Several of you have written in or commented on the reports of a train carrying tribute for Kim Jong Eun derailing between Sinuiju and Pyongyang, North Korea, along with speculation that sabotage caused the derailment. Several newspapers in the U.S. and South Korea pick up the story, but they all attribute it to this one, from Open News:
A source in the defense department in North Pyongan province reported on the 23rd that, “The defense department was notified of an incident in which a freight train which left Sinuiju on the 11th was derailed somewhere between Yoemju and Dongrim.”
Eight of the more than forty carriages of the train which was packed with gifts for the successor Kim Jong-eun’s birthday on January 8th were derailed, said the source. For this reason the authorities have launched a full investigation into whether the cause of the incident could be related to forces opposed to the succession.
The source reported that “North Korean rail tracks and sleepers are so old that it’s possible the sleepers were rotting or that nails securing the tracks were dislodged. But in this case the extent of the damage to the tracks and the incident’s timing suggest that the damage was deliberate. The possibility that it was undertaken by someone opposed to the succession is high.” [….]
“I’m not sure exactly,” said the source when asked what the train’s likely contents were, “but probably a large amount of luxury goods like watches and TVs.”
The Korea Times adds a layer of embellishment with a headline that says the train was “derailed by protesters.” The speculation of Open News’s source also loses all of its qualifiers, like “I’m not sure,” and “probably.” Ditto the Joongang Ilbo.
If this was in fact an act of sabotage, it’s likely that it was an inside job. More consequentially, it would suggest that internal opposition is suddenly capable of bold and effective action. This is the sort of stuff that makes for great rumor-mongering within closed societies. As disinformation, it would be sheer genius. And now, let me suggest any number of reasons why it probably wasn’t sabotage at all.
First, we don’t know if any of this is even true.
Second, we’ve seen little other evidence that an internal opposition is capable of anything more than taking clandestine footage or leafleting. This would represent a great leap in sophistication and brazenness.
Third, even if the tracks were deliberately damaged, the “saboteur” may have been doing nothing more subversive than hunting for scrap metal, or wrecking a train to loot it. It seems very “lucky” that the derailment affected a tribute train as opposed to an ordinary passenger or freight train, until you consider that these special trains typically run faster than regular trains, and are thus more likely to topple off the tracks.
Finally, North Korea’s tracks are in such a decrepit state that the simplest explanation is probably the correct one — that most likely, this was an accidental derailment due to bad track maintenance and excessive speed, an especially telling thing for the main line between Pyongyang and Sinuiju. In a society where the security forces are taught to be paranoid, I can understand why sabotage would be considered and discussed. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the regime dislocate the local population for the barest suspicion of sabotage. I just don’t have enough solid reporting here to conclude what happened here. That’s not an uncommon occurrence with reporting from North Korea, which means that we must then ask ourselves if the report in question is consistent with others or is an outlier. This one is clearly an outlier, and would be so consequential if true that it invokes the rule that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
So says the Chosun Ilbo, in describing what would be a major policy shift for South Korea. From 2008 until now, the policy would best be described as reluctant engagement, which brought out North Korea’s violent and extortionate streak. Now, according to unnamed sources in the Unification Ministry, the administration seems to be looking for ways to prepare for and even accelerate reunification:
The government is shifting the emphasis of North Korea policy from exchanges and cooperation to fully fledged preparations for reunification beginning in 2011. “Next year, we intend to concentrate our efforts on strengthening our reunification capabilities rather than on dialogue with the North,” a Unification Ministry official said. It is apparently looking to influence ordinary North Koreans to bring about changes in the Stalinist country. “We must free ourselves from the perception that reunification by absorption is unfeasible,” he added.
More on that here. The problem with stories like this, of course, is that they name only anonymous officials, and therefore, we really don’t know whether we’re hearing the views of a junior official with rogue views, someone who represents a faction within the Ministry, or someone who is intentionally disinforming the Chosun Ilbo to scare the North Koreans. I maintain that the Lee Administration isn’t serious about holding North Korea accountable for anything, catalyzing change, or even about cutting off the money used to terrorize its own population until it shuts down Kaesong. When Kaesong closes, it will be time for a serious discussion of a policy shift. Everything else, especially this, is empty talk.
One of our perpetual questions about North Korea has to be whether they’re just too smart for us to comprehend, or whether it’s just the rest of us that are too stupid and weak-minded to deal with them properly. I still vote for the latter:
Senior Grand National Party lawmakers who gathered yesterday to deliberate the government’s policy toward North Korea after its attack on Yeonpyeong Island quarrelled intensely and broke into two camps.
One group argued the government should ease its tough stance against the communist regime to abate the highly strained relations between the two Koreas. This met fierce opposition from another group that maintained it was too early to “appease” North Korea.
I’d wonder where the constituency is for appeasing North Korea now, except that public opinion in South Korea is almost impossibly unpredictable. One person who obviously thinks there’s a constituency for appeasement is our old friend Comrade Chung. Although I can certainly see why the administration denied him permission to visit Kaesong, there’s a part of me that thinks he’d have been an ideal hostage — just think of what a win-win that would be for all of those involved.
Meanwhile, there are also rumors foreshadowing a policy shift on this side of the Pacific. I find those rumors hard to believe, beginning with the explanation that Hillary Clinton would step down … so spend more time with Bill. Yeah, right! If Hillary Clinton steps down, she’ll do it to distance herself from the administration or to mount a primary challenge, which I think is also unlikely.
Still, I can’t quite dismiss this. The obvious argument for Richardson’s appointment is that it would help the President with Latino voters, and I’ve always suspected that this President cares very much about domestic politics and so little about the actual substance of foreign policy that he’s delegated it to a group of sensible advisors, including James Steinberg, Kurt Campbell, Robert Einhorn, and Philip Goldberg. Putting Richardson in charge of them would be like putting a cat in a basket of pigeons. At a bare minimum, it would cost us a year of policy reviews, internecine struggles, and purges — a repeat of what happened after 2004. It might even mean that someone gets to follow in Mike Chinoy’s footsteps and write a book chronicling this administration’s paralysis-by-analysis on North Korea.
Ultimately, I don’t think it will happen because the adverse political consequences would outweigh the benefits, and the Administration seems smart enough to get this. Kim Jong Il’s behavior has been bad enough that any hint of Agreed Framework 3.0 would go over badly with the American people. Until now, President Obama has successfully neutralized foreign policy as a campaign issue, but a Bill Richardson foreign policy would give the Republicans an opportunity to cast off their discrediting by Bush, Rice, and Hill, find their voice, and make this an issue they can run on.
The greatest barrier, however, may be South Korea’s certain opposition to such a shift in Washington. Lee Myung Bak will still be President for a little more than two years, and with him facing a likely challenge from Park Geun-Hye on the right, you can expect his Administration to strongly oppose a new American diplomatic initiative to the North now. Say what you will about Lee not having a vote in our elections, but South Korea exerts a powerful influence over U.S. policy toward North Korea.
Posted by Joshua on December 27, 2010 at 8:08 am · Filed under Anju Links
Fighting Words, Part I: In an “only in North Korea” moment, soldiers go on TV to boast about shelling a village full of civilians:
On Friday, North Korean soldiers appeared on a state TV program marking Kim’s appointment anniversary and bragged of participating in the artillery barrage. “Our eyes were full of fire right after we saw the enemy’s shells being fired into our sacred waters,” soldier Kim Moon Chol said, clinching his fists and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with three uniformed colleagues. Their ranks were unknown. “At the order of ‘fire,’ we poured our merciless thunderbolt of fire at the enemy,” he said in a loud, oratory-style speech.
A soldier whose uniform was full of military decorations expressed his loyalty to Kim Jong Il. “Facing the enemy’s provocation, we shouted, ‘Let’s dedicate our lives to fighting the enemy and giving them a merciless death for our dear leader and supreme military commander,’” Kim Kyong Su said.
Their speeches constantly drew applause from the audience — mostly uniformed soldiers who spoke separately and vowed to get tougher with South Korea. They all later sang a military song together.
“We can’t afford to have division of you against me in the face of national security, because what’s at stake is our very lives and the survival of this nation,” Lee said in a national radio address. Lee said it was divided public opinion in the wake of the North’s submarine attack on one of South Korea’s navy ships in March, killing 46 sailors, that prompted Pyongyang to bombard a South Korean island near disputed sea border last month, killing four people. North Korea denies attacking the naval vessel. “It is when we show solidarity as one that the North dares not challenge us. Their will to challenge breaks.”
If Lee’s objective is to shame the imbeciles and Fifth Columnists who circulated and supported Cheonan conspiracy theories, I’m with him. If his objective is to justify censorship of the imbeciles and Fifth Columnists, I’m most certainly not with him.
North Korea could fire missiles at South Korea next year, analysts predicted Monday, as the isolated North’s hostility toward the outside world deepens while it undergoes a hereditary transfer of power. [….]
Expect the pendulum to swing back in the other direction in 2011, the Institute for National Security Strategy warned in a report published last week and posted to its website Monday. The country could conduct a third nuclear bomb test and wage more attacks on front-line islands — like Yeonpyeong, which was bombarded in shelling that killed four South Koreans last month, the report said. North Korea may even fire missiles and more artillery at front-line South Korean islands, chief researcher Lee In-ho told The Associated Press after the report’s release.
You know, I can’t understand why the North Koreans made the horrendous propaganda blunder of attacking South Korean civilians. From their cold calculus, wouldn’t it have made more sense to shell some U.S. Army target to split South Korean and U.S. public opinion? By now, that window of opportunity has closed. It’s pretty clear by now that they’ve alienated South Korea’s silent majority. Even the Hankyoreh hardly dares to defend them.
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Fascinating: I guess I can take that FOIA request to the Office of Foreign Assets Control off my bucket list, since the New York Times has already done it. I’m going to append some of this information to my Litigation page, and see to it that the lawyers suing North Korea have this information. It might be a lucrative source for collecting on those judgments they’ve obtained. Big hat tip to Kushibo for this.
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Even the New York Times, which has the worst North Korea coverage of all major U.S. newspapers, occasionally delivers something of interest, if you can just skim past their they-just-want-to-be-loved narrative:
For nearly four years, an unrelenting barrage of government propaganda has promised that North Korea will be strong and prosperous by 2012, the centennial of the birth of Kim Il-sung, the nation’s founder and the father of the current leader, Kim Jong-il. That is now 18 months away. And prosperous is the last word one would use to describe North Korea’s shuttered factories, skimpy harvests and stunted children.
Thus, the Times concludes that what the North Koreans really want is trade and peachy relations with Earth. Hence, they went for a whole weekend without shelling any fishing villages. Is there some kind of chip they get for that, like in A.A.?
I blame a series of developments for this. First, I can’t forgive that virus known as Windows Vista and the manufacturers who foisted it on us. Second, my iPod turns out to have been a gateway drug. It’s just a thing of beauty, and I’m still amazed by its functions and capability, all fit into such a tiny object. Third, my old Dell is about dead from sheer exhaustion. I’ve preliminarily settled on a Macbook Air, and am leaning toward the 11-inch screen version for blogging on the Metro. So, what’s your advice on the following:
1. What’s the best place and time to buy one?
2. How tough the switch is going to be, in terms of adjustment and compatibility?
3. I don’t do gaming. As if. So is it worth it for me to upgrade from 1.4 GHz to 1.8 GHz?
4. I often have multiple programs open at once, including Google Earth, which takes up a lot of RAM. I suppose that means I should upgrade to 4GB?
5. Do Macs work with most commercially available wireless internet services? Or is there some better option for going wireless with a Mac?
Thank you in advance. Hopefully, I’ll repay your advice with more and better output.
Posted by Joshua on December 24, 2010 at 6:19 am · Filed under Anju Links
North Korea, which President Bush removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008, has threatened a “sacred war” against South Korea. Well, that’s just great — even godless atheists are getting in on the whole “jihad” thing.
Hmmm. Can’t link it, but I’ve just been passed an assessment by a respected publication that says there’s a 70% chance that the Kaesong Industrial Park will be shut down in 2011. I’d say so, too. Like I say, Lee Myung Bak can talk as tough as he wants and hold threaxercises all year, but Kaesong still screams “business as usual.” Lenin himself could not have imagined that the Capitalists would pay for the torpedoes and shells fired into South Korean ships and villages.
Larry Niksch, formerly with the Congressional Research Service and now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has written a very good analysis of the possible scenarios for more North Korean provocations, and South Korean responses. Opens in pdf.
Deng chose wisely: Reversing Mikhail Gorbachev’s subsequent logic, he focused on the economics while putting off the politics. This decision later earned him the sobriquet “the butcher of Tiananmen” when, in 1989, the political expectations of students quickly outpaced the Party’s willingness for self-examination. But it likewise locked China onto a historical pathway from which it cannot escape, or what I call the five D’s of the dragon’s decline from world-beater to world-benefactor: demographics, decrepitude, dependency, defensiveness, and — most disabling of all — democratization.
Well worth a read, even if you’re not a Barnett fan (I only am on odd-numbered days). Hat tip to Chris Badeaux.
You know how hard I’ve worked for the coveted Human Scum Award for the last seven years, and I’ve yet to receive so much as a nomination:
Ros-Lehtinen, member of the U.S. House of Representatives, called for taking “strong counteraction” and relisting the DPRK as a “sponsor of terrorism,” while terming it a “rogue regime”. This is intolerable as it is malignant vituperation against the dignified DPRK and its system. Ros, man representing the U.S. conservative hard-liners, is human scum as he earned ill-fame as an anti-communist fanatic. He is a political illiterate ignorant of the background against which the nuclear issue cropped up on the Korean Peninsula and the processes to settle it. It is natural to hear such rubbish from him. What should not go unnoticed, however, is that he let loose vituperation against the DPRK soon after he became chairman of the House International Relations Committee. It is quite clear that he would escalate the anti-DPRK campaign in Congress and political arena. [KCNA]
More here, from the Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon.
My sincere congratulations to the brigandish gentle lady from Florida. After you have a giggle at the fact that North Korea’s official news service doesn’t even know (or can’t correctly translate) the gender of one of Congress’s soon-to-be most powerful members, consider the depth of North Korea’s willful ignorance about Earth, and what this suggests about its risk-assessment skills. Occam’s Razor tells us that there’s no need to resort to complex explanations when simple ones will do. Yes, there may be some merit to the speculation about the cognitive effects of Kim Jong Il’s stroke, but consider the possibility that the North Koreans have been behaving like ignorant, bloody-minded assholes because that’s just what they are.
This isn’t to say that they’re crazy or irrational. I don’t believe they’re either of those things. I actually think the Kim family is a collection of malignant narcissists-slash-sociopaths. But reason isn’t just about the presence of viruses, it’s also a function of the input data and the processor speed. One can be subjectively rational and objectively irrational. And if you believe, as I do, that extortion was one of the reasons for North Korea’s recent attacks on the South, it has misjudged. The same KCNA piece reports that “Senator John McCain said that he would make new Congress commencing its work next year immediately relist the DPRK as a ’state sponsor of terrorism’ and apply financial and other sanctions against it.” I wouldn’t normally afford KCNA a strong presumption of accuracy, but I have it on good first-hand authority that Ros-Lehtinen will place the same objectives high on her list of priorities. And if Lee Myung Bak does what I think he’ll soon have to do and closes Kaesong, the effect will have been exactly the opposite of North Korea’s likely objectives.
(WASHINGTON) – U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the incoming Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, today announced the Vice Chairman and the Subcommittee Chairmen for the Committee in the 112th Congress. Statement by Ros-Lehtinen:
[….]
“The oversight and investigations component of this Committee will be robust, and I will be establishing mechanisms for Americans to blow the whistle on waste, fraud, and abuse in State Department and Foreign Aid operations by welcoming anonymous tips. I will also be establishing a mechanism for the American people to be directly involved in Committee hearings.
“Congressman Rohrabacher, who has experience with this Committee’s past investigation of corruption in the United Nations Oil for Food program, will be leading our Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. He also participated in investigations into foreign-owned banks under U.S. contact which violated U.S. sanctions on Iran, Cuba, and Libya.
“I am proud to lead this team which will protect and advance America’s interests and values, and not apologize for doing so.”
The Vice Chairman and Subcommittee Chairmen of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the 112th Congress are as follows (Subcommittee Chairmen listed alphabetically by Subcommittee name):
U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly (CA), Vice Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee
U.S. Rep. Christopher H. Smith (NJ), Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights
U.S. Rep. Donald A. Manzullo (IL), Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific
U.S. Rep. Dan Burton (IN), Subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia
U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot (OH), Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia
U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (CA), Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
U.S. Rep. Edward R. Royce (CA), Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade
U.S. Rep. Connie Mack (FL), Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere
A few random observations here. First, I think Royce would have made a great subcommittee chair for Asia and the Pacific. He’s extremely knowledgeable about and engaged on North Korea issues, including human rights issues, proliferation, and money laundering (his highly capable staffer, Young Kim, undoubtedly deserves much credit for this). That said, he’ll be great for the position for which he’s been chosen.
Manzullo, by contrast, hasn’t been vocal about Korea, in or out of the committee room. In the hearings I attended, he had relatively little to say. Maybe this is a matter of his style. We’ll have to see how he does. In Congress, there are members who are dedicated to the issues, while others are mostly concerned about bringing investment into their districts. I’ll just have to watch and see what hearings and witnesses we get on Manzullo’s watch. Before the Democratic takeover in 2006, the Republican subcommittee chair was Jim Leach of Iowa, a decent and fair-minded man with a deep and sincere interest in human rights in the North, but not a conservative on issues of policy or diplomacy.
Dana Rohrabacher, on the other hand, is far from a quiet presence in any hearing. I left one hearing wondering if he shaves with a blowtorch. Going after U.N. profligacy and stupidity will be a good role for him. By stupidity, I refer to the likes of Margaret Chan, whose next gaffe of that sort won’t go unchallenged by Dana Rohrabacher. You could say that Dana Rohrabacher is more conservative than I am on these issues. For example, I recall him being opposed to food aid to North Korea. I’m supportive in principle, but only if the aid is monitored and subject to nutritional surveys of recipients, and since the current North Korean regime will never agree to that, the issue is probably moot for the foreseeable future.
It’s going to be an interesting hearing season next year. It’s too bad that I so seldom have time to attend them anymore.
The UN General Assembly passed a resolution Tuesday condemning and expressing deep concern over human rights violations in North Korea. By a vote of 106-21 with 55 abstentions, the assembly backed a November 18 committee resolution condemning “torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment… public executions, extrajudicial and arbitrary detention” in the hermit state.
It also condemned the communist nation’s use of capital punishment for political and religious reasons, as well as collective punishment and the many prisoner camps where forced labor is the norm.
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No love for Kim Jong Bill: The North Koreans barely acknowledged his presence, and now, the State Department is pouring cold water on the messages he carries back from that other Kim:
The United States Tuesday urged North Korea to stop provocations and take concrete steps for its denuclearization before the resumption of nuclear negotiations, stalled over the North’s shelling of a South Korean island and other hostile acts.
“We’re not going to get a table and a room and have six-party talks just for the feel-good notion of having six-party talks,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. “When and if the North Koreans are ever serious about living up to their obligations, then we can think about restarting six-party talks.”
Gibbs was responding to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who said Monday, upon completion of a four-day trip to Pyongyang, that North Korea has agreed to allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to monitor its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, and negotiate the sale of 12,000 spent nuclear fuel rods.
North Korea’s economy has managed to pull off overall gains since 2000 mainly due to international aid, a state-run think tank said Tuesday. Citing assessments made by the Bank of Korea, the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade (KIET) said Pyongyang’s economy grew at a modest pace from 2000 through 2005, before contracting in 2006 and 2007. The economy rebounded by expanding 3.7 percent on-year in 2008 before contracting 0.8 percent last year.
“The gains made in the last decade can be attributed to overseas support,” the KIET said “If such support dries up, the North’s economy could face hard times again.”
What? You mean to tell me that there are foreign governments that would continue to support North Korea financially in spite of its human rights atrocities, reckless proliferation, and launching a limited war against South Korea? Why, yes! And South Korea is still one of them!
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So, this is what passes for rational political discourse about North Korea in China today: “Who is the most dangerous man on the Korean Peninsula? Maybe it’s not Kim Jung-il, but South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak.” I guess putting your fishing villages within range of a neighboring country’s artillery can seem dangerously provocative, if you’re the product of a political and/or educational system that discourages critical thinking. Is it just me, or is it really getting harder to distinguish Peter Lee’s alternative reality from Kim Myong Chol’s? I wouldn’t normally recommend Peter Lee’s writing to anyone, but I’ll make an exception for everyone in Washington who desperately wants to believe that secretly, China shares our interest in restraining North Korea, and is probably doing so in some non-obvious way.
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Here’s more proof of China’s sincere desire to live in harmony with its neighbors:
Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun took over recently as the ministry’s Communist Party secretary, state media reported Wednesday, likely putting him in line to eventually take over from Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. Yang was accused of being caught off guard when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced at a security conference in Vietnam this year that Washington considered the peaceful resolution of South China Sea disputes as part of the American national interest.
Posted by Joshua on December 22, 2010 at 5:51 pm · Filed under Korean War II
Here we go again!
South Korea moved hundreds of troops, fighter jets, tanks and attack helicopters near the heavily armed border with the North in preparation for massive new military drills as tensions continue to simmer following last month’s North Korean artillery attack that left four dead.
“We will completely punish the enemy if it provokes us again like the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island,” said Brig. Gen. Ju Eun-sik, chief of the army’s 1st armored brigade, according to The Associated Press. [Stars & Stripes]
Isn’t it remarkable how quickly the South Koreans learned to talk smack, just like North Koreans? For its part, the USFK says it’s not playing, and that’s just fine with me.
The firing drills Thursday near the Koreas’ land border will be the biggest-ever wintertime joint firing exercise that South Korea’s army and air force have staged, an army statement said. [USA Today]
I’m sure that shows of force play well in the tabangs and around padok games in South Korea these days:
Opinion surveys since the Nov. 23 attack found sharp jumps in negative sentiments toward North Korea, particularly among young adults who are normally less interested in politics and are two generations removed from the Korean War of the 1950s. The ratings of President Lee initialy took a hit amid perceptions of a weak response to the attack.
A survey done by Realmeter, one of South Korea’s largest market researchers, on Saturday and Sunday found that 67% of respondents favored going through with the military drill that Seoul carried out Monday. Government officials argued they needed to proceed with the drill to prevent North Korea’s attack from creating a de facto change in a maritime boundary. “We have put up with North Korea’s occasional provocations for decades,” said Park Sun-min, chief executive of Min Consulting, a political consulting firm in Seoul. “Now we’ve reached a level where we can’t do that anymore even if that means we might endure some limited warfare on our land.”
The drill may help Mr. Lee’s ratings recover, but Mr. Park said it was too early to tell. Some opposition party politicians before the drill urged Mr. Lee to call it off, citing the risk of escalation in the conflict. But the anger and wariness hasn’t necessarily translated into more fear among South Koreans. The Realmeter survey found that only 25% of respondents believed that North Korea would carry out its threats to attack if the drill happened. [Wall Street Journal, Evan Ramstad]
One thing I’ll say for these exercises — they’re a vast improvement over the saccharine hippie bong resin that South Koreans positively ejaculated all over each other in the 90’s. Yes, it really was that sickening. I hope these exercises will have some beneficial effect on ROKA readiness, but I doubt they’ll do much to deter the North Koreans or advance us toward solving the greater problem. I also doubt that the North Koreans are done provoking the South. Hopefully, the exercises themselves will pass without a serious incident. The North Koreans don’t really specialize in confronting people with guns anymore. Instead, they specialize in attacking the weak, the defenseless, or those who for whatever reason aren’t expecting to be attacked. The North Koreans know they can’t win symmetrically, so they fight asymmetrically. That’s another concept the South Koreans should learn from the North, because when they do, it will be a game-changer.
Posted by Joshua on December 21, 2010 at 10:38 pm · Filed under Anju Links
In an effort to put an empirical measurement on the immeasurable, The Washington Post reports that South Korea is creating a North Korea Situation Index. If this is what I think it is, it’s a series of survey questions the South Korean Embassy has sent out to people it considers “experts” on the subject (and through some grievous error, I was also asked to fill this out). The survey consists of a series of questions about North Korea’s economy, its food situation, its control over its population, and its control over its military. Participants are asked to compare the situation last year to the year before.
What this means, then, is that the ROK government is making an empirical measurement of the guesswork of a mob of people who may not have access to the same information — almost none of it actually empirical — and who will certainly hold conflicting biases. That’s all fine if they recognize the limitations (and I think they do) but this is, at best, a measurement of consensus, largely among people who are too far away from the subject matter to measure these shifts. I appreciate being asked to participate, and I suppose the survey could have some value in the context of other, better informed views. I’d respectfully suggest, however, that it would be more useful to compile the same data from recent arrivals from North Korea, grouped by songbun, region, and date they left North Korea.
“I am very encouraged by the news that North Korea will not react militarily to South Korea’s drills,” he said. “During my meetings in Pyongyang, I repeatedly pressed North Korea not to retaliate. The result is that South Korea was able to flex its muscles, and North Korea reacted in a statesmanlike manner. I hope this will signal a new chapter and a round of dialogue to lessen tension on the Korean peninsula.”
“Statesmanlike?” You mean for not shelling another peaceful fishing village over the weekend? You mean to tell me it’s possible to run a string of death camps and violate every other norm of man or God and still be called “statesmanlike?” This goes a bit beyond your garden-variety soft bigotry of low expectations, to say nothing of the value Richardson puts on the lives of South Korean sailors, marines, and civilians. For the love of God, please put a shock collar on this man, set it to zap if he goes beyond a hundred-mile radius of Santa Fe, and turn the voltage up to “11.” This man is a national disgrace.
The State Department is greeting North Korea’s offer to accept IAEA inspectors with justifiable skepticism:
“North Korea talks a great game. They always do. The real isssue is what will they do,” Crowley said. “If they are agreeable to returning IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspectors to their country, they have to tell the IAEA that,” he said.
“If they’re willing to participate in mechanisms that reduce tensions with South Korea, we would certainly favor any step that reduces tension and improves communication in the region,” he said. “We will be guided by what North Korea does, not by what North Korea says it might do,” he said. “The key is following through and implementing that decision and meeting its international obligations.”
A North Korean promise to accept IAEA inspectors is like a marriage proposal from Mickey Rooney. It seems as if they do it every year. See also Reuters for some good, and unexpectedly skeptical, analysis. So it looks like Obama will have plenty of cover to say “no” to this. I wonder if McCain would have.
In the endless loop of our nuclear diplomacy with North Korea, new facts, novel arguments, and original thoughts are scarce things for which we scour a hundred news stories and blog posts. Here, in this excellent two-part interview with the Wall Street Journal’s Evan Ramstad, Gordon Flake of the Mansfield Institute explains why North Korea’s coming-out with an advanced uranium enrichment capability means that an enduring nuclear disarmament agreement is now next to impossible.
With the public display of, and formal announcement of, the uranium enrichment program, the prospects for a negotiated settlement just plummeted dramatically and the bar for any negotiations just went through the roof. That’s a fundamental change in an approach that we have been pursuing off and on for 20 years. It just became a lot harder.
You don’t have to be a nuclear specialist to understand the two different paths to a nuclear bomb. With plutonium, the control mechanisms are there. For plutonium, you have to have a reactor. It’s big. If you can freeze the reactor, you can freeze the plutonium. It’s relatively easy to freeze at the front end. With a uranium enrichment program, it’s really attempting to control the technology and the materials to build these centrifuges. But once that has been breached, there can be hundreds of sites all around North Korea. They’re small. They’re not detectable. There’s no emissions that can be detected.
So with plutonium, if you had the reactor, you could be relatively sure you had frozen the plutonium program. You’d know where others were. That would be something that would be worthwhile to buy in a negotiation. We bought it several times. There’s a strategic advantage gained by freezing them.
Now that North Korea has displayed a small uranium enrichment program, there’s no strategic advantage to be gained by freezing that plant. Because you have to assume they have got dozens, if not hundreds, of others around the country. Why would you pay to shut down something that gives you no certainties at all that you will be slowing down the program?
The other, related factor is that the inspections regime necessary to stop a plutonium program is relatively small-scale and limited. To stop a uranium program, you basically have to challenge inspections nationwide. And the North Koreans have to be actively participating in that process and declaring and working with the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency].
WSJ: The U.S. scientist who was shown the North Korean uranium lab, Siegfried Hecker, right away speculated there might be others. And this week we have fresh statements from Washington and Seoul that the uranium program in North Korea must have more labs than they have shown so far. Why do they think that?
Mr. Flake: Even if we don’t know for sure, you have to assume there are. Why in the world would any country, having acquired the materials and technology, put them in one single place? It makes zero sense. So they [the U.S. and South Korean governments] are trying to make a public case, saying, ‘The state of their technology would suggest to us that it has to be part of a broader program.’ That’s what they’re saying now. The flip side of that is, of course that’s true. As a national security planner, you would be irresponsible to assume otherwise.
It’s the old exterminator’s mantra: for every one you see, there’s a hundred you don’t see. You would never be satisfied with an exterminator who came into your house and killed one cockroach and said ‘I solved the problem for you.’
Of course, the North Korean revelation isn’t far off from what some of us peace-hating hard-liners had inferred for years, so in reality, no agreed framework has been verifiable since at least the late 1990’s. Thank Zeus that both agreed frameworks failed so spectacularly, lest we continue to labor under a false sense of security, let our guard down on proliferation, and perpetuate this threat with our money. But then, North Korea’s addiction to conflict with foreign devils is the undoing of all agreed frameworks, and the reason why we see a North Korean nuclear program as a threat at all.
What Flake isn’t quite saying is that any nuclear agreement from now on would require us to take Kim Jong Il’s word for it, because there aren’t going to be nationwide challenge inspections. There could be centrifuges under a palace, a military base, or a concentration camp, and our State Department and the IAEA would be told those places were off limits for other reasons (and tempted to accept North Korean assurances, no doubt). We can’t have a deal without trust, and without a fundamental change in this regime’s character and personnel, we’d be insane to trust them now.
Don’t just read that quote. The whole interview is a must-read.
The government on Monday banned citizens from going to the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in North Korea, site of an inter-Korean reconciliation project, as tension on the peninsula remains taut. The Ministry of Unification, citing “security concerns” for South Koreans working there, said it would monitor the situation and decide on a day-to-day basis whether to recommence travel to the complex or other parts of the North.
“If the situation gets any worse, the ban could be extended,” an official of the ministry said. [….]
Under the ban, the more than 600 citizens who were scheduled to go to work at the industrial enclave were prevented from crossing into the North. The 200 South Koreans currently staying at the complex were not required to return to the South, but according to the ministry, more than 100 opted to do so.
In spite of everything, Kaesong still managed to expand its output last month. Certainly tensions and political interference will continue to deter new investment. Yet behind every South Korean diplomat, official, or politician who declares his outrage at the North’s attacks, threatens retaliation, or asks other nations to put pressure on the regime, Kaesong is the elephant that lurks with eyes downcast, trying to look as inconspicuous as an elephant can. As Defense Minister Kim Kwan Jin said, the continued operation of the complex “could hamper military responses to the North,” and with all of those potential South Korean hostages inside North Korea, it’s not hard to see why. There is also a very real question whether Kaesong’s largely unaccounted-for payments are consistent with the financial provisions of UNSCR 1874. Finally, there is the question of Kaesong’s “optics,” and what it does to Seoul’s diplomatic credibility when it demands that China, for example, exert financial pressure on North Korea. No matter how tough the ROK government talks, and even as the North attacks South Korean territory and kills its people, the continued operation of Kaesong screams “business as usual.”
The North’s official Web site, Uriminzokkiri, said the bills are “nothing more than waste paper” and that the leaflets do little to undermine the pride of its people in the communist regime. “Such confrontational madness will only snap up the extraordinary alarm and ire of our army and people,” it said in a commentary.
North Korea’s military has warned it would shell South Korean sites used to send propaganda leaflets and broadcasts. On Nov. 23, the North shelled the western South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, killing two marines and two civilians in its first direct attack on an inhabited region in the South since the 1950-53 Korean War.
Sadly, I’m not sure North Korea is making empty threats. I hope the Fighters for a Free North Korea will take precautions about announcing their launch sites in advance, although I suppose it’s inevitable that at least one spy or fifth columnist will be able to report their movements. If you want to help, the North Korean Freedom Coalition contributes to FFNK’s leafleting operations. I can’t think of a way to make a small donation go further.
“The planned firing drill is part of the usual exercises conducted by our troops based on Yeonpyeong Island. The drill can be justifiable, as it will occur within our territorial waters,” said the JCS official. “We won’t take into consideration North Korean threats and diplomatic situations before holding the live-fire drill. If weather permits, it will be held as scheduled.”
The test will take place on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, which North Korean forces shelled last month in what appears to be an effort to effectively redefine border territory in the Yellow Sea off the countries’ west coast. The shelling killed four South Koreans, two of them civilians. With the test, South Korea is walking a tightrope by trying to defend waters it has controlled since the Korean War of the 1950s in a way that doesn’t escalate into more fighting, which would threaten the safety of its 50 million people and the vibrancy of its economy, the world’s 15th-biggest.
In a move that’s certain to resolve absolutely nothing whatsoever, the U.N. Security Council is holding “emergency closed-door consultations.” North Korea, which was removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008, is also threatening the United States:
In a statement, North Korea’s foreign ministry spokesman said: “We will be sure to settle scores with the U.S. for the extreme situation on the Korean peninsula. Our military does not speak empty words.”
Uriminzokkiri, the communist state’s official Web site, also said in a commentary that war on the Korean Peninsula is only a matter of time, stoking already high tensions after the North shelled a western South Korean island on Nov. 23 and killed four people. “If war breaks out, it will lead to nuclear warfare and not be limited to the Korean Peninsula,” it said.
It is also calling about 20 American military personnel who will participate in the exercises “human shields.”
I think it should be obvious whose fault all of this is: Bill Richardson! But to be completely serious, his visit shows no evidence of accomplishing the stated objective of reducing tensions. If anything, Richardson has given the North Koreans a louder media megaphone for its threats and encouraged its extortionate bombast. He also reminds us why we call him “Kim Jong Bill”:
“I hope that the U.N. Security Council will pass a strong resolution calling for self-restraint from all sides in order to seek peaceful means to resolve this dispute,” the statement read. “A U.N. resolution could provide cover for all sides that prevents aggressive military action.”
Substantively, this is indistinguishable from what the ChiCom Foreign Ministry is saying, and just as dangerously illogical. Let’s begin with the fact that North Korea specifically ceded four Yellow Sea islands to South Korea in the 1953 Armistice Agreement. The relevant provision is found in Article II, Paragraph 13(b):
[A]ll the islands lying to the north and west of the provincial boundary line between HWANGHAE-DO and KYONGGI-DO shall be under the military control of the Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army and the Commander of the Chinese People’s volunteers, except the island groups of PAENGYONG-DO (37 58′ N, 124 40′ E), TAECHONG-DO (37 50′ N, 124 42′ E), SOCHONG-DO (37 46′ N, 124 46′ E), YONPYONG-DO (37 38′ N, 125 40′ E), and U-DO (37 36′N, 125 58′ E), which shall remain under the military control of the Commander-in-Chief, United Nations Command. All the island on the west coast of Korea lying south of the above-mentioned boundary line shall remain under the military control of the Commander-in-Chief, United Nations Command. (See Map 3).
The agreement did not delineate between the two de facto states’ territorial waters, so we default to international customary law, which provides that a nation’s territorial sea extends for 12 nautical miles (or 14 terrestrial miles, or 22 kilometers) from its coastline at low tide, or to the mid-point to a neighboring nation’s coastline, whichever is less. There are North Korean islets just 1.67 miles north of Yeonpyeong, so South Korea’s territorial sea excludes most of the waters north of the island, but the 14-mile radius from Yeonpyeong-Do overlaps with the 14-mile radius from the nearest South Korean island to the east, meaning that South Korea is entitled to describe the 22-mile wide stretch of water between them as its “territorial sea.” (The status of the waters between Yeonpyeong-Do and the outlying islands to the west is more complex, although the status of the islands and the waters within 14 miles of their coastlines is controlled by the same principles.) Clearly, then, the waters within 14 miles of Yeonpyeong-Do, except those to the North, are South Korean waters. There is no basis in international law for North Korea’s novel and unilateral claim of all of the surrounding waters, save the restrictive corridors to the south of them.
To reasonable minds, “restraint” has nothing to do with what you do on your own side of the border, as long as it poses no threat to your neighbor (otherwise, it’s called “sovereignty”). “Restraint” means not shelling your neighbor or sinking its warships. North Korea has done both of these things in the last seven months. South Korea is contemplating nothing of the kind. Its Joint Chiefs of Staff have stated that “the artillery guns on Yeonpyeong will be aimed southwest and away from North Korea for the drill.” It is North Korea that needs to show restraint. A nation that is under the threat of an armed attack has a right under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter to defend its territory, and restraint does not require the abandonment of that right, or of the preparedness it demands, or of the exercises that are essential to preparedness. These exercises are taking place inside South Korean territory, spurious North Korean claims notwithstanding.
North Korea counts on weak-minded emissaries like Bill Richardson to meet its utterly unreasonable demands half way, in the same way that disreputable merchants raise prices 50% in September to convince addle-brained customers that a 25% discount in December is a great deal. There isn’t much of a case to be made that his visit has reduced tensions with North Korea; in fact, one can argue that his grandstanding, ill-timed visit has had had exactly the opposite effect.
Update: It’s our big annual apocalypse aversion sale! Save big on all MIA remains! This week only, plutonium fuel rods (see manager for pricing)! Bring your U.N. inspectors to see what Sig Hecker has already seen, but mostly, bring lots of cash!
Posted by Joshua on December 19, 2010 at 9:32 am · Filed under Anju Links
So North Koreans also find South Korean dramas to be dull and formulaic? We have more in common than I’d ever suspected:
“In South Hamgyong Province, only a few households are able to capture TV signals, but reception is quite good in Hwanghae or South Pyongan provinces,” Kim said. “People there look forward to the evenings when dramas are broadcast.” He said North Koreans also enjoy watching news and current events programs as well and power their TVs with their car batteries during power outages.
Another defector surnamed Yoo (40), who used to sell DVDs in the North and came to South Korea late last year, said North Koreans have grown tired of South Korean TV soaps with their stereotypical plots. “Nowadays, ‘Rambo 4,’ ‘007 Casino Royale,’ and other American action films or TV dramas like ‘Prison Break’ are popular,” she added. [….]
North Koreans also prefer American movies to Korean ones. “Practically everyone knows ‘Titanic.’” The movie classic “Gone with the Wind” is popular among upper-class North Koreans in Pyongyang, while young people enjoy action films. “DVDs of American movies or TV dramas fetched the highest prices,” she said. “But now USBs with American TV programs are more popular than DVDs.”
Even the North Koreans are becoming discriminating consumers. What is this world coming to? Eventually, I suspect it’s coming to better things than “Bulgasari,” “The Flower Girl,” and “Sea of Blood.”
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Tremble, Commies! Ban Ki Moon urges North Korea to show restraint, and almost 20 years too late, the U.N. wants to inspect North Korea’s uranium enrichment facility. I refer, of course, to the one that Dick Cheney made up after Agreed Framework I successfully ended the North Korean nuclear threat for all time, just because he hates peace.
Posted by Joshua on December 18, 2010 at 10:34 am · Filed under Korean War II
OK, I know those of you in South Korea are probably feeling a bit edgy for now, amid all of the drills, exercises, and North Koreans threats, which I’m sure our State Department would say are absolutely, positively not terrorism in any way, shape, or form. Still, I doubt that things will be quite this bad in Seoul by Monday:
I don’t think we’ve seen the end of North Korea’s escalation, and I also think Christmas is a fairly likely occasion for more of that, but the North Koreans aren’t irrational, and that’s why this won’t come to full-scale war. Kim Jong Il and those around him all know what happens to them and their regime if it does. South Koreans need to be rational now, but they also need to be brave. We’re at this literally dreadful state of affairs because for too long, too many South Koreans and Americans refused to recognize the pathology of this regime and thus enabled its capacity to terrorize the South even more (and indirectly, the United States). A few people are still incapable of understanding, or perhaps just unwilling to understand, how that cycle has vastly increased the danger to both countries over the last 20 years, as each successive leader has failed to resist the temptation to “manage” the threat out of the headlines, only to see it reemerge in some slightly more terrible and brazen form. I like the way Sung Yoon Lee put it in his latest piece for the Asia Times:
The more people in democratic societies think about the North Korean regime as a threat to humanity and less as an idiosyncratic abstraction, the more they will be resolved not to allow their leaders to resort to politically expedient measures with each future provocation or defer Korean reunification. For the South Korean leadership, breaking the taboo of potential economic costs of reunification should be a high priority. [….]
It’s time to acknowledge that while status quo maintenance in the Korean Peninsula has worked in deterring war over the past 57 years, it has all but failed in deterring North Korea’s ever-growing strategy of brinkmanship. It is also time to accept that relying on China to resolve the North Korea problem has produced few returns over the past two decades. As Pyongyang presses ahead in 2011 on its proven path of provocation-for-compensation, Beijing will, as usual, counsel patience, exhorting Washington and Seoul to let bygones be bygones and embrace the future.
I don’t happen to believe it’s too late to break that cycle, but this is one of those times when being the citizen of a free nation requires actual, physical courage. This crisis is a test, no less than the June Democracy Movement of 1987 was. I hope South Korea passes it.
