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Quotes of the Day:
"Hold on to what is good,
Even if it's a handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe,
Even if it's a tree that stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do,
Even if it's a long way from here.
Hold on to your life,
Even if it's easier to let go.
Hold on to my hand,
Even if someday I'll be gone away from you."
- Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator 1830 - 1890
"The greater part of the population is not very intelligent, dreads responsibility, and desires nothing better than to be told what to do. Provided the rulers do not interfere with its material comforts and its cherished beliefs, it is perfectly happy to let itself be ruled. "
~Aldous Huxley
"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people."
- Admiral Hyman G. Rickover
1. N. Korea conducted 'simulated tactical nuclear attack': KCNA
2. Counteraction Drill for Important Purpose Conducted in DPRK
3. Anti-War, Anti-Japan, Anti-Regime Struggle Escalates in Region of S. Korean Puppets
4. In a First, North Korea Publicizes Military Operation to ‘Occupy’ South Korea
5. Kim Jong Un’s foreign policy failures have left the entire peninsula worse off
6. Kim's visits to naval facilities show direction of North Korea's nuclear strategy: experts
7. Japan and South Korea should be invited to join Aukus, UK parliamentary committee says
8. South Korea is working on an 'arsenal ship' in case it has to shower North Korea with missiles
9. Unification ministry considers fine on lawmaker for attending pro-N. Korea group's event in Japan
10. Former North Korean diplomat greets North Korean refugees
11. Bigger isn’t always better: Why the US fails to deter North Korea, despite nuclear superiority
12. Iran, Hovering on the Brink of Producing Its First Warhead, Steps Up Its Nuclear Partnership With North Korea
13. Dream of unification lives forever
14. S. Korea and Japan after Camp David
15. Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: September - Korea
16. The strange, secretive world of North Korean science fiction
1. N. Korea conducted 'simulated tactical nuclear attack': KCNA
It is interesting to consider how the regime's words and actions seem to be mirroring the alliance's.
It is clear the regime is getting the message on extended deterrence and the strength of the ROK/Alliance alliance as well as the trilateral corporation of "JAROKUS."
"The nuclear force of the DPRK will bolster up its responsible combat counteraction posture in every way to deter war and preserve peace and stability," the KCNA said, referring to the North by its official name.
(2nd LD) N. Korea conducted 'simulated tactical nuclear attack': KCNA | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Eun-jung · September 3, 2023
(ATTN: UPDATES with S. Korean evaluation of missile launch in paras 7-8)
SEOUL, Sept. 3 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has conducted a drill for a "simulated tactical nuclear attack," state media said Sunday, a day after the North fired cruise missiles following major joint exercise between South Korea and the United States.
On Saturday, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North fired several cruise missiles toward the Yellow Sea at around 4 a.m. The launch came two days after the allies wrapped up their 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise which Pyongyang has denounced as a rehearsal for invasion.
"A firing drill for simulated tactical nuclear attack was conducted at dawn of September 2 to warn the enemies of the actual nuclear war danger," the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, adding "two long-range strategic cruise missiles tipped with mock nuclear warheads were fired."
This photo, carried by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Sept. 3, 2023, shows what the North called a drill for a "simulated tactical nuclear attack" being staged the previous day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
The North claimed the "nuclear strike mission" was "successfully" conducted, with the missiles flying a distance of 1,500 kilometers for 7,672 to 7,681 seconds, respectively, and detonating at a preset altitude of 150 meters above the target.
North Korea again denounced the latest major exercise between the allies, which involved at least one U.S. B-1B strategic bomber and fighter jets, as "more openly" revealing their "military confrontation schemes" against the North.
"The nuclear force of the DPRK will bolster up its responsible combat counteraction posture in every way to deter war and preserve peace and stability," the KCNA said, referring to the North by its official name.
South Korea's military expressed skepticism over North Korea's claims that it successfully carried out its simulated tactical nuclear strike mission.
"An analysis indicated that North Korea's announcement this morning was exaggerated. Not all of them succeeded," a senior official of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told Yonhap News Agency on condition of anonymity.
This photo, carried by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Sept. 3, 2023, shows what the North called a drill for a "simulated tactical nuclear attack" being staged the previous day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
In a separate report, the KCNA said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspected the Pukjung Machine Complex, a major shipbuilding manufacturing facility, and a major munitions factory and stressed their roles in bolstering the nation's military capability.
"He affirmed that a future plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the WPK (Workers' Party of Korea) would set forth an important line of the modernization of the complex and the development orientation of the shipbuilding industry of the country," the KCNA said in an English dispatch.
While inspecting a munitions factory at an undisclosed location, Kim expressed satisfaction and highlighted the importance of its role in "bolstering up the armed forces," it added.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspects the Pukjung Machine Complex, one of North Korea's major manufacturing facilities, in this photo released by the state-run Korean Central News Agency on Sept. 3, 2023. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
mlee@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Eun-jung · September 3, 2023
2. Counteraction Drill for Important Purpose Conducted in DPRK
We are gangsters doing gangster stuff.
Excerpt:
The Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea repeatedly stressed the need to take offensive actions for affording the understanding of the DPRK nuclear force's deterrence, calling on all the service personnel of the nuclear force to maintain high alertness and mobilized posture and make the U.S. and the military gangsters of the "ROK" more clearly understand the situation that has reached a serious threat through the overpowering exercise of the war deterrence.
Counteraction Drill for Important Purpose Conducted in DPRK
https://kcnawatch.org/newstream/1693696054-75422382/counteraction-drill-for-important-purpose-conducted-in-dprk/
Date: 03/09/2023 | Source: KCNA.kp (En) | Read original version at source
Pyongyang, September 3 (KCNA) -- After their adventurous large-scale joint exercises, the enemies staged again a joint guided missile firing and aerial bombing drill involving tens of different fighters for two days from August 31 to continuously escalate tensions and more openly reveal their military confrontation scheme against the DPRK.
The recklessness and dangerous nature of the confrontation hysteria recently betrayed by the U.S. and the gangsters of the "Republic of Korea" are unprecedented in history.
The Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) issued an order to conduct a relevant military drill to fully demonstrate the action will and capability to deter the enemies' attempts for a war of aggression.
In its written drill order, the WPK Central Military Commission stressed the importance of the drill and sent militant encouragement to the missile soldiers, affirming that the great power of the DPRK will soon reduce into misgivings the so-called self-pride and relieved feelings about the superiority of the combined air forces which the enemies seek to demonstrate continuously.
A firing drill for simulated tactical nuclear attack was conducted at dawn of September 2 to warn the enemies of the actual nuclear war danger.
A high-spirited strategic cruise missile-armed unit of the Korean People's Army in the western region of the country conducted the relevant military activities.
Prior to the drill, there was an inspection of the procedures for authenticating the nuclear attack order and the rapid operation normality of the technical and mechanical devices of the launch approval system, and two long-range strategic cruise missiles tipped with mock nuclear warheads were fired in an actual war environment according to rapid approval procedures.
The missile sub-unit involved in the drill fired the long-range strategic cruise missiles toward the West Sea of Korea from the mouth of the River Chongchon. The unit successfully carried out its nuclear strike mission by making sure that the missiles flied along the pattern "8" flight track simulating the distance of 1 500 kilometers for 7 672-7 681 seconds respectively and their warheads detonated at a preset altitude of 150 meters above the target island.
The Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea repeatedly stressed the need to take offensive actions for affording the understanding of the DPRK nuclear force's deterrence, calling on all the service personnel of the nuclear force to maintain high alertness and mobilized posture and make the U.S. and the military gangsters of the "ROK" more clearly understand the situation that has reached a serious threat through the overpowering exercise of the war deterrence.
The nuclear force of the DPRK will bolster up its responsible combat counteraction posture in every way to deter war and preserve peace and stability. -0-
www.kcna.kp (Juche112.9.3.)
3. Anti-War, Anti-Japan, Anti-Regime Struggle Escalates in Region of S. Korean Puppets
We should not forget the importance of the north's political warfare strategy against the South. It is conducting active subversion to undermine the legitimacy of the ROK government.
Anti-War, Anti-Japan, Anti-Regime Struggle Escalates in Region of S. Korean Puppets
https://kcnawatch.org/newstream/1693640243-180792757/anti-war-anti-japan-anti-regime-struggle-escalates-in-region-of-s-korean-puppets/
Date: 02/09/2023 | Source: KCNA.kp (En) | Read original version at source
Pyongyang, September 2 (KCNA) -- The struggle of people from all walks of life is getting stronger in the whole region of south Korean puppets to oppose the U.S. seeking to provoke a nuclear war and Japan bringing nuclear disaster and to oust traitor Yoon Suk Yeol who has been engrossed in anti-popular rule after becoming a stooge of the U.S. and Japanese masters.
Civic organizations of various circles staged an intensive struggle on August 28 and 29 despite heavy rain to demand the abolition of military alliance and halt to the war drills and check the discharge of nuclear-polluted water.
Speakers at the venues of struggle charged that Yoon is making hostile and offensive remarks toward the north as a shock brigade for realizing the U.S. policy for hegemony. They pointed out that he is engrossed in praising Japan while covering up its past history and that the destiny of the Korean peninsula is driven into a fatal position due to his daydream of antagonism and confrontation.
Meanwhile, organizations of various circles including workers, citizens and students have conducted a signature campaign for checking Japan's discharge of nuclear-polluted water into sea and ousting Yoon Suk Yeol, its accomplice.
Those organizations called a press conference over the signature campaign on August 28, at which they condemned Japan's discharge of nuclear-polluted water into the sea. Speakers there called upon all the people to turn out in the candlelight actions to check the discharge of nuclear-polluted water and oust the Yoon "regime".
The strong demand for resignation of Yoon keen only on anti-democracy and anti-environment deeds was heard in Ansan of Kyonggi Province and other areas.
At press conferences and rallies, protesters called for struggle against the discharge of polluted water and for the resignation of an accomplice, Yoon Suk Yeol.
The Federation of Peasants Associations, the Federation of Women Peasants Associations, the Progressive Federation of Students and other organizations held a press conference in Seoul on August 28, at which they denounced the U.S. for its moves to ignite a war against the north in a bid to realize its ambition for hegemony.
The Progressive Federation of Students and other organizations held a rally outside the U.S. embassy in Seoul on August 31 to declare that they would join the candlelight demonstrators in the struggle to prevent a nuclear war.
Carrying protest statements, commentaries and articles issued by various organizations, media said that human history shows the final defeat of the aggressor forces and bellicose forces, the public is calling Yoon a cowardly pro-U.S., and pro-Japanese stooge and demanding his resignation, and the struggle of people from all walks of life is getting stronger day by day to check Japan's discharge of nuclear-polluted water threatening the sea and mankind and to denounce the triangular military alliance with U.S. and Japan and the moves to ignite a nuclear war. -0-
www.kcna.kp (Juche112.9.2.)
4. In a First, North Korea Publicizes Military Operation to ‘Occupy’ South Korea
Does anyone believe that Kim Jong-un has abandoned the seven decades old strategy of subversion, coercion-extortion (blackmail diplomacy), and use of force to achieve unification dominated by the Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State in order to ensure the survival of the mafia like crime family cult known as Kim family regime?
In a First, North Korea Publicizes Military Operation to ‘Occupy’ South Korea
August 31, 2023 1:07 AM
UPDATE August 31, 2023 3:23 AM
voanews.com · August 31, 2023
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA —
North Korea’s military has practiced occupying all of South Korea as part of a counterstrike exercise, a type of exercise involving all the North’s military never before reported by its state media. The exercise was followed by a "tactical nuclear strike drill" overnight.
Two posts on the North’s Korean Central News Agency on Thursday reporting the exercises came as the U.S. and South Korean militaries wrap up an 11-day defensive drill dubbed Ulchi Freedom Shield, the largest in scale in years.
The U.S.-South Korea computer-simulated exercises, complimented by dozens of field drills, had an emphasis on practicing a coordinated response against a North Korean nuclear attack.
KCNA images showed a bespectacled Kim Jong Un reviewing battle plans against a backdrop of blurred-out maps. He studied "the command drill involving the whole army" Tuesday, "aimed at occupying the whole territory of the southern half by repelling the enemy’s sudden armed invasion and switching out to an all-out counterattack," KCNA said.
Kim was accompanied by the North’s Korean People’s Army Marshal Pak Jong Chon and Defense Minister Kang Sun Nam, it added. Kim gave a long list of advice, including conducting "super-intense strikes at pivotal military command centers, military ports, operational airfields … and core objects whose destruction may cause a series of socio-political and economic chaos."
In a separate report, North Korea said the two tactical ballistic missiles it fired Wednesday just before midnight constituted a "tactical nuclear strike drill" in retaliation to Ulchi Freedom Shield and the B-1B bomber deployed by the U.S.
It said the nuclear strike mission was successful, accurately exploding in mid-air "at a preset altitude of 400 meters above the target island." The drill simulated "scorched earth strikes at major command centers and operational airfields" of South Korea "military gangsters," KCNA added.
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff overnight told reporters in text messages it detected a pair of short-range ballistic missiles fired from Pyongyang’s Sunan area around 11:40 to 11:50 p.m., launched toward waters east of the peninsula. They flew some 360 kilometers before impact, the details of which are being analyzed with U.S. counterparts.
North Korean leader Kim Jong visits the training center of the General Staff Department of the Korean People's Army in North Korea.
Analysts in Seoul note that the 360-kilometer flight distance, if angled a different way, would target military assets in South Korea.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida condemned North Korea’s ballistic missile launches as "absolutely unacceptable" Thursday, underlining that they are repeat violations of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions. He added Tokyo has lodged a protest against Pyongyang.
South Korea's Unification Ministry, in charge of inter-Korean affairs, strongly condemned Kim Jong Un "for blatantly expressing his intentions of military attacks on South Korea, using the USF joint exercises as an excuse." It warned Pyongyang must realize continuing its military provocations would only undermine its security, while strengthening South Korea, the U.S. and Japan's resolve.
Also Thursday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs Chair Kim Seung-gyeom hosted U.S. Strategic Command Commanding General Anthony J. Cotton. The two pledged to further deepen their cooperation towards deterring and overwhelmingly responding to any threat by North Korea to use its nuclear weapons, Seoul’s defense ministry said.
voanews.com · August 31, 2023
5. Kim Jong Un’s foreign policy failures have left the entire peninsula worse off
I certainly agree that Kim Jong Un's foreign policy is a failure but so is his strategy. He has been unable to achieve any strategic objectives except for continuing to survive and "deterring" war. The problem is his strategy is focused on a single strategic objective: dominate the peninsula under his rule to ensure survival. Anything less will undermine his legitimacy and ability to survive. Yet it is this single minded focused strategy that will also bring him down in the long run. This is the paradox of north Korea. Kim must institute economic reforms to survive (and especially for the people to survive) but doing so will undermine his legitimacy and bring about his fall. Kim must implement political, strategic, and foreign policy reforms to ensure security and safety of the regime, but to do so will undermine his legitimacy and bring down the regime.
Excerpts:
North Korea for decades sought to position itself as a global leader, at least in terms of resistance to large foreign “imperialist” powers. Such efforts may have counted for little in the end, but state media continued to play up the country’s international prestige long after the Cold War rendered the Non-Aligned Movement a historical curiosity.
Between 2017 and 2020, conditions seemingly aligned for the North, as South Korea and the U.S. both delivered administrations willing to accommodate the DPRK’s goals and overlook concerns about the long-term consequences of their leaders dealing with Kim directly.
Over time, however, it became evident that the regime was pursuing a one-pronged strategy based on getting the U.S. to table. Achieving that, North Korea invested no energy into further wooing South Korea, seemingly certain it could count on Seoul’s support regardless of how many times it ignored or outright insulted the ROK leadership.
...
The DPRK could announce that its nuclear deterrent is non-negotiable but complete, and that it is ready to begin the process of ending its diplomatic isolation, even as it maintains core nuclear capabilities.
If nothing else, it could have leaned into its reputation for anti-imperial resistance among Global South countries at a time when many of their economies have been battered by U.S.-led sanctions of Russian fuel.
But as of now, North Korea demonstrates no such diplomatic aplomb. It has only threats, eccentricity and a reputation as an unreliable partner. As long as this persists, it renders most ideas for breaking the deadlock moot. This is not good news for anyone.
But one has to give Kim Jong Un credit for getting one thing right, which he did at that late 2020 rally: He did, as he said, fail his people and not deliver the economic relief they were counting on.
Unfortunately for all of us, he shows no signs of learning from his failures.
Kim Jong Un’s foreign policy failures have left the entire peninsula worse off
https://www.nknews.org/2023/09/kim-jong-uns-foreign-policy-failures-have-left-the-entire-peninsula-worse-off/?utm
North Korea had no backup after talks with US collapsed and has not pursued options that could help end its isolation
Rob York September 1, 2023
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Kim Jong Un delivers a New Year's address in 2019 | Image: KCNA
Editor’s note: The following article is an opinion piece by Rob York, director for regional affairs at the Pacific Forum. Views expressed in opinion articles are exclusively the author’s own and do not represent those of NK News.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has reportedly told his subjects to begin preparing for war, called for a “bolstered war deterrent,” initiated “full-scale command training” and blamed the “aggravators of the situation disturbing peace and stability on the Korean peninsula” for rising tensions.
But if Kim is looking for someone to blame for current tensions, he should focus on himself. The foreign policy choices he has made over the last five years have failed to achieve the regime’s goals, while aggravating the wider security situation in the region.
We can all agree that the North desires survival, either from military intervention from outside or having its internal stability undermined. Beyond that, one can ascertain an additional objective: The DPRK of Kim Jong Un wants to break out of its isolation, but on its own terms, without fundamental compromises.
This was evident in Kim’s 2019 summit with Donald Trump, where accounts suggested that Kim sought maximum relief from sanctions with minimal compromises on denuclearization.
Kim’s recalcitrance on this point was noted by those in attendance, yet his failure supposedly bothered him to such an extent that he cut off contact with his underlings after the summit failure.
He then wept publicly in a late 2020 speech over his failure to provide his people with economic relief — an admission without parallel in his father or grandfather’s tenure.
Still, this desire for international credibility and internal impunity is not completely new.
North Korea for decades sought to position itself as a global leader, at least in terms of resistance to large foreign “imperialist” powers. Such efforts may have counted for little in the end, but state media continued to play up the country’s international prestige long after the Cold War rendered the Non-Aligned Movement a historical curiosity.
Between 2017 and 2020, conditions seemingly aligned for the North, as South Korea and the U.S. both delivered administrations willing to accommodate the DPRK’s goals and overlook concerns about the long-term consequences of their leaders dealing with Kim directly.
Over time, however, it became evident that the regime was pursuing a one-pronged strategy based on getting the U.S. to table. Achieving that, North Korea invested no energy into further wooing South Korea, seemingly certain it could count on Seoul’s support regardless of how many times it ignored or outright insulted the ROK leadership.
Donald Trump, Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae-in meet at Panmunjom in June 2019 | Image: The White House
NO PLAN B
But it also became clear the North had no backup strategy when its maximalist aims for dealing with the U.S. failed. Yes, during that time Kim shored up relations with China — which had been frosty not long before — and Russia continues to demonstrate support for the North by blocking penalties for its misbehavior at the U.N.
However, neither China nor Russia can help the North achieve its goals of sanctions relief, and to an extent it’s the mistakes of all three governments — Beijing’s alienating Wolf Warrior diplomacy and opaque handling of COVID-19, plus Russia’s Ukraine invasion — that have effectively pushed them into one another’s arms and away from the critical gaze of the liberal world order.
In Pyongyang’s case, the mistake was seemingly depending on Trump to have a change of heart sometime before or after the 2020 election.
This was a misread of the will of American voters, not to mention Trump’s own political calculus, as he made no deals ahead of the election that his political opponents could use against him, then proceeded to lose anyway. To make matters worse, South Korean progressives followed suit in 2022.
So Kim Jong Un emerged from a politically favorable climate with no sanctions relief, no credibility as a shrewd statesman and a South Korean public that went from mostly trusting Kim to wanting to defend itself with its own nukes.
The current state of play is generally framed as one dangerous for his rivals — the U.S. and South Korea face an adversary with a growing nuclear arsenal they have failed to slow down, much less stop.
But from Pyongyang’s perspective, the situation is at least as bleak: Kim’s regime must stockpile nuclear weapons because no one trusts it to make a deal, except some South Korean progressives who have little to no credibility with Washington.
And the underappreciated aspect of North Korea’s nuclear weapons proliferation is that such weapons are useless. Not in the sense that their technology does not work but in that their use would not achieve the regime’s goals either: It would be the end of the regime outright.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (left) and South Korean President Moon Jae-in hold hands and walk across the inter-Korean border at Panmunjom, April 2018 | Image: Joint Inter-Korean Summit Press Corps
ALTERNATE ENDINGS
A truly canny North Korean leader could approach things any number of ways. In response to Trump’s exit from Hanoi, Kim Jong Un could have put pressure on the U.S. by continuing confidence-building measures with the South, so as to truly give the impression that Washington stood in the way of inter-Korean reconciliation.
He could have proposed a “phase-1” deal, such as demolishing a nuclear facility in return for a small step toward sanctions relief. He could have forced Trump’s hand in 2020 by declaring a willingness to work with any American president ahead of that year’s election.
Under current conditions, Kim Jong Un could set up dialogue with the Biden administration on topics like civilian nuclear energy, nuclear safety or vaccines. He could attempt to woo South Korea’s conservatives, (something Kim’s grandfather was open to).
The DPRK could announce that its nuclear deterrent is non-negotiable but complete, and that it is ready to begin the process of ending its diplomatic isolation, even as it maintains core nuclear capabilities.
If nothing else, it could have leaned into its reputation for anti-imperial resistance among Global South countries at a time when many of their economies have been battered by U.S.-led sanctions of Russian fuel.
But as of now, North Korea demonstrates no such diplomatic aplomb. It has only threats, eccentricity and a reputation as an unreliable partner. As long as this persists, it renders most ideas for breaking the deadlock moot. This is not good news for anyone.
But one has to give Kim Jong Un credit for getting one thing right, which he did at that late 2020 rally: He did, as he said, fail his people and not deliver the economic relief they were counting on.
Unfortunately for all of us, he shows no signs of learning from his failures.
6. Kim's visits to naval facilities show direction of North Korea's nuclear strategy: experts
Political warfare, blackmail diplomacy, and unification by force.
Kim's visits to naval facilities show direction of North Korea's nuclear strategy: experts
The Korea Times · September 3, 2023
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspects a ship engine factory at Ryongchon County in North Pyongan Province, in this photo released on Sunday. Yonhap
Pyongyang claims to have conducted 'tactical nuclear attack' drill with cruise missiles
By Jung Min-ho
While reporting on its latest drill for a "tactical nuclear attack," Sunday, Pyongyang released photos of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspecting a ship engine factory.
The facility, situated on its west coast near the border with China, assumes an "irreplaceable responsibility for strengthening naval forces," Kim said while presenting his policy direction for "opening a new era" in marine engineering.
Analysts told The Korea Times that this move, consistent with his recent messages highlighting the importance of naval power, suggests the trajectory of the North's long-term nuclear weapons strategy, namely building a submarine equipped with submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) or a nuclear-capable submarine.
"After developing and deploying strategic missiles on land, North Korea has been quite clear about its next goal of advancing naval forces as part of its nuclear operations strategy," said Kim Yeoul-soo, an analyst at the Korea Institute for Military Affairs, a think tank.
"While the North has large, trained ground forces, the gap in air power with South Korea is impossibly wide. But with nuclear weapons, it obviously views its navy could be a great threat to the South Korean and U.S. militaries."
On Aug. 27, a day before North Korea's Navy Day, Kim visited his navy command, where he emphasized its role in countering "enemies' aggressive attempts," in an apparent reference to the joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises that ended on Thursday. The previous week, he oversaw a cruise missile test from a warship.
All this could be a sign that North Korea may be about to unveil its new 3,000-ton submarine capable of carrying three SLBMs, a project it has been working on for the past several years, the analyst noted. A nuclear-capable submarine was one of the high-tech weapons the regime vowed to develop, along with a military reconnaissance satellite and a solid-fuel ICBM.
This photo released Sunday shows a cruise missile in flight during a "tactical nuclear attack" drill the previous day in North Korea. Yonhap
After its latest provocation, the North's official Korean Central News Agency claimed that its two long-range cruise missiles "tipped with mock atomic warheads" hit their targets precisely.
"A firing drill for simulated tactical nuclear attack was conducted at dawn of September 2 to warn the enemies of the actual nuclear war danger," it reported.
"The nuclear force of the DPRK will bolster up its responsible combat counteraction posture in every way to deter war and preserve peace and stability." DPRK is an acronym of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the official name of North Korea.
In a message to reporters, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff dismissed the claim, saying the test was only a partial success, according to its analysis.
The results may have been overstated. But North Korea's nuclear capabilities appear to be growing, another military analyst said.
"Ultimately, North Korea wants warships and submarines capable of firing nuclear missiles ― both cruise and ballistic types," the analyst said on condition of anonymity.
"That objective, in the long run, isn't impossible. North Korea has already passed the most challenging stages of acquiring nuclear power. North Korea may not have nuclear-capable ships or submarines now, but it is clearly on the track to getting them in the future."
The Korea Times · September 3, 2023
7. Japan and South Korea should be invited to join Aukus, UK parliamentary committee says
I missed this.
Japan and South Korea should be invited to join Aukus, UK parliamentary committee says
Influential UK foreign affairs select committee recommends Japan and South Korea join the security partnership to develop critical technology
The Guardian · by Daniel Hurst · August 30, 2023
Australia and other countries in the Aukus security pact should ask Japan and South Korea to join them to develop advance defence technology, according to an influential UK House of Commons committee.
The proposed expansion would likely focus on activities such as cyber, AI, quantum and undersea technologies – but not the multi-decade project to deliver nuclear-propelled submarines to Australia.
The foreign affairs select committee said the UK government “should propose to Australia and the United States that Japan and South Korea be invited to join an Aukus technological defence cooperation agreement”.
UK should take China to task on human rights and Taiwan, MPs say
Read more
In the report published on Wednesday, the committee noted that Aukus was “not purely about Australia acquiring a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines”.
“There is a cyber and advanced technology sharing and joint development component that could be equally, if not more, significant,” the report said.
“There is an in-principle agreement amongst the three powers to work together as closely as possible across the full suite of advanced technologies, including cyber, AI, quantum and undersea technologies, including in submarine detection.
“These could deliver tangible outcomes more quickly than the submarine programme.”
The proposal to bring Japan and South Korea into the Aukus tent was outlined in a report focusing on the UK’s “tilt” to the Indo-Pacific region and how the country should deal with a more assertive China.
The report’s release coincides with a trip to China by the British foreign secretary, James Cleverly.
The report by the Conservative party-controlled committee also includes a potentially contentious proposal for the UK to seek to join the Quad, a diplomatic initiative that brings together Australia, India, Japan and the US.
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China’s ambassador to Australia says Aukus an ‘unnecessary’ use of taxpayer money and ‘not a good idea’
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Beijing has repeatedly denounced Aukus and the Quad as anti-China groupings that seek to “stoke division and confrontation and revive the cold war mentality”. South-east Asian countries could also be nervous about the proposed expansion.
The select committee said it had heard “differing opinions from witnesses on whether the UK should apply to join the Quad, with some strongly supporting UK membership, others suggesting that it is too early to consider this now and one group against the proposal altogether”.
Walter Ladwig, a senior lecturer in international relations at King’s College London, argued “it would be premature to talk about adding new states at a time when the group is beginning to find its feet”.
Another submission co-authored by Asmiati Malik, an adviser to the Indonesian government writing in a personal capacity, said Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia were sceptical of the Quad, partly because of the grouping’s “reputation as an anti-China alliance seeking to securitise the region”.
“Movements towards a Quad Plus, bringing in extra powers, is likely to heighten concerns as much of the desire to extend the Quad comes from outside of the region,” the submission said.
Chinese migrants believe Australian media fuels hostility towards them, study shows
Read more
But the UK select committee said: “While understanding the reservations, we see advantage in working with the Quad to develop a coordinated strategy covering the whole Indo-Pacific maritime area, and applying to join the Quad at such time as the existing members feel is appropriate.”
A spokesperson for the Australian defence minister, Richard Marles, said the Aukus members were “committed to delivering a conventionally-armed nuclear-powered submarine capability for Australia” in line with the plan announced in March.
Marles has previously said he wanted to grow Australia’s defence industry integration with Japan, including “when ready via our advanced capabilities work in Aukus”.
However it is understood the Australian government wants to ensure the advanced tech initiatives are delivering new capabilities for the existing Aukus partners in the first instance.
There has previously been speculation about Japan, South Korea, India, New Zealand and Canada as potential partners in non-submarine Aukus projects.
The Guardian · by Daniel Hurst · August 30, 2023
8. South Korea is working on an 'arsenal ship' in case it has to shower North Korea with missiles
I will defer to the Naval experts. But it seems to me that these could be very useful if deployed in strength in the East and West Seas to bring fires throughout the breadth and depth of north Korea. This assumes they could be sufficiently protected from attack.
Will there be a market for these ships? Could other navies employ them in various conditions to achieve the right effects.
Images at the link: https://www.businessinsider.in/international/news/south-korea-is-working-on-an-arsenal-ship-in-case-it-has-to-shower-north-korea-with-missiles/articleshow/103260516.cms
Conclusion:
As in the US, some in South Korea are skeptical of the arsenal ship's utility, but there is little doubt that it can be built. South Korea is one of the world's leading shipbuilders and is already building large, well-armed warships for its navy and for export.
South Korea is working on an 'arsenal ship' in case it has to shower North Korea with missiles
businessinsider.in · by Benjamin BrimelowSep 1, 2023, 04:55 IST
- The South Korean navy is pursuing what it calls the "Joint Firepower Ship."
- Borrowing a US concept, the so-called arsenal ship is meant to carry dozens of missiles.
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In June, South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean showcased a model of its "arsenal ship" design at the International Maritime Defense Industry Exhibition in Busan.
It was the latest sign of progress on an ambitious project for which the South Korean navy has notably given few updates on, or specific details about, over the years.
South Korea's Ministry of National Defense announced the project in 2019 to acquire up to three arsenal ships and make them a central part of its navy's role in the "Three-Axis" System, which is Seoul's strategy to defend against North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
If completed, they would be the first arsenal ships ever built and would mark another accomplishment for South Korea's burgeoning defense industry. The arsenal ship concept itself, however, is the brainchild of the US Navy.
The arsenal ship
An illustration of a possible arsenal ship published in the US Navy's All Hands magazine in May 1995.US Navy
Proposed in 1996, the arsenal ship was one of the US Navy's first proposed adaptations to the post-Cold War threat environment.
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With the Soviet Union gone and the Russian Navy a shell of its forbear's strength, there was little need for a large fleet dedicated to battling a first-rate adversary on the high seas. Instead, most threats were ground-based and either close to shore or farther inland.
Consequently, the US Navy reduced the number of ships in its inventory and focused on developing long-range strike capability for use in joint operations with other military branches.
To maximize its role in this new era, the Navy proposed a completely new type of warship: A massive, stealthy, highly automated vessel — requiring a crew of no more than 50 — armed with hundreds of missiles capable of strikes on strategic targets, strikes deep inside enemy territory, fire support, and air and ballistic-missile defense.
Dubbed the "arsenal ship," it would have up to 500 Vertical Launch System cells — more than any other ship in the fleet — capable of launching Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, SM-2 interceptor missiles, and RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow missiles.
US Navy destroyer USS Shoup fires an SM-2 missile from a vertical launch system in September 2022.US Navy/Neil Mabini
The Navy also wanted the ships to carry naval variants of the Hawk surface-to-air missile, the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System, the Standoff Land-Attack Missile, and a land-attack variant of the Navy's Standard Missile.
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To increase their interoperability, the arsenal ships were to have a fire-control capability that could be operated remotely by AEGIS-equipped vessels nearby, by Air Force AWACS and JSTARS aircraft, or even by ground units.
The Navy described the arsenal ship as the "battleship of the 21st century" and a "remote missile and fire support magazine" and wanted to build six that it would assign to three two-ship squadrons.
The service argued that the ship's massive armament could substitute for long-range ground- and carrier-based airstrikes, and that the ships would obviate the need to base aircraft or missiles overseas and maintain large logistical networks to supply them.
Despite the Navy's ambitions, the arsenal ship was deemed to be too much of a target, given its limited self-defense capability, and unneeded, since the cruisers and destroyers that would escort it each had roughly 100 VLS cells already. Detractors also noted that it didn't make much sense to build a stealthy ship that needed to be accompanied by non-stealthy escorts.
Consequently, the arsenal ship concept was ultimately abandoned.
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South Korean interest
A North Korean Hwasong ICBM in March 2022.API/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
South Korea's interest in arsenal ships stems from its need for guaranteed strike capability against hardened North Korean targets.
Given the North's nuclear arsenal — estimated at several dozen to roughly 100 warheads — South Korea is concerned that most or even all of its major military bases and command centers could be destroyed in nuclear blasts before it could mount an effective defense. That fear is deepened by Pyongyang's ongoing work on longer-range and submarine-launched missiles.
That makes a remote, mobile missile and fire-support magazine a useful asset, as it would ensure that South Korea would have missiles to strike North Korea should its land-based systems be destroyed. It would also support the South Korean navy's role in the "Three-Axis" System, a strategy to preempt or respond to a North Korean nuclear attack.
The axes comprise "Kill Chain," a preemptive strike against North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles; "Korea Air and Missile Defense," a network of layered missile-defense systems to intercept North Korean missiles; and "Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation," an effort to attack North Korean leadership by destroying their hardened bunkers and command centers.
Given the number and types of missiles South Korea's arsenal ships would carry, they could be involved in all three axes — all while staying mobile.
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Hanwha Ocean's arsenal ship
—Naval News (@navalnewscom) July 10, 2023
Few details about South Korea's arsenal ship program have been released. What is known is that its navy wants up to three ships that would each carry at least 80 missiles and likely displace at least 5,000 tons.
The South Korean navy in April selected Hanwha Ocean — at the time still known as Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering — to design the concept for what Seoul has called the "Joint Firepower Ship."
In June, the company showed off its concept for the first time, which it called the "Joint Strike Ship." Based on its earlier KDDX destroyer design, the full-size version would measure nearly 500 feet long, displace about 8,000 tons, and be able to carry at least 100 missiles of various types.
The forward section of the ship contains 48 KVLS-I cells, which are likely to carry surface-to-air missiles. Another 32 KVLS-II cells, which would likely hold Haeseong II cruise missiles or L-SAM interceptors, are located right behind the mast. Behind them are 15 amidship launch tubes for ballistic missiles.
The concept model also has three launchers for larger ballistic missiles at the rear of the ship. Two erectable dual-launchers are forward of the helicopter deck and a single launcher for a larger missile is aft, raised over the stern. A Hanwha Ocean engineer told Naval News that a supply vessel would be needed to load the ballistic missiles at sea.
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South Korean troops fire a Hyunmoo II ballistic missile during an exercise in September 2017.South Korea Defense Ministry via NUR
Naval variants of the Hyunmoo 4 ballistic missile are likely to be used in the amidship launch tubes, while the two erectable double launchers are expected to be used with the Hyunmoo 5.
In development since 2020, the Hyunmoo 4 is believed to have a 2-ton warhead and a range of 500 miles. The new Hyunmoo 5 is capable of carrying a 1-ton warhead some 1,800 miles or an 8- to 9-ton warhead about 180 miles.
The Hyunmoo 5 is designed specifically for destroying North Korea's extensive bunker and underground fortification network, making it a central part of the KMPR axis. It is reportedly capable of reaching Mach 10 during its descent and of destroying structures roughly 330 feet underground.
Unlike the proposed US arsenal ship, Hanwha Ocean's concept has several defensive armaments, including a CIWS-II at the bow and at the stern for defense against missiles and aircraft, two chaff decoy launchers, and two anti-torpedo decoy launchers.
Hanwha Ocean has said that it will complete and present the Required Operational Capability for its arsenal ship design by the end of December, meaning the final product could be different from the model shown in June.
As in the US, some in South Korea are skeptical of the arsenal ship's utility, but there is little doubt that it can be built. South Korea is one of the world's leading shipbuilders and is already building large, well-armed warships for its navy and for export.
businessinsider.in · by Benjamin BrimelowSep 1, 2023, 04:55 IST
9. Unification ministry considers fine on lawmaker for attending pro-N. Korea group's event in Japan
I disagree with a fine and punishment. Everyone should have the right to freedom of association. That said it is fair game to explode the lawmaker's actions to the public. Voters should decide if he should be a lawmaker based on his ideology.
Unification ministry considers fine on lawmaker for attending pro-N. Korea group's event in Japan | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Park Boram · September 3, 2023
SEOUL, Sept. 3 (Yonhap) -- The unification ministry said Sunday it will consider slapping a fine on independent lawmaker Youn Mee-hyang for attending a pro-North Korea group's event in Japan without notifying the government.
Youn participated in an event Friday in Tokyo, organized by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan to commemorate Korean victims of the Kanto Massacre in the wake of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake.
The organization represents Korean residents in Japan who have allegiance to North Korea. South Koreans need to file prior notification with the government before contacting a member of the organization under the Inter-Korean Exchange and Cooperation Act, with a violation subject to a fine.
The ministry said Sunday that Youn had not filed any notification with the government for her participation in the commemoration event.
"We will first verify related facts by demanding an account (from Youn), and after that, processes, such as levying a fine, can begin," the ministry said.
Independent Rep. Youn Mee-hyang attends a lawmakers' gathering held at the Nation Assembly in Seoul in this file photo taken Feb. 16, 2023. (Yonhap)
pbr@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Park Boram · September 3, 2023
10. Former North Korean diplomat greets North Korean refugees
Former North Korean diplomat greets North Korean refugees
The Korea Times · September 2, 2023
Rep. Tae Yong-ho gives opening remarks at the 18th Freedom Speakers International (FSI) North Korean Refugee English Speech Contest on Aug. 26, at the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea. Courtesy of Casey Lartigue
By Tae Yong-ho
My name is Tae Yong-ho and I am a member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea. I think everyone here today may have seen the digital poster at the entrance to the Assembly. Most of the digital posters are in Korean, so that's why they are easily understood by lawmakers. There was one very special digital poster that has been posted since last Monday. It is in English, "I am from North Korea." So many representatives asked, "What is it?" and, "What is the contest? What are you going to do with this, you know, the English speech contest?" So, this gave me many opportunities to tell them what we are going to do this morning.
First, welcome to the North Korean defectors who are participating in this 18th FSI English speech contest, "I am from North Korea." I recognize many familiar faces. First, I would like to express my gratitude to Freedom Speakers International, the Shin & Kim Law Office, and the Korea Hana Foundation for preparing this meaningful event, and to all guests who are attending. I want to express my gratitude to the Next Korea Foundation for sponsoring North Korean defector students.
And congratulations to Casey Lartigue. I'd like to express my special thanks to Casey. When you read and see the digital poster, you can see the number 18. Everyone knows very well that it is not an easy task to have this kind of English contest 18 times. Of course, anyone can host this kind of event once or twice, but if anyone can continue to hold this event 18 times, I think, Casey, it is a grace for us to have a man like you from America who continues to help North Korean defectors to prepare and study good English. Thank you very much.
I'd like to tell my short story about my relationship with Casey. I first met him in 2017. When I first met him, I was really shocked about his stories, how he tried and wanted to improve the English-speaking ability of North Korean defectors. I watched Casey and Lee Eun-koo… Where is Lee Eun-koo? She is hiding. I met them and I watched them developing something out of nothing with a unique approach that truly empowers North Korean defectors.
North Korean defector students, like you here, who came here, must have a lot of worries like I had. Many face difficulties such as identity issues about whether to reveal to others that you are from North Korea, communication problems due to the North Korean dialect, difficulties in studying English, and sometimes regret as you have overcome challenges with studying and working in South Korea's competitive society. As a North Korean myself, I still have not adapted to this competitive world.
Anyway, there are students who came to South Korea alone, and some started studying when they were older, and there are students who have difficulties receiving help from their parents because the whole family must adapt to life in Korea as well. Looking at South Korean students, you may have thought about how great it would have been if you had been born here. However, in retrospect, you all got through the process of escaping North Korea well, and are working hard on your studies, and are now achieving despite the challenges. Also, there are many people around you who share difficulties, help, and want to be with you.
Nine North Korean refugees participated in the 18th Freedom Speakers International (FSI) North Korean Refugee English Speech Contest at the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea, Aug. 26. Courtesy of Casey Lartigue
Mentors and sponsors who have come here today, please work with FSI by opening your professional networks so you can partner to make greater opportunities for North Korean refugees. North Korean defector students receive help today, but tomorrow in your life, I'm sure that you will do bigger things for the Republic of Korea and North Korea as well and realize your dreams and hopes which will lead the future of reunification.
All of you who came here did a great job preparing for the speech contest, and congratulations on the holding of the "I am from North Korea" English speech contest. And, especially, I would like to finish my speech by giving a special thanks to the most important people today, the three judges who will make a fair ruling about the speech contest.
Rep. Tae Yong-ho delivered these remarks at the 18th Freedom Speakers International (FSI) North Korean Refugee English Speech Contest.\
The Korea Times · September 2, 2023
11. Bigger isn’t always better: Why the US fails to deter North Korea, despite nuclear superiority
Excerpts:
The crucial commitment problem. These dynamics play out clearly in the US-North Korea relationship. At the core of the crisis between the United States and North Korea is a commitment problem, one involving tensions over the future of both the North Korean nuclear program and the authoritarian regime that has championed it. For its part, the United States would like to be rid of both. US leaders have repeatedly made it clear that a nuclear-armed North Korean regime will not be accepted.
...
Despite having a comparative strategic advantage, the consequences of North Korean nuclear escalation are far too great for the United States to bear. As a result, North Korean signals of resolve are credible, and they are often sufficient for immediate deterrence, despite the regime’s limited nuclear capabilities. That leaves the United States at a distinct disadvantage. It’s time the United States learned that, at least in this situation, being bigger isn’t always better.
US officials should think twice before adopting any measures meant to expand US nuclear capabilities. Such a policy is unlikely to be helpful when the United States faces far weaker adversaries, like North Korea. If Pyongyang’s resolve is indeed its key advantage, the United States should work to undermine and counterbalance that—not by building up capabilities, but by showing cohesion and determination. The newly announced coordination efforts between US, South Korean, and Japanese forces represent a step in the right direction, although continued synchronization will be critical to cement trilateral ties.
The United States can’t simply demand that North Korea stops its provocations. But it can handle each such provocations with care, responding with coordinated, confident messaging that makes it clear North Korea is not the only actor with much at stake.
Bigger isn’t always better: Why the US fails to deter North Korea, despite nuclear superiority
By Lauren Sukin | September 1, 2023
thebulletin.org · · September 1, 2023
(Image design by François Diaz-Maurin)
A hefty, 60-ton missile that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fondly called his “most powerful nuclear weapon” featured heavily in this year’s Victory Day parade held on July 28 in Pyongyang. The missiles are North Korea’s most sophisticated military technology. Capable of carrying nuclear weapons, the missiles boast an estimated maximum range of 15,000 kilometers—enough to hit targets anywhere in the United States.
Since last year’s parade, North Korea has tested dozens of these ballistic missiles, more than it ever has in a single year. Although North Korea continues to build up its nuclear capabilities, its arsenal of just dozens of weapons is minuscule compared to the US arsenal of thousands. So, why has the United States proven unable to deter North Korea from testing?
The answer to this question is two-fold. First, the United States lacks the leverage needed to effectively influence North Korea through economic means. Second, US nuclear superiority over North Korea paradoxically makes Kim consider his nuclear arsenal essential to the survival of the regime. North Korea must make sure to stand strong in the face of each new crisis, lest it looks vulnerable. It’s this unbending resolve that makes North Korea effective at resisting the demands of its much more powerful adversaries.
Without Russia and China. North Korea’s recent parade commemorated the 70th anniversary of the July 27, 1953 armistice agreement of the Korean War. That war saw North Korean forces fighting alongside the Soviet and Chinese militaries against South Korea and the United Nations Command, led by the United States. It was fitting, then, that this year’s parade featured visits by Russian and Chinese officials, in the first such visits since the COVID-19 pandemic. The presence of these foreign dignitaries signified the strengthening relationships between North Korea and its neighboring allies.
North Korea is largely isolated on the international stage, in no small part due to very significant sanctions that limit the regime’s ability to trade across the world. The country’s largest trading partner is China. North Korea is wholly dependent on trade with—and aid—from Beijing.
Although there is less trade between North Korea and Russia, North Korea imports significant amounts of food and oil from its northern neighbor. Trade relations have also recently warmed between North Korea and Russia. Pyongyang has reportedly exported arms and artillery to Moscow to support Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, and the two partners have restarted train travel along the Trans-Siberian Railway for the first time in years.
In comparison, the United States lacks economic leverage: Heavy sanctions have prevented any ties between the two countries and forced North Korea to adapt to non-reliance on the United States and its allies. Although the United States has, at times, provided emergency aid to North Korea, the largest sources of food aid to the country come from South Korea and China. The regime seems largely resilient to this trend, even shunning foreign aid—including vaccines—throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, over time, aid coming to North Korea from countries other than South Korea and China has slowed.
Recently, Russia and China have been instrumental in sheltering North Korea’s growing provocations, but they have not always been so accommodating of the North Korean nuclear program. Nine UN resolutions—each with approval from Moscow and Beijing—have been passed condemning North Korean nuclear and missile testing. Each resolution also calls upon Pyongyang to suspend these illicit activities, although little lasting progress has been achieved to this end. The last UN resolutions on the issue of the North Korean nuclear program were passed in 2017 and there are few signs of any new UN activity in that regard. Russia and China have resisted any additional steps, despite repeated calls for the UN to discuss North Korea’s recent testing uptick.
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Why the alarm over Russia’s use of hypersonic missiles in Ukraine is misplaced
Russia and China have also previously been involved in the “Six Party Talks,” a series of negotiations intended to halt the North Korean nuclear program. The last talks were held in 2008, with North Korea declaring in 2009 that it would no longer participate. Although China last called for the talks to be renewed in 2017, there is little hope that they will resume, at least in the short term.
While Russia and China have resisted condemning North Korea for its recent missile testing, the United States, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the European Union have imposed additional, unilateral sanctions on North Korea and demanded that the tests cease. But despite these efforts, North Korea has continued to launch.
The role of resolve. If the United States is unable to use economic sticks to prod North Korea, what about military ones? My colleague Abby Fanlo and I published new research last month in Security Studies, which suggests that it is not despite nuclear superiority but because of it that the United States struggles to deter a comparatively much weaker adversary. That is, the asymmetry between the two countries’ nuclear forces can be considered a key obstacle to North Korean denuclearization. The study, which examines all the nuclear crises that occurred until 2010, shows that carrying a big stick—or, at least, having a bigger nuclear button than one’s enemy—can unfavorably change the dynamics of a crisis.
Crises that emerge between nuclear-armed countries with vastly different capabilities consistently represent high-stakes scenarios for the less-powerful adversary. Consider the Korean War, during which the Soviet Union wanted to maintain vital access to neighboring territory. Although the US nuclear arsenal was substantially larger at the time, Soviet nuclear threats effectively dissuaded the United States from escalating the conflict.
Asymmetric crises tend to be high stakes because of a selection effect. After all, it makes far more sense to acquiesce to the demand of an adversary that is many times more powerful, unless those demands would put your core interests at risk. This dynamic, though, doesn’t work the same way when a set of adversaries is equally matched.
When two countries with very similar nuclear capabilities face off in crises, the principle of mutually assured destruction is at work. In these so-called “symmetric” crises, both sides can impose equal consequences on the other if a crisis escalates. As a result, they possess general deterrence, which enables them to prevent their adversaries from putting pressure on their most serious interests. This logic underlies why the Cold War was “cold.”
In asymmetric crises, however, the weaker nuclear power is caught between a rock and a hard place. It can resist its adversary’s demands and risk a crisis escalating into a war. Often, though, giving in to those demands is off the table. The weaker country then has few options but to show its resolve to fight in a bid to secure immediate deterrence and fend off its adversary—albeit temporarily. In other words, the weaker country persists, because it has nothing more to lose; it is already committed to the maximum or bust.
And research shows that this strategy works. When a country has over 50 times more nuclear weapons than its adversary, its chances of emerging victorious from a crisis are nearly zero. If it has any more than three times as many nuclear weapons as an adversary, it will lose crises more often than it wins. Using novel methodological approaches designed for small datasets, the new research shows that there is no statistically significant advantage to exceeding one’s adversary’s nuclear arsenal by more than half its size.
RELATED:
The United States and stability in the Taiwan Strait
The crucial commitment problem. These dynamics play out clearly in the US-North Korea relationship. At the core of the crisis between the United States and North Korea is a commitment problem, one involving tensions over the future of both the North Korean nuclear program and the authoritarian regime that has championed it. For its part, the United States would like to be rid of both. US leaders have repeatedly made it clear that a nuclear-armed North Korean regime will not be accepted.
President Joe Biden’s 2022 National Defense Strategy states that “there is no scenario in which the Kim regime could employ nuclear weapons and survive.” Former Central Intelligence Agency director Mike Pompeo stated that President Donald Trump had ordered the agency to “separate the North Korean regime from its missiles and nuclear weapons.” President Barack Obama explained in a 2015 interview that the Kim regime was “brutal and … oppressive … you will see a regime like this collapse … and that’s something we are constantly looking for ways to accelerate.”
The United States could, in theory, say it would agree to a deal that reduced or removed the North Korean nuclear program in exchange for allowing the regime to stay in place. But over time, the United States would be unable to commit to keeping that promise. It would have every incentive to take advantage of the diminished North Korean capabilities to impose regime change on Pyongyang. (After all, the United States pursued regime change in Libya after its disarmament deal.) As Stanford University professor James Fearon writes, the real problem is that North Korea “can’t trust us.” So, they cannot—and will not—commit to disarm.
As a result, when crises emerge between the United States and North Korea, the fate of the North Korean regime is at stake—and, for Kim, it doesn’t get more high-stakes than that. Pyongyang must then show its resolve in the face of any threats to its nuclear program. For North Korea, backing down to such threats is an existential concern, even if bidding up the risk of a nuclear conflict could also have existential consequences. In these high-stakes settings, North Korea has a risky advantage.
Despite having a comparative strategic advantage, the consequences of North Korean nuclear escalation are far too great for the United States to bear. As a result, North Korean signals of resolve are credible, and they are often sufficient for immediate deterrence, despite the regime’s limited nuclear capabilities. That leaves the United States at a distinct disadvantage. It’s time the United States learned that, at least in this situation, being bigger isn’t always better.
US officials should think twice before adopting any measures meant to expand US nuclear capabilities. Such a policy is unlikely to be helpful when the United States faces far weaker adversaries, like North Korea. If Pyongyang’s resolve is indeed its key advantage, the United States should work to undermine and counterbalance that—not by building up capabilities, but by showing cohesion and determination. The newly announced coordination efforts between US, South Korean, and Japanese forces represent a step in the right direction, although continued synchronization will be critical to cement trilateral ties.
The United States can’t simply demand that North Korea stops its provocations. But it can handle each such provocations with care, responding with coordinated, confident messaging that makes it clear North Korea is not the only actor with much at stake.
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thebulletin.org · by François Diaz-Maurin · September 1, 2023
12. Iran, Hovering on the Brink of Producing Its First Warhead, Steps Up Its Nuclear Partnership With North Korea
Iran, Hovering on the Brink of Producing Its First Warhead, Steps Up Its Nuclear Partnership With North Korea
North Korea’s dealings with Iran parallel its growing role as exporter to Russia of arms and artillery shells that are badly needed to support Moscow’s forces in Ukraine.
https://www.nysun.com/article/iran-hovering-on-the-brink-of-producing-its-first-warhead-steps-up-its-nuclear-partnership-with-north-korea
A North Korean rocket launch is seen during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station, August 24, 2023. AP/Lee Jin-man
DONALD KIRK
Thursday, August 31, 202320:01:56 pm
SEOUL — North Korea and Iran are stepping up their joint efforts at producing nuclear warheads and missiles, an Israeli analyst is warning, with the North poised to offer still more assistance as Iran hovers on the brink of producing its first nuclear warhead. The Islamic Republic appears anxious to go nuclear even as Washington and Tehran are talking about a deal for Iran not to produce nuclear warheads.
A long-time Israeli aerospace and missile researcher, Tal Inbar, said the North has been giving “crucial parts” for Iranian missiles ever since the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. On the basis of this “longstanding” cooperation, he contended, “if the time comes, Iran would get the nuclear core” for warheads from North Korea.
North Korea’s dealings with Iran parallel its growing role as exporter to Russia of arms and artillery shells that are badly needed to support Russian forces in Ukraine.
The American ambassador to South Korea, Philip Goldberg, talking to Korean reporters at his residence here, accused Russia of “dealing in weaponry and discussions of military cooperation with a regime that has flouted every aspect of international rule of law.”
Mr. Inbar’s remarks about the Iran-North Korea connection come as the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, ordered more tests of short-range missiles as America and South Korea wound up 11 days of joint exercises with flights of fighter jets and a single American strategic B1B bomber. They were the biggest American-South Korean military exercises in years.
While Mr. Inbar warned of the escalating relationship between Pyongyang and Tehran, an American academic outlined here a more sanguine view of the North’s nuclear program.
In the keynote speech at a forum staged by South Korea’s unification ministry, a University of Chicago professor of international relations, John Mearsheimer, said North Korea’s missile program actually was a stabilizing force in the standoff between the two Koreas.
“Many people believe that a nuclear-armed North Korea is a source of instability,“ he said. “They are wrong. A nuclear-armed North Korea is likely to make the Korean peninsula more stable than would otherwise be the case if North Korea had no nuclear weapons.”
Mr. Mearsheimer, author of books on rivalries among great powers, said there’s “little doubt that stability on the Korean peninsula would be even more robust if South Korea had its own nuclear deterrent,” but he said that was “unlikely because of strong U.S. opposition.” Still, he argued, “a survivable North Korean nuclear deterrent and the U.S. nuclear umbrella” provides “abundant stability.”
What about North Korea’s close ties with Iran — and their dealings in what President George W. Bush in 2002 described as an “axis of evil” that also included Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? Largely Shiite lran exerts strong influence in Iraq through Iraq’s Shia majority. While Iraq survives uneasily with American assistance, Iran-North Korean collusion remains a threat from the Korean peninsula to the Middle East.
It’s for that reason, Mr. Inbar said, that South Korea “is now developing its own version” of the vaunted “iron dome” of missile defense that protects Israel from Iran and Iran-armed militias, including Hamas in Gaza, across Israel’s southern border, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“There is a need for early warning,” Mr. Inbar said. “It’s not so easy to intercept missiles” — especially those powered by solid fuel that are ready to fire the moment they’re placed on the launch pad.
Iran, he said, “has been focusing on solid-propelled missiles for years,” while North Korea has only recently been test-firing them, presumably with technological advice from Iran. Liquid-fueled missiles are much easier to detect since they’re fueled on the pad, a process that takes half an hour, time for satellites to see what’s going on.
Obviously, Mr. Inbar said, talking at a briefing arranged by NK Pro, a site in Seoul, there’s mounting concern at Seoul about North Korea in view of the torrent of rhetoric from Mr. Kim. Most recently, the North has conducted exercises complete with simulated nuclear strikes and an invasion of South Korea.
The situation conjures memories of June 1950, when Mr. Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, sent North Korean troops pouring into the South. “Serious risks to stability on the Korean peninsula remain,” a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment on International Peace, Ankit Ponda, said, while Mr. Kim looks for “some sort of coexistence that allows North Korea to retain nuclear weapons.”
At the other end of the “axis of evil,” Mr. Inbar noted that the diameter of Iranian missiles was “the same as the bomb” that Mr. Kim has shown in Pyongyang. “There could be cooperation,” he said, in the face of Iranian denials that it’s aspiring to become the 10th member of the world’s nuclear club, an elite grouping that includes, most recently, North Korea.
As of now, it’s not clear if Mr. Kim is going to order the North’s seventh underground nuclear test — its first since September 2017, when the test of what might have been a hydrogen bomb blew up much of the interior of a mountain, possibly killing 200 people.
Mr. Inbar suspects that Iranians were managing a reactor made by North Korea in Syria that Israeli planes blew up in 2007. “We don’t know if North Korea will conduct a test in the future,” Mr. Inbar said, but “it could be with the cooperation of Iran.”
DONALD KIRK
Mr. Kirk, based in Seoul and Washington, has been covering Asia for decades for newspapers and magazines and is the author of books on Korea, the Vietnam War and the Philippines.
Commenting is available to Sun Readers, Sun Members and Sun Founders only. Comments are reviewed and, in some cases, edited before posting. Chances of a comment being posted are increased if the comment is polite, accurate, grammatical, and substantive or newsworthy.
13. Dream of unification lives forever
Dream of unification lives forever
The Korea Times · September 3, 2023
By Eugene Lee
Just a day away from Aug. 15, the Liberation Day of Korea, one thought kept coming to me: Will South and North ever unite? Exactly 78 years ago, on Aug. 15, 1945, it was the day when Korea was liberated from Japanese colonial rule by the United States and the Soviet Union. And yet, one could say, that it was the day that destined the country for a split.
And if we look at it now, the split is so big, that some are worried over the possibility of unification. As recent polls show a drastic indifference towards unification, the younger generation, in particular, treats unification as something alien, if not a threat, to their personal well-being. To understand the underlying causes that override superficial thinking, we would need to look deeper.
I remember, years ago, that a colleague, an academic at one university abroad, had noted that whenever he was studying the history of Korea, it would always be a research into Korea's pursuit of independence. I couldn't agree more, then. But after giving it a little bit of extra thought, I began to argue even further: the project of complete liberation, in other words, its independence, is not complete without unification.
With national history spanning four or even five millennia, the focus of Korea's historical debates inadvertently drifts mainly toward contemporary history. Even if it is extremely politicized, it is one of the foci that draws the North and the South together. North Korea and South Korea, whether you want it or not, do share their histories. Without each other, their efforts to write or rediscover their national histories, no matter how big, would always be incomplete.
What adds to the complexity of the historical research is the symbolism of good versus evil: a peaceful South, a democracy backed by the majority of other states, versus the North, an authoritarian regime equipped with superweapons but condemned by many others. That type of reality leaves all of us with only half-truths because there are people in the North who also fought for independence long ago, as have the people in the South. And if we do not know those stories and that history, then we are missing a lot.
Yes, South Korea as well as the North have their own share of problems. For the South, it is primarily the pain of growth, and for the North, it is the pain of survival. But, at the end of the day, what matters most to both of them on the Day of Liberation is their shared history. Unification is an underlying assumption of those who have fought for independence. That is why we keep hearing those voices in the media, in political speeches, and even in entertainment.
But, I also note today that the call for unification echoes the strongest from abroad, namely from Korean diasporas all around the world. Those who have even the slightest connection to their motherland dream of unification. But even before that, those who live abroad, be it Zainichi, Koryoin, or Korean Americans, crave two things most of all: their mother language, i.e., Korean, and knowledge of their history, primarily heritage and genealogy. These diasporas worry that with the passing of time and generations gone, this echo might become weaker. Nevertheless, it will remain strong as long as there is a small grain of "Koreanness," no matter how vague this term is.
The Korean language and the history of modern Korea would frequently be the main topics of discussion in my correspondence with these diasporas. What is the response to the two queries? Simple: Establish a Korean history school. And that would accomplish two goals at once.
The Korean language and contemporary Korean history may sound complex on their own, but if well taught in combination through a special curriculum in a history school, they would spell out and amplify what everyone expects ― the Korean identity. In my view, the school will not only teach but rather engage and bring stories of Koreans from around the world that will eventually be inscribed in a book of contemporary Korean history.
Discovering what happened then is not as easy as one would imagine. Any facts are easily forgotten, and many are taken for granted, often incorrectly, leaving the history to be buried with those who carry those facts. The answer to these two demands is the creation of a Korean history school that would teach everyone and everywhere, help research, cross-check the facts, and find those who are forgotten. And the faster it happens, the better it will be, as generations are passing by and people are vanishing. Embracing everyone's story will bring people closer, rekindle people's desire to be together, and lay the foundation for Korean unification. And maybe one day, the Day of Liberation will become the Day of Unification.
Eugene Lee (mreulee@gmail.com) is a lecturing professor at the Graduate School of Governance at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul. Specializing in international relations and governance, his research and teaching focus on national and regional security, international development, government policies and Northeast and Central Asia.
The Korea Times · September 3, 2023
14. S. Korea and Japan after Camp David
Conclusion:
Playing out other negative scenarios reveals a close alignment of interests between South Korea and Japan. As a precaution, the two countries should find ways to deepen their relationship beyond what was agreed to at the recent Camp David summit.
[Robert J. Fouser] S. Korea and Japan after Camp David
koreaherald.com · by Korea Herald · August 31, 2023
By Korea Herald
Published : 2023-09-01 05:31:11
The recent trilateral summit between the leaders of South Korea, the United States and Japan on Aug. 18 was heralded as a turning point in trilateral security cooperation. US President Joe Biden hosted South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a summit at the Camp David presidential retreat. The leaders agreed to form a quasi-alliance in the face of the growing threat from China. They agreed to cooperate on a range of security-related issues and to hold annual trilateral meetings of Cabinet-level and other senior government officials.
The US has defense treaties with South Korea and Japan and has long urged both nations to develop closer ties. Since the normalization of relations between South Korea and Japan in 1965, the two countries have developed a close relationship centered on trade, tourism and cultural exchanges. However, acrimony over historical interpretations of Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korea Peninsula has made it difficult to develop closer security ties. Politicians and mass media in both countries use this bitterness to bolster their nationalist credentials.
In this context, the development of a security cooperation structure between South Korea and Japan was a major step forward. US President Biden has long considered himself a foreign policy wonk, and he can be justifiably proud of his accomplishment. China’s increasing belligerence, more than Biden’s diplomatic skills, is the driving force behind the change.
The elephant in the room, of course, was former US President Donald Trump. Twice impeached and four times indicted, the former president remains in the lead for the Republican nomination. In a race against Biden, a recent average of polls shows him trailing by about 1 percent. A similar average just before the 2016 election showed him 2 percent behind Hillary Clinton, but he went on to win the Electoral College handily. Biden’s 1 percent lead should be interpreted as meaning a Trump victory. For Biden to win comfortably, he would need to expand his lead to the pre-2020 election average of about 5 percent.
So far, the four indictments have helped Trump rally his base and raise money. Pundits, polls and common sense suggest they will weigh on him as he is forced to spend more time in court instead of on the campaign trail. The problem is that Biden’s approval ratings remain low. Among all presidents since Harry Truman, only Jimmy Carter and Donald Trump had lower approval ratings after 952 days in office. Both lost reelection. As long as Biden’s approval ratings remain low, he risks losing to Trump or whomever the Republicans nominate.
What about a non-Trump candidate? Conventional wisdom suggests that such a candidate would support US alliances, as candidates of both parties have traditionally done. The first Republican debate of this election cycle on Aug. 23 suggests otherwise. The traditional, older Republican candidates all remain strong supporters of Ukraine, but younger candidates, particularly 38-year-old Vivek Ramaswamy, are skeptical. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is more supportive, but less so than the old guard.
This suggests a generational shift toward a more isolationist stance on alliances. Such generational shifts tend to run deep and cross political lines. Younger voters are less optimistic about the future of the US and want the country to focus on its domestic problems, an attitude that supports isolationism.
So what does all this mean for South Korea? First, it means that Joe Biden is the last of a long line of post-World War II presidents who supported active US involvement in world affairs. He may or may not win reelection, but his successor, whoever that may be, will be more isolationist as younger generations drive that change. The trilateral cooperation that emerged from the recent summit may continue, but more as ceremony than substance.
Second, it means that South Korea must prepare for a wider range of security scenarios. One optimistic scenario would be the rise of a less confrontational leadership in China as the US profile recedes. This would give South Korea some breathing room as tensions in the region ease. A pessimistic scenario, however, would be an increase in Chinese belligerence amid a broader US retreat from the region. This would leave South Korea isolated, except of course for Japan.
Playing out other negative scenarios reveals a close alignment of interests between South Korea and Japan. As a precaution, the two countries should find ways to deepen their relationship beyond what was agreed to at the recent Camp David summit.
By Robert J. Fouser
Robert J. Fouser, a former associate professor of Korean language education at Seoul National University, writes on Korea from Providence, Rhode Island. He can be reached at robertjfouser@gmail.com. -- Ed.
koreaherald.com · by Korea Herald · August 31, 2023
15. Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: September - Korea
I would have given this a very positive rating. The Camp David Summit (and the substantive agreements from it )is one of the most important foreign policy and national security achievements in Korean and Northeast Asian Security in the past 4 decades. No one would have thought this was possible just two years ago (a lot of credit does go to president Yoon). Yes, now there is a lot of work in implementation and sustainment. But we are in the best security position in the region in the past four decades.
KOREA
https://www.fdd.org/policy-tracker/2023/09/01/biden-administration-foreign-policy-tracker-september-3/#Korea
Anthony Ruggiero
Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program Senior Director and Senior Fellow
Trending Neutral
Previous Trend:
Negative
On August 18, President Biden hosted his South Korean and Japanese counterparts at the Camp David presidential retreat. Yoon and Kishida have built their relationship by resolving historical disputes in favor of confronting common enemies: North Korea and China. The three leaders agreed to expand trilateral cooperation, including coordination on “regional challenges, provocations, and threats that affect our collective interests and security.” They also agreed to expand trilateral meetings beyond the defense and foreign ministries to include finance, commerce, and industry ministries. The leaders agreed to conduct trilateral military exercises, pursue the denuclearization of North Korea, and seek for a “unified Korean Peninsula that is free and at peace.” They launched an annual Trilateral Indo-Pacific Dialogue and expressed opposition to Beijing’s belligerence in the South China Sea.
Separately, the administration hosted the first open UN Security Council meeting on North Korean human rights since 2017. The UN special rapporteur on the issue explained that “some people are starving, and others have died due to a combination of malnutrition, diseases and lack of access to health care.” China and Russia blocked any Security Council response, but the administration joined 51 other countries in condemning the Kim regime’s human rights abuses.
The administration issued new North Korea sanctions on August 16, the first since June 15. The new sanctions targeted companies controlled by an individual sanctioned on March 30 for attempting to facilitate North Korea-Russia arms deals. It is unclear why Treasury waited more than four months to sanction the rest of this proliferation network.
16. The strange, secretive world of North Korean science fiction
Does anyone read north Korean science fiction?
The strange, secretive world of North Korean science fiction
Unusual and often breathtaking, the genre is relatively unknown in the West.
ANDRADA FISCUTEAN - 8/25/2023, 7:00 AM
Ars Technica · by Andrada Fiscutean · August 25, 2023
Enlarge / Inside the Submarine by Kim Kwang Nam, from the series "The Future is Bright."
Koryo Studio
A plane is flying to the Philippines, gliding above "the infinite surface" of the Pacific Ocean. Suddenly, a few passengers start to scream. Soon, the captain announces there's a bomb on board, and it’s set to detonate if the aircraft drops below 10,000 feet.
"The inside of the plane turned into a battlefield," the story reads. "The captain was visibly startled and vainly tried to calm down the screaming and utterly terrorized passengers."
Only one person keeps his cool: a young North Korean diplomat who has faith that his country will find a solution and save everyone. And he’s right. North Korea's esteemed scientists and engineers create a mysterious anti-gravitational field and stop the plane in mid-air. The bomb is defused, and everyone gets off the aircraft and is brought back safely to Earth.
This story, Change Course (Hangno rǔl pakkura) by Yi Kŭmchǒl, speaks about solidarity, peace, and love for the motherland, displaying an intricate relationship between literature and politics. It was first published in 2004 in the Chosǒn munhak magazine, only to be reprinted 13 years later, around the time North Korea claimed it was capable of launching attacks on US soil.
"Political messages in every North Korean sci-fi can be hardly missed," historian of science Dong-Won Kim, who taught at Harvard University and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea, told me.
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The genre grew under the wings of the supreme leaders. Late dictator Kim Jong-il referenced science fiction books in his speeches and set guidelines for authors, encouraging them to write about optimistic futures for their country.
Stories often touch on topics like space travel, benevolent robots, disease-curing nanobots, and deep-sea exploration. They lack aliens and beings with superpowers. Instead, the real superheroes are the exceptional North Korean scientists and technologists who carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.
These stories are often rich in political tension, featuring "breathtaking confrontations between North Korea and the United States," said Jang Hyuk, a young math graduate who defected from North Korea a few years ago. As in Change Course, North Koreans in sci-fi are typically portrayed as trying to save somebody, while the Americans are the villains who want "to monopolize and weaponize [technology] to dominate the world," he added.
To a Western reader, such plots might seem ludicrous, perhaps designed to boost the confidence of a nation with little contact with the rest of the world. However, exploring them deeper might reveal a more nuanced layer of understanding.
"When I read Change Course, I find myself constantly thinking: If I were watching this same story as a Hollywood movie and the protagonists were Americans, my reaction would be very different," said researcher Benoît Berthelier, lecturer at the University of Sydney, who published several papers on Korean literature. "When you experience familiar plot structures and tropes but with the protagonists and antagonists reversed, there's a distancing effect that makes you question why only certain configurations of good and bad roles feel uncontroversial."
Building a utopia
At first, North Korean sci-fi sat on the shoulders of Soviet literature. Kim Il-sung, the founder of North Korea who ruled the country from its establishment in 1948, took a bit of inspiration from Joseph Stalin. Under the Soviet dictator, writers and artists in the Eastern Bloc had to follow official directives regarding content and style, so every poem, short story, or novel had to align with the party ideology.
The thought that literature could be used to push propaganda resonated with Kim Il-sung, who recommended that North Korean authors translate Soviet works. They were also told to write their own stories depicting a thriving communist society.
The main themes of early North Korean sci-fi revolved around the lives and struggles of ordinary people who used science and technology to better themselves and the world. Plots of man taming nature were frequent in both North Korea and the Soviet Union, which had slogans like "Correcting nature's mistakes" and "Man, in transforming nature, transforms himself."
As the Cold War intensified, the Soviet Union's influence became stronger in North Korea, and in 1957, when Sputnik 1 was launched into space, the country's writers celebrated the achievement. Korean poet Paek Sŏk wrote a poem, The Third Satellite (Che 3 In'gong wisǒng), that tells the story of the journey through the eyes of the object going "beyond the atmosphere," "past the constellations and among the asteroids."
The success of the Sputnik 1 mission meant that the Americans were no longer controlling the sky, a powerful message for North Koreans who remembered that the US Air Force bombed their country just a few years earlier during the Korean War. According to some estimates, American jets dropped 635,000 tons of bombs, which included 32,000 tons of napalm. Twelve to 15 percent of the population was killed, and Pyongyang and other major cities were almost reduced to rubble.
Enlarge / Planet Survey by Kim Kwang Nam, from the series The Future is Bright.
Koryo Studio
Seen through these lenses, the poem about Sputnik 1 is symbolic. It praises the Soviets, touching on concepts like liberation and freedom. The satellite mission offered "proof of the power and absolute morality of communism," wrote Korean literature researcher Kim Minsun in her paper "Inside North Korean Literature: The Hidden Meaning of Narratives."
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At the end of that decade, in 1959, the Soviets added another accomplishment when Luna 2 became the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon. Science fiction stories about lunar missions became a hit in North Korea, as the Moon was a mythical object that intrigued people of all ages.
These works of literature often featured children. Authors "celebrated young, courageous, diligent, scientifically minded, and inquisitive boys and girls of North Korea who (often with Soviet guidance) thwarted evil plans devised by American imperialists," researcher Dafna Zur wrote in her paper "Let's Go to the Moon: Science Fiction in the North Korean Children's Magazine Adong Munhak, 1956–1965."
Many of these stories highlight the power and influence this small country had on the world while underscoring "the crucial role played by scientific knowledge for the survival of the North Korean state," as Zur put it. Numbers and scientific jargon—more or less accurate—informed the young minds while engaging plots aimed to entertain and inspire, convincing citizens to choose lucrative careers in science and technology.
But not all members of the audience were interested in satellites and lunar probes. These concepts were far too alien to many North Koreans living in the countryside, who used the wooden bull-carried plow. Sci-fi authors wanted to appeal to them as well, so they created stories around the technology peasants associated with liberation: the tractor. The agricultural machine had the potential to transform their lives, helping them achieve a higher status in society.
The tractor was also a powerful symbol of Soviet propaganda, and it was featured in many romantic dramas and comedies. "A man attractive to women in Soviet cinema is not handsome but rather is someone proficient in operating a tractor," professor Rina Lapidus at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, wrote in her paper "The 'Erotic' Tractor in the Soviet Cinema." In many films such as The Rich Bride (romantic comedy, 1937), Tractor Drivers (romantic drama, 1939), or It Happened in Penkovo (romantic drama, 1958), tractors were sacred objects, and the mechanics operating them were almost superheroes.
But the fraternal bond between the North Koreans and the Soviet Union started to fade away in the late 1960s when North Korea began to push its Juche ideology, which emphasized political independence and self-reliance. With this realignment, "a self-perception of Korea being the most important country in the world took hold," Kim Minsun wrote in her paper. "The rhetoric of a unique 'paradise on Earth' was brought to the fore through this process."
Juche influenced science fiction, which started to feature an increasing number of North Korean scientists and engineers who explored space and acquired self-reliant technologies such as new energy sources or new minerals. At the same time, authors began to take more inspiration from their peers in China; both North Korean and Chinese sci-fi strongly emphasize nationalism and patriotism.
North Korean writers even had a book on literary theory that was intended to teach them "how to apply Kim[-il Sung]'s ideas to their future works by providing them with Kim's words on the subject and their proper interpretations," according to science historian Dong-Won Kim.
In the 1980s, when Kim Jong-il was officially appointed as his father's successor, these tendencies increased further. Kim Jong-il was deeply involved in propaganda and emphasized that sci-fi authors had to create literature that followed the party ideology. They had to show socialism triumphing over capitalism and how the ballistic missile program kept the country safe.
To prevent any misbehavior, authors were forced to show their drafts to the censorship bureau, which had to green-light them before being published. Since even small mistakes could have long-term consequences, most writers avoided taking risks and followed approved story plots.
Whenever in doubt, authors resorted to self-censorship. Obviously, mentioning the leader of North Korea in stories or novels was unthinkable.
"To imagine and project the future of this entity that can never be at fault is close to impossible," Kim Minsun wrote. In North Korean sci-fi, "the highest dignity is depicted by means of its absence."
Recent science fiction works
Although North Korean sci-fi is unusual and often breathtaking, it's relatively unknown in the Western world. Few stories have made it across the border, and so far, none have been published in English. Berthelier, who provided the translation for Change Course, hopes that he'll one day be able to gather several sci-fi stories into an anthology. He's fascinated by them.
Change Course, he says, features "a unique style of spectacular science fiction that mixes Cold War antagonism, spy novel tropes, and innovative military technology."
Enlarge / Planet Survey by Kim Kwang Nam, from the from the series The Future is Bright.
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Some of these elements surface at the beginning of the piece, where the writer Yi Kŭmchǒl introduces his lead character: Kim Sǒkjin, the fearless North Korean diplomat who is flying home after having spent a long time in the United States.
Soon after he boards the plane, Sǒkjin reminisces about his time abroad. He thinks about the foreigners he saw in the US who left their home countries after being "seduced by the promises of the free world." Often, these people "ended up wandering streets aimlessly" in places like New York, which the author describes at length:
The luxurious apartments on top of the high-rises, the lively avenues of Manhattan, the slums of Harlem and their atrocious stench… The depraved streets of New York, where, at night, jazz made people dizzy as if it had stolen their souls. The blinking neon lights that burned people's retinas...
Aboard the plane, Sǒkjin sits next to a young Russian woman, Nina Vassilievna, who is also returning home from the US. She is joined by her father, a gray-haired astrophysicist named Vassili Ivanovitch. The woman lost her mother "last fall, in a car accident in New York," and she can't wait to get back to Russia, where she feels safe.
When news breaks that a bomb is on the plane, Sǒkjin keeps his cool. He finds solace in thinking about his country:
How sad would the motherland be upon learning that one of its sons had ended up in ashes, scattered in foreign skies. Ah, if only I could have looked at the motherland's plains and mountains one last time, I would have no regrets… Isn't there one final thing I could do for my motherland?
Eventually, the captain notifies the ground that there's a bomb, and soon, the whole world learns about this incident. Every country on Earth is asked to come up with ideas to save the passengers, but only one is capable of finding a solution: North Korea. So the plane's course is changed for Pyongyang.
Meanwhile, aboard the aircraft, passengers learn that the bomb was placed by a group of Americans who wanted to assassinate the Russian Vassili Ivanovitch. The astrophysicist had worked for a US corporation "seduced… by freedom and democracy," but he quit after realizing the Americans wanted to use his skills for military purposes. They were "preparing to set up nuclear weapons in space."
Thinking about all the people around him scared of losing their lives, the astrophysicist concludes, "This plane's passengers were going to be the new victims of the global strategy of the United States."
But the tragedy doesn't happen—North Korean scientists save the day. They stop the plane in mid-air above Pyongyang, allowing it to float supported by an anti-gravity field. Robots defuse the bomb, and all the passengers are saved, reaching Earth safely aboard hot air balloons.
The story ends with the Russian scientist praising his North Korean peers in front of a crowd of international journalists gathered in Pyongyang. The author then adds his moral touch, arguing that the field that saved the plane could, in fact, protect the entire country: "Maybe even the whole territory of North Korea might be covered by such an invisible shield."
The story seems to be constructed "for the sake of this conclusion," according to Kim Minsun. "What the scene intends to demonstrate is the world becoming aware of the might of [North Korea]."
Imagining the future
Change Course and other North Korean sci-fi works can seem perplexing to people who have spent all their lives in the West. Protagonists of these stories are often caught between two versions of themselves: They question everything regarding technology, disputing every preconception for the pursuit of scientific truth. At the same time, they follow the party's guidelines blindly, without questioning its decisions or authority.
In science fiction, "the ideal hero has a strong faith in the Supreme Leader ideologically, so they don't get confused with justice and truth," said Jang Hyuk, the math graduate who defected a few years ago. "The value systems of North Korea are quite different."
With the image of the Supreme Leaders looming large and the propaganda machine pushing slogans like "we do whatever the Party decides!" or "self-reliant prosperity," writing about the future can be challenging. In some cases, imagining how great North Korea could be might draw attention to its current flaws.
"Science fiction is about anticipation, and this is a big problem," said Antoine Coppola, a filmmaker who has studied cinema in both North and South Korea. "Society is perfect in North Korea; the hierarchy is perfect, so why dream about the future? How to imagine the future when society is perfect?"
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The contrast between the stories sci-fi literature tells and the daily lives of the people has only become sharper. "Since at least the 1990s, there has been not simply a gap but an abyss between the rosy future depicted in North Korean science fiction and the reality of life in North Korea," Harvard historian of science Dong-Won Kim wrote in one of his papers in 2018.
But while the genre puts writers in a difficult position, it also gives them some leeway. "Authors tend to use things you do not see in other works of North Korean literature, like the depiction of foreign countries, international intrigues, suspense, even violence," Berthelier said. "Except for stories of war or resistance, violence is limited in other genres because the official line is that there's almost no crime in North Korea, and our people are good people."
That leeway was also exploited in the past during the days of the Soviet Union, when sci-fi authors sometimes assumed a critical stance toward the regime. Yevgeny Zamyatin, for instance, satirized the increasing totalitarianism of his time, and although his novel, We, published in 1921, was banned by the censorship board, it circulated in samizdat, people illegally typing copies of the work and distributing them from person to person.
Later, brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky used sci-fi to criticize Soviet society, taking liberties no other genre could have offered them. For one of their novels, Prisoners of Power, published in 1969, they imagined a totalitarian state always at war with its neighbors, a state that neglected its citizens, letting them live in misery while also demanding them to show enthusiastic gratitude to the leaders, the so-called "Unknown Fathers."
As North Korean writers become more exposed to the West, the stories they write are slowly changing.
"Recent sci-fi has that sort of sensationalism, the suspense, the conspiracy motif, probably tied to the increased availability of foreign media in the country," Berthelier said. "To me, it's revolutionary because there isn't quite anything like that in the country's literary history."
Ars Technica · by Andrada Fiscutean · August 25, 2023
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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