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Quotes of the Day:
"The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human"
– Aldous Huxley
"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning."
– Albert Einstein
"The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility."
– Vaclav Havel
1. Abandoning the U.S.-ROK Alliance Won’t Prevent War ("The Quiet Part Out Loud – The Desire to Withdraw U.S. Forces from Korea")
2. The Coming North Korean Crisis
3. South Korea Redefines Its Global Role.
4. Crink: the new autocractic 'axis of evil'
5. US to Boost Output of Bombs Designed to Hit Underground Nuclear Facilities
6. South Koreans and Their Neighbors 2024
7. How Chinese surveillance technology helps North Korea keep its citizens on a tight leash
8. The Army has stepped up its training for tunnel warfare, a dangerous — and growing — form of combat
9. Nuclear South Korea? The hidden implication of hints at US troop withdrawal
10. Will North Korea be a bigger threat under Biden or Trump?
11. [INTERVIEW] 'S. Korea's role in N.Korean affairs at risk with Trump's potential return'
12. S. Korea not to send gov't delegation to new Taiwanese leader's inauguration
13. China and Russia Disagree on North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons
14. 4 Korean War memorials in U.S. add term 'East Sea' in reference to sea between S. Korea, Japan
15. Yoon, Cambodian PM agree to establish strategic partnership
16. Turning Back the Clock: The Changing Nature of North Korean Food Insecurity
1. Abandoning the U.S.-ROK Alliance Won’t Prevent War
My response to Elbridge Colby's Yonhap interview.
This was my original proposed title: "The Quiet Part Out Loud – The Desire to Withdraw U.S. Forces from Korea"
My original draft is below. A few nuanced points were edited out. I did not initially name Elbridge Colby but the National Interest Editor wanted him named.
Abandoning the U.S.-ROK Alliance Won’t Prevent War
So which country is more important to U.S. national security interests, Taiwan or South Korea? The truth is they both are. The United States must be able to support the defense of both.
The National Interest · by David Maxwell · May 15, 2024
Last week, former Trump administration defense official Elbridge Colby suggested that South Korea should take more responsibility for its own defense. “To the extent that we are currently planning on sending massive amounts of forces to Korea that would decrement from our ability to deal with the Chinese, I think we need to revise that. I think we need to have a plan for the defense of South Korea that the U.S. and the president of the U.S. could rationally implement,” he said in an interview with the Yonhap News Agency.
Elbridge Colby and the Korea Question: Refuting the Arguments
While Colby did not specifically advocate for a military withdrawal, his statement alarmed those who seek to prevent war on the Korean peninsula. It unintentionally plays right into Kim Jong-un’s political warfare strategy, which seeks to drive a wedge in the ROK-U.S. alliance and create conditions favorable to coercion and the eventual use of force.
There is speculation that because Colby served in the Trump administration for about one year, these views will dominate a second Trump administration. These statements may also be setting the conditions for increased defense spending from the ROK.
Some of the ideas Colby offered should be challenged. First is the notion that the Korean peninsula is a secondary issue, and the priority for the United States should be deterring China from a takeover of Taiwan. South Korea must, therefore, assume more responsibility for its own defense, and the alliance must conclude the transition of wartime operational control (OPCON) to Seoul as quickly as possible. If U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) does remain in the ROK, it should shift to warfighting against the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). USFK should not be held “hostage” by North Korea, according to Colby.
This begs the question for U.S. policymakers and strategists: Which country is more important to U.S. national security interests: Taiwan or the ROK? While Colby has stated his position that Taiwan’s needs supersede Korea’s, deeper analysis might reveal that they are both important, and neither should be neglected, written off, or left to their own devices, especially if it is in the U.S. interests to deter war against both.
The real challenge, and one that Colby is trying to address, is that to deter war, one must be prepared to fight and win in both places. Unfortunately, making the argument that the United States cannot do both plays into Kim Jong-un’s hands.
Korea as the Secondary Fight
The assumption here is that not only is Taiwan more important to the United States, but that the ROK must be responsible for its own defense. China and North Korea are allies, and it seems that cooperation is deepening between the two (as well as with Russia). It is a mistake to separate the two fights regardless of how much simpler it is for defense planners to do so. The enemy gets a vote, and if one is prioritized, the other may exercise his vote, which creates a huge problem for which we failed to prepare. However, the real mistake in this argument is that publicly prioritizing Taiwan over the ROK will drive a dagger through the heart of the alliance and give Kim room to coerce concessions from the ROK and ultimately use force to unify the peninsula under the Gulag State.
South Korea Should Assume Greater Responsibility for Its Defense
It is not 1950. The U.S. presence is important for deterrence, but it will be ROK soldiers who will do the vast majority of fighting and dying for their country. Yes, the ROK has an advanced military that is superior in technology, doctrine, and training (save for weapons of mass destruction). The ROK allocates a greater percentage of its GDP to defense than most NATO allies. Its defense industry is now one of the best in the world and is supplying advanced weapons and ammunition to like-minded democracies, including Ukraine. The ROK contributes over $1 billion a year to support U.S. troops. The ROK is extremely capable. Nevertheless, it is in the United States and the ROK’s interests to prevent war on the Korean peninsula, and it is the excellent military of the ROK, the commitment of U.S. forces, and extended nuclear deterrence that prevents Kim from attacking. Why give Kim the gift of withdrawal?
OPCON Transition Must be Quickly Concluded
There is an erroneous assumption that the OPCON transition will reduce the requirement for U.S. troops. There are pundits in both the ROK and the United States who believe that the OPCON transition is the first step to a full withdrawal. This current plan for the OPCON transition is that sometime in the future, when the leaders of both countries are satisfied that the military conditions are met, a South Korean general officer will assume command of the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command (ROK/U.S. CFC). He will lead the execution of the defense plan that is approved by the Military Committee, which will continue to exercise strategic guidance and control of CFC in the future. There is no known plan for the withdrawal of any U.S. military capabilities when the OPCON transition takes place because the current ROK/U.S. CFC will continue to provide the combined defensive capabilities to deter war and defend the ROK.
US Forces Korea Should Shift to Fight China
USFK is not a warfighting command. It is a sub-unified command of USINDOPACOM. However, like the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff, it is a force provider to the ROK-U.S. CFC. Other than a rotational ground maneuver brigade combat team, a permanent fires (artillery) brigade, and the Seventh Air Force at Osan and Kunsan air bases, the majority of USFK is focused on providing the backbone communications and intelligence support to the ROK-U.S. CFC as well as the logistics capabilities necessary to sustain U.S. forces that will deploy from the United States if the defense plan is executed. Even if all forces from the United States are deployed as planned, the ROK defense capability will be more than six times the size of the U.S. contingent.
Other than the Seventh Air Force, there are very few military capabilities that would be of value in defense of Taiwan. And since the USFK is not a warfighting command, it would be irresponsible to try to employ it as such.
The ROK Should Prepare for A China Fight
Certainly, China is the 600-pound gorilla in the Indo-Pacific, and it is a threat to the ROK. However, to think that the PLA would attack the ROK and North Korea would stay out of the fight is a deadly assumption.
U.S. Forces Should Not be Held Hostage by North Korea
Technically, forces that are apportioned to the defense plan are committed forces and cannot be expected to be employed elsewhere. However, the United States has taken forces from Korea in the past. In 2004, it deployed an entire brigade to Iraq. For the first three years of the Global War on Terrorism, U.S. special operations helicopters rotated to Afghanistan every four months. The real challenge for the defense of both Korea and Taiwan is with “dual apportioned” forces—units that are assigned to support both defense plans based on the (questionable) assumption that both fights will occur simultaneously.
This is the contingency planning that professional defense planners continue to work on. They are considering what capabilities will be available to fight depending on how the war(s) might unfold. Will there be a simultaneous and coordinated attack? Or, if sequential, which one will take place first? This is work that must be done by professionals. But the truth is if the U.S. needs forces from USFK for another contingency, it will deploy those forces. However, as stated, there is little utility in deploying elements of USFK for a Taiwan fight. Again, the USFK is not a warfighting headquarters.
“The United States Should Not Trade Five American Cities for Seoul”
Those who state this fail to understand the nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim family regime. Curiously, these pundits do not discuss the very real threat posed to American cities by Chinese nuclear weapons. If the argument is that we give up the defense of the ROK to protect American cities, why isn’t the same rationale applied to Taiwan—will conceding the defense of Taiwan result in the safety of American cities from Chinese nuclear attack? The truth is the United States must continue to develop its defense capabilities against nuclear weapons from all threats.
OPCON Transition, Again
Colby is correct in desiring a more rapid OPCON transition. This is because of the outcome of any contingency on the Korean peninsula, whether it is war or instability and regime collapse. Military operations in North Korea should be led by a Korean general, with the U.S. providing support as per the current campaign plan that is in effect at the time. This is to ensure the long-term legitimacy of the end state in any conflict or contingency, which is a free and unified Korea. Koreans must solve the “Korea question” as per paragraph 60 of the Armistice Agreement. The United States also cannot afford the perception that it is leading operations in the north and then acting as an occupier. The ROK military must support the political process led by the ROK government. Again, the United States can play a supporting role in accordance with alliance coordination and approved campaign plans, but a South Korean commander must lead operations.
So which country is more important to U.S. national security interests, Taiwan or South Korea? The truth is they both are. The United States must be able to support the defense of both. If commentators like Colby argue that Washington cannot do both, then the U.S. military must be reformed to be able to do both. It may very well be able to do so with the support of friends, partners, and allies. Prioritizing one over the other will likely result in sacrificing both. And to publicly prioritize one over the other and telegraph that priority is a political warfare blunder and simply invites conflict.
About the Author: David Maxwell
David Maxwell is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel who has spent over thirty years in Asia, specializing in Northeast Asian security affairs and irregular, unconventional, and political warfare. He is the Vice President of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy and a Senior Fellow at the Global Peace Foundation (where he focuses on a free and unified Korea). He is a member of the board of directors of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the editor of Small Wars Journal.
July 31, 2013
The National Interest · by David Maxwell · May 15, 2024
The Quiet Part Out Loud – The Desire to Withdraw U.S. Forces from Korea
By David Maxwell
Recently a former defense official almost said the quiet part out loud: There are some pundits
in the U.S. who seek to withdraw U.S. forces from Korea so they can be used to fight a war with
China. He did not specifically advocate withdrawal but that is surely on the minds of those who
are uninformed about Korean security. This has alarmed those who seek to prevent war on the
Korean peninsula. Perhaps unknowingly, his statements play right into the political warfare
strategy of Kim Jong Un who seeks to drive a wedge in the ROK/U.S. alliance to create
conditions favorable for coercion and the eventual use of force.
The former official offers ideas that should be challenged. First is that Korea is a secondary
fight and that the primary fight the U.S. (and the ROK) must prepare for is with China over
Taiwan. South Korea must assume more responsibility for its own defense and the alliance
must conclude OPCON transition as quickly as possible. If U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) do remain in
the ROK they should shift to warfighting against the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Even the
ROK should focus its defense on the PLA rather than North Korea. USFK should not be “held
hostage” by North Korea. The US should not trade five American cities for the defense of Seoul.
According to this official China is the only threat that matters for the U.S., the ROK, and other
allies.
There is speculation that because this official served in the Trump administration for about one
year that these are views that will dominate a second Trump administration. These statements
may also be setting the conditions for making a huge demand for money from the ROK for U.S.
defense contributions.
This begs the question for U.S. policy makers and strategists: Which country is more important
to U.S. national security interests: Taiwan or the ROK? While the defense official has stated his
obvious position as Taiwan because Korea is the secondary fight, deeper analysis might reveal
that they are both important and neither should be neglected, written off, or left to their own
devices, especially if it is in the U.S. interests to deter war against both. The commentary by the
defense official and other pundits seems to imply that the US is itching for a fight in the Taiwan
Strait. In fact, strategists should be asking how to deter war. The real challenge, and one that
the defense official is trying to address is that to deter war you must be prepared to fight and
win in both places. Unfortunately, in trying to make the argument that the U.S. cannot do both
it plays into the political warfare strategy of Kim Jong Un.
Korea as the Secondary Fight
The assumption here is that not only is Taiwan more important to the U.S. but that the ROK
must be responsible for its own defense. China and North Korea are allies, and it seems that
cooperation is deepening between the two (as well as with Russia). It is a mistake to separate
the two fights regardless of how much simpler it is to do so for defense planners. The enemy
gets a vote and if one is prioritized the other may exercise his vote and create a huge problem
for which we failed to prepare. However, the real mistake in this argument is that it supports
Kim’s political warfare strategy because publicly prioritizing Taiwan over the ROK will drive a
dagger through the heart of the alliance and will lead to the withdrawal of U.S. troops which is
exactly the condition Kim Jong Un believes he must have to coerce concessions from the ROK
and ultimately use force to unify the peninsula under the rule of the Guerrilla Dynasty and
Gulag State.
South Korea Should Assume Greater Responsibility for its Defense
It is not 1950. The US presence is important for deterrence, but it will be ROK soldiers who will
do the vast majority of fighting and dying (and causing North Korean soldiers to die) for their
country. Yes, the ROK has an advanced military that is superior in technology, doctrine, and
training (save for weapons of mass destruction). The ROK allocates a greater percentage of its
GDP to defense than all NATO allies, except the U.S. Its defense industry is now one of the best
in the world and is supplying advanced weapons and ammunition to like-minded democracies
to include NATO allies. And the ROK contributes a staggering amount of money to support U.S.
troops. In fact, it funded more than 93% of the $9 billion to build the largest U.S. military
installation outside of the U.S. The ROK is extremely capable. But it is in U.S. and ROK interests
to prevent war on the Korean peninsula and it is the excellent military of the ROK and the
commitment of US forces and extended deterrence that deters Kim from attacking. Why would
the U.S. give Kim the gift of withdrawal that would surely lead to war?
OPCON Transition Must be Quickly Concluded
There is an erroneous assumption that OPCON transition will reduce the requirement for U.S.
troops. And there are pundits in both the ROK and the U.S. who believe that OPCON transition
is the first step to a full withdrawal. This current plan for OPCON transition is that sometime in
the future when the leaders of both countries are satisfied that the military conditions are met,
a ROK general officer will assume command of the ROK/U.S. Combined Forces Command
(ROK/U.S. CFC). He will lead the execution of the defense plan that is approved by the Military
Committee which currently and in the future will continue to exercise strategic guidance and
control of CFC. There is no known plan for the withdrawal of any U.S. military capabilities when
OPCON transition takes place because the current ROK/U.S. CFC will continue to provide the
combined defensive capabilities to deter war and defend the ROK.
US Forces Korea Should Shift to Fight China
USFK is not a warfighting command. It is a subunified command of USINDOPACOM. But like
the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff it is a force provider to the ROK/U.S. CFC. Other than a rotational
ground maneuver brigade combat team, a permanent fires (artillery) brigade and the 7 th Air
Force at Osan and Kunsan air bases, the majority of USFK is focused providing the backbone
communications and intelligence support to the ROK/U.S. CFC as well as the logistics
capabilities necessary to sustained U.S. force that will deploy from the U.S. if the defense plan is
executed. Even if all forces from the U.S> are deployed as planned, the ROK defense capability
will be more than six times the size of the U.S. Other than the 7 th Air Force, there are very few
military capabilities that would be of value in the defense of Taiwan. And since USFK is not a
warfighting command it would be irresponsible to try to employ it as such.
The ROK Should Prepare for A China Fight
Certainly, China is the 600 pound gorilla in INDOPACIFIC, and it is a threat to the ROK. However,
to think that the PLA would attack the ROK and North Korea would stay out of the fight is a
deadly assumption.
U.S. Forces Should Not be Held Hostage by North Korea
Technically forces that are apportioned to the defense plan are committed forces and cannot
be expected to be employed elsewhere. However, the U.S has taken forces from Korea in the
past. In 2004 it deployed an entire brigade combat team to Iraq. For the first three years of the
Global War on Terrorism, U.S. special operations helicopters rotated to Afghanistan every 4
months. The real challenge for the defense of both Korea and Taiwan is with “dual
apportioned” forces – units that are assigned to support both defense plans based on the
(questionable) assumption that both fights will not occur simultaneously. This is the
contingency planning that professional defense planners continue to work on. They are
considering what capabilities will be available to which fight depending how the war(s) might
unfold. Will there be a simultaneous and coordinated attack? Or if sequential, which one will
take place first? This is work that must be done by professionals. But the truth is if the U.S.
needs forces from USFK for another contingency it will deploy those forces. However, as stated
there is little utility in deploying elements of USFK for a Taiwan fight. Again, USFK is not a
warfighting headquarters.
The U.S. Should Not Trade 5 American Cities for Seoul
Those who state this fail to understand the nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim family
regime and are actively (but perhaps unwittingly) supporting Kim Jong Un’s political warfare
strategy. It is curious that these pundits do not discuss the very real threat posed to American
cities by Chinese nuclear weapons. If the argument is that we give up the defense of the ROK to
protect American cities, why isn’t the same rationale applied to Taiwan – will conceding the
defense of Taiwan result in the safety of American cities from Chinese nuclear attack? The
truth is the U.S. must continue to develop its defense capabilities against nuclear weapons from
all threats.
OPCON Transition, Again
The former defense official is correct in desiring a more rapid OPCON transition. This is because
the outcome of any contingency on the Korean peninsula, whether it is war or instability and
regime collapse. Military operations in North Korea should be led by a Korean general with the
U.S. providing support as per the current campaign plan that is in effect at the time. This is to
ensure the long term legitimacy of the end state to any conflict or contingency, which is a free
and unified Korea. Koreans must solve the “Korea question” as per paragraph 60 of the
Armistice Agreement. The U.S. also cannot afford the perception that it is leading operations in
the north and then acting as an occupier. The ROK military must support the political process
that will be led by the ROK government. Again, the U.S. can play a supporting role in
accordance with alliance coordination and approved campaign plans, but it is imperative that
operations be led by a ROK commander.
Conclusion
So which country is more important to U.S. national security interests, Taiwan or South Korea?
The truth is they both are. The U.S. must be able to support the defense of both. If pundits like
the former defense official argue the U.S. cannot do both then the U.S. military must be
reformed to be able to do both. It may very well be able to so with the support of friends,
partners, and allies. To prioritize one over the other likely will end up sacrificing both. And to
publicly prioritize one over the other and telegraph that priority is a political warfare blunder
and simply invites conflict.
David Maxwell is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel who has spent over thirty years in
Asia, specializing in Northeast Asian security affairs and irregular, unconventional, and political
warfare. He is the Vice President of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy and a Senior Fellow at
the Global Peace Foundation (where he focuses on a free and unified Korea). He is a member of
the board of directors of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the editor of Small
Wars Journal.
2. The Coming North Korean Crisis
I would add that we should exploit the internal stresses on the regime to force Kim to change his behavior or have him changed by those inside north Korea.
Excerpts:
There are also steps that the United States can take to keep up economic pressure on North Korea, despite Beijing and Moscow’s entente. According to Joshua Stanton, the principal architect of a 2016 bill that strengthened sanctions against North Korea, the Biden administration can build a coalition of the willing to limit Pyongyang’s access to illicit finance. The Kim regime, for example, earns revenue by sending laborers abroad to work at restaurants, construction sites, and sweatshops in countries around the world. These workers smuggle cash back to North Korea in bulk, and they engage in money laundering and cybercrimes. Washington and its allies can trace and expose the supply chains behind products made with North Korean forced labor and ban them from being sold in their borders.
There are critics of stringent approaches. For example, the historian John Delury has argued that stricter sanctions enforcement will only foreclose opportunities for diplomacy and further raise tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Tougher sanctions, Delury argues, are “not only futile,” but also “counterproductive and dangerous.” But this analysis is incorrect. As Stanton points out, history has shown that Pyongyang is in fact more willing to negotiate when restrictions are effective and more inclined to self-isolate, proliferate, and provoke when they are not. North Korea, he observed, returned to negotiations between 2005 and 2007, and again between 2018 and 2019, following periods of relatively strong sanctions enforcement. Pyongyang’s nuclear tests in 2006, 2009, and 2016, by contrast, coincided with periods when Washington was relatively lax. Tellingly, Kim’s principal demand during past negotiations with the United States was sanctions relief. “It was all about the sanctions,” Trump told reporters in 2019. “They wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn’t do that.”
Now is not the time to lift sanctions, either. Now, in fact, is the time to double down. If Biden wants to prevent North Korea from acting out, he needs to first provide the government with new incentives to talk—and that means new restrictions Washington can use as carrots. Biden, in other words, needs to take North Korean policy off autopilot and launch a proactive effort to deter Pyongyang. Otherwise, he risks encouraging an already emboldened Kim to stage a major provocation.
The Coming North Korean Crisis
And How Washington Can Prevent It
May 16, 2024
Foreign Affairs · by Sue Mi Terry · May 16, 2024
U.S. President Joe Biden has plenty of foreign policy crises on his hands. But unfortunately for him, as the United States heads into November’s elections there’s a high chance of yet another emergency: renewed provocations from North Korea. Pyongyang has a history of acting out during U.S. elections. Research by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, for example, found that North Korea stages more than four times as many weapons tests in U.S. election years than in other years.
The situation on the Korean Peninsula is already growing fraught. On January 10, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared South Korea to be an enemy state, ending all talk of peaceful reunification and setting the stage for more hostilities. Any such outburst could outstrip whatever has come before. After decades of working with Washington to control Kim and restrain his nuclear program, Beijing and Moscow have decided to embrace North Korea’s leader, allowing him to act with newfound impunity.
The actual nature of any forthcoming North Korean crisis is difficult to predict. At a minimum, Pyongyang will likely carry out nonlethal provocations—such as cyberattacks on government, defense, telecommunications, and financial institutions. It could also test the Hwasong-18, its solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), in hope of improving its reliability. And North Korea could explode a tactical nuclear weapon: a small nuclear weapon designed for the battlefield.
But North Korea could also go beyond saber-rattling and launch an actual, if limited, military attack against South Korea, akin to when it sunk a South Korean naval vessel and shelled the island of Yeonpyeong in 2010. Such a strike could quickly spin out of control. Current South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol is an avowed hawk and has promised to respond forcibly to any North Korean attack. He is unlikely to be restrained by the fact that his party lost seats in April’s National Assembly elections. Instead, Yoon might violate North Korean airspace with unmanned aerial vehicles or fire back, hitting one of North Korea’s many artillery positions along the border.
If Yoon does respond in kind to a North Korean provocation, the peninsula could quickly find itself ensnared in a conflict that nobody wants—especially not the United States. As a treaty ally, Washington is obligated to come to Seoul’s defense, and being drawn into a war with a nuclear-armed rogue state is a nightmare scenario for already overstretched American officials. But to stop this from happening, the Biden administration must step up efforts to deter North Korea. It must dry up the illicit finance pipeline that supplies the country’s military. It must also review and update contingency plans with Japan and South Korea. That way, Washington is prepared in the event Pyongyang does decide to attack.
BIGGER AND BADDER
Over the last five years, the Kim regime has been rapidly expanding its nuclear weapons program. Since his meetings with Trump fell apart, Kim has refused all offers of serious negotiations with the United States and tested new weapons capable of carrying nuclear warheads, including powerful solid-fuel ICBMs and an underwater nuclear weapons system. Pyongyang is also developing hypersonic missiles designed to penetrate U.S. air defenses and a large multiple launch rocket system that, according to Kim, could “collapse” South Korea’s capital and destroy “the structure of its military forces.” Meanwhile, North Korea successfully launched a military reconnaissance satellite in November, and it has vowed to put several more satellites into orbit this year. These launches will give it something it has long desired: more real-time information about U.S. and South Korean military activities on the peninsula.
Back on earth, North Korea is expanding its uranium enrichment capabilities in order to make more nuclear weapons. Kim has vowed to “exponentially increase nuclear weapons production to realize all kinds of nuclear strike methods.” At a party plenum in December, he called for an increase in the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile, and North Korea’s uranium enrichment site is now bigger than ever. Recent satellite imagery indicates that the country is expanding a suspected nuclear facility near Pyongyang. Meanwhile, intelligence reports suggest it is ready to resume underground nuclear testing at its Punggye-ri site.
As North Korea has ramped up its weapons efforts, it has also escalated its rhetorical assault on its southern neighbor. Kim has recently abandoned Pyongyang’s decades-old goal of reunification, instead declaring South Korea to be its primary adversary. In the regime’s new worldview, the two countries no longer share any kinship, and North Korea is preparing for a “military showdown” with South Korea. To show that it is serious, the regime-run Korean Central News Agency recently deleted hundreds of texts that spoke about the possibility of unification. The regime used to refer to its country as the “northern half” of the Korean Peninsula. That phrase, along with many others, has now been expunged.
The Biden administration must step up efforts to deter North Korea.
There is no indication that Kim is gearing up for all-out war. The regime is not mobilizing troops or equipment, there is no increase in activity at its military bases, and South Korean officials have not detected a significant buildup near the border. But Kim’s rhetoric does suggest a smaller attack could be forthcoming. And if he does resolve to strike, it will be hard to stop him. Both China and Russia are now much more closely aligned with Pyongyang than with Western governments, and so they are unlikely to force him to back off. In fact, in late March, China abstained from—and Russia vetoed—a motion to extend the UN Panel of Experts, an independent body that monitors North Korea’s compliance with nuclear sanctions. Zhao Leji, one of China’s top officials, recently met with Kim in Pyongyang to increase trust and cooperation. Kim met with Putin in September 2023, and ever since, Pyongyang has welcomed a steady flow of Russian delegations—including a March visit from Sergei Naryshkin, the director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service. According to The Korea Herald, Naryshkin “deeply discussed practical issues for further boosting cooperation” with his North Korean counterpart.
The North Korean–Russian partnership is, ultimately, one of convenience. But practical partnerships can still be powerful, and the Moscow-Pyongyang entente is no exception. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to a convergence of political needs and material interests that has prompted North Korea to ship weapons to Russia en masse. North Korea, meanwhile, is receiving more economic and technological assistance from Russia. Moscow, for example, appears to have aided Pyongyang with its military satellite program. Russia could soon offer North Korea assistance with space launch vehicles—assistance that would help North Korea develop better ICBMs.
For Kim, the biggest prize would be the transfer of sensitive, cutting-edge Russian military technology and advanced weaponry. He particularly wants help building solid-fuel missiles and reentry vehicles, which would advance North Korea’s nuclear program. Russia could also assist North Korea with its nuclear submarine and its submarine-launched ballistic missiles—areas in which Russia has significant experience.
Pyongyang’s relations with Beijing may seem weak compared to North Korea’s burgeoning connection to Russia. But China remains North Korea’s most valuable ally, and the two states are increasingly united by their enmity toward Washington. China is also now cooperating more with Russia, suggesting that Beijing, Moscow, and Pyongyang are creating a dangerous, if informal, tripartite pact. As Bruce Bennett, a defense researcher at RAND, has warned, these three countries could “convert Ukraine into a Russia-China-North Korea laboratory for examining and improving various weapons and tactics in actual warfare.” The likely result will be improved military capabilities for each. The cooperation could also increase North Korea’s willingness to take risks, raising the prospect of fresh attacks on its southern neighbor.
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
So far, Biden and his aides have largely ignored the Korean Peninsula—and understandably so. With wars raging in Ukraine and Gaza and tensions rising with China and Iran, the administration has had little bandwidth to focus on Kim’s antics. But North Korea is one of only three countries, along with China and Russia, that could plausibly launch a nuclear strike against the continental United States, and it menaces two major U.S. allies, Japan and South Korea, as well. And so the administration has little choice but to focus on the peninsula.
Admittedly, Washington has few good options, particularly given that Kim is less isolated than he was even three years before. His newfound strength has prompted some Korea watchers to argue that it is time for Washington to drop its unrealistic pursuit of denuclearization and focus on risk reduction via negotiations. They urge the Biden administration to lure Pyongyang back to the negotiating table by offering to relax sanctions in return for confidence-building negotiations, such as a freeze or even a slowdown in nuclear enrichment. Such an approach could be modeled off the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty signed by U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, which banned most types of nuclear tests and slightly thawed tensions at the height of the Cold War.
There is little downside to exploring negotiations with Pyongyang. But the reality is that North Korea has not shown much interest in talking since Trump’s 2019 summit ended early without any agreement. The North Korean leader has even less incentive to make compromises now than he did then, thanks to the assistance the regime gets from China and Russia. And even if Kim were interested in making some kind of deal with the United States, it would make sense for him to first advance North Korea’s nuclear program as far as possible to increase his bargaining leverage. Kim might also imagine that, by making trouble for Biden, he could facilitate the return of President Donald Trump, who was eager to meet with him and even claimed that the two leaders had fallen in love. Kim was disappointed by the 2019 summit with Trump in Hanoi, but he must be even more disappointed by the Biden administration, which has largely ignored his regime. For an attention-hungry tyrant, indifference is the cruelest blow of all.
Now is not the time to lift sanctions. Now is the time to double down.
This reality means that Biden has little choice but to keep strengthening U.S. deterrence against North Korea. To that end, he should double down on his efforts to protect South Korea and enhance defense cooperation between Seoul and Tokyo. He could, for example, provide more real-time data and intelligence to South Korea and collaborate on the development of missile defense systems, surveillance equipment, drones, and weapons enabled with artificial intelligence—leveraging the technological strengths of both countries. Given the increased risk of a conventional confrontation, Seoul and Washington also need to boost conventional deterrence capabilities, including by adding more air-to-surface missiles that can attack enemy radars, such as the S-400 air defense system Russia may provide to North Korea.
There are also steps that the United States can take to keep up economic pressure on North Korea, despite Beijing and Moscow’s entente. According to Joshua Stanton, the principal architect of a 2016 bill that strengthened sanctions against North Korea, the Biden administration can build a coalition of the willing to limit Pyongyang’s access to illicit finance. The Kim regime, for example, earns revenue by sending laborers abroad to work at restaurants, construction sites, and sweatshops in countries around the world. These workers smuggle cash back to North Korea in bulk, and they engage in money laundering and cybercrimes. Washington and its allies can trace and expose the supply chains behind products made with North Korean forced labor and ban them from being sold in their borders.
There are critics of stringent approaches. For example, the historian John Delury has argued that stricter sanctions enforcement will only foreclose opportunities for diplomacy and further raise tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Tougher sanctions, Delury argues, are “not only futile,” but also “counterproductive and dangerous.” But this analysis is incorrect. As Stanton points out, history has shown that Pyongyang is in fact more willing to negotiate when restrictions are effective and more inclined to self-isolate, proliferate, and provoke when they are not. North Korea, he observed, returned to negotiations between 2005 and 2007, and again between 2018 and 2019, following periods of relatively strong sanctions enforcement. Pyongyang’s nuclear tests in 2006, 2009, and 2016, by contrast, coincided with periods when Washington was relatively lax. Tellingly, Kim’s principal demand during past negotiations with the United States was sanctions relief. “It was all about the sanctions,” Trump told reporters in 2019. “They wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn’t do that.”
Now is not the time to lift sanctions, either. Now, in fact, is the time to double down. If Biden wants to prevent North Korea from acting out, he needs to first provide the government with new incentives to talk—and that means new restrictions Washington can use as carrots. Biden, in other words, needs to take North Korean policy off autopilot and launch a proactive effort to deter Pyongyang. Otherwise, he risks encouraging an already emboldened Kim to stage a major provocation.
SUE MI TERRY is Senior Fellow for Korea Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. A former CIA analyst, she served on the National Intelligence Council from 2009 to 2010 and the National Security Council from 2008 to 2009.Foreign Affairs · by Sue Mi Terry · May 16, 2024
3.South Korea Redefines Its Global Role
Conclusion:
South Korea’s economic, technological, and cultural successes can be attributed to the democratic maturation of the state and society. But it has taken President Yoon’s vision to make South Korea a global pivotal state, a net security provider, and a beacon for the free world. In so doing, President Yoon is redefining his nation’s role in the world.
South Korea Redefines Its Global Role
By Patrick M. Cronin [Asia-Pacific Security Chair, Hudson Institute]
https://koreaonpoint.org/view.php?topic_idx=124&idx=315
May 15, 2024
#Democracy
koreaonpoint.org
President Yoon Suk-yeol of South Korea emerges as a stalwart defender of democracy and human rights in the face of resurgent authoritarianism and technological challenges.
Yoon's bold political activism on the global stage focuses on leveraging South Korea's technological prowess and democratic achievements to promote international norms and governance.
Through a blend of hard power and diplomatic outreach, President Yoon strengthens South Korea's alliances, particularly with Japan, to shape a future guided by democratic values and cooperation in cutting-edge technologies.
Democracy is under assault from resurgent authoritarianism and rapid technological change. Strongmen equipped with destructive missiles and disruptive digital tools aim to revise the international order through disinformation, coercion, and force. Above all, they want absolute political control and are willing to resort to draconian means to demand obedience to centralized power. Rare is the democratic statesman willing to stand against malign and autocratic forces. Arguably more appreciated by Americans than South Koreans, President Yoon Suk-yeol is one of those leaders. Undaunted by recent political setbacks at home, he remains focused on burnishing South Korea’s international image as a torchbearer of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights.
Techno-Political Activism
South Korea’s confidence on the world stage ascended after adopting democratic reforms in the wake of the June Democracy Movement of 1987. Some leaders’ initiatives are especially noteworthy. Kim Dae-jung’s breakthroughs in inter-Korean relations highlighted the possibility of Korean reunification. His timing was crucial, coinciding with the lofty “end of history” period following the Cold War. Sadly, today Kim Jong Un is working overtime trying to erase all thoughts about unification. In the context of this essay, I would also mention Lee Myung-bak’s concept of “Global Korea.” The policy gained special currency thanks to South Korea’s soft power and advanced manufacturing. Even by the standards of President’s Kim and Lee, President Yoon’s determination for South Korea to be a “global pivotal state” reveals an unusual predilection for international political activism.
In opening the Third Summit for Democracy in March, President Yoon credited democracy for “vastly expand[ing] individual freedom and human rights,” adding, “we must take good care of this great legacy…and pass it on to future generations.” Undoubtedly animated by the impact of democratic change in South Korea during his lifetime, President Yoon exudes confidence in leveraging his nation’s achievements for the global good.
Given global trends, it is understandable why President Yoon has focused much of his political activism on setting up a new architecture to grapple with high technology. For instance, he has been quick to harness South Korea’s prowess in digital technology to promote ways to manage the pernicious problem of manipulated information. He urged leaders at the democracy summit to “create AI and digital systems to detect and combat…fake news,” and if necessary, “carry out strong and systematic anti-propaganda campaigns to collectively address them.”
Last year in Paris President Yoon proposed an international organization to help establish AI norms. A few months later in Delhi, he called on G20 leaders to play a leading role in establishing international AI norms. At the United Nations General Assembly, he again put South Korea at the vanguard of institution building, vowing to play an active role in the UN’s new High-Level Advisory Body on AI to provide a network for communication and collaboration among global experts. The same desire to drive AI global governance and norms is why South Korea decided to host the second AI Safety Summit in Seoul on 21-22 May.
South Korean technology and culture have been appreciated around the world for years. What’s different about the present moment is the degree of high-level political will for South Korea to contribute more to a rules-based order. We are not only living in “an Indo-Pacific era,” as the administration’s first regional strategy asserts; we are also living in a period of South Korean diplomatic activism. The Indo-Pacific strategy published in December 2022 establishes the foundation for greater South Korean involvement in the management of vexing challenges ranging from maritime disputes in the South China Sea to economic development everywhere from the Pacific Islands to the eastern coast of Africa.
“Defending liberal democracy” is a core element of President Yoon’s National Security Strategy. He is keen to put his country at the forefront of global governance. While promoting South Korea as a global pivotal state, he is also realistic about selectively determining where he can make a difference. He cannot transform the world on his own, but he is not waiting for others to step up to the responsibility and challenge of leadership.
Values Secured by Strength
Unique to President Yoon’s international outreach has been his simultaneous pursuit of hard power. His diplomacy is more muscular because it is backed by serious defense arrangements and capabilities. As he rightly boasted during his 2024 New Year’s address, he has upgraded ROK-U.S. ties to create a “global comprehensive strategic alliance” that is now “nuclear-based”—or at least one in which Seoul’s voice over nuclear posture is now built into the security architecture. More remarkably, he has normalized the once-neglected Korea-Japan relationship, creating a system of trilateral cooperation at Camp David that puts Seoul on an equal footing and at the vanguard of peace and prosperity across the Indo-Pacific region. Building peace through strength, President Yoon has made it clear South Korea will not be dependent on the goodwill of an adversary; that is why he is investing in an improved 3K defense system, extended deterrence, a cutting-edge defense industry, and better protected critical infrastructure and global supply chains.
The Yoon administration’s strong security posture ensures that Kim Jong-un cannot safely embark on offensive military action, despite his costly nuclear and missile buildup. Strength also allows for a principled stance over inter-Korean reciprocity, and it reminds Washington that South Korea punches above its weight. Pyongyang’s decision to eliminate all vestiges of a longstanding campaign for unification is a futile attempt to ignore South Korea’s success on the world stage. Exploiting a momentary improvement in defense ties with Vladimir Putin to elicit cool stuff, Mr. Kim knows that Xi Jinping controls the economic lifeline for North Korea. Mr. Kim may harbor delusions of a successful authoritarian wave collapsing the liberal rules-based order, the danger is that his siege mentality and unwillingness to engage in meaningful diplomacy may trigger lethal force by miscalculation.
Transcending Alliance Architecture
For all his focus on hard power and traditional alliance defense issues, President Yoon asserts South Korean power via a growing web of like-minded states and a broadening agenda of complex issues. Having already met some 100 other world leaders, Yoon Suk-yeol is enlarging South Korea’s diplomatic field of actions, while forging particularly close relations among the “spokes” of the U.S. alliance system.
Making progress with Japan is among President Yoon’s most daring attempts to forge a future for Asia shaped by Asian democracies. Independence from Japan was something Koreans earned through great travail over time. The Republic of Korea was founded on the “blood and sweat of…independence activists,” President Yoon noted on the 105th March First Independence Movement Day. Invoking the 1919 Proclamation of Korean Independence calling for a “new world,” he argued that today Japan and Korea share common values of “freedom, human rights, and the rule of law” and have become “partners in pursuit of common interests for global peace and prosperity.”
The common goal of deterring North Korean missiles provides a strong bond for Seoul and Tokyo. But President Yoon’s vision is to keep advancing the South Korea-Japan partnership in “industry, finance, and cutting-edge technologies.” Visiting Stanford University with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida last November, President Yoon touted the leading role the two countries and the United States intend to play in Quantum and digital technologies. “By jointly developing technologies and sharing achievements among the Republic of Korea, the U.S., and Japan that share common philosophies and values, we can make life freer and more prosperous…for the whole of humanity.”
Next year will mark the 60th anniversary of South Korea-Japan diplomatic normalization. Yoon and Kishida have laid the groundwork for taking bilateral cooperation to new heights and in new dimensions. China and Russia in particular are promoting a starkly different future world based on very different rules, and Seoul and Tokyo are increasingly joining up to ensure their interests and values endure. As President Yoon remarked when he and Prime Minister Kishida were receiving the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award last October, “this award is a reminder of my solemn duty—a profound sense of responsibility placed upon the Republic of Korea, the United States, and Japan to promote freedom and prosperity around the world by standing together in solidarity.”
South Korea’s economic, technological, and cultural successes can be attributed to the democratic maturation of the state and society. But it has taken President Yoon’s vision to make South Korea a global pivotal state, a net security provider, and a beacon for the free world. In so doing, President Yoon is redefining his nation’s role in the world.
AUTHORS
Patrick M. Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at Hudson Institute, specializes in strategic issues concerning US national security interests in the Indo-Pacific and globally. With extensive experience in defense policy and foreign affairs, he has held senior roles at organizations including the Center for a New American Security and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Dr. Cronin's career spans government, academia, and think tanks, including serving as the third-highest ranking official at the US Agency for International Development and teaching at institutions such as the University of Virginia and Georgetown University. A distinguished scholar, he holds MPhil and DPhil degrees in international relations from St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, and is a frequent contributor to leading publications such as The Straits Times and DongA Ilbo, as well as participating in television and radio interviews on defense and security matters.
koreaonpoint.org
4. Crink: the new autocractic 'axis of evil'
CRINK. Can we adopt that acronym?
I think the only threat larger than China is the collusion among China, Russia, Iran, and north Korea: CRInK.
We must understand this collusion to be able to deal with it across the instruments of national power and work with like-minded friends, partners, and allies to counter the "CRInK."
Excerpts:
The UK and its allies must belatedly acknowledge the growing collusion among China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, Rishi Sunak said during a speech yesterday. Echoing that warning, former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith told The Times that this axis is "determined to end Western values", which would mean "an end of human rights and the rule of law".
...
What is the Crink end goal?
The target of the Crink coalition is not the overthrow of a "rules-based international order", said Cohen, but rather of the "American-led world order" of the past 75 years. To achieve their goals, the major Crink players are "increasingly willing to use open violence" and to threaten the use of nuclear weapons.
Crucially, three out of four Crink nations are nuclear-armed, and Iran is "not far off", said Taylor.
Ultimately, said Cohen, "they are united by a growing belief that their moment is coming, when a divided and indecisive West, richer but flabbier, will not fight".
Crink: the new autocractic 'axis of evil'
China, Russia, Iran and North Korea make up the 'axis of totalitarian states' colluding to undermine the West
The Week · by Harriet Marsden, The Week UK · May 14, 2024
Last October Vladimir Putin visited his counterpart Xi Jinping in China, which has provided a 'trade lifeline' for Russia since the Ukraine invasion
(Image credit: Sergei Guneyev / Pool / AFP via Getty Images)
By
published 14 May 2024
Britain faces "the most dangerous" years since the end of the Cold War, with an "axis of authoritarian states" colluding against the West, Rishi Sunak has warned.
The UK and its allies must belatedly acknowledge the growing collusion among China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, Rishi Sunak said during a speech yesterday. Echoing that warning, former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith told The Times that this axis is "determined to end Western values", which would mean "an end of human rights and the rule of law".
MPs cautioned last month that the UK and other Western governments needed to devise a strategy to deal with this increasingly "coordinated and assertive axis", said the i news site – or World War Three would be "inevitable".
What are the Crink nations?
The acronym Crink (China-Russia-Iran-North Korea) was coined last year by Peter Van Praagh, president of the Halifax International Security forum in Washington, following the Hamas attacks in October.
The term, a play on the Brics nations, describes "a new alignment of nations where global democracies' strategic challenges now originate", said the annual conference statement.
China's threat towards Taiwan and its aggression in the South China Sea, Russia's war on Ukraine, and Israel's war in the Middle East (part of its decades-long conflict with Iran and its regional proxies) are separate conflicts with differing agendas.
But in Washington, it is "increasingly common" to view them as part of "one big narrative", said Adam Taylor in The Washington Post. The Crink nations differ starkly in ideology; the coalition is better understood as a "marriage of convenience" – and desperation.
How are China, Russia and Iran working together?
The four provide weaponry and oil for each other to "evade sanctions imposed by the West", said the i news site. Experts warn they are working "more closely together" in the background of conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa.
Iran has been playing an "important role" in Russia's war, said Eliot A. Cohen in The Atlantic. Iranian drones "fly every night at Ukrainian cities", to reveal air defences and "pave the way" for Russian missiles.
In return, Russia reinforced Iran's defences against Israeli strikes with Russian weapons, said Taylor. This is part of a "strategic alliance" forged by Russia's invasion: a "mutually beneficial relationship" between two pariah states.
China, the most significant Crink nation, has also provided "a trade lifeline for Russia" since its invasion sparked western sanctions.
This week President Xi Jinping will welcome Vladimir Putin in China for the Russian president's second high-profile visit in less than a year, "the latest sign of their growing alignment", said CNN.
China also maintains close ties with Iran, providing it with support that has similarly diminished the impact of sanctions. The deepening relationship is driven by "mutual interests", said The Diplomat: China's "insatiable energy needs and Iran's quest for economic and diplomatic support". But it is underpinned by "a shared narrative of resistance against perceived Western hegemony".
At the heart of this geopolitical maelstrom lies China's "increasingly assertive global posture". Its deepening relationship with Iran and Russia can be understood through the lens of its "burgeoning superpower rivalry" with the US.
What is North Korea's role?
North Korea, perhaps the most unpredictable of the Crink nations, is taking advantage of the fragmenting international order to ramp up pressure on the US and South Korea.
Alongside its military development over the past few years, North Korea has been "chumming up to Russia and remaining on the right side of China", said The Times's Asia editor Richard Lloyd Parry.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the relationship between Pyongyang and Moscow has flourished. North Korea has provided Russia with much-needed ammunition and war materials in exchange for the "advanced technology" that Pyongyang covets, said Taylor.
North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un visited Russia last autumn, his first foreign trip since 2019, and pledged closer military cooperation with Putin.
North Korean weapons were also used by Hamas in the 7 October attacks on Israel, according to the Israeli and South Korean military. North Korea denies this, but has sold anti-tank rocket launchers to Hamas in the past.
What is the Crink end goal?
The target of the Crink coalition is not the overthrow of a "rules-based international order", said Cohen, but rather of the "American-led world order" of the past 75 years. To achieve their goals, the major Crink players are "increasingly willing to use open violence" and to threaten the use of nuclear weapons.
Crucially, three out of four Crink nations are nuclear-armed, and Iran is "not far off", said Taylor.
Ultimately, said Cohen, "they are united by a growing belief that their moment is coming, when a divided and indecisive West, richer but flabbier, will not fight".
Harriet Marsden is a writer for The Week, mostly covering UK and global news and politics. Before joining the site, she was a freelance journalist for seven years, specialising in social affairs, gender equality and culture. She worked for The Guardian, The Times and The Independent, and regularly contributed articles to The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The New Statesman, Tortoise Media and Metro, as well as appearing on BBC Radio London, Times Radio and “Woman’s Hour”. She has a master’s in international journalism from City University, London, and was awarded the "journalist-at-large" fellowship by the Local Trust charity in 2021.
5. US to Boost Output of Bombs Designed to Hit Underground Nuclear Facilities
US to Boost Output of Bombs Designed to Hit Underground Nuclear Facilities
- Ammo plant in Oklahoma will produce up to four times as many
- Bomb could penetrate buried nuclear sites in Iran, North Korea
By Anthony Capaccio
May 14, 2024 at 1:00 PM EDT
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-14/us-to-make-more-bunker-buster-bombs-that-can-hit-underground-nuclear-facilities?sref=hhjZtX76
An Army ammunition plant in southeast Oklahoma is being expanded to at least triple monthly production of the US’s biggest non-nuclear bomb, a weapon often invoked in debates about a potential attack on deeply buried nuclear facilities in Iran or North Korea.
The 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, known as a bunker-buster, can be dropped only from a B-2 stealth bomber. It’s far bigger than the unguided 2,000-pound (900-kilogram), explosives that the Biden administration has postponed sending to Israel out of concern for civilian casualties in its war to defeat Hamas in Gaza.
The facility under construction at the 70-square-mile (181-square-kilometer) McAlester Army Ammunition Plant will significantly increase production as needed, the Air Force said in a statement. Officials at the facility told Bloomberg News during a March tour by General Charles Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that equates to completing as many as six or possibly eight bombs per month, up from two currently.
McAlester personnel fill bomb casings with explosives and load the warhead and fuse. Boeing Co. makes the bomb’s tailkit, which provides navigation.
The Army has described the new bomb assembly area at the Oklahoma plant as a “state of the art facility that has the ability to support the production of 2,000-to-30,000-pound assets as well as providing flexible” explosive “mixing options needed for future requirements.” It’s scheduled to be completed by late spring to early fall, according to the service, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony scheduled for July 30.
A separate program to test a new “Large Penetrator Smart Fuse” for the bomb has been on hold because of “contract challenges that affected the ability to construct targets” to evaluate the improvement, the Pentagon test office said in its latest assessment of weapons programs.
The Massive Ordnance Penetrator “is a very important weapon” for US Central Command as well as Europe and the Indo-Pacific region, Frank McKenzie, a retired Marine Corps general who led Central Command, said in an email. It “ensures that we can target extremely well-protected underground facilities, wherever they are located.” He said that it “contributes significantly to our ability to achieve deterrence against nations such as Iran.”
Its importance is demonstrated by General Brown, who keeps a fragment from a test firing of the bomb in his Pentagon office.
Read More: More 30,000-Pound ‘Bunker-Buster’ Bombs Sought for US Forces
Iran has the largest underground program in the Middle East “to conceal and protect critical military and civilian infrastructure throughout the country,” according to the Defense Intelligence Agency in a 2019 report on its military. Iran maintains that its extensive nuclear program is intended for peaceful uses.
North Korea, China
In a separate 2021 report, the Pentagon intelligence agency said North Korea’s underground facilities are “the largest and most-fortified in the world,” with thousands of them “intended to withstand” US bunker-buster bombs.
Separately, China’s military “maintains a robust and technologically advanced underground facility program to conceal and protect all aspects of its military forces,” the Pentagon said in its most recent China military report.
In addition to its low-profile task assembling bunker-busters, the Oklahoma plant plays a role in supplying Ukraine with 155mm shells and air defense weapons. Although no artillery ammo is produced at McAlester, it’s a key storage, inspection and shipment point crammed with cargo containers and magazines loaded with ammunition. The weapons are shipped over 200 miles (322 kilometers) of railroad track to air or sea transit points within days of a presidential authorization to draw down US stockpiles.
Established in 1943 as a Navy facility before transfer to the Army, the plant is a high-security but bucolic facility with open spaces through which the occasional deer lopes.
6. South Koreans and Their Neighbors 2024
The 15 page report from the Asan Institute can be downloaded here: http://en.asaninst.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/South-Koreans-and-Their-Neighbors-2024.pdf
Some fascinating and important data.
Steven Denny provided this useful summary/highlights via X/Twitter:
Steven Denney
@StevenDenney86
·
22m
Highlights include:
*ROK-US alliance is about more than N. Korea.
*US seen as #1 security *and* economic partner. Long live the San Francisco System.
*Trump is not unpopular, relative to other leaders.
*Opinion is clearly moderated by domestic politics.
*The people want nukes.
South Koreans and Their Neighbors 2024
en.asaninst.org
Contents
- ● Country Favorability
- ● Leader Favorability
- ● Role of the ROK-U.S. Alliance
- ● Most Important Policy Issue in the ROK-U.S. Relationship
- ● South Korea’s Future Relationship with the U.S.
- ● South Korea’s Future Relationship with North Korea
- ● Most Important Country for South Korea’s Economy
- ● Most Important Country for South Korea’s Security
- ● Necessity of the U.S. Forces in South Korea: Future vs. Post-Unification
- ● Public Confidence in U.S. Extended Deterrence
- ● Attitudes Towards Developing Independent Nuclear Weapons
- ● Attitudes Towards Reintroducing Tactical Nuclear Weapons
- ● South Korea’s Future Partner
- ● U.S. Global Leadership
en.asaninst.org
7. How Chinese surveillance technology helps North Korea keep its citizens on a tight leash
This must be part of our information campaign: How to break chains of the surveillance systems. This is a critical part of support to a resistance.
And of course this is another indication of how much KJU and the regime fear the people.
How Chinese surveillance technology helps North Korea keep its citizens on a tight leash
South China Morning Post · May 14, 2024
The North is putting a lot of resources and efforts into developing technology and algorithms for surveillance but it “overly relies on imported Chinese technology” for devices including mobile handsets and security cameras, Williams told journalists at a press meet in Seoul on Monday.
In 2022, China-North Korea trade stood at US$1.03 billion, up 125 per cent from the previous year, according to Seoul’s Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency.
Photographs on Chinese social media taken along China’s border with North Korea showed closed-circuit television cameras mounted on North Korean guard posts. The devices were installed during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, when Pyongyang was building a second layer of security fences to prevent the spread of the virus.
The equipment was useful for stopping illegal border crossings and keep an eye on guards who look the other way and let people cross the frontier in return for bribes, according to Williams.
“This explains why the Northern border is so tightly closed,” he said, adding security services were being monitored.
Martyn Williams speaks about North Korea’s development of technology during a press conference in Seoul on May 13. Photo: EPA-EFE
North Korea banned tourists, jetted out diplomats and severely curtailed border traffic and trade under its zero-Covid policy before it allowed citizens staying abroad to return home in line with the easing of pandemic curbs worldwide last summer.
Human Rights Watch said in a report titled “North Korea: Sealing China border worsens crisis” and released in March that the closure worsened an already grave humanitarian and human rights situation in the country of 26 million people.
In addition to surveillance cameras, the North has been developing digital facial recognition systems which would tell the state “who is at a particular place at a particular time”, Williams said.
It is also working on internet protocol television that could let the government know whether someone is home based on the activity of TV sets, providing data on programmes that were watched or ignored.
Authorities will be “able to find out who didn’t watch Kim Jong-un’s speech last night and decided to switch the channel when he came on” in a dangerous display of disloyalty to the leader in the Stalinist state, he said.
In a report published last month titled “Digital surveillance in North Korea: Moving toward a digital Panopticom state”, Williams and Natalia Slavney at the US-based Stimson Centre said Pyongyang was building surveillance capabilities that “reach across various facets of public and private life”.
North Korea imported most phones from China – its economic lifeline – before launching the Arirang, Pyongyang’s first home-grown smartphone in 2013.
The country has an estimated 7 million mobile phone users. Kim’s administration also bought cheap second-hand Huawei telecommunications devices to upgrade the existing 3G networks to a 4G category, Daily NK said last year.
05:09
‘The one who survives is victorious’: North Korean defector hopes to reunite with her sister
‘The one who survives is victorious’: North Korean defector hopes to reunite with her sister
Digital transformation in North Korea could provide more opportunities to its citizens but it also “increases the risks associated with growing digital footprints and the ability of the North Korean state to expand surveillance of people’s lives”, Williams and Slavney said in the report.
North Koreans are already among the most tightly controlled and monitored people in the world, though the state is not all-seeing yet.
Small spaces exist that allow North Koreans to engage in illicit business activities, consume foreign media and privately criticise the government, and if caught, people can often offer bribes to escape serious punishment.
Citizens in North Korea, which ranks 172 out of 180 countries in the Corruption Perceptions Index, “cannot lead a life in the country if he or she does not bribe his or her way”, the United Nations said in a 2019 report that Pyongyang dismissed as “politically motivated”.
“The continued adoption of digital technology threatens to erase many of these spaces. A combination of the heavy state control exerted by North Korea and pervasive digital surveillance, such as that carried out in China, could extinguish all but the tiniest freedoms for the North Korean people,” according to the report published on 38 North, a website of the Stimson Centre.
Key findings of the study state that research on biometric technology has been going on for decades, evolving from fingerprint recognition in the late 1990s to include more advanced mechanism such as facial and licence plate recognition.
The latest version of North Korea’s national identification (ID) card comes in a smart card format. The document’s renewal requires citizens to provide fingerprints, have their photo taken, and, according to one report, take a blood test.
As a result, almost every North Korean citizen surveyed in the report said the state had collected their fingerprint data.
How the biometric information is stored and accessed is unclear, but the ID card procedure means the government possesses the data to build a biometric database of all citizens, according to the research.
However, the country’s “abysmal” electricity supply situation would be a major stumbling block in the spread of digital surveillance technology, it noted.
North Korea still relied heavily on its “highly effective” human intelligence networks that have been built up over decades of snooping on citizens, including the infamous Inminban neighbourhood surveillance system, Williams said.
The strategy, rolled out in the 1960s, centred on women who join community activities such as cleaning work, with members spanning multiple households and monitoring each other.
South China Morning Post · May 14, 2024
8. The Army has stepped up its training for tunnel warfare, a dangerous — and growing — form of combat
Excerpts:
China is believed to have thousands of miles of tunnels, while North Korea may have thousands of bunkers, tunnels and even air bases complete with subterranean taxiways.
Military experts say North Korea may have exported its tunnel-building expertise to Hamas and Hezbollah, groups that the U.S. and other nations designate as terrorists.
Hamas also has developed new tactics, Richemond-Barak said — an obvious one being its use of hostages as human shields to protect tunnels from attack.
This underlines a reason that non-state groups like Hamas are likely to continue to dig in, even as nations like the U.S. invest in sophisticated military technology.
"The advances that have been made in anti-tunnel technology — from detection to mapping and destruction and neutralization of tunnels — we might say that this would be a deterrent for all these actors like Hamas and Hezbollah and al-Qaeda to stop using tunnels," Richemond-Barak said. "But what we see is that high-tech warfare is driving this use of low-tech warfare."
The Army has stepped up its training for tunnel warfare, a dangerous — and growing — form of combat
wunc.org · by Jay Price · May 14, 2024
After seven months of war in Gaza, Israel has still probed little of what's believed to be hundreds of miles of tunnels — an underground network that Hamas uses for refuge, to hide hostages, to move around undetected — and to pop out unexpectedly and fight.
Tunnel warfare is becoming a common tactic on modern battlefields, and it's one of most dangerous forms of combat, especially for the attackers.
That is why groups like Hamas, ISIS, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda have built underground facilities, seeking to blunt the advantages of the militaries hunting them, said Daphné Richemond-Barak, who authored the book "Underground Warfare."
“For the last two decades, what we see is that this tactic has indeed become more popular with non-state actors,” said Richemond-Barak, an assistant professor at Reichman University in Israel and a scholar with two research institutes at West Point. “It is spreading as a global security threat, from theater to theater.”
Geopolitical foes of the United States, such as China, North Korea, Iran and Russia, also are pushing more of their military and nuclear facilities underground, prompting the U.S. to increase its focus on tunnel warfare.
The Army has built several tunnel warfare training facilities, including one of its largest at Fort Liberty, N.C., the base formerly known as Fort Bragg. Simply called Range 68, it's two-thirds of a mile of disorienting twists and turns, hatches, and doorways hidden in a mock Eastern European village.
It's used both by conventional units like the 82nd Airborne Division and by Army Special Operations troops. On a recent day, a small Special Forces team slipped into a house and fired at role-playing terrorists with non-lethal rounds.
But their main target fled into a tunnel entrance hidden in a back room. The troops peered in, spotted him and quickly started firing. Then they tossed a flash-bang, a grenade designed to disorient.
The soldier playing the role of the target scrambled farther, trying to lure them into a smaller tunnel where they’d be easier to kill. Eventually, though, they found another entrance and caught him.
Watching and listening from a fake house across the street was Mike Murray, who served three decades in the Army before retiring, He now oversees the base’s dozens of training ranges and helped plan the newer section of tunnels, which were finished in 2020.
“Just from my perspective, this is graduate level,” Murray said of the elaborate tunnel system. “We tried to make it as complicated as possible.”
An older section is filled with chest-deep water. Some tunnels open into spacious rooms that could be used for a command center, a medical treatment area or for storing arms.
Others squeeze down until you’re crawling.
“You're on your hands-and knees-type area in complete darkness,” Murray said. “You go from a larger tunnel system now on to literally something that maybe your elbows are banging the side of the walls.”
The man playing the role of the target in the training exercise was a Special Forces staff sergeant named Adrian. (The Army allows Special Operations soldiers to be identified only by their first names.) He said it was designed to make him the bait and lure soldiers into the tunnels, where they're usually at a disadvantage.
“You have no idea how big the tunnel system is or how small it is, how compressed it is, how dense it is," he said. "Where are the obstacles? Is there a trip wire? Are there false doors, etc.?
"The person that knows the tunnel system better, it's basically a win-win for those personnel.”
Adam Luther
/
U.S. Army
The subterranean training facility at Fort Liberty, N.C. allows Special Forces and other troops to move through a system of passages ranging from 7 feet to only 30 inches tall.
Underground warfare goes back to prehistory.
But for Americans, perhaps the best-known in recent case was in Vietnam, where the Viet Cong dug vast complexes, including at least one with more than a hundred miles of tunnels.
John Keaveney was sent into those complexes. He was one of the U.S. troops known as "Tunnel rats."
It was an extraordinary experience, he said, but not in a good way.
“The more I did it, the better I got at it," he said. "You learn to use your senses because it's very dark. You learn to smell things and listen good."
He crawled into tunnels more than 50 times spread over two tours of duty. When he went in, he carried just a flashlight, a pistol and a knife. Sometimes he had a partner, sometimes he went alone.
Inside, waiting, he found booby traps, snakes, spiders and sometimes enemy fighters. His flashlight sometimes revealed unnerving sights, including an operating room with one dead Viet Cong soldier on the table and another in a hammock.
The medical team had fled just ahead of him.
Keaveney was given no real preparation for the job. He was picked because the tunnels were often tight, and he was 5-foot-3 and weighed 110 pounds.
Some in his unit, he said, were sent in a few times but had psychological breakdowns. The stress wore on him, too.
“I got to the point where I couldn’t sleep no more,” he said. “I came home, and I didn't know what was wrong with me. I thought I just spent too much time in the tunnels.
Professor Richemond-Barak said those psychological effects are a key reason troops need special training for fighting underground.
“You lose your sense of space, your sense of direction, your sense of time very quickly inside a tunnel," said Richemond-Barak, who has been inside tunnels built by Hamas and Hezbollah. “And so this is why I think it's very important to bring soldiers inside tunnels and not merely use simulators or virtual reality. You really need to feel it in your heart, feel a low level of oxygen, feel how your body is reacting to this kind of reality."
Adam Luther
/
U.S. Army
Hatches, ladders, and pitch black passageways await soldiers at Fort Liberty's subterranean training facility. Communication devices also may not function in the underground environment.
China is believed to have thousands of miles of tunnels, while North Korea may have thousands of bunkers, tunnels and even air bases complete with subterranean taxiways.
Military experts say North Korea may have exported its tunnel-building expertise to Hamas and Hezbollah, groups that the U.S. and other nations designate as terrorists.
Hamas also has developed new tactics, Richemond-Barak said — an obvious one being its use of hostages as human shields to protect tunnels from attack.
This underlines a reason that non-state groups like Hamas are likely to continue to dig in, even as nations like the U.S. invest in sophisticated military technology.
"The advances that have been made in anti-tunnel technology — from detection to mapping and destruction and neutralization of tunnels — we might say that this would be a deterrent for all these actors like Hamas and Hezbollah and al-Qaeda to stop using tunnels," Richemond-Barak said. "But what we see is that high-tech warfare is driving this use of low-tech warfare."
This story was produced by the American Homefront Project, a public media collaboration that reports on American military life and veterans.
wunc.org · by Jay Price · May 14, 2024
9. Nuclear South Korea? The hidden implication of hints at US troop withdrawal
Nuclear South Korea? The hidden implication of hints at US troop withdrawal
Posted on : 2024-05-09 16:24 KST Modified on : 2024-05-09 16:24 KST
A Trump adviser has remarked that he wouldn’t rule out South Korea’s nuclear armament
https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1139897
Leading up to the US presidential election, Republican Party candidate Donald Trump and his advisers have been repeatedly hinting at pulling US troops out of the Korean Peninsula. While this could be an “art of the deal” tactic designed to pressure South Korea to shoulder more of the defense burden, experts say that Seoul needs to be prepared for indications that the US may adjust its grand strategy in a way that could have major ramifications for Korea’s national security.
“US forces on the peninsula, in my view, should not be held hostage to dealing with the North Korean problem because that is not the primary issue for the US,” said Elbridge Colby, the former US deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, in an interview with Yonhap News on Monday.
“South Korea is going to have to take primary, essentially overwhelming responsibility for its own self-defense against North Korea,” Colby said, adding that he would not leave US troops in Korea if it were up to him.
Colby is a defense expert who has been mentioned as a potential candidate for national security adviser if Trump returns to the White House.
In an interview with Time Magazine that went to press on April 30, Trump reiterated his negative view of the presence of US troops in Korea. “Why would we defend somebody?” he asked, calling Korea a “very wealthy country” and asking, “Why wouldn’t they want to pay?”
When a Time reporter asked Trump if he planned to withdraw American troops from Korea, he said, “I want South Korea to treat us properly. [. . .] I had negotiations, because they were paying virtually nothing for 40,000 troops that we had there.”
While Trump referred to this 40,000 figure multiple times in the interview, the actual number of US troops stationed in Korea is 28,500.
The hints by Trump and major figures in his circle about reducing or withdrawing US troops from Korea seems to mainly represent a demand for Seoul to increase its share of the cost of mutual defense, an issue referred to as burden-sharing. While Trump was in office, he tried to push through a massive increase in Seoul’s defense contribution. That’s also the negotiating strategy he used when he asked NATO member states to increase their defense budgets.
The possibility of Trump returning to power is also apparently why the US and Korea have already begun negotiating their next burden-sharing agreement, even though the current 11th ROK-US Special Measures Agreement doesn’t expire until the end of next year.
Nevertheless, Korea shouldn’t ignore the fundamental changes that are underway in the US’ strategy amid the bigger trends of changing politics inside the US and Washington’s intensifying rivalry with Beijing.
Elbridge Colby, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development during the Donald Trump administration, speaks at his office in Washington, May 6, 2024. (Yonhap)
As US focuses energy on China, Korea may have to fend for itself
In the interview with Yonhap News and elsewhere, Colby has consistently argued that the US needs to concentrate its energy on confronting China, which is its biggest threat, and that Korea should be left to deal with the threat posed by North Korea on its own.
“The US basically wants to stop stationing large numbers of troops near the DMZ to serve as a ‘tripwire’ as they did during the Cold War and to have South Korea handle nearly all the defense against the North while paying more of the defense burden. It’s time to recognize that as the US refocuses its grand strategy on China, the overall nature of its East Asian alliances is changing, and the nature of US Forces Korea will change, too. It’s also time we made the necessary preparations,” said Cha Tae-suh, a professor of political science and foreign relations at Sungkyunkwan University.
In the same interview, Colby said the US should return operational control over South Korean troops to Seoul as soon as possible. This strong push for such an OPCON transfer from an American conservative contrasts sharply with Korean conservatives’ long-standing opposition to that initiative.
Colby also said he wouldn’t rule out South Korea’s nuclear armament, noting that the US wouldn’t protect South Korea from a North Korean nuclear attack if that meant losing “multiple American cities.”
“There’s an interesting parallel here to when South Korea attempted to develop nuclear weapons after the Nixon administration drew down its troops in Korea in the 1970s, at a time of declining American power,” noted Cha, the professor.
Cha’s remarks also raise the possibility that calls for South Korea to arm itself with nukes could go mainstream if Trump wins a second term while North Korea’s nuclear threat remains so serious.
Nobody can predict how the US presidential election will turn out, and it’s unclear whether Trump, if elected, would actually carry out his Korean Peninsula policies. Nevertheless, Koreans cannot disregard the fact that such opinions are gradually gaining more of an audience inside the US. The changes that are underway are far too great and perilous for Koreans to hide their heads in the sand.
By Park Min-hee, senior staff writer
Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
10. Will North Korea be a bigger threat under Biden or Trump?
north Korea is a threat and will always be a threat, a big threat, as long as the Kim family regime remains in power, regardless (or irregardless) of who is the US president. It doesn't matter who is the US president. We should recall that every president since Bill Clinton has failed to prevent a nuclear north Korea or denuclearize it. Until we understand the nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim family regime and the fundamental problem in Northeast Asia we will not be able to effectively deal with the threat other than to deter war (which must be the first priority).
Will North Korea be a bigger threat under Biden or Trump?
Los Angeles Times · by Max Kim · May 15, 2024
SEOUL —
Faced with other more pressing developments in Ukraine and Gaza, the Biden administration has largely kept the threat of North Korea’s nuclear program on the back burner.
But tensions around the Korean peninsula have been ratcheting up for years, opening a new and uncertain chapter in a pitched standoff that, just six years ago under then-President Trump, seemed to be on the cusp of a major breakthrough.
So what happened? And what lies in store for whoever wins the White House in November?
In 2018, hopes ran high that North Korea might finally relinquish its nuclear arsenal.
Following three summits between then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the two countries issued a joint declaration pledging better ties between the countries, the easing of military tensions and a mutual commitment to the “denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.”
That unprecedented document, the Panmunjom Declaration, set the stage for meetings between Trump and Kim Jong Un, who had until then been slinging insults at one another, with Trump belittling Kim as “little rocket man” and Kim calling Trump a “dotard” — or a senile old person.
Held over the course of 2018 and 2019 in Singapore, Hanoi and the Korean Demilitarized Zone, the three meetings produced several gestures of goodwill, such as Pyongyang repatriating the remains of American soldiers who died in the Korean War and dismantling several rocket launch sites. At the DMZ, Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to set foot on the North Korean side of the border.
But the meetings failed to achieve a denuclearization deal, running into the same intractable problem that has defined the conflict for decades: the United States’ reluctance to accept anything less than total and immediate nuclear disarmament and North Korea’s equal reluctance to surrender its primary source of leverage.
Things have gone downhill ever since.
Then-President Trump meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the border village of Panmunjom in the Korean Demilitarized Zone on June 30, 2019.
(Susan Walsh / Associated Press)
In June 2020, North Korea blew up a joint liaison office that had been installed on its side of the border to facilitate communication with Seoul. It also resumed its nuclear program, rebuilding the nuclear test site it had partially demolished following the Panmunjom Declaration.
North Korea has launched more than 100 missiles since 2022, and U.S. and South Korean officials have said it is likely preparing to conduct its seventh nuclear test — the first since 2017.
In September 2022, North Korea passed a law officially declaring itself a nuclear state, with Kim Jong Un vowing that the country would “never give up” its nuclear arsenal, which is estimated to contain at least 40, and perhaps more than 100, warheads.
The new law specifies several scenarios in which the country would use nuclear weapons, including preemptive strikes in the event of imminent attack.
As a result, the last few years have seen increasingly combustible military postures by both Koreas and the United States.
“North Korea has obviously never had this many nuclear weapons, especially those of such technological sophistication, when it comes to delivery methods or strike range,” said Kim Dong-yup, a professor at the University of North Korea Studies in Seoul.
“But all the negotiation channels or mechanisms that North and South Korea had for preventing escalation or misunderstandings are gone. The safety pin has been pulled out.”
In response to North Korea’s growing nuclear might, the Biden administration has resumed military drills with South Korea that had been paused under Trump. It has said that any nuclear attack by North Korea “will result in the end of that regime.”
South Korea has also been honing its strategy to decapitate North Korean leadership, while Kim Jong Un, who recently repudiated the once-shared goal of Korean reunification, labeled South Korea as his regime’s “primary foe.” Given these competing moves, altercations seem inevitable, experts say.
“I don’t think the chances of a full-blown war are particularly high, because there is now an element of greater deterrence in play,” Kim, the professor, said. “But the likelihood of smaller-scale conflicts has risen significantly, especially in areas near the border with North Korea.”
Technically, the Korean War never officially ended. The hostilities halted in 1953 with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
Biden, if reelected, is widely expected to pursue his current strategy of maintaining sanctions and military deterrence, keeping with his wider regional strategy of expanding U.S. influence in Asia.
Under President Yoon Suk-yeol, a conservative, South Korea joined a U.S.-led trilateral military alliance with Japan — a buffer against China as well as North Korea.
But that is not to say the door to dialogue with North Korea is shut.
In March, senior U.S. officials said that they would be open to exploring “interim steps” toward denuclearization with North Korea, but that the goal of nuclear disarmament remains unchanged.
Yet this is essentially the same offer that has failed to produce meaningful outcomes in the past — including at the Trump-Kim summits — and North Korea has been ignoring the Biden administration’s attempts to make contact.
“The worst kept secret in the Korea policy community is that demanding denuclearization of North Korea is a nonstarter — totally unrealistic,” said Van Jackson, a former Pentagon official and currently a professor of international relations at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.
“North Korea will come back to the negotiating table only if it receives presidential honors like summits, or tangible accommodations that signal turning over a new leaf — sanctions relief, ending the Korean war,” he said.
“There’s a way in which North Korea’s position here is understandable,” Jackson added. “They don’t have any intention of denuclearizing and they’d be foolish to disarm without having confidence that their much larger adversary is not really an adversary anymore. “
A Trump win would entail far more variables.
President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at their first summit meeting, held in Singapore on June 12, 2018.
(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)
“There’s an assumption that if Trump reaches out to Kim, that they would immediately resume their love letters, but we have to remember that Kim was blindsided and jaded by the Trump team in Hanoi, so he will not necessarily come running to Trump,” said Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
In other words, drawn out once with the prospect of a groundbreaking deal that never materialized, a warier Kim may not be so quick to do so again.
“Additionally, the geopolitical landscape has changed where Kim has much more support from China and Russia than during the first Trump administration, so he may have less incentive or need to talk to the U.S.,” Yeo said.
In May 2022, China and Russia both vetoed a U.S.-led effort at the United Nations Security Council to increase sanctions on North Korea, which has in recent years cozied up to Moscow, itself the target of sanctions for the invasion of Ukraine.
Following his meeting with Vladimir Putin in September 2023, Kim Jong Un has sought Russia’s help in launching its own spy satellites, sending in return artillery shells, mortars and short-range ballistic missiles for Russia’s war with Ukraine.
Still, many Asia experts believe that dialogue with North Korea is more likely under Trump rather than Biden — with the possibility of a second round of high-level meetings on the table.
“If Trump wins, I fully expect Kim to press the ‘Hey, remember me?’ button and resume summit diplomacy,” Jackson said. “But it’s totally unclear how Trump would respond to that this time around.”
In the event of another summit, the question is how much ground Trump would be willing to give for the sake of consummating a deal to his credit — whether he might, for example, be open to a nuclear freeze rather than disarmament.
“The bureaucracy under Trump will still have hawkish preferences, but if Kim Jong Un is able to manipulate Trump, it’s much more likely this time around that Trump will be able to impose his preferences for Korea,” Jackson said. “In 2018 and 2019, Trump faced a lot of resistance from civil servants and political appointees, but MAGA has since built a cadre of loyalists who are going to exist to ensure Trump’s whims are carried out.”
Yet even dialogue that doesn’t lead to tidy deals may be worthwhile as a kind of pressure valve — a way to ease growing tensions, said Kim Dong-yup, the professor.
“It provides an opportunity to rethink and temper hostile stances,” he said. “And once you begin talking, new solutions may emerge over time.”
More to Read
Los Angeles Times · by Max Kim · May 15, 2024
11. [INTERVIEW] 'S. Korea's role in N.Korean affairs at risk with Trump's potential return'
I really like Wi Sung-lac. I have been able to observe him in action at some important Track II events over the years.
Excerpts:
While Wi acknowledged the importance of strengthening ties with the U.S. and Japan to counter North Korean threats, he highlighted the deteriorating relations with China and Russia, attributing them to the absence of a coordinated foreign policy strategy.
He compared South Korea's diplomatic positioning between the U.S. and China with a clock.
"Imagine the U.S. at 3 o'clock and China at 9 o'clock. Ideally, South Korea should be positioned around 1:30 p.m.," he explained, emphasizing the necessity of a strong alliance with the U.S. to address North Korean threats.
"But deterrence isn't the panacea. Efforts for dialogue and negotiation with the North should be carried out at the same time, and that is why the country should still leave room for cooperation with China and Russia."
[INTERVIEW] 'S. Korea's role in N.Korean affairs at risk with Trump's potential return'
The Korea Times · May 16, 2024
Wi Sung-lac, a lawmaker-elect of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at his office in Seoul, May 2. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
Diplomat-turned-lawmaker warns of Yoon's tilted diplomacy
Editor’s note
This article is the last in a series by The Korea Times featuring interviews with lawmakers-elect who are well-versed in diplomacy and national security. — ED.
By Lee Hyo-jin
South Korea could find itself marginalized on North Korean issues if the next U.S. administration opts for negotiations with Pyongyang, a scenario that seems increasingly probable if former U.S. President Donald Trump returns to office, as suggested by Wi Sung-lac, a lawmaker-elect of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK).
"In the event of Donald Trump's return — although I wouldn't place very high odds on his reelection — he might not prioritize the alliance with South Korea. This would challenge the Yoon Suk Yeol administration's strong reliance on the South Korea-U.S. alliance, which is the main pillar of the government's current diplomacy," Wi said during a recent interview with The Korea Times.
The former diplomat foresaw the possibility of Washington engaging in negotiations with Pyongyang following the launch of a new U.S. administration after the Nov. 5 presidential election, regardless of whether it's under Trump or incumbent President Joe Biden.
"Considering the Yoon administration's hawkish stance on North Korea, Trump may opt to engage directly with Pyongyang, excluding Seoul from the negotiations. This suggests that the U.S. president will exert considerable influence over critical security decisions on the Korean Peninsula, such as extended deterrence and combined military exercises, potentially sidelining South Korea," he said.
While South Korean officials are cautiously engaging with figures from the Trump camp to mitigate the potential impact on U.S. security commitments, Wi regarded this as merely a short-term approach.
"A more sustainable approach should involve reforming the foundational principles of the current foreign policy direction to protect the nation's core interests in the rapidly evolving international landscape, rather than solely preparing for the potential return of Trump," he said.
Wi Sung-lac, right, then special representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs, shakes hands with Philip Goldberg, then coordinator for the implementation of U.N. sanctions on North Korea, during a meeting at the foreign ministry in Seoul, in this Aug. 24, 2009 photo. Goldberg currently serves as the U.S. ambassador to South Korea. Korea Times file
Wi, who had a distinguished 36-year career as a diplomat before retiring in 2015, is renowned for his expertise in United States and North Korean nuclear issues. In the 1980s, he conducted working-level negotiations with the Soviet Union, which culminated in the establishment of Seoul's diplomatic relations with Moscow in 1990. Wi subsequently served as the ambassador to Russia from 2011 to 2015.
When asked to assess the Yoon government's foreign policy, the former envoy said: "We are witnessing the shortcomings of an one-size-fits-all diplomatic approach. The government is attempting to manage relations with other nations in the same manner as it does with the U.S., but such an approach is ineffective. A tailored diplomacy is imperative in dealing with each nation, particularly in the cases of China and Russia."
While Wi acknowledged the importance of strengthening ties with the U.S. and Japan to counter North Korean threats, he highlighted the deteriorating relations with China and Russia, attributing them to the absence of a coordinated foreign policy strategy.
He compared South Korea's diplomatic positioning between the U.S. and China with a clock.
"Imagine the U.S. at 3 o'clock and China at 9 o'clock. Ideally, South Korea should be positioned around 1:30 p.m.," he explained, emphasizing the necessity of a strong alliance with the U.S. to address North Korean threats.
"But deterrence isn't the panacea. Efforts for dialogue and negotiation with the North should be carried out at the same time, and that is why the country should still leave room for cooperation with China and Russia."
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un examine a Soyuz rocket launch pad during their meeting at the Vostochny Cosmodrome outside the city of Tsiolkovsky in the Russian Far East's Amur region, Sept. 13, 2023. AP-Yonhap
Wi observed that the prospects of reunification on the Korean Peninsula currently hang in the balance, especially after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared South Korea as its No. 1 enemy state earlier this year, thereby deviating from the goal of reunification pursued by his predecessors.
"South Korea's diplomatic maneuvers hold the key to whether the two Koreas will ultimately achieve reunification or remain perpetually divided," Wi explained.
"Our government should not discard the concept of the inter-Korean basic agreement, which defines the relationship between South Korea and North Korea as a special one pursuing the ulitimate goal of reunification. It is also crucial to persuade our partners, such as the U.S., Japan and European countries, to agree to such a notion."
Wi Sung-lac, a lawmaker-elect of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), poses during an interview with The Korea Times at his office in Seoul, May 2. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
"Unfortunately, we are not seeing such efforts by the Yoon administration."
The former envoy to Russia also discussed South Korea's strained relations with Moscow, describing them as the most troubled in over 30 years of bilateral ties. He emphasized the necessity of adopting a comprehensive policy approach toward Russia, highlighting that high-level exchanges alone are insufficient without a coherent and strategic framework in place.
He pointed out that a rare visit by Russian Vice Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko to Seoul in February turned out to be a one-off event without producing concrete results.
"Meetings between high-level officials are merely hardware. We also need effective software in the form of clear policy direction to ensure that such exchanges are fruitful," Wi said.
The former diplomat first joined the liberal DPK during the 2022 presidential elections, when he served as the foreign policy adviser to then-DPK candidate Lee Jae-myung. He secured the party's proportional representation seat in the April 10 parliamentary elections.
"I decided to enter politics because during my career as a diplomat, I recognized the urgent need for a substantial upgrade in our nation's diplomacy. While I have written books, columns, and delivered lectures on this subject, I ultimately concluded that engaging in politics would be the most effective way to bring about the necessary changes," he explained.
With about two weeks left before assuming his role as an Assemblyman on May 30, Wi aims to leverage his experience to contribute to legislations that can upgrade the nation's diplomatic infrastructure.
"When I mention infrastructure, I'm not just talking about increasing budgets and expanding the workforce. It's about strategy and policy. Only then can we discuss how to optimize resources allocated to the administrative tasks in diplomacy," he said.
The Korea Times · May 16, 2024
12. S. Korea not to send gov't delegation to new Taiwanese leader's inauguration
S. Korea not to send gov't delegation to new Taiwanese leader's inauguration | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Seung-yeon · May 16, 2024
By Kim Seung-yeon
SEOUL, May 16 (Yonhap) -- South Korea will not send a government delegation to the inauguration of Taiwanese President-elect Lai Ching-te early next week, a foreign ministry official said Thursday.
Whether Seoul would dispatch a delegation to Lai's inauguration, set for Monday, had been a focus of attention as China has strongly opposed any moves that appear to recognize the island, which it considers to be part of its own, as an independent state.
"There is no plan for attendance by a government delegation. As far as I am aware, our representative to the South Korean mission in Taipei will attend," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
"It has been customary that the representative to the mission in Taipei attends the inauguration," the official said.
Representative Lee Eun-ho is serving as the top South Korean envoy to Taipei.
The official's comments came after Rep. Cho Kyoung-tae of the ruling People Power Party said he will attend the swearing-in ceremony at the invitation of the Taiwanese government, with the possibility of a few other fellow lawmakers joining Cho on the visit.
South Korea had made the same decision for the inauguration of then President-elect Tsai Ing-wen in 2016.
The decision has been largely seen as Seoul taking into account the importance of managing the ties with Beijing.
South Korea cut off official diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1992, when it established diplomatic relations with China.
In 1993, South Korea opened a mission in Taipei to maintain bilateral relations unofficially and continue cooperation in a substantive way.
This EPA file photo shows Lai Ching-te (L), Taiwanese vice president and ruling Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate, alongside his vice presidential candidate, Hsiao Bi-khim (R), during a rally after winning the presidential election in Taipei, Taiwan, on Jan. 13, 2024. (Yonhap)
elly@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Seung-yeon · May 16, 2024
13. China and Russia Disagree on North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons
Excerpts:
For the first time, China and Russia are beginning to diverge in the payoff structure of the North Korean nuclearization game. Russia sees some positive (despite extremely risky) sides of stockpiling nuclear weapons in North Korea. At the same time, China is damaged by this instability-inducing security environment.
There have been some signs of trilateral security alignment among North Korea, Russia, and China against that of South Korea, Japan, and the United States. Nevertheless, China seems unwilling to take the leadership of such a trilateral security alliance as it tries to evade the stigma of being Russia’s top military ally. Many seem to exaggerate China’s strategic willingness to form a formal security alignment in Northeast Asia.
Such a complicated logical flow leads us to a hard riddle to work out in this nuclear game: Who actually has leverage over whom? China or Russia or North Korea or the United States? China, at the very least, does not now appear to be winning.
One caveat to keep in mind, however, is that China may view North Korea’s nuclear weapons as helpful in the context of a military takeover of Taiwan, which will need to be carefully watched in the upcoming years.
China and Russia Disagree on North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons
Beijing and Moscow have different perspectives on – and different appetites for – Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
By Wooyeal Paik
May 15, 2024
Credit: Depositphotos
China has been ambivalent about North Korea and its strategic behaviors for the last few decades, leading scholars in China to describe North Korea as both “strategic asset” and “strategic liability.” North Korea, China’s sole military ally with an official treaty, the Sino-North Korean Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance, signed in 1961, has proved tough to handle, if not outright volatile, for its security and economic patron.
Nonetheless, North Korea’s geopolitical importance to China as a buffer state against the United States and its East Asian allies (South Korea and Japan) has not lessened. Even in the era of high-tech weapons such as missiles, military satellites, nuclear submarines, and fifth-generation fighter jets, all of which serve to reduce the strategic value of physical buffer zones, it is still effective and valuable for China not to confront the mighty hostile power, the United States, on its immediate land border. Ground forces are still the ultimate military presence, and sharing a border with a U.S. allied, unified Korea would also come at a psychological cost for China.
Beyond its role as a buffer state, North Korea’s value as leverage or a bargaining chip for China in Beijing’s relations with South Korea and the United States has been well recognized. In 2024, however, China may consider adding another layer to this leverage by supporting North Korea’s nuclear program, as Russia has done.
North Korea is a de facto nuclear state with a set of viable delivery mechanisms including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). This nuclear element of the Kim regime has been regarded as the quintessential reason for an ever-growing regional security instability in Northeast Asia and beyond.
For China, North Korea – and particularly its nuclear program – is a strategic liability. China prioritizes stability in its neighborhood, but North Korea purposefully pursues instability right next to China. This conflict of interests between the treaty allies exacerbates Chinese national security concerns, particularly regarding the United States and its hub-and-spoke system in the Indo-Pacific area.
In response to North Korea’s rapid nuclear and missile developments, the United States has significantly ramped up its military presence on and around the Korean Peninsula, in consultation with its ally, South Korea. That includes the regular deployment of strategic (i.e., nuclear-capable) U.S. assets to the region, something China is not comfortable with.
Russia, however, takes a different view. Over the past year, Moscow has shifted its strategic approach to the North Korea’s nuclear capability and provocations, from viewing them as a nuisance that disrupts the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime to a tactical countermeasure against the United States. From Russia’s perspective, distracting the U.S. – the primary military and economic presence as the NATO leader – is a goal unto itself, as Washington is a major obstacle to Russia’s desire to conquer Ukraine and influence the post-Soviet Central and Eastern Europe.
Russia has been importing North Korean weapons – 152 mm artillery ammunition,122 mm multiple rocket launcher ammunition, and other conventional weapons – for use against Ukraine. In return, it’s widely believed that North Korea receives Russia’s technical assistance for the research and development of advanced space and weapons technologies: nuclear-powered submarines, cruise and ballistic missiles, military reconnaissance satellites. North Korea also receives food and energy in addition to rare international support for its pariah regime.
Russia actively endorses North Korea as a nuclear state and supports its “legitimate” use of nuclear weapons for its self-defense and beyond. As Kim Jong Un embraces a lower nuclear threshold, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his ruling elites have also expressed their willingness to employ low-yield tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine and European NATO countries.
Thus, North Korea has evolved into a double-layered tool for Russia, acting as both a buffer state and a nuclear threat against the United States in Northeast Asia and Europe. This accelerates the convergence of security between Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic regions.
Despite Russia’s high-profile advances with North Korea, China is still thought to be the only nation with significant influence over Pyongyang. China’s leaders repeat that they have little influence; it is more accurate to say that they do not use their leverage. One strain of thought holds that the United States’ military power may be compromised and dispersed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons, which could benefit China in its rivalry with Washington. North Korean nukes distract the U.S. and its allies – South Korea and Japan – by monopolizing their military strategy and operation planning in Northeast Asia and the Western Pacific.
Can North Korea’s nuclear weapons be a viable “card” for China to play in its competition with the United States? No – because China is not Russia.
China’s primary security interest is in the Indo-Pacific area, whereas Russia’s is in the Euro-Atlantic. China certainly wants to utilize North Korea as a physical and symbolic buffer state and a form of leverage, which is largely accepted by all the key stakeholders in Northeast Asia. However, having a runaway nuclear weapons state as a neighbor will grossly compromise China’s regional security.
First, when it comes to nuclear threats, provocations, and eventually using its “treasured sword,” North Korea will not bow to Chinese command and control. Although North Korea’s nuclear weapons now target the United States, South Korea, and Japan, it would not be to China’s benefit if a bloody war is sparked on its doorstep. Plus, Pyongyang’s rulers do not rule out using force to retaliate militarily against China if needed; they are bitter allies at most.
Second, in the context of the hegemonic conflict with the United States, China’s security interests are actually jeopardized by North Korea’s nuclear buildup. The U.S. now has a ready justification to gather its friends in the shape of a burgeoning (although still informal) trilateral alliance between Japan, South Korea, and the United States And by now, it’s abundantly clear that the alliance’s main goal transcends just limiting North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.
China is thus subject to increased “integrated deterrence” as a result of its junior security partner’s development of nuclear weapons, which pose an existential threat to South Korea and even the United States itself. In response, the U.S. deploys more and more strategic assets in and near the Korean Peninsula, which also will have implications for the deteriorating Taiwan Strait situation.
An East Asian version of NATO – China’s greatest fear – might emerge if Beijing seriously attempts to use North Korea’s nuclear weapons as a bargaining chip in the same way as Russia. Japan’s deliberations on joining AUKUS Pillar II, along with maybe South Korea, demonstrates how the Chinese security climate has deteriorated.
Of course, such a strategic maneuvering of the nuclear pawn would also increase the odds of another nightmare scenario of instability: a feared domino effect of nuclearization through South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, and other countries across the world.
Third, China’s use of North Korea’s nuclear capabilities as a bargaining chip could result in the country being further alienated from Western nations. Despite Beijing’s negative rhetoric on Western imperialism and its recent attempts to lead the “Global South,” China still needs Western countries for its continued economic, technological, and security development in the coming years. If China openly supports North Korea’s military buildup and nuclear proliferation, more developed countries in Europe and East Asia will keep their distance from and monitor China more closely. Russia has little to lose in this regard, due to its ongoing security struggles in Ukraine. However, China has a lot at stake.
For the first time, China and Russia are beginning to diverge in the payoff structure of the North Korean nuclearization game. Russia sees some positive (despite extremely risky) sides of stockpiling nuclear weapons in North Korea. At the same time, China is damaged by this instability-inducing security environment.
There have been some signs of trilateral security alignment among North Korea, Russia, and China against that of South Korea, Japan, and the United States. Nevertheless, China seems unwilling to take the leadership of such a trilateral security alliance as it tries to evade the stigma of being Russia’s top military ally. Many seem to exaggerate China’s strategic willingness to form a formal security alignment in Northeast Asia.
Such a complicated logical flow leads us to a hard riddle to work out in this nuclear game: Who actually has leverage over whom? China or Russia or North Korea or the United States? China, at the very least, does not now appear to be winning.
One caveat to keep in mind, however, is that China may view North Korea’s nuclear weapons as helpful in the context of a military takeover of Taiwan, which will need to be carefully watched in the upcoming years.
Authors
Guest Author
Wooyeal Paik
Wooyeal Paik, Ph.D., is a professor at the Department of Political Science and International Studies, deputy director of the Yonsei Institute of North Korean Studies, and director of the Center for Security Strategy, Aerospace Strategy and Technology Institute at Yonsei University, Seoul. He is also a visiting fellow at Insti-tut de recherche stratégique de l’École militaire (IRSEM), Paris and adjunct professor at Vrije Univer-siteit Brussel, Brussels.
thediplomat.com
14. 4 Korean War memorials in U.S. add term 'East Sea' in reference to sea between S. Korea, Japan
Words have meaning.
4 Korean War memorials in U.S. add term 'East Sea' in reference to sea between S. Korea, Japan | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Chae Yun-hwan · May 16, 2024
SEOUL, May 16 (Yonhap) -- Four memorials on the 1950-53 Korean War installed in the United States have added the Korean name for the body of water between the Korean Peninsula and Japan after only using its Japanese name, the veterans ministry said Thursday.
Memorials in Maryland, Ohio, Lake County in Indiana and Cayuga County in New York have included the Korean name "East Sea" in addition to the Japanese moniker "Sea of Japan" on maps and other explanatory material displayed at the sites over the past year after the ministry requested the change, it said.
Seoul has long campaigned for its own name, the East Sea, or the use of both names to refer to the body of water, arguing that the Sea of Japan is a legacy of Tokyo's imperialistic past. The naming has been a source of diplomatic friction between Seoul and Tokyo.
As of May last year, 14 Korean War memorials in the U.S. had been discovered to only be using the Japanese name to refer to the sea, prompting the request for changes through diplomatic missions, the ministry said.
An official at the foreign ministry said the government has actively explained Seoul's position over the naming of the sea and has continuously requested officials in charge of Korean War memorials for the changes.
A veterans ministry official said the recent changes at the four memorials appear to reflect the improvement in South Korea-Japan relations, which have long been marred by historical spats.
Bilateral ties between Seoul and Tokyo have warmed significantly under the current Yoon Suk Yeol administration, which has prioritized bolstering trilateral security cooperation between the Asian neighbors and their shared ally, the United States.
The veterans ministry said it plans to continue requesting changes to the remaining facilities that only use the Japanese name to ensure that they also show the East Sea name.
This undated composite photo, provided by Seoul's veterans ministry on May 16, 2024, shows the 1950-53 Korean War memorial in Maryland with the Korean and Japanese names of the body of water between the Korean Peninsula and Japan -- East Sea and Sea of Japan, respectively. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
yunhwanchae@yna.co.kr
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en.yna.co.kr · by Chae Yun-hwan · May 16, 2024
15. Yoon, Cambodian PM agree to establish strategic partnership
Strategic competition? China has a large presence and a lot of influence in Cambodia.
Note: Chinese warships have been docked in Cambodia for 5 months, but government says it’s not permanent
https://apnews.com/article/cambodia-china-naval-base-warships-ream-d4571e2ca53e682ce17c121312443b52
Yoon, Cambodian PM agree to establish strategic partnership | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Haye-ah · May 16, 2024
By Lee Haye-ah
SEOUL, May 16 (Yonhap) -- President Yoon Suk Yeol and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet agreed Thursday to establish a strategic partnership between their countries and expand cooperation across various sectors, including defense, trade and infrastructure.
The leaders adopted a joint statement on the establishment of a strategic partnership between South Korea and Cambodia during a summit at the presidential office, which was held on the second day of Hun Manet's four-day official visit to South Korea.
The statement calls for strengthening defense and security cooperation, including through a South Korean naval vessel's port call in Cambodia later this year and increased cooperation in peacekeeping operations as well as against transnational crimes, such as drug smuggling, human trafficking and cyber crimes.
President Yoon Suk Yeol (R) poses for a photo with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet during their talks at the presidential office in Seoul on May 16, 2024. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)
Under the strategic partnership, the two countries will also increase economic and financial cooperation, including through their bilateral free trade agreement, and promote cooperation across the social, cultural and development sectors.
The statement contains the two countries' reaffirmation of the importance of international peace and security, free trade, and the rule of law, as well as their commitment to working together at the United Nations, and other international and multilateral organizations.
It further urges North Korea to abide by U.N. Security Council resolutions and expresses support for South Korea's comprehensive strategic partnership with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), its Indo-Pacific strategy and the Korea-ASEAN Solidarity Initiative.
The two countries signed six documents on the occasion of the summit, including a protocol renewing and increasing South Korea's loan to Cambodia from US$1.5 billion in 2022-26 to $3 billion in 2022-30 through the Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF).
The other documents were a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on investment cooperation, an MOU on deepening cooperation in the intellectual property sector, a letter of intent on strengthening cooperation against drug smuggling, an MOU on training human resources, and a contract to provide an EDCF loan to rebuild roads and construct a bridge in Cambodia.
hague@yna.co.kr
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en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Haye-ah · May 16, 2024
16. Turning Back the Clock: The Changing Nature of North Korean Food Insecurity
Download the 20 page report at this link: https://www.eastwestcenter.org/sites/default/files/2024-05/EWCOP_8%20Noland%2005152024.pdf
Turning Back the Clock: The Changing Nature of North Korean Food Insecurity
Marcus Noland
May 15, 2024
eastwestcenter.org
East-West Center Occasional Papers East-West Center Occasional Papers
Turning Back the Clock: The Changing Nature of North Korean Food Insecurity Turning Back the Clock: The Changing Nature of North Korean Food Insecurity
Marcus Noland
Marcus Noland
May 15, 2024
Download
[email protected] [email protected]
Over the past several years, North Korea has adopted legal changes that are increasing the centrality of the Workers Party of Korea and the state in agricultural production, distribution, and consumption. This development changes the basic nature of food insecurity in North Korea from one in which access to food is determined by the ability to purchase it in the market to one in which access to food is determined by political status. This development is of potential policy relevance: Although current conditions do not appear to be severe, if and when North Korea experiences another food crisis, foreign partners are likely to encounter a state dominated model more closely resembling the system that existed in the early 1990s at the onset of the famine and with it the attendant problems that humanitarian-relief agencies confronted at that time.
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
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