Quotes of the Day:

 "Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind." 

- Theodore Roosevelt

“The trouble with academics and commentators is that they care more about whether ideas are interesting than whether they are true.” 

- Isaiah Berlin

"The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him."

- Fyodor Dostoevsky 

1. Kim Jong Un’s 2023 'master plan' is all about weapons, nothing about food

2. Military says it initially regarded N.K. drone intrusion as non-emergency situation

3. Experts: Arming Ukraine Via US Could Worsen South Korea’s Ties with Russia

4. Kim unchained heralds new nuclear war reality

5. Opinion | When Blinken goes to China, he should call its bluff on North Korea

6. Our Indo-Pacific Allies Signal That They Don’t Trust the Biden Administration’s Extended Deterrent

7. Kim Jong Un Has Started Succession Planning, Says Expert: 'Likely To Rule…For The Next 50 Years'

8. S. Korea to increase joint air defense exercises following N. Korean drone incursions

9. Missiles and macroeconomy mark North Korea’s 2022 troubles

10. Yoon to meet NATO chief, US defense secretary next week

11. South Korea’s Yoon ponders whether to ‘go nuclear’

12. North Korean capital Pyongyang on lockdown as COVID spreads through the city

13. N. Korea urges antivirus efforts amid apparent preparations for military parade

14. Top North Korean spy tasked with recruiting union leaders

15. Economic Sanctions During Humanitarian Emergencies: The Case of North Korea

16. North Korea's Top APT Swindled $1B From Crypto Investors in 2022

17. North Korea pushes ahead with military parade training despite virus lockdown

1. Kim Jong Un’s 2023 'master plan' is all about weapons, nothing about food

The regime's true colors. The Korean people in the north suffer because of Kim Jong Un's deliberate policy decision - the worst one is the prioritization of nuclear weapons and missiles and support to the regime elite and military leadership over the welfare of the Korean people.

It is important to keep in mind that Kim Jong-Un's threats, increased tensions, and provocations are necessary to "externalize" the threats in order to justify the sacrifices and suffering of the Korean people. Kim Jong Un is painting false threats from the ROK/US alliance.

Kim Jong Un’s 2023 'master plan' is all about weapons, nothing about food

'This is presented as a 100-year plan to create a rich and strong country, but nobody actually believes that.'

By Jieun Kim for RFA Korean

2023.01.25

rfa.org

North Koreans forced to study supreme leader Kim Jong Un’s newly published “master plan” for 2023 say it is a rehash of old tropes and offers nothing on how to address the most pressing concern on people’s minds: overcoming the country’s chronic food shortage, sources tell Radio Free Asia.

Instead, it focuses on strengthening the military and the country’s missile and nuclear capabilities, and authorities are forcing citizens to study the highly-touted proposal in educational sessions this month.

“This year’s party policy … is a repeat of the same old themes that have been repeatedly emphasized for decades,” an official from the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

Authorities published the booklet as a nojak, meaning it is among the county’s masterpieces of published materials, and therefore an “immortal classic work.” The only other authors of nojak are Kim Jong Un’s father and predecessor Kim Jong Il, and grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung.

The cover of study materials based on Kim Jong Un's master plan for 2023. Credit: RFA

The master plan did in fact discuss some current concerns, according to the source, but none dealt directly with providing a steady food supply for the impoverished country that has been isolated by sanctions over its nuclear program.

“They covered forestry projects, developments in science and technology, and projects to eradicate non-socialist behavior,” he said. “But unless we change our current policy of emphasizing national defense and increasing the military’s capabilities, how will we ever come up with a policy that addresses the problems directly related to how the people are struggling to live?”

Part of the educational materials discussion of Kim Jong Un’s “heroic accomplishments,” but the people scoff at these, a source in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.

“The general secretary boasts about the nuclear force policy as a great achievement completed under extremely adverse conditions,” the second source said. “But this policy has been a fatal blow to the lives of the residents.”

“They say, ‘Why do we need to do these kinds of ideological studies when nothing has changed after decades of studying?’” he said. “This is presented as a 100-year plan to create a rich and strong country, but nobody actually believes that.”

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee and Leejin J. Chung.

rfa.org

2. Military says it initially regarded N.K. drone intrusion as non-emergency situation

Still no mention of the 2018 Comprehensive Military Agreement that established a no fly zone along the DMZ. I would like to know if that was a contributing factor for complacency. A piece of paper does not improve the security of the ROK.

Military says it initially regarded N.K. drone intrusion as non-emergency situation | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 채윤환 · January 26, 2023

SEOUL, Jan. 26 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's front-line troops initially viewed North Korea's drone infiltrations last month as a non-emergency situation, an assessment that caused a delay in the military's overall response, Seoul officials said Thursday.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) briefed the National Assembly's defense committee on an interim outcome of its inspection of the botched operation against five North Korean drones that violated the South's airspace on Dec. 26.

Personnel of the Army's First Corps first detected one of the drones intruding across the inter-Korean border, but they did not regard it as an "emergency" that would have activated key mechanisms to swiftly share and disseminate information among relevant military units.

Instead, they classified the situation as one that calls for "frequent" updates, the JCS said, a reason why inter-unit cooperation systems remained dormant at the time.

JCS officials cited a set of reasons for such an assessment, including difficulties identifying what was initially seen as a small flying object appearing on and off the radar in a confusing manner.

"There are over 2,000 radar trails a day and there are great limitations in determing that they are the enemy's small unmanned aerial vehicles," a military official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

The JCS also found that the First Corps' air defense reporting system was not connected to the Capital Defense Command, raising questions about the units' capabilities to carry out missions together. The issue has since been addressed, the JCS said.

The officials raised the possibility that one of the drones, which flew close to the office of President Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul's central district of Yongsan, carried a commercial camera.

But they stressed there might have been "limits" in the drone's ability to take photos of the Yongsan area given its flight altitude and the presumed performance of the camera.

The officials also said that the drones in question were thought to be more advanced compared with the North Korean drones found to have crashed in the South in 2014 and 2017.

As for the North's intentions behind the drone incursions, the JCS said they might have been designed to test the South's response capabilities and sow confusion among South Koreans.

Asked whether the military would hold anybody responsible for the failed operation against the drones, JCS Chairman Gen. Kim Seung-kyum struck a cautious note.

"We plan to take a necessary step in accordance with the inspection outcome after a careful review," he told lawmakers.

Youtube

https://youtu.be/VTYFvtKsAEg

Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup (R) and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Kim Seung-kyum (2nd from L) take their seats at the National Assembly in western Seoul on Jan. 26, 2023, before they report to lawmakers on the military's weekslong inspection of the operation against five North Korean drones that violated the South's airspace on Dec. 26. (Yonhap)

yunhwanchae@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 채윤환 · January 26, 2023

3. Experts: Arming Ukraine Via US Could Worsen South Korea’s Ties with Russia

Comments from many of us.  

Here are my entire comments provided (understanding that journalists never use all the comments provided of course, not a slight on the journalist - just an opportunity to provide more of my views).

President Yoon has called South Korea a Global Pivotal State. Providing support to Ukraine directly or indirectly is an example of that. Sales of tanks and artillery to Poland indicates that South Korea is a partner in the Arsenal of Democracy. South Korea can produce large amounts of the type of ammunition needed by Ukraine, e.g. 155mm and 105mm artillery and tank ammunition. President Yoon has made it clear that South Korea stands for the rules based international order and there is no more egregious and immediate threat to that order than Putin's brutal attack on Ukraine. South Korea appears to be stepping up on the world stage to be a force for good.

I am sure South Korea will suffer criticism from Russia and probably economic retaliation. This is a risk but a risk that a global pivotal state must be willing to take.

Experts: Arming Ukraine Via US Could Worsen South Korea’s Ties with Russia

January 26, 2023 3:01 AM

• Christy Lee

voanews.com

WASHINGTON —

South Korea, with a world-class arms industry, is facing mounting pressure to find a way to get needed arms and munitions to Ukraine without unduly angering Russia, which has hinted that it could resume military cooperation with North Korea.

Experts interviewed by VOA say the most likely solution under consideration in Seoul is for the nation’s commercial arms manufacturers to make private sales to the United States, allowing the U.S to ship more of its own armaments to Ukraine without depleting its stockpiles.

A spokesperson for the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs told VOA Korean Service on Wednesday that the administration in Seoul “has been providing humanitarian support to the people of Ukraine” but “there has not been a change” in its position that it “will not send lethal weapons to Ukraine.”

Depleted stockpiles

Since the Russian invasion, Washington’s military aid to Kyiv has depleted U.S. weapons stockpiles.

The Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a U.S.-led coalition of about 50 countries, has been sending Kyiv weaponry ranging from High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) to howitzers. The U.S. and Germany announced Wednesday that they will send 31 M1 Abrams tanks and 14 Leopard 2 tanks, respectively. Additional tanks have been promised by other NATO countries.

Ukraine is using about 90,000 artillery rounds per month while the U.S. and European countries are producing only half that amount among them, according to The New York Times, citing U.S. and Western officials.

The U.S. has asked the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) to route some of its equipment stockpiled in South Korea to Ukraine, USFK spokesperson Isaac Taylor told the VOA Korean Service on Jan. 19.

And Washington “has been in discussion about potential sales of ammunition” from South Korea’s “non-government industrial defense base,” said Pentagon spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Martin Meiners to the VOA Korean Service on Jan. 18.

“The Republic of Korea has a world-class defense industry which regularly sells to allies and partners, including the United States,” Meiners added. South Korea’s official name is the Republic of Korea (ROK).

South Korea’s arms sales

Experts said arms sales from South Korea’s private defense companies to the U.S. could elevate South Korea’s standing as “a global pivotal state,” a stated foreign policy aspiration of President Yoon Suk Yeol since he took office in May.

Yoon said in August that South Korea’s goal is to become one of the top four global arms sellers. He reiterated the goal of boosting weapons sales in November.

South Korea was the world’s eighth-largest exporter of weapons in 2017-21 according to a 2022 report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) which said the United States, Russia, France, China and Germany are the top five sellers.

“President Yoon has called South Korea a global pivotal state,” David Maxwell, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said. “… Providing support to Ukraine directly or indirectly is an example of that.”

Putin’s warning

Experts said that by allowing the private arms sales to proceed, South Korea could shore up its alliances with Western powers and help to demonstrate to authoritarian neighbors like China and North Korea that the kind of aggression launched by Russia in Ukraine will not succeed.

But the move will likely come at the cost of further deterioration in Seoul’s relations with Moscow, which are already fraying over South Korea’s support of the sanctions the U.S. imposed on Russia after it invaded Ukraine.

“South Korea has the same interest about peace, stability, territorial sovereignty, protecting [against] states that are invading through outright aggression,” said Terence Roehrig, a professor of national security and Korea expert at the U.S. Naval War College.

“It is about South Korea making the decision that it needs to stand with the West on those issues with some degree of hedging by being reluctant to send direct military assistance to Ukraine,” he added.

“You will not see South Korea directly contributing arms to Ukraine. It will only be about backfilling other states who might be doing that.” That, he said, is because of concerns that Russia could “play a role on North Korea” through potential technology transfers and weapons development.

In October, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned South Korea that sending ammunition to Ukraine would ruin their relations.

“We have learned that the Republic of Korea has made a decision to supply weapons and ammunition to Ukraine. This will destroy our relations,” said Putin as reported by Russian state-owned Tass. “How would the Republic of Korea react if we resumed cooperation with North Korea in that sphere?”

Until it collapsed in 1991, the Soviet Union provided military support to North Korea. The Ukraine war has drawn Russia and North Korea closer together. On Friday, the U.S. released a photo of what it said was evidence of North Korea sending weapons to the Wagner Group, a Russian private military organization, via trains to Russia.

VOA Korea contacted the Russian embassy in Washington and Foreign Ministry in Moscow for comment, but they did not respond.

Andrew Yeo, the SK-Korea Foundation chair at Brookings Institution, said the proposed private weapons sales to the U.S. “would suggest greater support for the Ukrainian cause and further sour relations with Moscow, although Moscow has already placed Seoul on its list of hostile countries.”

In March, Russia placed South Korea on a list of countries that commit “unfriendly actions,” according to Tass. According to the Tass report, countries on the list imposed or joined the sanctions imposed on Russia after it invaded Ukraine.

“Seoul is eager to preserve a workable relationship with Moscow, so in some way drawing down U.S. weapons in [its bases in South] Korea is more palatable than selling them directly,” said Patrick Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at Hudson Institute.

“But South Korea also has an abiding interest in ensuring that Russian aggression in Ukraine cannot prevail,” he added. “That would be a bad precedent for South Korea’s neighbors.”

voanews.com

4. Kim unchained heralds new nuclear war reality

Kim Jong Un's political warfare strategy is working. He must really be enjoying all the pundits claiming his nuclear power while alleging the declining confidence in the US commitment to extended deterrence. He is creating the conditions to weaken the alliance and then allowing alliance critics to actually cause the damage.

We fail to recognize Kim Jong Un's political warfare strategy at our peril.

Kim unchained heralds new nuclear war reality

Denuclearization diplomacy is dead while new era of long-term extended nuclear deterrence has arrived – though it may not hold

asiatimes.com · by Mason Richey and Robert York · January 26, 2023

From September-December 2022, North Korea had its most active missile testing period in history, including a day in November featuring a 23-missile barrage.

Whether it was the technical need for testing systems under development, training for missile crews, capability demonstrations for international messaging or taking advantage of a permissive international environment (in which China and Russia have protected North Korea from United Nations Security Council sanctions), Kim Jong Un was unchained.

For US-North Korea relations, Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile program is the alpha and the omega. The Kim regime has continued to produce fissile material for manufacturing nuclear warheads and has engaged in an unprecedented pace of missile launches – both activities in gross violation of international law.

This was accompanied not only by Pyongyang’s usual vitriol against Washington’s “hostile policy” and “war-mongering,” but also by increasingly strong statements that denuclearization diplomacy with the US is dead.

This dynamic was bookended by North Korea’s new nuclear weapons law in September (which refers to Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons possession as “irreversible”) and a Korean Worker’s Party Plenum in December, at which Kim called for “exponential growth” of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.

With denuclearization diplomacy apparently dead, the US-South Korea alliance has seemingly entered a phase of long-term nuclear deterrence vis-à-vis North Korea, a fraught situation holding many perils.

The testing spree began in the last week of September, when the North fired a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) toward the Sea of Japan (East Sea) on the 25th, then fired two more SRBMs into the same sea just three days later.

The proximate cause of the launches had something to do with events on September 23, when the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan arrived in South Korea to conduct joint exercises.

Those exercises would take place on the 26th, and if the tests themselves were not enough of a hint, the North’s representative at the UN on the following day said that the “security environment of the peninsula was caught in a vicious cycle of tensions and confrontations due to the growing hostility of the United States.”

On October 4, the North fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile (Hwasong-12 IRBM) over Japan, its first such launch in eight months (and the first over the Japanese archipelago since 2017).

Pedestrians watch a screen displaying news reporting of North Korea’s launch of a ballistic missile in Tokyo, Japan, October 4, 2022. North Korea launched a ballistic missile over Japan that landed in the Pacific Ocean, the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of Japan, about 3,000 kilometers east of Japan. Photo: EPA-EFE

Two short-range tests followed on October 6, two more on October 9, one more on the 14th (accompanied by around 170 artillery shots into the maritime “buffer zones”), plus more artillery shots on the 19th and two more SRBMs on the 28th.

These were not the only provocations the regime committed in October. North Korean state media reported on October 10 that missile activity had included the simulated use of its tactical battlefield nuclear weapons to “hit and wipe out” potential South Korean and American targets.

Then, on October 13 state media reported that leader Kim Jong Un had supervised the test-firing of long-range strategic cruise missiles involving units operating “tactical nukes” to demonstrate the country’s deterrence capabilities.

On the 14th, approximately 10 North Korean military aircraft flew close to the border with South Korea, prompting the South Korean Air Force to scramble F-35 stealth fighters and send other assets to the scene.

On November 2 North Korea launched a record barrage of missiles and artillery shells, with one SRBM flying across the de facto maritime border (NLL) with South Korea. This was followed up by North Korea firing an intercontinental ballistic missile and two short-range missiles toward the Sea of Japan/East Sea. (A South Korean defense source later called the ICBM launch a failure.)

Pyongyang launched three SRBMs toward the East Sea two days later, and one more on the 8th. South Korea scrambled around 80 planes after detecting more than 180 North Korean military aircraft active near South Korean airspace on the 17th.

On November 18, Kim Jong Un supervised the firing of the Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Unlike the November 3rd test and others earlier in the year, this launch of the Hwasong-17 – with a reputed range of more than 9,000 miles, sufficient to target the entire US – is believed to have been a success.

Kim Jong Un certainly treated it as such, stating that the firing of the ICBM was representative of North Korea’s “strategic force and its powerful combat performance as the strongest strategic weapon in the world.”

Kim Jong Un’s daughter, Ju Ae, apparently attended the November 18 ICBM launch. In December North Korean media showed her inspecting mass-production lines of nuclear-capable Hwasong-12 IRBMs.

Although much analyst and expert speculation centered on Ju Ae’s potential to succeed Kim Jong Un, a second symbolic message precluding denuclearization was as important: North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is intended to be bequeathed to posterity.

The nuclear arsenal is intended to be bequeathed to posterity. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with his daughter Kim Ju Ae Photo: KCNA

North Korea began the month of December by firing 130 artillery shells into inter-Korean maritime buffer zones.

On December 16 it then tested a high-thrust, solid-fuel rocket engine likely intended for long-range, nuclear-armed missiles – prioritized by Kim at the 8th Korean Worker’s Party Congress in 2021. If this technology succeeds, it will greatly enhance North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, whose liquid-fueled ICBMs are currently vulnerable on the ground prior to launch.

On the 19th, Pyongyang conducted a “final-stage” test evaluating the capabilities for putting a military reconnaissance satellite into orbit. A spokesperson at the National Aerospace Development Administration said the regime would finish preparations for its first military reconnaissance satellite by this coming April.

Pyongyang then ended the year by firing two SRBMs into the East Sea on December 23, and three more on December 31.

Preemptive nukes

On September 9, while celebrating the 74th anniversary of the national founding, Kim told the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly that the country would resist any sort of pressure to give up nuclear weapons – calling North Korea’s possession of nukes “irreversible.”

On that occasion he went further, spelling out five conditions for carrying out a preemptive nuclear strike. These involve the use (or imminent use) of nuclear weapons by adversaries, lethal strikes on key North Korean strategic assets or other situations in which the North Korean state is threatened by a “catastrophic” event impacting the safety of its people.

This recalcitrant attitude carried through to an end-of-year Korean Worker’ Party Plenum, in which Kim called for “exponential” growth of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.

Unsurprisingly all this has gone along with no evident progress on the diplomatic front for Washington or Seoul. The US reportedly made a dialogue offer in July through its New York channel but, as with other diplomatic offers since Biden’s administration commenced, there has been no response.

Instead, officials from the North have drawn a direct correlation between their actions and those undertaken by the US-South Korea alliance. Kim Song, North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations, has urged the US to suspend joint exercises with South Korea and claimed that South Koreans provoked its missile launches.

For good measure, a ruling party official has warned that the US and South Korea will “pay the most horrible price in history” if they attempt to use armed forces against North Korea.

Near the end of the year, Kim Yo Jong, younger sister of and frequent attack dog for Kim Jong Un, lambasted those who questioned the regime’s satellite development capabilities following its December 19 test.

She suggested that another, more threatening test would follow: “They will immediately recognize it in case we launch an ICBM in the way of real-angle firing straight off,” she said. “I think that they would be well advised to halt their nonsense and think twice.”

Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un is profiled in a new book. Photo: AFP / Jorge Silva / Pool

If there is any upside to all of this, it’s that South Korea and the US, even if irritated over trade-related issues, continue to speak in one voice regarding North Korea’s provocations. Virtually all of the tests North Korea conducted in the third trimester of 2022 were greeted by unified statements from US and South Korean representatives, and frequently Japan joined in.

Other statements – such as from the South’s People Power Party chairman Chung Jin-suk in October warning that North Korea seeks to break the US-South Korea alliance and calling for enhanced deterrence – indicate that South Korea’s view of the US as its security guarantor has not changed, and will not change while conservatives remain in the Blue House.

One of the biggest questions will be whether North Korea carries out its long-predicted seventh nuclear test, and, if so, to what extent it will display progress toward a reliable tactical nuclear warhead.

North Korea’s seventh nuclear test has reportedly been “imminent” since spring but has yet to take place in the face of US government warnings. The bad news is that whatever has prevented Pyongyang from taking that decisive step is not obvious to the outside world, and therefore it is impossible to say for certain that such conditions will continue.

Furthermore, signs at the United Nations indicate that Russia and China remain unwilling to authorize punitive measures against the North if it should test another nuclear weapon. That is unsurprising considering the state of Washington’s relations with Moscow and Beijing (with the US accusing the North of shipping ammunition to Russia to help it in its invasion of Ukraine).

While officials in Washington say they have begun preparing for “contingencies” and warn of untold “overwhelming force” that awaits the North in the event of a nuclear test, they remain mum on details.

The continuance of joint military drills – often in direct response to North Korean missile tests – is also indicative of Seoul-Washington cooperation. Under such circumstances, more of the same may be the best the alliance can hope for.

This year the US and South Korea are expected to conduct as many as 20 “realistic” joint drills in order to bolster deterrence and improve combined military readiness in the face of North Korea’s continued recalcitrance and threatening behavior. If drills in response to specific provocations by Pyongyang persist, 20 may be a low estimate.

But those drills show little sign of actually changing the North’s behavior if statements by Kim Jong Un, his sister and other government functionaries are to be believed.

Mason Richey is an associate professor of international politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul and a senior contributor at the Asia Society (Korea). Rob York (rob@pacforum.org) is the director for regional affairs at Pacific Forum and editor of Comparative Connections: A Triannual E-journal of Bilateral Relations in the Indo-Pacific.

This is the second of two pieces excerpted from the two authors’ original article in . It is republished with permission. Read the first piece, “US-South Korea alliance needs urgent repair,” here.

asiatimes.com · by Mason Richey and Robert York · January 26, 2023

5. Opinion | When Blinken goes to China, he should call its bluff on North Korea

Conclusion:

To prove its benign intentions, China need simply act on the mellifluous words it has mouthed for decades about North Korea’s nuclear program. Beijing’s extensive energy, food, military and other aid to Pyongyang is all that stands between Kim Jong Un and retribution from his long-suffering people.

Opinion | When Blinken goes to China, he should call its bluff on North Korea

The Washington Post · by John R. Bolton · January 25, 2023

John R. Bolton served as national security adviser under President Donald Trump and is the author of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Beijing in early February to meet with his new Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang. Bilateral relations between their two countries are on shaky ground, so the agenda will be crowded.

This may seem an inopportune moment to propose North Korea as a central agenda item. But recent threatening actions from Pyongyang, including ballistic-missile testing and preparing for a seventh nuclear test, offer Blinken a good way to gauge Beijing’s sincerity about seeking Indo-Pacific peace and stability.

Moreover, important policy decisions by Japan and South Korea are rapidly changing the Indo-Pacific’s political-military landscape and fully justify emphasizing North Korea in Washington-Beijing negotiations.

The United States has for too long allowed China to escape responsibility for North Korea’s threat, and the administration should use the Blinken-Qin meeting to reverse course. For decades, China has reassured the United States, Japan and others that it opposed Pyongyang’s program to build nuclear weapons and the long-range ballistic missiles that could deliver them.

A nuclear-armed North Korea was not in China’s interest, one Beijing leader after another claimed. It would destabilize northeast Asia, they said, implying that they feared a nuclear North Korea would provoke Japan and perhaps South Korea to seek nuclear arms, thus generating further instability. And instability, Beijing’s elite fretted, would hamper China’s own economic growth — and economic growth, they promised Washington, Tokyo and Seoul, was China’s only priority.

The United States and its allies have swallowed this line for decades, allowing China to pose as a mediator and conciliator between North Korea and its potential targets. In the 2000s, Beijing played the congenial host for round after round of the failed six-party talks, which essentially consisted of repeated Chinese attempts, as our delegation faithfully reported from Beijing, to get U.S. and North Korean diplomats alone in a room together for the “real” negotiations. Somehow forgotten amid this performance art was the Chinese and North Korean communist parties’ insistence that they are as “close as lips and teeth.”

With admittedly perfect hindsight, we now see that Beijing did not genuinely oppose Pyongyang’s nuclear aspirations. By focusing on North Korea as a pressing threat while assuming that China was similarly concerned, the United States not only doomed its own Korea nuclear policy but also missed the mounting menace from Beijing. With China now pursuing hegemonic objectives along its periphery and expanding its military power, its performance regarding a nuclear North Korea can be seen as reflecting the “hide and bide” approach Beijing has long practiced. It was a kind of disinformation campaign.

Only now are we fully realizing the scope of Beijing’s threat. And despite decades of U.S. presidents saying it was unacceptable for North Korea to possess nuclear weapons, it is on the verge of success. Indeed, those who repeatedly advocated negotiations with North Korea instead of using coercive methods are saying we should treat North Korea as a nuclear power. The only way to peacefully prevent the unacceptable might be for China to actually adopt the policy it had only espoused.

After all, North Korea’s dangerous behavior is bringing about exactly what China earlier said it feared. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has announced that Japan’s defense budget will double from 1 percent to 2 percent of gross domestic product in five years, thus giving Japan the world’s third-largest military, after the United States and China. China surely knows that Japan’s already-announced purchase of Tomahawk cruise missiles gives it significant counterstrike capabilities, with Beijing in range. North Korea will know it as well, since all of North Korea will also be in range.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has revived discussion of his country’s acquiring its own nuclear-weapons arsenal or again deploying U.S. tactical nuclear arms on the Korean Peninsula. Although Yoon later softened his comments, public support for such proposals, especially among Korean conservatives, is rising. Moreover, cooperation between Tokyo and Seoul, always difficult, as well as trilateral cooperation with Washington, appears to be increasing.

China’s neighbors are worried about both its long-term intentions and, particularly for Taiwan, its short-term intentions. And domestically, Chinese President Xi Jinping faces a public-confidence crisis because of his regime’s pandemic bungling. Blinken will arrive in Beijing well-positioned to turn up the heat regarding North Korea.

To prove its benign intentions, China need simply act on the mellifluous words it has mouthed for decades about North Korea’s nuclear program. Beijing’s extensive energy, food, military and other aid to Pyongyang is all that stands between Kim Jong Un and retribution from his long-suffering people.

The Washington Post · by John R. Bolton · January 25, 2023

6. Our Indo-Pacific Allies Signal That They Don’t Trust the Biden Administration’s Extended Deterrent

Kim Jong Un probably sent a thank you note to Mr. Sempa. This is exactly the type of OpEd he wants to see written as a result of his political warfare strategy.

Now, that said, I have to emphasize I support Mr Sempa's right to criticize and I am blessed to live in a country where everyone can criticize government actions. And it is the 4th Estate that makes democracy strong with their criticism. However, I wish people like Mr. Sempa would also recognize Kim Jong Un's strategy and how he is trying to generate this kind of distrust as an integral part of his strategy.

I would urge the media and pundits to recognize the Kim family regime strategy, understand it, EXPOSE it (along with their critiques of the US government or ROK government) and then support the officials and others who are attacking Kim's strategy with a superior political warfare strategy.

Our Indo-Pacific Allies Signal That They Don’t Trust the Biden Administration’s Extended Deterrent - The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator | USA News and Politics

spectator.org · by Francis P. Sempa · January 26, 2023

Our Indo-Pacific Allies Signal That They Don’t Trust the Biden Administration’s Extended Deterrent

America’s credibility is in doubt.

January 25, 2023, 8:48 PM

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol attends the NATO summit in Madrid, Spain, on June 30, 2022 (Belish/Shutterstock)

America’s extended nuclear deterrent has always rested on credibility. Credibility is one of those intangible factors in international relations that can mean the difference between peace and war and victory or defeat. Credibility is sort of like obscenity — it is difficult to define, but you know it when you see it. America’s credibility is based in part on how other countries — friends and foes — assess our words, actions, capabilities, and intentions. And right now, America’s credibility under the Biden administration in the Indo-Pacific — especially the credibility of our extended nuclear guarantees in the Western Pacific — is in doubt.

So writes Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, the director of the Centre for Security Strategy and Technology at New Delhi’s Observer Research Foundation, in a revealing article in the Diplomat. She reports that South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol is publicly promoting the idea that South Korea should develop its own nuclear deterrent. And, as the Economist noted, this is “the first time in decades that a sitting South Korean president has talked about going nuclear.” Yoon made it clear in an official policy briefing that the reason he was promoting the idea is the U.S.’s failure to sufficiently respond to North Korea’s growing nuclear threat. According to the Japan Times, Yoon wants the Biden administration to redeploy nuclear weapons in South Korea.

Last March, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe publicly called for Japan to consider hosting American nuclear weapons as a means to offset China’s strategic and theater nuclear buildup. American East Asia experts have suggested that both South Korea and Japan are now more receptive to an increased U.S. tactical nuclear posture in the Western Pacific.

Rajagopalan suggests in the Diplomat that Yoon’s remarks are “demonstrative of the growing skepticism among U.S. allies on the credibility of U.S. security guarantees.” And she is not the only one who has reached that conclusion. Takahashi Kosuke, Jane’s Defence Weekly’s Tokyo correspondent, just a few days ago wrote that “[t]here are growing concerns in both Japan and South Korea over the United States’ extended nuclear deterrence, or nuclear umbrella.” The region’s leaders are worried, he writes, that the Biden administration will “fail to provide real protection against other nuclear-weapons states, including China and North Korea.” He notes that Japan and South Korea are geographically situated in the shadow of three nuclear powers — China, North Korea, and Russia. Unless the U.S. provides an “unswerving commitment to extended nuclear deterrence through the full range of U.S. defense capabilities,” Kosuke writes, “more and more people would argue that both South Korea and Japan should stand on their own without relying entirely on the United States — even if that means developing their own nuclear weapons.”

Instead of issuing confidence-building statements to assure Japan and South Korea, Biden’s State Department has promoted the idea of “arms control” with North Korea, while the most recent Nuclear Posture Review resisted efforts by China hawks to increase the U.S. nuclear arsenal and delay the retirement of older nuclear weapons. As Bill Gertz of the Washington Times reported, “[a]rms control remains a central focus of [the] Biden administration’s national security policy despite a nuclear weapons ‘breakout’ by China.” A former Trump administration assistant secretary of state wrote in the Washington Examiner that Biden’s arms control policy is “deluded.”

This is after all an administration that miserably failed its first major foreign policy test in Afghanistan, has repeatedly “walked back” the president’s tough-sounding remarks about Taiwan, and still clings to the decades-old failed policy of engagement-competition with China. Taiwan is likely to be the administration’s next major test in the Western Pacific. If it fails that test, whatever remains of its credibility will vanish.

spectator.org · by Francis P. Sempa · January 26, 2023

7. Kim Jong Un Has Started Succession Planning, Says Expert: 'Likely To Rule…For The Next 50 Years'

Kim Jong Un Has Started Succession Planning, Says Expert: 'Likely To Rule…For The Next 50 Years'

benzinga.com · by Navdeep Yadav

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un may already have started his succession plan, according to an expert.

What Happened: Seong Hyon Lee, a senior fellow at the George H.W. Bush Foundation, in an op-ed for Nikkei Asia, said Kim's daughter, who was recently spotted in three public appearances, could be the next possible heir.

"It might seem unusually early to introduce her as his presumed heir, though, since Kim Jong Un is just 39. Kim Jong Il, his father, ruled the country until he died of a stroke in 2011 at age 70 while grandfather Kim Il Sung, the founder of the regime, governed until his death at 82," Lee said.

"Kim Jong Un looks likely to rule the nation for the next 50 years or more. But he may have a reason to reveal a possible successor early," added Lee.

Lee pointed out that Kim faced difficulty establishing his status — both domestically and internationally, including with China — after his father’s death, and this could be a possible reason for introducing his daughter Ju Ae at an early age.

Ju Ae’s first appearance at a missile launch site was seen as a one-time event by many experts, with some of them even calling it staged to highlight the dictator’s fatherly image. However, after the second and third appearances, there have been speculations about whether she is being groomed as Kim’s successor.

The official Workers’ Party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, also called her the North Korean leader's “most beloved child.”

Check out more of Benzinga’s Europe and Asia coverage by following this link.

benzinga.com · by Navdeep Yadav

8. S. Korea to increase joint air defense exercises following N. Korean drone incursions

S. Korea to increase joint air defense exercises following N. Korean drone incursions

The Korea Times · January 26, 2023

Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup, right, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Kim Seung-kyum participate in a plenary session of the National Defense Committee at the National Assembly in Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap 

North Korea's unmanned aircraft could not film presidential office clearly: JCS

By Kang Seung-woo

The South Korean military will expand annual air defense exercises in the wake of North Korean drone infiltrations into the South's airspace late last year, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said Thursday.

"The South Korean military plans to conduct a joint air defense exercise featuring all units four times a year," a JCS officer told reporters. The training has been held biannually until now.

The JCS plans to operate drones that match the size of North Korean unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that crossed the Military Demarcation Line and conduct training drills to integrate and operate all available forces in the South Korean military.

On Dec. 26, 2022, North Korea flew five drones across the inter-Korean border for the first time in five years and one of them returned to the North after entering a no-fly zone near the presidential office in Yongsan District, Seoul. However, the military lost track of the other four drones after they moved westward from Ganghwa County, west of Seoul.

"We will shift to a system of detecting drones early, containing and striking them in the air," the JCS officer added.

Also, South Korea will establish a drone unit to carry out surveillance and reconnaissance operations on North Korea's key military facilities as President Yoon Suk Yeol pledged in response to last year's drone infiltration.

The JCS said North Korea sent drones that displayed improved performance, but the unmanned aircraft probably had a limited ability to film the presidential office.

"We estimate that the drones that infiltrated South Korea this time have improved performance compared to the previous ones," the JCS said in a report to the National Assembly's National Defense Committee.

According to the JCS, one North Korean drone crashed on Baengnyeong Island in March 2014 and another was found on Inje, Gangwon Province in June 2017.

"Compared to the 2014 drone, the 2017 version had a bigger engine and wingspan, while it went on a long-distance flight. Based on that information, we assess that the performance of the latest one may have been improved," a JCS officer told reporters.

The officer also said unlike the previous drones, both of which crashed while in flight, the safe return of the drone that is believed to have taken photos of the presidential office helped reach that conclusion.

According to the JCS, the North Korean drones are believed to have been fitted with cameras facing straight down. The 2014 drone was embedded with a Nikon camera, while the 2017 drone had a Sony camera.

However, the JCS said although the drone entered a no-fly zone surrounding the presidential office, it would not have filmed the area clearly due to its cruising altitude and the performance levels of the cameras used in the previous North Korean drones.

The JCS said the latest drone infiltration was aimed at testing the South Korean military's response capabilities, while creating chaos in the South.

Saying that it did regard the infiltration as a non-emergency situation that would not require a swift response, the JCS officially admitted that cooperation was insufficient, such as a lack of active information sharing between units in responding to the drone intrusion. It also said the military failed to be completely ready to defend against drone threats.

Meanwhile, the two rival political parties locked horns over the issue.

Citing the North Korean drones' violation of the no-fly zone, the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) insisted that Kim Yong-hyun, the head of the Presidential Security Service, and Kim Sung-han, the national security adviser, attend a plenary session of the National Defense Committee.

However, the ruling People Power Party (PPP) dismissed the call, saying that officials of the presidential office are subject to the House Steering Committee. It also argued that the opposition party launched an excessive political offensive over national security.

The conflict between the two sides continued during the session, resulting in the suspension of the meeting 30 minutes after it stared at 10 a.m.

One day after the North Korean drones' infiltration into South Korean airspace, the South also sent drones across the border into the North, which led the United Nations Command to conclude, Thursday, that both South and North Korea constituted a violation of the armistice.

In response, the South Korean defense ministry defended its move as the exercise of its right to "self-defense," stressing that right is not restricted by the armistice.

The Korea Times · January 26, 2023

9. Missiles and macroeconomy mark North Korea’s 2022 troubles

This "recentralization" of government (party) control over economic activities is very important. This is all about controlling the Korean people and preventing threats to the regime.

Excerpts:

North Korea’s recentralisation of government control over economic activities and its economic retrenchment during the pandemic continued. The state sold government bonds domestically and imposed restrictions on the use of foreign currencies, possibly in an effort to raise scarce hard currency.

These policies almost certainly served to ensure that political loyalty remained a prerequisite for economic opportunity, as they made North Korean economic interactions more dependent on connections with the state and the Kim family. Restrictions on foreign commerce ensured that official exchanges were controlled by politically loyal and well-connected institutions and individuals.

The regime’s ability to earn approximately US$1 billion or more through ransomware, cyber theft and manipulation of cryptocurrencies remained a wild card in North Korean’s restricted economic environment. Estimates from the US government and the UN Panel of Experts suggest that North Korea’s elite hackers have brought in as much as US$2 billon in recent years through cyber-activities as dramatic as ransomware and as mundane as infecting networks.

North Korea in 2022 capitalised on illicit exchanges and illegal weapons development while using COVID-19 as a tool to shore up political loyalty. Having come full circle, Kim’s pledges to simultaneously develop North Korea’s military and economy seem more distant than ever in 2023.

Missiles and macroeconomy mark North Korea’s 2022 troubles | East Asia Forum

eastasiaforum.org · by Scott Snyder · January 25, 2023

Author: Scott A. Snyder, Council of Foreign Relations

In 2022, North Korea exported tensions through stepped-up missile tests and threats toward South Korea. It also kept a national quarantine that prevented official imports of economic goods in place, but ultimately failed to keep COVID-19 from infecting the country.

North Korea achieved a record number of around ninety missile tests of various types and ranges, including nine intermediate or intercontinental range test launches. While the number of tests increased exponentially in 2022 compared to previous years, the purpose and strategy behind the tests involved a methodical checking off of military development goals foreshadowed in January 2021 at North Korea’s Eighth Workers’ Party of Korea Congress.

North Korea claimed progress toward a number of its goals, including the testing of a hypersonic gliding flight warhead and of missiles capable of delivering a tactical nuclear weapon. It made ground on developing ‘an advanced capability for making a pre-emptive and retaliatory nuclear strike’, testing a missile with a range of 15,000 kilometres and ground testing a solid-fuelled engine for longer-range missiles.

Significant items remaining on the checklist include the development of a nuclear-powered submarine and submarine-launched ballistic missile, further development of ‘supersized nuclear warheads’ and the operation of a military reconnaissance satellite.

Additional items not explicitly mentioned at the Congress but foreshadowed in leadership statements include possible nuclear tests and the testing at launch range of an ICBM to demonstrate an atmospheric re-entry capability. North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un likely perceives the attainment of capabilities outlined in his 2021 five-year plan as essential prerequisites for a return to negotiations with the United States. This explains why the North’s default posture throughout 2022 was to reject US overtures for negotiation.

In addition to heightening tensions with the United States, North Korea was able to pursue missile tests with relative impunity as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the rising US–China rivalry, which have both paralysed the UN Security Council.

North Korea has publicly signalled the strengthening of ‘strategic and tactical cooperation’ with Russia and China and has capitalised on global tensions as a beneficiary of lax Chinese and Russian enforcement of UN sanctions, endorsed and recognised Russian-supported breakaway provincial regions in Ukraine and voiced support for China in opposition to US policies toward Taiwan.

North Korea reacted negatively to the March 2022 election of conservative Yoon Suk-yeol as President of South Korea. The new South Korean conservative government’s efforts to strengthen deterrence in response to North Korea’s growing military threats have drawn increasingly critical commentary directly from Kim Yo-jong, Kim Jong-un’s sister.

North Korea’s emphasis on pre-emption as a ‘poisoned pill’ designed to deter both internal and external threats to the future of the regime in the codification of its nuclear doctrine on 9 September 2022, may have two motivations. It could in part be a response to Yoon’s mention of pre-emption as part of his defence strategy toward North Korea, in addition to signalling a rejection of US offers to return to denuclearisation talks.

North Korea’s efforts to take advantage of geopolitical cleavages and intensification of missile testing in 2022 overshadowed its domestic public health and economic challenges. Following two years of denying any COVID-19 cases and imposing a strict quarantine on contacts with the outside world, Kim Jong-un made a public admission in May last year that COVID-19 had breached North Korea’s quarantine. State media alleged that the source of the breach was defectors who had returned to North Korea from South Korea, further underscoring the multi-faceted dangers that South Korea poses to the North.

The country quickly declared victory over COVID-19 in August and launched a vaccination campaign shortly after. Regardless of the source or unknown scale of COVID-19 in North Korea, the economic impacts of the quarantine may have been as impoverishing and deadly as the disease itself.

North Korea’s recentralisation of government control over economic activities and its economic retrenchment during the pandemic continued. The state sold government bonds domestically and imposed restrictions on the use of foreign currencies, possibly in an effort to raise scarce hard currency.

These policies almost certainly served to ensure that political loyalty remained a prerequisite for economic opportunity, as they made North Korean economic interactions more dependent on connections with the state and the Kim family. Restrictions on foreign commerce ensured that official exchanges were controlled by politically loyal and well-connected institutions and individuals.

The regime’s ability to earn approximately US$1 billion or more through ransomware, cyber theft and manipulation of cryptocurrencies remained a wild card in North Korean’s restricted economic environment. Estimates from the US government and the UN Panel of Experts suggest that North Korea’s elite hackers have brought in as much as US$2 billon in recent years through cyber-activities as dramatic as ransomware and as mundane as infecting networks.

North Korea in 2022 capitalised on illicit exchanges and illegal weapons development while using COVID-19 as a tool to shore up political loyalty. Having come full circle, Kim’s pledges to simultaneously develop North Korea’s military and economy seem more distant than ever in 2023.

Scott Snyder is Senior Fellow for Korea Studies and Director of the Program on U.S.-Korea Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and co-editor of North Korea’s Foreign Policy: The Kim Jong-Un Regime in a Hostile World. These views contained here are his own and do not represent those of institutions with which he is affiliated.

This article is part of an EAF special feature series on 2022 in review and the year ahead.

eastasiaforum.org · by Scott Snyder · January 25, 2023

10. Yoon to meet NATO chief, US defense secretary next week

We should realize there is tremendous international support for the defense of freedom in Korea.

Yoon to meet NATO chief, US defense secretary next week

The Korea Times · January 26, 2023

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, left, shakes hands with North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg prior to their talks at the IFEMA Convention Center in Madrid, in this June 30, 2022, file photo. Korea Times photo by Seo Jae

President Yoon Suk Yeol plans to hold meetings next week with Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, a presidential official said Thursday.

The NATO chief and the U.S. defense secretary are set to visit Seoul next week, and the presidential office is making arrangements for meetings with Yoon, the official told Yonhap News Agency.

During the meetings, Yoon is expected to reaffirm his commitment to strengthening the solidarity with the international community to counter global crises. Nuclear and missile threats from North Korea, and other regional and international security matters could also be discussed.

South Korea has strengthened its partnership with NATO by establishing its diplomatic mission to NATO last November. Yoon attended a NATO summit in June last year, becoming the first South Korean leader to have taken part in the summit. (Yonhap)

The Korea Times · January 26, 2023

11. South Korea’s Yoon ponders whether to ‘go nuclear’

Again, I believe in the 4th estate and its absolute importance to democracy. The ability to criticize the government is necessary for accountability.

However, I wish journalists would spend some time criticiingthe Kim family regime and identifying and exposing its strategies and acknowledge that the friction with the alliance is exactly what Kim Jong Un is trying to generate.

I also have to call out this statement. Kim does not need Xi's approval to do anything. If he wants to do something he will do it. I fear statements such as this lull us into a false sense of security thinking that China will prevent Kim from doing something rask. I think it is folly to think that Xi can control Kim and it is dangerous to believe so.

Excerpts:

In North Korea, Kim also has been talking about firing tactical nukes. He can do nothing, however, without Xi’s endorsement. It’s hard to believe that Xi would go along with Kim’s dream of attacking America’s northeast Asian allies — South Korea and/or Japan — when China does a roaring business with both of them, as well as the U.S. As far as the Chinese are concerned, Kim can order missile tests and maybe another nuclear test, but that’s about it.

South Korea’s Yoon ponders whether to ‘go nuclear’

BY DONALD KIRK, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 01/25/23 10:30 AM ET

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/3822738-south-koreas-yoon-ponders-whether-to-go-nuclear/

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, on a sales mission to the pivotal United Arab Emirates (UAE), enlarged on his country’s success as a major exporter of arms worldwide. He proudly watched over the signing of agreements with the UAE that should amass $6.1 billion for South Korean industry. The UAE has already agreed to invest $3.5 billion for a Korean missile system for defense against Houthi forces in control of north Yemen and plans to invest another $30 billion in South Korea’s economy.

The size and sophistication of South Korea’s arms industry means the South can defy the North’s mounting threats. The South need not rely on its American ally for any but the most high-tech weapons. All the South does not possess is a nuclear program. Yoon has said he would like to consider the South’s emergence as a nuclear power, but the Pentagon insists the U.S. will always provide a “nuclear umbrella” lest Kim Jong Un were so foolish as to press the button on a missile carrying a nuclear warhead southward.

As doubts arise, however, about whether the U.S. would rush to South Korea’s rescue in a nuclear war, pressure intensifies for the South to “go nuclear.” Who can be sure the Americans would live up to their treaty obligations? And should South Korea go on as a military dependency of the United States when it’s already a massive arms producer, capable of meeting most of its military needs?

In the web of alliances and “commitments,” one great question is, what is China doing or likely to do? China now has so many internal issues and problems, including the spread of COVID-19, that President Xi Jinping is in no position to invade the independent island province of Taiwan as he has threatened. The Chinese, however, are fabricating ever more warheads and China’s missiles can deliver nukes to targets anywhere in the region.

In North Korea, Kim also has been talking about firing tactical nukes. He can do nothing, however, without Xi’s endorsement. It’s hard to believe that Xi would go along with Kim’s dream of attacking America’s northeast Asian allies — South Korea and/or Japan — when China does a roaring business with both of them, as well as the U.S. As far as the Chinese are concerned, Kim can order missile tests and maybe another nuclear test, but that’s about it.

Yoon must always watch out for Japan as much as China. It may seem heartening to Americans that Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has initiated a new “strategy for defense” against Japan’s enemies, near and far. The cognoscenti in the White House, Pentagon and State Department are delighted that Japan at last is committed to picking up its share of the load, planning to increase defense spending from 1 percent to 2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, which topped $5.4 trillion for 2022. In five years, Japan’s military budget could double its current level of about $47.2 billion.

Koreans, however, may not be so thrilled to see Japan rising again militarily. Memories of Japanese colonial rule over Korea burn deep in the Korean psyche. South Korea may find common cause with Japan against North Korea, but we can be sure that many South Koreans will look with misgivings on an immense Japanese military build-up. Their thinking is, who can trust the Japanese, years from now, while fighting off the North Koreans, to stay away from South Korea?

Against this background, South Korea’s deal with the UAE shows the South’s rising strength as a military power. Yoon predicts the South’s arms exports, now seventh in the world, will rank fourth in four years. South Korean arms sales shot up to about $18 billion last year, thanks to a deal with Poland for the sale of planes, tanks and artillery pieces.

Just as Russia’s war against Ukraine fueled Polish fears of a Russian invasion, so too the belligerence of Iran, across the Persian Gulf, led the UAE to look for South Korean weapons to buttress its strategic position in the maelstrom of Middle East rivalries. The concern is not just Iran but also Iran’s support of the Houthis in North Yemen and subversive groups everywhere.

It’s not just the UAE’s geographic position, however, that gives it such importance in the region. The UAE ranks as the world’s seventh largest oil producer, after six much larger countries — America, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iraq and China — and is the source of 10 percent of South Korea’s oil imports. In a crisis, South Korea could rise to the UAE’s defense and the UAE could increase its oil shipments to South Korea.

By far the most significant visible element in the UAE-South Korean relationship is a $20 billion nuclear power complex that South Korean companies are building under the aegis of the Korea Electric Power Corporation. When completed, it will provide the UAE with one-fourth of its electric power. At home, Yoon has said South Korea must build more nuclear power plants and reopen those that his predecessor, Moon Jae-in, shut down. They’re badly needed to fulfill the South’s needs. Appropriately, the Korean-made plant in the UAE is named Barakah, “blessing from God.”

If the Koreans can make nuclear power plants, nuclear warheads should be next for defense against North Korea and China, without whose support the North could not survive. But could Japan and South Korea fight as allies? In response to intimidation by China and Russia in the form of intrusions into Japan’s air defense identification zone and threats from North Korea, the Japanese will be acquiring hundreds of Tomahawk missiles and more warplanes, including drones, from the U.S.

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All this puts South Korea in a difficult position. Spurred on by the Americans, the South Korean and Japanese navies have conducted joint exercises and are exchanging intelligence information. As long as Japan refuses concessions on so many other differences springing from the era of Japanese rule over Korea, however, Koreans will look with suspicion — if not alarm — on the prospect of Japan’s renaissance as a major military power.

That’s all the more reason for Yoon to want to consider the nuclear option: If “they” have them, why not “us”? Looking far ahead, it’s not hard to imagine a war in which North and South Korea fire tactical nukes against one another in a battle to the death on both sides.

Donald Kirk has been a journalist for more than 60 years, focusing much of his career on conflict in Asia and the Middle East, including as a correspondent for the Washington Star and Chicago Tribune. He currently is a freelance correspondent covering North and South Korea. He is the author of several books about Asian affairs.

12. North Korean capital Pyongyang on lockdown as COVID spreads through the city

Potentially dangerous times ahead.

North Korean capital Pyongyang on lockdown as COVID spreads through the city

Confirmed cases of the disease prompted authorities to restrict access to the city until Jan. 31, sources say.

By Hyemin Son for RFA Korean

2023.01.25

rfa.org

North Korean authorities have locked down the capital city of Pyongyang due to ‘rising’ cases of an unspecified respiratory illness according to media reports citing a central government notice, and sources confirmed to Radio Free Asia that multiple people in the city have tested positive for COVID-19.

News of the lockdown began to surface on Wednesday morning with Seoul-based NK News and the Russian embassy in Pyongyang reporting that according to the notice, residents would not be allowed to leave their homes for five days.

A source in the northwestern province of North Pyongan, who regularly communicates with residents of the capital, told RFA’s Korean Service on Wednesday that the virus is definitely COVID-19, several cases have been confirmed, and the lockdown also limits access to the city until Jan. 31.

“There have been confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Pyongyang,” he said. “An acquaintance in Pyongyang told me that the reason that the Central Quarantine Command imposed a lockdown in Pyongyang was an emergency measure for an epidemic.

Another source, an official from a trading agency in Pyongyang who was visiting the northwestern border city of Sinuiju, said that the lockdown started on Wednesday and will last until Jan. 31 due to “confirmed cases of COVID-19,” meaning people have tested positive for the virus even though authorities are not acknowledging it.

“I will not be able to return to Pyongyang for a while,” he said on condition of anonymity to speak freely.

“In early January there was a confirmed case on Tongil Street in Pyongyang’s Rakrang district, where all the distribution warehouses of all the trading companies are concentrated.” he said. “My co-worker has also been confirmed [positive] with COVID-19.”

RFA was not able to independently verify either claim. Since the beginning of the pandemic, North Korea has been very secretive about the coronavirus situation, even telling the rest of the world that it was completely virus free for the first two years of the pandemic.

The government acknowledged the virus in May 2022, but kept track of cases of “fever” that totaled close to 5 million, and did not report confirmed case totals to international health organizations.

The apparent outbreak comes a few weeks after North Korea opened up its border to China after a long closure due to the pandemic, allowing goods to be traded across the border.

“We don’t know exactly how many confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Pyongyang,” the second source said. “The quarantine authorities have blocked the operation of public service facilities such as restaurants and public baths in downtown Pyongyang. Considering this measure, the spread of the COVID-19 must be serious.”

It wasn’t entirely clear what restrictions the lockdown entailed, but the source said it extended to marketplaces and businesses in each district of Pyongyang unless they are run by state organizations.

The second source said the authorities had been reporting that “acute respiratory diseases and the flu” have been spreading in the capital, so they intensified disinfection efforts and there were talks of lockdown in the works.

“It was only after the Lunar New Year [on Jan. 22] that they decided to go ahead and lock it down and restrict all access to the city,” he said.

Although the quarantine authorities do not publicly announce the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Pyongyang, the people diagnosed with the “respiratory disease” are isolated in a hospital outside the city and treated with drugs, such as antibiotics imported from China, according to the second source.

COVID-19 is a virus, and antibiotics, which are used to treat bacterial illnesses, have no effect on it.

According to the NK News report, residents were ordered to stay in their homes until Jan. 29 and check and report their temperature several times per day.

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong and edited by Malcolm Foster.

rfa.org

13. N. Korea urges antivirus efforts amid apparent preparations for military parade

Is there an outbreak?

(LEAD) N. Korea urges antivirus efforts amid apparent preparations for military parade | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 김수연 · January 26, 2023

(ATTN: UPDATES with more details in paras 8-12; ADDS photo)

By Kim Soo-yeon

SEOUL, Jan. 26 (Yonhap) -- North Korea is making all-out antivirus efforts, its official media said Thursday, amid a news report that it has imposed a lockdown on the capital city of Pyongyang apparently ahead of a military parade to mark the army founding anniversary next month.

The Rodong Sinmun, the regime's main newspaper, stressed the need to place the top policy priority on strengthening quarantine efforts, calling on its people to continue fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic with the "greatest sense of vigilance."

"We are making our upmost efforts to maintain and beef up quarantine barriers to prevent any contagious virus from entering our precincts," the paper said. "We are coping with loopholes and spaces that could appear during anti-virus projects."

This file photo, carried by North Korea's Central News Agency on Aug. 11, 2022, shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presiding over an emergency quarantine meeting the previous day where he declared victory against COVID-19. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

North Korea observers said the secretive nation seems to be preparing for a military parade on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People's Army on Feb. 8.

The country reported its first case of COVID-19 in May last year, weeks after it held a military parade in Pyongyang on April 25 to celebrate the 90th founding anniversary of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army.

The U.S.-based Radio Free Asia reported Thursday that North Korea has blocked access to Pyongyang from Wednesday through Tuesday as COVID-19 infections were confirmed in the capital city.

Citing an "official notice" issued by North Korean authorities, NK News, which specializes in news on the nation, reported the previous day that the country ordered a five-day lockdown on Pyongyang, effective from Wednesday, due to rising cases of "respiratory illness."

The Russian Embassy in North Korea made public an official letter sent by North Korea's foreign ministry to diplomatic missions in the North over quarantine measures during the five-day "special period" over infectious disease in Pyongyang.

"In relation to the latest rise in patients with seasonal flu and other respiratory diseases, we've notified chiefs of diplomatic missions and international organizations of measures put forward by the national emergency quarantine authorities," read the letter uploaded on its Facebook account.

It added the special quarantine period, effective from Wednesday until Sunday, can be extended by three days, depending on virus situations.

"During the period, we advise all diplomatic missions to make their staff members refrain from going outside and using vehicles when moving out of embassy buildings and residences as much as possible," it said.

The North also recommended they "voluntarily" check body temperatures four times a day and report the results to a designated hospital in the capital by 3 p.m.

The North's leader Kim Jong-un declared victory against the COVID-19 crisis in August last year, but outside experts raised doubts about his claim, given the country's low vaccinations and poor health care system.

This photo, carried by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on June 7, 2022, shows quarantine officials carrying out disinfection work. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

sooyeon@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 김수연 · January 26, 2023

14. Top North Korean spy tasked with recruiting union leaders

This is what the United Front Department and the Cultural Engagement Bureau (225th Bureau) are designed to do.

It is critically important that Koreans in the South understand this.

Thursday

January 26, 2023

 dictionary + A - A 

Top North Korean spy tasked with recruiting union leaders

https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/01/26/national/northKorea/Korea-North-Korea-espionage/20230126174853958.html

An official from the National Intelligence Service (NIS) observes a raid on the headquarters of the Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union in Yeongdeungpo District, western Seoul on Jan. 18, following allegations that a union official collaborated with North Korean intelligence. [NEWS1]

North Korea tasked one of its most experienced intelligence agents with recruiting leaders of a militant South Korean umbrella labor organization, intelligence sources have told the JoongAng Ilbo.

According to counterintelligence officials who spoke to the JoongAng Ilbo on condition of anonymity, the North Korean intelligence officer — known by the alias Ri Kwang-jin to South Korean authorities — works for the Cultural Exchange Bureau of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, an agency that specializes in establishing underground organizations in South Korea to foment domestic unrest.

Ri is in his mid-60s and is reported to have infiltrated South Korea several times since the 1990s. 

South Korean authorities believe Ri is the de facto leader of the North’s operations in South Korea and have tracked his movements over the years, the sources told the JoongAng Ilbo.

“There are not many North Korean agents who have the freedom to operate abroad, so Ri Kwang-jin is unrivaled in that regard,” one former high-ranking North Korean official who defected to the South told the JoongAng Ilbo on condition of anonymity.

A South Korean diplomat told the JoongAng Ilbo that the North likely targeted the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) for recruitment because “it is one of the largest left-leaning organizations in South Korea.”

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) and National Police Agency on Jan. 18 raided the KCTU’s headquarters in Jung District, central Seoul, as well the homes of former and current KCTU executives in South Jeolla and Gyeonggi, the headquarters of the KCTU-affiliated Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union in Yeongdeungpo District, western Seoul, and a so-called “peace shelter” on Jeju Island — all to investigate allegations that trade union officials violated the National Security Act, which bans pro-Pyongyang activities.

Ri is believed to be the North Korean agent who met a KCTU executive and three other suspects targeted by the recent South Korean counterintelligence operation, including an official from the medical workers’ union, a former union organizer at a Kia Motors factory in Gwangju and the director of the Jeju shelter.

NIS officials believe that all four South Korean suspects were present for a meeting with Ri in Phnom Penh in September 2017.

South Korean authorities also filmed the KCTU executive receiving $10,000 in what they believe were operational funds from Ri during a September 2018 meeting in Hanoi and later exchanging it into South Korean won at a currency exchange near Namdaemun Market in central Seoul, according to intelligence sources.

Ri is also believed to be the North Korean agent who recruited four South Koreans to campaign against Seoul’s acquisition of U.S.-made F-35 stealth fighters in 2017.

The four individuals, based in Cheongju, North Chungcheong at the time of their arrest, were members of the North Chungcheong Comrades’ Association and previously agitated for the abolition of the National Security Act.

The NIS is currently investigating whether past KCTU protests were directed by Ri and other North Korean agents, who intelligence sources named as Bae Song-ryong, Kim Il-jin and Chon Ji-son.

The KCTU has denied allegations that its leaders engaged in anti-state activities at the behest of North Korea and demanded that the National Security Act be scrapped. 

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]

15. Economic Sanctions During Humanitarian Emergencies: The Case of North Korea

The 9 page report can be downloaded here:  https://www.eastwestcenter.org/sites/default/files/2023-01/Economic%20Sanctions%20During%20Humanitarian%20Emergencies.Haggard.Noland.pdf

From the report:

By Way of Conclusion: ​A​​ Note on the Ethical Issues 

In conclusion, it is important to return to the point raised in the introduction: that it is notoriously difficult to separate out the effects of sanctions from other factors exacerbating North Korea’s longstanding humanitarian crisis. This became particularly evident following the onset of COVID, when the leadership doubled down on its nuclear and missile programs, codifying the country’s nuclear status and articulating a first strike doctrine;16 articulated economic policies that would strengthen central control;17 and made it virtually impossible for the humanitarian community to operate in the country. By 2021, humanitarian aid workers were pushed out of the country, leaving a worrying gap in information about conditions in North Korea. Similar isolation at the time of the famine had the effect of blocking a full appreciation of the extent of the tragedy before it was too late.

This consideration of the effects of sanctions leads to a final set of moral questions about what obligations the international community has to offset human suffering in North Korea and what role sanctions relief might play in that process. Hazel Smith has provided the most elaborate argument that sanctions violate widely accepted ethical tenets.18 Drawing on just war theory, she argues that multilateral and bilateral sanctions fail to fulfill the standards of effectiveness (because they were highly unlikely to ever work in achieving denuclearization), necessity (because of the likelihood that more aggressive diplomacy was more likely to have worked) and proportionality (because the sanctions contributed to widespread food shortages, particularly through caps on oil imports). The last point is of particular significance. Smith makes the powerful argument that even if the sanctions did not cause the underlying humanitarian problems, they exacerbated them, and the responsibility for that marginal additional impact—however small it might be compared with North Korean obligations—lies with those imposing the sanctions.

The ethical arguments against sanctions were complicated over the course of 2020-2021 by the refusal of the Kim Jong-un regime not only to engage in diplomacy but to even allow humanitarian aid into the country; in effect, North Korea was sanctioning itself.19 Moreover, Smith’s argument raises the question of whether sanctions relief would necessarily have the intended effect.

We believe that some portion of any sanctions relief would trickle down to the public through increased growth and incomes. However, four additional considerations must be weighed. First, it is possible that the regime itself would reject partial sanctions relief or humanitarian assistance that was intended to alleviate current distress—in the form, for example, of food aid or vaccines. This concern is not hypothetical; the regime has in fact rejected vaccines and made statements to the effect that humanitarian aid—at least from the United States—served a “sinister purpose.”20 Second, it is at least possible that sanctions relief would not trickle down to the most vulnerable unless sanctions were lifted wholesale, and perhaps not even then. But this possibility raises a third ethical concern: that there are other stakeholders in any moral balance sheet. While those facing immediate vulnerability would seem to deserve priority, sanctions also serve the function of reducing the capacity of the regime to threaten others who have a legitimate right to live in peace without fear of a devastating conflict.

Finally, it is worth considering that sanctions relief is not the appropriate instrument for addressing the vulnerability that we currently observe. Rather, it may be more effective for the international community to focus on the standard means for alleviating severe distress: by shifting the discussion away from sanctions and back toward a revival of humanitarian assistance. That conversation will, of necessity, involve North Korea making certain strategic choices. But from what we have seen to date, the regime seems relatively uninterested in a resumption of humanitarian operations in the country or has not figured out the extent to which it is comfortable with such a prospect.

Economic Sanctions During Humanitarian Emergencies: The Case of North Korea

https://www.eastwestcenter.org/publications/economic-sanctions-during-humanitarian-emergencies-case-north-korea

Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland

Jan 6, 2023Jan 6, 2023

POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

North Korea is experiencing yet another cycle of humanitarian distress. While sanctions are not the primary cause, they are a contributing factor. This essay examines the channels through which sanctions affect the North Korean economy and reaches four conclusions: First, sanctions have contributed to a deterioration of economic performance. Second, the UNSC’s 1718 Sanctions Committee should consider a thorough review to identify goods that would warrant blanket humanitarian financial sanctions have raised the risk premium on all financial transactions with North Korea; the sanctioning authorities need to do a better job of clarifying transactions permissible under humanitarian exemptions. Finally, while the global community should reassess its policies, the government of North Korea bears responsibility as well. The benefits of sanctions relief will be diminished if North Korea refuses to engage constructively with the international community on a broader range of issues running from basic humanitarian relief to economic reform.

Photo: North Korean women queue to receive corn at a public distribution center. Credit: Gerald Bourke/WFP via Getty Images

16. North Korea's Top APT Swindled $1B From Crypto Investors in 2022

"Big business"

North Korea's Top APT Swindled $1B From Crypto Investors in 2022

The DPRK has turned crypto scams into big business to replenish its depleted state coffers.

Nate Nelson

Contributing Writer, Dark Reading

darkreading.com · January 25, 2023

The blockchain industry hemorrhaged money last year, with the global market for cryptocurrencies plummeting 63%. But investors didn't only lose money to half-baked coins and overhyped NFTs.

In a report published today, researchers from Proofpoint detailed how North Korean state-backed hackers managed to siphon more than $1 billion dollars in cryptocurrencies and other blockchain assets in the 2022 calendar year (all the more impressive considering how depressed those assets had become).

Proofpoint attributed the success of the TA444 group and related clusters — variously referred to as APT38, Bluenoroff, BlackAlicanto, Stardust Chollima, and Copernicium — to their startup-like approach.

Hallmarks, the researchers said, include "rapid iteration, testing products on the fly, and failing forward." The group regularly experiments with new methods of intrusion, and has cycled through different and better malware in recent years.

"While we do not know if the group has ping-pong tables or kegs of some overrated IPA in its workspace," the authors wrote, "TA444 does mirror the startup culture in its devotion to the dollar and to the grind."

TA444's Evolving Threat

There's an element of "move fast and break things" to TA444.

In recent years, the group has iterated on their social engineering tactics many times over. Sometimes it sent private messages from hijacked LinkedIn accounts of representatives from legitimate companies, other times it abused email marketing tools in order to circumvent spam filters. It has engaged with victims in English, but also Japanese, Polish, and Spanish.

In one oddball case, it email-blasted organizations across the US healthcare, education, finance, and government sectors, using barebones, typo-laden phishing lures. At best, their lures made reference to specific brand names in the industry, sometimes promising salary increases or job opportunities, but the efforts here were mainly rudimentary.

Where other cybercrime groups may focus on perfecting social lures and delivery mechanisms, researchers explained that malware creation is where TA444 really distinguishes itself.

Their collection of post-exploitation backdoors has included the msoRAT credential stealer, the SWIFT money laundering framework DYEPACK, and various passive backdoors and virtual "listeners" for receiving and processing data from target machines.

"This suggests that there is an embedded, or at least a devoted, malware development element alongside TA444 operators," according to the report.

North Korea: The OG Crypto Bro

To supplement its maladroit command economy, the government of North Korea has long used hackers for fundraising, targeting wherever a financial opportunity happens to lie. That includes everything from retailers in the United States to the SWIFT banking system, and, in one notorious case, the entire world.

Because cryptocurrency companies offer few safeguards against theft, transactions are generally irreversible, and parties to those transactions are difficult to identify, the industry is rife with financially motivated cybercrime. North Korea has been dipping into this well for years, with campaigns against startups, botnets that mine coins, and ransomware campaigns soliciting crypto payments.

Last year, though, the scale of the theft reached a new level. Blockchain research firm Chainalysis assessed that the country stole nearly $400 million dollars in cryptocurrency and blockchain assets in 2021. In 2022, they surpassed that figure with a single attack — against a blockchain gaming company called SkyMavis — estimated to be worth over $600 million at the time. Add in other attacks throughout the calendar year, and their total haul reaches 10 figures.

"While we may poke fun at its broad campaigns and ease of clustering," the researchers warned, "TA444 is an astute and capable adversary."

Proofpoint's report noted that monitoring for MSHTA, VBS, Powershell, and other scripting-language execution from new processes or files can help detect TA444 activity. It also recommended using best practices for a defense-in-depth approach to combat TA444 intrusions: Using network security monitoring tools, using robust logging practices, a good endpoint solution, and an email monitoring appliance, in addition to training the workforce to be aware of heist activity that stems from contact on WhatsApp or LinkedIn.

"Additionally, given the credential phishing campaign activity we observed, enabling MFA authentication on all externally accessible service would help limit the impact of credentials eventually getting stolen," the researchers said via email.

darkreading.com · January 25, 2023

​17. North Korea pushes ahead with military parade training despite virus lockdown

The SOF truth is that "humans are more important than hardware."

The nk Regime truth is "parades are more important than people." What is there is a major outbreak? What if there is a major outbreak among the military?

North Korea pushes ahead with military parade training despite virus lockdown

Satellite imagery also suggests jets have joined preparations for parade scheduled for Feb. 8

Colin ZwirkoJanuary 26, 2023

https://www.nknews.org/pro/north-korea-pushes-ahead-with-military-parade-training-despite-virus-lockdown/

North Korean soldiers training at the Mirim base for last April's military parade | Image: KCTV (May 27, 2022)

North Korean soldiers conducted marching practice in Pyongyang on Wednesday despite the start of a five-day virus-related lockdown, suggesting that the leadership looks to push ahead with a military parade next month.

Planet Labs satellite imagery shows the soldiers training at a base in the capital early Wednesday, after authorities introduced the lockdown at midnight due to “rising” cases of respiratory illness.

Dozens of North Korean jets and other aircraft have also appeared to be training since earlier this month for the upcoming parade, according to NK Pro analysis of satellite imagery, a sign the event will once again feature extensive formation flyovers.

The parade appears scheduled to take place on Feb. 8 to celebrate the 75th founding anniversary of the Korean People’s Army (KPA), but it remains unclear if the lockdown or an apparent new virus outbreak will disrupt these plans. 

PARADE PRIORITY

Approximately 44 block formations of soldiers containing up to almost 13,000 individuals appeared to be marching outside at the Mirim military parade training ground in southeast Pyongyang Wednesday morning, Planet Labs imagery shows.

These two images taken 26 minutes apart Wednesday morning show thousands of soldiers in block formations changing position as they march outdoors at the Mirim base | Images: Planet Labs (left), Sentinel-2 (right), edited by NK Pro

The fact that the practice went ahead despite the lockdown points to an exemption for the parade preparations, which would be consistent with past practice: Authorities ordered construction, factory and agricultural workers to continue working last May despite a strict nationwide COVID-19 lockdown, citing the overriding importance of national economic goals.

The upcoming military parade is expected to heavily feature worship of Kim Jong Un and promotion of new weapons developments in an attempt to boost the national spirit amid chronic government failures to rein in economic hardships.

AIR FORCE ARRIVES

Meanwhile, over 30 aircraft began to appear between Jan. 11 and 12 parked on a taxiway between the Pyongyang International Airport’s north and south runways, in roughly the same position they appeared last April ahead of that month’s military parade.

The medium-resolution imagery appears to show 23 jets — likely aging MiG-29, MiG-23 and Su-25 models which appeared in the same spot last year — and at least 10 other aircraft shifting positions daily over the last two weeks as they likely conducted flight training. 

The high-resolution image on the left shows North Korean jets on the Pyongyang airport taxiway last April, while the medium-resolution image on the right shows evidence of their return to the same place this month, such as melted snow behind the jet engines | Images: Planet Labs, edited by NK Pro

A full timelapse showing the appearance of the jets and other aircraft inside the yellow dotted lines by Jan. 12 and their activities in the weeks since | Images: Planet Labs, edited by NK Pro

North Korea started incorporating more aircraft flyovers into military parades starting in Oct. 2020, attaching colorful lightstrips to their wings to perform spectacles at the nighttime events. 

At a celebration for air force pilots last November, DPRK leader Kim Jong Un shrugged off concerns over his country’s aging fleet of aircraft, stating that air superiority is created “not by any cutting-edge fighter jets but by the pilots armed with indomitable spirit.”

North Korean media said the air force flew 150 aircraft during military exercises in October and more than 500 aircraft in drills the next month.

Edited by Bryan Betts

​

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com