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Quotes of the Day:
“Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Unconventional warfare is the military and paramilitary aspect of an insurgency or other armed resistance movement and may often become a protracted politico-military activity. From the US perspective, UW may be the conduct of indirect or proxy warfare against a hostile power for the purpose of achieving US national interests in peacetime; UW may be employed when conventional military involvement is impractical or undesirable; or UW may be a complement to conventional operations in war. The focus of UW is primarily on existing or potential insurgent, secessionist, or other resistance movements. Special operations forces (SOF) provide advice, training, and assistance to existing indigenous resistance organizations. The intent of UW operations is to exploit a hostile power’s political, military, economic, and psychological vulnerabilities by advising, assisting, and sustaining resistance forces to accomplish US strategic or operational objectives.
When UW is conducted independently during military operations other than war or war, its primary focus is on political and psychological objectives. A successful effort to organize and mobilize a segment of the civil population may culminate in military action.”
⁃ The Joint Doctrine Encyclopedia, 1997
“The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.
- Carl Sagan
Note: I think this will be one of the great statements that will be highlighted when the history of the successful Ukraine defense is written: “Your money is not charity. It’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way.”
1. Kim Jong-un's Sister Erupts Again
2. North warns U.S. that any military action would be 'toying with suicide'
3. U.S. Treasury begins exempting humanitarian aid from sanctions
4. They Escaped North Korea. Now Some of Them Are Suing Kim Jong Un.
5. S. Korea, US mulling massive live-fire drills next year to mark 70th year of alliance: ministry
6. Information warfare (Korea)
7. S. Korea plans to announce full details of Indo-Pacific strategy next week: ministry
8. N. Korea to step up cyber attacks against S. Korea next year: Seoul spy agency
9. North Korea may propose 'surprise talks' to US next year: expert
10. Korea to introduce human trafficking act to better protect victims
11. S. Korea releases high-resolution satellite photo of Pyongyang
12. A Year in Brinkmanship on the Korean Peninsula
13. Seoul: North Korean hackers stole $1.2B in virtual assets
1. Kim Jong-un's Sister Erupts Again
The dragon lady can't shut up. She must be really upset. She is so thin skinned. She cannot take the ridocule over the regime's low quality for phoney technology.
Kim Jong-un's Sister Erupts Again
english.chosun.com
December 21, 2022 11:32
Kim Yo-jong /News1
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's sister Yo-jong worked herself up into another tantrum on Tuesday in the face of South Korean doubts about her country's missile and satellite technology.
A keen follower of foreign media reports, Kim Yo-jong in a statement took exception to analysts who suggested that recent missile technology is not as advanced as North Korean state media have boasted.
"They are so anxious about the reliability of our weapons more than us. To explain to them who have no common sense, we could not receive remote data of the control warhead until it hit a target if the technology for atmospheric re-entry was imperfect," she said.
But she added ominously, "They will immediately recognize it in case we launch an [intercontinental ballistic missile] in the way of real angle firing straight off."
But what incensed her even more were South Korean expert comments on the poor quality of recent satellite images the North claims to have shot from a prototype reconnaissance satellite.
Such comments are "nonsense and rubbish," she said. "They are not dogs. Then, why do they keep barking."
Instead, she said the South Korean military is "hooligans" and "gangsters" and "so impudent and arrogant to make assertions."
A B-52H bomber, C-17 strategic transport aircraft and F-22 stealth fighters from the U.S. fly over the Korean Peninsula during a joint exercise with South Korea on Tuesday. /Yonhap
The fresh outburst came as South Korea and the U.S. conducted training with B-52H bombers and F-22 stealth fighter jets near the Korean Peninsula on Tuesday.
The F-22s took part in joint training here for the first time in four years, and the U.S.' quick dispatch of strategic assets to the peninsula was intended as a warning message to Pyongyang over its recent launch of an ICBM and test of a solid-fuel rocket engine.
"The joint training is based on an agreement reached in November between the South Korean Defense Ministry and the Pentagon on the speedy dispatch of U.S. strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula to provide extended deterrence for South Korea's security against the North," a South Korean military officer said. "South Korea and the U.S. will respond to provocations by the North with a stronger posture than before."
2. North warns U.S. that any military action would be 'toying with suicide'
Blackmail diplomacy: the use of increased tensions, threats, and provocations to gain political and economic concessions:
But if Kim does not receive any concessions then his strategy is failing.
Wednesday
December 21, 2022
dictionary + A - A
North warns U.S. that any military action would be 'toying with suicide'
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2022/12/21/national/northKorea/Korea-North-Korea-missile/20221221164413857.html
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, center, rejoices after the regime successfully tested its Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Nov. 18 in footage recorded by the state-controlled Korean Central Television. [YONHAP]
North Korea's state media on Wednesday issued a warning to the United States to not "test" the regime's resolve and called any military action by Washington equivalent to "toying with suicide."
In an editorial titled, “Korea under the great Kim Jong-un will be endlessly successful,” the ruling Workers’ Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun called 2022 “our year that we kicked off with a high-technology hypersonic missile test,” followed by “awe-inspiring months when the massive roar of the strongest strategic weapon, the Hwasong-17 missile, reverberated around the planet.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was present at the regime’s first successful test launch of a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) last month, which the Rodong Sinmun said “subdued and crushed U.S. warmongering” and demonstrated “the determination of the [North Korean] public under the great Kim Jong-un to never tolerate any act that could affect their dignity and sovereignty.”
The editorial also accused the United States of “using the pretext of our justified self-defense measures to threaten regional peace and stability by sneaking around several times in the waters surrounding the Korean Peninsula to conduct provocative large-scale exercises with their lackeys,” referring to joint military drills by the South Korean and U.S. militaries to bolster their security cooperation amid relentless weapons testing by the North.
The Rodong Sinmun boasted that North Korea was the only country “to have realized its declared will to exact a most powerful revenge in a confrontation with the United States” and described “all those who continue to try to test us and ignore [our] repeated warnings” as “running counter to history and toying with suicide.”
The editorial came after U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said at a press briefing on Tuesday (local time) that Washington believes Pyongyang is ready to undertake additional military provocations, including a long-anticipated seventh nuclear test.
“We continue to believe the possibility of a seventh nuclear test is on the table,” Price said, adding that the United States believes “all technical preparations appear to be in place,” and that “only a political decision” remains to be made before the North proceeds with a nuclear weapons test.
But Price did not specify if an ICBM launch by the North on a normal, long-distance trajectory — and not at the usual lofted angle that limits missile range — would “cross a red line,” as asked by a reporter at the press briefing.
On Monday, the North Korean leader’s sister Kim Yo-jong warned that the regime would soon conduct a long-distance missile launch to silence critics who doubt the regime’s ability to launch a nuclear weapon that can re-enter the atmosphere without disintegrating, according to Pyongyang’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
“It seems others want to disparage our strategic weapon capabilities by saying it can’t be demonstrated through a lofted-angle launch and must be proven through a normal-angle launch,” she said, adding that the latter was “something that may happen soon.”
Meanwhile, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday that U.S. deterrence capabilities would not be affected by the grounding of the U.S. Air Force’s entire B-2 stealth bomber fleet for safety checks after a B-2 was forced to make an emergency landing on the runway at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri on Dec. 10.
According to Defense Department spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the B-52 fleet, which is both conventionally and nuclear-equipped, provides “redundant capability” to make up for the grounding of the B-2 fleet.
Ryder also said the U.S. military has “plenty of redundancy and resiliency built into [its] combat capabilities” and denied there are “vulnerabilities” in the event of a potential conflict involving Russia, China or North Korea.
BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]
3. U.S. Treasury begins exempting humanitarian aid from sanctions
This is a little misleading. Humanitarian assistance has always been exempt from sanctions. The issue was in 2017 the UN sanctions as well as US sanctions include sanctions on financial transactions and humanitrian organizations needed to be able to trasnfer funds for use innorth Korea to delibver the aid.. This is one reasons why humanitarian aid was hindered. But the other is that Kim has refused much of it to include a number of offiers of vaccines from the UN and also directly. from South Korea and the US.
And what has had an even greater effect than sanctions on the suffering of the Korean people is the deliberate closure of north Korean borders to both legal trade and smuggling. This has significantly reduced the functioning of the markets and the resilience and survival of the Korean people.
Regardless of the financial sanctions we must remember the sole reason the Korean people in the north suffer is because Kim prioritizes the development of nuclear weapons and missiles over the welfare of the people.
Lastly no one should think that this effort is somehow an attempt to jump start negotiations. We do not use humanitarian assistance for political reasons. We provide or support humanitarian assistance because it is the right thing to do. If this were an attempt to try to use HA for political puspores we would be amking a grave error because HA will not entice Kim to negotiate. He does not cvare about the wefare of the korean people - he is only concerned with deny their human rights and keeping them oppressed in order to reamin in power.
One last point. When I speak with escapees almost everyone says that no one should provide humanitarian assistance to the regime because one, it will not reach the people who need and two, kim will exploit it by diversion and also will exploit it for propaganda purposes.
Wednesday
December 21, 2022
dictionary + A - A
U.S. Treasury begins exempting humanitarian aid from sanctions
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2022/12/21/national/northKorea/Korea-North-Korea-sanctions/20221221185315411.html
The Treasury Building in Washington [AP/YONHAP]
The U.S. Treasury Department announced Tuesday that it began authorizing exemptions for humanitarian aid from international sanctions, signaling the possible easing of restrictions on relief to North Korea.
According to the Treasury’s press release, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) began issuing or amending general licenses to ease the delivery of humanitarian aid, authorizing the provision of humanitarian support across several international sanctions programs.
The department characterized OFAC’s actions as “historic steps” that “further enable the flow of legitimate humanitarian assistance supporting the basic human needs of vulnerable populations while continuing to deny resources to malicious actors” in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2664.
The resolution, passed by the Security Council on Dec. 10, provides a “humanitarian carve-out” — a standing humanitarian exemption — to the asset freeze measures imposed by international sanctions regimes, according the United Nations press office.
In a separate statement, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the United States “is committed to protecting humanitarian access and removing impediments to the delivery of legitimate humanitarian aid around the world,” adding that the licenses issued by the Treasury “prevent abuse or diversion” and “make our sanctions clearer, stronger and more effective and streamlined.”
The Treasury's exemption is expected to be applied to humanitarian aid for North Korea.
According to a 2019 Security Council report compiled by the United Nations Panel of Experts, successive Security Council sanctions have impeded the delivery of humanitarian aid to North Korea despite explicit clauses in resolutions intended to minimize sanctions-related hardship to ordinary citizens.
The report said that aid to North Koreans was often delayed by up to 10 months or completely blocked from 2018 to 2019, with a lengthy and complicated approval process cited by aid groups as hindering shipments.
As a result of sanctions, medical equipment that pose little risk to international security — such as needles, syringes and wheelchairs — have been included in 59 broad prohibited categories and needed to be cleared before being sent to the North, according to an NK News article written by researchers Jessup Jong and Kee B. Park.
BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]
4. They Escaped North Korea. Now Some of Them Are Suing Kim Jong Un.
Please go to the link to view the interactive article with the photos.
https://www.wsj.com/story/they-escaped-north-korea-now-some-of-them-are-suing-kim-jong-un-be0b5d66?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1
They Escaped North Korea. Now Some of Them Are Suing Kim Jong Un.
WSJ · by Alastair Gale | Photographs by Shiho Fukada for The Wall Street Journal
“We were deceived.”
Dec. 21, 2022
Tap story
A mother and daughter who escaped North Korea are pursuing a lawsuit against leader Kim Jong Un in the Japanese courts.
KCNA/KNS/AFP/Getty
Sora Li’s mother was one of more than 90,000 people, mostly of Korean descent, who moved to North Korea from Japan between 1959 and 1984.
A ship carrying people departed for North Korea from the port of Niigata, Japan, in 1959.
Kyodo News/AP
Ms. Li’s mother, Eiko Kawasaki, was drawn by promises from Mr. Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, that they would be returning to an earthly paradise.
North Korean citizens in Pyongyang, North Korea in 2021.
Cha Song Ho/AP
For North Korea, the program was a way to recover national pride and boost the labor force after around two million Koreans moved to Japan, many against their will, during the Japanese occupation of Korea that ended in 1945.
Following its war defeat, Japan facilitated the flow of people back to Korea.
Ms. Kawasaki, who was born to ethnically Korean parents in Japan, took a one-way boat to North Korea alone at age 17 in 1960, expecting to find purpose as part of a nation-building project among people like herself.
Those who believed the propaganda had sentenced themselves to life in an impoverished state, where their Japanese connections would expose them to discrimination. “We were deceived,” says Ms. Kawasaki, now 80.
KCNA/Reuters
In 2003, after her children were adults and her husband had died, Ms. Kawasaki devised a plan to escape. She succeeded and reunited with her family in Japan, leaving behind Ms. Li and her other children.
“Among my siblings, I was the only one who wouldn’t accept what my mother did,” Ms. Li said. Three years after her mother had left, she made her own decision to leave.
Only about 150 of those who relocated to North Korea from Japan decades ago have managed to escape, according to human-rights groups. By comparison, about 34,000 North Koreans have made it to the South since the late 1990s.
KCNA/AP
Once reunited with her mother, Ms. Li learned to her dismay that Ms. Kawasaki was active in raising public awareness about the plight of people who went to North Korea.
She says she feared the publicity would endanger her four siblings who remained there.
Eventually, Ms. Li said, “I came around to the view that someone needed to try to resolve North Korea’s human-rights violations. That’s what motivated my mother, and I decided I should show my face as part of the campaign.”
She went on to study at Hosei University’s department of law, a highly regarded school in Japan and suggested the idea of filing a lawsuit in the Japanese courts.
In 2018, Ms. Kawasaki and four other people who had taken part in the relocation program sued Kim Jong Un, each seeking almost $1 million in compensation. They argued they had been deceptively lured to North Korea and then detained there.
They had no prospect of getting money from Mr. Kim, whose government ignored the proceedings. But the group hoped a victory would increase pressure on North Korea to allow the remaining survivors of the program to return to Japan.
Tap to read moreA Tokyo court ruled in March that while the plaintiffs had been deceived, they had taken too long to file the case. It rejected the claim for damages. The group, whose five members are all in or approaching their 80s, is now preparing to file an appeal at the Tokyo High Court.
Produced by Brian Patrick Byrne
Tap to read more
WSJ · by Alastair Gale | Photographs by Shiho Fukada for The Wall Street Journal
5. S. Korea, US mulling massive live-fire drills next year to mark 70th year of alliance: ministry
In my 5 tours in Korea and now more than 30 years there, off and on, I cannot recall that we have ever publicized planning for a "massive live fire event" at all and certainly not this far in advance.
But what this shows is the "new normal" and the "routinization" of our combined readiness training. Our training is not being conducted in response to north Korean actions. We are conducting training as a matter of routine often and oina regular schedule to ensure interoperability and readiness. And we are not going to cancel, postpone, or scaleback training in a misguided attempt to entice Kim Jong Un to the negotiating table (because it won't). And we are not going to cancel training due to north Korean threats. Job one is maintaining readiness for deterrence and defense.
S. Korea, US mulling massive live-fire drills next year to mark 70th year of alliance: ministry
The Korea Times · December 22, 2022
U.S. military officers inspect tanks at the U.S. Army's Camp Casey in Dongducheon, Gyeonggi Province, April 18. Yonhap
South Korea and the United States are considering staging their first large-scale combined live-fire demonstration in six years next year to mark the 70th anniversary of the establishment of their alliance, Seoul's defense ministry said Thursday.
Such an exercise usually involves thousands of troops as well as artillery pieces and other formidable weapons systems to highlight the allies' combined firepower. It did not take place during the preceding Moon Jae-in administration keen on inter-Korean engagement.
"Next year, the allies mark the 70th anniversary of the alliance's founding and on that occasion, we are weighing various ways to show off our military's stature and the alliance's overwhelming deterrence capabilities against North Korea," Jeon Ha-gyu, the ministry's spokesperson, told a regular press briefing. "A combined joint live-fire demonstration can be one of the options."
Seoul and Washington signed their mutual defense treaty in October 1953, months after the end of the three-year Korean War. (Yonhap)
The Korea Times · December 22, 2022
6. Information warfare (Korea)
I was heartened and excited to see the title of this article in the English language Korean press. But then I was disappointed.
Excerpt:
I know information is critical and more important than we think to make certain things happen. But I don't buy into the idea that information can facilitate a dramatic change in North Korea. My personal view is that the role of information in North Korea is overstated.
We can see the limited role of information in changing a particular society if we turn our attention to China to see what happened there.
I can't buy her arguments nor do I find the China analogy useful. My counter is that we have never attempted a sophisticated and comprehensive information campaign in the north. And we are not going to provide information and just hope for a revolution. We need to provide information to help the Korean people in the north to prepare for change and when change occurs they have information that can inform their decision making such as the nKPA general who knows that if he does not attack the South and/or maintains control of his WMD and turns over to competent authority he and his family will have a safe place in a unified Korea. Or the farmer who sees the regime fall but knows that during the unification process he will be given title to his land so he should stay put and not become a refugee because he will know for the first time in his life he will own the land his labored one.
The problem is that with so many of our escape information transmissions they focus on things such as how terrible Kim Jong Un is (the truth) or they simply include crude insults of Kim (which may make us feel good but do nothing to positively influence the people in the north).
Here are my recommendations for a comprehensive information warfare campaign.
Deterring war must remain the overarching priority for the ROK/U.S. alliance. However, information warfare can play an effective role in both supporting that while exerting pressure on Kim Jong Un like he has never felt which could cause a change in behavior or change in north Korea. The alliance should execute a superior political warfare strategy that consists of three lines of effort: a human rights upfront approach, information and influence activities, and the pursuit of a free and unified Korea. The following are the highlights of what should be included as part of an overt information warfare campaign.
- Overarching narrative: Every time it is necessary to respond to the regime’s nuclear and missile activities the alliance must include a human rights response. For example, Kim Jong Un’s deliberate decision to prioritize nuclear and missile development is solely responsible for the suffering of the Korea people in the north.
- Develop themes and messages based on the 1919 Korean Declaration of Independence
- Establish an alliance organization to plan and conduct combined political warfare with a supporting information warfare campaign.
- Establish a Defector Information Institute to harness the expertise of key commentators from the north to shape themes and messages and advise on all aspect of the information warfare campaign.
- Harness the power of civil society, empower escapees from the north to continue their information work, and encourage free nations to provide information to the Korean people in the north.
- Resource the Korean Services of Voice of American and Radio Free Asia to increase broadcasts to a level that optimizes access and coverage.
- Design an overt information warfare campaign targeting the Korean people based on Information, Knowledge, Truth, and Understanding
o Information: massive quantities of information from entertainment to news.
o Knowledge – practical information on how to effect change, best practices for agriculture and market activity, educational lessons without Juche influence.
o Truth – the truth about the regime and the situation in north Korea and the outside world.
o Understanding – help the Korean people in the north to understand the inalienable and universal rights that belong to all human beings.
In conclusion, the only way to see an end to the nuclear program and military threats as well as the human rights abuses and crimes against humanity being committed against the Korean people living in the north by the mafia-like crime family cult known as the Kim family regime is through unification. This requires the establishment of a free and unified Korea that is secure and stable, non-nuclear, economically vibrant, and unified under a liberal constitutional form of government based on individual liberty, rule of law, and human rights as determined by the Korean people. In short, a United Republic of Korea (UROK). An information warfare campaign will make one of the most important contributions to this outcome.
Information warfare
The Korea Times · December 21, 2022
By Kang Hyun-kyung
North Korea is a nation about which little is known to the outside world, except for its notorious weapons of mass destruction program. The scarcity of information about the country has produced plenty of theories, speculation and even rumors about the regime and its leader's health, most of which were later found not to be true.
Insufficient information frustrates policymakers, particularly when they are wrestling with policy measures to cope with a country like North Korea, which poses a great threat to other countries' national security.
Blessed is South Korea to have alternative reliable sources of information. South Korea is privileged to have around 30,000 North Korean-born escapees who migrated to the South via China through perilous journeys to freedom and to live a better life.
These North Korean defectors are an asset to South Korea in many ways.
Based on their testimonies, South Korean policymakers can put together various bits of information that they learned from the North Korean escapees in order to imagine what North Korea is like and understand more precisely how it works.
There are people who believe that information can trigger a revolutionary change in a repressive country like North Korea. Some activists keep flying balloons to send fliers and other materials to let the North Koreans know what is happening in the outside world. North Korea has certainly showed its paranoia about this information war, and threatened the South with consequences.
The South Korean government is wary of the activists' work because it can only deteriorate already strained inter-Korean relations.
The rationale of those activists is that once ill-informed North Koreans are awakened and realize that they have been deceived by the North Korean regime, they will stand up and overthrow the repressive regime.
But no one knows whether such a situation will actually happen or not.
There are naysayers like me who are skeptical about the feasibility of such a grassroots-driven, civil disobedience movement in North Korea.
I know information is critical and more important than we think to make certain things happen. But I don't buy into the idea that information can facilitate a dramatic change in North Korea. My personal view is that the role of information in North Korea is overstated.
We can see the limited role of information in changing a particular society if we turn our attention to China to see what happened there.
China is the country that sends the largest number of students to the United States. Most of them are pursuing advanced degrees in various graduate school programs or as serving as post-docs or visiting scholars.
Last year alone, nearly 300,000 Chinese students went to the United States to study. I don't know the total number of Chinese who had years of living experiences in the United States or other Western countries for study or work before they returned home, but we can assume that the number is high.
During their stays in the United States, they are much more informed of and have had direct experiences in Western ways of life, culture and democracy, more than North Koreans, who are only partially informed about how the outside world lives. Most of this information comes from South Korea, through fliers or other written materials sent by South Korean activists.
If the proponents of bottom-up democracy movements are right, then these U.S.-educated Chinese should have already been playing a role in changing their nation. Unlike people in Western democracies, Chinese people are not allowed to elect their own leaders. Compared to their peers in Western democracies, the Chinese do not enjoy broader freedoms. In China, top-down methods of decision-making and policies are more common than bottom-up movements.
If the proponents are right, there should be some U.S.-educated Chinese who challenge or question the legitimacy of their government or leaders.
Where are all the potential agents of change? Why has China remained the same?
In fact, I asked these questions to a Seoul-based foreign national who is qualified to answer. He said that U.S.-educated Chinese try to do their part to make their country better in their own ways, based on their expertise and lived experience in Western democracies, rather than trying to challenge the Chinese way of life in the political sphere.
According to him, "change" is a relative term. The Chinese who spent years in the United States before they return home, tend to believe that, as privileged citizens with years of experience in the Western world, they ought to contribute to making their country better and stronger, rather than seeking ways to change the system that has been in place for decades. That's the change they believe in.
The lesson I learned from China's "compliant" U.S.-educated citizens is that there's no one-size-fits-all policy that can be applied to any country in order to have a positive impact in terms of social change. There may be countries where information has played a key part in mobilizing their citizens to stand up and take collective action to overthrow autocrats.
But there is no guarantee that the same recipe will have the same impact in other countries grappling with similar problems. Each country has a different value system and different ways of thinking.
Therefore, looking at North Korea, if South Korea, the United States or any other countries really want a change in the North, they must come up with a customized policy approach. We do not know what that will be. We must keep working to find an appropriate one.
The writer is politics/city desk editor at The Korea Times.
The Korea Times · December 21, 2022
7. S. Korea plans to announce full details of Indo-Pacific strategy next week: ministry
The global pivotal state steps up. ROK and US aligning interests.
S. Korea plans to announce full details of Indo-Pacific strategy next week: ministry | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by 장동우 · December 22, 2022
SEOUL, Dec. 22 (Yonhap) -- South Korea plans to announce full details of the country's new Indo-Pacific strategy next week, according to Seoul's foreign ministry Thursday.
According to a ministry official, the presidential office plans to release a final report on South Korea's Indo-Pacific strategy next Wednesday, followed by an official government briefing by the ministry later that day.
The ministry reportedly plans to invite foreign diplomatic delegates to the briefing, which will comprise of two sessions and a question and answer session.
The key elements of the strategy was first outlined by President Yoon Suk Yeol in Cambodia in November, which marked the first time South Korea has presented a diplomatic strategy specific to the Indo-Pacific.
Yoon then highlighted the strategy's focus on promoting freedom, peace and prosperity in a region that has gained increasing strategic importance amid the growing U.S.-China rivalry.
odissy@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by 장동우 · December 22, 2022
8. N. Korea to step up cyber attacks against S. Korea next year: Seoul spy agency
The ROK/US alliance must take the gloves off and go hard against the all purpose sword.
N. Korea to step up cyber attacks against S. Korea next year: Seoul spy agency | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by 김수연 · December 22, 2022
SEOUL, Dec. 22 (Yonhap) -- North Korea is expected to intensify cyber offenses targeting South Korea next year to steal information on advanced technologies, such as nuclear power and space programs, Seoul's spy agency said Thursday.
North Korean hacking groups will likely focus on stealing the South's technologies related to nuclear plants, chips and the defense industry, and also collect information on South Korea and the United States' policy on the North, according to the National Intelligence Service (NIS).
"Marking the third year under its five-year economic development plan in 2023, the North is expected to be bent on stealing key technologies, and collecting diplomatic and security intelligence in a bid to meet its policy goals," the agency said.
The NIS said the North has ramped up its cyber threats and other online attacks on the South following of its previous nuclear tests in protest of international sanctions on its nuclear and missile programs.
The agency's assessment came amid speculation that North Korea may press ahead with its seventh nuclear test in the near future.
The NIS also said the North will likely engage in more cyber crimes involving cryptocurrency theft next year.
North Korea is estimated to have stolen cryptocurrency assets worth of 1.5 trillion won (US$1.2 billion) globally since 2017, including some 800 billion won this year alone, it added.
North Korea is suspected of engaging in malicious cyber activities, including cryptocurrency theft, in a bid to help fund its nuclear and missile programs.
sooyeon@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by 김수연 · December 22, 2022
9. North Korea may propose 'surprise talks' to US next year: expert
Interesting analysis or speculation. WHile possible, I think we need to ask whether Kim has created the conditions in which negotiations will result in effects favorable to Kim? What advantage will he have going into negotiations? The speculation about elections is interesting and logical conventional analysis. But does this kind of logic apply to Kim? Does he really seek "co-existence?" I am just not sure he will come to the negotiation table unless he has or precevies he can gain a significant advantage.
Go adds an important caveat: not likely but possible.
Excerpts:
"However, as the results of the recent U.S. midterm elections indicate that Biden or the Democratic Party may win the presidential election again, meaning it should 'co-exist' with them for six more years, North Korea may make a surprise proposal to the U.S. for talks."
Go added: "It is not very likely, but I think there is a higher possibility than before."
North Korea may propose 'surprise talks' to US next year: expert
The Korea Times · December 22, 2022
This photo released on Nov. 19 by the North Korean government shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, center, inspecting what is identified as a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile at Pyongyang International Airport in Pyongyang, Nov. 18. Yonhap
US willingness to resolve nuclear issue in question
By Kang Seung-woo
North Korea may propose talks with the United States next year amid speculation that the Joe Biden administration or another Democratic Party candidate could win reelection, a researcher of a Seoul-based think tank said, Thursday.
"North Korea has refused to sit down with the United States over nuclear negotiations, maintaining a confrontational mode with Washington until the 2024 U.S. presidential election," Go Myong-hyun, a senior fellow of The Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said during a press conference on the prospects of the international situation for 2023, held at the institute in Seoul.
"However, as the results of the recent U.S. midterm elections indicate that Biden or the Democratic Party may win the presidential election again, meaning it should 'co-exist' with them for six more years, North Korea may make a surprise proposal to the U.S. for talks."
Go added: "It is not very likely, but I think there is a higher possibility than before."
Since the breakdown of the Hanoi summit between former U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in January 2019, nuclear talks have made little progress, with Pyongyang remaining unresponsive to South Korean and U.S. overtures for dialogue.
Meanwhile, forecasting that North Korea will continue to stage military provocations next year to improve its competitive edge in negotiations with the U.S. and take the initiative on the Korean Peninsula, Choi Kang, the president of the think tank, questioned the sincerity of the Biden administration in dealing with the North Korean nuclear issue.
Since May, North Korea is believed to have fully prepared for a possible seventh nuclear test.
"I can't but worry about how high the North Korean nuclear issue is on the U.S. foreign policy," Choi said.
"Earlier this month, the top nuclear envoys of South Korea, the U.S. and Japan met in Jakarta. I cannot figure out what they discussed there, but given that they met in Jakarta, not Washington, D.C., the meeting venue itself is raising suspicions regarding if the U.S. is willing to resolve the issue."
According to Choi, the North Korean nuclear issue requires the cooperation and coordination of many relevant organizations in Washington, D.C.
Choi also questioned how much the U.S. nuclear envoy, Sung Kim, can focus on the North Korea issue, while doubling as the ambassador to Indonesia.
"I think the Biden administration should sort it out."
The new South Korean government under President Yoon Suk-yeol has looked to the U.S.' extended deterrence against North Korea's growing nuclear and missile threats. In addition, Seoul and Washington have reactivated regular meetings of the Extended Deterrence Strategy and Consultation Group (EDSCG), a high-level consultative mechanism to achieve the North's denuclearization through steadfast deterrence.
However, Choi said the U.S. has failed to detail its commitment to extended deterrence.
"The U.S. said it will provide as many strategic assets as South Korea wants, but it lacks substantiation. In that sense, the U.S. side needs to go into detail about the commitment," he said.
Go also said the U.S. handling of North Korea's advancing nuclear capability is quite inadequate.
"The U.S. tells South Korea to trust its commitment to extended deterrence, but when its current strategy is no different from when North Korea's nuclear capability was not as strong," he said.
The Korea Times · December 22, 2022
10. Korea to introduce human trafficking act to better protect victims
Korea to introduce human trafficking act to better protect victims
The Korea Times · December 22, 2022
gettyimagesbank'
A step forward to embrace international human rights standards'
By Jung Min-ho
A new law calling for a clearer definition of human trafficking and improved protection for victims will come into force on the first day of 2023.
Under the Human Trafficking Prevention Act, the crime, also known as trafficking in persons, refers to the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of people by coercion, fraud or other means for the purpose of exploitation including prostitution.
"By adopting the law, Korea is taking a step toward embracing the international standards in acknowledging what it is and how to deal with it," Lee Jae-woong, project manager on the issue at the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, told The Korea Times, Wednesday.
Korea has long been criticized for lacking a specific or consistent definition of the crime, while the forms of human trafficking continue to evolve, making the jobs of police and researchers more difficult.
The law also makes it clear that both foreign nationals in Korea and Korean citizens overseas are subject to legal support if they become victims of the crime. In theory, a person who recruits a woman in, say, the Philippines with false employment promises before sending her to a pimp in Korea ― a common form of exploitation in the E-6-2 arts and entertainment visa system ― should be named and treated as a human trafficker under the law, and the victim will have the right to rescue, interpretation services for a trial and compensation as well as financial support for medical expenses among others.
"The law certainly applies to foreign nationals in Korea. In a broad sense, it also applies to all women working illegally in the sex industry as the law requires the government to consider their individual circumstances such as how much debt they owe to certain people," Lee said.
The law is expected to improve Korea's standing as a country that respects human rights. In July, that status was bruised after the U.S. State Department downgraded Korea by a tier in its annual human trafficking report for the first time in two decades.
Among many issues Korea needed to address, the report pointed out that the authorities, in many cases, penalized foreign sex trafficking victims for illegal acts they committed against their will or deported victims without properly investigating traffickers.
"Sex traffickers exploit some foreign women on E-6-2 entertainment visas ― many from the Philippines and Thailand ― in bars and clubs, including 'foreigners only' bars near ports and U.S. military bases," the report said. "Recruiters and owners of massage parlors fraudulently recruit women for work as professional masseuses in Korea but force them to engage in commercial sex acts, sometimes through passport confiscation, physical violence or threats of deportation or violence."
The report also urged the Korean government to penalize traffickers more severely, saying most of them end up with less than one year's imprisonment, fines or suspended sentences, as this could weaken deterrence and create safety concerns for victims.
Yet the law, which is focused on protecting victims, does not include stronger penalties. Lee said the law is open for further revision as the government is now required to review laws and policies related to the issue every five years.
The same day, officials of the ministries of gender equality, justice and foreign affairs among other government agencies had talks with representatives of the U.S. Embassy over human trafficking issues at the Seoul Government Complex, in which the two sides vowed to deepen cooperation to respond to the problem more effectively.
The Korea Times · December 22, 2022
11. S. Korea releases high-resolution satellite photo of Pyongyang
tit for tat - take that dragon lady - tell us how good north Korean technology is. The fact is, Ms. Kim Yo Jong, South Korean technology is far superior to yours.
Please go to the link to compare the photos. https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20221222007300315?section=news
S. Korea releases high-resolution satellite photo of Pyongyang | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by 이해아 · December 22, 2022
SEOUL, Dec. 22 (Yonhap) -- South Korea on Thursday released a photo of Pyongyang taken from one of its own satellites after North Korea published imagery of Seoul using what it claimed was a military spy satellite.
The color photo, taken with "land satellite No. 1," clearly shows Kim Il-sung Square and its surrounding facilities, including a history museum, an art museum and a department store.
By contrast, the North Korean photo released Monday was in black and white, and barely showed the outlines of bridges across the Han River and a port in the western city of Incheon.
The North's Korean Central News Agency said the camera fitted on the "test-piece satellite" built for military reconnaissance purposes had a resolution of 20 meters.
Experts here said a reconnaissance satellite must have a resolution of at least 0.5m, making the North's equipment impossible to use for its stated purpose.
hague@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by 이해아 · December 22, 2022
12. A Year in Brinkmanship on the Korean Peninsula
And do not forget the 70th anniversary of the ROK/US Mutual Defense Treaty.
I disagree with the use of the term brinkmanship. Useful for an attention getting headline but we have not really been anywhere close to the brink this year.
Excerpt:
Symbolically, 2023 will be a historic year for the Korean Peninsula, marking both the 75th anniversary of North Korea’s founding and 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War. The open question is whether the coming year will write diplomatic history too—or, more ominously, a new chapter of military history.
A Year in Brinkmanship on the Korean Peninsula
Kim Jong Un’s attention-grabbing missile testing frenzy belies a much more interesting dynamic developing among neighbors.
By Megan DuBois, an editorial fellow at Foreign Policy.
Foreign Policy · by Megan DuBois · December 21, 2022
The year's best stories
2022 was a record-breaking year on the Korean Peninsula, though not the sort one would hope for. As of Dec. 19, North Korea launched a dizzying spate of ballistic missile tests—65 in total, eight of which were intercontinental ballistic missiles. The tests prompted sharp criticism from Washington and its allies as well as tit-for-tat responses from South Korea.
By most accounts, the next item on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s agenda seems to be a nuclear test—the nation’s first since 2017. With few tools left in its diplomatic toolbox, the Biden administration has responded with what amounts to a shrug—a recognition that there is little it can do to stop North Korea. As one South Korean official told FP’s Robbie Gramer, a North Korean nuclear test is more a matter of “when,” not “if.”
The Biden administration’s North Korea policy has taken a back seat to other world crises, but it has repeatedly said it’s open to talks with North Korea anytime, anywhere, and without preconditions. These offers have been echoed by South Korea’s Yoon administration. Yet both continue to insist on denuclearization as their ultimate policy goal.
2022 was a record-breaking year on the Korean Peninsula, though not the sort one would hope for. As of Dec. 19, North Korea launched a dizzying spate of ballistic missile tests—65 in total, eight of which were intercontinental ballistic missiles. The tests prompted sharp criticism from Washington and its allies as well as tit-for-tat responses from South Korea.
By most accounts, the next item on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s agenda seems to be a nuclear test—the nation’s first since 2017. With few tools left in its diplomatic toolbox, the Biden administration has responded with what amounts to a shrug—a recognition that there is little it can do to stop North Korea. As one South Korean official told FP’s Robbie Gramer, a North Korean nuclear test is more a matter of “when,” not “if.”
The Biden administration’s North Korea policy has taken a back seat to other world crises, but it has repeatedly said it’s open to talks with North Korea anytime, anywhere, and without preconditions. These offers have been echoed by South Korea’s Yoon administration. Yet both continue to insist on denuclearization as their ultimate policy goal.
After years of trying, the sticks have become dulled, and there are no more carrots in sight—leaving North Korea’s reclusive dictator little incentive to approach the negotiating table or abandon the military programs that he has deemed essential to his regime’s survival. Unless there is a major shift in strategy, Pyongyang will likely continue giving the silent treatment in the year ahead.
2022 proved to be a game-changing year for South Korea as well. In March, voters elected Yoon Suk-yeol, a conservative leader, to succeed Moon Jae-in. Where Moon hoped to mend fences with the North, Yoon has taken a tougher line and prioritized strengthening the alliance with the United States and mending fences with its neighbors. Yet ongoing anxieties about the credibility of U.S. extended deterrence, coupled with a desire for increased strategic autonomy, has stirred significant public support for South Korea to build its own nuclear arsenal to deter Pyongyang.
Symbolically, 2023 will be a historic year for the Korean Peninsula, marking both the 75th anniversary of North Korea’s founding and 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War. The open question is whether the coming year will write diplomatic history too—or, more ominously, a new chapter of military history.
by Ankit Panda, April 28
2022 made it clear that North Korea is maturing as a nuclear state—and so is its defense industry. Long gone are the days when Kim’s military modernization goals could be easily dismissed as mere propaganda. Nowadays, his weapons arsenal is perhaps best understood through the metaphor of Chekhov’s gun: If he promises a capability in the first act, then he will likely deliver by the third.
In an argument from April, Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, analyzes the next big item on Kim’s wish list: tactical nuclear weapons, which, if developed and fielded, would lower the already-low threshold for the use of nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula.
Further, Panda argues that these weapons would incentivize the adoption of more dangerous nuclear command-and-control practices, which could create new pathways to unintentional or inadvertent nuclear use. Sure enough, by September, North Korea had rewritten its nuclear doctrine to do just that.
by Robert E. Kelly, July 15
As hesitant as the United States is to recognize one nuclear state on the Korean Peninsula, it may have to prepare itself to recognize two.
In 2022, South Korea’s long-simmering nuclear debate came to a boil. Facing an increasingly hostile and well-equipped neighbor to the north and unconvinced that the United States will really come to South Korea’s defense in times of crisis, many have called for Seoul to build its own nuclear weapons.
Robert E. Kelly, a professor of political science at Pusan National University, made waves in July with his original take on the debate. He defends nuclear proliferation in South Korea not for its own sake or because the United States has proved untrustworthy. Rather, he makes a case against hegemony: As a liberal alliance leader, the United States should not tell its partners what to do nor what they may even debate. If allied democracies want nuclear weapons—if their foreign-policy elites and voters decide to take this step—then the United States should accept that this is their choice.
by Zachary Keck, Oct. 17
Foreign Policy illustration/Getty Images and archival document
In a year rife with tension and conflict, many analysts have tried to make sense of today’s politics by delving into the past. (We at FP certainly did, with our Summer 2022 Back to the Future issue.)
Not all historical analogies are winners. But particularly for the field of nuclear nonproliferation—one with very few case studies as precedent—historical analogies are an important tool for understanding how policymakers weigh their interests against the background of a potential nuclear war.
Defense analyst Zachary Keck, in part as a response to Kelly’s argument above, offers new insight into the U.S. government’s thinking. Keck shares a previously unpublished archival memo from former U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s conversation with former French President Charles de Gaulle that shines a new light on the infamous quote about America’s willingness to trade New York for Paris.
The history described in Keck’s article sheds new light on the problem of extended deterrence in the Korean Peninsula and suggests that maybe more nukes aren’t needed to solve it, after all.
by Mike Chinoy, May 1
There’s no shortage of ideas for how relations with North Korea might be improved. Yet, as with all diplomacy, even the most incremental progress cannot be made in the absence of trust among all parties.
In this piece, Mike Chinoy, a nonresident senior fellow at the University of Southern California’s U.S.-China Institute, tells the complicated story of Merrill Newman, a well-meaning U.S. military veteran whose visit to North Korea got him detained—a plight that soon involved the U.S. State Department, international news media, and (by all accounts) Kim himself.
Although not strictly geopolitical in nature, this story shines a light on North Korea’s acute historical memory and still-present paranoia, which drives much of its quest for security today.
The incident also speaks to the larger, more difficult diplomatic work ahead that must be done in pursuit of peace on the Korean Peninsula. The fundamental task ahead of any negotiators—nuclear or otherwise—is to facilitate some belief among parties that others will honor their promises and the rules they have agreed to.
To that end, any prospects for diplomacy in 2023 and beyond require a reckoning with issues much deeper and more complicated than missiles.
by Howard W. French, June 15
As military balance on the peninsula has evolved, the diplomatic tools and approaches used to address the risks have not. In 2022, many experts particularly lamented the United States’ unwillingness to acknowledge North Korea as a nuclear state and its continued insistence on Pyongyang’s denuclearization without meaningfully offering any concessions that might coax Kim to the negotiating table.
In this piece, FP’s Howard W. French reflects on his decades of experience as a journalist, offering an historic overview of the mostly futile approaches that have been tried thus far to extinguish the North Korean nuclear threat.
He comes to the somewhat disheartening conclusion that however desirable or even urgent seeming the crisis is, no one—least of all Washington—has the ability to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
Washington and Seoul may not be ready to hear it, but it’s time for a different approach. The piece is a call to policymakers for humility and, ultimately, courage.
Foreign Policy · by Megan DuBois · December 21, 2022
13. Seoul: North Korean hackers stole $1.2B in virtual assets
We should ask what if our cyber operations had prevented $1.2 billion from getting to Kim Jong Un? How would that have affected the regime? I would argue it would have a significant (negative) effect.
Time to get aggressive.
Seoul: North Korean hackers stole $1.2B in virtual assets
The Washington Post · by Hyung-Jin Kim | AP · December 22, 2022
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean hackers have stolen an estimated 1.5 trillion won ($1.2 billion) in cryptocurrency and other virtual assets in the past five years, more than half of it this year alone, South Korea’s spy agency said Thursday.
Experts and officials say North Korea has turned to crypto hacking and other illicit cyber activities as a source of badly needed foreign currency to support its fragile economy and fund its nuclear program following harsh U.N. sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic.
South Korea’s main spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, said North Korea’s capacity to steal digital assets is considered among the best in the world because of the country’s focus on cybercrimes since U.N. economic sanctions were toughened in 2017 in response to its nuclear and missile tests.
The U.N. sanctions imposed in 2016-17 ban key North Korean exports such as coal, textiles and seafood and also led member states to repatriate North Korean overseas workers. Its economy suffered further setbacks after it imposed some of the world’s most draconian restrictions against the pandemic.
The NIS said state-sponsored North Korean hackers are estimated to have stolen 1.5 trillion won ($1.2 billion) in virtual assets around the world since 2017, including about 800 billion won ($626 million) this year alone. It said more than 100 billion won ($78 million) of the total came from South Korea.
It said North Korean hackers are expected to conduct more cyberattacks next year to steal advanced South Korean technologies and confidential information on South Korean foreign policy and national security.
Earlier this month, senior diplomats from the United States, South Korea and Japan agreed to increase efforts to curb illegal North Korean cyber activities. In February, a panel of U.N. experts said North Korea was continuing to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from financial institutions and cryptocurrency firms and exchanges.
Despite its economic difficulties, North Korea has carried out a record number or missile tests this year in what some experts say is an attempt to modernize its arsenal and boost its leverage in future negotiations with its rivals to win sanctions relief and other concessions.
The Washington Post · by Hyung-Jin Kim | AP · December 22, 2022
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
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