Archive for February, 2007
Posted by Joshua on February 28, 2007 at 8:03 pm · Filed under Inside NK, Drugs & N Korea
As with a lot of the more chaotic stories lately, it comes from Hoeryong:
In an interview on the 24th, the source from Hoiryeong said “On Feb 24, 20 or so officials from the National Security Agency made a search warrant in the home (#42, Sanup-dong, Hoiryeong) of Suh Kyung Hee (49) Chairwoman of Hoiryeong City’s North Korean Democratic Women’s Union. On location, they found 15kg of drugs known as “ice,” US$30,000 and approx. 200,000 North Korean won (approx. US $645).” [Daily NK]
For those of you keeping track, this is Phase Four of regime collapse (I’m a Phase Five man myself). For those of you who are just plain skeptical, I will agree that this could be the justification offered for purging ineffective party leadership, a case of the regime’s own dope being diverted for personal profit, or a combination of these things. Or it may flat-out not be true. It’s no simple feat to check your sources in North Korea. Police departments don’t do press releases there.
The great British counterinsurgency expert Sir Robert Thompson wrote that the political organizations of insurgencies always first seek to set up alternative media, and that they would focus on reporting corruption by local officials. Nothing leads me to believe that the Daily NK was established with such greater things in mind, but reporting on local corruption is certainly devastating for a regime’s credibility with its own people.
Posted by Joshua on February 28, 2007 at 7:39 pm · Filed under Six-Party Talks, Diplomacy, Washington Views
Headlines now, details later:
- Hill was firm that North Korea had purchased items that had no other use but highly enriched uranium. He said that a failure to resolve the HEU issue would be a deal-breaker. Committee members of both parties also seemed to believe that North Korea must come clean on HEU.
- Hill left open the possibility that North Korea will still be denying the existence of its HEU program 60 days from now without breaking the deal. He believes North Korea will only have to “discuss” within 60 days.
- Hill carefully avoided specifics on what happens after 60 days, on inspection, and on verification.
- Hill had little to say about what consequences North Korea would incur if it was recalcitrant or mendacious after 60 days, other than not receiving more heavy fuel oil. He emphasized China’s good faith and role as
- At one point, Hill appeared to suggest that the United States might negotiate over the presence or force levels of US forces in South Korea, but then backtracked and said that U.S. conventional forces in South Korea were not a part of these “nuclear” negotiations.
- Hill emphasized that this deal is only a beginning.
Update: Details. Caveat — I took the best notes I could, but these are only near-verbatim quotations.
The Committee’s Reaction, Overall
- I thought someone had turned the clock back to 1994. Conservatives, including some Democrats, sounded pretty skeptical and picked at the agreement’s general absence of details and benchmarks, and on the uranium issue. Liberals, including some Republicans, were gushy.
- Lantos, a man I want to like but increasingly can’t, may have been the most saccharine (here’s his statement). He offered the Administration left-handed praise for finally abandoning “unilateralism” for listening to the “wise counsel” of its diplomats. This, from the man who has been calling for us to negotiate with North Korea bilaterally instead of multilaterally, something we’ve functionally been doing for months anyway. His enthusiasm for an agreement that really says and does so little seems rather unjustified; even Chris Hill conceded that by itself, it’s “wholly inadequate.”
On Uranium
- Hill emphasized in his opening statement that North Korea must give up ”all nuclear weapons” and “all existing nuclear programs.” “All means all, and this means [North Korea’s] highly enriched uranium program as well.”
- Members from both parties sounded concerned-to-downright skeptical about the absence of any mention of uranium from the agreement.
- Hill conceded that North Korea still denies having a highly enriched uranium program.
- Hill sounded confident in these facts: “We know they made those purchases” of HEU components, including P1 and P2 centrifuges “from Pakistan,” and there is “no other purpose” for those programs except for making nuclear weapons [OFK note: uranium enriched to lower levels is sufficient for power generation]. He said pretty much these same words at least twice, suggesting that it was carefully scripted.
- He sounded less certain when responding to a question from Rep. Tom Tancredo, R, Colo.: “If we determine that there is a program, it’s got to go.” Hill said the United States needs “complete clarity” on the uranium question.
- Rep. Brad Sherman, D, Cal.: “It is very clear that we need answers on their procurement of [program components for] highly enriched uranium.” Sherman did his homework, knows that the North Koreans mine uranium, and said that we should put inspectors at those mines to determine exactly how much they had mined. That does sound plausible, if we can measure the volume of the mine tailings and have some idea of grade (I’ve worked in mining). Another interesting implication: what if the North Koreans used forced labor to mine their uranium?
On Inspection and Verification
- Hill admitted that at least for now, there are no plans for the IAEA to get access to any other site but the reactor at Yongbyon. Later, Rep. Brad Sherman, D, Cal., made the point that Yongbyon is “on its last legs” anyway. (OFK note: The greater concern is a larger plutonium reactor the North Koreans are building elswhere.)
- Lantos: The success of this agreement is “entirely dependent on the good intentions of the North Korean leadership.”
- Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R, Fla., the ranking Republican, also stressed the importance of verification and called for “complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament.”
- Responding to Ackerman: “We will not [put ourselves into a situation where] they pretend to disarm and we pretend to believe them.”
- No Democrat could resist the dig that this was just like the Agreed Framework. No Republican could help drawing the comparison as a criticism.
- Rep. Mike Pence, R, Ind.: The level denuclearization required for the normalization of relations should be “at least as high a hurdle” as what we required of the Libyans.
- Rep. David Scott, D, Ga.: Given how secretive the North Korean regime is, how can we trust them? Similar question from Rep. Brad Sherman, D, Cal., who mentioned North Korea’s extensive tunnels, a subject Rep. Sherman and I discussed one-on-one last September (he said he would ask the CIA for their assessment; I get the impression that he did). Hill obfuscated and ducked whenever inspection and verification came up. The was so little substance in his answer that I didn’t even write anything down. It really appears that the entire subject was deferred to the “working groups,” with China leading this one.
On U.S. Forces in Korea
- Firm denial that the United States has nuclear weapons in South Korea, something we affirmed on September 19, 2005.
- Now, I warn you to go to the transcript on this, but this is what I believe I heard, in response to a question from Rep. Scott, D, Georgia: “We have forces in South Korea, and at some point, that could be a matter of negotiation.” Then, Hill seemed to catch himself: “Our conventional forces in South Korea are not a matter for these nuclear negotiations.”
On Timing and Benchmarks for Progress
- North Korea will not have to present a full declaration of its nuclear programs in the first 60 days. It will only have to discuss that full declaration.
- Responding to Rep. Donald Manzullo, R, Ill.: Beyond the first 60 days, there is no timetable for disclosures.
- This agreement is “only a start;” there are many differences to overcome, which will be “difficult but not impossible.”
- “If this were the last step, people would be correct in criticizing this as wholly inadequate. [By itself,] this is wholly inadequate.”
- Royce read language from U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718: “[T]he DPRK shall abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programmes in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner.”
On Counterfeiting and Money Laundering
- Hill’s opening statement listed all of the agencies that had a role in this agreement, and I noted that Treasury was not among them. “The Banco Delta Asia (BDA) issue is being discussed on a separate track from the Six Party talks ….”
- Rep. Ed Royce, who had just taken his staff to Macau, held up a C-note he had acquired there and said that the North Korean supernotes were so good, we had no way of knowing whether the note was real. He asked Hill what assurances we had from the North Koreans that they had abandoned their “economic warfare” against us. Hill really had no answers or specifics, and no plans to inspect or verify anything. When Royce quoted an expert [I think he meant David Asher] who believes that North Korea is still counterfeiting today, Hill dismissed that opinion, suggesting that Asher has been out of government for two years anyway.
- Royce expressed concern about the Administration’s apparent decision to “de-emphasize” the pursuit of North Korea’s “illegal activities.”
- More from Royce: “I don’t think more pressure hurts.” “The line between North Korea’s illicit and licit [income] is virtually invisible.”
- Hill responded that “law enforcement will not be compromised,” and said that North Korea had admitted that financial pressure had been one of its motivations in making this compromise.
- Rep. Gary Ackerman, D, NY, got a few laughs a few moments later, as he made an audible note-to-self: “Don’t make change for Royce ….” Otherwise, however, Ackerman didn’t make many substantive contributions to the hearing.
On Human Rights, Humanitarian Aid, and Abductions
- Hill: “We do have other differences, such as human rights, that we need to deal with in the context of normalization talks.”
- The U.S.-DPRK bilateral relations working group will meet March 5th (if I heard correctly).
- There was distressingly little attention paid to this subject; the most hopeful sign is that the crucial staffers whose belief in this issue is sincere are still there. I wish I could name one who was a Democrat. Really, I do.
- Credit where it’s due: Lantos, whose statement was generally disappointing, did mention human rights as an issue that must be resolved, or else “we can never have a fully normal relationship” with North Korea.
- Royce and Rep. Chris Smith, R, NJ, were the only members who strongly emphasized the issue (the ranking Republican, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen mentioned it, and I know her staff to be very familiar with the issues).
- Royce (quoting Jay Lefkowitz) called North Korea “an Asian Darfur,” said we must “give no quarter on human rights,” and emphasized the need to increase broadcasting to North Korea.
- Ros-Lehtinen considers the abductions an impediment to North Korea’s removal from the terrorism list, which she added should not be “a bargaining chip.” This is just one element of the deal where Hill doesn’t appear to be in a strong position to promise the North Koreans much. For understandable reasons, North Korea does not grasp the limits of executive power.
On the Regime and Its Stability
- Responding to Rep. Diane Watson, D, Cal.: “I cannot say that public opinion seems to play much of a role among the leadership in Pyongyang.” There were audible titters at this. Rep. Watson again impressed me with the excellent and insightful questions she asked — about famine and the potential for popular discontent. Hill did not give satisfactory answers, though for understandable diplomatic reasons.
- Rep. Smith, from New Jersey emphasized that the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 requires us to provide aid in accordance with international standards. He expressed concern about the diversion of aid: “We want to help the people, not the army.” He insisted that we must hold North Korea to human rights benchmarks.
- Hill, responding: “Any agreement will be entirely consistent with our laws and obligations.” Suuuure.
On Heavy Fuel Oil and Reciprocity
- Hill stated that we will only keep the fuel flowing as long as North Korea takes specific steps toward denuclearization, but suggested no other consequence of North Korean nonperformance except … no more fuel oil. And upsetting the Chinese.
- Hill estimated that 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil would last a year. That’s the closest thing we have to a timeline for performance.
On China’s Role
- Hill invests extraordinary faith in the Chinese and slathered praise on them. He made it sound as if China’s wagging finger was the main guarantor of this agreement. He credits U.N. Resolution 1718, and China’s implementation of it, for North Korea coming back to the table and making the agreement. Yes, he thinks it was a U.N. Resolution that bombed Kim Jong Il back to the peace table.
- Rep. Brad Sherman, D, Cal. — “Brad Sherman from Sherman Oaks” as he introduces himself — accused China of sustaining North Korea in part because China is “tweaking us.” He asked Hill whether there had been any consideration of changing our China policy as a result, although the question wasn’t mean for Hill’s ears.
On Abductions
- For many of the families, Hill suspects “the resolution will not be a happy one.” True enough, but I thought it was cruel, almost dismissive, of him to say so.
On Proliferation
- The “Peace and Security” working group, chaired by the Russians, will be responsible for this issue, and for regional conflict resolution and arms control issues.
- Brad Sherman, chairs a subcommittee on proliferation. Sherman has a lock on being my favorite Democrat on the Committee, in good measure because the man has great comic timing and delivery, and uses his sense of humor to demonstrate valid points. Sherman said that if North Korea had a dozen bombs, hypothetically, it would need a thirteenth to test, and if it made a fourteenth or more, it would sell them on E-Bay. Sherman said that while you need to be a rocket scientists to build a rocket that can deliver a nuke, you don’t have to be one to smuggline a nuke into the United States, because “it would fit inside a bale of marijuana.” So what have we specifically done to address that? Bupkes. Hill offered no specifics.
Oddest Statement of the Day
- Eni Faleomavaega, D, Am. Samoa, who spoke admiringly of “the character of the Korean people” for testing a nuclear weapon because they are “not to be intimidated.”
Posted by Joshua on February 28, 2007 at 1:40 pm · Filed under China & Korea, Human Trafficking
Paek Sun-Joo was an 18-year-old street child when she was sold to a 38- year-old Chinese man more than two years ago.
“[The traffickers] would gather people wearing rags, appearing to be compassionate and pity them, giving them something to eat and telling them that in China they would be able to feed and clothe themselves adequately,” Paek told RFA reporter Han Min.
“It is easy to be tricked when you are starving, and somebody gives you some food, telling you that there will be plenty more for you if you go with them,” she said. [Radio Free Asia]
This happens because North Korea flouts its previous commitments and squanders its money on arms instead of food, because South Korea does everything it can to turn North Korean refugees away, and because China can’t seem to read the copy of the U.N. Convention on Refugees it signed. Our own State Department, after flagrantly disregarding the North Korean Human Rights Act for more than two years, can’t wait to reward everyone who is responsible for this crime, even to the point of seriously suggesting that North Korea may soon be ready for full diplomatic relations. On what basis, exactly, should we believe that either China or North Korea will now begin to honor its commitments to us when both have shreded at least a dozen other international agreements and pimped out an entire people to sustain Kim Jong Il’s belligerence?
It’s stories like this that deprive me of any ability to get excited about “comfort women” resolutions relating to events 60 years ago. As terrible as those events were, to me, you lose your moral authority to complain about things that can’t be undone if you’re not saying anything about things that still can be. I see China and South Korea making enormous political capital out of the comfort women of the past, but they can’t even bring themselves to pull out of the comfort women of the present.
Some day, there will be a Truth Commission, and I predict here and now that the South Koreans will try to sanitize the fact that the government they elected provided the soft background music while China raped its sisters and daughters.
Posted by Joshua on February 28, 2007 at 1:08 pm · Filed under WMD, Iran, Axis of Evil
A friend forwarded me the lastest issue of “Iran Pulse,” from Tel Aviv University’s Center for Iranian Studies. It’s a well-written chronology of how we know those ties to have matured over the last several decades, and none of it’s inconsistent with the few other facts I know. You can read it here.
Posted by Joshua on February 28, 2007 at 7:49 am · Filed under Japan & Korea, Japan, Abductions, Activism
Plenty of armchair psyoppers, myself included, have talked about ways to fly leaflets and other items into North Korea, but here’s the most ambitious concept I’ve seen yet.
A Japanese advocacy group said Tuesday it will use balloons to scatter flyers over North Korea, offering residents a US$10,000 cash reward for information on Japanese citizens kidnapped by the regime decades ago. [Pravda]
Yes, Pravda! Not only does it still exist, but now reports on capitalist conspiracies to infitrate future former Communist dictatorships, and even features work-safe p*rn star picture galleries. If you’re aware of a more dubious Cold War victory, I’d like to hear about it. The leaflets are coming to a bleak and reclusive tyranny near you (but thankfully not near me) in March.
The 5-meter- (20-foot-) long balloons are fitted with simple timers and can be preset to release sacks of flyers over the Pyongyang region, Araki said.
There is also some precedent for this, if any of you have read of the balloon bombs Japan used during World War Two. I still remember seeing a defuzed one in the South Dakota State Museum in Pierre, and although I was probably just four at the time, I remember it clearly. A few of of those balloons hit the United States and started a number of forest fires. One even caused several fatalities.
The postcard-sized flyers, which are waterproof and printed in Japanese and Korean, call for details on Japanese citizens abducted by communist agents in the 1970s and 1980s.
The flyers also offer a cash reward of up to US$10,000 for information on Japanese abductees and urge residents to contact a hot line in Japan or tune in to a radio program the group transmits toward North Korea.
I hope — as the story suggests — that these things have guidance or navigation systems, since I’d hate to see one drift over the DMZ and cause any “misunderstandings,” or needlessly confuse pensioners in Khabarovsk. These days, even cell phones carry GPS chips, so I see no reason why a nation as technologically advanced as Japan couldn’t penetrate the North Korean coast in a fairly remote area, and then drop the leaflets on a more populated one.
The other interesting question is just what the groups paying out those rewards get for their money, since retrieving those abductees may not be a simple matter even if someone knows their location. Still, I like the idea as a demonstration project and for its economics. I don’t know what these things cost to make, but it’s probably less than an SA-2, a long burst of 57-milimeter fire, or the cost of sending out a battalion of soldiers to comb an entire square mile for leaflets. This could greatly raise the cost of not accounting for all of the abductees.
Posted by Joshua on February 28, 2007 at 7:09 am · Filed under Six-Party Talks, Appeasement, WMD, Diplomacy
[Update: The Daily NK has more on the working groups.]
Those “working groups,” to which most of the difficult unresolved issues with North Korea have been delegated, are scheduled to meet next month, and get a load of who is chairing them:
South Korea will chair a working group on providing economic and energy incentives for North Korea, while China will be responsible for a group on the North’s denuclearization. Russia will head a group concerned with peace and security in Northeast Asia. [Yonhap]
North Korea, the U.S. and Japan will lead the two other groups on normalizing bilateral relations.
Maybe we can invite Iran to lead a committee on nonproliferation. This comes amid widespread reports that the White House has pretty much forced Treasury to give Kim Jong Il back his millions in criminal proceeds. I’m at a loss to say how Jimmy Carter could have made a worse deal than this.
Posted by Joshua on February 28, 2007 at 6:48 am · Filed under WTF?
What a sweet story this would be, except for two lingering questions:
- How the hell can you lose your kid in a market?
- If you do, and if you’re willing to admit it, do you really deserve to have a parental relationship with your misplaced Olympic athlete?
Posted by Joshua on February 27, 2007 at 4:46 pm · Filed under Six-Party Talks, WMD, Diplomacy, Washington Views
[Update: Welcome Think Progress readers. If you believe that our suspicions about highly-enriched uranium all rest on slender aluminum tubes, see also, and see also also.]
Ambassador Joseph DiTrani, formerly a member of Chris Hill’s negotiating team and now the North Korea Mission Manager at the Directorate of National Intelligence, piped up in the Senate today when Sen. Jack Reed asked a fairly obvious question — what has changed since HEU was a deal-breaker in 2002? His answer, though not earth-shaking, is interesting: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Joshua on February 27, 2007 at 7:52 am · Filed under Korean Society
[Update: Lee explains himself, badly. The Marmot then proceeds to tear off his head and crap down his neck. Ouch.]
[Update 2: The Wall of Canadians, exposed! See how Canada controls the entertainment industry, the media, global finance …. even the Bush family!]
The South Korean image machine rolls on. This could be a serious setback to the hard-won gains of the Tokdo Riders:
Another strip shows a newspaper, magazine, TV and radio with the description: “In a word, American public debate belongs to the Jews, and it’s no exaggeration to say that U.S. media are the voice of the Jews.”
Yohngsohk Choe, co-chairman of the Korean American Patriotic Action Movement in the USA, said, “I don’t have words to describe the outrage I feel.”
I’m not going to parse Choe’s words, or question his sentiments or his sincerity. I think he’s doing what’s right, and I commend him. I hope this will inspire more mature thought than we’ve seen on this issue until now. It’s a start.
The group met Friday with Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish advocacy group. Cooper said he would travel to Seoul on March 15 to raise concerns about the book.
The book, written by South Korean university professor Lee Won-bok, is part of a series called “Distant Countries and Neighboring Countries,” which is intended to teach youngsters about other countries. The series has sold more than 10 million copies.
One of these days, I’m going to write a post on who really controls the media: the Wall of Canadians. I mean, just take a gander at that list of directors and producers. We need to take back our country, people!
(Previous posts on “Monnara”)
Posted by Joshua on February 27, 2007 at 7:19 am · Filed under An Alliance?, WMD
“North Korea has no reason to launch any preemptive attack (on South Korea) unless it is attacked first. Only the people with mental problems believe in the possibility of a preemptive attack by the North.” [Yonhap]
Ahem.
I believe I can explain this, and a lot of other things. Separated at birth? Surgical enhancement? Or will Roh’s administration end like an episode of Scooby Doo?
Posted by Joshua on February 27, 2007 at 6:11 am · Filed under Terrorism (NK), U.S. Military, ROK Military
Still not many confirmed details yet, but it was a suicide bomber at Bagram, and he was trying to get Dick Cheney:
There were conflicting reports on the death toll. Provincial Gov. Abdul Jabar Taqwa said 20 people were killed, but NATO said initial reports indicated only three were killed, including a U.S. soldier, a South Korean coalition soldier and a U.S. government contractor whose nationality wasn’t immediately known. NATO said 27 people were also wounded….
Associated Press reporters at the scene said they had seen at least eight dead bodies carried in black body bags and wooden coffins from the base area and into the market area, where hundreds of Afghans had gathered to mourn. [AP]
And me, not even knowing there were South Koreans in Afghanistan:
The JCS identified [the soldier] as 27-year-old Army Sgt. Yoon Jang-ho, who was on duty around a gate of a military base in Bagram, about 60 kilometers north of Kabul, when a suicide bomber attacked. The bomber was believed to have been targeting U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, who had spent the night at the base, the JCS said. [Yonhap]
May God comfort their families.
Posted by Joshua on February 26, 2007 at 10:36 pm · Filed under An Alliance?, U.S. Military, U.S. & Korea, ROK Military, Reconstruction
[Update: In the course of a whiney tirade about how America “betrayed” South Korea, Kim Dae Joong also calls for a national conversation about South Korea becoming more self-sufficient in its own defense. I’d suggest to Mr. Kim that it’s a wee bit early to declare South Korea fully abandoned by America while we still have 29,000 of our people there. Kim also admits that the (elected) South Korean government got the deal it wanted, and in light of its own behavior toward the United States, South Korean cries of betrayal seem uniquely unfounded (ht to the Nomad). Generally, however, I agree that Korea needs to have this conversation, this year.
Original Post: I begin this post with a object lesson in headline deconstruction. Start with this …
U.S. Says No More Troop Reductions after 2008
… then proceed to this less-than-definitive textual basis for that bold call …
In a press briefing on the results of ministerial bilateral defense talks held on Friday, U.S. Defense Department spokesman Maj. David Smith said that the number of U.S. troops in Korea will be cut from the current 28,000 to 25,000 by 2008 in line with the third phase of reduction plans. But further reductions are not in the foreseeable future, he said.
A Major in the Pentagon is the equivalent of a Specialist at Fort Hood. The term “no plans at this time” is Pentagonese for “I’m a Major and the Secretary of Defense has not authorized me to set deployment schedules on behalf of the next President of the United States.” From there, we end up with a statement that, while speculative, sounds much more candid:
Larry Niksch, a specialist in Asian affairs at the U.S. Congressional Research Service, said recently that it is only a matter of time before the U.S. withdraws all its ground forces from Korea by moving the single remaining brigade to another region. Of two brigades under the second U.S. infantry division, one was already relocated to Iraq, he said. Niksh predicted that the U.S. will considerably strengthen its air forces in Korea and indirectly support Korea’s naval forces from its naval bases in Japan.
Meaning, the truth is most likely to be the exact opposite of the what the headline actually says. Indeed, the Pentagon intends to reduce the level of U.S. ground forces with which it would reinforce the ROK in wartime.
The U.S. military has recently notified South Korean military authorities that it plans to cut back wartime reinforcements specified in a strategic master plan by the two allies, sources said Monday.
Military sources said Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command and Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff are revising and supplementing the strategy known as OPLAN 5027, and in the process the U.S. told Korea of “plans to reduce the scale” of reinforcements. A South Korean officer declined to say how big the cutbacks will be but added they were “not very big.”
….
Some predict that the U.S. cutbacks will be drastic: the legally binding force of the master plan concerning U.S. reinforcements is weak enough. If the joint command ceases exist, it will be even weaker.
There is mixed news there. Plenty of us had assumed for a long time that 690,000 troops was an unrealistic level. There is also a significant doctrinal change embedded in this reduction: fewer U.S. forces, perhaps none, would be available to invade North Korea and overthrow its regime in the event of war. I admit to some mixed feelings about this. Conventional theory is that a North Korean invasion must mean the end of its regime for maximum deterrent effect. Considering how bloody an invasion of the North could be, however, it’s no longer a given that we’d have the political will to join that fight, or finish it. I believe in getting rid of the North Korean regime, but I don’t believe that invading North Korea is the best way to accomplish that, not even if the North invades first. Invasion is certainly not the only way to deter an invasion, and probably isn’t the best way. In fact, a U.S. invasion could actually rally North Koreans around the banner of nationalism, a sentiment whose appeal in Korea is hard to overstate.
I also believe that any invasion or occupation of North Korea should have, as GI Korea has described it to me, ”a Korean face.” South Korea will have to find the manpower for that, which won’t be easy if this RAND study is to be believed. That militates in favor of us doing what we failed to do in Iraq – take full advantage of local support. That begins with a decision to do what the North never quit trying to do in the South: sow dissent, undermine the regime’s control, and prepare the battlefield with psyops, which will not be as effective if we wait for actual hostilities. Next, we should be training, equipping, and organizing a Reuinification Corps of North Korean defectors whose job would be to help reestablish order and basic services during any occupation of the North.
Let’s hope that in time, necessity will force Korea to be all it can be. My hope for Korea is that independent defense planning will lead to self-sufficiency, which will build national self-confidence, break the cycle of unhealthy dependency, and dispense with the luxuries of statecraft without responsibility and emotion as the primary engine of national policy. Let’s hope that instead of complaining about which foreign powers have failed to deliver unification, South Korea will set about planning the most painless way to regain its own undivided nationhood. And with that discussion will come hard questions about just how Korea will find the manpower to protect the South and simultaneously restore order from the chaos of the North.
That is where the rebuilding of the alliance can begin.
Posted by Joshua on February 26, 2007 at 7:23 am · Filed under Six-Party Talks, Appeasement, WMD, Diplomacy
Kyodo News has a very distressing report about just what the United States came to Beijing prepared to give up, and give up almost immediately:
North Korea’s abandonment of nuclear weapons was stated in a first draft of an agreement document for the six-party talks held earlier this month, but was dropped in a second draft drawn up by the United States after the North Korean side rejected it, negotiation sources said Sunday.
Given that North Korea giving up nuclear development with highly enriched uranium was also reportedly removed from the document, experts said the focus of the six-party talks has apparently shifted from denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula to nonproliferation of nuclear materials led by those based on plutonium.
Replacing language that is clear with language that is vague can only be read one way by the North Koreans: as a license. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Joshua on February 25, 2007 at 2:02 pm · Filed under Kremlinology
[Update: The Scotsman says that Kim Jong Il is already putting the system through a dry run.]
The bad news is that so far, this development is scheduled to take place after Kim Jong Il’s natural death.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il might consider a “collective” leadership system after he leaves office, a move away from the long-anticipated father-to-son power transfer, diplomatic sources said Sunday.
According to the sources, Kim did designate his eldest son Jong-nam as heir apparent in the past, but changed his mind a few years ago to introduce the group-based leadership. [Yonhap]
As for Kim Jong Nam, if you believe Yonhap’s sources anyway, the disinterest in his succession is mutual. If there was any real chance of him taking the throne after that whole Disneyland fiasco, I’d have to say that the recent exposure of his less-than-monastic lifestyle in Macau was probably his ”study hard or you’ll get stuck in Iraq” moment. You could pretty obviously feed an entire North Korean village for a year with what this guy downs for dim sum. It would be an act of subversion to build a statue of him, despite the fact that they’re already available in quantity. And who would give up the life he’s living for the bleakness of Pyongyang?
Anyway, this report sounds plausible. After all, what are the alternatives? Second son Kim Jong Chol was reported as having been sidelined a year ago. Various reports say Kim Jong Il disfavors Jong Chol because he ”acts like a girl,” a function of the fact that he ”secrete[s] an excessive amount of female hormones.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that. (OFK dossier here; Richardson has a more “authentic” photo here, although I am still having too much fun using this one.)
After that, the youngest son, Kim Jong-Un, about whom very little is known, is reported to be at least quasi-evil, but passing over two older sons would be a serious breach of Confucian tradition for a regime that rules like very much like a traditional Asian dynasty. The generals, on the other hand, have been through Darwin’s crucible. Could any of Kim Jong Il’s spoiled punk kids have a chance of winning a power struggle against the battle-hardened veterans of this much infighting, brinksmanship, plotting, famines, and bouts of delerium tremens? I report, you decide.
See also Richardson’s post.
Posted by Joshua on February 25, 2007 at 10:05 am · Filed under Refugees, Defectors, NK Military
North Korean authorities have now caught ten of the twenty who defected at Hoeryong recently. The article has more on the control measures the authorities are taking to reestablish control.
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