities will position the L-SAM-II as the uppermost layer of South Korea’s multi-tiered Korea Air and Missile Defense (KAMD) network.
This defense architecture integrates multiple systems: Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles and domestically developed Cheongung-II systems handle interceptions below 40 kilometers, while U.S. Forces Korea’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system covers the 40-150 kilometer range.
Rather than operating as a standalone system, the L-SAM-II will be fully integrated with existing defensive infrastructure, including the original L-SAM, sharing radar and control mechanisms.
South Korea shows off its domestically produced Long-Range Surface-to-Air Missile (L-SAM) at Seoul Air Base on Sept. 26, 2023. | Image: NK News
Shin noted that the system will likely be designed to include two variants: one to counter conventional ballistic missiles throughout their flight path, and another capable of intercepting hypersonic glide missiles during their glide phase.
“Ballistic missiles typically follow a three-stage flight path. The boost phase during initial launch and fuel burn, the midcourse phase when the missile follows a ballistic trajectory through space and the terminal phase as it re-enters the atmosphere toward its target,” the expert explained.
“Once L-SAM-II is deployed, it will significantly improve our intercept probability by enabling secondary engagement opportunities after initial intercept attempts at high altitudes.”
Despite plans for such advancements, Shin said that achieving capabilities on par with advanced U.S. systems, such as the SM-3 Block IIA capable of intercepting missiles at altitudes of up to 1,500 kilometers, remains a distant goal for Seoul.
“There is no defined ‘completion’ for the KAMD system. As North Korea develops new technologies, [South Korea] must continuously improve its defense systems,” he said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the test-launch of an upgraded version of a solid-fuel hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) last week, declaring that its performance “cannot be ignored.”
The DPRK also conducted another test launch of several short-range missiles on Tuesday. State media is expected to release additional details on Wednesday.
Edited by Alannah Hill
5. N. Korea ranks 34th in global firepower ranking; S. Korea 5th
Perhaps Kim Jong Un does not like these ratings and feels he needs to rattle some sabers.
Then again, for a country with a failed economy ranking 34 is quite a feat.
But the ROK is up there not far from superpower military status (though there is only one superpower).
Note these stats for north Korea. Regarding the excellent fighter fleet, I think that simply guarantees a large number of aces among ROK and US airmen and naval aviators. They may be best described as targets.
In various assessment categories, including combat tank fleet strength, active military manpower, self-propelled artillery strength and multiple launch rocket projector strength, North Korea came in fourth globally.
It also received the top mark of "excellent" in fighter fleet strength, submarine fleet strength and various other fields.
N. Korea ranks 34th in global firepower ranking; S. Korea 5th | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Park Boram · January 14, 2025
SEOUL, Jan. 14 (Yonhap) -- North Korea ranked as the 34th strongest in military firepower globally, while South Korea came in fifth, a global firepower index showed Tuesday.
The numbers were released in the 2025 Military Strength Ranking, compiled by Global Firepower (GFP), which assesses the "potential war-making capability" of 145 nations by conventional means.
North Korea's 2025 ranking is two notches higher than last year and marks the same as its position in the 2023 ranking.
In various assessment categories, including combat tank fleet strength, active military manpower, self-propelled artillery strength and multiple launch rocket projector strength, North Korea came in fourth globally.
It also received the top mark of "excellent" in fighter fleet strength, submarine fleet strength and various other fields.
The report put the numbers of army and air force personnel available for mobilization in North Korea at 1.37 million and 110,000, respectively, ranking both at the sixth largest globally.
The North's navy personnel available for mobilization was put at 60,000, the 12th largest.
GFP also assessed that "The commitment of North Korean troops to the Russian cause in Ukraine has proven an interesting development in the Eastern European conflict."
In the ranking, South Korea came in fifth, while the United States received the top position, followed by Russia, China and India.
Describing South Korea, the report said, "Recent political upheaval in this typically stable Asian Pacific power is noted."
This file photo, published by the Korean Central News Agency on Feb. 9, 2023, shows a nighttime military parade marking the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
pbr@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Park Boram · January 14, 2025
6. N. Korea's space law links civilian program with defense strategy
Should not be a surprise. Didn't the development of NASA's rocket research inform US ICBM development?
There is not really anything that can be called a peaceful space program. Certainly not in north Korea.
N. Korea's space law links civilian program with defense strategy - Daily NK English
In what may be a response to international scrutiny, the law distinguishes space vehicles from ballistic missiles and requires adherence to global safety protocols
By Mun Dong Hui - January 14, 2025
dailynk.com · by Mun Dong Hui · January 13, 2025
North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported on Nov. 22, 2023, that the country had successfully launched a military reconnaissance satellite the night before. “The National Aerospace Technology Administration of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea successfully launched the new-type carrier rocket ‘Chollima-1’ loaded with the reconnaissance satellite ‘Malligyong-1’ at the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground in Cholsan county, North Pyongan province, at 22:42:28,” the paper reported. (Rodong Sinmun, News1)
North Korea amended its Law on Space Development in August 2022, significantly expanding provisions on space development goals and management while explicitly linking these efforts to national defense, Daily NK has learned.
The amended law, obtained by Daily NK, introduces defense-related language across multiple sections. Article 1 now includes language about “contributing to strengthening the nation’s defensive strength,” while Article 3 emphasizes the “self-defensive national defense power” aspect of space development. Article 8 requires state guidance agencies to promote space projects that enhance national defense capabilities.
However, the law appears to address international concerns about North Korea’s space program. Article 2 specifically excludes sounding rockets and ballistic missiles from its definition of “space objects,” and Article 4 mandates compliance with international safety standards for launching and operating space vehicles.
The legislation details the structure of space development oversight in Articles 7 and 8. State guidance agencies are granted comprehensive authority over all aspects of space development, from planning and supervision to guiding the design, production, assembly, launch, and operation of space objects.
The law also emphasizes human resource development through Article 38, which directs national education agencies to establish systems for cultivating space science expertise. Article 40 provides legal backing for social preferences for space developers, apparently aiming to motivate and retain specialized talent.
“The amended law attempts to frame space development as separate from military objectives while simultaneously codifying its national defense purposes,” says Hwang Hyun-uk, senior researcher at Daily NK’s AND Center. “Externally, North Korea wants to project the image of a normal country, while internally focusing on systematizing space development organizations and state-level talent training.
“This reflects their strategy of blurring the line between peaceful space development and military applications to strengthen internal unity while advancing their external agenda,” Hwang added.
The amended law also significantly expands disciplinary measures. Article 47 outlines eight punishable offenses, including:
- Failing to meet research plans, unauthorized plan modifications, or false progress reports
- Accidents caused by technical regulation violations during launches or operations
- Leaking space development secrets
Article 48 specifies that serious violations will face criminal prosecution. These provisions appear designed to ensure strict adherence to protocols and maintain tight control over space development projects.
Read the full text of the law in Korean here.
Read in Korean
dailynk.com · by Mun Dong Hui · January 13, 2025
7. North Korean Air Defense System Revealed In Ukraine By Russian Friendly Fire Strike
Photos at the link.
https://www.twz.com/land/north-korean-air-defense-system-revealed-in-ukraine-by-russian-friendly-fire-strike?utm
North Korean Air Defense System Revealed In Ukraine By Russian Friendly Fire Strike
A North Korean-made surface-to-air missile system, broadly analogous to the Russian Tor, has appeared for the first time in combat in the Kursk region.
Thomas Newdick
Posted 17 Hours Ago
172
twz.com · by Thomas Newdick
A North Korean-made mobile surface-to-air missile system has appeared for the first time in the Ukraine conflict. While the official name of the air defense system remains unknown, it’s among the latest examples of Pyongyang’s military assistance for Moscow’s war. Ironically, however, its presence in the fighting was disclosed by a video shared by Russian military bloggers, showing it being attacked by a Russian drone, in an apparent ‘blue on blue’ friendly fire mishap.
A previously unidentified air defense system seen in the footage of a strike released by the Russian side appears to be a North Korean analog of the Russian Tor short-range SAM system.
The vehicle could've been mistakenly hit by a Russian drone operator.
The original source of… pic.twitter.com/Nnv1b9PQ5O
— Status-6 (Military & Conflict News) (BlueSky too) (@Archer83Able) January 12, 2025
The video in question seems to have first been published on Telegram by the Russian channel Povernutye na Voynie, which described the footage as showing a Russian drone strike on “a Western-supplied air defense radar system” in Ukrainian service. The system was claimed to be destroyed and, while this cannot be confirmed, a large pall of smoke can be seen rising after the engagement.
The original post published on Telegram by the Russian channel Povernutye na Voynie.
The same source claims that the incident took place in the Kursk region of Western Russia, where a Ukrainian campaign has been underway since last August and where Kyiv launched a new offensive just last week.
However, analysis of the available imagery indicates the target is in fact the same type of North Korean mobile surface-to-air missile system that first appeared in a major military parade in Pyongyang in October 2020, as you can read about here.
The as-yet-unnamed North Korean mobile surface-to-air missile system on parade in Pyongyang in October 2020. North Korean state mediaAnother view of the North Korean mobile surface-to-air missile system. North Korean state media
The North Korean system is thought to be broadly analogous to the Russian Tor (SA-15 Gauntlet) low-to medium-altitude, short-range air defense system (SHORADS), a piece of equipment that is in widespread Russian service, with much smaller numbers in Ukrainian use.
A Ukrainian Armed Forces 9K330 Tor seen before the full-scale invasion that began in 2022. VoidWanderer/Wikimedia Commons
In terms of appearance, the North Korean system has some similarities with the wheeled Tor-M2K version developed in Belarus by the MZKT company, although the North Korean vehicle has five axles, rather than three. In the North Korean system, the missile module, complete with radar, is carried in the center of a semi-trailer.
A Belarusian wheeled Tor-M2K short-range air defense system. Belatom
Ukraine only employs the tracked 9K330 version of the Tor, in very small numbers. So far, Russian units in the Ukraine war have also only been noted using tracked versions of the Tor, including the improved 9K331 Tor-M1 and the 9K332 Tor-M2, and subvariants of these, all of which also are mounted on a tracked chassis.
This suggests Russian drone operators who attacked the vehicle likely also assessed that it was a Western-supplied air defense radar system, based on its unfamiliarity, and perhaps were also unaware of the North Korea-made system being deployed in the area. Regardless, friendly fire incidents are by no means uncommon in the war in Ukraine.
Imagery captured by a Russian drone shows the North Korean air defense system moments before it was targeted. via X
Aside from the manner in which its presence was revealed, the appearance of the North Korean air defense system in the conflict is notable.
First, it’s indicative of additional and more varied types of North Korean heavy weapons entering the fighting.
There are several reasons why the system might have been used in the fighting in the Kursk region.
It could be in Kursk for use by Pyongyang’s own forces, providing an organic air defense capability that they otherwise badly lack. The Ukrainian Air Force has been known to be very active over the Kursk region, including attacking ground targets with Western-provided standoff air-launched munitions. Given the extensive employment of North Korean troops in the Kursk counteroffensive, the system appearing here is also not entirely surprising.
North Koreans in Kursk region sleeping#Ukraine #Russia #NorthKorea pic.twitter.com/PAI0JMrkKJ
— The Global 202 (@theglobal202) November 22, 2024
There is also the possibility that Russia is using the system to bolster its own air defense capabilities. If that were the case it would suggest that Moscow has a particular need for these types of weapons, reflecting the fact that it has taken heavy losses in terms of this type of equipment and is struggling to make good attrition, or at least to replace equipment in a timely fashion. The ability of Russia to produce required quantities of especially higher-end military equipment is something that has been repeatedly questioned since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, amid the strict sanctions that are now in place.
Since it’s a relatively new system, the North Korean SHORADS could possibly have been involved in some kind of combat evaluation, to test its capabilities and further improve it. Operational trials of this kind could also have been run in conjunction with Russia, with a view to potentially procure it for themselves.
“There should be no doubt left in the world that the Russian Army is dependent on military assistance from North Korea,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote in a recent post on social media, which also pointed to the capture of North Korean troops by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Zelensky offered to hand over these soldiers in exchange for Ukrainian prisoners of war held by Russia.
In addition to the first captured soldiers from North Korea, there will undoubtedly be more. It’s only a matter of time before our troops manage to capture others. There should be no doubt left in the world that the Russian army is dependent on military assistance from North… pic.twitter.com/4RyCfUoHoC
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) January 12, 2025
Aside from the thousands of troops North Korea has now committed to the conflict, especially in the Kursk region, North Korea has already supplied Russia with huge amounts of weaponry, including badly needed artillery rounds and various kinds of other ammunition, amounting to millions of individual projectiles.
Late last year, the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS), drawing upon intelligence provided by the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Directorate (GUR), listed North Korean weapons collected from the battlefield, including “122mm and 152mm shells, Bulsae-4 anti-tank missiles, short-range ballistic missiles such as the KN-23, and RPG anti-tank rockets.”
Since then, TWZ has also reported on the appearance of North Korean 170mm M1989 Koksan self-propelled artillery pieces being deployed in the Ukraine war. Again, it’s not clear if these are being used exclusively by North Korean troops or whether they have been supplied to Russia.
Examples of the North Korean-made M1989 Koksan self-propelled artillery system under transport in Russia, last November. via X via X
Russian ground-based air defense technologies are far in advance of those that North Korea has developed, with point defense, especially, being one of Pyongyang’s weakest military capability sets. As a whole, however, North Korea has made some important strides in ground-based air defenses in recent years, although the longer-range KN-06 surface-to-air missile system has been the main focus of its efforts.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches a test launch of the KN-06 surface-to-air missile. North Korean state media
At the same time, the burgeoning military relationship between the countries has led to reports of Russia providing North Korea with some of its own high-end, ground-based air defense systems, as you can read about here.
Considering that, it might be surprising if Pyongyang has supplied Moscow with SHORADS from its own stocks, but it remains a possibility.
Whatever the case, as long as this cooperation continues, the likelihood of North Korea benefiting from Russian weapons and expertise also increases. As well as suggestions that Pyongyang might receive new Russian combat aircraft to overhaul its seriously outdated air force, and there have also been concerns that Moscow might provide it with technologies to help accelerate its nuclear and long-range ballistic missile programs.
All told, however, the appearance of a previously unseen North Korean surface-to-air missile system in the conflict underscores the fact that North Korea is becoming ever more entrenched in the conflict.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com
twz.com · by Thomas Newdick
8. Yoon’s Downfall: What It Means for Donald Trump’s Asia Strategy
A comprehensive review with a lot to parse from Doug Bandow.
Excerpts:
South Korea has survived a succession of political challenges and international crises since turning to democracy in 1987. Most of its presidents have been impeached or imprisoned. Yoon might end up both. After the impeachment of the acting president—the Constitutional Court will have to decide whether the National Assembly met the constitutional vote requirement—the ROK will face months without even the pretense of stable government.
If a new president is eventually installed the impact on ROK policy will be profound. Dealing with this change will be one of the most important responsibilities of the incoming Trump administration and an important test of what his policy of American First means in practice.
Yoon’s Downfall: What It Means for Donald Trump’s Asia Strategy
19fortyfive.com · by Doug Bandow · January 13, 2025
President Yoon Suk-yeol’s political self-immolation has decapitated the South Korean government and enfeebled its alliance with Washington. Yoon has been impeached and will likely be removed from office. The opposition Democratic Party (DP) then impeached acting President Han Duck-soo, making the finance minister the new acting president. However, the enraged DP has also threatened the latter with impeachment. Will there be anyone in Seoul for President Donald Trump to call after his inauguration?
Yoon’s Exit: A Changed South Korea?
Yoon’s fate is now before the Constitutional Court. If he is ousted, as expected, an election will be held within 60 days. The opposition is very likely to triumph. If so, South Korean policy will change dramatically, forcing Trump to adjust his objectives accordingly. The Republic of Korea is likely to soften its stance toward North Korea and China while stiffening its attitude toward Japan. Seoul will probably reject tougher sanctions against Russia while encouraging the Trump administration to reengage with Pyongyang. And a progressive administration will be more likely to reject demands for increased host nation support and perhaps risk a US troop withdrawal.
Yoon’s victory two years ago was extremely narrow, but he was feted in Washington for essentially becoming one with Washington in foreign policy. The consummation of the new US-South Korea understanding was Yoon’s celebrated rendition of “American Pie” during his April 2023 visit to Washington. Then came his plan to impose military rule in peacetime, a plan so deficient as to collapse in six hours. The resulting ruin of the Yoon presidency—even if he survives in office, his authority has dissipated—almost certainly means a sharp move left in Seoul. That would have been a minor catastrophe for the Biden administration which, despite its progressive leanings, much preferred a hard-right partner in Seoul.
In contrast, in some areas, Trump might find South Korea’s left to be more compatible.
A Shaken Military
Even before the latest events, the ROK army suffered from a birth dearth, poor recruitment, salary compression, high attrition, and poor leadership. Yoon might have been more ready to address these problems, especially having relied on the armed forces to seize power. However, the autogolpe has made progressives even more nervous about the role of the military, given its history.
The incoming government will confront a military badly shaken by Yoon’s attempted putsch. Readiness likely has suffered. KoreaPro cited an erosion of morale that “undermines trust within the ranks and threatens operational cohesion, critical for countering North Korean threats and maintaining alliance credibility.” Troops involved in Yoon’s plot have suffered the most. Several commanders and generals have been suspended or removed.
The US-ROK Alliance Changing
Irrespective of party, South Koreans take the alliance with America for granted. Although some left-wing activists want US forces to leave progressive presidents going back to Kim Dae-jung have backed the “Mutual” Defense Treaty. Nevertheless, the DP might look to develop independent ROK military options and push to transfer operational control to Seoul.
However, Donald Trump has never been enamored of the bilateral relationship and threatened to withdraw American troops. Even though the Biden administration rushed through renewal of the Special Measures Agreement, Trump has demanded $10 billion a year to maintain a US presence. Reports suggest that Yoon was willing to offer something more than the $1.14 billion agreed to by Biden, but a new progressive president is more likely to say no more. Then what?
During his first term, Trump’s bark usually proved worse than his bite, and the US troops stayed. However, he apparently has learned after his own officials undercut his policy goals. If rebuffed by Seoul, he might resurrect his troop withdrawal proposal and even begin a partial withdrawal. Zack Cooper of the American Enterprise Institute predicted that Yoon’s likely departure “opens up the door for substantial US troop reductions from South Korea.” Which some progressives might embrace.
South Korean Nuclear Ambitions
Extended deterrence, by which Washington promises to use nuclear weapons to defend the South, was credible when any war would stay on the Korean peninsula. However, the North now has nuclear weapons and missiles of increasing range. Even Yoon admitted: “What we call extended deterrence was also the US telling us not to worry because it will take care of everything, but now, it’s difficult to convince our people with just that.” He recognized that once the American homeland is in range the US will have to consider whether South Korea’s defense is worth risking the incineration of American cities.
South Korean Ballistic Missiles. Image: Creative Commons.
Although Yoon accepted the Washington Declaration as affirming America’s commitment, Biden’s promises will look tattered if the alliance cracks and US personnel start going home. Mason Richey, at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, warned that the debate “will be significantly affected by how the Trump administration approaches the alliance with South Korea and how it approaches the relationship with North Korea.” Political analyst Cheong Seong-chang went further, declaring: “The reelection of Trump is an opportunity for South Korea to create its own nuclear weapons.”
A popular majority in the South has long favored doing so, though “strategic elites” are significantly less supportive. Liberals have been most likely to reject the idea. Hence, predicted John Lee of KoreaPro, a DP administration instead would “likely focus on strengthening conventional military capabilities, exploring nuclear submarine technology and leveraging its alliance with the U.S. and partnerships with other countries to maintain regional stability.” However, if faced with a Washington demand for billions of dollars annually and threat to withdraw American forces while Kim refuses conciliation and continues to build his arsenal, DP leaders might rethink their position. Especially if Trump does not object to such a course, having previously mooted the possibility.
The US-South Korea-Japan Triangle
Nearly eight decades after the ROK was freed from Tokyo’s control, relations between the two neighbors remain fraught. Washington has encouraged creation of an informal three-sided alliance and conservatives like Yoon were always more willing to forget and even forgive the past. With American support, he worked assiduously to build a relationship with successive Japanese premiers. In July defense ministers from the three nations agreed to create an institutional framework for trilateral cooperation.
However, DP leader Lee Jae-myung and other progressives have been sharply critical. He rejects military coordination with Tokyo and charged Yoon with “choosing the path of a lackey of Japan” and “selling out his national interests and national pride to Japan.” The Tokyo-Seoul relationship depends upon current relations, not a treaty or long-established practice, and was fragile even under Yoon. South Korean diplomats complained to me that Japan didn’t provide them with deliverables that would have made it easier to sell the new relationship to the ROK public. In November the two governments clashed over dueling remembrances of Korean victims of forced labor at the Sado gold mine.
If the left replaces Yoon, Seoul certainly will downgrade relations. Indeed, the South might return to the cold standoff under former president Moon Jae-in, reviving squabbles over payments to victims of Imperial Japan and more. Trump has shown far less interest in allied relations, and without strong prodding from Washington even Tokyo is less likely to invest in the relationship.
North Korea Policy
Pyongyang closed the door to the ROK after the failure of the Hanoi summit. The Yoon government made no effort to maintain an opening for dialogue. Even worse, Yoon apparently attempted to create a military incident to prepare his declaration of martial law.
The Biden administration was no more willing to offer any new initiatives. However, Trump is evidently proud of his opening to the North. Whether his relationship with Kim remains as friendly as the former believes—he said he would get along with Kim “when I’m back in office”—is not clear. North Korea indicated little interest in whether Trump was reelected. However, if he was willing to talk without demanding that Pyongyang commit to denuclearization, Kim would have a greater incentive to engage the ROK as well as US.
North Korean Hwasong-16 ICBM. Image Credit: KCNA/North Korean State Media.
Yoon would not likely have favored such an approach, having taken a tough position in response to the North’s rejection of reunification. However, the left favors a revived inter-Korean dialogue despite Kim’s official disinterest. In November, the DP’s Lee contended that “The government should come up with a detailed strategy to keep pace with the rapidly changing global situation” and prevent Seoul from being sidelined by Washington and Pyongyang. KoreaPro’s Lee predicted that “The DP may pivot to indirect engagement through humanitarian aid or confidence-building measures, aiming to reduce tensions without direct talks. Efforts to restart joint economic projects, such as the Kaesong Industrial Complex, could resurface but are unlikely to materialize given Pyongyang’s current posture.” In this area, at least, the expected change in government could improve coordination between Seoul and Washington.
Balancing Against China
The South Korean public has become sharply critical of the PRC, dating back to the latter’s harsh response to the 2017 deployment of the THAAD missile defense system. Yoon shares this attitude and acted accordingly. In October he visited the Philippines, and agreed to create a “strategic partnership” with Manila. His government was considering becoming a “cooperating partner” to AUKUS Pillar II. Seoul also showed interest in working with the Quad, perhaps turning it into the Quin.
As such, Yoon was a better match for Trump, who has loaded his administration with China hawks. In contrast, the DP is more interested in conciliating Beijing. With the ROK dependent on China as a source of rare earth elements and market for semiconductor chips, Lee or another DP president likely would try to separate South Korea from America’s harsh economic policy toward China. A new DP-led government might even reconsider the THAAD deployment.
THAAD Missile Defense Battery Firing. Image Credit: Lockheed Martin.
The current opposition also is less likely to cooperate with the Quad, though Lee indicated a desire for the nuclear submarines promised to Australia as part of AUKUS. Moreover, he dismissed Washington’s position on Taiwan: “Why do we care about what happens to the Taiwan Strait?” Here the DP might be in luck: Trump’s support for the island, which he also has criticized for taking advantage of America, is less certain than Biden’s.
Becoming a European Power
Yoon’s ambitions appeared to extend well beyond the Pacific. His government participated in NATO meetings, inviting the transatlantic alliance to play a more active role in the Asia-Pacific. KoreaPro quoted a bevy of unnamed experts lauding Seoul’s qualification to lead NATO’s partnership activities in the region. The Korea Risk Group’s Joon Ha Park reported: “At the NATO Defense Ministers’ Meeting in Brussels on Oct. 17, South Korea’s Vice Defense Minister Kim Seonho took the opportunity to outline specific proposals to enhance cooperation between NATO and the so-called IP4 nations, including strengthening strategic information sharing, deepening defense collaboration and coordinating responses to regional security challenges.”
Moreover, Seoul joined the anti-Russia coalition, imposing sanctions, and Yoon visited Kyiv. After Moscow introduced DPRK troops in combat, he contemplated sending a monitoring mission to Ukraine. He also said he was “considering providing weapons to Ukraine on a ‘step-by-step’ basis as a warning,” though the opposition of some 88 percent of South Koreans caused even Yoon to hesitate.
This policy likely will change under a DP administration. Lee probably would recognize that in a war with the North, the only serious existential threat facing the ROK, the transatlantic alliance would be of little use. And while Seoul has good reason to sympathize with Ukraine, getting entangled in that conflict would risk Russian retaliation through the North. In fact, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko warned that Moscow would “respond in every way that we find necessary.” In 2023 the DP issued a statement on behalf of opposition National Assembly members of the National Defense and Foreign Affairs Committees strongly opposing “military support to Ukraine.” They added that “it would be an extremely dangerous decision for our country to turn Russia into an enemy by directly supporting Ukraine.” Although a new government probably would not abandon sanctions, which would cause problems with Europe and the US, it would be unlikely to enhance them.
Overall, Philip Turner, earlier a New Zealand ambassador to Seoul, suggested that Lee might choose “a more independent approach, less focused on security, less anchored to the U.S.” Thus, progressives likely would focus on Asia and continue Yoon’s largely economic engagement with ASEAN countries, Singapore, and Pacific Islands, while possibly downplaying maritime security initiatives that seem directed at Beijing. They also would encourage commerce beyond, such as in Africa and the Middle East.
Meeting Protectionist Pressures
The incoming Trump administration has threatened to impose tariffs on friends and foes alike. During his first term Trump forced renegotiation of the free trade agreement with Seoul. He may well seek a second bite of the apple, especially since he believes the ROK has been taking advantage of America’s troop presence.
The DP is likely to resist—Washington’s legislated preference for US-built electrical vehicles still rankles—and look to develop alternative markets to reduce its dependence on the US. Seoul has been seeking free trade agreements with several Asian states. It is likely to pursue additional regional as well as bilateral accords and also might rely more on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, an Asian free trade agreement. Softer on China generally, a progressive president also likely would, as noted earlier, resist ever tightening US restrictions on the sale of semiconductor chips and other hi-tech products to the PRC. Given Trump’s focus on trade, these issues could prove as contentious as the Special Measures Agreement.
In one area the DP is likely to be more restrictive on trade. In order to prevent the Yoon government from providing military assistance to Russia, the National Assembly was considering restrictive legislation on arms exports. This measure could affect South Korean sales elsewhere, such as in Latin America and the Middle East. Warned KoreaPro’s Lee: “If successful, the proposed restrictions could impact South Korea’s defense sector in multiple areas, from economic growth and research and development (R&D) to strategic partnerships.”
South Korea has survived a succession of political challenges and international crises since turning to democracy in 1987. Most of its presidents have been impeached or imprisoned. Yoon might end up both. After the impeachment of the acting president—the Constitutional Court will have to decide whether the National Assembly met the constitutional vote requirement—the ROK will face months without even the pretense of stable government.
If a new president is eventually installed the impact on ROK policy will be profound. Dealing with this change will be one of the most important responsibilities of the incoming Trump administration and an important test of what his policy of American First means in practice.
About the Author: Doug Bandow
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.
19fortyfive.com · by Doug Bandow · January 13, 2025
9. “North Korean troops dispatched to Ukraine were not sent as cannon fodder, but as elite troops”
I have a little different view of Richard Grenell and his appointment. I do not necessarily think it is an indication of a return to 2018-2019 negotiation with Kim Jong Un. I think Mr. Grennell is being given the tough problems to solve and I am hoping he is going to have a charter for conducting political warfare against north Korea and Venezuela and other intractable US security problems. I certainly do not think he will be advocating making the necessary concessions that Kim will demand. I am sure he will be willing to engage North Korea but I don't think he will engage from the naive perspective that he can negotiate denuclearization. I hope he will focus on solving the "Korea question" as the path to denuclearization.
Regarding north Korea's elite troops, I am still waiting for credible reporting to assess their abilities and effects.
“North Korean troops dispatched to Ukraine were not sent as cannon fodder, but as elite troops”
https://n.news.naver.com/article/022/0004000868?type=journalists
January 8th, 2025
Hong Joo-hyung, Segye Times
Greg Scarlatoiu, Chairman of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea: “This can be seen as a successful example of Kim Jong-un’s Byungjin policy.”
Regarding the dispatch of North Korean troops to Ukraine, an analysis by a North Korea expert in Washington has been made that Kim Jong-un’s Byungjin policy (parallel development of nuclear weapons and the economy) was a success and that he was sending not mere “bullet cannons,” but an elite force of the North Korean military. There is an interpretation that President-elect Donald Trump’s appointment of former Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell as “special presidential envoy for a special mission” to deal with North Korea and Venezuela is a signal to North Korea that the US is ready for dialogue.
Greg Scarlatoiu, President of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, made the remarks at a webinar hosted by the Washington Times Foundation and panelists Joseph DeTrani, former chief US representative to the Six-Party Talks, Aleksandre Mansourov, professor at Georgetown University, and Michael Jenkins, president of The Washington Times.
Regarding the North Korean military’s dispatch of troops to Ukraine, Scarlatoiu explained, “The core of this operation is money,” adding, “According to reports, each soldier is being traded for $2,000, and missile technology may also be transferred and humanitarian aid may be provided to North Korea.” He said, “This is the largest profit- making operation in North Korean history to export violence and instability,” and “This could be seen as a successful example of Kim Jong-un’s Byungjin policy.”
However, Scarlatoiu observed that Chairman Kim Jong-un likely sent his elite troops to Ukraine to show off his capabilities, and did not simply send “bullet shield” troops. The soldiers sent by North Korea are said to be from the 11th Special Forces Corps of the Korean People's Army, also known as the "Shock Brigade." He explained, "They are the best-fed, best-trained troops in North Korea, skilled in small arms used by the Russian military, and special forces trained in parachuting."
“No matter how many casualties there are on the Ukrainian front, it’s hard to say that the number has reached a critical point,” said Chairman Scarlatoiu. “North Korea didn’t collapse even though 3 million people died during the famine in the 1990s, and even if 100,000, 200,000, or 500,000 people died on the Ukrainian front, it’s unlikely that the North Korean regime will collapse.”
Regarding the appointment of former Ambassador Grenell as special envoy, he said, “He is a senior diplomat who can communicate directly with the incoming president,” and “It sends a signal to North Korea that we are here and ready to talk.” However, he added, “Of course, this is a signal that [the United States] has sent to North Korea over several administrations,” and “Those who were involved in the failed Hanoi summit paid a huge price, so I wonder what those who are aiding Kim Jong-un will recommend.”
10. US experts: "Aid to Ukraine and loudspeakers to North Korea are foreign exchange crimes? An idea as dangerous as martial law"
This is a Google translation of a Chosun Ilbo report. Comments from my friends and colleagues Greg Scarlatoiu and Hyun Seung Lee among others.
This is very important. The opposition party (Minjoo/DPK) continues to show its true colors - either extreme naivete or pro-north Korea symethaies.
They are willing to sacrifice the freedom and human rights of the Korean people in the north for their own political power.
They naively believe stopping the flow of information to the Korean people in the north will somehow entice Kim Jong Un to engage as a responsible member of the international community. They naively believe that it is information that is driving Kim Jong Un to be hostile.
Or they know that information to the Korean people to the north is an existential threat to the regime and they are therefore supporting the protection of Kim Jong Un from the Korean people in the north.
We (the ROK, US, and international community) have a moral responsibility to help the Korean people in the north. One of the major human rights abuses identified by the 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry is the forced isolation of the Korean people in the north and the extreme censorship of all information. The UN calls on the international community to transmit information to the Korean people in the north.
But this is also a national security issue. Information can lead to pressure on the regime and offers one of the best tools to pressure Kim to change his behavior. On the other hand if Kim will not change his behavior it is information that can create the conditions for change by the Korean people in the north (members of the core elite, but outside the Kim family regime, the 2d tier leadership and the general population).
And we should not forget that the north is using information as a weapon against the South, the ROK/US alliance and trilateral ROK, Japan, and US cooperation. We must understand the Kim family regime as it really and not as we would wish it to be.
And we must understand how important north Korean information and psychological warfare is to the regime.
North Korean Information Warfare
The priority for the regime is control of the population. North Korea expends significant resources to prevent the Korean people in the North from gaining access to unfiltered information, primarily from the South, but from the rest of the world as well. Although it may seem counterintuitive, Kim fears the Korean people in the North more than he does the ROK and U.S. combined militaries. In his view, the people, armed with information, represent an existential threat to the regime.[i]
The Propaganda and Agitation Department (PAD) within the Korean Workers Party (KWP) is the organization that executes the Kim regime’s IW.[ii] It seeks to subvert the ROK, split the ROK/U.S. alliance, and create the perception of external threats to justify the suffering and sacrifices of the Korean people in the North. These ideas form the basis for the themes and messages generated by the PAD.
The Kim regime also views South Korea, both the government and its citizens, as a threat to their dictatorship. The Korean Workers Party United Front Department (UFD) conducts both cyber information operations targeting the ROK public specifically, as well using sleeper agents in the ROK to complement the cyber operations.[iii] The Cultural Exchange Bureau (formerly the 225th) conducts covert action in the ROK to establish underground political parties and recruit sympathizers focused on fomenting unrest and revolution.[iv] The intent is to subvert the ROK population’s confidence in its own government. The PAD and UFD also use broadcasts, leaflets, social media, cyber activities, and both “useful idiots” and recruited sympathizers in the South and around the world to transmit regime messages directly and indirectly.[v]
Kim and his sister Kim Yo Jong have used information warfare to threaten the ROK, and then manipulate it into passing the so -called anti-leaflet law in December 2020, which prohibits South Koreans from sending information into the North.[vi] Kim Yo Jong also has blamed North Korea’s COVID-19 outbreak on leaflets from South Korea which illustrates how much the regime fears information.[vii]
[i] Eugene Whong, “HRNK Releases Report on Human Rights Denial at the Local Level in North Korea,” Radio Free Asia, December 20, 2018, https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/denied-from-the-start-12202018155602.html “Senior Fellow and SK-Korea Foundation Chair in Korea Studies Jung Pak of the Bookings Institution said the report details the organization of the local indoctrination networks, seeing possible uses of these networks in the event of conflict or for humanitarian purposes. Indoctrination at such a scale is necessary because “Kim fears his people more than he fears the United States. The people are his most proximate threat to the regime,” she said.”
[ii] North Korean Leadership Watch, “KWP and the Propaganda and Agitation Department,” November 2011, https://nkleadershipwatch.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/kwppropagandaandagitationdepartment.pdf
[iii] Defense Intelligence Agency, NORTH KOREA A GROWING REGIONAL and GLOBAL THREAT, September 2021, Page 58, https://www.dia.mil/Portals/110/Documents/News/North_Korea_Military_Power.pdf
[iv] Ibid., Page 57.
[v] Robert E. Kelly, “‘Rodman-gate’: Can ‘Useful Idiots’ please Stop Shilling for North Korea?” March 4, 2013,
https://robertedwinkelly.com/2013/03/04/rodman-gate-can-useful-idiots-please-stop-shilling-for-north-korea/
[vi] Hyonhee Shin, “S.Korea passes law to ban anti-N.Korea leaflets amid activists' outcry,” Reuters, December 14, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/world/china/skorea-passes-law-ban-anti-nkorea-leaflets-amid-activists-outcry-2020-12-14/
[vii] Mitch Shin, “Kim Yo Jong Targets South Korean Leaflets as Root Cause of North’s COVID-19 Pandemic,” The Diplomat, August 11, 2022, https://thediplomat.com/2022/08/kim-yo-jong-targets-south-korean-leaflets-as-root-cause-of-norths-covid-19-pandemic/
US experts: "Aid to Ukraine and loudspeakers to North Korea are foreign exchange crimes? An idea as dangerous as martial law"
https://www.chosun.com/international/us/2025/01/12/IKVMEHS5PJFSBJTXZMFFTJFAC4/
Serial Interviews with U.S. Korean Peninsula Experts
Opposition Party Mentions Leaflets and Loudspeakers in Response to Yoon's Foreign Exchange Charges
Another Controversy Following the Proposal of Impeachment That Korea-U.S.-Japan Cooperation is Caused
by Korea-U.S. Long-Term Emphasis on Inflow of Information into North Korea... North Korean Human Rights Act Also Included
Experts: "It's an Idea That Only Benefits Kim Jong-un and Threatens Democracy"
International Community Criticized the Moon Jae-in Government's Promoted Leaflet Ban Law
Washington = Correspondent Eun-joong Kim
Posted 2025.01.12. 06:25
Updated
2025.01.13. 13:36
0
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea (left), is talking with Rep. Jeon Yong-gi at the plenary session of the National Assembly on the 8th. /News 1
There is controversy over the special prosecution bill on internal strife proposed by six opposition parties, including the Democratic Party of Korea, on the 9th. By adding the suspicion of “foreign affairs” against President Yoon Seok-yeol to the scope of the investigation, it was stated that “there are suspicions of attempting to induce war or armed conflict by sending troops to overseas conflict zones, operating loudspeakers toward North Korea, expanding the distribution of leaflets toward North Korea, infiltrating drones into Pyongyang, and attempting to strike the origin of North Korea’s sewage balloons.” First, “sending troops to overseas conflict zones” seems to refer to Ukraine, but it has become controversial because it seems to be raising issues with the fact that troops were not dispatched and even humanitarian aid was being taken as an issue. An even bigger problem is that the military’s normal activities to suppress North Korean provocations have been labeled as foreign affairs crimes. There are strong concerns raised by the opposition party’s thinking in the US government and the public alike.
Experts on the Korean Peninsula who contacted our newspaper on the 11th unanimously agreed that “the idea of driving the issue of the operation of loudspeakers toward North Korea into a foreign exchange crime is as threatening to democracy as martial law,” and that “if this is a foreign exchange crime, it will be a laughing stock in the international community.” There was no small amount of backlash over the impeachment motion against President Yoon, which cited the improvement of Korea-Japan relations and Korea-US-Japan cooperation as grounds for impeachment, and the Democratic Party’s foreign policy and security line continues to clash with the perception of the American mainstream.
Greg Sklartoiu, Chairman of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK)
The operation of loudspeakers and distribution of leaflets toward the North, which the opposition party included in the foreign exchange suspicion, are known to be what North Korea fears the most. This is because the information that flows in this way can lead to a loss of public support among North Korean residents and threaten the existence of the Kim regime. For this reason, the U.S. State Department has long emphasized the importance of information flow into North Korea, and has supported human rights groups that distribute leaflets through the Endowment for Democracy (NED), which was established in 1983 and receives funding from Congress. The U.S. North Korea Human Rights Act, enacted in 2004, also stipulates “the spread of information from the outside world to induce internal change in North Korea.” Greg Sklartoiu, chairman of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), said, “Kim Jong-un is already losing the cultural war with South Korea, represented by K-pop and K-dramas,” and “Reducing the amount of information flowing into North Korea in this situation would be a serious strategic mistake.” He said, “If the inflow of information into North Korea decreases, only the North Korean people will become isolated, Kim Jong-un’s power will be strengthened, and the threat North Korea poses to South Korea and international peace will increase.”
Graphics = Song Yun-hye
Lee Hyun-seung, a researcher at the Global Peace Foundation and defector from the Pyongyang elite, said, “Because North Korea is an isolated country with no information, the value of information (received through leaflets, etc.) is about 10 times greater than we think,” and “Information must flow in and change the people’s perception of the Kim regime for the winds of change to blow in North Korea.” The researcher said, “North Korea has defined us as the enemy and is spewing out all kinds of threatening rhetoric. If we say that the military’s loudspeaker broadcasts toward the North and the inflow of leaflets aimed at changing the perception of North Korean people are foreign exchange crimes in this situation, it will become an international laughingstock.” He continued, “The money used for the Sunshine Policy of the past Democratic Party government was misused to support the Kim regime, which ultimately led to the development of nuclear weapons and missiles,” and “(If we follow the opposition party’s logic) can this also be considered a foreign exchange crime?”
Victor Cha, Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), speaks at an event hosted by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in October 2024. /Yonhap News
Victor Cha, Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said, “The special prosecutor’s law for President Yoon should focus on the legal issues surrounding the declaration of martial law,” and “(The special prosecutor’s law) is not a place to deal with policies regarding foreign affairs or inter-Korean relations. Such policies, whether or not they are supported by a political party, cannot be a violation of the law or grounds for impeachment.” He continued, “Gerrymandering the legal system for political party purposes is an idea that threatens democracy and the rule of law as much as President Yoon’s declaration of martial law.” This means that the special prosecutor’s law is applying the law too arbitrarily.
The opposition party also cited foreign and security policies such as value diplomacy, improvement of Korea-Japan relations, and Korea-US-Japan cooperation as grounds for impeachment in the first impeachment motion reported to the National Assembly last month. In response, CSIS Director John Hamre told our paper, “President Yoon’s declaration of martial law was clearly a wrong decision, but it is by no means justifiable to use foreign policy achievements such as the Camp David Accords, which were pursued under strong advice and support from the US, as grounds for impeachment.”
The current opposition party and the US government have deep-rooted perceptions of leaflets sent to North Korea. The representative example is the ‘North Korea Leaflet Ban Act’ (amendment to the Inter-Korean Relations Development Act) that the Moon Jae-in administration and the Democratic Party, which was the majority party in the National Assembly, pushed through in late 2020 to improve inter-Korean relations. This law was pushed forward immediately after Kim Yo-jong raised the issue of leaflets, and there was even criticism in Korea that it was a ‘Kim Yo-jong order law.’ At the time, a bipartisan human rights organization in the US Congress held a hearing, raising the issue that it “could stifle freedom of expression,” and members of the ‘Korea Caucus,’ a group of pro-Korea lawmakers, urged President Moon to revise the bill before signing it, escalating it into a diplomatic issue between South Korea and the US.
There were also critical voices in the British Parliament. The British ‘Across-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea (APPG NK)’ urged a review of the anti-North Korea leaflet ban law and a statement from the British Foreign Office, saying that “the platform for promoting human rights in North Korea will disappear.” Lee Nak-yeon, then leader of the Democratic Party, celebrated the law by raising his left fist right after it passed the plenary session, but Korea’s reputation in the international community was significantly damaged. The Constitutional Court ruled the law unconstitutional in September 2023.
After the so-called 'North Korea Leaflet Ban Act' passed the National Assembly plenary session in December 2020, Lee Nak-yeon, then leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, raises his left hand. /Yonhap News
11. Leaked data spark questions on number of North Korean casualties in Ukraine fight
Here are additional comments from a friend and former colleague who is a retired Russian analyst who of course has had no access to classified information since he retired so the information below is all based on open source (and informed by his decades of experience).
Dave, per previous, I’m sticking with the 2.5:1 - 3:1 KIA:WIA ratio. Furthermore, a new reason has emerged this autumn to reinforce the more pessimistic, or lower ratio of RUMIL losses in Ukraine. If Putin’s ratio is 5:1, a lot more of his guys would be surviving, and he wouldn’t have the acute manpower shortages he faces in Ukraine.
The 300:2,700 figure below is not in my view an outlier, but a garble of some kind, between RoK and Ukrainian officials(?) If ~3,000 DPRK soldiers have “disappeared” from the rolls, and if DPRK soldiers are being used the way Russian troops are used (e.g., in so-called “meat” assaults), I would expect the DPRK KIA figure is ~1,000-1,500.
Also regarding the DPRK contingent, recall we offered previously that 10,000-12,000 guys is what Putin burns through in Ukraine about every 8 or 9 days (obviously the DPRK contingent isn’t being committed en masse, all at once).
Leaked data spark questions on number of North Korean casualties in Ukraine fight
Wounded-to-killed ratios don't match in controversial mission, analysts say
washingtontimes.com · by Andrew Salmon
By - The Washington Times - Monday, January 13, 2025
SEOUL, South Korea — With few details leaking out about North Korea’s operations in Russia’s war with Ukraine so far, some are raising questions about the massive casualties Pyongyang’s forces are allegedly suffering.
At least 300 North Korean soldiers have been killed and some 2,700 others wounded while fighting alongside Russian troops against Ukraine, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service claimed on Monday. The figures, from a closed-door briefing given by a top official and staff members of the spy agency to the National Assembly, were leaked, the Yonhap news service reported.
Monday’s figures track with estimates made over three weeks earlier by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has sharply criticized what is the largest foreign deployment of troops by the North Korean regime since the Korean War of the early 1950s.
“According to preliminary data, the number of killed and wounded North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region already exceeds 3,000 people,” Mr. Zelenskyy said on his Telegram account Dec. 23.
Ukrainian, South Korean and U.S. comments suggest that as many as 12,000 Korean troops are heavily engaged in combat alongside Russian forces along the border with Ukraine.
Multiple videos, many shot by drones, have shown Asian troops in action in Russia’s Kursk Oblast, where Ukraine seized a small chunk of Russian territory in a surprise sortie in August that is now being heavily assaulted by Russia. While many ethnically Asian Russians serve in the Kremlin’s military, they are not assigned to exclusively Asian units.
Two wounded captives, believed to be North Korean soldiers, are currently being interrogated by Ukraine’s Security Service, aided by South Korean translators and Seoul’s National Intelligence Service.
Neither man has yet revealed his unit. The NIS, speaking in Seoul, stated that they were from the Reconnaissance General Bureau — North Korea’s military sabotage arm.
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That contradicts earlier reports, that they are regular special forces from the Korean People’s Army’s 11th “Storm” Corps, which includes shock units in light infantry, airborne and marine brigades.
The high casualties incurred by the North Korean troops are due to a “lack of experience of modern warfare,” the NIS said.
But there are reasons to question to heavy toll put out by Ukraine and its allies: The North Korean casualties’ survival rates, if the NIS’s estimates are correct, are extraordinary. One military historian said the stated ratios between wounded in action and killed in action — roughly nine to one — raised doubts about the overall estimates, in a war in which both sides have tried to overstate the losses for their adversary.
“Ninety percent [wounded in action] and 10% killed in action looks like the outcome of a wonderful medevac, triage and advanced surgery hospital systems,” said Gastone Breccia, a military historian at the University of Pavia. “The Russians don’t have them to my knowledge. Do the North Koreans? Maybe, but probably not.”
Even though Mr. Breccia noted that wounded figures could also include those unfit for service for non-combat-related reasons, such as flu, pneumonia and drunkenness, the NIS ratio still raises questions.
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Research from the Dupuy Institute, which analyzes military data, has assessed self-declared 2022 casualty reports from two sides in the current war — Ukraine and the Russia-allied Donetsk People’s Republic, or DPR. The institute found their wounded-to-killed ratios to be between 4.14 to 1 and 5 to 1.
“I expect [the ratio] to be more than 3-to-1,” analyst Christopher Lawrence noted in a post on the institute’s website. “This is the old World War II figure and medical care has improved since then and many people are now wearing body armor. Body armor certainly increases survivability from blast and fragmentation wounding, which is the majority of wounding on most battlefields.”
Adding to the likelihood of a higher death toll among Pyongyang troops is a practice widely noted among North Korean spies and commandos: suicide to evade capture.
According to a report Monday from Ukrainian media Ukrinform, a wounded North Korean soldier blew himself up with a grenade when facing capture by Ukrainian forces.
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When it comes to casualty estimates, the issue is not just bad math; it can also be bad intention. It is common in war for one side to overstate enemy casualties — and understate their own — for propaganda purposes.
That issue became particularly notorious during the Vietnam War. There, in a counterinsurgency fight that did not offer customary military objectives such as terrain captured, “body count” became the leading metric for success.
A 1977 study, conducted by a retired brigadier for “Human Behavior” magazine, found that 61% of 173 U.S. generals who fought in the conflict believed body counts had been “grossly exaggerated,” even though it was the “key factor in measuring results of the war.”
The U.S. Army subsequently abandoned the concept, as Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of U.S. forces in the 1991 Gulf War with Iraq, noted.
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“Body count means nothing, absolutely nothing,” the general said. “And all it is is a wild guess that tends to mislead people as to what’s going on.”
“We should be very careful while handling casualty estimates from anybody involved,” added Mr. Breccia, who has published works on subjects ranging from Rome’s military to the Korean War. “But with independent sources being so scarce, we can only argue over where the truth can be.”
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.
Copyright © 2025 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
washingtontimes.com · by Andrew Salmon
12. How Biden Failed on Human Rights
If Biden abandoned the human rights mantle perhaps President Trump will pick it up.
From my own limited experience in human rights, the organization I belong to, The Committee For Human RIghts in North Korea (HRNK) , received approximately $1.2M and 800K in grants from the Obama and Trump administrations and absolutely NOTHING from the Biden administration.
Human rights are not only a moral imperative, they are a national security issue as well.
But north Korea is only mentioned in passing here and the human rights failure of the Bdein admsintration is not discussed.
Excerpts:
Why Biden abandoned human rights as a tenet of U.S. foreign policy will be a question for historians and biographers. It could be that he never truly believed that protecting human rights abroad was a central U.S. interest—but he did make the issue a centerpiece of his presidential campaign and his promises after inauguration. Perhaps he arrived in the Oval Office only to realize the world was even more complex than he expected and decisions harder to make. But after decades working on foreign policy, he must have known the realities.
Whatever the reason, Biden’s inconsistencies on human rights and the rule of law have left these principles vulnerable to further erosion under future presidents and other world leaders. If the United States continues to lower the standards to which it holds its partners, allowing many of them to commit human rights abuses and face no repercussions, there will be few defenders of the rules-based order left. This outcome plays right into the hands of China and Russia, both of which have been trying to pry open cracks in the rules-based international system. Washington’s comparative advantage has been its willingness to throw its weight behind the defense of human rights and thus keep intact a global order that is highly favorable to U.S. interests. By declining to deploy U.S. power when it counted most, Biden ceded that advantage.
The forfeit brings the United States down to the level of its adversaries, relying on economic and military deals to shape outcomes abroad and minimizing the very democratic values that Biden himself said make the United States what it is. It endangers people both in the United States and around the world who are supposed to be protected by the web of norms that make up the international system. After a long career of public service, Biden made his bid for the presidency with pledges to mount a strong defense of human rights. Yet when he reached the United States’ highest office and took charge of the power it holds, Biden backed away from the fight for a more principled foreign policy and a more humane world.
How Biden Failed on Human Rights
Foreign Affairs · by More by Sarah Yager · January 14, 2025
The Moral and Strategic Costs of Abandoning an Ideal
Sarah Yager
January 14, 2025
U.S. President Joe Biden and other senior officials in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, July 2022 Evelyn Hockstein / Reuters
Sarah Yager is Washington Director at Human Rights Watch. She worked on human rights under three U.S. presidents and from 2016 to 2018 served as the first Senior Adviser on Human Rights to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the U.S. Department of Defense.
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If Donald Trump’s second term is anything like his first, the incoming U.S. president will not advance the cause of human rights. His foreign policy is more likely to harm democratic values around the world than it is to protect them. But as bleak as the next four years may become, the past four have hardly been a boon for human rights. President Joe Biden, who came into office promising that his administration would be different, ended up chipping away at these ideals himself.
On the campaign trail in 2020, Biden disparagingly quipped that Trump had embraced “all the thugs in the world,” from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Earlier, in 2019, Biden had pledged to make Saudi Arabia a global “pariah” for the part that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, played in the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. When he entered the Oval Office, Biden claimed he would match his words with actions by making human rights a foreign policy priority. In his second week as president, Biden told staffers gathered at the State Department that “upholding universal rights” was the “grounding wire of our global policy, our global power”; rights, he said, were the United States’ “inexhaustible source of strength.” Biden was a seasoned politician, and he knew that the world was complicated. But he didn’t present rights as values to be promoted only when world events allowed. Instead, in his view, advancing them was itself a way to meet the country’s greatest foreign policy challenges.
Biden initially lived up to his promises, issuing dozens of executive orders in just his first month to reverse steps Trump had taken to diminish the United States’ commitment to international human rights. Biden rejoined the UN Human Rights Council and the Paris climate accord. He removed Trump’s sanctions on the International Criminal Court. He directed federal agencies to promote protections for LGBTQ people abroad and issued the first comprehensive U.S. strategy to prevent atrocities.
Then something changed. Instead of treating the U.S. commitment to its values as a source of strength, the administration behaved as though its own stated principles were an albatross around its neck. Instead of leveraging U.S. power to advance human rights abroad, Biden hesitated to confront allies about their abuses. The administration downplayed concerns about international legal norms, and by the end of his term, Biden was sending antipersonnel landmines to Ukraine—even though a global ban on the weapons had been in place for decades—and sending arms to Israel’s government despite its serious violations of the laws of war in Gaza.
Biden returned to themes of human rights and justice in two notable cases—when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and when Hamas and other armed groups killed more than 1,200 people in Israel on October 7, 2023. Both events warranted Biden’s condemnation. Yet although he remained outspoken in his criticism of Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine, supporting efforts by international institutions such as the United Nations and the International Criminal Court to intervene, he ignored or defended similar conduct by Israel as it launched a military campaign in Gaza, and he blocked international efforts at accountability. Biden’s inconsistent application of purported U.S. values did not go unnoticed. Neither did the seeming disappearance of human rights, once a central component of Biden’s stated strategy, from the administration’s rhetoric. When Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, wrote in Foreign Affairs about “the sources of American power” in the fall of 2023, he focused on economic and military strength. Human rights were absent from the discussion.
U.S. presidents often fall short on their human rights commitments. Some outside the United States—especially in non-Western countries that have long seen hypocrisy in Washington’s promotion of liberal values—will even find it refreshing if Trump drops the pretense of caring about those ideals. But excising human rights from U.S. foreign policy—as many of Biden’s decisions have done and as Trump has proved willing to do even more decisively—will seriously damage U.S. interests and the international system. When the United States selectively applies internationally accepted rules, it undermines its credibility and loses influence in the rest of the world. And because Washington has been the architect of the modern global order, its behavior carries extra weight. If the United States flouts the rules, authoritarians and other illiberal leaders need no further excuse to break them at will, inflicting horror on their own people and inciting instability beyond their borders.
The damage Trump may do to the cause of human rights could create a temptation to look back on the Biden era with nostalgia. But those rose-colored glasses would obscure the real picture. As global power shifts, democratic values are the United States’ enduring comparative advantage. Biden claimed to understand this, but he abandoned his own strategy at a critical time. In doing so, he paved the way for a race to the bottom, as future U.S. presidents and their foreign counterparts, democrats and autocrats alike, face fewer consequences for disregarding international law and degrading human rights.
DANGEROUS BEDFELLOWS
States that deny human rights often create chaos. They can be unstable partners. Their populations eventually agitate, sometimes violently, for freedom. When human rights abuses go unchecked, they precipitate cycles of conflict that disrupt the global economic system and make defense efforts such as countering terrorism more difficult. Biden, at first, seemed to recognize this, criticizing Trump’s penchant for dictators and pledging to create a stronger alliance among democracies. He famously vowed to shun the Saudi crown prince for his rights abuses.
But by 2022, halfway through his presidency, Biden was flying to Saudi Arabia and offering MBS a fist bump. The visit was intended to convince Riyadh to lower oil prices amid a global energy crunch caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but Biden came home empty-handed. And even though Biden said human rights concerns would be “on the agenda,” autocrats aren’t swayed by quiet conversation. They need to face serious consequences, which Biden was unwilling to impose. In fact, after Biden’s visit, the Saudi government increased its repression, imposing measures such as decades-long prison sentences for online activism. And far from keeping Saudi Arabia at arm’s length, the Biden administration hitched the United States’ reputation to the autocratic state. By 2023, Washington was negotiating a defense alliance with Saudi Arabia that would pledge U.S. resources and forces to protecting the country, similar to U.S. commitments to NATO. Saudi Arabia would have been the first nondemocracy invited into the club of U.S. treaty allies in decades.
Biden’s inconsistent application of purported U.S. values did not go unnoticed.
Biden’s recent dealings with the United Arab Emirates struck a similar chord. For years, the UAE government has fueled what the U.S. State Department has called genocide in Sudan by sending weapons to the Rapid Support Forces, one of the factions in the country’s civil war. But in September, Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed was welcomed to Washington on a state visit; during MBZ’s trip, Biden announced an upgrade to Washington’s bilateral defense cooperation with the UAE. As MBZ dined at the White House, Biden’s own special envoy to Sudan was desperately but fruitlessly trying to stop Sudanese generals from massacring civilians with Emirati weapons.
Washington may well have strategic interests in reinforcing the U.S.-Emirati defense relationship, but the UAE’s desire for a deal also gave the United States leverage—leverage Biden did not use by, for instance, conditioning new terms on the UAE stopping its flood of weapons into Sudan. From a strictly pragmatic point of view, it makes little sense for the United States to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on humanitarian aid to contain the fallout of a festering conflict when it could prevent further starvation and suffering through less costly diplomatic means.
What makes Biden’s unwillingness to use such leverage particularly disappointing is that when he did take a tough stand on human rights, he got results. After he labeled Saudi Arabia a pariah and subsequently got elected, MBS implemented some reforms during the transition period, including the release of political prisoners such as women’s rights defender Loujain al-Hathloul. In 2021 and 2022, after Biden withheld a small amount of security assistance from Egypt for failing to meet congressionally mandated human rights benchmarks, that country released political prisoners, too. But in 2024, Biden used a waiver to reinstate the full $1 billion in U.S. assistance to Egypt to reward the country’s humanitarian efforts in Gaza—efforts Egypt may have undertaken regardless, as they were in its own interest. At home, meanwhile, the Egyptian government’s human rights record is the worst it has been in a decade.
THE COST OF GREAT-POWER POLITICS
Biden’s desire to draw middle powers away from China and Russia also came at the expense of human rights. Even as governments in places such as India and Thailand committed rights abuses, Washington avoided expressing serious disapproval, fearful that they would turn to Beijing or Moscow for defense, development, and trade deals. And these countries, knowing how the game was played, carried on with domestic repression while keeping channels open to the United States’ great-power rivals.
The White House rolled out the red carpet for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2023, even after U.S. intelligence had implicated Indian government agents in a conspiracy to kill a Sikh separatist activist on U.S. soil. At home, Modi’s government has discriminated against and stigmatized religious and other minority groups, leading in some cases to communal violence and the bulldozing of Muslim family homes. Yet Modi has faced little public criticism from U.S. officials. Other parts of the U.S. government have raised the issue of rights abuses: in both 2021 and 2022, the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended that India be listed as a “country of particular concern,” which is a status that triggers sanctions under U.S. law. Both times, the State Department declined to follow the recommendation, and in early 2024, the Biden administration cleared a $4 billion drone sale to India as part of a broader effort to keep a geopolitically important country onside. U.S. overtures, however, did not stop Modi from visiting Putin in Moscow a few months later, frustrating American officials.
In the case of Thailand, the Biden administration considered the country to be so indispensable to U.S. military planning in the Pacific theater that Washington could do no more than offer mild rebukes in response to the Thai government’s rights abuses. The abuses thus persisted without any consequences. Thailand used to be a safe haven for dissidents from Cambodia, China, Myanmar, and Vietnam, but no longer. The Thai government either ignores the threat of transnational repression or actively helps foreign governments target their citizens who have fled to Thailand. A former Cambodian opposition lawmaker was gunned down in Bangkok just last week. The administration has taken no meaningful action in response. Nor did the United States act when Thailand’s Constitutional Court disbanded the opposition party Move Forward, even though Washington had repeatedly urged the Thai government not to dissolve the party. The U.S.-Thai relationship is hardly a fragile one; Thailand has had diplomatic ties with the United States for more than a century and is unlikely to walk away now. Washington may not want to criticize Thailand so severely that it undermines U.S. military operations in the Pacific, but surely the Biden administration could have said and done more about human rights abuses than it did.
Excising human rights from U.S. foreign policy will seriously damage U.S. interests.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, to his credit, raised human rights concerns in every diplomatic engagement, even if the autocrats he chastised knew there would be little pressure behind his words. Other senior officials and staff also tried to live up to Biden’s original vision of advancing human rights. There are former political prisoners in Vietnam who are free today because U.S. diplomats were willing to fight for them. The State Department cut U.S. assistance to Tunisia by nearly half when the president there dialed up his repression, and it created new sanctions against foreign companies that sell spyware to dictatorships. Guatemala is on a path to reform, albeit a steep one, because U.S. diplomats helped head off a coup before the swearing in of the president-elect. Courageous U.S. ambassadors, such as David Pressman in Hungary, took personal risks to challenge repression. And the administration levied sanctions on rights abusers in Haiti, Myanmar, Sudan, and Uganda, as well as on violent settlers in the West Bank.
But many of these efforts were of relatively low geopolitical consequence. When policy decisions had higher stakes, members of Biden’s senior team who tried to prioritize human rights were consistently overruled. At times no one was even in the room to remind the president that human rights were supposedly part of the administration’s strategy. The State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor lacked an assistant secretary, its most senior position, for the first three and a half years of Biden’s term.
Without high-ranking officials to make the case for protecting human rights, even faltering progress was undermined by policy decisions at the top. The State Department, for instance, issued a formal atrocity determination in 2023 that named Ethiopian forces responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity. U.S. officials undermined the determination just three months later by allowing foreign economic investment in Ethiopia and failing to issue alternative measures to address the abuses—even though some of the same forces remained engaged in atrocities. The White House also sought to tackle transnational repression by issuing a travel ban on Saudi citizens connected to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and by tasking federal agencies to reach out to diaspora communities across the United States. But senior decision-makers never held countries such as Egypt, India, or Rwanda accountable for targeting their critics inside the United States or for punishing those critics’ families at home.
BENDING THE RULES
The hypocrisy of Biden’s policies came into sharpest relief in his responses to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. International law was applied only in some cases, not all. When the president wanted to pursue justice for abuses, he could and did. His administration led the charge to kick Russia off the UN Human Rights Council and supported the International Criminal Court’s efforts to gather evidence of Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine. In February 2023, a year into the war, Blinken powerfully detailed to the UN Security Council how Russia had violated international norms as it killed and displaced civilians, destroyed half of Ukraine’s energy grid, and used starvation as a weapon.
But the administration did not treat other injustices with the same clarity. Biden’s fervent support for the Israeli government’s campaign in Gaza was perhaps his most hypocritical position—and the one most damaging to international law. The UN secretary-general, world leaders, and human rights organizations accused the Israeli military of committing the very same war crimes in Gaza that Blinken charged Russia with committing in Ukraine. Yet Biden insisted on shipping weapons to Israel without imposing conditions on their use, declining to use the most powerful tool at his disposal to change the Israeli government’s conduct.
Biden’s State Department was able to consistently identify and publicly condemn specific Russian war crimes. In March 2022, just one month after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, an official assessment reported that more than 2,400 civilians had been killed in Mariupol and detailed a Russian strike against a theater in the city that was marked with the Russian word for “children.” Yet eight months into the gut-wrenching conflict in Gaza, and despite extensive evidence of the Israeli government’s war crimes documented by human rights and humanitarian groups, the State Department said it could not verify any particular instance of Israel violating international law.
Even faltering progress was undermined by policy decisions at the top.
With the most sophisticated intelligence apparatus in the world, the Biden administration appeared to not register what the rest of the world could clearly see. Gaza has been destroyed more completely than almost any urban area in the history of modern warfare. Nearly 50,000 Palestinians are dead because of Israeli military operations, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and many more are injured and traumatized. More than 90 percent of the population is displaced. Israeli authorities and forces have stopped the water piped into Gaza from Israel, cut off the territory’s electricity, and destroyed its essential infrastructure.
Even as evidence piled up showing the Israeli government’s disregard for the laws of war, Biden refused to use U.S. weapons shipments to Israel as leverage to change its behavior. Instead, he enabled persistent human rights abuses in Gaza and violated U.S. law to do so; several statutes, including Section 502B of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act, prohibit arms transfers to countries that do not adhere to the laws of war. Another section of the same U.S. law bars the United States from sending weapons to any country that “prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.” In April 2024, Samantha Power, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, sent a memo to Blinken stating that Israeli authorities had interfered with the agency’s efforts to provide aid to Palestinians in Gaza, including by killing aid workers, bombing ambulances and hospitals, and repeatedly delaying or turning away trucks full of lifesaving supplies. But the Biden administration continued to transfer weapons, with seven shipments arriving in Israel the following month alone.
Overruling U.S. legislation gives future presidents license to do the same. The international rules designed to protect civilians are degraded, too, when a close U.S. partner can breach them and face few consequences. In an interview with The New York Times in January 2024, Blinken refused to answer repeated questions about whether Israel had followed international law in Gaza. Notably, the administration has all but stopped publicly condemning Russian war crimes, perhaps recognizing that it can no longer do so credibly.
The hypocrisy of Biden’s policies came into sharpest relief in Ukraine and Gaza.
The Biden administration’s decision to send antipersonnel land mines to Ukraine in November 2024 was another case of the United States disregarding supposedly universal norms. Because this type of weapon cannot discriminate between civilians and combatants, a ban has been in place for 25 years under a treaty negotiated among 164 countries. The United States never signed the treaty, but in 2022 the Biden administration prohibited the use of antipersonnel land mines outside the Korean Peninsula. When Trump in his first term lifted a previous U.S. ban, Biden had even called the move “reckless.” Biden defended his recent decision to export the weapons as breaking one rule to save another—specifically the right to sovereignty, which is now at risk in Ukraine. This was the same rationale the administration used in July 2023 when it started to send Ukraine cluster munitions, which are also banned by an international treaty (another that the United States has not signed). But neither weapon was going to be a game-changer for Ukraine, so Biden’s disregard for both treaties will only put more civilian lives at risk and further erode humanitarian norms.
By ignoring the law in some areas, the Biden administration also undermined its own efforts to strengthen protections elsewhere. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, for instance, tasked the Pentagon with developing an infrastructure to mitigate civilian harm in conflict, drawing on the lessons of the United States’ 20 years of counterterrorism operations. The Department of Defense now includes a staff fully focused on civilian protection and a new center created to develop training, doctrine, and investigation procedures to minimize and recognize civilian harm caused by U.S. operations. It is a historic effort that could save many lives in conflicts that involve either the United States or its partners. Austin aimed to bring U.S. security partners on board, too, to adopt a similar civilian protection ethos and set of standards. But after Washington overlooked war crimes to support Israel’s campaign in Gaza, other countries may no longer take the United States seriously on matters of civilian protection and adherence to international humanitarian law.
All conflicts have seen some violation of the laws of war. The United States itself has a checkered history, including most recently in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the rules are worth preserving, even if their defenders do not always live up to the standards of conduct they espouse. These guardrails are meant to save lives and to hold violators accountable. Biden could have fortified these protections, using the United States’ influence and meeting its responsibilities as a superpower, one of the founders of international humanitarian law, one of the world’s largest arms suppliers, and the UN’s largest contributor. But he squandered the opportunity and allowed the norms that protect civilians in war to break down.
A TARNISHED LEGACY
Why Biden abandoned human rights as a tenet of U.S. foreign policy will be a question for historians and biographers. It could be that he never truly believed that protecting human rights abroad was a central U.S. interest—but he did make the issue a centerpiece of his presidential campaign and his promises after inauguration. Perhaps he arrived in the Oval Office only to realize the world was even more complex than he expected and decisions harder to make. But after decades working on foreign policy, he must have known the realities.
Whatever the reason, Biden’s inconsistencies on human rights and the rule of law have left these principles vulnerable to further erosion under future presidents and other world leaders. If the United States continues to lower the standards to which it holds its partners, allowing many of them to commit human rights abuses and face no repercussions, there will be few defenders of the rules-based order left. This outcome plays right into the hands of China and Russia, both of which have been trying to pry open cracks in the rules-based international system. Washington’s comparative advantage has been its willingness to throw its weight behind the defense of human rights and thus keep intact a global order that is highly favorable to U.S. interests. By declining to deploy U.S. power when it counted most, Biden ceded that advantage.
The forfeit brings the United States down to the level of its adversaries, relying on economic and military deals to shape outcomes abroad and minimizing the very democratic values that Biden himself said make the United States what it is. It endangers people both in the United States and around the world who are supposed to be protected by the web of norms that make up the international system. After a long career of public service, Biden made his bid for the presidency with pledges to mount a strong defense of human rights. Yet when he reached the United States’ highest office and took charge of the power it holds, Biden backed away from the fight for a more principled foreign policy and a more humane world.
Sarah Yager is Washington Director at Human Rights Watch. She worked on human rights under three U.S. presidents and from 2016 to 2018 served as the first Senior Adviser on Human Rights to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the U.S. Department of Defense.
Foreign Affairs · by More by Sarah Yager · January 14, 2025
13. S. Korea, U.S., Japan identify N. Korea behind US$659 million crypto theft in 2024
All purpose sword.
S. Korea, U.S., Japan identify N. Korea behind US$659 million crypto theft in 2024 | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Seung-yeon · January 14, 2025
By Kim Seung-yeon
SEOUL, Jan. 14 (Yonhap) -- North Korean hackers stole some US$659 million worth of crypto assets through multiple hacks in 2024 as it continues its malicious cyber activities to fund its illicit weapons programs, a joint statement by South Korea, the United States and Japan showed Tuesday.
It marked the first time the three countries have jointly identified North Korea-linked cryptocurrency thefts and their targeted entities in a public statement.
Last year, North Korea hacked $235 million from the India-based bitcoin exchange WazirX and $50 million from Radiant Capital, in addition to approximately $374.13 million stolen from DMM Bitcoin, Upbit and Rain Management, the statement said, citing industry analyses.
The three countries have designated North Korea-affiliated hacking groups, including the Lazarus Group, as subject to sanctions.
The three countries have observed that the North deployed "well-disguised" attacks that ultimately deploy malware, demonstrating a "pattern of malicious behavior in cyberspace by conducting numerous cybercrime campaigns" to steal crypto assets, the statement said.
This computerized image depicts North Korea's crypto theft. (Yonhap)
Tuesday's statement intends to provide a warning to the blockchain technology industry about the ongoing targeting and compromise of a range of entities by North Korean crypto hackers, it said.
"The DPRK's cyber program poses a significant threat to the integrity and stability of the international financial system," the statement said, referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"Our three governments strive together to prevent thefts, including from private industry, by the DPRK and to recover stolen funds with the ultimate goal of denying the DPRK illicit revenue for its unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs," it said.
The three countries advised the private sector to thoroughly review the advisories issued by their authorities to better inform anti-cyber threat measures and mitigate the risk of inadvertently hiring North Korean IT workers.
The three nations also reaffirmed their commitment to working together to counter the North's malicious cyber activities and illicit revenue generation.
elly@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Seung-yeon · January 14, 2025
14. S. Korea to consult with Ukraine if captured N.K. soldiers seek defection to South: Seoul
Yes. What to do with soldiers who do not want to return to north Korea.
I wonder what the Minjoo/PDK Party will do if Seoul accepts nKPA soldiers' requests to be repatriated to South Korea versus north Korea?
S. Korea to consult with Ukraine if captured N.K. soldiers seek defection to South: Seoul | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Park Boram · January 14, 2025
SEOUL, Jan. 14 (Yonhap) -- The South Korean government plans to consult with Ukraine about bringing North Korean soldiers captured by Ukraine to the South if they request defection, the foreign ministry said Tuesday.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Lee Jae-woong made the remarks during a regular press briefing following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's recent revelation that two North Korean soldiers were captured by Ukraine in Russia's western Kursk region while fighting for Russia.
In a video later shared by Zelenskyy, one of the North Korean soldiers was seen asking if Ukrainians were all good people and, after an interpreter replied positively, saying, "I want to live here."
"As North Korean soldiers are our nationals according to the Constitution, (the government) plans to hold discussions with Ukraine if they request defection to South Korea," the spokesperson said.
South Korea's Constitution defines the entire Korean Peninsula as its territory, effectively recognizing all residents on the peninsula as its nationals.
The ministry spokesperson, however, stated that neither of the two captured soldiers has expressed an intention to defect to the South, adding that relevant South Korean authorities are currently in communication with Ukraine regarding matters concerning them.
On Sunday, South Korea's spy agency confirmed Ukraine's capture of two North Korean soldiers last week and pledged close cooperation with its Ukrainian counterpart to continue sharing related information.
North Korea is estimated to have sent some 11,000 troops to support Russia in its war against Ukraine. Of those, 300 are believed to have been killed, with some 2,700 others wounded, according to the National Intelligence Service.
Lee Jae-woong, the foreign ministry spokesperson, speaks during a press briefing in Seoul on Jan. 14, 2025. (Yonhap)
pbr@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Park Boram · January 14, 2025
15. Parliamentary committee questions Army chief, military commanders over Yoon's alleged insurrection
I am saddened to see LTG Kwak, the ROK Army Special Warfare Commander, potentially persecuted (and prosecuted) for this.
Parliamentary committee questions Army chief, military commanders over Yoon's alleged insurrection | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Yi Wonju · January 14, 2025
SEOUL, Jan. 14 (Yonhap) -- A parliamentary special committee on Tuesday conducted its first inquiry into the defense ministry and other military commanders allegedly involved in President Yoon Suk Yeol's short-lived imposition of martial law.
Late last month, the National Assembly launched a special 18-member committee to look into Yoon's insurrection allegations until Feb. 13.
Key witnesses, including Army Chief of Staff Gen. Park An-su, who served as martial law commander, and Lt. Gen. Kwak Jong-keun, chief of the Army Special Warfare Command, were present at the session.
Lt. Gen. Yeo In-hyung, head of the Defense Counterintelligence Command, who is suspected of sending troops to the National Assembly and the National Election Commission, and ordering the arrest of the leaders of the ruling and main opposition parties, did not show up at the meeting.
During the session, lawmakers from the ruling People Power Party (PPP) and the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) mainly clashed over the legitimacy of the martial law declaration.
The PPP also criticized the DP's decision to include allegations that Yoon committed "treason" by attempting to deliberately incite foreign aggression in a new special probe bill.
Meanwhile, opposition lawmakers took issue with the mobilization of the military during the martial law imposition.
"The military mobilized during martial law was on standby with over 180,000 rounds of ammunition," DP Rep. Min Hong-chul said in his inquiry into Kwak, criticizing it as an attempt to "turn Seoul into a second Gwangju" akin to the 1980 massacre of pro-democracy protests in the southwestern city.
Lt. Gen. Kwak Jong-keun (front), chief of the Army Special Warfare Command, answers lawmakers' questions during a special committee meeting on President Yoon Suk Yeol's short-lived imposition of martial law on Jan. 14, 2025. (Yonhap)
julesyi@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Yi Wonju · January 14, 2025
16. Human Rights Experts: “North Korean Troop Dispatch Tragedy Reveals Regime’s Severe Human Rights Suppression”
This is a Google translation of a VOA report
Correction: Greg Scarlatoiu is the President and CEO of the Committee for Human RIghts in North Korea, not the executive director.
Human Rights Experts: “North Korean Troop Dispatch Tragedy Reveals Regime’s Severe Human Rights Suppression”
2025.1.14
https://www.voakorea.com/a/7935582.html
U.S. human rights experts have recently evaluated that the tragedy of North Korean troops dispatched to Russia has clearly revealed the human rights situation in North Korea. They pointed out that the unconditional orders of the North Korean regime are a product of a system of terror. Reporter Ahn So-young reports.
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John Sifton, Asia Director, Human Rights Watch
John Sifton, Asia director at the international human rights group Human Rights Watch, said on the 13th that “Kim Jong-un’s order to send troops to overseas wars where many soldiers are likely to die is a product of a totalitarian system of oppression and fear.”
In a phone call with VOA that day, Director Sifton said that the South Korean National Intelligence Service's report on the North Korean troops dispatched was "a clear example of the North Korean regime's extreme oppression of its people."
[Recording: Director Sifton] “So what we're seeing here is that Kim Jong Un's capacity to issue orders to send troops to Russia are obeyed without question. And Kim Jong Un’s order to send troops to a foreign war where many of them will likely lose their lives is a product of his totalitarian system of repression and terror.”
“What we’re seeing is that when Kim Jong-un gives the order to send troops into Russia, they do it without question,” Sifton said.
“North Korea’s Illegal Weapons Programs Are Sustained Through Human Rights Violations”
He then pointed out that “Kim Jong-un is trying to strengthen cooperation with Russia by sending troops and develop North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs,” adding that “this shows once again that North Korea’s illegal weapons programs are being maintained through human rights abuses.”
South Korea's National Intelligence Service said in a closed-door meeting of the National Assembly Intelligence Committee on the 12th, "As a result of understanding the local battlefield situation, including the capture of North Korean soldiers, through real-time cooperation with the Ukrainian intelligence agency, we confirmed that the Ukrainian military captured two North Korean soldiers on the Kursk battlefield in Russia on the 9th."
He also said, “One of them stated during the investigation that he thought he was being sent for training, not war, and that he only found out about the deployment after arriving in Russia.”
It also reported that “notes kept by the soldiers were found containing content that North Korean authorities were forcing them to commit suicide before their capture.”
The National Intelligence Service also estimated that about 300 North Korean soldiers have died and 2,700 have been injured so far, which is equivalent to one-third of the 11,000 North Korean soldiers deployed to the Kursk region.
The National Intelligence Service analyzed recently obtained North Korean combat footage and concluded that the main causes of the mass casualties were a lack of understanding of modern warfare, such as meaningless long-range rear-facing fire and assault tactics without rear-facing support, as well as the way Russia utilized North Korean troops.
“It shows the characteristics of a dictatorship”
Robert King, former State Department special envoy for North Korean human rights issues
Robert King, former U.S. State Department special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, told VOA that it was “very tragic and unfortunate” that North Korean soldiers were involved in the war without even knowing they were being deployed, and that it “clearly shows the characteristics of a dictatorship.”
[Recording: Former Special Envoy King] “The thing that's probably most disturbing is that the North Korean soldiers were not told what was happening to them. It's very tragic and unfortunate. People should know and consent before they're set to fight in foreign countries. And, it's unfortunate that the people of North Korea aren't able to make those kind of choices for themselves.”
Former Special Envoy King said soldiers must be informed of overseas deployments in advance and give their consent, adding, “It is unfortunate that North Koreans cannot make that choice on their own.”
“The responsibility for the sacrifice of the North Korean military lies with Kim Jong-un and Putin”
Igor Krestin, director of global policy at the George W. Bush Institute. Photo = Courtesy of the Bush Institute
“Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin are responsible for the tragic deaths of North Korean soldiers in an unnecessary conflict,” Igor Krestin, director of global policy at the Bush Center, which honors former U.S. President George W. Bush, told VOA.
[Director Crestin] “Pyongyang’s decision to send North Korean troops to Russia for its illegal war against Ukraine is consistent with North Korea’s blatant disregard for the human rights of its people. Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin are responsible for the tragic deaths of North Koreans in this needless conflict. This development should also greatly concern the free world, as North Korea ramps up its illicit weapons programs and prepares for future aggression against its democratic neighbors South Korea and Japan, as well as the United States.”
“North Korea’s decision to send its troops to fight Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine is consistent with its blatant disregard for the human rights of its own people,” said Director Krestin.
He added that “these developments should be of grave concern to the free world, especially as North Korea strengthens its illicit weapons programs and prepares future attacks on its democratic neighbors, South Korea, Japan and the United States.”
“North Korea regime sacrifices its own soldiers for profit”
Greg Scarlatoiu, Executive Director, Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK)
Greg Scarlatoiu, president of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), told VOA on the same day that “the Kim Jong-un regime in North Korea is exploiting the blood, sweat, and tears of North Korean soldiers for its own benefit.”
[Recording: Chairman Scarlatu] “The Kim regime sells the blood, sweat and tears of North Korean servicemen for its own profit. (There's no reason) North Korean soldiers should be dying in Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. Parents, siblings and spouses should be rallying and protesting against their sons getting killed in a senseless war of aggression. But that is even impossible in North Korea where fundamental human rights such as freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, freedom of expression are not allowed, but instead severely punished.”
“There is no reason for North Korean soldiers to die in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” said Chairman Scalatu, adding that while families of deployed soldiers should hold rallies and protest against their sacrifices in this senseless war of aggression, North Korea does not even have this freedom.
This is Soyoung Ahn from VOA News.
17. Trump wants to rekindle his Kim Jong-un bromance, but North Korea has other suitors now
The prize for Kim Jong Un is the US, but only if President Trump is willing to give him concessions. Concessions from the US trumps all other suitors.
But if the US provides political and economic concessions Kim will assess that his political warfare strategy is working and he will surely double down. He will not negotiate to denuclearize. And if we offer arms control negotiations, then it is game over as Kim will declare victory because he will get what he wants: permanent nuclear weapons to for plackalmail diplomacy to coerce the South, support to political warfare to undermine the ROK government and society, deter the US, split the ROK/US alliance and drive US troops from the peninsula , and eventually be able to employ them as required to win a war to dominate the peninsula by force (a successful scenario in his mind only).
Trump wants to rekindle his Kim Jong-un bromance, but North Korea has other suitors now
The Korea Times · January 14, 2025
By Daniel R. DePetris
To say that President-elect Donald Trump has a lot of plans for his second term would be a gross understatement. He has vowed to implement the largest deportation operation in American history, secure the U.S.-Mexico border and negotiate a peace settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Yet for Trump, all of these items may be minor when compared to one other issue: resolving the North Korea nuclear conundrum. Taking Pyongyang’s nuclear program off the board is Trump’s proverbial white whale, a feat that none of his predecessors managed to accomplish. Members of Trump’s inner circle told Reuters in late November that the next president was already talking about restarting the personal diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that had begun during his first term.
Talk is one thing, reality another. If Trump enters office thinking he can easily resurrect his relationship with Kim, then he’s going to set himself up for disappointment. Resolving the North Korean nuclear issue was hard five years ago, but it will be even harder today.
During his first term, Trump was able to push for personal engagement with North Korea’s head of state despite resistance among his national security advisers. This was the right move at the time. After all, bottom-up attempts by the Bush and Obama administrations to negotiate with Pyongyang proved to be both laborious and unsuccessful.
After nearly a year of fire-breathing rhetoric and talk about a “bloody nose” strike that would scare Pyongyang into talks, Trump opted to gamble on direct diplomacy. This was partly because his other options — more economic sanctions or military action — ranged from ineffective to disastrous, and partly because the South Korean president at the time, Moon Jae-in, was able to convince Trump that a direct channel of communication to Kim might be the key to cementing a nuclear deal of historic importance.
Despite three Trump-Kim meetings, face-to-face diplomacy failed to produce anything over the long-term. While Trump managed to get North Korea to suspend missile tests for a year — no small accomplishment given its past activity— the flashy summitry ultimately crashed and burned. In the end, Trump and Kim, their personal chemistry notwithstanding, were unable to come to terms— Trump, pushed by his hawkish advisors, advocated for North Korea’s complete denuclearization; Kim, meanwhile, was only willing to demobilize his main plutonium research facility at Yongbyon.
U.S.-North Korea diplomacy has been dead ever since. The Biden administration’s overtures to Pyongyang over the last four years have been repeatedly slapped down, apparently a consequence of what the North Korean leadership views as a lack of seriousness on the part of Washington as well as U.S. attempts to solidify a trilateral military relationship between the United States, South Korea and Japan.
In other words, on Jan. 20, the perennial North Korean nuclear problem will be as thorny as ever. And probably thornier: Kim is far less desperate for a nuclear agreement and an end to U.S. sanctions now than he was during Trump’s first administration.
First, Kim hasn’t forgotten his previous meetings with Trump. He sees the summitry of 2018 and 2019 as a waste of time at best and a personal humiliation at worst. This shouldn’t be a surprise; the North Korean dictator staked significant capital on negotiating an agreement to lift U.S. sanctions and to normalize Pyongyang-U.S. relations. His entreaties failed on both accounts. Three summits later, U.S. sanctions remained intact and U.S.-North Korea relations remained in their usual acrimony.
Kim will be more cautious this time around. “We have already explored every possible avenue in negotiating with the U.S.,” he said in November, adding that the result had been more U.S. aggression. And in a December speech, he promised to deliver the “toughest … counteractions” against the U.S., an expression of his commitment to resisting what he perceives as a hostile bloc underwritten by Washington.
The geopolitical environment has evolved as well. Back in 2018-2019, North Korea was isolated, and the suspension of U.S. sanctions was seen as a critical to its economic growth.
But now Putin’s war in Ukraine has provided the Kim regime a golden opportunity to diversify its foreign relations away from China by cozying up to Moscow, not least by sending thousands of North Korean troops to the Ukraine-Russia front lines. Russia, which used to be a partner in the United States’ desire to denuclearize North Korean, is now using North Korea as a way to frustrate America’s grand ambitions in East Asia.
For Kim, the advantages of his relationship with Russia are equally clear: Putin needs arms and men; Kim needs cash and military technology. And thanks to Russia’s veto at the U.N. Security Council, additional sanctions are a pipe dream for the foreseeable future, while those on the books already are meekly enforced. As long as the Russia-North Korea relationship continues as its current pace, Trump will be hard pressed to bring the North Koreans back to the negotiating table.
None of this is to suggest that Trump shouldn’t try another diplomatic foray with North Korea. Regardless of the criticism he received at the time, Trump’s decision to shake things up and go straight to the source was an admirable attempt to manage an issue that has defied U.S. presidents for more than three decades.
Yet if Trump wants a second roll of the dice, he needs to keep a healthy dose of skepticism front-of-mind. Given the continued improvement of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, any agreement the United States signs with the Kim regime will be less impressive than it could have been in 2019 — assuming we get an agreement at all.
Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs commentator for the Spectator. This article was published by Los Angeles Times and distributed by Tribune Content Agency.
The Korea Times · January 14, 2025
18. [Trump's 2nd term begins] "Increased uncertainty in the US-ROK alliance... Will demand more burden from Korea"
A range of thoughts from experts.
This is a Google translation of a VOA report.
As an aside, VOA is assessing the Trump administration taking office and explaining to foreign audiences what may happen (which of course is its mission). I ask what other media outlets in the US or Korea are providing this much detail and explanation about possible US policies toward Korea. No other media outlet is reporting on US-Korea issues in such depth as VOA (and RFA).
[Trump's 2nd term begins] "Increased uncertainty in the US-ROK alliance... Will demand more burden from Korea"
2025.1.14
https://www.voakorea.com/a/7935575.html
U.S. experts on the Korean Peninsula have predicted that uncertainty in the U.S.-ROK alliance will increase in the short term due to political turmoil in South Korea, including the inauguration of Donald Trump’s second term and the impeachment of President Yoon Seok-yeol. They also predicted that the U.S. will make more demands on South Korea, such as an increase in its defense burden-sharing, in order to suppress North Korea and China. Reporter Ahn Jun-ho reports.
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Michael O'Hanlon, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told VOA on the 13th that the current situation, which coincides with the impeachment of South Korean President Yoon and the inauguration of the second Trump administration, is "the most unstable time for alliances since (former President) Jimmy Carter."
Senior Researcher O'Hanlon diagnosed that if President Yoon is impeached and the Democratic Party, which has pursued equidistant diplomacy between the U.S. and China, takes power, "the political situation in both countries is unstable, and there is skepticism about the alliance among Trump and some in the Korean Democratic Party, so the journey, especially in the first few months, could be quite difficult."
[Senior Researcher O’Hanlon] “I do believe these are among the most unsettled times in the history of the alliance, especially since Jimmy Carter. But I am hopeful things will settle down and stabilize. It could be quite a ride though!, especially in the opening months given the turbulence in both countries' politics and the skepticism towards the alliance among some in both Trump and ROK Democratic party camps.”
“Alliance, stable in the long term but uncertain in the short term”
Andrew Yeo, Brookings Institution Korea Chair
Andrew Yeo, the Brookings Institution Korea Chair, said in a phone call with VOA that day, “In the big picture, the U.S.-South Korea alliance is still stable in the long term, but in the short term, there is uncertainty due to the political crisis in South Korea.”
[Recording: Yeo Chairperson] “So again, big picture long term I still think there's stability in the lines but in the short term there is this period of uncertainty because of South Korea's political crisis.”
The chairwoman said, “Whether it’s the Democratic Party or the People Power Party, both parties are trying to cooperate with the United States and maintain a strong relationship,” but added, “However, the Democratic Party maintains a slightly different stance on public relations than President Yoon and the People Power Party.”
He continued, “If the Trump administration takes a hard-line approach toward China, tensions (between the U.S. and South Korea) could rise,” and “There could be conflicts between the Democratic administration and China policy.”
However, it was also predicted that the Democratic Party would try to cooperate as much as possible within the scope of maintaining the alliance with the United States.
Evans Revere, former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
Evans Revere, former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, told VOA on the same day, “President Yoon’s failed martial law declaration has opened the way for the progressive opposition party to take power in the next presidential election,” and predicted, “As a result, the two countries will experience clashes of opinion on a number of issues, including defense cost-sharing, cooperation with North Korea and Japan, policy toward Russia, trade, China, and even the alliance itself.”
He continued, “Managing these differences will be difficult because the ideological and political differences between the Trump administration and the new South Korean government will be very significant.”
[Former Deputy Assistant Secretary Revere] “This outcome will probably result in a US-ROK alliance that finds its two partners at odds on a number of issues, including defense cost-sharing, North Korea, cooperation with Japan, policy towards Russia, trade, China and even the alliance itself. Managing these differences will be difficult, especially since the ideological and political preferences between the Trump administration and a new ROK government will be so broad.”
“Trump’s 2nd term will demand more burden from Korea”
“What is certain is that the new U.S. administration will likely demand greater contributions from South Korea to support U.S. forces stationed here and a stronger alliance response to challenges from North Korea and China,” said Revere, a former deputy assistant secretary.
[Former Deputy Assistant Secretary Revere] “But certain things seem clear: The incoming US administration is likely to demand a greater ROK contribution in support of US forces in Korea and a more robust alliance response to the challenges from North Korea and China.”
He continued, “The next Trump administration could pressure South Korea by threatening to reduce the number of U.S. troops stationed in Korea or change their roles,” and predicted, “What is clear is that President-elect Trump’s approach to relations with South Korea will become more transactional.”
The explanation is that the next Trump administration will not take for granted the traditional values or principles of the US-ROK alliance as it did in the past.
Joseph DeTrani, former US Deputy Representative for Six-Party Talks on North Korea
Joseph DeTrani, former deputy U.S. representative to the Six-Party Talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, said in a phone call with VOA on the same day that “the Trump administration will likely focus on negotiations over defense cost-sharing,” adding that “South Korea is already paying a cost share of about $1 billion, but the Trump administration will demand that it spend a greater percentage of its gross domestic product (GDP) [on defense spending].”
The Trump administration is expected to demand more cost sharing from all allies and partners, not just South Korea, but also the number of US troops stationed in South Korea, but it is expected to remain at the current level.
[Recording: Former Deputy Representative DeTrani] “I think it's likely that the Trump administration will focus on the SMA and asked the Republic of Korea to invest more. It's almost one billion already but they'd be looking maybe for a higher percentage of the GDP. (omitted) So yes but I don’t think it’s going to affect the troop level.”
“Low possibility of reducing US troops in Korea”
The South Korean Foreign Ministry also predicted that while the next Trump administration is likely to pressure South Korea to increase its defense cost-sharing, the possibility of a reduction in the number of US troops stationed in South Korea is low.
“The Trump administration is likely to take a hard-line stance toward China, and that would require a U.S. military presence in the region, particularly in the military sector,” he said. “The U.S. does not have troops stationed in the Asian continent, except on the Korean Peninsula.”
[Recording: Yeo Chairperson] “I mentioned the Trump administration possibly taking on a more hawkish stance towards China. But in able to do that especially on the military front, you need to have US troops in the region and there's no, the US doesn't have any force presence on continental Asia except for the Korean Peninsula.”
“Cooperation in the shipbuilding industry could ease pressure”
James Jeffrey, former Deputy National Security Advisor
James Jeffrey, former deputy national security adviser, appeared on “Washington Talk” on the 10th and predicted that cooperation between South Korea and the U.S. in the shipbuilding industry could ease President-elect Trump’s pressure to increase defense cost sharing.
“Shipbuilding is a huge problem for the U.S. Navy in competing with China,” said Jeffrey, a former deputy assistant secretary. “South Korea is one of the world’s leading shipbuilders, so shipbuilding cooperation is a great idea and will help ease the pressure to increase defense cost sharing.”
[Recording: Deputy Chief of Staff Jeffrey] “Shared shipbuilding, which is a huge problem for the US Navy in trying to compete with China. President Trump put his finger on something very important. And as you know, South Korea is one of the leaders in the world in ship manufacturing. “This is a great idea and it would be helpful.”
“The momentum for cooperation between the US, Korea, and Japan will decline”
The chair predicted that trilateral cooperation among the US, South Korea, and Japan would continue during the second Trump administration, but the pace and enthusiasm would decline.
“The bigger problem is if the Democratic Party takes power,” said Yeo Seok-ja. “I don’t think the trilateral relationship will end, but the level of cooperation and the ability to come up with new measures or areas of cooperation could slow down.”
The explanation is that if the relationship between Korea and Japan worsens or anti-Japanese sentiment intensifies due to historical issues, it will also affect the trilateral relationship between the US, Korea, and Japan.
[Recording: Chairwoman Yeo] “But it’s inevitable that if bilateral relations between Japan and Korea sour or if they, if there’s an uptick in anti-Japan sentiment that will have an impact as well.”
“No chance of Korea passing”
Former Deputy Chief of Staff DeTrani said that the Trump administration is likely to enter into denuclearization negotiations with North Korea, but regarding concerns of “Korea passing,” where South Korea is excluded from the US-North Korea summit, he said, “That won’t happen,” and “That has never happened in the past.”
He continued, “The United States and South Korea are partners, and the United States has been completely transparent with South Korea when negotiating with North Korea,” adding, “Such concerns are unfounded, and the United States has been and will always be transparent with South Korea.”
[Recording: Former Deputy Representative Detrani] “Well, I just don’t think that’s going to happen. I don't think that we had Korea passing in the past. Certainly I’ve been involved with the Republic of Korea in our negotiations with North Korea in the 6 party talks we have always worked in tandem.”
Former Deputy Chief of Staff DeTrani also said, “The Trump administration could demand that North Korea halt all missile launches, nuclear tests, and production of nuclear materials, and in return offer sanctions relief and security guarantees,” but added, “The ultimate goal of the United States is complete and verifiable denuclearization, and the United States will not give up on that policy.”
[Recording: Former Deputy Representative Detrani] “You know, in regards to a deal I could see the Trump administration saying North Korea, you need to halt, you need to freeze all your missile launches, your nuclear tests and even the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons in return for sanctions, relief, etcetera, security assurances and so forth.”
South Korea's National Intelligence Service said today that there is a possibility that President-elect Trump will pursue dialogue with North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un, and that if he determines that complete denuclearization is difficult to achieve in the short term, he may pursue a "small deal" such as a nuclear freeze and disarmament.
“It is possible that the Trump administration will resume talks with North Korea,” said Revere, a former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, “but North Korea’s core position on talks with the United States has changed dramatically.”
He continued, “Denuclearization is no longer a topic for dialogue and compromise for North Korea, and North Korea actually wants to be recognized as a nuclear state,” and “North Korea wants the United States to engage in disarmament talks at the level of recognizing itself as a nuclear state.”
[Former Deputy Assistant Secretary Revere] “North Korea seeks to engage the United States in an arms control dialogue that would amount to US acknowledgment of the DPRK as a nuclear-armed state. The Trump administration, eager to show progress with North Korea, end Pyongyang's nuclear weapons testing program, and freeze its testing of long-range ballistic missiles, may take the bait and engage the DPRK in talks.”
The chairwoman said, “The Trump administration will likely try to solve bigger problems first, such as the war in Russia and Ukraine and the war in the Middle East,” and diagnosed, “North Korea is also not interested in negotiating with the United States at this time.”
He then pointed out that the possibility of a US-North Korea summit being held in the early days of Trump's term is very low, and that the geopolitical situation has changed significantly since the Hanoi summit in 2019.
“I think Trump is thinking about this, but I’m skeptical that any negotiations or deals will happen anytime soon,” Yeo said. “But if there were to be a deal, the idea of small steps, intermediate steps, a nuclear freeze would be among the options the Trump administration could consider.”
This is Ahn Jun-ho from VOA News.
19. North Korean Defectors Donate Relief Supplies to LA Wildfire Victims
The good people of the north Korean diaspora.
This is a Google translation of an RFA report.
North Korean Defectors Donate Relief Supplies to LA Wildfire Victims
https://www.rfa.org/korean/in_focus/food_international_org/la-wildfire-relief-donations-north-korean-defectors-01132025091703.html
LA-Yoo Ji-seung xallsl@rfa.org
2025.01.13
The North Korean Human Rights and Unification Solidarity donated 200 boxes of masks to the Los Angeles Korean Association for residents in wildfire-stricken areas.
/RFA PHOTO-Yoo Ji-seung
00:00 / 00:00
Anchor : Amidst the massive damage caused by wildfires that occurred simultaneously in the Los Angeles area, a North Korean defector group has donated relief supplies to help the victims. Reporter Yoo Ji-seung reports.
In Los Angeles, USA, multiple wildfires have been occurring simultaneously since the 7th, causing great damage to residents.
As strong winds made it difficult to put out the wildfire, more than 12,000 houses in the fire-stricken area were burned and hundreds of thousands of households were evacuated.
As the number of displaced people increases, donations of relief supplies from residents to help them continue.
The North Korean Human Rights and Unification Solidarity, comprised of defectors from North Korea, also joined the line of donations for the displaced and evacuated residents.
The North Korea Human Rights and Unification Solidarity donated 200 boxes of masks as the wearing of masks is strongly recommended due to poor air quality caused by wildfires.
This is Kwon Jeong-sun, the president of the North Korean Human Rights and Unification Solidarity.
Kwon Jeong-sun, Chairman of the North Korean Human Rights and Unification Solidarity : There are many disasters like this in North Korea. They are not disasters, but they are caused by the regime. Someone else's painful wounds are our wounds. Our organization decided to make a donation because we wanted to help, even if it was a small amount, even if it was not a big deal.
The mountainous area of La Cañada Flintridge in Los Angeles County, USA, covered in smoke on the 8th (local time). /Yonhap News
Chairman Kwon said that defectors, especially those living in Los Angeles or Orange County, often check on each other’s well-being and check on the wildfire damage. He said that while no defectors have suffered direct damage yet, they remain anxious as the wildfires continue to spread.
Chairman Kwon said that defector groups are also members of society who can sufficiently help victims and residents in difficulty.
Kwon Jeong-sun , Chairman of the North Korean Human Rights and Unification Solidarity : (Living in the U.S.) There are linguistic and cultural differences, but even if it is not a great force, I think they will acknowledge it if they see how we stand up on our own without reaching out to the small Korean community. It is with this in mind that I made a small donation.
In addition to the first donation, the North Korean Human Rights and Unification Solidarity plans to purchase additional masks and deliver a second round of relief supplies.
He also said he would continue to stand in solidarity with defectors and think of ways to help those in need now.
The North Korean Human Rights and Unification Solidarity was founded a year ago by North Korean defectors, and is a group comprised of defectors from the western United States, including Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Francisco.
Editor Park Jeong-woo, Web Editor Kim Sang-il
20. Time for North Korea policy to shift focus to freedom, human rights
My latest essay on Korea and UROK.
Voices Jan. 13, 2025 / 10:08 AM
Time for North Korea policy to shift focus to freedom, human rights
https://www.upi.com/Voices/2025/01/13/south-korea-north-korea-unification/8971736778615/
By David Maxwell
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) and South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul attend a joint press conference in Seoul last week. Blinken was on a mission to reaffirm America's "ironclad" alliance with the Asian country, the State Department said. Chung Sung-Jun / Pool/EPA-EFE
Jan. 13 (UPI) -- While South Korea experiences historic domestic political turmoil, Kim Jong Un and his regime continue to threaten peace and stability in the region and pose a direct threat to the U.S. homeland.
And while the military alliance will continue to deter war by maintaining a high level of readiness to fight and defeat the North Korean People's Army, the United States and the international community cannot afford to sit idly by while South Korean politics play out.
While the future of Korea ultimately will be decided by the Korean people, the international community can play an important role in helping to solve the "Korea question," (as outlined in paragraph 60 of the 1953 Armistice Agreement), which is the unnatural division of the Korean peninsula.
For decades, the United States, South Korea and the international community have failed to achieve denuclearization in North Korea despite employing various strategies ranging from maximum engagement to patience to maximum pressure.
As we enter 2025, it has become clear that Kim Jong Un will not voluntarily relinquish his nuclear weapons under any circumstances. This realization, coupled with Kim's recent rejection of peaceful unification and declaration of South Korea as the "main enemy," presents a critical inflection point that demands a bold new approach.
The realities
The time has come to disrupt traditional North Korean policy and refocus efforts on freeing the Korean people through a comprehensive strategy centered on human rights, information dissemination and support for Korean unification. This approach recognizes three key realities:
1. Kim Jong Un fears his own people more than external military threats when they are armed with information about their rights and the outside world.
2. The only path to true denuclearization and regional stability is through the unification of Korea under a free and democratic government.
3. The United States has both a moral obligation and strategic interest to support the Korean people's right to self-determination.
Human rights front approach
Placing human rights at the forefront of North Korea policy serves moral and strategic purposes. The regime's systematic abuse of its citizens, as documented in the 2014 U.N. Commission of Inquiry report, is not only a humanitarian crisis but also a key pillar of regime control. By shining a spotlight on these abuses and empowering the North Korean people with knowledge of their universal rights, we can create internal pressure for change.
Key actions should include placing human rights on every negotiating agenda with North Korea; supporting international accountability mechanisms for regime officials; expanding support for North Korean refugee organizations and civil society groups; and establishing a Korean Escapee Information Institute to advise on human rights and information activities.
Regime's greatest vulnerability
Information has always been the Kim family's Achilles' heel, which is why they severely restrict its flow to the North Korean people.
A sophisticated information campaign can serve as a catalyst for internal change by expanding broadcasts and digital penetration of uncensored news and entertainment into North Korea; highlighting the costs of Kim's nuclear program to the North Korean people and countering regime propaganda with factual information about life in South Korea and the outside world.
Also, employing such concepts as the 10 Point Promise to the North Korean People as an alternative to the regime's oppressive ideology; providing practical information for collective action; and assisting emerging leaders in setting the conditions for internal transformation.
Supporting a free and unified Korea
The United States, the international community and civil societies around the world should fully embrace and support South Korea's 8.15 Unification vision for peaceful unification based on liberal democratic principles.
While President Yoon Suk Yeol has been impeached, the 8.15 Doctrine has not. This doctrine aligns with longstanding U.S. commitments and serves strategic interests in the region.
Most importantly this approach can support President-elect Donald Trump's "America First foreign policy;" protecting the American homeland by freeing the Korean people in the north.
Key steps include: Establishing dedicated unification planning cells within the U.S. government to coordinate with South Korean efforts; developing a comprehensive political warfare strategy in support of unification; preparing for various unification scenarios, including peaceful transition, regime collapse and post-conflict and stabilization; and building international support for Korean unification through diplomatic channels and the United Nations.
Conclusion
The traditional approach to North Korea, focused narrowly on denuclearization negotiations, has reached a dead end. By pivoting to a strategy that empowers the Korean people in the north through human rights advocacy, an information campaign, and support for unification, we can create the conditions for transformative change from within.
This approach recognizes that the ultimate solution to the North Korean nuclear threat and the suffering of its people lies in the realization of a free and unified Korea.
The United States has a historical responsibility and a strategic imperative to support this vision. As we stand at this critical juncture, it is time to move beyond failed policies and embrace a bold new direction that aligns with our values and offers the best hope for lasting peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
By doing so, we can help the Korean people achieve their long-deferred dream of freedom and unity, creating a more secure future for Northeast Asia and the world through the establishment of a new nation, a United Republic of Korea.
David Maxwell is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces colonel who has spent more than 30 years in the Asia Pacific region. He specializes in Northeast Asian security affairs and irregular, unconventional and political warfare. He is vice president of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy and a senior fellow at the Global Peace Foundation. After his retirement, he was associate director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. He is on the board of directors of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the OSS Society, and is a contributing editor to Small Wars Journal.
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
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