Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“For most of human history, freedom had to be at least suffered for, if not died for, and that raised its value to something almost sacred. In modern democracies, however, an ethos of public sacrifice is rarely needed because freedom and survival are more or less guaranteed. That is a great blessing but allows people to believe that any sacrifice at all--rationing water during a drought, for example--are forms of government tyranny. They are no more forms of tyranny than rationing water on a lifeboat. The idea that we can enjoy the benefits of society while owing nothing in return is literally infantile. Only children owe nothing.”

– Sebastian Junger, Freedom

"The borderline between guerrilla warfare and crime, between patriotism and terrorism, is often a very thin one."

– Mario Cervi, Italian Journalist, "European Left's expedient Wrath," Il Giornale [Milan], July 1, 1999

“Of course, Orwell was not the first to teach us about the spiritual devastations of tyranny. What is irreplaceable about his work is his insistence that it makes little difference if our wardens are inspired by right- or left-wing ideologies. The gates of the prison are equally impenetrable, surveillance equally rigorous, icon-worship equally pervasive.”

– Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

1. Kim Jong Un Drops the Mask by John Bolton

2. Russia's top diplomat accuses US, South Korea and Japan of preparing for war with North Korea

3. N. Korea says it test-fired new strategic cruise missile

4. Russia is suspected of using N. Korean missiles in Ukraine, UK institute reports

5. North Korea says it tested a cruise missile, flaunting new nuclear-capable weapon

6. Domestic woes put Kim Jong Un on the defensive – and the offensive – in the Korean Peninsula

7. North Korea crypto hacking activity soars to record high in 2023, new report shows

8. North Korea's AI development raises concerns, report says

9. Opinion | As North Korea’s threat grows, ignoring it is not working

10. An in-depth look at Kim Jong Un’s “two states” narrative: Part 3

11. Kim Jong Un acknowledges dire state of economy, urges action

12. Residents near inter-Korean border call for calm amid rising tensions

1. Kim Jong Un Drops the Mask by John Bolton

Ambassador Bolton is stating what we have long known and have been saying since Kim has accelerated his political warfare strategy in 2024. We must understand the nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim family regime (I know I am a broken record). As Ambassador Bolton writes, Kim is exposing his true intention and one that has been at the heart of the Kim family regime playbook for seven decades. It is all about domination and not peaceful unification. peaceful unification has been part of the regime's political and information warfare strategies to subvert the South. In the future (as counterintuitive as it may seem) we may see Kim resteate his peaceful unification policy, He will do this to offer and apparent "concession" to the South but in reality returning to a peaceful unification policy will simply be another move on the political warfare chess board (or Go or Paduk board which is probably a better description of the game in Northeast Asia)

But what Kim is really doing is providing us with an opportunity to develop and implement a new strategy.

Although denuclearization of the north remains a worthy goal, it must be viewed as aspirational as long as the Kim family regime remains in power. The conventional wisdom has always been that denuclearization must come first and then unification will follow and that there should be no discussion of human rights out of fear that it would prevent Kim Jong Un from making a denuclearization agreement. Today even a blind man can read the tea leaves and know that Kim Jong Un will not denuclearize even though his policies have been an abject failure. His political warfare and blackmail diplomacy strategies completely failed in 2022 and 2023 because Presidents Yoon and Biden, like their predecessors, refused to make the political and economic concessions he demanded just to come to the negotiating table: namely to remove sanctions. It is time for the U.S and the ROK/U.S. alliance to execute a political warfare strategy that flips the conventional wisdom and seeks unification first and then denuclearization. Everyone must understand that the only way to end the nuclear program and the human rights abuses is through unification of the Korean peninsula. The ROK and U.S. must continue to maintain the highest state of military readiness to deter war and then adopt a human rights upfront approach, a comprehensive and sophisticated information and influence activities campaign, and focus all efforts on the pursuit of a free and unified Korea- ultimately a United Republic of Korea (UROK).

A new “Three Plus One” strategy should be developed. It must consist of a political warfare strategy with a human rights upfront approach, a comprehensive and sophisticated information campaign to give the Korean people in the north the tools and knowledge to create change, and the pursuit of a free and unified Korea to solve the “Korea question.” The one overarching requirement is that all three must rest on the strong foundation of the ROK/US military alliance and its deterrence and warfighting capabilities.

A human rights upfront approach is a key component of a new strategy. It is not only a moral imperative but a national security issue as well. Kim Jong Un must deny the human rights of the Korean people in the north in order to remain in power. The ROK government has reenergized its human rights focus and with the recent appoint of Ambassador Julie Turner the U.S. is catching up. Human rights must be incorporated to all aspects of policy execution and strategy. No longer can the excuse that to mention human rights will hinder potential denuclearization negotiations. Every time the regime conducts a provocation part of the response must be that the regime prioritizes its military over the welfare of its people and continues to deny their human rights solely to keep them under control. Human rights must be an integral part of a new strategy.

There is a unique relationship among denuclearization, human rights, and unification. The only way to achieve denuclearization and end the human rights abuses being committed against the Korean people in the north is by achieving unification. Perhaps counterintuitively it is the focus on human rights that must lead to unification and only when unification is achieved there can be denuclearization. And the connective tissue among the two is information.

Six Lines of Effort for Political Warfare in north Korea

Prevent War. Establish policies for north Korea’s second-tier military leadership (military corps commanders and security service leadership). For example, if they do not attack the ROK and maintain control of weapons of mass destruction, they and their families will have a place in a free and unified Korea. When faced with an order to attack, the second-tier leadership must know they have choices other than going to war.
Conduct a Strategic Strangulation Campaign. The United States and the international community must aggressively go after North Korean illicit activities around the world. The regime is violating international law by using its diplomats for illegal actions. A concerted effort at strategic strangulation must be attempted to shut down drug trafficking, counterfeiting (from medicine to cigarettes to currency), money laundering, and overseas slave labor, as well as the proliferation of weapons, training, and expertise to conflict areas.
Pressure Kim Jong Un. Pressure from within could cause Kim to change or at least moderate his policies. As an example, every time the ROK and U.S. must talk about nuclear weapons and missiles, they need to emphasize the human rights abuses.
Offer options to the Korean people. They must know that there is life outside of Juche and Songbun that they can reach and enjoy. An information campaign must show the successes of escapees living in free countries.
Support for potential emerging leadership who seek change. When they do act against the regime, the Korean people in the north must know they will be supported by the international community.
Prepare the Korean people in the north for unification. A long process of education is required to undo Juche, Songbun, and the Ten Principles of Monolithic Ideology, and to teach about such things as land ownership, participatory politics, and the rule of law.

Some background on north Korea political and information warfare:

North Korea conducts information warfare (IW) to achieve its stated objective to dominate the Korean peninsula under the rule of the Kim family regime.[i] To achieve this objective, it employs IW to drive a wedge in the Republic of Korea (ROK) and U.S. alliance. In addition, it uses IW to coerce the ROK, the U.S., and the international community into providing political and economic concessions as well as to undermine diplomatic efforts unfavorable to the regime. Kim Jong Un, the current and third generation ruler, uses information warfare as part of a larger political warfare strategy[ii] to shape the conditions to dominate the Korean peninsula under the rule of the “Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State.”[iii] While the ROK/U.S. alliance has successfully deterred war on the Korean peninsula since the Armistice Agreement of 1953; it has done a poor job of aggressively employing their nations’ information capabilities to change the security conditions in the North. Information has always been the Kim family’s greatest vulnerability and is why it severely restricts the flow of information to the North Korean people.[iv]

The North Korean problem must be approached from a ROK/U.S. alliance perspective because neither country can achieve success against the North without the other. The conflict is between the ROK/U.S. alliance and the North and the root it is a conflict between the shared values of the alliance (freedom, free market principles, rule of law, and human rights) versus the iron fisted rule of the totalitarian dictatorship of the regime (“Socialism,” Juche ideology, rule by law, and denial of human rights).”[v]

Ultimately the two sides seek diametrically opposed end states that drive information warfare operations. The regime seeks domination. The ROK and U.S. presidents provided the vision for the alliance in their recent joint statement in April 2023: "The two presidents are committed to build a better future for all Korean people and support a unified Korean Peninsula that is free and at peace."[vi] The must drive alliance 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.[vii]

The Propaganda and Agitation Department (PAD) within the Korean Workers Party (KWP) is the organization that executes the Kim regime’s IW.[viii] 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.[ix] The Cultural Exchange Bureau (formerly the 225^th) conducts covert action in the ROK to establish underground political parties and recruit sympathizers focused on fomenting unrest and revolution.[x] 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.[xi]

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.[xii] 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.[xiii]

Unfortunately, an information campaign against North Korea has not been a top priority for Washington or Seoul. The ROK/U.S. alliance’s successful deterrence of war for 70 years has bred complacency, and this has allowed the North to execute a campaign that keeps the regime in power and create security dilemmas for the alliance and the region.

[i] Socialist Constitution of The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (2019), https://www.ncnk.org/sites/default/files/DPRK%20constitution%20%282019%29.pdf Key excerpts:

“The great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung and the great leader Comrade Kim Jong Il are saviours of the nation who performed immortal exploits for achieving the cause of national reunification. Regarding the reunification of the country as the supreme national task, they devoted all their efforts and care for its realization. They made the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea a powerful bastion for national reunification. At the same time, they set out the fundamental principle and ways of achieving national reunification and developed the movement for national reunification into a nationwide movement, opening the way for completing the cause of reunification through the united efforts of the whole nation.”

“Art 2. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a revolutionary State which has inherited the brilliant traditions formed during the glorious revolutionary struggle against the imperialist aggressors and in the struggle to achieve the liberation of the homeland and the freedom and well-being of the people.”

“Art 9. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea shall strive to achieve the complete

victory of socialism in the northern half of Korea by strengthening the people’s power and vigorously performing the three revolutions–ideological, technological and cultural–and reunify the country on the principle of independence, peaceful reunification and great national unity.”

[ii] In Bum Chun, “How North Korea Wages Political Warfare at Home and Abroad…and How to Respond,” Orbis, Volume 64, Issue 2, 2020, Pages 353-370, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0030438720300107 See Also, Paul A. Smith, Jr., “On Political War,” National Defense University, December 1, 1989, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA233501. The description here is important to understand the linkage between propaganda, subversion, psychological warfare, information warfare and political warfare: “Political war is the use of political means to compel an opponent to do one's will, political being understood to describe purposeful intercourse between peoples and governments affecting national survival and relative advantage.' Political war may be combined with violence, economic pressure, subversion, and diplomacy, but its chief aspect is the use of words, images, and ideas, commonly known, according to context, as propaganda and psychological warfare.”

[iii] David Maxwell, “The Nature of The Kim Family Regime: The Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State,” U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Red Diamond, February 19, 2020, https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2020/02/19/the-nature-of-the-kim-family-regime-the-guerrilla-dynasty-and-gulag-state/ See also, David Maxwell, “Revolution Against North Korea’s Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State,” Real Clear Defense, March 29, 2019, https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2019/03/29/a_revolution_against_north_koreas_guerrilla_dynasty_and_gulag_state_114294.html

[iv] Robert King, “North Koreans Want External Information, But Kim Jong-Un Seeks to Limit Access,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, May 15, 2019, https://www.csis.org/analysis/north-koreans-want-external-information-kim-jong-un-seeks-limit-access

[v] David Maxwell, ”The ROK-US Alliance: One American’s Perspective Now and for the Future,” in Patrick Cronin, Ed., “Pathways to Peace: Achieving the Stable Transformation of the Korean Peninsula,” Hudson Institute, March, 20, 2020, https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/pathways-to-peace-achieving-the-stable-transformation-of-the-korean-peninsula

[vi] The White House, “Leaders’ Joint Statement in Commemoration of the 70th Anniversary of the Alliance between the United States of America and the Republic of Korea,” April 26, 2023. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/04/26/leaders-joint-statement-in-commemoration-of-the-70th-anniversary-of-the-alliance-between-the-united-states-of-america-and-the-republic-of-korea/ See also, David Maxwell, “Sometimes less is more: The most important 26 words of ROK-US summit,” The Korea Times, May 8, 2023, https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2023/07/137_350494.html

[vii] 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.”

[viii] North Korean Leadership Watch, “KWP and the Propaganda and Agitation Department,” November 2011, https://nkleadershipwatch.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/kwppropagandaandagitationdepartment.pdf

[ix] 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

[x] Ibid., Page 57.

[xi] 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/

[xii] 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/

[xiii] 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/

Kim Jong Un Drops the Mask

North Korea officially repudiates ‘peaceful reunification’ in favor of total domination.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/kim-jong-un-drops-the-mask-north-korea-nuclear-threat-biden-administration-war-a7357bae?mod=Searchresults_pos4&page=1

By John Bolton

Jan. 24, 2024 6:03 pm ET

Kim Jong Un speaks in Pyongyang, Jan. 15. PHOTO: /ASSOCIATED PRESS

North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un last week eviscerated any remaining pretense that his regime seeks peaceful reunification with South Korea. Now that Pyongyang has nearly developed the ability to deliver a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile, Mr. Kim has decided to scrap almost 80 years of intra-Korean policy.

In a Castro-length speech filled with rhetoric about America’s “policy of confrontation,” Mr. Kim announced his decision to strip the North’s “constitution” of all vestiges of peaceful reunification and to eliminate the government offices handling the issue. By effectively recognizing that there are two states on the Korean Peninsula, Mr. Kim has ensured there is no turning back. If war breaks out, he said, the North plans on “completely occupying, subjugating and reclaiming” South Korea and annexing it “as a part of the territory of our Republic.”

Mr. Kim’s belligerence and constitutional changes are bell ringers, the strongest possible signals of his intentions. The audience is both domestic and global. His rhetoric exposes how the South Korean left’s “sunshine policy” of détente and appeasement is not only wrong but dangerous. Mr. Kim refers to Seoul as Pyongyang’s “primary foe and invariable principal enemy.”

Over the years, many credulous South Korean and American leaders have accepted the North’s claims that it pursued nuclear weapons only because it was afraid of being attacked. These observers decided that persuading the Kim dynasty to abandon its nuclear objectives was a matter of proving that the U.S. had no “hostile intent” toward the North. This argument failed to grasp that the regime wanted nuclear weapons to pursue reunification its own way—the North absorbing the South, not the other way around. Using nuclear weapons to threaten Seoul’s allies and neighbors, Pyongyang sought U.S. withdrawal from South Korea. Mr. Kim wanted to convince the Americans to abandon the South Koreans in the event of an invasion.

Counting on weak U.S. leaders who didn’t see South Korea as a strategic asset, and whom they could subject to nuclear blackmail, the Kims followed a version of Deng Xiaoping’s “hide and bide” approach: concealing their growing nuclear and ballistic-missile programs and awaiting a docile regime in Washington. Today, the North sees its moment at hand in a weak Joe Biden—or a feckless Donald Trump, who unilaterally canceled joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises in 2018 without receiving anything in return.

Moreover, despite the “no-limits partnership” between Moscow and Beijing, Mr. Kim has regained sufficient leverage to be able to play Russia against China. His grandfather Kim Il Sung did the same during the Cold War. In 1950, neither Joseph Stalin nor Mao Zedong was enthusiastic about North Korea attacking across the 38th parallel, which they both feared would provoke war with the U.S. Kim Il Sung nonetheless persuaded both leaders that the other supported invasion. On June 25, 1950, Pyongyang caught Seoul and Washington by surprise and nearly drove U.S. forces into the sea.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, Moscow’s influence in Pyongyang waned considerably, increasing the North’s reliance on Beijing for its survival. Now equipped with nuclear capabilities and increasingly potent delivery systems, Mr. Kim remembers his grandfather’s game plan. Russia’s failures in Ukraine opened an opportunity for realignment that Mr. Kim swiftly seized, arming Russia at a critical time. Vladimir Putin will soon have a chance to say thanks in person. The Russian leader has announced plans to visit North Korea at “an early date.”

The U.S. failure to repulse Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Iran’s “ring of fire” strategy against Israel is undoubtedly prompting considerable deliberation in China. While Ukraine wasn’t overrun, it is far from being victorious, thereby proving to the world that the West will tolerate unprovoked aggression. In the Middle East, Americans and Israelis disagree on how to prosecute the war on Hamas, likely to the detriment of both countries. Mr. Trump’s only contribution to date has been to say that he’ll resolve both conflicts quickly, details to follow.

With the Biden administration overwhelmed and a presidential election looming, Pyongyang and Beijing may well believe their window of opportunity has arrived. By rallying the North’s people, rewriting its constitution, and abolishing the machinery of reunification diplomacy, Mr. Kim could be preparing to jump through it.

Mr. Bolton is author of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.” He served as the president’s national security adviser, 2018-19, and ambassador to the United Nations, 2005-06.

WSJ Opinion: Choosing a President in a World of Enemies

Russia's top diplomat accuses US, South Korea and Japan of preparing for war with North Korea

BY EDITH M. LEDERER

Updated 1:21 AM EST, January 25, 2024

AP · January 25, 2024

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia’s top diplomat accused the United States, South Korea and Japan on Wednesday of preparing for war with North Korea.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a U.N. news conference that this new military bloc brought together by the United States is building up military activity and conducting large-scale exercises. The United States, South Korea and Japan have described their combined military drills as defensive in nature and necessary to cope with growing North Korean nuclear threats.

All of a sudden South Korea’s rhetoric “became even more hostile towards Pyongyang,” Lavrov said. “In Japan as well, we hear aggressive rhetoric” and it is seriously talking about setting up NATO infrastructure with U.S. assistance.

Lavrov said the objective of the military bloc is clearly stated: “They’re preparing for war with the DPRK,” the initials of North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The Russian minister said the United States and its Asian allies have also been talking about developing their cooperation. “It’s quite wishy-washy the way they phrased it, but they said something like nuclear-related cooperation,” he said.

Last week, the three countries conducted combined naval exercises involving an American aircraft carrier in their latest show of strength against nuclear-armed North Korea.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been on a provocative run of weapons testing and threats that raised regional tensions to their highest point in years. Senior diplomats from the three allies were to meet in Seoul to discuss the worsening standoff with Pyongyang.

On the other hand, Lavrov said Russia’s relationship with North Korea is “proceeding nicely, it’s developing quite actively.”

“We see that the DPRK is trying to be independent, not to dance anybody’s tune,” he said.

Kim is one of the few world leaders openly supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine. Kim has been actively boosting the visibility of his ties with Russia in an attempt to break out of diplomatic isolation and strengthen his footing, as he navigates a deepening nuclear standoff with Washington, Seoul and Tokyo.

When asked about Lavrov’s comments, South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lim Soosuk said they reflected North Korea’s “constantly false and misleading claims as it tries to shift the blame to the outside world while developing nuclear weapons and missiles under its own schedule.”

He accused North Korea of further raising tensions with its weapons demonstrations this month, including missile tests and artillery test-firings near a disputed sea boundary with the South.

“Our government has consistently expressed a willingness to engage in dialogue with North Korea without any preconditions,” Lim said during a briefing.

The alignment between Moscow and Pyongyang has raised international concern about alleged arms cooperation. North Korea has been accused of providing Russia with arms supplies to help prolong its warfighting in Ukraine, possibly in exchange for economic assistance and military technology.

Both countries have denied accusations by Washington and Seoul that North Korea has been shipping artillery shells, missiles and other military equipment to Russia in recent months.

Putin confirmed his willingness to visit the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, at a convenient time during his meeting with Kim in Russia’s Far East in September. Lavrov said the timing will be decided by the Kremlin.

Lavrov compared Kim’s recent announcement that North Korea would not pursue a peaceful unification with the South to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement saying there will be no Palestinian state after the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

“It’s terrible when, instead of unity, we have trends which divide us,” the Russian minister said. “And yet, this is a systematic process across many regions, and the main contributor to that trend are those who believe to be the masters of the universe.”

Without naming the United States and former Western colonial powers, he said countries that told others how to live for half a millennium and believe they are “masters of the universe” ignore that the overwhelming majority of ex-colonies and are now independent and want to buttress their, cultural and religious identity.

These ex colonial states are “leaving the West behind,” pointing to the BRICS economic bloc of developing economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. countries. The BRICS members have invited Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Ethiopia to join.

Lavrov said “the ex-colonial powers have to face up to the reality in today’s world.”

“You shouldn’t just think that you’re so strong just because you have the dollar,” he said.

__ AP writer Kim Tong-hyung contributed from Seoul, South Korea.

AP · January 25, 2024

3. N. Korea says it test-fired new strategic cruise missile

Is this a new missile or something renamed? I will be looking for assessments from our missile experts.

(3rd LD) N. Korea says it test-fired new strategic cruise missile | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Eun-jung · January 25, 2024

(ATTN: UPDATES South Korean military's missile assessment in paras 5-10)

By Kim Soo-yeon and Kim Eun-jung

SEOUL, Jan. 25 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said Thursday it test-fired a new strategic cruise missile, named "Pulhwasal-3-31," for the first time the previous day in what was seen as an effort to strengthen capabilities to deliver nuclear weapons.

The North's Missile General Bureau said the test-fire is a "process of constant updating of the weapon system and a regular and obligatory activity of the agency and its affiliated defense science institutes," according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The report did not provide details, such as how far the missile flew.

South Korea's military had said Wednesday the North fired several cruise missiles toward the Yellow Sea at 7 a.m., but gave no further details, including the distances they flew.

It marked the North's first known cruise missile launch since September last year, when the country launched two long-range strategic cruise missiles with mock nuclear warheads toward the Yellow Sea. At that time, Pyongyang said the missiles traveled 1,500-km-long eight-shaped flight orbits.

This photo, carried by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Jan. 25, 2024, shows the North's first test-firing of the new strategic cruise missile Pulhwasal-3-31 the previous day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

The North first test-fired the Hwasal-1 cruise missile in September 2021 and launched several Hwasal-1 and -2 cruise missiles presumed to be capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons last year.

Hwasal means an arrow in Korean, and Pulhwasal means a fire arrow.

Cruise missiles fly low and maneuver, making them better at evading missile defenses.

The South Korean military said the North's latest launch appears to be aimed at upgrading the capability of the existing cruise missiles, but did not provide further details.

"The flight distance of North Korea's cruise missiles fired the previous day was shorter compared with previous launches," Col. Lee Sung-jun, spokesperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a regular press briefing.

"We detected and tracked the cruise missile launched by North Korea in real-time. It disappeared at the final stage, and further analysis is needed to determine the circumstances surrounding that," he said.

Experts said the Pulhwasal-3-31 is seen as a nuclear-capable weapon, considering that the number in its name is identical to that of the Hwasan-31, a tactical nuclear warhead that North Korea first unveiled in March 2023.

"The number 31 is presumed to be hinting at the power of North Korea's tactical nuclear warhead under development," said Chang Young-keun, head of the missile center at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy.

The launch of a cruise missile is not a direct violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions banning the North's use of ballistic missile technology. But it could pose a serious threat to South Korea's security as nuclear warheads can be mounted on such missiles.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called for an "exponential" increase in the country's nuclear arsenal and the development of tactical nuclear weapons against South Korea.

The latest provocation came after North Korea launched a solid-fuel hypersonic missile into the East Sea on Jan. 14 in its first missile firing this year.

Pyongyang also claimed last week it had tested an underwater nuclear attack drone in protest of the latest joint military drills among South Korea, the United States and Japan.

North Korea has dialed up tensions on the Korean Peninsula with weapons tests and hard-worded rhetoric in an election year for South Korea and the U.S.

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

At a key parliamentary meeting last week, Kim called for revising the country's constitution to define South Korea as the North's "primary foe" and announced the country will abandon its decadeslong policy of seeking reconciliation and unification with the South.

This photo, carried by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Jan. 10, 2024, shows the North's leader Kim Jong-un (C) at a key munitions factory during an inspection tour on Jan. 8-9, calling South Korea the North's "principle enemy. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

sooyeon@yna.co.kr

ejkim@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Eun-jung · January 25, 2024

4. Russia is suspected of using N. Korean missiles in Ukraine, UK institute reports

Continued reporting.

Russia is suspected of using N. Korean missiles in Ukraine, UK institute reports

https://www.chosun.com/english/north-korea-en/2024/01/25/MPZ6LOKQTVFODFN67IBDMTHPZE/

By Bang Jae-hyuk,

Lee Jung-soo

Published 2024.01.25. 10:44

It has been discovered that there are missile remnants marked with North Korean-script in Ukraine. This discovery indicates that Russia may be using North Korean ballistic missiles, such as the KN-23 or KN-24, in the current conflict with Ukraine. Such a move could undermine global efforts of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The Conflict Armament Research (CAR), a UK-based institute, has released a document that sheds light on the presence of North Korean missiles in Ukraine. /Yonhap News

The Conflict Armament Research (CAR), a UK-based institute, has released a document that sheds light on the presence of North Korean missiles in Ukraine. According to the report, evidence suggests that some ballistic missiles that fell in Ukraine had originated from N. Korea, as they were found to have Korean script markings.

The CAR analyzed the remnants of a ballistic missile that Russia had launched towards Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, on Feb. 2. The analysis revealed that handwriting appeared to be the Korean character ‘ㅈ(jieut)’ was written on the missile wreckage.

It was preceded by numbers and symbols, like a serial number.

The institute has found the number ‘112′ on parts of the missile debris. According to North Korea’s calendar system, the Juche calendar, this number may indicate the year 2023. The Juche calendar starts with the birth of Kim Il-Sung, the founder of North Korea, and is named after the Juche ideology. Alternatively, it could refer to a military factory called the ‘February 11 Factory’ under the Ryongsong Machine Complex.

CAR, in addition to the numerical markings, compared the shape of the missile remnants, including the rocket motor, jet vanes for thrust direction control, and the pattern of bolt connections, to photographs of North Korean short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) KN-23 and KN-24. The institute discovered similarities in these comparisons.

Based on their assumption, it is possible that the missile used by Russia in Kharkiv was either a North Korean KN-23 or KN-24. However, they were unable to make a more precise estimation. The missile’s lower diameter was measured to be 110 cm, which is slightly larger than the Russian Iskander missile’s 95 cm diameter. The Iskander missile is often regarded as the prototype for the KN-23.

The institute has made a comment on their findings, revealing that “N. Korean missiles were used in Ukraine, indicating Russia’s intent to continue the war in Ukraine, even if it means undermining the non-proliferation regime.” The non-proliferation regime is a worldwide framework of agreements and organizations aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, and contributing to the progress of arms control and disarmament.

Previously, on Jan. 4, the U.S. government had previously announced that Russia used ballistic missiles obtained from N. Korea in its attacks on Ukraine. Military authorities from S. Korea and the U.S. speculated that the missile used was most likely the KN-23.

5. North Korea says it tested a cruise missile, flaunting new nuclear-capable weapon

North Korea says it tested a cruise missile, flaunting new nuclear-capable weapon

The Washington Post · by Kim Tong-Hyung and Jiwon Song | AP · January 25, 2024

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Thursday it conducted its first flight test of a new cruise missile, as it expands its military capabilities in the face of deepening tensions with the United States and neighbors.

The report in state media came a day after South Korea’s military said it detected the North firing several cruise missiles into waters off its western coast. It didn’t immediately provide more details about the numbers of missiles fired or their flight characteristics.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said the Pulhwasal-3-31 missile is still in its development phase and that the launch did not pose a threat to neighbors. It described the missile as “strategic,” implying an intent to arm them with nuclear weapons.

Lee Sung Joon, spokesperson of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the missiles flew a shorter distance than previous North Korean cruise missile launches, which he said suggested that the North was trying to improve the performance of existing systems.

The cruise missile launches were North Korea’s second known launch event of the year, following a Jan. 14 test-firing of the country’s first solid-fuel intermediate-range ballistic missile, which reflected its efforts to advance its lineup of weapons targeting U.S. military bases in Japan and Guam.

Yang Uk, an analyst at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said North Korea is trying to highlight its diversifying arsenal of nuclear-capable weapons to increase pressure on rivals. But the recent displays of new weapons systems came amid a slowdown in tests of short-range ballistic missiles, which could indicate inventory shortages as North Korea continues its alleged arms transfers to Russia, Yang said.

U.S. and South Korean officials have accused North Korea of providing artillery shells, missiles and other supplies to Russia for its war in Ukraine, possibly in exchange for economic assistance and military technology.

Kim, who traveled to a Russian space launch center in September for a summit with Putin, has been taking aggressive steps to strengthen ties with Moscow as he tries to break out of isolation and join a united front against Washington.

Both Pyongyang and Moscow have denied that North Korea was sending weapons to Russia.

North Korea’s cruise missiles are among its growing arsenal of weapons aimed at overwhelming missile defenses in South Korea and Japan. They supplement the country’s huge lineup of ballistic missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to reach the U.S. mainland.

While North Korean cruise missile activities aren’t directly banned under U.N. sanctions, experts say those weapons potentially pose a serious threat to South Korea and Japan. They are designed to be harder to detect by radar, and North Korea claims they are nuclear-capable and their range is up to 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles), a distance that would include U.S. military bases in Japan.

Since 2021, North Korea has conducted at least 10 rounds of tests of what it described as long-range cruise missiles fired from both land and sea.

Tensions in the region have increased in recent months as Kim continues to accelerate his weapons development and make provocative threats of nuclear conflict with the United States and its Asian allies. In response, the United States, South Korea and Japan have been expanding their combined military exercises, which Kim condemns as invasion rehearsals and has used as a pretext to further ramp up his military demonstrations.

There are concerns that Kim could dial up pressure in an election year in the United States and South Korea.

South Korean experts and officials say Kim’s weapons drive has put further strain on a broken economy, crippled by decades of mismanagement and U.S.-led sanctions over his nuclear ambitions.

In a separate report, KCNA said Kim during a two-day ruling party meeting held through Wednesday criticized officials for failing to provide enough of “basic living necessities including condiments, foodstuff and consumption goods” to people living in the countryside and less developed cities and towns.

Kim called the meeting to discuss a 10-year project he announced last week to promote more balanced regional development, which includes a goal of building modern factories in every county nationwide.

Satellite images analyzed by The Associated Press this week suggest North Korea has torn down a huge arch in its capital that symbolized reconciliation with South Korea, a week after Kim dismissed decades of hopes for peaceful reunification with the war-divided peninsula’s south.

Kim last week described the Pyongyang monument as an “eyesore” and called for its removal while declaring that the North was abandoning long-standing goals of a peaceful unification with South Korea and ordered a rewriting of the North’s constitution to define the South as its most hostile foreign adversary. He accused South Korea of acting as “top-class stooges” of the Americans and repeated a threat that he would use his nukes to annihilate the South if provoked.

Analysts say North Korea could be aiming to diminish South Korea’s voice in the regional nuclear standoff and eventually force direct dealings with Washington as it looks to cement its nuclear status.

___

Follow AP’s Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

The Washington Post · by Kim Tong-Hyung and Jiwon Song | AP · January 25, 2024

6. Domestic woes put Kim Jong Un on the defensive – and the offensive – in the Korean Peninsula

Finally the press is recognizing the effects of internal stress in north Korea. Kudos to Dr. Ko for getting the media to listen.

Domestic woes put Kim Jong Un on the defensive – and the offensive – in the Korean Peninsula

Author

Ñusta Carranza Ko
Assistant Professor of Global Affairs and Human Security, University of Baltimore

theconversation.com · by Ñusta Carranza Ko

Kim Jong Un has had a busy and bellicose start to 2024.

On Jan. 14, the North Korean leader presided over the test of a “new solid-fuel hypersonic missile with intermediate range.” Two days later, during a speech at the Supreme People’s Assembly meeting in Pyongyang, Kim declared South Korea “the North’s primary foe and invariable principal enemy.” He also vowed to “purge unification language from the constitution” and called for the destruction of “inter-Korean symbols,” such as the Arch of Reunification monument, which has since been torn down in Pyongyang.

Then Kim went a step further: He spoke of war.

Noting that while North Korea does not want conflict, the communist country nevertheless had no “intention of avoiding it.” Kim went on to disclose the North’s plans to “occupy, subjugate and reclaim” South Korea in the event of war.

Kim’s remarks served to escalate inter-Korean tensions in a way familiar to observers of relations on the peninsula, like myself. Kim has a tendency to issue threats directed at the South at regular intervals.

The difference, this time, was the backstory behind Kim’s threats. Understanding that shines a light on North Koreans’ awareness of deficiencies in their leadership – and on Kim’s desire to deflect from domestic problems.

A train wreck

On Jan. 16, 2024, Radio Free Asia published a news story about a train accident in North Korea. According to the outlet, a Hamkyung Province-bound passenger train departing from Pyongyang overturned due to a power shortage while traveling up a steep slope on Dec. 26, 2023.

North Korean passenger trains typically consist of nine to 11 carriages, with the first two carriages reserved for high-level government officials. In this accident, the last seven carriages – loaded with everyday Koreans – derailed, according to reports. It is believed that hundreds died as a result.

The details of the accident remain murky because news in North Korea is tightly controlled. Some South Korean reports suggest that it may have been a bus and not a train accident. But Kim was careful to point out the need to “improve safety of train rides, during his Jan. 16 address, lending further weight to the train accident account.

From crash to war threats

The reported accident comes at a time of increased awareness and discontent among North Koreans that their leadership is not doing much to improve conditions, address the scarcity of resources or enhance the safety of average citizens. This is particularly true for those who are not part of the ruling elite.

In various surveys conducted by human rights groups of North Koreans who have fled to South Korea, escapees mentioned both the dire living conditions of average North Koreans and the gap between their lives and those of high-level government officials.

The current crisis facing North Koreans may not be as acute as the period of severe famine during the 1990s, during which an estimated 600,000 to 1 million people died.

But power shortages and food insecurity continue to blight North Koreans. The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on North Korean Human Rights highlighted in a 2023 report conditions in which "some people are starving” and others are dying “"due to a combination of malnutrition, diseases and lack of access to health care.”

In such circumstances, the train accident may serve as a catalyst or focal point for discontent.

As social change scholar Jack Goldstone has noted, societal unrest builds on “some form of increasingly widespread popular anger at injustice” and when people feel “they are losing their proper place in society for reasons that are not inevitable and not their fault.”

A master of deflection

Worryingly for Kim, disquiet over both the train crash report and food and energy shortages comes as North Korea enters what experts have noted is “a critical period of change” in the state. Kim is faced with a younger generation more used to market economics – typified by the “jangmadang” black markets – and with greater access to external information. This clashes with the regime’s official ideology of economic self-reliance, or “juche,” and an isolationist approach that cuts off much of the outside world.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspecting the launch of a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile. Kim Jae-Hwan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Kim is aware of this new frontier in governance. To confront it, he has readopted the “byungjin” policy he first rolled out in 2013 — a two-pillared approach based on building up both the military and the economy in a bid to reduce chances for domestic discontent.

To successfully carry out this policy, Kim has had to become a master of deflection.

He is aware that the train incident comes amid discontent and protest over policies that have seen increased government surveillance and people’s homes raided over suspicion of anti-socialist tendencies.

As such, Kim appears to be deflecting domestic anger by signaling war and creating uncertainty for North Koreans’ future. This is similar to what scholars explain is a characteristic of new-style dictators who “manipulate beliefs” about the state of the world to make it look like outside threats are greater than domestic problems.

International playbook

The truth is, for Kim this deflection appears to be working. The war rhetoric has resulted in U.S., Japan and South Korea conducting combined naval exercises involving American aircraft carriers. Meanwhile, North Korea sent its foreign minister to Russia to cultivate bilateral relations that involve North Korean weaponry used in the war against Ukraine.

No one – North Korean news outlets, foreign journalists or world leaders – is mentioning the hundreds of people that likely died in the train accident, or those starving in the country.

Kim’s deflection also has an intended audience outside of North Korea itself: U.S. politicians and the South Korean public.

The Biden administration has adopted a more hawkish stance toward North Korea, moving closer to allies Japan and South Korea to ensure a coordinated approach to North Korea.

Meanwhile, Biden’s likely challenger in the upcoming presidential vote is Donald Trump – who as president met Kim during a 2018 Singapore summit and has since touted the idea of allowing North Korea to keep its nuclear weapons while offering financial incentives to stop making new bombs.

Trump has stressed how much he has gotten to know the North Korean leader and the “great relationship” he has formed with him. There is a scenario where Kim’s belligerent rhetoric could be seized by Trump as evidence that Biden’s approach is not working.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s legislative elections are also impacted by Kim’s deflection tactics. The declaration of South Korea as the “enemy,” and the launch of missiles are designed, in part, to influence the South Korean public’s perception about security on the peninsula.

Evans Revere, a former State Department official, explains that Kim’s remarks are “designed to exploit political divisions” in South Korea. In this kind of environment of war rhetoric, voters could be persuaded to support political parties that stress engagement and are less likely to support current President Yoon Suk Yeol’s party’s hardline approach to North Korean matters.

For Kim, a South Korean legislative body that is willing to tolerate his whims is more favorable than one critical of its regime, as is a friendlier man in the White House.

Kim Jong Un’s deflection certainly has more than one audience, but only one aim: to keep him in power.

theconversation.com · by Ñusta Carranza Ko

7. North Korea crypto hacking activity soars to record high in 2023, new report shows

The all purpose sword is serving all purposes for the regime.

North Korea crypto hacking activity soars to record high in 2023, new report shows

PUBLISHED WED, JAN 24 2024 9:01 AM ESTUPDATED WED, JAN 24 2024 11:10 PM EST

Sheila Chiang

@SHEILACHIANG

WATCH LIVE

KEY POINTS

A new Chainalysis report on Wednesday showed that North Korea-linked attackers hacked a total of 20 crypto platforms last year – the highest level recorded from 2016 to 2023.
"North Korea-linked hacks have been on the rise over the past few years, with cyber-espionage groups such as Kimsuky and Lazarus Group utilizing various malicious tactics to acquire large amounts of crypto assets," said Chainalysis on Wednesday.

CNBC · by Sheila Chiang · January 24, 2024

North Korea-affiliated hackers stole slightly over $1 billion worth of crypto assets last year, which was lower than the record $1.7 billion stolen by North Korea-affiliated hackers in 2022.

"North Korea-linked hacks have been on the rise over the past few years, with cyber-espionage groups such as Kimsuky and Lazarus Group utilizing various malicious tactics to acquire large amounts of crypto assets," said Chainalysis on Wednesday.

Another report by blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs said hackers tied to North Korea stole at least $600 million in crypto in 2023.

Click here to view interactive content

In September, the FBI confirmed that North Korea's Lazarus Group was responsible for the theft of about $41 million in crypto assets from online casino and betting platform Stake.com.

On Nov. 29, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Sinbad.io, a virtual currency mixer that is a key money-laundering tool for Lazarus Group. Crypto mixers are services that mix crypto from different sources to make transactions harder to trace.

The OFAC said Sinbad.io was responsible for assisting Lazarus Group in laundering millions of dollars in crypto stolen from the Horizon Bridge and Axie Infinity hacks, among others.

Previous research revealed that North Korea-affiliated hackers stole hundreds of millions of crypto to fund the regime's nuclear weapons programs.

Since North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006, the state has been slapped with several United Nations sanctions, aimed at limiting the regime's access to sources of funding needed to support its nuclear activities.

Click here to view interactive content

"With nearly $1.5 billion stolen in the past two years alone, North Korea's hacking prowess demands continuous vigilance and innovation from business and governments," said TRM Labs in its Jan. 5 report.

"Despite notable advancements in cybersecurity among exchanges and increased international collaboration in tracking and recovering stolen funds, 2024 is likely to see further disruption from the world's most prolific cyber-thief."

CNBC · by Sheila Chiang · January 24, 2024

8. North Korea's AI development raises concerns, report says

North Korea's AI development raises concerns, report says

https://www.reuters.com/technology/north-koreas-ai-development-raises-sanctions-concerns-report-says-2024-01-23/?utm

By Josh Smith and Hyunsu Yim

January 24, 20243:56 AM ESTUpdated a day ago

AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand are placed on computer motherboard in this illustration taken, June 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights, opens new tab

SEOUL, Jan 24 (Reuters) - North Korea is developing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning for everything from how to respond to COVID-19 and safeguard nuclear reactors to wargaming simulations and government surveillance, according to a new study.

International sanctions imposed over its nuclear weapons program may have hindered North Korea's attempts to secure AI hardware, but it appears to be pursuing the latest technology, wrote study author Hyuk Kim of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) in California."North Korea’s recent endeavours in AI/ML development signify a strategic investment to bolster its digital economy," Kim wrote in the report, which cited open-source information including state media and journals and was published on Tuesday by the 38 North project.

Some of North Korea's AI researchers have collaborated with foreign scholars, including in China, the report found.

Seoul's spy agency said on Wednesday it has detected signs that North Korean hackers had used generative AI to search for targets and seek technologies needed for hacking, though it appears they have yet to use it in actual cyberattacks.

The National Intelligence Service said it was closely monitoring the situation.

North Korea established the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute in 2013 and in recent years several companies have promoted commercial products featuring AI, the report said.

Communications technology is heavily restricted and monitored in the authoritarian North.

During the COVID-19 pandemic North Korea used AI to create a model for evaluating proper mask usage and prioritising clinical symptom indicators of infection, Kim said in the report.

North Korean scientists have also published research into using AI for maintaining the safety of nuclear reactors, the report added.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog and independent experts said last month that a new reactor at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear complex appears to be operating for the first time, which would mean another potential source of plutonium for nuclear weapons.

The AI development presents many challenges, Kim wrote.

"For instance, North Korea’s pursuit of a wargaming simulation program using (machine learning) reveals intentions to better comprehend operational environments against potential adversaries," he wrote.

"Furthermore, North Korea’s ongoing collaborations with foreign scholars pose concerns for the sanctions regime."

Reporting by Josh Smith; editing by Miral Fahmy

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

9. Opinion | As North Korea’s threat grows, ignoring it is not working

Yes. We should not panic or over react. Kim is providing us with the rationale and justification for a new strategy.

The bottom line is we must solve the "Korea question." (para 60 of the Armistice).

Opinion | As North Korea’s threat grows, ignoring it is not working

The Washington Post · by Editorial Board · January 24, 2024

The United States and its allies are in the worst situation yet in the long and unsuccessful attempt to curb North Korea’s quest for nuclear weapons and advanced missiles. Successive U.S. presidents tried isolation and sanctions, inducements and incentives. Nothing worked, and now North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is cozying up to a new benefactor, President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

This is bad news for the multitude of U.S. and U.N. Security Council sanctions intended to restrict North Korea’s exports and imports, limit its financial dealings and root out its illicit cyber and crypto activities. Mr. Putin cares little for the West’s sanctions and is desperate to acquire ammunition and missiles from Mr. Kim’s stockpile. The White House announced earlier this month that North Korea was already sending medium-range ballistic missiles to Russia for use against Ukraine. Mr. Kim also reportedly shipped more than 1 million artillery shells to Russia.

It is not known precisely how Mr. Putin will reward North Korea for this, but he could send desperately needed supplies such as oil, or Russia’s sophisticated weapons technology. Last week, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui visited Moscow, where her Russian hosts reiterated their commitment to developing relations with North Korea in all areas, including “sensitive” ones. North Korea said Mr. Putin might visit Pyongyang at an unspecified “early date.”

President Biden has not shown much interest in Mr. Kim. At this point, he has almost no leverage over him. The best options are long gone. Eventually, China might brake Mr. Kim’s behavior, but the United States must first stabilize its relations with Beijing.

Indeed, Mr. Kim seems to have given up on negotiations with the United States after the failed 2019 Hanoi summit with President Donald Trump. The United States has stated repeatedly that it is open to negotiations on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula that could lead to eventual lifting of sanctions. But Mr. Kim insists he will not relinquish his country’s nuclear program — estimated at 20 to 60 nuclear warheads.

With diplomacy dead, the United States and South Korea are scrambling to shore up deterrence through regular military drills. Last year, the United States deployed a nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea for the first time since the 1980s. Mr. Kim has responded with yet another round of threatening maneuvers, testing a solid-fueled ballistic missile and experimenting with a nuclear-capable undersea unmanned vessel.

On top of all these worries, two experts on North Korea, Robert Carlin and Siegfried Hecker, warned on Jan. 11 that Mr. Kim “has made a strategic decision to go to war.” Writing on the Stimson Center website 38 North, they say, “We do not know when or how Kim plans to pull the trigger, but the danger is already far beyond the routine warnings in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo about Pyongyang’s ‘provocations.’” Their argument is based on Korean official pronouncements, which they say have added a serious “war preparation theme.” They add, “The evidence of the past year opens the real possibility that the situation may have reached the point that we must seriously consider a worst case.” In a rebuttal, Thomas Schäfer, Germany’s former ambassador to North Korea, wrote that Mr. Kim is intentionally building up tension to drive a hard bargain should Mr. Trump return to office, repeating past cycles of threat and negotiation.

The United States should prepare for either possibility as tension rises. A modest military confidence-building agreement reached in 2018 by North and South Korea collapsed last November. Last week, Mr. Kim called for a change to the North Korean constitution to declare South Korea an enemy state and formally abandoned the idea of peacefully reunifying the two halves of the peninsula. “We don’t want war but we have no intention of avoiding it,” Mr. Kim said, according to North Korea’s state news agency.

Moon Chung-in, a professor emeritus of international relations at Yonsei University in Seoul and a former presidential adviser, said in an interview published by the South Korean news outlet Hankyoreh that he did not see war as imminent but fears the nations could stumble into conflict by accident or miscalculation. “An unintended clash has the potential to erupt into a regional war, a full-scale war, or even a nuclear war,” he said.

North Korea is now an established nuclear weapons power and continues to expand its arsenal of missiles and other technology, such as hypersonic glide vehicles. Mr. Kim might use this growing muscle for leverage and threat, as in the past. Or his saber-rattling could portend something much worse. The United States can hope that Mr. Kim’s recent provocations amount to just more bluster. But the Biden administration should plan as though they are more serious.

The Washington Post · by Editorial Board · January 24, 2024

10. An in-depth look at Kim Jong Un’s “two states” narrative: Part 3

Some useful analysis and good advice. I can think of ways to cure Kim Jong Un of his "bad habits." (and I am not talking about his smoking and drinking).

But everything we do must be based on sound assumptions of the nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim familyre regime.

Excerpts:

The South Korean military will successfully respond, just as it did to the bombing of Yonpyong Island in 2010 and the detonation of a mine in the Demilitarized Zone in 2015, based on its “immediate, forceful and final” response principle to North Korean provocations. Besides, an all-out war would mean the demise of Kim Jong Un’s regime at the hands of the ironclad alliance between South Korea and the U.S.

Newspapers and broadcasters need to be more cautious than ever when it comes to their reporting. North Korea’s psychological operations aimed at dividing South Koreans between advocates of war and proponents of peace should not be related uncritically to the public. It is also important to share the full truth about North Korea and recall the need for national unity. Needless to say, politicians must refrain from in-fighting and short-sighted maneuvers.

Look at Ukraine or the Middle East — or Korean history, for that matter. In times of national crisis, all Koreans are citizen-soldiers. We must all come together to boldly defend ourselves and develop our country.

It’s time to cure Kim Jong Un of his bad habits. We need to create genuine peace, not a false peace, for our descendants to enjoy.

An in-depth look at Kim Jong Un’s “two states” narrative: Part 3

The Moon administration’s poor understanding of the state of affairs gave Kim Jong Un the time he needed to improve his nuclear forces. But what about the Yoon administration?

By Gil-sup Kwak - 2024.01.25 9:00am

dailynk.com

An in-depth look at Kim Jong Un’s “two states” narrative: Part 3 - Daily NK English

“The 10th meeting of the 14th session of the Supreme People’s Assembly of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was held on Jan. 15 at the Mansudae Shrine in the capital, Pyongyang,” according to Rodong Sinmun on Saturday. (Rodong Sinmun-News1)

North Korea’s two big political events at the turn of the year have wrapped up — the plenary session of the Workers’ Party of Korea Central Committee and the session of the Supreme People’s Assembly. These two events are closely watched as barometers not only of Pyongyang’s policies for 2024 but also of its mid-term and long-term direction. The megaton bomb that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un dropped with his anti-Korean and anti-historical hardline remarks at these events is continuing to reverberate.

The “strength-against-strength” approach to policy

North Korea made explicit in these two events that it means to further reinforce what it calls a “strength-against-strength frontal confrontation” based on self-sufficiency and an upgraded nuclear arsenal.

This unyielding line, which has been adopted in a situation where the “new Cold War” alignment pitting North Korea, China, and Russia against South Korea, the U.S., and Japan amid U.S.-China strategic competition, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the global supply chain crisis, appears to be based on several factors.

These include North Korea’s goals of successfully achieving its five-year plan for developing the economy and national defense on schedule by 2025; cementing its status as a nuclear weapon state; its strengthening of diplomatic solidarity with China and Russia over the coming year; the unwavering North Korean policies of the Yoon or Biden administrations; and the South Korean parliamentary elections in April and the U.S. presidential election in November.

Much attention has been paid to Kim Jong Un’s denunciation of South Korea as the “primary foe and invariable principal enemy,” his definition of inter-Korean relations as “the relations between two states hostile to each other and the relations between two belligerent states, not […] consanguineous or homogeneous ones,” and his orders for “preparations for a great event to suppress the whole territory of South Korea.”

But it should be remembered that this is a twofold tactic that, first of all, serves as “positional warfare” to give North Korea a pretext for bolstering its nuclear arsenal and increasing controls over its citizenry. Secondly, it is part of a “battle for the high ground” designed to pressure the U.S. and incite conflict in South Korea through psychological operations and a range of online and offline provocations.

Emergency rule to confront the enemy

Kim Jong Un openly declared an “anti-Korean war line” in speeches at major events for the North Korean government and the Workers’ Party of Korea and, through a future amendment, said that he would include language within the constitution regarding the two-state doctrine and the idea of unifying the peninsula through nuclear force. The measures he called for – including abolishing organizations connected with inter-Korean exchange, cooperation, and unification, the demolition of symbolic structures, and the prohibition of certain phrases – are likely to have enormous consequences for inter-Korean relations as a whole and bring about a Copernican-level of change.

A view of Panmunjom from the South Korean side of the border. (Wikimedia Commons)

Since Kim Jong Un’s remarks, North Korea has already taken the following measures: carrying out gunnery exercises with coastal batteries near the Northern Limit Line (NLL); test launching a hypersonic ballistic missile; shuttering departments responsible for exchange activities with South Korea including the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, the National Economic Cooperation Bureau and the Mount Kumgang International Tourism Administration; halting broadcasts at Radio Pyongyang; and deleting the webpages of propaganda websites aimed at South Korea such as Uriminzokkiri.

North Korea has also announced that it will scrap symbolic structures symbolizing inter-Korean cooperation and exchange such as the Monument to the Three-Point Charter for National Reunification; eliminate language such as “northern half of the peninsula” and “independence, peaceful unification, and great national unity”; add new territorial language based on the “two states” narrative to the constitution; and treat an incursion into North Korean waters in the Yellow Sea as an act of war.*

North Korea’s extremely hardline approach is reminiscent of the “Yushin” self-coup engineered by Park Chung-hee, former president of South Korea, in October 1972. That is to say, Kim Jong Un is quite likely to have resorted to rhetoric about confrontation and war to consolidate his hold on the regime, just as Park used the U.S.-China détente on the Korean Peninsula, rapid changes in the Vietnam War and elsewhere in the region, and the search for a new policy toward North Korea – including the initiation of inter-Korean dialogue during a secret visit to North Korea by Lee Hu-rak, director of the Korea Central Intelligence Agency – to consolidate his.

To sum up, Kim Jong Un has resorted to the desperate measure of threatening a “war between two states” that could go beyond limited skirmishes to all-out war while denying the doctrine of unification through a federation, which was the legacy of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. This reflects both Kim’s confidence in his ability to upgrade his nuclear weapon and missile forces, and his desire to frame the April general election in South Korea as a conflict between those who favor war and those who favor peace. But beyond that, Kim’s measures were likely motivated by the North Korean authorities’ fear and anxiety that the regime will soon implode unless it can fundamentally quash the “South Korea fever” that is so rampant among North Korean young people.

In other words, I think that Kim’s measures are grounded in the belief that North Korea’s “united front” policy of promoting dialogue, exchanges, and cooperation under the slogan of “one Korea” has been ineffective at sowing discord in South Korean society and has instead undermined the North Korean authorities’ grounds for tightening controls over the general public, and teenagers in particular, and could even lead to a movement against the regime or Kim himself.**

But is Kim Jong Un capable of silencing the young generation’s desire for change? Can he stop the winds of truth and freedom from blowing in North Korea?

One axiom of world history is that one extreme leads to another. History shows only too well what happens to tyrants.

How to respond

The Moon administration’s poor diagnosis and prescription of the state of affairs on the Korean Peninsula gave Kim Jong Un the time he needed to improve his nuclear forces. But what about the Yoon administration?

Yoon correctly holds that “North Korea won’t easily give up its nuclear weapons.” He is also right to strengthen cooperation with the U.S. and Japan through his slogan of “peace through strength.” But the problem lies in his ability to put these ideas into practice and to keep them going.

The Yoon administration’s North Korea policy will now face a serious test. If the Comprehensive Military Agreement’s provisional suspension (by the South) and its revocation (by the North) last year were the prelude, the battle of wills that has been unfolding since the turn of the year will be a crucial “battle for the heights” that will determine the future of the North Korean nuclear issue and the normalization of inter-Korean relations.

The South Korean government needs to be bold and principled in its response. While its initial focus should be on managing the immediate crisis, it needs to thoroughly review its unification policy in the long term.

Yoon Suk-yeol at his inauguration on May 10, 2022 (Defense Media Agency, Official Photographer : YANG DONG WOOK)

Kim Jong Un has already threatened to make armed provocations around the Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea. South Korea needs to take all necessary measures to quickly sound the alarm and retaliate against any such provocations on the assumption that the Yellow Sea will be the proving ground — the place where sparks begin to fly.

However, Seoul must not take a strictly defensive stance. It needs to engage in a range of activities, both at home and abroad, to condemn North Korea for its “anti-Korean war line” and to realize universal values.

What about the South Korean public? South Koreans need to trust and support the government and the military without losing their cool over North Korea’s deceptive psychological operations, which seek to trigger fears of war or the increasing number of irresponsible reports in the international media about the possibility of war breaking out on the Korean Peninsula.

The South Korean military will successfully respond, just as it did to the bombing of Yonpyong Island in 2010 and the detonation of a mine in the Demilitarized Zone in 2015, based on its “immediate, forceful and final” response principle to North Korean provocations. Besides, an all-out war would mean the demise of Kim Jong Un’s regime at the hands of the ironclad alliance between South Korea and the U.S.

Newspapers and broadcasters need to be more cautious than ever when it comes to their reporting. North Korea’s psychological operations aimed at dividing South Koreans between advocates of war and proponents of peace should not be related uncritically to the public. It is also important to share the full truth about North Korea and recall the need for national unity. Needless to say, politicians must refrain from in-fighting and short-sighted maneuvers.

Look at Ukraine or the Middle East — or Korean history, for that matter. In times of national crisis, all Koreans are citizen-soldiers. We must all come together to boldly defend ourselves and develop our country.

It’s time to cure Kim Jong Un of his bad habits. We need to create genuine peace, not a false peace, for our descendants to enjoy.

*North Korea announced its own “maritime military demarcation line” in 1999 and “traffic arrangement” for five islands located near North Korea in the Yellow Sea in 2000, rejecting the Northern Limit Line, which is South Korea’s maritime border in the area, as an “arbitrary measure imposed without recourse to the armistice agreement.” Since then, it has argued that Baengnyeong Island, Yeonpyeong Island, and the other three islands in the area remain under the jurisdiction of the UN Command, but that the waters around those islands belong to North Korea.

**Along with completely closing the national borders following the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, North Korea has been concentrating its resources on halting the spread of South Korean culture through the Reactionary Ideology and Culture Exclusion Act, the Act to Guarantee Ideological Education for Youth, the Pyongyang Dialect Protection Act and the Inminban () Organization and Operation Act (this last one from January 2024). Recently, the North even convened a National Meeting of Mothers to stress the importance of families raising their children properly.

Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.

Views expressed in this guest column do not necessarily reflect those of Daily NK.

Please send any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.

Read in Korean

Gil-sup Kwak

President of One Korea Center and Adjunct Professor at Kookmin University

dailynk.com

11. Kim Jong Un acknowledges dire state of economy, urges action

Kim Jong Un acknowledges dire state of economy, urges action

But N Korea’s economy may see gains in 2024, fueled by tourism, stronger ties with China, Russia: South think tank

By Lee Jeong-Ho for RFA

2024.01.24

Seoul, South Korea

rfa.org

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un made a rare acknowledgement on the dire state of his country’s economy, urging ruling party officials to take immediate action.

Speaking at the two-day party meeting, which began Tuesday, Kim labeled the economic problem as a “serious political issue,” saying that his government revealed the “inability to provide even basic necessities such as basic foodstuffs, groceries, and consumer goods to the local people.”

“The overall local economy is currently in a very pitiful state, lacking even basic conditions,” Kim said at a politburo plenary meeting, as cited by the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency Thursday.

North Korean regimes consistently focus on their economy and food security, recognizing that economic performance is closely linked to the country’s security and legitimacy.

Kim has been facing issues related to the economy and food shortages since he assumed power in 2012. These problems have been intensified recently amid climate change, the aftermath of COVID-19, and international sanctions.

North Korea’s economy contracted for the third consecutive year in 2022, according to the South’s Statistics Korea report in December. The latest available data showed a 0.2% year-on-year drop in North Korea’s GDP in 2022, following a 0.1 % decrease in 2021, and a 4.5 % contraction in 2020.

Meanwhile, North Korea’s agricultural production experienced a 4% year-on-year decline in 2022, totaling 4.5 million tons, according to the Statistics Korea report. Specifically, rice production saw a decrease of 3.8%, amounting to 2.07 million tons, which is approximately half of South Korea’s rice production.

Sources inside North Korea told Radio Free Asia in May that as many as 30% of farmers in two northern provinces were unable to work on collective farms because they’re weak from hunger.

Urging improvements in the economic situation, Kim scolded his party officials, urging them to take immediate action.

“Some policy guidance departments and economic institutions have been evading the reality of the situation and engaging in discussions without actively seeking realistic and revolutionary solutions to address this task.

“If we cannot effectively implement the party’s economic development policies, we will never realize significant changes,” Kim said.

A separate report by the South’s Korea Development Institute (KDI) released in December, however, noted that there may be some “tangible achievements” in North Korea’s economy this year, boosted by the resumption of tourism with China and strengthened economic cooperation with Russia.

“Currently, North Korea is in the midst of reviving its collaboration with China, including tourism and personnel exchanges. Moreover, the nation is strengthening its partnership with Russia to an unprecedented level,” the KDI report said.

North Korea’s primary economic objectives for 2024 would be centered around “acquiring foreign currency to address the trade deficit, discovering new export opportunities, revitalizing and expanding tourism cooperation with China and Russia,” the report said.

Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.

rfa.org

12. Residents near inter-Korean border call for calm amid rising tensions

But the Comprehensive Military Agreement was nothing but a piece of paper and did not improve security because the north never lived up to it. And it made conflict more likely because it weakened ROK nd alliance readiness in the frontline areas.

Residents near inter-Korean border call for calm amid rising tensions

The Korea Times · January 25, 2024

Kim Yong-bin, a farmer living in Cheorwon County near the inter-Korean border, speaks during a press conference in central Seoul, Thursday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

After suspension of military accord, one miscalculation may lead to armed clash

By Jung Min-ho

Residents living near the inter-Korean border called for calmn on Thursday amid growing military tension, saying they fear even a single miscalculation ― by either Seoul or Pyongyang ― could lead to the destruction of their villages and their lives.

Speaking at a press conference in central Seoul, residents from Paju and Cheorwon said they fear the worst after the de facto end of the 2018 military agreement between South and North Korea. With buffer zones now vastly reduced and military activities visually increasing in the region, they said their sense of security has been seriously disrupted ― with growing concerns that they could be the first victims of a possible armed clash.

“Whenever I see troops or military vehicles moving in or around my areas these days, I do so with some apprehension,” said Kim Yong-bin, a farmer living in Cheorwon, a county in northern Gangwon Province. “The Korean War did not occur overnight … For a long period in the lead up to it, there had been skirmishes and other signs near the border.”

The expression of their worries comes after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un threatened to annihilate South Korea with nuclear weapons, while calling it a “principal enemy” earlier this month. President Yoon Suk Yeol responded by vowing a swift, strong retaliation against any provocation, saying he will not back down in the face of the regime’s threat.

The residents said intensifying tensions from such aggressive rhetoric and action ― such as a test-fire of North Korea’s solid-fuel missile tipped with a hypersonic maneuverable warhead ― have changed the atmosphere near the border.

“Recently, I see far more reconnaissance aircraft and drones flying in the skies,” said Lee Jae-hee, a speaker from Paju, a border city in Gyeonggi Province.

South Korean soldiers gather next to their armored vehicles during a military exercise in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, a city near the inter-Korean border, Wednesday. AP-Yonhap

Lee said many people there are particularly concerned about activists who send anti-regime leaflets across the border, which he believes could trigger a skirmish that could result in the North attacking border areas and beyond.

“If North Korea’s military tries to shoot down balloons carrying such leaflets or attack the area from which they were sent, it may well turn into a military clash between the South and the North,” he said.

Despite the freezing weather, Lee said he saw or heard about some activists who attempted to send such materials recently into the North Korean territory. With such activists expected to become more active in March and April as the weather becomes warm, he said he is very worried about how the North would react.

Park Tae-won, a fisherman who lives on Yeonpyeong Island, which became the target of the North’s bombardment in 2010, said he would not experience another such tragedy.

Park, who could not attend the media event due to weather conditions, said in a statement the number of illegal Chinese fishing boats in waters near the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime boundary between the two Koreas, apparently decreased recently. For many fishermen, it serves as a “barometer of inter-Korean relations” as Chinese fishing boats tend to increase there when tensions are low, he noted.

Activists who organized the event called on the government to do more to prevent possible military clashes, saying it should take the initiative to maintain peace instead of pinning the blame on the North for rising tensions.

“If an accidental clash turns into a regional war or a nuclear war, it would be an irreversible catastrophe,” activists from more than 100 civic groups said in a joint statement. “We urge the government to stop blaming the North and establish measures immediately to prevent armed clashes.”

The Korea Times · January 25, 2024

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."

Access NSS HERE

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