Quotes of the Days:

"To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection."

– Henri Poincare

“Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.”

– John Steinbeck

“You're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them-if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.”

~J.D. Salinger, “The Catcher in the Rye”

1.Triumph Of Democracy In South Korea – Analysis

2. North Korea’s Nuclear-Cognitive Warfare Strategy

3. Koreans cautious about U.S. strategic flexibility

4. South Korea offers to build five Aegis destroyers per year to help the US counter China at sea

5. Anti-American leftists could turn South Korea into the next Venezuela

6. Dozens sue Iran and North Korea, saying they sponsored terrorists

7. South Korea’s flourishing culture and teetering democracy

8. Separation of Powers Defeats Imperial Presidency in South Korea

9. U.S.–ROK Cooperation Can Shape the Nuclear Energy Market and Strengthen Nonproliferation

10. Capt. Lewis Millett Led America’s Last Bayonet Charge in Korea

11. North Korean guide hesitates to answer Kim Joo-ae’s question… Tourist: “Some sections seem staged”

12. Forgotten bosses: Women entrepreneurs in Korea's postwar economy

13. Chinese diplomat invokes Mao Zedong in vow not to 'back down' from US trade war

14. What Mao and the Korean War tell us about Chinese psyche in fight against Trump

15. Lee Jae-myung paints Korea as 'model democracy' in light of ex-president's ouster

16. Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon opts out of presidential race

17. Han Dong-hoon declares presidential bid, vows shorter term

1. Triumph Of Democracy In South Korea – Analysis

​This is a key point. The court did not rule these actions and activities did not take place. The court's decision rests on its assessment that they did not pose a national crisis. I suppose it is only a very serious crisis. But Koreans need to deal with these issues because while you can make the argument that the court is upholding democracy, these actions outlined below are undermining democracy.

Excerpt:

The key reasons behind the court’s decision to oust Yoon were impeachment motions and legislative actions by the National Assembly did not constitute a national crisis, violated the Assembly’s authority to exercise its power and infringed upon the military’s political neutrality, allegations of election frauds did not require military intervention, thereby undermining independence National Election Commission (NEC), and declared martial law without proper Cabinet deliberations and the National Assembly was not immediately notified, thereby not complying to the procedural requirements.

Triumph Of Democracy In South Korea – Analysis

eurasiareview.com · by Dr. Rajaram Panda · April 9, 2025

April 4, 2025 was a day when democracy triumphed in South Korea following the country’s Constitutional Court uphelding the impeachment of the country’s President Yoon Suk-yeol, removing him from office. In December 2024, Yoon had attempted to thwart the country’s National Assembly, which was obstructing his agenda, by declaring martial law. He censored the media and banned large gatherings, ordered troops and police to arrest opposition leaders and a leftist journalist.

Yoon thundered, “shoot, if necessary”. The spectre of return to the country’s violent, pre-democratic past loomed large. Fortunately, neither the army nor the police obeyed Yoon’s orders. A possible massacre was thus avoided. It may be recalled that the country was ruled by military dictators from 1961 to 1987. Having tasted democracy since then, the people and lawmakers were no longer willing to accept another spell of military rule. Legislators pushed past guns to vote down the declaration, and thousands of protesters filled the streets. Within six hours, Yoon was forced to call off his plan.

But within this short time, Yoon had done something utterly undemocratic. Mass protests continued throughout the winter, calling for Yoon’s arrest and prosecution. He was eventually impeached and indicted for crimes against the state. That was a meaningful step for a relatively new democracy but impeachment did not automatically lead to removal from office. That was the job of the nation’s Constitutional Court to decide. The court deliberated for two and a half months. Then on April 4, 2025, the justices ruled unanimously (8–0) in favour of Yoon’s ouster.

Outside the court, the scene was boisterous. While Yoon was cocooned in his house and thus out of public view, people invoked a metaphor of rebirth: new democratic spring is ushered. Removing Yoon from office was indeed a victory and triumph of democracy and the rejoicing was expected.

The Constitutional Court’s historic decision to remove Yoon from office was based on several key factors. His motives and the way he declared martial law on December 3, 2024 as well as his actions during his short-lived martial law imposition were either unconstitutional or lacked legal grounds. The court rejected Yoon’s claims that the imposition of martial law was merely a warning to his political opponents, that it was within his presidential authority and that it followed a legitimate Cabinet process. The eight-member panel unanimously upheld the impeachment motion against Yoon. It came 111 days after the National Assembly passed the impeachment motion and 123 days after Yoon declared martial law.

The key reasons behind the court’s decision to oust Yoon were impeachment motions and legislative actions by the National Assembly did not constitute a national crisis, violated the Assembly’s authority to exercise its power and infringed upon the military’s political neutrality, allegations of election frauds did not require military intervention, thereby undermining independence National Election Commission (NEC), and declared martial law without proper Cabinet deliberations and the National Assembly was not immediately notified, thereby not complying to the procedural requirements.

The court dismissed Yoon’s justification that imposing military rule was necessary to counter what he called a governance paralysis caused by opposition-led legislation and the impeachment of high-ranking officials. The justices ruled that at the time martial law was declared, the controversial bills had not yet taken effect and thus did not create an immediate crisis. The justices ruled that even if the Assembly’s actions were problematic for the president, such issues should have been addressed through constitutional procedures, not emergency military measures that lacked legal justification.

Yoon’s unlawful troop deployment also irked the judges. After declaring martial law, Yoon deployed hundreds of troops, including special operations forces, to the Assembly. Police blocked the entrance, forcing some lawmakers to climb over walls to enter the building. Yoon ordered military officials to forcibly remove lawmakers from the Chamber to prevent them from voting to lift martial law. The court ruled that these actions were unconstitutional. The court observed: “The Constitution and the Martial Law Act require that a state of emergency be declared only when there is a military necessity or a need to maintain public order and safety.” The ruling emphasized that using military force to obstruct the legislative process was unconstitutional, as it violated a constitutional provision granting the Assembly authority to request the lifting of martial law. It also infringed upon lawmakers’ rights to deliberation, voting and parliamentary immunity. Additionally, the military deployment was problematic as it infringed upon the military’s political neutrality.

The court also rejected Yoon’s argument that his declaration of martial law was necessary due to alleged election fraud and a lack of cooperation from the NEC in investigating the matter. Under the emergency military rule, dozens of soldiers were deployed to NEC offices under Yoon’s orders to look into the election watchdog’s servers. The judges ruled that martial law troop’s presence at the NEC offices amounted to “an unauthorised search and seizure without a warrant”, which violated the principle of warrant-based procedures and infringed on the independence of the election watchdog. The court noted that speculations on election integrity should have been addressed through political, and judicial means, not through the deployment of military forces.

The court also found that Yoon violated procedural requirements by failing to convene a formal Cabinet meeting before declaring martial law, which is a key legal step required by the Constitution. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and several ministers had testified that Yoon made the decision unilaterally after holding a brief meeting, without proper consultation. Based on these violations, the court came to the conclusion that Yoon had committed serious constitutional violations deserving impeachment, stating that he “abandoned his duty to uphold the Constitution and gravely betrayed the trust of the sovereign citizens of Korea.”

Yoon’s ouster marked the second consecutive impeachment of a conservative president after former President Park Geun-hye was removed from office in March 2017 over a corruption scandal.

By law, the next presidential election must be held within 60 days to fill the vacant post. Acting President Han Duck-soo is required to announce the date within 10 days. According to the NEC, the voting date can be set between May 24 and June 3. Given that the 2017 presidential election was held exactly 60 days after the ousting of former President Park Geun-hye, June 3 is likely to be the voting day.

eurasiareview.com · by Dr. Rajaram Panda · April 9, 2025

2. North Korea’s Nuclear-Cognitive Warfare Strategy

​Excerpts:

North Korea’s nuclear-cognitive warfare presents strategic dilemmas for the ROK-US alliance and poses significant challenges to their efforts to deter and respond to North Korea’s nuclear threats. Beyond simply deterring and countering North Korea’s nuclear coercion, the alliance must now prepare for this evolved form of nuclear coercion by strengthening cognitive resilience and trust within decision-making structures and among the public. It will also be necessary to target North Korea’s cognitive domain.

In particular, the two allies must now make efforts beyond simply verifying and correcting misinformation after the fact. Instead, they must focus on identifying, protecting, and strengthening the basic targets of nuclear-cognitive warfare. Enhancing the credibility and effectiveness of extended deterrence, which serves as the cornerstone of the ROK-US alliance’s response to North Korea’s nuclear threats, remains one of the most fundamental countermeasures to nuclear-cognitive warfare.

The two allies’ efforts to strengthen US extended deterrence following the 2023 Washington Declaration and the establishment of the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) are particularly significant in this context. These initiatives aim to overcome the inherent limitations of extended deterrence by enhancing information sharing, joint consultations, planning, and execution, thereby reinforcing mutual trust across all domains. In scenarios involving nuclear-cognitive warfare, alliance cohesion and trust will be particularly decisive.

North Korea’s Nuclear-Cognitive Warfare Strategy

By: Hanbyeol Sohn and Changwoo Kang

April 10, 2025

https://www.38north.org/2025/04/north-koreas-nuclear-cognitive-warfare-strategy/?utm

The inauguration of President Trump’s second term has given rise to much speculation about the prospects of reengagement between the United States and North Korea. However, even if dialogue resumes between the two countries as Trump hopes, it is unlikely to lead to substantial progress on denuclearization. Instead, Kim Jong Un is more likely to try to secure a dominant position on the Korean Peninsula, with few concessions on the nuclear front in the process.

South Korea (Republic of Korea or ROK) has thus far focused on North Korean nuclear threats, and for good reason. North Korea has continuously advanced its nuclear technology through nuclear tests and missile launches, enacted the new “Policy on the Nuclear Forces” in September 2022, and conducted operational training for nuclear units. This helped the country establish military readiness and pursue a relative military advantage on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea’s intent appears to be to leverage the nuclear imbalance between the two Koreas to coerce the ROK-US alliance in various scenarios, from peacetime to wartime, to achieve its goals. The South Korean and US authorities have assessed North Korea’s above-cited actions as being aligned with its longer-term nuclear development roadmap or as part of a strategy to gain short-term leverage.

It is unlikely, however, that North Korea’s nuclear coercion will be limited to extracting short-term, direct, and limited concessions. As the cognitive domain emerges as a new battlefield, North Korea may actively employ its nuclear weapons in cognitive warfare. The aim would be to induce errors and distortions in the cognitive processes of decision-makers in South Korea and the United States, focusing on generating decisions and actions favorable to North Korea’s strategy. Pyongyang could reap long-term and comprehensive benefits by going beyond using nuclear weapons as a tool of military coercion and integrating psychological, information, and cyber warfare.

This article explores North Korea’s evolving strategy of nuclear-cognitive warfare, which combines traditional nuclear coercion with the manipulation of cognitive processes to influence decision-making. It explains how North Korea uses nuclear threats and non-kinetic warfare to distort perceptions and undermine the decision-making frameworks of South Korea and the United States. By targeting key groups—such as the general public, the ROK-US alliance, and nuclear decision-makers—North Korea aims to create fear, disrupt alliances, and paralyze nuclear decision-making processes. North Korea’s nuclear-cognitive warfare presents strategic dilemmas for the alliance and poses significant challenges to the efforts of Seoul and Washington to deter and respond to North Korea’s nuclear threats. The alliance must now prepare for this evolved form of nuclear coercion, going beyond simply deterring and countering the North’s nuclear coercion.

Nuclear-Cognitive Warfare

In essence, nuclear coercion and cognitive warfare are not entirely separate. Both nuclear coercion and nuclear-cognitive warfare are strategic concepts that leverage nuclear weapons to alter the adversary’s perception. However, nuclear coercion aims to compel or deter an adversary’s actions by using or suggesting the possibility of using nuclear weapons. This involves threats of nuclear use, heightened readiness, and the creation of fear as key methods and tools. Pyongyang’s nuclear tests and missile launches, intended for political messaging to the international community, are part of its nuclear coercion strategy.

On the other hand, nuclear-cognitive warfare involves manipulating or distorting perceptions of nuclear weapons to disrupt adversaries’ judgment, decision-making, and response strategies. It aims to secure strategic advantage by disturbing the adversary’s decision-making framework and rational judgment. Forms of cognitive warfare attacks, such as information manipulation, narrative control, and decision interference, are directly applicable to this strategy, with nuclear weapons being a primary target and tool.

Nuclear-cognitive warfare signifies the integration of nuclear weapons and cognitive warfare. The union of nuclear weapons, which demonstrate immense physical destructive power, and the cognitive domain represents a sophisticated and powerful form of hybrid warfare. While nuclear coercion is a basic form of cognitive warfare that uses the threat of nuclear weapons to deter or compel an adversary’s action, from the perspective of cognitive warfare, nuclear weapons are the most effective means of crafting messaging that shapes perceptions.

In this context, nuclear-cognitive warfare may take place in four stages:

• Existential nuclear coercion: This stage relies on the destructive power of nuclear weapons to achieve existential coercion. Merely possessing nuclear weapons deters rash physical attacks, representing the foundational level of nuclear-cognitive warfare.
• Nuclear narratives: An actor develops sophisticated messaging related to nuclear weapons to access the cognitive domain, with advanced cyber technologies playing a critical role.
• Integration into multi-domain operations: Nuclear-cognitive warfare becomes a core element of hybrid warfare at this stage, linking and integrating physical and non-physical operations.
• Operations within the cognitive domain: The focus shifts to conducting military operations within the cognitive domain, with nuclear weapons serving as enablers or facilitators of effective cognitive warfare.

Although this classification is somewhat broad, several key features emerge. First, the focus shifts from the physical to the non-physical domain. The emphasis transitions from leveraging the destructive power of nuclear weapons to alter physical military behavior to gaining access to the cognitive domain and conducting military operations within it. Second, there is an evolution from propaganda to influence operations. Initially, specific messaging based on nuclear threats is developed; later, this evolves to dominate the adversary’s cognitive territory. Third, achieving narrative superiority requires increasingly sophisticated and advanced planning, with higher stages necessitating enhanced command, control, integration, and coordination.

North Korea’s Strategy for Nuclear-Cognitive Warfare

Nuclear-cognitive warfare is likely to become one of the most effective military tools in North Korea’s future strategy against South Korea. North Korea is expected to enhance its nuclear-cognitive warfare capabilities to instill fear, despair, and helplessness among the South Korean public, disrupt and dismantle military command structures, and undermine the cohesion of the ROK-US alliance. To achieve these goals, North Korea will likely develop more sophisticated doctrines for nuclear-cognitive warfare.

Objectives and Concepts of Nuclear-Cognitive Warfare

Nuclear-cognitive warfare is expected to evolve by combining the characteristics of cognitive warfare with conventional nuclear coercion. North Korea’s likely goal in nuclear-cognitive warfare appears to be to influence the ROK-US decision-making system to delay, disrupt, or disable decision-making, thereby compelling the acceptance of North Korea’s demands. Target groups may include decision-making entities involved in nuclear policy, governments, and militaries forming the ROK-US alliance, and the general populace in South Korea and the United States.

The means of nuclear-cognitive warfare extend beyond physical tools of nuclear coercion to include non-physical means such as cyber warfare, information warfare, and psychological operations. The intensification of non-physical means, including the manipulation of human cognitive biases, distinguishes nuclear-cognitive warfare from traditional nuclear coercion. An advanced form of nuclear coercion, nuclear-cognitive warfare involves leveraging non-physical tools to create distortion and errors in adversary cognition. Given North Korea’s prior use of traditional media, social networks, and other tools for cyber-psychological operations against the international community, it is plausible that new scientific and technological tools will also be employed. In particular, rapidly advancing artificial intelligence technologies, such as generative AI platforms and troll bots, could become integral to nuclear-cognitive warfare.

Capabilities Required for Nuclear-Cognitive Warfare

Nuclear-cognitive warfare is a form of cognitive warfare that only states possessing nuclear weapons can conduct. Therefore, a state’s development and capabilities of nuclear weapons are of primary importance for conducting nuclear-cognitive warfare. Additionally, ensuring the survivability of nuclear forces and maintaining second-strike capability are critical. Beyond nuclear hardware, the cyber domain is a significant avenue for accessing adversarial cognition. As such, cyber warfare capabilities must be assessed as a core component of nuclear-cognitive warfare. Finally, specialized organizations that focus on propaganda and messaging — in North Korea’s case that would be the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Workers Party of Korea Central Committee — will play a crucial role in developing sophisticated narratives.

Three Strategic Approaches

According to the operational concepts of nuclear-cognitive warfare, North Korea’s strategic approaches to nuclear-cognitive warfare may be divided along the lines of three main target groups.

1. Inducing Fear and Anxiety Among the General Public

In this scenario, North Korea would aim to ensure that its nuclear threats are perceived as credible by South Korea and the United States. To achieve this, it would seek to instill fear and anxiety by manipulating public perceptions of its nuclear capabilities, intent to use them, and scenarios in which they may be employed. Pyongyang often fabricates or exaggerates its nuclear capabilities (nuclear bluffing) and overstates its resolve to use them against its adversaries. Once the public is exposed to false information, cognitive biases, such as the “anchoring effect,” can cause initial impressions to persist, and it may take time to correct those misperceptions.

Given the sensitivity of nuclear issues, certain information may not be shared even between the United States and South Korea, which North Korea can exploit to manipulate public sentiment. By heightening public anxiety, North Korea will aim to foster anti-government, anti-US, and anti-war sentiment. It could significantly amplify the effects of nuclear-cognitive warfare by targeting influential organizations, institutions, or individuals. Such actions combine conventional nuclear coercion with rudimentary nuclear-cognitive warfare aimed at reinforcing the credibility of North Korea’s nuclear threats to the general publics of the United States and South Korea.

Several examples illustrate this tactic. North Korea claimed to have dropped a strategic cruise missile near the waters off Ulsan in November 2022, though South Korea denied this. Similarly, in February 2023, it reported testing four Hwasal-2 strategic cruise missiles. Again, South Korean authorities dismissed these claims as false. In another case, North Korea in March 2022 claimed to have successfully launched a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), but the South Korean Ministry of Defense said it was actually the Hwasong-15. This was apparently a deception intended to confuse the international community. North Korea has also exaggerated its multi-warhead technology, hypersonic technology, and multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV) capabilities, presenting them as more advanced than they really are.

1. Weakening the Cohesion of the ROK-US Alliance

Here, North Korea would be targeting the ROK-US alliance, specifically the governments and militaries. North Korea would seek to exploit vulnerabilities in these two countries’ nuclear policies and strategies to erode mutual trust between the two allies.

Pyongyang’s primary focus would be on the weaknesses of extended deterrence, the cornerstone of ROK-US nuclear cooperation. North Korea would persistently instill doubt in the South Korean government, military, and public about US willingness to use nuclear weapons and its potential rollback of extended deterrence in a contingency. Because extended deterrence depends on mutual trust, North Korea would aim to identify and attack cognitive vulnerabilities related to alliance credibility. For example, in response to the Washington Declaration issued in 2023, Kim Jong Un’s sister Kim Yo Jong dismissed the agreement as a “reckless statement from an old man” while ridiculing South Korea for being grateful to the United States for a “nominal declaration.” Similarly, North Korea’s weekly propaganda journal, Tongil Sinbo, argued that the United States would never risk its homeland or overseas bases for South Korea, likening America’s commitment to a disposable tissue that would be discarded in times of crisis.

Secondly, North Korea is expected to exploit the ambiguities of US nuclear policies. The United States maintains strategic ambiguity regarding its nuclear operations, which can undermine allies’ trust in extended deterrence and its effective implementation. North Korea could disseminate various statements and narratives to foster distrust and discord within the ROK-US alliance using this ambiguity. In a commentary, for example, North Korea asserted that the United States aimed to “turn the whole of South Korea into its biggest nuclear war outpost in the Far East and effectively use it for attaining its strategy for dominating the world,” reflecting its continued efforts to drive a wedge between South Korea and the United States.

1. Disrupting Nuclear Decision-Making Processes

North Korea’s nuclear-cognitive warfare would also seek to disrupt the decision-making processes of the United States and South Korea. This involves a few approaches:

• Spreading disinformation: North Korea uses disinformation and information overload to delay decision-making and create confusion. Disinformation campaigns force Seoul and Washington to verify facts and explain them to the public, consuming resources and time. Additionally, North Korea selectively disseminates favorable information to itself to skew South Korean and US focus, impacting their nuclear decision-making process.
• Creating divergent threat perceptions: North Korea attempts to create discrepancies in South Korean and US threat perceptions. For instance, while Seoul perceives North Korea’s short-range missiles and tactical nuclear weapons as immediate existential threats, the United States prioritizes intercontinental ballistics missiles (ICBMs) and MIRVs, which could target its homeland. North Korea’s actions are designed to ensure the two allies interpret threats differently, weakening their coordinated response.
• Exploiting differences in response strategies: North Korea seeks to highlight the domestic and international political burdens of nuclear use for the United States, such as risks of escalation, civilian casualties, and strategic overreach. These narratives aim to pressure US leaders into hesitating or avoiding direct involvement in Korean Peninsula crises. At the same time, North Korea frames the United States as unreliable, suggesting that South Korea would bear the brunt of North Korean retaliation and thereby fostering doubts in Seoul about alliance solidarity.

Implications for the ROK-US Alliance

North Korea’s nuclear-cognitive warfare presents strategic dilemmas for the ROK-US alliance and poses significant challenges to their efforts to deter and respond to North Korea’s nuclear threats. Beyond simply deterring and countering North Korea’s nuclear coercion, the alliance must now prepare for this evolved form of nuclear coercion by strengthening cognitive resilience and trust within decision-making structures and among the public. It will also be necessary to target North Korea’s cognitive domain.

In particular, the two allies must now make efforts beyond simply verifying and correcting misinformation after the fact. Instead, they must focus on identifying, protecting, and strengthening the basic targets of nuclear-cognitive warfare. Enhancing the credibility and effectiveness of extended deterrence, which serves as the cornerstone of the ROK-US alliance’s response to North Korea’s nuclear threats, remains one of the most fundamental countermeasures to nuclear-cognitive warfare.

The two allies’ efforts to strengthen US extended deterrence following the 2023 Washington Declaration and the establishment of the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) are particularly significant in this context. These initiatives aim to overcome the inherent limitations of extended deterrence by enhancing information sharing, joint consultations, planning, and execution, thereby reinforcing mutual trust across all domains. In scenarios involving nuclear-cognitive warfare, alliance cohesion and trust will be particularly decisive.

3. Koreans cautious about U.S. strategic flexibility

​Korea must get over this and understand the US cannot be focused on single discreet threats.  

Professor Robertson provides us with some useful historical perspective to help us understand the Korean concerns. 

Of course we must understand their concerns but we have to focus on all US national security interests, of which Korea is an important one but not the only one. More importantly we must understand that the threats and challenges are now more than ever interrelated and interconnected and that requires us to take a holistic approach that includes each separate problem considered together and not separately. The US must do this, but so must Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and Australia. 

Koreans (and all allies) cannot assess an action by the US with another country or in another region as prioritizing that over the defense of Korea. They cannot judge every action as somehow being a reduction of the US commitment to the COMBINED defense of Korea. We should be strengthening the understanding and application of the 1953 Mutual Defense Treaty because it actually provides the foundation for the holistic appreciation of and application of strategy beyond the Korean peninsula. 

ARTICLE II

The Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of either of them, the political independence or security of either of the Parties is threatened by external armed attack. Separately and jointly, by self help and mutual aid, the Parties will maintain and develop appropriate means to deter armed attack and will take suitable measures in consultation and agreement to implement this Treaty and to further its purposes.

ARTICLE III

Each Party recognizes that an armed attack in the Pacific area on either of the Parties in territories now under their respective administrative control, or hereafter recognized by one of the Parties as lawfully brought under the administrative control of the other, would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional processes.

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/kor001.asp

Commentary

Koreans cautious about U.S. strategic flexibility

To many Koreans strategic flexibility doesn’t mean mobility, it means vulnerability.

https://www.junotane.com/p/koreans-cautious-about-us-strategic-flexibility?r=7i07&utm

Apr 12, 2025

Washington under Biden, and now under Trump, are placing increased emphasis on “strategic flexibility” - the ability to deploy U.S. forces based in Korea to respond to regional or global contingencies.

Many Koreans are deeply uneasy about what this means for their country’s future. To them, strategic flexibility doesn’t just mean mobility. It means vulnerability.

Strategic flexibility raises the fear that the next great-power war might once again be fought on Korean soil.

At the heart of this concern is a deep historical awareness. Korea has repeatedly been the site of major conflicts between foreign powers - wars which Koreans neither started nor controlled, but which devastated their land and people more than any of the foreign actors involved.

The First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), and the Korean War (1950–1953) were all launched by imperial powers vying for influence over Korea, but in each case, it was Koreans who bore the brunt of the destruction. This legacy of being used as a strategic chessboard continues to shape South Korean public opinion today.

Share Junotane Korea

In this context, strategic flexibility raises a fundamental question: Whose strategy is being served, and at whose expense?

While U.S. officials present flexibility as a means of deterring aggression and responding to threats across the Indo-Pacific — including crises involving China or Taiwan — many Koreans worry that this doctrine ties their country to any conflict the U.S. chooses to enter.

If American forces in Korea are mobilized to intervene in a regional war, would South Korea have a choice in the matter? Would it be seen as a co-belligerent by China? And more worryingly, would Korea become the first target in a retaliatory strike?

These are not hypothetical fears. Koreans are acutely aware of their geographic position — a peninsula neighbouring China, Russia, and North Korea, and within missile range of Beijing, Vladivostok, and Pyongyang. History points to the role of geography linking Korea to the region.

Taiwan and Korea were first linked at the start of the Cold War. In the late 1940s, China was ready to invade Taiwan. The confrontation in Korea, and China’s subsequent involvement, delayed and ultimately shelved Chinese plans. It’s absurd to think that any future conflict in Taiwan would not inherently involve action on the Korean Peninsula.

A conflict between the U.S. and China today would quickly draw the Korean Peninsula into the crossfire. U.S. military bases in places like Pyeongtaek or Osan would be seen as legitimate targets by America’s adversaries, regardless of South Korea’s formal stance in the conflict.

Unless there is a significant change in the Korea-U.S. alliance, Taiwan and Korea are linked. That is the dark promise of strategic flexibility: that American troops might launch a war from Korean soil, and it is Koreans who will suffer the consequences.

This concern is magnified by the ambiguity surrounding how much say Seoul has in such decisions. Although there was a bilateral understanding reached in 2006, clarifying that South Korea would not automatically be involved in all U.S. military operations launched from its territory, many analysts and citizens remain sceptical.

In the fog of war, legal agreements and diplomatic niceties often fall by the wayside. Once American troops in Korea are committed to a broader regional fight, South Korea will be drawn in — whether it likes it or not.

This isn't simply a matter of national pride or political independence. It's a matter of survival. South Korea is a densely populated, technologically advanced society with everything to lose in a major war. Think the before and after photos of Kherson or Gaza look bad? A conflict on the Korean Peninsula would make them look like the before and after of a Sunday school picnic.

While U.S. strategists may see Korea as a useful staging ground, Koreans increasingly wonder whether they are being asked to act as a buffer once again — a familiar role with a tragic history.

One of the most bitter lessons of the 20th century for many Koreans is that great powers do not fight on their own territory if they can avoid it. They fight on someone else's land — and Korea has too often been that land. In this sense, strategic flexibility does not feel like a shield. It feels like a magnet, attracting conflict instead of deterring it.

That’s why the debate around strategic flexibility isn’t just a technical or military issue in South Korea. It’s an existential one. It touches on historical trauma, national identity, and fears of abandonment or entrapment.

Strategic flexibility will not be debated in the presidential election period - the conservatives can’t use it to politically wedge the progressives because it could potentially backfire, and the progressives in any case will play along as they have in every other election.

Yet, under the surface, dissatisfaction with the concept of strategic flexibility is growing. Sooner or later, that dissatisfaction will transform into policy action - and Trump’s “package deal” will likely hasten this.

It’s not that Koreans reject the alliance with the United States — far from it. They just want assurance that their country will not, once again, be treated as a battleground for others' wars - and the U.S. cannot give this assurance.

Strategic flexibility remains a deeply contested concept — one that many Koreans view not as a promise of strength, but as a threat of repetition.

4. South Korea offers to build five Aegis destroyers per year to help the US counter China at sea

​Great news if accurate and if we accept it. 

We need a JAROKUS (Japan, ROK, US) shipbuilding consortium. 

South Korea offers to build five Aegis destroyers per year to help the US counter China at sea

armyrecognition.com · by Jérôme Brahy

• Naval News Navy 2025

As reported by Chosun on March 18, 2025, South Korea’s HD Hyundai Heavy Industries (HD HHI) hosted a handover ceremony at its Ulsan headquarters for Jeongjo the Great, the lead vessel of Korea’s next-generation Aegis destroyers. During the event, HD HHI stated that it can build up to five Aegis destroyers per year for the U.S. Navy if bilateral cooperation is formalized, and that it is prepared to expand this capacity further depending on demand. The company emphasized that these Aegis destroyers are equivalent in size and performance to the U.S. Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class. This announcement comes as the United States faces structural limitations in its domestic shipbuilding sector, where the number of shipyards has declined from over 400 to fewer than 30.

Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link

The combined output of the only U.S. shipyards currently capable of building Aegis destroyers remains below the Navy’s stated requirement of at least three Arleigh Burke-class destroyers annually, as their combined output is around 1.6 to 1.8 ships per year. (Picture source: US Navy)

South Korea’s HD Hyundai Heavy Industries is positioning itself as a strategic partner in the evolving U.S. naval shipbuilding landscape, as the United States seeks to ramp up ship production in response to China’s maritime expansion. To date, HD HHI remains the only South Korean company capable of both designing and constructing Aegis destroyers. It built five of the six such ships acquired by the South Korean Navy, including the first, Sejong the Great. It is also the only domestic shipyard with a dedicated combat system integration team capable of incorporating and testing the Aegis Combat System, one of the most complex and critical components of modern warships. More than 250 engineers at HD HHI are qualified to design and build Aegis destroyers with performance levels matching those of U.S.-built equivalents. The company claims that South Korea can construct Aegis destroyers with the same capabilities as the U.S. Navy’s Arleigh Burke class at a more competitive cost and within two-thirds of the time required by American shipyards. This statement coincides with growing discourse within American defense circles about leveraging allied shipbuilding capabilities amid the declining capacity of the domestic shipbuilding base.

HD HHI’s confidence in its potential contribution stems from the fact that its Ulsan facility is currently engaged in the simultaneous construction of 12 surface vessels, including offshore patrol vessels and corvettes for the Philippine Navy, demonstrating high throughput across both domestic and export-oriented projects. The potential opening of the U.S. naval shipbuilding market—long protected by national security laws and the Jones Act—could create significant opportunities for foreign shipyards. According to a report by Korea’s trade promotion agency KOTRA, the U.S. Navy plans to acquire 364 ships over the next three decades, requiring an annual construction rate of 12 ships. The core rationale for this expansion is to maintain parity with, or exceed, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), which is rapidly growing in both size and technological sophistication. Experts estimate that China could field more than 400 modern surface combatants before 2030, challenging the current supremacy of the U.S. Navy.

Jeong Woo-man, Vice President of HD HHI's Special Ship Business Unit, recently emphasized that the company's dedicated destroyer dock alone can produce at least one Arleigh Burke-class equivalent vessel per year, and could expand production to five annually if cooperation with the U.S. proceeds. He further stated that HD HHI has room to increase capacity even beyond this target. The company is also considering broader engagement with the U.S. defense market through participation in the Navy’s maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) efforts. It aims to win two to three MRO pilot contracts this year and intends to help develop standardized procedures for the future sustainment of U.S. naval vessels.

Equipped with the Aegis Combat System, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers can carry out multi-mission operations, including air defense, missile defense, anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, and land attack. (Picture source: US Navy)

HD HHI's historical achievements lend further weight to its proposal. The company delivered Sejong the Great to the Republic of Korea Navy in 2008 as South Korea’s first Aegis destroyer, having also led its design. In November 2024, it delivered the lead ship of the new Jeongjo the Great-class on time, reinforcing its reputation for meeting project schedules. Construction on the second and third ships of the class continues. Earlier in 2024, HD HHI Vice Chairman Chung Ki-sun introduced the company’s naval production facilities and ongoing projects to U.S. Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, signaling an intention to deepen cooperation.

Looking ahead, HD HHI continues to scale its facilities in Ulsan, converting commercial docks into military production zones and investing in engineering capacity to meet growing international demand. As the Aegis Combat System continues to evolve—supporting the latest Standard Missile variants, integrating AN/SPY-6 radars, and increasingly serving as a platform for ballistic missile defense—the industrial base capable of supporting these platforms must evolve as well. Whether the United States opts to integrate HD HHI into its naval expansion plan remains uncertain, but the Korean firm’s readiness to participate in large-scale production offers a compelling option at a time of intensifying strategic competition.

The Aegis Combat System is an integrated naval weapons system developed by Lockheed Martin for use on U.S. Navy and allied surface combatants. The system is centered around the AN/SPY-1 passive electronically scanned array radar, the MK 99 Fire Control System, the Weapon Control System, and the Command and Decision Suite. Upgrades such as the Multi-Mission Signal Processor (MMSP), Aegis Baseline 9 and 10 software, and the AN/SPY-6 radar have expanded its capability to engage more complex threats, including maneuverable and hypersonic targets. As of early 2025, 114 Aegis-equipped ships are operational, with 72 additional vessels planned. The system is in service with six allied navies: Japan, Australia, Canada, South Korea, Spain, and Norway.

To date, HD HHI remains the only South Korean shipyard with a dedicated combat system integration team capable of incorporating and testing the Aegis Combat System, one of the most complex and critical components of modern warships. (Picture source: HD HHI)

Equipped with the Aegis Combat System, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers can carry out multi-mission operations, including air defense, missile defense, anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, and land attack. The system allows these destroyers to detect and engage multiple threats simultaneously, including cruise and ballistic missiles, at extended ranges and in highly contested environments. With the introduction of the latest software baselines and radars such as the AN/SPY-1D(V) and AN/SPY-6, these destroyers can now track hypersonic threats and perform simultaneous engagements using missiles like the SM-3 for exoatmospheric intercepts and SM-6 for terminal defense. Recent tests, including FTX-40 involving USS Pinckney, demonstrate that the class can virtually engage a hypersonic medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) target, confirming the Aegis’ evolving performance against next-generation missile threats.

However, since the commissioning of the USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) in 1991, the production and delivery rates of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers have varied depending on U.S. Navy procurement decisions, budget allocations, and shipyard output. During the 1990s and early 2000s, the delivery rate typically ranged between two and three ships per year, supported by General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works and Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Ingalls Shipbuilding. The highest annual delivery occurred in 2000, when five ships—DDG-85 through DDG-89—were delivered. The lowest rate was recorded in 2012, with the delivery of only one vessel, USS Michael Murphy (DDG-112), during a period when the Navy had shifted focus to the Zumwalt-class program. Production resumed in 2013 under the "IIA Restart" phase, beginning with DDG-113, followed by the "Technology Insertion" batch and the introduction of the Flight III variant. From 2018 to 2022, the Navy procured two ships per year, a rate planned to continue through 2027 under the current multi-year procurement strategy.

Despite these efforts, the combined output of General Dynamics and Huntington Ingalls Industries—the only U.S. shipyards currently capable of building Aegis destroyers—remains below the Navy’s stated requirement of at least three Arleigh Burke-class destroyers annually. Their combined output of around 1.6 to 1.8 ships per year does not align with this requirement. In contrast, South Korea's HD HHI maintains the engineering workforce and dock capacity necessary to exceed that rate. The company has stated that even under current constraints, its specialized dock for destroyers could deliver at least one ship per year compatible with U.S. Navy standards, and that this number could grow to five if a bilateral program is established.

From 2018 to 2022, the US Navy procured two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers per year, a rate planned to continue through 2027. (Picture source: US Navy)

Against this backdrop, HD HHI has expanded its efforts to penetrate the U.S. defense market. In February 2025, it partnered with Hanwha Ocean under a government-led initiative to form a “warship export one-team,” with HD HHI focusing on surface vessels and Hanwha Ocean on submarines. This strategic alignment aims to increase Korea’s competitiveness in global markets and improve the odds of successful exports to the United States. Furthermore, HD HHI has begun laying the groundwork to participate in the U.S. Navy’s MRO sector, targeting two to three demonstration projects this year. Should market access widen, it could unlock opportunities not only for major contractors but also for small- and medium-sized suppliers within South Korea’s broader naval ecosystem.

Nevertheless, HD HHI’s ambitions may face legal and political obstacles in the United States. According to 10 U.S.C. § 8679, the Department of Defense is prohibited from awarding contracts for the construction of naval vessels or major components of their hulls or superstructures in foreign shipyards, with exceptions only under a presidential waiver for national security interests. Additionally, the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, known as the Jones Act, mandates that vessels operating between U.S. ports be built in the United States, further limiting the role of foreign shipbuilders in U.S. naval construction. These legal constraints, combined with a risk-averse culture within the Navy and bureaucratic procurement processes, have contributed to delays and inefficiencies in shipbuilding.

While intended to safeguard national security and maintain a robust shipbuilding industry, these laws have also contributed to higher construction costs and limited production capacity. Over time, this has led to a decline in the number of operational shipyards and a reduced workforce, with the merchant marine workforce decreasing from approximately 50,000 in 1960 to fewer than 10,000 today. Consequently, the U.S. Navy has faced challenges in meeting its shipbuilding goals, with significant delays and cost overruns in major programs. For instance, the construction of Virginia-class submarines has experienced delays of two to three years, and the Constellation-class frigate program is five years behind schedule. These issues have been exacerbated by workforce shortages, bureaucratic inefficiencies, and a risk-averse culture within the Navy. As a result, the U.S. Navy's shipbuilding capacity has diminished, with production reaching its lowest point in 25 years—raising concerns about its ability to maintain readiness and compete with other nations, notably China.

Some voices on social media and in defense circles remain skeptical about outsourcing warship construction, but others argue that collaboration with trusted allied shipyards—particularly those in South Korea and Japan—is becoming strategically necessary. These countries possess advanced shipbuilding industries capable of producing high-quality naval vessels efficiently and at lower costs. Recent developments include South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean completing repairs on the USNS Wally Schirra, marking the first time a South Korean shipyard has conducted such work for the U.S. Navy. Additionally, U.S. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro has expressed openness to having foreign shipyards assemble certain U.S. Navy warship modules overseas to increase domestic production rates. These steps indicate a potential shift in policy, acknowledging that collaboration with allied shipbuilders could be essential to meeting the Navy's fleet expansion goals and countering the rapid naval advancements of strategic competitors.

• Next

armyrecognition.com · by Jérôme Brahy

5. Anti-American leftists could turn South Korea into the next Venezuela

​Here are my entire comments I provided to Gordon. Obviously not all can be used in an essay like this so I just wanted to provide my full set of comments.

China and North Korea have actively engaged in covert efforts to undermine South Korea’s democracy, and there is little reason to believe these activities will cease. China's United Front Work Department (UFWD) has been conducting extensive covert operations in South Korea as part of Beijing's broader "unrestricted warfare" strategy. Meanwhile, pro-North Korean elements within South Korea —including political figures, civic organizations, and clandestine groups—continue to operate and receive covert assistance from the Korean Workers party’s United Front Department (UFD) and the Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB). These activities highlight the complex dynamics of inter-Korean relations and the shared objectives of China and North Korea.

The actions of China and North Korea are mutually reinforcing, as both seek to weaken the legitimacy of South Korea’s democratic system. China views South Korea as a strategic piece on the Go (Baduk) board, aiming to exert influence over Seoul in its competition with the United States. A weakened or destabilized South Korea would pose significant challenges to U.S. security interests and economic stability in the region. For North Korea and China, undermining the South Korean government is a means to fracture the ROK-U.S. alliance, dismantle the U.S. nuclear umbrella, and ultimately drive American forces out of the Korean Peninsula and mainland Asia.

These shared objectives underscore why China and North Korea are likely to continue their malign activities in South Korea, particularly as they seek to influence the outcome of the snap presidential election scheduled for June. Their efforts reflect a coordinated strategy to shape regional dynamics in their favor while undermining U.S. influence in East Asia.

Anti-American leftists could turn South Korea into the next Venezuela

foxnews.com · by Gordon G. Chang Fox News

Join Fox News for access to this content

Plus special access to select articles and other premium content with your account - free of charge.

By entering your email and pushing continue, you are agreeing to Fox News' Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which includes our Notice of Financial Incentive.

Please enter a valid email address.

Having trouble? Click here.

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

South Korea’s Constitutional Court, by unanimous decision, removed conservative-leaning Yoon Suk Yeol from office on April 4, citing his December 3 declaration of martial law.

The election to replace Yoon has been set for June 3. An anti-American, hardcore leftist, Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party of Korea, is now the leading candidate to become the 14th president of the Republic of Korea.

If Lee gets his way, he will almost certainly try to end South Korea’s alliance with the United States and there will be nothing stopping him from opening his country to more Chinese and North Korean infiltration. He apparently believes in the reunification of Korea, so as president he will probably do all he can to merge his Republic of Korea into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the formal name of North Korea.

TRUMP SAYS HE HAD 'GREAT CALL' WITH SOUTH KOREAN LEADER, SUGGESTS DEAL POSSIBLE

The South Korean people as a whole do not share Lee’s agenda, but there are two problems. Lee is absolutely ruthless — he threatened "horrific mass bloodshed and chaos" this month if the Constitutional Court freed Yoon — and his party is almost certain to rig the next election.

National Assembly employees spray a fire extinguisher towards soldiers at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. (Cho Da-un/Yonhap via AP)

The next election, therefore, could be the last in Korea.

All the national elections this decade in South Korea have been marred by fraud. Minjoo, as the Democratic Party of Korea is commonly known, almost certainly changed ballots in at least the last three national elections, starting in 2020.

Its "uniformly narrow" wins in district after district in the National Assembly contests in 2020 were "statistically improbable" as were the results in the National Assembly election last year. The results in both 2020 and 2024 were substantially different than late polling suggested, an indication of ballot fraud.

Also, improbable was Lee Jae-myung’s impressive showing in the 2022 presidential election, which he lost to Yoon by a much closer margin than the last polls indicated.

Video

What is the possibility of ballot rigging now? "There’s a very high likelihood of fraud in the upcoming South Korean presidential election, say, 99%, maybe 100%," Grant Newsham, a South Korea analyst, told me after Yoon was removed. "Every stage of the electoral process is susceptible to manipulation and outright fraud. The National Election Commission, the NEC, is a tainted organization and shows no signs of wanting to address vulnerabilities, much less actual evidence of fraud."

"The NEC after the Constitutional Court’s ruling is even more powerful," Tara O of the East Asia Research Center pointed out in comments to me recently. "They hate it when anyone mentions election fraud."

South Koreans mention fraud, with good reason. In October 2023, the South Korean National Intelligence Service tried to penetrate the country’s election infrastructure and found that the NEC’s system was easily compromised. The NIS found it could manipulate votes, vote counts, and electoral rolls, among other things.

North Korea’s hackers, including the notorious Lazarus Group, also have penetrated the NEC’s system.

South Korea's main opposition Democratic Party leader, Lee Jae-myung, is leading the presidential race. FILE: Lee speaks during the disbandment ceremony of the party's election committee for the parliamentary election at the party's headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, April 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Worse, as Newsham points out, "There’s been no apparent effort to strengthen the NEC network." There has been an almost complete failure by government officials and prosecutors to examine and fix what independent observers, such as Newsham, have observed.

The failure to fix South Korea’s faulty election infrastructure will have consequences. "This upcoming election is Minjoo’s best chance ever to get control of the main levers of power and move the Republic of Korea toward a one-party state, its long-term objective," says Newsham, also author of "When China Attacks: A Warning to America." "Will they cheat your way to power with this last piece of the puzzle, the presidency? Of course, they’ll try."

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

Why should Americans care? The last leftist president, Minjoo’s Moon Jae-in, tried to force Samsung and other South Korean giants to disclose technology, thereby giving China invaluable assistance. Samsung, along with Taiwan’s TSMC, makes the world’s most sophisticated computer chips. Its tech in the hands of Beijing, especially if Taiwan were to fall to China, would give China control of chipmaking worldwide.

Geopolitical considerations are even more important, and China and North Korea know what’s at stake. Beijing and Pyongyang have actively engaged in covert efforts to overthrow South Korea’s democracy. As David Maxwell of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Asia Pacific Strategy reports, "China’s United Front Work Department has been conducting extensive covert operations in South Korea as part of Beijing’s broader ‘unrestrictive warfare’ strategy."

What is the possibility of ballot rigging now? "There’s a very high likelihood of fraud in the upcoming South Korean presidential election, say, 99%, maybe 100%," Grant Newsham, a South Korea analyst, told me after Yoon was removed.

Maxwell also notes that pro-North Korean elements within South Korea, including political figures, civic organizations and clandestine groups, are receiving "covert assistance" from North Korea’s United Front Department and Reconnaissance General Bureau.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

A destabilized South Korea would pose significant challenges to American security interests. As Maxwell, who served five tours of duty in the South with the U.S. Army, points out, "For North Korea and China, undermining the South Korean government is a means to fracture the Republic of Korea-United States alliance, dismantle the U.S. nuclear umbrella, and ultimately drive Americans forces out of the Korean peninsula and mainland Asia."

Newsham worries about something that now seems inconceivable but is in fact entirely possible. "South Korea," he says, "could become the next Venezuela."

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY GORDON CHANG

foxnews.com · by Gordon G. Chang Fox News

6. Dozens sue Iran and North Korea, saying they sponsored terrorists

Dozens sue Iran and North Korea, saying they sponsored terrorists

Forty-eight U.S. service members, contractors, civilians and relatives say the two countries funded and armed groups such as al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah.​

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/04/09/terrorism-lawsuit-virginia-iran-north-korea/?utm

April 9, 2025

7 min

Stephen and Jocelyn Troell take a selfie in spring 2022. The Justice Department says Stephen Troell was killed later that year in Baghdad by an Iranian hit squad. (Stephen Troell)

By Salvador Rizzo

Dozens of people who were injured or lost family members in terrorist strikes in the Middle East filed a federal lawsuit in Virginia against Iran and North Korea on Wednesday, saying the two countries provided funding, weapons and training to militant groups that targeted Americans.

Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.

Nations are broadly immune from lawsuits in U.S. courts, but the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act allows those who were injured or whose family members were killed in militant strikes to seek financial damages from state sponsors of terrorism. Such lawsuits, while rare, occasionally result in multibillion-dollar judgments for victims.

The 48 plaintiffs cite reports from U.S. government agencies that say Iran and North Korea have long partnered on efforts to arm and train several designated terrorist organizations that carried out seven separate attacks on Army personnel, military contractors and U.S. civilians — starting with a deadly rocket barrage at an Iraqi air base in 2019 and ending with the Oct. 7, 2023, hostage-taking massacre in Israel.

The strikes, which also targeted Americans in Kenya and Syria, were orchestrated by al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and other proxies for Iran and North Korea that aim to drive the United States out of Middle Eastern affairs, according to the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

“How does our little family get in the middle of this stuff?” said Jocelyn Troell, one of the plaintiffs. Her husband, Stephen Troell, was fatally shot in Baghdad by a hit squad working for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to the Justice Department. “We were just trying to be a family that loved and brought hope to the Iraqi people.”

The Iranians assumed Stephen Troell, 45, was a spy working for Israel or the United States, U.S. officials said. He and his wife were ambushed Nov. 7, 2022, as they were driving home from the English-language institute where they both worked, according to filings in a U.S. criminal case against an IRGC captain, Mohammad Reza Nouri, who is alleged to have plotted the killing. Nouri and four others have been sentenced in Iraq to life in prison over Stephen Troell’s assassination.

Jocelyn Troell said her husband was driven by his Christian faith and a desire to help rebuild war-torn Iraq. He handled advertising and social media for the school. He took up Arabic and was soon joking with shop owners in their native tongue, she recalled. He set up a nonprofit to send space heaters, diapers and baby formula to those in need amid the war in Syria, she said.

“Stephen was trying to be that good that stops evil,” she said in an interview, recalling him as a “man of action” who was “willing to pay that price.”

The Troells went through 10 days of security training once they decided to move to a global hot spot, she said, but in retrospect they were “an easy target.” The Justice Department said the Tennessee couple were set upon by heavily armed gunmen in two cars, who had targeted Stephen Troell as retribution for the U.S. airstrike that killed a high-ranking Iranian commander, Qasem Soleimani, in 2020. Jocelyn said time seemed to slow down as she looked her husband’s shooter in the eyes; she ducked for cover under the vehicle’s dashboard and then saw her husband get shot in the chest.

Ryan R. Sparacino, an attorney for Jocelyn Troell and the other plaintiffs, said in a statement that “Iran and North Korea’s alleged collaboration within the ‘Axis of Resistance’ equipped and financed terrorist groups ... [that] callously perpetrated these atrocities.” The lawsuit alleges that Virginia was one of the places from which the two countries “sourced funds, intelligence, and technologies,” including through a cigarette-smuggling operation Hezbollah used to generate revenue along the U.S. East Coast.

Attempts to reach Iran’s and North Korea’s missions to the United Nations were not successful Wednesday.

Lawsuits under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act in some cases have led courts to issue historic, albeit largely symbolic, financial awards. A federal judge in D.C. ruled that Iran bore responsibility for the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, an al-Qaeda plot that killed 17 Navy sailors and injured dozens in 2000. The court awarded victims nearly $2 billion in damages last year.

A Manhattan federal judge issued a default judgment against Iran in 2016, awarding $7.5 billion to families of victims of the 9/11 attacks and $3 billion to insurers that paid out claims stemming from the al-Qaeda attack. A similar lawsuit seeking more than $100 billion from Saudi Arabia is pending. The U.S. ally has denied involvement in the 9/11 plot and last year moved to dismiss the litigation.

If Iran and North Korea do not respond to the new allegations in the Virginia case, but a judge finds they have merit, the plaintiffs could be compensated with U.S. government funds that have been collected through sanctions and fines on businesses that deal with state sponsors of terrorism. The U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund has paid out more than $7 billion in claims since it was established by law in 2015, though a bipartisan group of lawmakers says that’s a small fraction of the total value of court-approved judgments. A bill sponsored by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) and several House members would add staff to help manage the victims’ compensation fund, add more congressional oversight and mandate annual payouts to eligible beneficiaries.

The plaintiffs in the Virginia case, all Americans, also include seven Army service members and a civilian contractor who suffered traumatic brain injuries from a January 2020 missile attack on al-Asad Air Base in Iraq; the family of an Army soldier who was killed two months later in a rocket attack at Camp Taji in Baghdad; and the widow of a civilian Air Force contractor who died in a 2023 drone strike in Syria. A civilian couple who said they suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after “being in a sweltering bomb shelter for over 20 hours” during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on Israel also joined the suit.

“The anti-terrorism work that we are privileged to do allows us to give a voice to those whose lives were shattered by acts of horrific violence and to ensure the pain the victims endured is never forgotten,” said Raj Parekh, an attorney for the 48 plaintiffs and a former acting U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia who led several high-profile prosecutions of terrorists. The damages sought from Iran and North Korea would be decided at a later phase in the litigation, if a judge approves the claims, he said.

The lawsuit includes some of the same plaintiffs who have sued the cryptocurrency exchange Binance for allegedly facilitating high-dollar transactions that kept several militant groups well funded. Both cases were filed by the law firm Sparacino PLLC. Binance has denied the claims against it, adding in a court filing that it “unequivocally condemns all acts of terrorism.”

Jocelyn Troell said her motivation was to continue her husband’s legacy. Stephen Troell would want others to remember the courage and altruism that drove him to Iraq, not his tragic demise, she said.

“What can I do to change and make a difference in the world?” she said, pausing to collect herself as she recalled her husband’s final moments. “I can speak the truth, because I was there.”

Trump and the Department of Justice

HAND CURATED

• How the Justice Department is remaking itself in Trump’s image
• March 20, 2025
• 
  
• Trump visits Justice Department for speech that breaks all norms
• March 14, 2025
• 
  
• Fired Justice Dept. official speaks about her ouster and Mel Gibson
• March 12, 2025
• 
  

View 3 more stories

View 3 more stories

By Salvador Rizzo

Salvador Rizzo covers federal courts for The Washington Post. Send him secure tips at srizzo.86 on Signal

7. South Korea’s flourishing culture and teetering democracy

Dr. Moon recognizes that the Democratic Party of Korea/Minjoo is not blameless.

But this essay is really about the recent Nobel Peace Prize winner, Han Kang, and Dr. Moon uses her story to critique South Korea.

• Home Editorial & Opinion

Fri, Apr 11, 2025 page7

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2025/04/11/2003834978?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=topic/northkorea

South Korea’s flourishing culture and teetering democracy

The presidency’s powers extend well beyond the political sphere — after the 1997 to 1998 financial crisis, the government established a dedicated department focused on pop music, dance, fashion and entertainment

• By Katharine H.S. Moon / BOSTON
• 
  
•  
•  
• Over the past decade, South Korea has ascended to the pinnacle of global cool as K-pop sensations such as BTS and Blackpink, the Oscar-winning film Parasite and the Netflix mega-hit Squid Game captivated audiences worldwide. South Korean culinary trends — from fusion kimchi dishes to gochujang (a red chili paste) — have found their way onto menus far beyond the nation’s borders, and South Korean classical musicians such as pianist Cho Seong-jin regularly grace prestigious concert halls. The ubiquity of Samsung phones, LG appliances and Hyundai cars underscores South Korea’s newfound cultural and economic reach.
• The rise of South Korean soft power, often referred to as the “Korean Wave,” made former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol’s abrupt declaration of martial law on Dec. 3 last year all the more shocking and bizarre. The timing added to the surreal nature of the moment — just days after Yoon’s authoritarian push collapsed, novelist Han Kang took the stage in Stockholm to accept the Nobel Prize in Literature — the first South Korean author to do so.
• The contrast was striking. While Han’s achievement marked a cultural high point, Yoon’s effort to impose martial law was the nation’s 17th authoritarian bid since 1948 — a jarring reminder of a past many South Koreans thought was long behind them.
• 
  
• Illustration: Mountain People
• Yoon has now been impeached and removed from the presidency following a unanimous ruling by the South Korean Constitutional Court. This raises an unsettling question: How can a nation be so innovative when its political system remains marred by authoritarian undercurrents, with a president who is willing to trample on the constitution and — after being forced to retract his martial law declaration — incite violent mobs to protect him from arrest?
• The opposition-led National Assembly, which impeached Yoon on Dec. 14 last year — notably, only at the second attempt and after members of Yoon’s own party turned against him — is far from blameless. It, too, has undermined democratic norms by using impeachment as a partisan weapon, introducing no fewer than 30 impeachment bills since June last year. In addition to Yoon, the opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) has impeached one of the two acting presidents who briefly succeeded him, and is trying to impeach the other, although the Constitutional Court later reinstated South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo.
• Not so Yoon, who had argued that the DPK’s relentless obstruction made it impossible for him to govern and that he had no choice but to declare martial law. While the questionable nature of the DPK’s impeachment efforts does lend some credence to Yoon’s complaints, nothing justified his radical assault on South Korea’s democratic system. Now that the court has upheld his impeachment, he is to face a criminal trial — an extraordinary reckoning for a leader who, in his final days in office, nearly pushed South Korea’s fragile democracy to its breaking point.
• Since the end of military rule in 1987, South Korea has been widely praised for its transformation from a war-ravaged, impoverished nation into one of the world’s wealthiest economies. Yet, given the thousands of years of authoritarian rule on the Korean Peninsula up to that point, the establishment of South Korean democracy is something of a miracle.
• During military rule, especially under Park Chung-hee’s 17-year dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s, presidents wielded immense power. To prevent future leaders from consolidating power as Park and his successors had, a 1988 constitutional amendment limited the presidency to a single five-year term.
• By the late 1990s, the South Korean military became largely professionalized. It operated under civilian control and focused on external threats, such as North Korea, rather than using violence against citizens and blocking lawmakers from entering the National Assembly building — both tactics which Yoon employed in his effort to impose martial law.
• Han’s own story illustrates these profound shifts.
• Born in 1970, she grew up in provincial Gwangju under Park’s authoritarian regime, which punished dissent with imprisonment, torture and even death. Schools enforced military-style discipline, and children were expected to submit unquestioningly to their teachers’ authority, and adhere to strict codes of dress and conduct. Boys had buzz cuts, girls had regulation-length hair and there was no mixing of the sexes. Individuality was discouraged, and questioning schools’ anti-Communist and anti-North Korea teachings was unthinkable.
• Han’s family in 1980 moved to Seoul, just months before the Gwangju Uprising, when citizens and students — many of whom were teenagers and young adults — rose up against Chun Doo-hwan, who had seized power after Park’s assassination the previous year. Although Han was only nine years old when her family moved from Gwangju to Seoul, her 2014 novel Human Acts poignantly captures the brutality with which Chun’s troops suppressed the uprising.
• Human Acts could not have been published anywhere near the time of the Gwangju killings because, under authoritarian rule, the government tightly controlled the media, scrutinizing books, films, TV shows, song lyrics and visual arts to suppress anti-government messages.
• The military regime in 1976 established the Public Performance Ethics Committee as its primary censorship body, but by the mid-1980s the committee had been dismantled, paving the way for greater artistic and intellectual freedom. The end of the military dictatorship in 1987 marked a turning point, as democracy and civil liberties unleashed the nation’s creative potential and allowed previously taboo subjects such as the Gwangju Uprising to be discussed openly.
• In her 2021 novel We Do Not Part, recently translated into English, Han addresses another traumatic chapter of South Korea’s hidden history — the massacre of Jeju islanders between 1947 and 1954.
• A New York Times article in 2019 described the island as a “human slaughterhouse” where an estimated 30,000 people — about one-10th of the island’s population — were “killed by police, soldiers, and anti-Communist vigilantes hunting for leftist insurgents and their relatives.”
• For 40 years, the public could freely learn about the arbitrariness and brutality of the military regime, especially in its final decade, from the media, histories, novels and documentaries often packed with eyewitnesses. During this period, South Koreans became deeply committed to the rule of law and an independent, robust judiciary, which is a key reason why they turned out, in the hundreds of thousands, to protest against Yoon’s martial law declaration.
• Despite the great strides South Korea has made toward good governance, corruption remains a persistent issue. In the past 16 years, three consecutive presidents — Roh Moo-hyun, Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye (Park’s daughter) — became embroiled in significant corruption scandals. Park Geun-hye was convicted of abuse of power and bribery, and sentenced to 24 years in prison, of which she served nearly five years before she was pardoned and released in 2021. Lee, who was sentenced to 17 years for bribery, embezzlement and tax evasion, was also pardoned in 2022. The Constitutional Court nullified Roh’s impeachment, although an investigation of him for bribery continued after he left office, and he took his own life in 2009.
• Unfortunately, the transition to democracy did little to ease political polarization. The animosity between the left and the right is deeply ingrained in South Korean politics, owing to the lasting impact of the Cold War and the ongoing conflict with North Korea. The Gwangju Uprising, for example, remains a divisive chapter in South Korea’s history, as does the Jeju massacre. Although the government officially acknowledged its role in the killing of innocent civilians in Jeju and issued a formal apology in 2003, many on the right still believe the victims were communists and supporters of North Korea.
• The rise of social media has, as elsewhere, generated sparks that can ignite this tinderbox. Long before Dec. 3 last year, conspiracy theories about stolen elections, Chinese interference in the nation’s politics and North Korea’s alleged influence over liberals proliferated on digital platforms, fueling far-right calls for martial law. These tensions fueled the smaller counterprotests against Yoon’s removal and continue to cast a shadow over the nation’s democratic system.
• It is worth noting that before winning the Nobel Prize, Han had been placed on a “cultural blacklist” during Park Geun-hye’s presidency (2013 to 2017), along with Parasite director Bong Joon-ho. Human Acts was excluded from a government program that would have facilitated its translation into major global languages, owing to official concerns over its “ideological bias.” To this day, while most South Koreans take pride in Han’s success, she continues to be targeted for her perceived political views. Rather than engaging with her literary output, many of her critics view her portrayal of South Korea’s repressive past and state-sanctioned violence as a threat to the proud, optimistic nationalism they favor.
• Author Kim Gyu-na in October last year triggered a viral backlash after accusing Han of “distorting the reality” of the Gwangju and Jeju atrocities. In response, the former president of South Korea’s Literature Translation Institute (LTI) — who helped launch Han’s international career — defended his protege, arguing that Han is “not a radical left-wing writer who spreads left-wing ideology,” and condemning Han’s right-wing detractors for trying “to drag her achievement into the ideological and political arena.”
• The attacks on Han align with much of Yoon’s rhetoric, especially in the buildup to his declaration of martial law. For example, Yoon in December last year resorted to classic red-baiting rhetoric to justify his move, claiming it was necessary to “eradicate the shameless pro-North, anti-state factions” in the National Assembly. In his subsequent appearances before the Constitutional Court, Yoon repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, insisting that he was trying to protect the nation from existential threats.
• Yoon has long relied on right-wing influencers to promote his agenda. In 2022, he even went so far as to invite 30 far-right YouTubers to his inauguration, appointing several of them to official positions. As one commentator in the conservative Korea JoongAng Daily put it, Yoon’s “YouTube addiction” had “ruined his regime.”
• New communication technologies and longstanding ideological rivalries are not the only factors threatening to destabilize South Korea’s democracy. The nation’s political structure has fostered an “imperial presidency” that places few institutional checks or balances on the president’s control over the budget, administration, education and legal systems.
• Unlike in the US and other democracies, the South Korean legislature has no control over the nation’s finances once national budgets are approved. There is scant legislative oversight of how money is spent.
• A contributing factor here is that political parties primarily exist to elect candidates, rather than to represent their constituents’ interests. As a result, presidential elections have become winner-takes-all contests with little room for compromise and cooperation, which are neither institutionally nor culturally valued. Yoon in 2021was reportedly seen with the character for “king” written on his palm during a televised campaign event — an ominous sign that hinted at his authoritarian ambitions.
• The presidency’s powers, moreover, extend well beyond the political sphere. The government, for example, has played a key role in promoting the nation’s creative industries. After the 1997 to 1998 financial crisis, when South Korea was forced to seek a US$55 billion bailout from the IMF, South Koreans — once buoyed by their nation’s economic “miracle” — experienced a palpable sense of collective humiliation. In response, the South Korean Ministry of Culture established a dedicated department focused on pop music, dance, fashion and entertainment, investing heavily in developing young talent, building large concert halls and promoting cultural diplomacy. K-pop soon emerged as one of South Korea’s top exports, alongside cars and semiconductors, and a key component of the nation’s soft power.
• Even today, the government’s Content Industry Promotion Committee coordinates efforts across multiple ministries, local and provincial governments, civil society and the private sector to promote K-pop music. It invests billions of dollars in new infrastructure and private content companies, while also cutting regulations and taxes to “nurture the next BTS and the next Squid Game.”
• South Korean writers have also benefited from state support through the LTI, a government-backed organization dedicated to developing and promoting South Korean literature globally. The LTI translates South Korean works into dozens of languages and helps publish them abroad, exemplifying the nation’s “systematic approach” to pursuing the Nobel Prize. The LTI helped finance Deborah Smith’s translations of Han’s novels into English, elevating Han to international literary stardom.
• Han and other prominent writers are now at the forefront of the struggle to protect South Korean democracy, having joined the 414 literary figures who signed a petition calling for Yoon’s “immediate impeachment.” Removing him from office, Han said before the Constitutional Court’s ruling, “is about safeguarding universal values.”
• However, the road ahead is fraught with risks. Now that the Constitutional Court has upheld Yoon’s impeachment and removal from the presidency, violence could yet still erupt, with some even warning of “civil war.” Much will depend on how Yoon’s party behaves in June’s election for a new president, but if Yoon had prevailed, martial law could have been legitimized, with severe repercussions for South Korea’s democracy. All the same, The Economist Global Democracy Index has downgraded South Korea from a “full democracy” to a “flawed democracy” — a label that feels less like a warning than a prophecy.
• Katharine H.S. Moon is professor emerita of political science and Asian studies at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
• Copyright: Project Syndicate

8. Separation of Powers Defeats Imperial Presidency in South Korea

​Koreans must make their democracy work. The left wants to undermine it for their own political power and to implement their political agendas to align north Korea and China while the right could very well try to "burn the village to save it" by attacking the left. Both sides must fight it out in the electoral process. And just crying fraud is not an excuse to give up on the electoral process because without it there is no democracy. Dictators come to power without a democratic process whether on the left or right. And of course the counter argument is that shrewd dictators exploit the democratic process to come to power legitimately and then throw out the democratic process which brought them to power.

Separation of Powers Defeats Imperial Presidency in South Korea

Yoon Suk Yeol’s declaration of martial law triggered a four-month-long constitutional crisis in South Korea that was finally resolved last week by the decision of the Constitutional Court to uphold the National Assembly’s impeachment.

Post by John Delury, Author

April 10, 2025 10:58 am (EST)

cfr.org · by John Delury

John Delury is a visiting professor of political science and international affairs at John Cabot University in Rome and the author of Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA's Covert War in China (Cornell, 2022).

On the fateful night of December 3, South Korea’s president shattered a basic norm of democratic power-sharing and civilian rule. Yoon Suk Yeol’s bolt from the blue declaration of martial law triggered a four-month-long constitutional crisis in the Republic of Korea (ROK) that was finally resolved last week by the decision of the Constitutional Court to uphold the National Assembly’s impeachment. Thanks to the combination of citizen action, legislative resolve, and judicial review, democratic institutions proved their resilience. In the end, the rule of law—including, ironically, the law governing martial law—restored the norm that Yoon had broken, and South Korean democracy probably came out of the crisis stronger than it was going in. The question of leader accountability, however, will only be answered in the fullness of time, as the former president now goes on trial for the crime of insurrection.

Yoon’s martial law gambit was literally a “coup” in that he tried to strike a quick blow at the opposition-led National Assembly, making his unprompted announcement live on late-night TV and sending police and soldiers to shut down the legislature. And yet, on paper, he seemed to have a legal basis for the shocking declaration. That is because the ROK Constitution, unlike many liberal democracies (including the United States), explicitly grants the president the power to declare martial law. Korean leaders with autocratic instincts had imposed martial law numerous times since the founding of the republic in 1948—most recently in 1980 during the Gwangju massacre. When the Constitution was revised as part of the democratic transition in 1987, rather than prohibit martial law outright, Article 77 dictated substantive and procedural requirements around its imposition and lifting. The Martial Law Act, amended as recently as 2017, further delineated these legal strictures.

Asia Unbound

CFR fellows and other experts assess the latest issues emerging in Asia today. 1-3 times weekly.

View all newsletters >

Since Korea’s democratic transition in 1987, the norm solidified that a president would not invoke Article 77 except in the direst circumstances of a war or war-like emergency. No matter how tense the situation with a nuclear-armed North Korea, no matter how grave the risk to public health during COVID-19, neither liberal nor conservative presidents contemplated imposing martial law. Thus, when allegations surfaced last summer that the Yoon administration was toying with the idea, it seemed so preposterous that few believed it. Norm-shattering is like that—mainstream opinion-makers don’t see it coming precisely because they are thinking within the norm.

Although the public was blindsided by Yoon’s announcement, the response of legislators, along with many citizens, proves you can be shocked but still know what to do. In two iconic moments on the night of the decree, sixty-seven-year-old Speaker of the National Assembly Woo Won-shik was photographed climbing a tall fence to evade police so he could access the building, while thirty-five-year-old lawmaker An Gwi-ryeong was videotaped grabbing the muzzle of a soldier’s rifle and yelling at him, “Are you not ashamed?” Like many others that night, they embodied the last three lessons in historian Timothy Snyder’s handbook for resisting tyranny: be calm when the unthinkable arrives, be a patriot, and be as courageous as you can. Their heroism dramatically reaffirmed the norm that what was happening was unacceptable.

In a struggle to defend something as abstract as constitutional democracy and the rule of law, however, it is not enough to act quickly and bravely. At certain junctures, it is necessary to act slowly, methodically, and deliberately. Facing real political and personal peril, with special forces sweeping through the corridors of the National Assembly (not unlike what U.S. congresspeople faced on January 6), Speaker Woo slowed proceedings in the chamber just long enough to ensure the legislative procedure was followed. Around 1:00 a.m., the resolution to invalidate martial law was passed unanimously by the 190 lawmakers who made it to the floor, including eighteen members of the president’s own party. The Assembly’s resolution compelled Yoon to lift martial law at 4:30 a.m.

After the six-hour standoff between the executive and legislative, it then took eleven days for the National Assembly to pass a motion of impeachment. This was the legislative branch’s second major test—was there sufficient bipartisanship, despite a bitterly divided political climate, to cobble together the supermajority needed for presidential impeachment? On the first scheduled vote, the president’s party boycotted the session. That failure to impeach triggered huge public demonstrations, as masses of citizens rallied in the streets, demanding that the legislature take action. As more details of the martial law plot came to light in the following week, the Assembly voted again on a motion. The president’s party leadership opposed impeachment but ended the boycott, allowing members to attend the session to vote their conscience in a secret ballot on December 14. Twelve of the president’s party defected, and the impeachment passed with 204 of 300 votes.

When it counted, Korea’s legislature defended its authority and integrity against an existential attack by the executive, generating the two-thirds needed to put the ultimate check on the president by declaring him unfit to serve. This supermajority proved fleeting, and the National Assembly quickly reverted to its polarized ways, with the liberal majority and conservative minority blocking each other’s actions as best they could. Disagreement can be frustrating, but it is, after all, inherent to democratic politics—precisely the messy give-and-take that Yoon sought to override with his martial law decree.

Finally, it was the judiciary’s turn, given that Korea’s impeachment process requires the Constitutional Court to adjudicate the Assembly’s decision in accordance with constitutional principles. Observers anticipated a swift decision by the Court to uphold removal from office. This expectation was based on the timeframe of previous impeachment trials in 2004 and 2017 and the view that the legal case for Yoon’s removal was open and shut. When the Court exceeded that timeline, the public became seized with anxiety over the outcome. In the long run, the Court may have enhanced the credibility of the final ruling, as the eight justices on the bench could hardly be accused of rushing to judgment. Indeed, the Court did precisely what Yoon had not: they took time for “deliberation” (as the Martial Law Act requires of the President and Cabinet before imposing martial law) and arrived at an informed and unanimous decision.

The stinging clarity of Chief Justice Moon Hyung-bae’s statement on April 4, laying out the claims of the president’s legal team, the facts of the case, and the laws of the land, left no doubt that the Assembly was well within its authority to impeach Yoon. The president attempted to undermine the basic principle of democracy, explained by Justice Moon as “based on cooperative public decision-making based on respect among equal fellow citizens.” To throw Korean democracy back into the dark days of military government was to violate that respect and replace cooperative decision-making with autocracy. After months of rival protests, with a vocal minority of hard-core Yoon supporters making themselves heard, Korea’s democratic crisis ended with a voice of reason reading out a definitive ruling by the judiciary to uphold the will of the legislature that the president should be removed from office.

At a disconcerting moment of global democratic backsliding, Korea provides an instructive case of how basic norms of the rule of law and constitutional democracy can be restored. It took a fortuitous convergence of civic action and institutional resolve. The question of presidential accountability, however, does not end with his removal from office. The scene now shifts to Yoon’s trial for the high crime of insurrection. Judges, along with the general public, will be scrutinizing the evidence once again to determine the scale of his wrongdoing and the intent behind his deeds. Meanwhile, voters have two months to choose a new president, hoping this time they pick someone who will respect the iron law of the Constitution, “The Republic of Korea shall be a democratic republic.”

cfr.org · by John Delury

9. U.S.–ROK Cooperation Can Shape the Nuclear Energy Market and Strengthen Nonproliferation

U.S.–ROK Cooperation Can Shape the Nuclear Energy Market and Strengthen Nonproliferation

April 11, 2025

By: Youngjun Kim

The National Interest · 

Topic: Security

Blog Brand: Energy World

Region: Americas, and Asia

April 11, 2025

By: Youngjun Kim

The relationship between the United States and South Korea has become a strategic necessity for sustaining leadership in the nuclear energy market and preserving the integrity of the global nonproliferation regime.

Nuclear geopolitics has been in crisis. The Russia-Ukraine conflict shows that nuclear war is still possible—even in the twenty-first century. The nonproliferation regime faces strong challenges, including proliferation in North Korea and an arms race driven by the nuclear modernization of China and Russia, which uses new technologies such as artificial intelligence and hypersonic missiles. At the same time, the United States has lost its leadership in defending the nonproliferation regime as well as its dominance in the nuclear energy market.

Losing U.S. leadership in the nuclear energy market is not only a loss of U.S. nuclear energy hegemony—it also threatens the strength of the global nonproliferation regime. China and Russia now dominate the world’s nuclear energy markets. Russia has become the world’s number one nuclear reactor exporter, and China continues to build nuclear power plants at home and overseas.

Unlike the commercial markets of food and cars, the nuclear energy market is a security-related market due to the potential threats of nuclear proliferation. The United States has strongly led 123 agreements with partner countries to defend the nonproliferation regime and promote a safer world. However, China- and Russia-led nuclear market expansion does not guarantee a strong, well-regulated nonproliferation regime. Rather, China and Russia are potential challengers to the global nonproliferation regime.

South Korea as a Responsible Nuclear Partner

The Republic of Korea (ROK) has been a model example of peaceful nuclear energy use. Despite the long-standing security challenges posed by North Korea’s nuclear threats, the ROK has not developed nuclear weapons. While recent public debate in South Korea over nuclear weapons has received global attention, many nuclear experts do not expect South Korea to actually develop nuclear weapons. South Korea’s aspiration to expand nuclear power exports far outweighs the potential benefits of nuclear weapons development.

The Barakah nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates, built by the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), showed the Republic of Korea’s capability as a nuclear power exporter. However, this achievement raised concerns in the U.S. nuclear industry about a future rivalry. Similarly, during Saudi Arabia’s nuclear power plant bidding process during the first Trump administration, the U.S. government and the nuclear industry worried about South Korea’s ambitions as a nuclear supplier. At the time, a lack of communication, as well as miscommunication between the United States and the ROK, created friction around this issue. If the two became rivals rather than partners in the nuclear energy market, the costs would be high and could include a global nuclear arms race and the risk of nuclear war in the near future.

Recently, however, the United States and the ROK have agreed to cooperate as partners in the nuclear energy market. Given the dominance of China and Russia in the nuclear energy market, a strong partnership between the United States and the ROK is not optional but essential. This cooperation is necessary not only for the national interests of both countries but also for maintaining a safer world. But, the United States and the ROK cannot control their commercial nuclear industries the way China and Russia do. China and Russia use state financial support as a tool to win nuclear energy projects globally, which is an approach that is difficult for the United States and the ROK to replicate.

Preserving the Nonproliferation Regime through a U.S.-ROK Partnership

A loss of U.S. leadership in the global nuclear energy market could lead to chaos, a renewed nuclear arms race, and the breakdown of the nonproliferation regime. Although the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) regime is weaker today and disagreements have grown between Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) and Non-Nuclear Weapon States (NNSW)—especially over initiatives like the Treaty on Prohibition Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and Nuclear Weapon Free Zones (NWFZ)—the global nonproliferation regime under U.S. leadership has been successful in minimizing the number of nuclear weapon states over the past decades.

Without a global nonproliferation regime, many countries will try to develop their own nuclear weapons, and the world could face nuclear war sooner than expected. Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s nuclear power plants and North Korea’s continued nuclear weapons testing are clear examples of what can happen when the nonproliferation regime is undermined. In this context, the United States is lucky to have the Republic of Korea as a strong partner in the global nuclear energy market. The partnership was made possible because the United States has unconditionally supported the ROK in becoming an advanced nuclear energy nation under the framework of nonproliferation.

Just as the nation-building of the ROK is considered one of the best achievements of U.S. foreign policy, the ROK’s advancement in nuclear energy is one of the best outcomes of U.S. leadership in supporting peaceful nuclear development. Now is the time for the United States to “marry” its best student, the ROK, and become one team to defend the global nonproliferation regime and maintain U.S. leadership in the nuclear energy market. Experts, government officials, and industry leaders from both countries must be ready to act together. This “marriage” will lead the global nonproliferation regime, support peaceful nuclear energy development, enhance export competitiveness, and include future areas of cooperation such as Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). Only through this partnership can the United States and the ROK compete in the Russia and China-dominated nuclear energy market and defend the global nonproliferation regime.

Professor Youngjun Kim is the Dean of Academic Affairs of the National Security College at Korea National Defense University.

Image: Aritra Deb/Shutterstock

The National Interest · by Emily Day · April 11, 2025

10. Capt. Lewis Millett Led America’s Last Bayonet Charge in Korea

​I have this portrait of Capt Millett and I was fortunate to hear him speak in Korea a number of times when he would come for a visit to honored.

​

https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/Story/Article/3312940/medal-of-honor-monday-army-col-lewis-millett-sr/

Capt. Lewis Millett Led America’s Last Bayonet Charge in Korea

April 9, 2025

By: Christian D. Orr

The National Interest · 

Topic: Security

Blog Brand: The Buzz

Region: Asia

Tags: Bayonet, History, Korean War, Security, and U.S. Army

April 9, 2025

Share

Bayonet training infuses aggression, warrior spirit, and elan in the hearts and minds of the soldiers being trained in it.

Some may consider bayonet fighting to be an outmoded infantry tactic, a bygone relic of eighteenth– and nineteenth-century warfare. To be sure, the use of massed bayonet charges at enemy positions dwindled significantly as a result of the horrific bloodletting in the trench fighting of World War I.

However, quite a few militaries still train with bayonets, and understandably so. Bayonet training infuses aggression, warrior spirit, and elan in the hearts and minds of the soldiers being trained in it, and there’s just something about the thought of having one’s guts probed with nine inches of pointed steel that plays havoc with an enemy soldier’s psyche.

In the twenty-first century, British Army units are known to have successfully employed bayonet warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan. Going back a few decades further, during the 1982 Falklands War, there were the legendary bayonet charges employed by the 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment (3 Para) and the 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards during the Battles of Mount Longdon and Mount Tumbledown, respectively; these engagements are covered in superb detail in the 1999 book Bayonet Battle: Bayonet Warfare in the 20th Century by Tim Ripley.

But when it comes to the last documented U.S. military bayonet charge, one has to go back to the Korean War and a hard-charging (pun intended) soldier by the name and rank of Captain (later colonel) Lewis Millett.

Who Was Lewis Millett?

Lewis Lee Millett Sr. was born on December 15, 1920, in Mechanic Falls, Maine, but grew up in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, with his mother after his parents divorced and his mother remarried. There was already a martial tradition in his lineage, as his grandfather had served in the American Civil War and an uncle fought in World War I with the 101st Field Artillery Regiment of the Massachusetts Army National Guard (the oldest active field artillery regiment in the United States Army, tracing its lineage back to 1636).

In 1938, young Lewis followed in his uncle’s footsteps by joining the 101st (not to be confused with the 101st Airborne Division [Air Assault]), then transferred to the Army Air Corps in 1940. From there, in COL Millett’s own words:

“We were at peace at the time and the Canadians were fighting the Nazis. Shortly thereafter I deserted the Army, went to Canada, but for a different reason. People went to Canada during Vietnam to get out of the war. I went to Canada to get in the war.”

So, Lewis joined the Canadian Army and was soon sent to London to man an antiaircraft gun during the blitz. Soon enough, of course, America finally did enter the war, and Millett naturally jumped at the chance to fight on behalf of his own country of citizenship:

“When I transferred back to the American Army, I immediately made the invasion of North Africa. And in the first battle, I get a Silver Star, and they start promoting me. By the time my records catch up—because see, I deserted so they didn’t have no records of me. Well, by the time they caught up, I had fought six months in Africa, six months in Italy, had a Silver Star and a Bronze Star, and was a buck sergeant. And my records catch up and they court-martial me for desertion … found me guilty, and they fined me a $52 fine and made me a second lieutenant!”

A classic example of getting “kicked upstairs” or “let no good deed go unpunished.”

As if that service record (and lucky break) wasn’t already impressive enough, Millett would go on to truly immortalize himself in the pages of history in a different conflict the following decade.

CPT Millett’s Bayonet Charge

Upon arriving in-country in Korea, Millett and his brethren had to contend with not only hostile fire and weather conditions but also the annoyance of Chinese Communist propaganda:

“We got reports of captured enemy messages and stuff like that. And in one of them the Chinese said the Americans are afraid of bayonets. And I said ‘That’s a blankety-blank lie! . ..And we’ll teach those son-of-a-bitches a lesson!’ So I went and got bayonets and had ‘em sharpened up and trained the troops. I said ‘From now on we lead off with bayonet assaults!’”

That training would soon prove fortuitous. The red-letter day took place on February 7, 1951, near the village of Soam-Ni, South Korea, by which time Millett was a captain and commander of Company E of the 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division. Noticing a platoon pinned down by intensive fire from a numerically superior Chinese force, CPT Millett, in true lead-from-the-front fashion, placed himself at the head of two other platoons, gave the order to “Fix bayonets(!),” and led a screaming charge up Hill 180 (later renamed Bayonet Hill).

The enemy fled the hill in discombobulation, leaving behind 100 dead, thirty of whom died via bayonet; at least two of them were bayonetted by CPT Millett himself.

In July 1951, President Harry S. Truman (himself a former artilleryman during World War I) presented CPT Millett with the Medal of Honor: “When he put it around me, he said, ‘I’d rather have this than be President of the United States.’”

Legacy

Millett retired from the U.S. Army in 1973 with the rank of colonel. His first marriage, to Virginia Young, ended in divorce, but his second marriage, to Winona Williams, lasted until her death in 1993. That second marriage produced four children; tragically, one of those four children, Army Staff Sergeant John Millett, was among 240 servicemen who lost their lives in 1985 when Arrow Air Flight 1285R crashed in Gander, Newfoundland.

Millet died of congestive heart failure on November 14, 2009, a month shy of his eighty-ninth birthday. He was laid to rest on December 5, 2009, at Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, California; his grave can be found in Section 2, Grave #1910.

Bravo Zulu, COL Millett. R.I.P. and God bless, ‘til Valhalla.

About the Author: Christian D. Orr

Christian D. Orr was previously a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ) and 19FortyFive. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). If you’d like to pick his brain further, you can ofttimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.

Image: JEONGHYEON NOH / Shutterstock.com

The National Interest · by Adam Lammon · April 9, 2025

11. North Korean guide hesitates to answer Kim Joo-ae’s question… Tourist: “Some sections seem staged”

​Video at the link.

This is a Google translation of an RFA report.

North Korean guide hesitates to answer Kim Joo-ae’s question… Tourist: “Some sections seem staged”

WASHINGTON-Kim Ji-soo kimjis@rfa.org

2025.04.11

https://www.rfa.org/korean/in-focus/2025/04/11/north-korea-tourism-pyongyang/

In the video, Mr. Jagger is enjoying a Taedonggang beer. (Harry Jaggard YouTube channel)

Anchor: A British travel YouTuber recently released a video on his YouTube channel about his visit to Pyongyang. The video also includes a conversation about Chairman Kim Jong-un's daughter Kim Ju-ae's successor theory, which is creating a buzz. Reporter Kim Ji-soo reports.

A recent North Korean tourism video posted on the video sharing site YouTube on the 9th .

Harry Jagger, a British travel YouTuber who visited North Korea to participate in the Pyongyang International Marathon, has shared his experience of Pyongyang on his YouTube channel.

Mr. Jagger, who has 2.33 million YouTube subscribers, filmed himself in various locations in Pyongyang using his personal camera.

In the video, when Mr. Jagger asks a guide guiding foreign tourists a series of candid questions about North Korea, the North Korean guide immediately responds by praising North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

[Mr. Jagger] If someone were to come to North Korea, what would you say to them? What would you want them to understand?

[North Korea Guide] We have a great leader. He is the source of our strength and whenever he visits a place, all the countries and all the people are interested in that place and envy those who visited that place and those who met him in person.

Mr. Jagger is talking to his North Korean guide.

Mr. Jaggard talking to his North Korean guide. (Harry Jaggard YouTube channel)

When asked about Chairman Kim Jong-un's daughter, Kim Ju-ae, he seemed troubled and trailed off.

[Mr. Jagger] Kim Jong-un has a daughter. Do you think she will be the next leader?

[North Korea Guide] I don't know.

Related Articles

'Rason Tour' Korean Residents "North Korean Guides, Korean Gifts 'No'"

46 Countries Participate in Pyongyang Marathon...Polish Embassy Staff Also Run

South Korean Government: “North Korea Shows Will to Resume Foreign Tourism by Hosting Pyongyang Marathon”

“Some of the tours seem staged”

Mr. Jagger said his North Korean guide gave him four rules to follow while touring.

He explained that the rules include: △ not leaving the guide, △ not taking pictures without the guide's permission, △ not making remarks disrespectful of Kim Jong-un, and △ not spreading religious items.

Mr. Jagger also left a comment saying that the impression given of Pyongyang was artificial.

He said that “some apartments had their lights off and it felt like no one was living there” on Rimheung Street in the Hwaseong District of Pyongyang, North Korea. “Free contact with residents was restricted, and in some areas it seemed as if staged actors had been deployed.”

Meanwhile, participants in the Pyongyang International Marathon are continuously posting their experiences of Pyongyang through social networking services (SNS).

Pyongyang Marathon runner Alvaro Rojas, who has posted six posts about Pyongyang so far on his Instagram channel, said it was difficult to fit in with the locals in Pyongyang, and when he complained to his local guide, he took steps to allow him to talk to locals for a certain amount of time.

Anna Pelova, another Pyongyang Marathon participant, explained on her Instagram channel that when talking about North Korea's top leader, you shouldn't just say his name, but also pay attention to his title, like North Koreans do, such as "Chairman Kim Il Sung" and "Chairman Kim Jong Un."

Editor Park Jae-woo

12. Forgotten bosses: Women entrepreneurs in Korea's postwar economy

The power of women should not be overlooked in the north and the South.

Forgotten bosses: Women entrepreneurs in Korea's postwar economy

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/economy/20250328/forgotten-bosses-women-entrepreneurs-in-koreas-postwar-economy

Button LabelListen

textScalePopoverWrapper open

print

open image galleryA woman sells homemade kimchi at a market in Seoul in 1951. Following the recapture of Seoul by United Nations forces, street markets sprung up throughout the city. Korea Times file

• Published Apr 12, 2025 9:57 am KST
• Updated Apr 12, 2025 12:11 pm KST

Kim Mee-sun, an academic research professor at Ewha Women’s University’s Korean Women Institute / Korea Times photo by Lee Yeon-woo

The Korean War forced Lim Hyung-seon and her young daughter to flee Seoul for Busan — a harrowing journey marked by poverty and despair. As she struggled to care for her sick child and survive the war’s economic fallout, Lim even considered suicide.

However, amid the chaos, Lim found an unexpected opportunity. She had hairstyling skills she had honed over the years — skills few women possessed at the time.

"After just three months of work, I managed to buy a shanty house in Yongdusan (a region in Busan), with two rooms and a kitchen," Lim recalled. "I had arrived with nothing. Even professors were working the docks then, so for a beauty salon owner to afford a home in that area — that was extraordinary."

With millions of men drafted to the front lines, countless women stepped into the workforce to support their families in a country left impoverished by the war. In 1953, just after the armistice, Korea’s per capita gross national income was only $67.

Kim Mee-sun, a research professor at Ewha Womans University’s Korean Women’s Institute, tries to offer a different lens through her recent publication. For women like Lim, the war wasn’t just devastation. It was also a chance to harness their skills, intuition and entrepreneurial spirit.

Despite their critical role, Kim argues, these women have been largely overlooked in Korea’s economic history. Public narratives have often centered on factory workers powering the nation’s postwar export boom while the self-employed women faded into the margins. In fact, it wasn’t until after 1990 that the number of wage-earning women surpassed that of self-employed women.

In 1956, there were just 27 Western-style tailor shops in Seoul, but by 1969, that number grew to over 2,000. Korea Times file

Lee Jong-soo was one of these women introduced in Kim's book, "The Birth of Women Entrepreneurs (direct translation)." In her late teens, Lee launched a dressmaking business in a spare room on the first floor of her home, using the skills she had learned at a girls’ school. As her business grew, she began supplying prisoner uniforms to U.S. military bases, earning a significant income.

"She made so much money that she loaded multiple sacks filled with bundles of cash into a Jeep and returned home sitting on them. Before she even married, she had bought her parents a house and a car," Kim told The Korea Times.

As women had limited options available to them, commerce became one of the few viable paths. Those without capital turned to selling firewood or vegetables, while those with slightly more means traded rice or clothing. Some women even engaged in dollar trading or smuggling, earning money by selling quality goods that trickled out of U.S. military post exchange stores or base villages.

The number of women working in commerce rose sharply — from 81,204 in 1949, just before the war, to 593,264 in 1951 and 597,257 in 1952. Even after the war, they continued to provide for their families.

A vendor sells food at Namdaemun Market in Seoul, July 2018. Old markets such as Namdaemun in Seoul were spaces where women not only dominated the trade but also shaped the commercial landscape during the Korean War. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk

CEO of Soyea Lee Sang-sook / Korea Times file

Then the rapid industrialization came in the 1970s, and a new wave of women entrepreneurs began to rise.

The most notable figure is Lee Sang-sook, dubbed the “export queen” during the time. When international travel was still unfamiliar, she journeyed abroad with bundles of hand-sewn dolls and led the company Soyea for 30 years. She was even honored with a presidential citation for her contribution to the economy.

But change rarely comes without resistance. These women entrepreneurs had to endure societal stereotypes that accuse financially capable women of neglecting their household duties.

Even Lee Sang-sook recalls how two bags appeared in her dreams every time — one filled with her company’s work and the other with housework. “Balancing work and household responsibilities left me so physically and emotionally exhausted,” she said.

There was also a widespread belief that openly seeking profit was unbecoming of a woman.

“Lim eventually earned enough to open a beauty school, and Lee Jong-soo also shifted into education after building her business,” Kim said. “One of the women I interviewed said she had never felt proud of her economic activity — rather, she felt ashamed. The shame stayed with her even after all this time.”

gettyimagesbank

Women entrepreneurs continue to emerge today, and Kim believes revisiting this history offers valuable lessons and inspiration for young women in the present generation.

“It was difficult for women entrepreneurs’ economic contributions and historical roles to gain recognition, as a large portion of these self-employed women ran small-scale or even one-person businesses,” Kim said. “The men-dominated culture of the workplace has now become a frequent topic of public discussion."

Kim added, “It made me realize that the struggles faced by self-employed women should also be talked about more and be given greater attention.​"

13. Chinese diplomat invokes Mao Zedong in vow not to 'back down' from US trade war

​The Korean War still has meaning and continues its influence to this day.

Excerpts:

While the Korean War is often known as the “Forgotten War” in the U.S., it forms a central part of the Chinese national mythos. Though it ended in a draw, the infant People’s Liberation Army’s ability to push U.S. forces south of the 38th Parallel in the opening months of the Chinese intervention served as a major point of pride for modern Chinese.

The Korean War is a frequent feature in Chinese popular culture. It was the subject of the anti-U.S. propaganda film The Battle at Lake Changjin and its sequel. The first film became the highest-grossing Chinese film until it was surpassed by the animated movie Ne Zha 2 in February.

Chinese diplomat invokes Mao Zedong in vow not to 'back down' from US trade war

By​ Brady Knox

April 10, 2025 11:02 am

Washington Examiner · April 10, 2025

“As to how long this war will last, we are not the ones who can decide. It used to depend on President [Harry S.] Truman, and it will depend on President [Dwight D.] Eisenhower or whoever becomes the next U.S. president. It’s up to them. No matter how long this war is going to last, we’ll never yield! We’ll fight until we completely triumph!” he said to cheers.

“We are Chinese. We are not afraid of provocations. We don’t back down,” Mao Ning captioned the video, alongside a Chinese flag emoji.

We are Chinese. We are not afraid of provocations. We don’t back down.  pic.twitter.com/vPgifasYmI

— Mao Ning 毛宁 (@SpoxCHN_MaoNing) April 10, 2025

The Chinese Embassy in the U.S. replied likewise, saying, “We don’t back down,” alongside a Chinese flag emoji.

The posting of the speech by a Chinese official referencing the last time U.S. and Chinese forces exchanged blows marks a significant escalation in rhetoric.

While the Korean War is often known as the “Forgotten War” in the U.S., it forms a central part of the Chinese national mythos. Though it ended in a draw, the infant People’s Liberation Army’s ability to push U.S. forces south of the 38th Parallel in the opening months of the Chinese intervention served as a major point of pride for modern Chinese.

The Korean War is a frequent feature in Chinese popular culture. It was the subject of the anti-U.S. propaganda film The Battle at Lake Changjin and its sequel. The first film became the highest-grossing Chinese film until it was surpassed by the animated movie Ne Zha 2 in February.

CHINA SLAPS U.S. WITH 84% RETALIATORY TARIFFS

The over-the-top depiction of Americans in the movies makes it a frequent subject of mockery on social media in the West.

Chinese propaganda depictions of Americans continues to outdo anything the West currently does pic.twitter.com/TfWfHu2b5t

— Aetius (@AetiusRF) July 12, 2023

President Donald Trump escalated his trade war against China while pausing tariffs on most other countries. The latest tariffs on Chinese goods are 125%, while those on U.S. goods are 84%.

Washington Examiner · April 10, 2025

14. What Mao and the Korean War tell us about Chinese psyche in fight against Trump

A quote we should keep in mind:

“The US intimidates certain countries, stopping them from doing business with us. But America is just a paper tiger. Don't believe it's bluff. One poke, and it'll burst!”

– Mao Zedong in 1964“

Commentary

What Mao and the Korean War tell us about Chinese psyche in fight against Trump

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/what-mao-and-the-korean-war-tell-us-about-chinese-psyche-in-fight-against-trump?utm

Yew Lun Tian

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning cited Mao Zedong to say on X that "China never bluffs – and we see through those who do."SCREENGRAB: MAO NING/X

UPDATED Apr 11, 2025, 11:18 PM

When China said on April 11 that it would match US President Donald Trump’s tariffs of 125 per cent from April 12, its message was loud and clear: Bring it on.

“China never bluffs – and we see through those who do,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning wrote on X on April 11, hours before the announcement.

Mr Trump might have hoped that by focusing his reciprocal tariff wrath on China and hiking it up to 125 per cent – later clarified by the White House that it was 145 per cent – while sparing all other countries, he can make the Chinese quaver, crumble and call for a deal.

That was never going to happen. Beijing has decided from the start that it will not come to the negotiating table under duress. Any talks can take place only on an “equal footing”, government spokespersons repeatedly said. 

It’s not simply a matter of “face” or pride.

Rather, it is the Chinese taking a leaf from the playbook of Mao Zedong, the founding leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), on how he faced off the Americans during the Korean War of 1950-1953.

In 1950, Mao famously said: “A well-thrown first punch can prevent 10,000 punches later.” He believed that in the face of provocation, an early show of strength can establish credibility, set boundaries and deter future aggression.

This thinking underpinned his bold decision to enter the Korean War on the side of North Korea, even though the PRC had been founded only less than a year earlier in October 1949 and was still reeling from the devastation of the Japanese occupation and a bitter civil war.

According to the official Chinese narrative, despite being poorly equipped and outnumbered, China succeeded in repelling the “imperialist” United States, then a rising superpower, fighting on the side of South Korea.

The war gave rise to a slew of movies and songs that immortalised Chinese heroes of the war in tales of sacrifice for the nation and of triumph against the odds. The victory was held up as validation of Mao’s strategic thinking and his enduring doctrine of douzheng (struggle or fight).

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao posted on X on April 10 a black-and-white video of Mao in February 1953, almost three years into the Korean War, saying: “We will fight however long the Americans want to fight. We will fight until we achieve complete victory.” 

Along with the video, Ms Mao, who is not related to the late leader, wrote: “We are Chinese. We are not afraid of provocations. We don’t back down.”

In reality, the war ended in July that year in a bloody stalemate with no clear winners.

It nevertheless gave credence to a logic popular among nationalistic commentators: If China could push back against the US even when it was so weak in the 1950s, why should China, which is the world’s second-largest economy now, shy away from the fight?

Mao famously called the US a “paper tiger” during the Korean War and the Vietnam War, from 1955 to 1975, in reference to his assessment that the US military was not invincible and that it would not dare to act upon its threats of using nuclear weapons.

During both wars, the US tried to contain China – which not only fought on the side of North Korea but also supported North Vietnam – by imposing economic sanctions and a trade embargo, a situation that seems to echo that of today, with the US fighting both a trade and tech war with the Chinese.

Ms Mao posted on April 11 a Mao quote overlaid on his photo: “The US intimidates certain countries, stopping them from doing business with us. But America is just a paper tiger. Don’t believe its bluff. One poke, and it’ll burst.” 

The US under Mr Trump is probably a tiger that not many countries in the world would want to poke. Nevertheless, Mao’s thinking about the Korean War and other struggles is deeply ingrained in the psyche of generations of Chinese people. It provides the state with a convenient narrative to mentally prepare its people to endure a painful, drawn-out trade war, and to have moral courage even when the odds seem to be against them. 

Not everyone buys into the argument. In response to a post on RedNote drawing parallels between Mao’s approach about the Korean War and China’s stance in today’s trade war, one user, “Gugu”, commented: “I’ve been jobless for half a year. If we keep fighting, I’ll have to retire at age 30.” 

When relations were better, invoking the Korean War was considered impolite.

In 2011, Chinese pianist Lang Lang stirred controversy at the White House by performing My Motherland, the theme song for a Korean War-era film, which had anti-American lyrics like: “If the jackals and wolves come, I’ll be ready to greet them with my shotgun.” 

The re-emergence of these Korean War ghosts now bodes ill for Sino-US relations.

• Yew Lun Tian is a senior foreign correspondent who covers China for The Straits Times.

15. Lee Jae-myung paints Korea as 'model democracy' in light of ex-president's ouster

Lee Jae-myung paints Korea as 'model democracy' in light of ex-president's ouster

koreaherald.com · by Kim Arin · April 11, 2025

Ex-Democratic Party of Korea head says he would distribute corporate profits on back of more government input

Rep. Lee Jae-myung, who is entering the Democratic Party of Korea primary for president, speaks at a briefing room at the National Assembly on Friday. Yonhap

Democratic Party of Korea presidential hopeful Rep. Lee Jae-myung said Friday he would end "insurrection" waged by ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol and turn the country into "a model and beacon of hope for democracy in the world."

In a press conference laying out his vision for his presidency, Lee said he would put an end to Yoon's "insurrection that is still perpetuating to this day," referring to the former president's botched imposition of martial law on Dec. 3 last year.

The former Democratic Party leader credited "all South Korean people" for Yoon's ouster a week ago, calling it the "people's revolution."

"The peaceful revolution led by the South Korean people will be a model for democracies around the world," he said.

Lee said the major problems facing the country were a lot different compared to 2022, when he had run for the president against Yoon.

"Back then, we didn't have forces trying to overthrow the Constitution and democracy. The Yoon Suk Yeol government has spawned the worst crisis for democracy, the bedrock of our society, in recent years. The values of freedom and human rights have come under a dire threat. Peace and security have been turned into means for controlling power," he said.

Lee said he also become a different person compared to three years ago. "I feel a lot more responsibility. I'm a bit more eager," he said.

Lee also pointed to the the second Donald Trump administration in the US which has "triggered a global contest that prioritizes nations' self-interests."

The domestic political polarization and divide "need to be overcome" in the face of a new global reality governed by the "rules of the survival of the fittest," he said.

To help South Korean corporations remain competitive, Lee said he would "expand government involvement and investment" in emerging sectors like artificial intelligence. As corporations would benefit from more government input, their profits "should also be shared, and not monopolized by the few," he said.

Lee said the country's economic growth should contribute to making lives better for South Koreans.

"The costs of living are skyrocketing. Unemployment is on the rise. Small businesses are shutting down. Household incomes are dwindling and stock prices are plummeting. Eveywhere you look in the country, so many are suffering financially," he said.

Lee ended his 12-minute message with, "The real South Korea is just beginning."

Lee, who still has to pass through the Democratic Party presidential primary, appears to be leading other potential and official contenders. A poll by Gallup Korea released Friday showed Lee, with 37 percent support, to be far ahead of his rivals.

Kim Moon-soo, Yoon's former labor minister, who has been polling strongest against Lee, stopped short at just 9 percent. Hong Joon-pyo, the mayor of conservative home turf Daegu, had 5 percent. Han Dong-hoon, the former People Power Party leader, was on 4 percent.

They are followed by acting President Han Duck-soo, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, People Power Party Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo and Reform Party Rep. Lee Jun-seok all of whom got 2 percent each. Lee Nak-yon, former Democratic Party President Moon Jae-in's prime minister, and Yoo Seong-min, former lawmaker who headed the People Power Party's think tank, the Yeouido Institute, earned 1 percent each.

Thirty percent said they had no preference.

Friday's Gallup Korea poll took place April 8-10 featuring 1,005 voters aged 18 and up surveyed through random digit dialing, with plus or minus 3.1 percentage points as its margin of sampling error and 95 percent confidence level. More about the poll is available on the National Election Commission website.

arin@heraldcorp.com

koreaherald.com · by Kim Arin · April 11, 2025

16. Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon opts out of presidential race

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon opts out of presidential race

koreaherald.com · by Moon Ki-hoon · April 12, 2025

Ruling party figure defies earlier expectations, commits to mayoral role amid political turmoil following president's removal

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon announces he will not run for president during a press conference at the People Power Party headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul, Saturday. (Yonhap)

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon announced Saturday he will not enter South Korea's presidential race, contrary to widespread expectations that he would seek the nation's highest post following former President Yoon Suk Yeol's removal from office.

Speaking at a press conference at People Power Party headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul, Oh expressed his commitment to continue serving as mayor instead of pursuing the presidency in the June 3 election.

"While driving forward is certainly a virtue for any politician, knowing when to step back requires equal courage," Oh said. "I will not be running in this presidential election but will instead serve in a supporting role to help restore normalcy to this abnormal situation."

Oh acknowledged the repercussions of Yoon's ouster, which has created deep fissures within South Korea's conservative political landscape and has put the ruling party on the defensive.

"The impeachment of a president from our own party brings me indescribable devastation and an endless sense of responsibility," Oh said. "None of us in the party can escape our share of accountability for the failures of the Yoon administration."

The decision marks a reversal from local media reports citing Oh's camp earlier this week that he would formally announce his presidential bid on Sunday.

It also comes amid mounting political pressure within the People Power Party to find a viable candidate following Yoon's removal from the presidency. The conservative ruling party plans to hold primary elections on May 3, just one month before the presidential election.

Oh, who has served four terms as Seoul's mayor across different periods (2006-2011 and 2021-present), had been viewed as one of several leading conservative contenders according to recent polls.

The field includes former Labor Minister Kim Moon-soo, a staunch defender of Yoon who represents the party's hard-right faction; Han Dong-hoon, the former party leader who broke ranks to support Yoon's impeachment; and Ahn Cheol-soo, a tech entrepreneur-turned-lawmaker making his fourth presidential bid.

Polls show they all significantly trail Lee Jae-myung, the main opposition Democratic Party leader who declared his candidacy earlier this week, both in head-to-head matchups and multi-candidate scenarios.

The presidential election, scheduled for June 3, follows the parliamentary vote to impeach President Yoon after his shock declaration of martial law on Dec. 3. On April 4, the South Korean Constitutional Court upheld the impeachment motion in a unanimous 8-0 decision.

moonkihoon@heraldcorp.com

koreaherald.com · by Moon Ki-hoon · April 12, 2025

​17. Han Dong-hoon declares presidential bid, vows shorter term

​Excerpts:

Calling for a “political and generational transformation,” Han pledged to reform the Constitution, including a shift to a four-year, renewable presidency and the introduction of a bicameral legislature. He proposed establishing an upper house while abolishing proportional representation seats, keeping the total number of lawmakers at 300.

Han Dong-hoon declares presidential bid, vows shorter term

koreaherald.com · by Hwang Joo-young · April 10, 2025

Han Dong-hoon, former chair of the ruling People Power Party, announces his presidential bid Thursday at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul. (Yonhap)

Han Dong-hoon, former chair of the ruling People Power Party, officially declared his presidential bid Thursday, presenting himself as the candidate most feared by Rep. Lee Jae-myung, the leading contender from the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea.

“Who can defeat Lee Jae-myung? Who does he fear the most?” Han said during a press conference at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul. “We must choose someone who can win. I will achieve a decisive victory, together with the people.”

Calling for a “political and generational transformation,” Han pledged to reform the Constitution, including a shift to a four-year, renewable presidency and the introduction of a bicameral legislature. He proposed establishing an upper house while abolishing proportional representation seats, keeping the total number of lawmakers at 300.

To synchronize the terms of the president and the National Assembly, he suggested holding the next presidential and general elections simultaneously. “That’s the only way to end the cycle of extreme political strife,” he said.

“The next president must not run in the presidential election three years from now. All candidates must demonstrate responsibility and a willingness to sacrifice,” he added.

Han, who formerly served as justice minister under the Yoon Suk Yeol administration, made his first foray into politics as the leader of the ruling People Power Party in December 2023, ahead of the general election the following year.

Once part of Yoon’s inner circle due to their shared background as prosecutors, Han later became the face of the party’s non-Yoon faction during the 2024 campaign, reportedly clashing with Yoon over candidate nominations. After Yoon was impeached by the National Assembly, Han stepped down as party chair.

Han now joins a growing field of contenders for the presidency in the People Power Party. On Wednesday, Kim Moon-soo, former labor minister under the Yoon administration, and Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo announced their candidacies.

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon is expected to declare his bid over the weekend, while Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo and former lawmaker Yoo Seong-min are reportedly preparing to announce their campaigns next week.

According to the People Power Party, four candidates will be selected in the first round of a primary, based entirely on public opinion polls. The second round will narrow the field to two finalists, determined by a combination of 50 percent public polling and 50 percent votes from registered party members. The final nominee will also be chosen using the same method and announced on May 3.

flylikekite@heraldcorp.com

koreaherald.com · by Hwang Joo-young · April 10, 2025

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