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Quotes of the Day:
“Virtue comes through contemplation of the divine, and the exercise of philosophy. But it also comes through public service. The one is incomplete without the other. Power without wisdom is tyranny; wisdom without power is pointless.”
― Iain Pears, The Dream of Scipio
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
― Friedrich Nietzsche
“You meet saints everywhere. They can be anywhere. They are people behaving decently in an indecent society.”
― Kurt Vonnegut
1. Voice of America: [Washington Talk] “Korea needs a ‘nuclear weapons warehouse’… “Sufficient capacity for ‘beheading operation’”
2. ‘The Other Great Game’ Review: The First Korean War
3. North Korea’s New Reactor Raises Fears of Increased Plutonium Production
4. S. Korea stages independent tabletop exercise simulating N.K. nuclear attack
5. Hanwha Ocean clinches 1.1 tln-won deal to build 3,600-ton submarine
6. Publicly executed for killing a woman while trying to steal beans
7. To stem North Korea’s missiles program, White House looks to its hackers
8. After 3 years, Chinese who left during pandemic return to North Korea
9. AccessDPRK: Farming on the Frontier
10. Korean ranks 2nd-most-coveted Asian language in US amid global popularity of K-pop
11. [WHY] Why does North Korea keep firing missiles?
12. Kim Jong-un's daughter seen wearing luxury fur coat
1. Voice of America: [Washington Talk] “Korea needs a ‘nuclear weapons warehouse’… “Sufficient capacity for ‘beheading operation’”
Voice of America's Eunjung Cho hosts Robert Peters and me to discuss this week's developments on the Korean peninsula.
Don't be misled by the "headline" (which is a google translation).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhfu70Wie8o
[Washington Talk] “Korea needs a ‘nuclear weapons warehouse’… “Sufficient capacity for ‘beheading operation’”
1,319 views Premiered 93 minutes ago #WashingtonTalk #VOA #ICBM
American military experts expressed a negative perception of the need for Korea to ‘possess nuclear weapons’, but suggested that a ‘nuclear silo’ be built to prepare for the redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons. The U.S. government is already considering such a decision in the face of threats from North Korea and China, and it is explained that this is also a means of inducing Chinese pressure on North Korea. If North Korean leader Kim Jong-un carries out his threat of military attack, he will be a reasonable target, and it has also been diagnosed that the US-ROK alliance has various ‘decapitation operation’ capabilities targeting the North Korean leadership. Moderator: Eunjung Cho / Speaker: David Maxwell (Vice President, Asia-Pacific Strategy Center), Robert Peters (Researcher, Heritage Foundation) 1:50 Today’s panel introduction 4:12 Hwaseong-18 expected to launch at normal angle 10:03 US-Korea-Japan missile cooperation also responds to China 13:23 ‘Nuclear weapons storage’ should be installed in Korea 14:53 South Korea's possession of nuclear weapons will change China's calculation method 18:12 Washington shows little interest in ‘disarmament negotiations’ 19:52 ‘Nuclear weapons implementation’ is controlled by the United States » See more VOA Korean YouTube videos: / Korean
VOA is America's largest international broadcaster, providing radio, TV, web and mobile content in 47 languages to 278 million viewers each week, including in areas where free speech is limited or limited. VOA Korean broadcasting provides news from around the world, news from the Korean Peninsula, and various special programs targeting Koreans in North and South Korea as well as various regions of the world. » VOA Korean website: https://www.voakorea.com/ » VOA Korean Facebook: / Korean
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#Washington Talk#VOA#ICBM#Nuclear Consultative Group#Extended Deterrence#Nuclear Armament#Nuclear Umbrella#Kim Jong-un#Xi Jinping #Denuclearization#North Korea#South Korea#United States#Japan#China#DavidMaxwell#RobertPeters#WashingtonTalk< /span>#VoiceofAmerica
2. ‘The Other Great Game’ Review: The First Korean War
A great review of an important work by Dr. Sheila Miyoshi Jager that focuses on a too often overlook history. I am ordering this from Amazon as soon as I finish this message.
Two excerpts:
“Corea,” he wrote, “would, in fact, be the battlefield of any war between China and Russia or Japan.” (American commodore Robert W. Shufeldt)
...
But Ms. Jager narrates as clearly as one could hope for. And she avoids taking sides; there are no clear-cut heroes or villains here but rather a constellation of competing national and personal interests. That said, it is not hard to feel the greatest sympathy for Korea—trapped between the heavyweight empires of its much larger neighbors, wishing for the most part to be left alone. Korea begins the book with a “Pyrrhic victory” against a small French invasion force and ends it with a total loss of independence, annexed by Japan, its dispirited last monarch relinquishing his power “without complaint.”
Sheila Miyoshi Jager has written a grand narrative of modern East Asian imperial rivalry that successfully demonstrates the outsize importance of Korea to the region. Too often, Korea has been treated as a tangential or superfluous component of books and college courses about East Asian history, which tend to focus overwhelmingly on China and Japan. After this book, it should be clear just how blinkered an approach that is.
‘The Other Great Game’ Review: The First Korean War
At the dawn of the 20th century, Korea was caught in the middle of the struggle for the balance of power in Asia.
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/the-other-great-game-review-the-first-korean-war-20a4d27b?mod=Searchresults_pos2&page=1
By Stephen R. Platt
Dec. 22, 2023 1:46 pm ET
Koreans acting as porters for Japanese soldiers during the Russo-Japanese War, ca. 1904. PHOTO: UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
In the summer of 1880, the American commodore Robert W. Shufeldt, envisioning a future where the trading fortunes of the U.S. would be found across the Pacific rather than in the Atlantic world of old, predicted that Korea could no longer remain “secluded” and would likely become the flashpoint of conflict between the empires that dominated the East Asian region. “Corea,” he wrote, “would, in fact, be the battlefield of any war between China and Russia or Japan.”
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The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia
By Sheila Miyoshi Jager
Belknap Press
624 pages
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His words were prescient. Regional powers would fight two major wars over Korea in the years to come: first the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 and then the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. As the Oberlin professor Sheila Miyoshi Jager argues in “The Other Great Game,” these two wars reshaped the traditional balance of power in the region and set the stage for World War II in Asia.
Ms. Jager’s central argument is that we simply cannot comprehend the course of East Asian history from the 1860s to the early 1900s without putting Korea at its center. Her book explores how Russia, China and Japan separately formed their own ambitions for control and influence there, as well as how their competition over the peninsula led to war. So Korea is at the center, though often as an object of imperial desire rather than as the subject of its own story. Nevertheless, Ms. Jager is entirely correct. While readers expecting a book on Korea may be disappointed that more chapters don’t actually take place there, those with global interests will find it revelatory to see how all the pieces fit together.
Ms. Jager’s “other great game” makes the original round of diplomatic jousting that goes by that name seem simple by comparison. The contest for Afghanistan during the late 19th century had two primary contenders: Britain and Russia. In regard to Korea, there is the three-body problem of Meiji Japan, Qing China and czarist Russia, as well as a concatenation of factions and schisms within Korea itself. Ms. Jager describes the interventions of the British, Germans, French and Americans.
Alliances rarely remained stable—at one point, China kidnapped the Korean regent to remove him from power, at another it reinstalled him at the expense of his son the king. And within each country, there were divisions. Japan and Russia fought a war in Korea, each supported by different Korean factions, then the war moved into Manchuria (a Qing territory occupied by Russia), where Japan and Russia continued fighting, with Japan secretly supported by China, and . . . you get the picture, though at times it can be difficult to keep it all in mind.
Ms. Jager performs a truly admirable feat in juggling these complexities while keeping the reader’s head (mostly) above water. The author shifts effortlessly between diplomatic and military accounts, and between different cultures and geographical locales. “The Other Great Game” is long but the plot moves forward relentlessly. She is an especially strong narrator of military history, and her descriptions of the key naval and land battles in these wars are among the most gripping sections of the book.
Fortune favored the Japanese, who demonstrated excellent command and aggressive action but also benefited in startling ways from the ineptitude of their foes. In the first meeting of naval fleets in the Sino-Japanese War, the commodore of China’s flagship fired its main gun while the Japanese were still far out of range, and without warning his own crew. The admiral of the Chinese fleet and his British adviser—who were standing on the bridge just above the gun—were both knocked unconscious by the blast and rendered deaf, the latter permanently.
Russia’s commanders were even worse, and Ms. Jager calls their incompetence “one of the hallmark features” of the Russo-Japanese War. They were blind not only to the movements of Japan’s armies but even to the locations of their own reserves. Russian cavalry couldn’t find the railroad tracks they were supposed to tear up. Generals abandoned crucial positions without needing to. This was partly due to the difficulty of communication over the long distance from St. Petersburg to Manchuria, but Ms. Jager also attributes it to Russian assumptions of their own racial superiority to the Japanese. Czar Nicholas II regularly referred to the Japanese as “macaques,” and Ms. Jager writes that “the depiction of the Japanese as childish and unworthy of serious consideration as a military threat was widespread.” So would it be until Pearl Harbor.
The portrait of Japan that emerges from these pages is of a nation giddy with the overwhelming success of its naval and ground forces against the Chinese and Russians yet still marginalized by the diplomacy of the Great Powers. This Japan is trying to sound out whether its future will be as a maritime or continental power (the former depending on trade, the latter on conquest). It is a nation that wins wars but rarely gets all it wants in the treaties that follow—as Ms. Jager writes of the war with China, “the generals had won the battle but the civilians had lost the peace.” We see here the seeds of resentment that would lead to Japan’s ambition in the 1930s to dominate all of East Asia.
The enormous scope of this book makes it difficult for the author to breathe life into the main actors beyond their immediate necessity to the story; “The Other Great Game” contains many people but few real characters. Without a master list of names to refer to, it can be difficult to keep straight the dizzying variety of diplomats, heads of state, military officers, reformers and rebels.
Though “The Other Great Game” is elegantly designed from an aesthetic standpoint, a book of this stature deserves better proofreading than Harvard University Press apparently gave it. Typographical errors are numerous and distracting (including “canons” for “cannons,” “envelops” for “envelopes,” “outlay” for “layout”). Likewise, though the endnotes are detailed, the lack of a stand-alone bibliography is disappointing in a volume that seeks to be the definitive work on the era.
But Ms. Jager narrates as clearly as one could hope for. And she avoids taking sides; there are no clear-cut heroes or villains here but rather a constellation of competing national and personal interests. That said, it is not hard to feel the greatest sympathy for Korea—trapped between the heavyweight empires of its much larger neighbors, wishing for the most part to be left alone. Korea begins the book with a “Pyrrhic victory” against a small French invasion force and ends it with a total loss of independence, annexed by Japan, its dispirited last monarch relinquishing his power “without complaint.”
Sheila Miyoshi Jager has written a grand narrative of modern East Asian imperial rivalry that successfully demonstrates the outsize importance of Korea to the region. Too often, Korea has been treated as a tangential or superfluous component of books and college courses about East Asian history, which tend to focus overwhelmingly on China and Japan. After this book, it should be clear just how blinkered an approach that is.
Mr. Platt, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is the author of “Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China’s Last Golden Age.”
Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the December 23, 2023, print edition.
3. North Korea’s New Reactor Raises Fears of Increased Plutonium Production
North Korea’s New Reactor Raises Fears of Increased Plutonium Production
By Choe Sang-Hun
Reporting from Seoul
Dec. 22, 2023
The New York Times · by Choe Sang-Hun · December 22, 2023
A light-water reactor could provide more weapons-grade plutonium, abetting the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s vow to expand his nuclear arsenal.
An image provided by North Korean state media this week showed Kim Jong Un, left, and his daughter watching the test launch of a Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile at an undisclosed location in North Korea.
Dec. 22, 2023
In what would be a fresh breach of United Nations sanctions, a new reactor in North Korea’s main nuclear complex appears to have gone into operation, providing the country with a potential source of additional plutonium for its growing nuclear arsenal, according to the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog.
Since mid-October, the International Atomic Energy Agency has observed a strong water outflow from the cooling system of the new light-water reactor, or L.W.R., that North Korea has been building in Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, Rafael Grossi, the director general of the agency, said in a statement on Thursday.
“The discharge of warm water is indicative that the reactor has reached criticality,” Mr. Grossi said. “The L.W.R., like any nuclear reactor, can produce plutonium in its irradiated fuel, which can be separated during reprocessing, so this is a cause for concern.”
The observations detailed in Mr. Grossi’s statement are another strong indication that North Korea has been accelerating its nuclear weapons program while its talks with the United States remain stalled and while the Biden administration is preoccupied with other crises around the world, including the wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip.
The North’s new reactor violates U.N. Security Council resolutions that outlawed its nuclear program, as well as its development of ballistic missiles. But the Council has been unable to impose new sanctions against North Korea following recent ballistic missile tests because China and Russia vetoed them.
The atomic energy agency has no direct access to Yongbyon since North Korea expelled its monitors from the facility in 2009. But the agency, United States officials and private think tanks have been closely monitoring the sprawling complex, using satellite imagery and other technology.
They have reported increased activity there since the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, vowed to expand his nuclear arsenal in both “quality and quantity” after the collapse of his direct diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump in 2019.
Yongbyon is home to North Korea’s Soviet-designed five-megawatt nuclear reactor, from whose spent fuel the country extracted plutonium to build atomic bombs. The complex also includes a centrifuge plant where the country is believed to enrich uranium for another type of fuel for nuclear warheads.
North Korea has been building a new and bigger light-water reactor in Yongbyon since 2010. The analysts have closely watched the progress of the construction because of the reactor’s potential of yielding plutonium.
The new light-water reactor probably began operating in early October, according to an online posting on Thursday by Jeffrey Lewis and David Schmerler, researchers at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.
North Korea’s plans to increase its supply of nuclear weapons fuel included adding more centrifuges to produce weapons-grade enriched uranium and starting the light-water reactor at Yongbyon, which has been years behind schedule, said David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.
The new reactor “could allow a surge in plutonium quantities” at an estimated rate of 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of plutonium per year, a rate four to five times that of the old five-megawatt reactor, Mr. Albright wrote in April.
Over the decades, North Korea stopped and restarted activity at Yongbyon, the birthplace of its nuclear weapons program, depending on progress in talks with Washington. Successive United States administrations have tried but failed to shut the complex down completely.
During his negotiations with Mr. Trump in 2019, Mr. Kim offered to dismantle the Yongbyon complex and, in return, demanded that the United States lift United Nations sanctions imposed since 2016, including a ban on crucial exports like coal, iron ore, fish and textiles. The talks collapsed when Mr. Trump rejected the offer, demanding a much broader rollback in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, including its nuclear warheads and long-range missiles.
After the collapse of those talks, the I.A.E.A. reported that North Korea appeared to have restarted its five-megawatt reactor in Yongbyon, as well as resumed extraction of plutonium from the reactor’s spent fuel. The country has also increased its missile tests, including the launching of an intercontinental ballistic missile on Monday.
North Korea has conducted six underground nuclear tests since 2006. Activity at its nuclear test site at Punggye-ri indicated that the country can resume nuclear weapon testing any time Mr. Kim wants, South Korean officials have said.
Choe Sang-Hun is the lead reporter for The Times in Seoul, covering South and North Korea. More about Choe Sang-Hun
A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: North Korea May Be Using New Reactor, U.N. Reports
The New York Times · by Choe Sang-Hun · December 22, 2023
4. S. Korea stages independent tabletop exercise simulating N.K. nuclear attack
This is good. South Korea has to work through these issues.
S. Korea stages independent tabletop exercise simulating N.K. nuclear attack | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Chae Yun-hwan · December 22, 2023
SEOUL, Dec. 22 (Yonhap) -- South Korea staged an independent tabletop exercise simulating a North Korean nuclear attack this year as part of efforts to hone response capabilities against the North's military threats, the defense ministry said Friday.
The ministry noted the discussion-based exercise as one of its key accomplishments this year in a meeting presided over by Defense Minister Shin Won-sik to evaluate progress in the Defense Innovation 4.0 plan aimed at bolstering the country's defense capabilities.
The exercise took place in August during major summertime drills between South Korea and the United States, discussing retaliatory measures against a North Korean nuclear attack and calculating damage in such a scenario, according to a source.
South Korea has previously staged tabletop drills focusing on the North's possible use of nuclear weapons with U.S. officials.
The ministry said it plans to strengthen exercises next year under such scenarios, while continuing efforts to enhance the credibility of the U.S. "extended deterrence" commitment by increasing the deployment of key U.S. military assets.
Extended deterrence refers to the U.S. commitment to using the full-range of its military capabilities, including nuclear, to defend an ally.
On Thursday, the defense ministry's budget for next year was confirmed at 59.42 trillion won (US$45.6 billion), up 4.2 percent from this year, after the National Assembly passed the government's overall budget plan.
The ministry plans to spend a total of 17.65 trillion won next year to improve defense capabilities, up 4.4 percent over the same period.
This file photo, provided by the defense ministry on June 1, 2023, shows a long-range surface-to-air missile system conducting a missile interception test at an undisclosed location. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
yunhwanchae@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Chae Yun-hwan · December 22, 2023
5. Hanwha Ocean clinches 1.1 tln-won deal to build 3,600-ton submarine
Hanwha Ocean clinches 1.1 tln-won deal to build 3,600-ton submarine | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Eun-jung · December 22, 2023
SEOUL, Dec. 22 (Yonhap) -- South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean clinched a 1.1 trillion-won (US$845 million) deal Friday to build a 3,600-ton submarine for the Navy, the state procurement agency said.
Hanwha Ocean signed the deal with the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) to construct the third and last submarine under the Changbogo-III Batch-II program.
The company, formerly known as Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering, has been building two other Changbogo-III class submarines since 2021.
It is the first submarine construction project the shipbuilder has won since it joined Hanwha Group in April.
The construction of the submarine is expected to be completed by 2029, with the deployment to the South Korean Navy expected in 2031 following two years of test-run, according to DAPA.
The Changbogo-III Batch-II submarine is seen in this photo provided by the state-run Defense Acquisition Program (DAPA) Administration. Hanwha Ocean signed a 1.1 trillion-won (US$845 million) deal with DAPA on Dec. 22, 2023, to build the 3,600-ton submarine for the South Korean Navy. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
Batch-II submarines have increased in size and weight compared to the 3,000-ton class Dosan Ahn Chang-ho and ROKS Ahn Mu, which have been commissioned into active service.
They combine an air-independent propulsion (AIP) system with lithium-ion batteries to extend underwater operation time and reduce propulsion noise compared with diesel-electric submarines.
The envisioned submarines will be equipped with an advanced combat system with improved detection and targeting capability and the latest sonar system.
ejkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Eun-jung · December 22, 2023
6. Publicly executed for killing a woman while trying to steal beans
While we might ask the logical question of why the people do not resist I have two answers from my discussions with escapees. First, the severe hunger prevents actions as their only focus is on surviving. Second, if they had the will to act they tell me that the people they do not know what to do. They do not know what actions to take. This is where our information campaign must help. We must help them to learn how to take collective action.
Publicly executed for killing a woman while trying to steal beans
Residents sympathized with the 23-year-old man because they could relate to the hunger he experienced.
By Kim Jieun for RFA Korean
2023.12.23
rfa.org
Hundreds of residents were forced to gather at an airfield in frigid weather to watch authorities execute a 23-year-old man by firing squad, residents in North Korea told Radio Free Asia.
His alleged crime was murdering a woman while trying to steal about US$6 worth of beans from her, authorities told them.
Another 12 people were given lengthy prison sentences in excess of 10 years for various crimes including robbery, fraud, deception, escaping North Korea and drug trafficking, the residents said.
Public executions are a regular occurrence in North Korea. The Hyesan airfield was the same location where authorities executed nine people in August for running a beef smuggling ring and another in September for stealing penicillin.
“On the morning of the 19th, the day of the public execution, an order was issued from the provincial social security bureau to residents of each neighborhood to gather at the Hyesan airfield by 2 in the afternoon,” a resident of the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“We had to stand for two hours in minus 15-degree [Celsius] [5 degrees Fahrenheit] weather, braving the howling wind in an empty field covered in white snow,” she said.
Authorities made the criminals stand in front of the crowd, announced their charges, then read the verdict. It wasn’t clear if they had been tried in a court.
Sympathy for the condemned man
Afterwards, those sentenced to prison were taken away, and the person who was sentenced to death was executed right on the spot by a firing squad, she said.
“Authorities said that the young man who was shot to death committed murder while trying to steal from a woman who was carrying 10 kilograms (22 lbs) of beans one night … at the end of last month.”
The price of 10 kilograms of beans is about 50,000 won ($5.90) according to the latest market prices available. It is enough to feed a family of four for eight to 15 days.
The man was not caught immediately after killing the woman, but he was arrested in connection with another crime and it was determined during the investigation that he had killed the woman carrying beans, the resident said.
“At the scene [of the public execution], residents criticized our society, in which people kill each other for food,” she said. “There was also criticism among residents that although murder should be punished, the authorities were largely responsible as most crimes are occurring due to lack of food,” the source said.
North Korea suffers from chronic food shortages, which the resident said provides the main motive for most violent crimes these days.
The crippling hunger that caused the man to steal the beans was something the onlookers could relate to, another resident, who requested anonymity to speak freely, told RFA.
“The residents understand that because he could not bear hunger at a young age, he committed accidental murder while trying to steal a backpack containing 10 kilograms (22 lbs) of beans that a woman was carrying,” she said.
“Most of the crimes that occur recently are for survival, and if people had enough to live, they would not have occurred in the first place.”
She said that the authorities had failed to provide conditions that would allow residents to make a decent living.
“They are only responding with draconian measures, such as this execution by firing squad,” she said.
Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
rfa.org
7. To stem North Korea’s missiles program, White House looks to its hackers
Excellent. We need a full court press against the regime's all purpose sword. We need to take off the gloves.
To stem North Korea’s missiles program, White House looks to its hackers
By JOHN SAKELLARIADIS
12/22/2023 05:00 AM EST
Politico
The Biden administration is doing more to counter North Korean hackers amid concerns their cryptocurrency heists are powering the country’s weapons programs.
A February 2023 broadcast shows an image of a North Korean military parade held in Pyongyang. The Biden administration believes cryptocurrency heists have become a lifeline for the regime's weapons program. | Jung Yeon-Je/AFP via Getty Images
12/22/2023 05:00 AM EST
The Biden administration has spent much of the last two years bracing key U.S. networks and infrastructure against crippling cyberattacks from Russia, Iran and China.
But it is following a different playbook as it ramps up its efforts to thwart digital threats from North Korea: Follow the crypto — and stop it.
Convinced North Korea primarily sees hacking as a way to funnel money back to the cash-strapped Kim Jong Un regime, the White House has focused on blocking the country’s ability to launder the cryptocurrency it steals through its cyberattacks.
In the last year, the administration has unveiled a flurry of sanctions against North Korean hacking groups, front companies and IT workers, and blacklisted multiple cryptocurrency services they use to launder stolen funds. Earlier this month, national security adviser Jake Sullivan announced a new partnership with Japan and South Korea aimed at cracking down on Pyongyang’s crypto bonanza — thereby choking off money to its nuclear and conventional weapons programs.
“In countering North Korean cyber operations, our first priority has been focusing on their crypto heists,” Anne Neuberger, the National Security Council’s top cybersecurity official, said in an interview.
The stepped-up effort to blunt North Korea’s cyber operations is fueled by growing alarm about where the fruits of those attacks are going, Neuberger said.
Hacking, she argued, has enabled North Korea to “either evade sanctions or evade the steps the international community has taken to target their weapons proliferation … their missile regime, and the growth in the number of launches we’ve seen.”
Poor regulation and shoddy security in the fast-growing cryptocurrency industry, which is dominated by start-ups, make it an easy target for Pyongyang’s hackers. Because of crypto’s inbuilt privacy features and the fact that it can be sent across borders at the click of a mousepad, it also offers a powerful tool to circumvent sanctions.
North Korea has conducted roughly 100 ballistic missile tests in the last year, and it staged its first intercontinental ballistic missile test in five months on Monday. Between November and August, it also exported more than a million artillery shells to Russia, according to South Korean intelligence services.
U.S. officials increasingly believe the key to slowing that type of activity lies at the intersection of hacking and cryptocurrency.
Last year, Pyongyang-linked hackers stole roughly $1.7 billion worth of digital money, according to estimates from cryptocurrency tracing firm Chainalysis.
And in May, Neuberger estimated that about half of North Korea’s missile program is funded by cyberattacks and cryptocurrency theft.
North Korean hackers “directly fund” North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs, said State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel.
Until recently, North Korea’s cyber prowess has garnered relatively little attention in Washington. Fear of digital strikes spilling over from the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, or during a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan, has overshadowed the issue, experts say.
“People tend to think, … how could the quote-unquote ‘Hermit Kingdom’ possibly be a serious player from a cyber perspective?” Adam Meyers, a senior vice president at cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, said in an interview. “But the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.”
Pyongyang’s hackers have repeatedly caught Western companies off-guard with their technical ingenuity, an ability to blend old-fashioned spy tricks with cyber operations and sheer brazenness, according to private sector researchers.
And while those who study North Korean cyber operations say their proficiency at stealing cryptocurrency represents a major challenge to the West today, they also argue it would be dangerous to pigeonhole Pyongyang as little more than a money-stealing threat.
By some metrics, North Korea has launched more than a dozen supply-chain attacks in the last year — a sophisticated tactic in which hackers compromise the software delivery pipeline to get nearly unfettered access to a wide range of companies.
The significance of those attacks has been “extremely underplayed in the public,” said Tom Hegel, a threat researcher at cybersecurity firm SentinelOne, because they caused little harm outside the direct victims of the attacks — often individuals or obscure cryptocurrency startups.
But some of the same techniques they’ve honed in targeting those firms could have been used to cause widespread digital disruption, say cybersecurity experts.
In April, researchers at cybersecurity firm Mandiant uncovered that North Korean hackers had pulled off the first publicly known instance of a “double” software supply-chain hack — jumping from one software maker into a second and from there to the company’s customers.
Mandiant assessed the hackers were after cryptocurrency. Had they wanted to, however, the North Koreans could have used tactics like that to inflict “a massive level of damage,” said SentinelOne’s Hegel.
What North Korea “is able to do on a global scale, no one has replicated,” added Mick Baccio, global security adviser at security firm Splunk.
Asked about her level of concern that North Korean hackers had grown more capable and could pivot to destructive activity, Neuberger acknowledged Pyongyang’s hackers are “capable, creative and aggressive.”
But she said the White House was confident the North Koreans are focused on stealing money or intellectual property that could be used for the country’s weapons programs. She also argued that cutting off the profitability of North Korea’s hacks is one of the best ways to deter them.
“The goal is to aggressively cut the profitability of the regime’s hacking,” she said.
North Korea’s proficiency in computer warfare has surprised onlookers for almost a decade now.
They famously burst onto the public consciousness in 2014, when Pyongyang’s operatives hacked into Sony Pictures Entertainment and threatened the movie studio against releasing “The Interview,” a raunchy comedy that portrayed the assassination of Kim Jong Un. Years later, in 2017, they unleashed a self-spreading computer virus that is estimated to have caused billions of dollars in damages in a matter of hours.
But in addition to the growing technical proficiency of North Korean hackers, it is the volume and variety of their activity that has recently alarmed onlookers.
In the last 18 months, U.S. intelligence agencies have warned that Pyongyang is targeting think tanks and academics to collect intelligence and staging ransomware attacks — in which they scramble victims’ data until they pay an extortion fee — against U.S. healthcare companies.
More recently, the Justice Department, FBI and Treasury Department have also accused Pyongyang of dispatching thousands of tech workers to Russia and China, where they secured remote IT jobs with global companies under a false identity, and then funneled their salaries back to the regime.
In one recent case that received little attention outside the region, North Korean hackers conspired with insiders at a South Korean data recovery company to bilk millions from unwitting victims of Pyongyang’s attacks.
Just a fraction of that money appears to have found its way back to Pyongyang, according to South Korean law enforcement. But the scheme dated back to 2017 and involved a variant of ransomware that was not previously linked to Pyongyang.
The case speaks to how creative the country has gotten at finding ways to avoid scrutiny and skirt international sanctions, said Erin Plante, vice president of investigations at Chainalysis.
“It shows that they’re always thinking outside the box, evolving and keeping up with the news in the same way we do, which is a little bit scary,” she said.
Michael Barnhart, a North Korea expert at cybersecurity firm Mandiant, said the scheme was reminiscent of several other operations the country’s hacking forces have pulled off in recent memory — some of which are not yet public.
The common theme, he argued, was how adept Pyongyang has become at mixing cyber operations with more traditional spying and money laundering tactics.
“This is a very, very well-organized criminal family,” he said.
POLITICO
Politico
8. After 3 years, Chinese who left during pandemic return to North Korea
After 3 years, Chinese who left during pandemic return to North Korea
About 70 Hwagyo will soon return to their homes; some were separated from family members.
By Ahn Chang Gyu for RFA Korean
2023.12.22
rfa.org
After about three years, dozens of Chinese residents of North Korea who left for China during the COVID-19 pandemic are set to return home, residents in China told Radio Free Asia.
Called Hwagyo in Korean, which means “overseas Chinese,” they are descendants of Chinese people who took up residence on the Korean peninsula prior to the founding of North and South Korea.
But they don’t have North Korean citizenship; they are officially citizens of the People’s Republic of China, though for the most part, their ancestors arrived in Korea prior to the government that now controls the Chinese mainland was established.
While their foreign status precludes them from certain rights available to North Korean citizens, their status as foreigners affords them certain privileges. For instance, they are able to travel to China and engage in cross-border business activities with more freedom.
During the pandemic, Beijing and Pyongyang closed down the Sino-Korean border and suspended all trade. Many Hwagyo at that point had lost their means of support and petitioned the North Korean government to allow them to leave for China where they might fare better.
But now the North Korean Embassy in Beijing and the consulate in Shenyang are receiving applications from people who want to return to their homes in North Korea.
“Last week, the North Korean Consulate General in Shenyang and the Dandong Consulate sent notice to the Hwagyo who applied to return to North Korea that they had been approved for entry,” a resident of Dandong, China, which lies across the Yalu River border from North Korea’s Sinuiju, told RFA Korean on Dec. 17, on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
He said about 70 Hwagyo were scheduled to return to North Korea on Friday by taking a bus across the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge, which connects Dandong to Sinuiju.
“Those returning to North Korea this time are Hwagyo from Pyongyang, South Pyongan Province, and North Pyongan Province,” he said.
Official statistics on the size of North Korea’s Hwagyo population are not public knowledge, but South Korea’s National Diplomatic Academy estimated in 2017 that there were around 5,000 living within the country that year.
Once the pandemic started much of the Hwagyo community decided to travel to China to weather the storm.
“The Hwagyo returning to North Korea will stop in Sinuiju to present flower baskets to the statues of [national founder] Kim Il Sung and [former leader] Kim Jong Il at Sinuiju square,” the Dandong resident said. “Each person paid 20 yuan (US$2.80) to prepare their flower basket.”
Those returning will not have to undergo quarantine procedures and should be allowed to return directly to their homes, he said.
“The Hwagyo who want to return are those who have wives and children in North Korea, or they may be worried about their houses that have been empty for a long time, or have certain difficulties living in China,” the Dandong resident said, adding that some of the Hwagyo might decide to remain in China for good.
The long ride home
Though many Hwagyo and their families are elated that they will soon be reunited after three long years, some complain that choosing Sinuiju on the western end of the Sino-Korean border will place undue hardship on those who live in the northern or eastern parts of the country, a resident of the city of Yanji, also in Jilin province, told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.
Sinuiju is an optimal hub for cross-border activities with China because it is connected by rail to major cities south of it, including the capital Pyongyang. Rail trips to northeastern cities like Chongjin, Rason or Hyesan require an initial trip south, then transferring several more times on lines going northeast or due east.
For those in North Hamgyong, South Hamgyong and Ryanggang provinces, the trip could take two to three days, and the train only runs once per every few days.
Additionally the Hwagyo returning after three years presumably would have a lot of luggage, the Yanji resident said.
“For this reason, it seems that almost no Hwagyo from North Hamgyong Province, South Hamgyong Province, or Ryanggang Province were included in this round of returns,” he said.
Most of the Hwagyo who left for China were from areas of the country close to the border, and the ones from these far-flung northeastern provinces simply crossed into China from areas closer to their home, he said. It is therefore likely that they will wait for a later return date, perhaps from a northeastern border city.
The Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang and the consulate in Chongjin handle a lot of consular services for Hwagyo in North Korea. Once the pandemic started, the consulate in Chongjin closed down, and only the embassy remained open. Hwagyo living in the northeast therefore do not have easy access to Chinese consular services.
“The biggest concern among these Hwagyo is whether North Korea will allow them to travel back and forth to China as freely as before,” he said, alluding to the fact that their livelihood is closely tied to their cross-border traveling privileges.
Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
rfa.org
9. AccessDPRK: Farming on the Frontier
Imagery at the link: https://mynorthkorea.blogspot.com/2023/12/farming-on-frontier.html
The AccessDPRK blog is dedicated to exposing North Korea via satellite imagery. Discussing domestic, economic and military locations and helping to uncover this hermit kingdom.
Farming on the Frontier
mynorthkorea.blogspot.com · by Jacob Bogle · December 23, 2023
North Korea shares 1,369.3 km of border with China and Russia. Predominately demarcated by the Yalu and Tumen rivers, the border regions are mountainous, with the available farmland often squeezed into thin strips or even onto islands that completely flood every few years.
With a few exceptions, such as the plains around Taehongdan and Onsong, farming in this region doesn't contribute significant amounts to the national food supply. However, they are important locally as are the forests which harbor herbs, mushrooms, and other plants used for food and in traditional medicines, and access to these lands provides additional income to local farmers and foragers.
But, the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic has placed that access at risk.
Through the construction of two layers of border fence, the land in between has become subjected to additional checkpoints, and many of the forests have become completely off limits.
Farmer and ox cart at the Migok Collective Farm (2008). Image source: Stephan (Flickr), CC BY-SA 2.0.
North Korea has attempted to secure the full border in the past but never succeeded in doing so until COVID-19. Using the pandemic as justification, even the most impassable parts of the border are now fenced off with over 1,000 km of new fencing and thousands of additional guard posts having been constructed.
Even in this mountainous region of North Pyongan Province, where the Yalu swells to over two kilometers wide in some spots, electrified fencing has been erected to prevent anyone from fleeing the country.
As seen in the next image, the double row of fencing cuts through not only mountainous regions but also through farmland, disrupting the typical flow of human activity in those areas.
Detail of the border fence. Location: 42.967323° 129.999220°
Sometimes those fences are separated by only a few meters but in other areas it can be as much as a kilometer. In total, over 260 sq. km. of farmland and forest lies between the two fences, cut off from easy access.
In this area, 17 sq. km. of land (highlighted in green) have been cut off by the two rows of fencing.
In other areas, the fences run much closer together. At the narrowest point in this image, they are only 60 meters apart.
The land that has always belonged to official farms continues to be cultivated, even in places where the fences are close together, but the secondary fence prevents farmers from easily accessing that land, placing an additional hardship on them. Furthermore, parts of the border are alleged to hold landmines and the placement of those mines could further complicate the farmers' relationship with the lands they're required to work.
Checkpoint example #1 at 42.540183° 130.443553°.
Checkpoint example #2 at 42.544376° 130.477298°.
Positioned along roads that pass through the secondary fence are small checkpoints to verify the identification of everyone that tries to enter the border region. Not all of the existing road network remains open, however, with the fence just cutting across the road, and closing it. By limiting the number of access points, North Korea can funnel activity through a more manageable number of fence crossings, increasing overall security.
However, the fence doesn't only impact official farms. Illegal plots of farmland (sotoji) have been an integral part of North Korea's black market economy for decades, and they play an important role in supporting local economies and supplementing local food supplies, with corn, cabbage, potatoes, and soybeans being common crops.
Although the land in between the fences (and the illegal farms it holds) no longer appear to be openly accessible, entry to the sotoji could still be possible by bribing checkpoint officers as bribery and corruption is already rife in North Korea. If bribes are required, however, that is yet one more slice of income taken away from farmers (who, in the case of sotoji, could be anyone from professional farmers, teachers, and miners, to retired persons).
If, however, access to the land has been permanently blocked and many or most of the fields are no longer cultivated, then that will have a direct impact on the many small villages and hamlets that can be found along the border region.
Examples of sotoji found within the fenced area. Location: 40.622524° 125.280157°
In this area (imaged above) northeast of Pyoktong, North Pyongan Province, sotoji comprise roughly half of the land with forests occupying the other half.
Nationwide, an estimated 550,000 hectares are suspected of being sotoji, and DailyNK estimated that some 20% of all grain grown in the country in 2007 came from these irregular farms. Of course, land use patterns evolve over time, but as Andrei Lankov wrote in 2011, "the percentage of land under the cultivation of sotoji owners roughly equals that under cultivation by state-run farms" in some counties that border China. And, indeed, numerous of these illegal plots can be found within the new border fence area.
Crop yields nationwide have struggled in the last few years, but there haven't been any studies yet that focus on the border area that might tell us how the sotoji have fared with the construction of the border fence.
Whether it's a border blockade cutting off cross-border trade and impacting the lives of thousands living in the villages and hamlets of the area, or whether it's the construction of scores of additional checkpoints between towns and counties, and even surrounding Pyongyang, the government has used the pandemic as an excuse to crack down on human movement in ways greater than ever before.
Unfortunately, the difficulties imposed by the dual-layer border fence system on local populations aren't likely to lessen as authorities continue to extend the state's power over the economy and the freedom of movement.
I would like to thank my current Patreon supporters who help make all of this possible: Alex Kleinman, Amanda Oh, Donald Pierce, Dylan D, Joe Bishop-Henchman, Jonathan J, Joel Parish, John Pike, Kbechs87, Russ Johnson, and Squadfan.
--Jacob Bogle, 12/22/2023
AccessDPRK.com
www.JacobBogle.com
Twitter.com/JacobBogle
mynorthkorea.blogspot.com · by Jacob Bogle · December 23, 2023
10. Korean ranks 2nd-most-coveted Asian language in US amid global popularity of K-pop
Graph at the link: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2023/12/281_365611.html
Korean ranks 2nd-most-coveted Asian language in US amid global popularity of K-pop
The Korea Times · December 22, 2023
A recent study conducted by Live the Language (LTL) Language School reveals that Korean is the second-most-searched-for Asian language per month in the United States, with an average search volume of 133,886. Courtesy of LTL Language School
By Kim Hyun-bin
A recent study, conducted by Live the Language (LTL) Language School, showed that the Korean language is the second-most-popular Asian language that Americans want to learn, shedding light on the growing interest and fascination with Korean culture.
The institute, specializing in teaching Asian languages, analyzed data from Google Keyword Planner to obtain the average monthly search volumes over the past 12 months in the United States.
While the Japanese language secured the top spot with an average monthly search volume of 170,927 on the back of its popularity due to the influence of anime and manga, the Korean language closely followed as the second-most desired among Americans, with an average monthly search volume of 133,886.
"The popularity of Korean culture, including K-dramas and K-pop — the so-called hallyu (Korean wave) — likely contributed to the significant interest in learning the language," the institute said in a release.
The increasing popularity of the Korean language, often linked to the worldwide success of K-pop, has been widely recognized. Nevertheless, the rare study represented meaningful and verifiable data that solidified the idea of a heightened interest in the Korean language.
Singer Jungkook of BTS performs on NBC's "Today" show at Rockefeller Center in New York City, Nov. 8. Reuters-Yonhap
The findings also align with a broader trend in the U.S., where education institutions increasingly offer Korean language programs to meet the growing demand, ranging from entertainment consumption to business and personal enrichment.
Mandarin, cited as one of the world's most widely spoken languages and one of the most difficult to learn, secured the third spot with an average monthly search volume of 52,745. The institute attributed the steady interest in learning Mandarin to China's continued prominent role on the global stage.
"The study underscores a growing trend in the United States, where individuals are increasingly drawn to the cultural richness and economic opportunities associated with learning Asian languages," said Max Hobbs, marketing director at LTL Language School.
The Korea Times · December 22, 2023
11. [WHY] Why does North Korea keep firing missiles?
Because it can?
Because it is all the regime can do?
Because it support their political warfare and blackmail diplomacy strategies while advancing their military capabilities?
But we should make no mistake that offering "sweeping" concessions in return for halting missile tests will be assessed by Kim that his political warfare and blackmail diplomacy strategies are successful.
Excerpts:
In his comments, Dalton noted that there is “no plausible option” to stop the testing “short of negotiations with North Korea to freeze its nuclear and missile activities.”
“The irony is that the longer the United States, South Korea and Japan sustain their denuclearization policy, the greater North Korea’s weapons capabilities become,” he added.
Short of sweeping concessions from either side, however, the North’s missile launches — and even the development of ICBMs — do not change the U.S. extended deterrence commitment to South Korea, according to Mount.
Saturday
December 23, 2023
dictionary + A - A
Published: 23 Dec. 2023, 08:00
[WHY] Why does North Korea keep firing missiles?
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2023-12-23/national/northKorea/WHY-Why-does-North-Korea-keep-firing-missiles/1942226
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, left, accompanied by his daughter Ju-ae, center, watches the launch of a Hwasong-18 solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in a drill at an undisclosed location in a photo released by the Rodong Sinmun on Tuesday. [NEWS1]
On Dec. 18 at 8:24 a.m., North Korea fired what it later said was a Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that reached an altitude of 6,518 kilometers (4,050 miles) as it flew around 1,000 kilometers over 73 minutes before landing in the East Sea.
But it’s not the first or even the 10th time the North has launched a ballistic missile this year.
Pyongyang has launched at least 36 missiles in 2023, including a rocket that carried its first spy satellite into orbit last month.
Some of these missiles included the liquid-fuel Hwasong-15 and Hwasong-17 ICBMs the regime had already tested the previous year when it launched more than 70 ballistic missiles — but they also included some new ones, including two Hwasong-18 solid-fuel ICBMs launched in April and July.
The ICBMs are not the only missiles in the North’s dizzying and growing arsenal, which include the KN-23, KN-24 and KN-25 short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) and its Pukguksong line of submarine-launched ballistic missiles, which are in various stages of development or deployment.
Experts have deliberated over the years whether the North’s missile launches, and particularly tests of ICBMs, were intended to extract economic concessions from South Korea and the United States in return for a halt to the launches or to force Washington to abandon its security commitment to Seoul by threatening the U.S. mainland.
But a growing consensus now is that the North’s missile launches are as much intended to advance the credibility of its deterrence capabilities as they are to achieve the regime’s stated foreign policy objective of forcing the United States to withdraw militarily from the Korean Peninsula.
Why is the North firing missiles at such a high frequency?
The language in Pyongyang’s propaganda regarding the North’s missiles suggests a deeper focus on demonstrating the regime’s ability to conduct successful launches with little notice.
In one such example from Feb. 18, the North’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency said the regime fired a Hwasong-15 ICBM in a “surprise launching drill,” which it emphasized was “suddenly organized without previous notice under an emergency firepower combat standby order given at dawn.”
The KCNA also said that the drill demonstrated Pyongyang’s ability to launch a “fatal nuclear counterattack on the hostile forces” and constituted “clear proof of the sure reliability of our powerful physical nuclear deterrent.”
Ankit Panda, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment’s Nuclear Policy Program, believes that the frequent missile launches belie a shift in their purpose from testing to focusing on the missiles’ reliability.
“We’ve seen the North Koreans move away from primarily testing missiles — that is, verifying if their technical performance is up to standards — and more broadly carrying out regular operational drills involving their missile systems,” he told the Korea JoongAng Daily.
“They do, of course, still carry out developmental tests for new weapons, but the frequency of exercises is much greater than in the past.”
Toby Dalton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Korea JoongAng Daily that while “there might be longer gaps between tests to evolve design and work on quality assurance” in a “typical testing and development program,” North Korea has done “an awful lot of testing in a short period of time, which raises questions about how much they’re learning from each test.”
Why so many different kinds of missiles?
One aspect of the North’s arsenal that often goes unaddressed is just how unusual — and expensive — such different kinds of missile development are for a regime as impoverished as Pyongyang.
According to a report issued by Seoul’s Korean Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA) in December last year, the total cost of the ballistic missiles launched by the North in 2022 is likely to have exceeded $560 million, which would have been more than enough to feed North Korea's population that year.
While SRBMs are the cheapest, the price for components per short-range missile still ranges between $3 million and $5 million, according to the KIDA.
By contrast, each ICBM launch likely costs Pyongyang between $20 million and $30 million, bringing the price tag of the North’s eight ICBM launches in 2022 to $240 million — only $10 million less than 50 SRBM launches that year.
“It is puzzling that the [North] has demonstrated such a range of systems,” says Adam Mount, senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, in an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily. “Normally, smaller powers will tend to prioritize a small handful of reliable systems to make the most of their resources. By contrast, the regime is demonstrating by not fully testing a wide range of advanced and even speculative systems.”
According to Mount, the North’s development of multiple missile systems could be aimed at “trying to complicate how the [South Korea-U. S.] alliance plans for the future, to limit the risk that some of these systems are compromised, or may just be trying to portray themselves as a sophisticated nuclear power.”
Dalton, who acknowledged that “clearly there are technology development aspects of the launches,” also said that some of the North’s missile systems “are unlikely to be built and go into the stockpile,” with many launches “presumably tied to demonstration and validation.”
Mount echoed this sentiment but added, “Even if some of these programs are abandoned, many will be completed and deployed. The arsenal will keep growing.”
What is the North’s intended message behind its ongoing missile spree?
While Pyongyang previously adopted moratoriums on missile launches in return for conciliatory overtures from Seoul and Washington, such as scaling down or ending joint exercises, comments by leader Kim Jong-un and other key members of the regime since 2020 suggest the North no longer regards its weapons programs as symbolic or as means of extracting concessions.
That attitude was underlined by Kim Yo-jong, Kim Jong-un’s powerful sister, who said that “no one barters their destiny for corn cake” as she rejected the South’s offer of wide-ranging economic aid in exchange for the North abandoning its weapons.
“North Korea has developed a doctrine and procedures for the use of nuclear and conventional weapons in battle theaters and now believes its security depends on these capabilities,” said Mount, referring to the regime’s formal adoption of a constitutional amendment enshrining its policy on nuclear weapons use in September last year.
In his speech regarding the law on Sept. 9, Kim Jong-un said that the country’s status as a nuclear weapons state was “irreversible” and that there will “never be any declaration of giving up our nukes or denuclearization” in future negotiations.
The law not only delineated Kim’s sole authority over decisions involving the use of nuclear weapons, but it also noted that “a nuclear strike shall be launched automatically and immediately” according to an “operation plan decided in advance” if the leader’s command and control “is placed in danger owing to an attack by hostile forces.”
“While Pyongyang clearly used its missile test programs in the past as a way to manipulate their relationship with Seoul and Washington, these programs are no longer political or symbolic,” Mount said, noting that the North’s missile arsenal is “diverse and sophisticated” and involves “testing a wide variety of systems with an eye on deployment.”
According to Dalton, the inherent messaging from Pyongyang through testing is to demonstrate its deterrence capabilities and the regime’s survivability in the event of war.
“What they’re saying is, ‘Our missiles are improving in accuracy, ability to penetrate missile defenses and survivability. Our readiness is high, and we’re prepared to use nuclear missiles according to our doctrine. Hostile policy from the United States and South Korea won’t force us to denuclearize, but rather drives us to achieve greater capability.”
According to Panda, the North’s missile testing is backed by “good military rationales” and is “simply part of augmenting their broader conventional and nuclear deterrence.”
“The North’s missile launches aren’t necessarily intended to provoke or otherwise draw a response from South Korea and the United States,” he said.
But while the North’s missile launches may be aimed at enhancing the credibility of its deterrence capabilities, the relative weakness of the North’s conventional forces — which have atrophied as the regime poured resources into its nuclear weapons and missile forces — could make it more determined to use nuclear weapons, and the means of delivering them, should armed hostilities break out.
“By far, the most alarming new weapons are the short-range nuclear-capable missiles, such as the KN-23, which has had the most extensive new test program,” said Mount.
Like the Russian Iskander SRBM system, the KN-23 flies in a quasi-ballistic trajectory, flattening out below an altitude of 50 kilometers, which could evade South Korean and U.S. missile defenses in a potential war on the peninsula.
“It's alarming because the regime’s security doesn’t depend on escalation control or preemption,” he said, adding, “The weapons show the regime has convinced itself that nuclear deterrence depends on nuclear warfighting. Of all the nuclear weapons in the world, the KN-23 is the most likely to be used.”
What can South Korea and the United States do to curb the North’s missile launches?
In think tank circles that cover security issues arising from Pyongyang’s pursuit of illicit weapons, the North has often been called the “Land of Lousy Options,” with only unpalatable or ineffectual choices left for consideration by leaders in Seoul and Washington who seek to rein in the regime’s weapons tests and launches.
“Without a great deal more diplomatic leverage, there is little Seoul or Washington can do to stop Pyongyang from launching missiles,” Mount said. “Building that leverage would mean offering more incentives and engagement than either country is willing to provide at this point.”
In his comments, Dalton noted that there is “no plausible option” to stop the testing “short of negotiations with North Korea to freeze its nuclear and missile activities.”
“The irony is that the longer the United States, South Korea and Japan sustain their denuclearization policy, the greater North Korea’s weapons capabilities become,” he added.
Short of sweeping concessions from either side, however, the North’s missile launches — and even the development of ICBMs — do not change the U.S. extended deterrence commitment to South Korea, according to Mount.
“American officials know that alliances expose the United States to some risk, but they also believe strongly that this alliance is in the country’s best interests and also the right thing to do,” he said, adding that “as the threat from North Korea rises, their resolve to defend both countries only strengthens further.”
Dalton noted that although “a North Korean ICBM changes the potential damage that the United States could receive, that potential has been there for decades, first with Russian and then Chinese nuclear missiles,” and that fears over decoupling are “baked into” extended deterrence relationships.
“In the event of a military conflict on the Korean Peninsula, the United States will be committed to the fight by virtue of U.S. forces present and involved,” Dalton said. “The single greatest commitment we can make on South Korea’s behalf is the continued stationing of large numbers of military personnel — that is the most important deterrent and the most important insurance against decoupling the alliance.”
BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]
12. Kim Jong-un's daughter seen wearing luxury fur coat
A fashion icon in the north.
Thursday
December 21, 2023
dictionary + A - A
Published: 21 Dec. 2023, 11:55
Updated: 21 Dec. 2023, 19:02
Kim Jong-un's daughter seen wearing luxury fur coat
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2023-12-21/national/northKorea/Kim-Jonguns-daughter-seen-wearing-luxury-fur-coat/1941325
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, right, accompanied by his daughter Kim Ju-ae, left, observe the test launch of the Hwasong-18 solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile on Monday, in this photo carried by the North Korean Central News Agency. [YONHAP]
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's daughter, Kim Ju-ae, was seen wearing a luxury pink fur coat on Monday during her visit to a missile launch facility with her parents, including her mother, Ri Sol-ju, in a photo carried by the North Korean Central News Agency.
Kim Ju-ae was previously seen wearing a Christian Dior hooded down jacket priced at $1,900 while observing another intercontinental ballistic missile test launch in March.
The brand of the coat, which appears to be made of mink fur, is not known yet.
The pictured coat was made using a horizontal sewing technique.
In the same picture, she was also seen wearing a black winter scarf with monogram patterns.
Kim Ju-ae wears a Christian Dior’s hooded down jacket priced at $1,900 in March at a missile test-launch site. [SCREEN CAPTURE]
Kim Ju-ae has been seen wearing luxury fashion items multiple times in past media reports.
Exporting luxury goods to North Korea has been banned under United Nations sanctions.
However, Kim Jong-un and his family have often been seen using luxury items, such as Kim Jong-un's Rolex and IWC watches and Mercedez-Benz vehicles.
They also include Ri Sol-ju and Kim Jong-un's sister Kim Yo-jong's Christian Dior handbags.
Related Article
BY HAN JEE-HYE [lee.soojung1@joongang.co.kr]
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
| 
