Tag: provocations

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that North Korea is likely to ramp up their provocations this year during Korea’s parliamentary elections and the U.S. Presidential election periods:

Yang Uk, a research fellow at Asan Institute of Policy Studies in Seoul, said North Korea had probably been refraining from aggression for the past month in light of political events in China and Russia, like annual plenary sessions and Moscow’s presidential election.

“North Korea is probably going to start to ramp up provocations from now,” he told The Korea Herald. “Pyongyang probably opted for a short-range, rather than a long-range ballistic missile, with its possible summit with Tokyo in mind,” he said, referring to recent news that North Korea is seeking to meet with Japan.

The ruling People Power Party believes North Korea may escalate aggressions ahead of South Korea’s general election and the US presidential election.

Rep. Park Jeong-ha, the People Power Party chief spokesperson, said in a statement Monday that as the risks of “military and cyber provocations” from North Korea were “very high” over the year, greater political fluidity is expected internationally.

“North Korea’s provocations are anticipated to get more frequent and aggressive as the year progresses,” he said.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

That is one of the theories being bounced around on why North Korea is conducting so many missile tests and other drills in recent weeks:

“Rather, the recent moves are assumed to be aimed at gaining international attention for its seventh nuclear test with missile launches and other provocations, and showing its force to the world,” Go said. “Bragging about its nuclear forces seems to be the ultimate purpose of the recent moves.” 

Korea Times

Another theory is that North Korea is trying to test President Yoon and see if he will actually cancel the Inter-Korean military agreement as he has threatened to do:

Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said Friday’s provocations should be seen as its reaction against South Korea’s strengthened military posture and Seoul’s debates over discarding the military agreement so as to contain Pyongyang’s nuclear test.

“It was unusual that the North announced that it was reacting to a 10-hour long artillery drill,” Hong said. “It seems like the shelling was aimed at testing whether Seoul really thinks about breaking the military agreement. If the North dared to ignore the agreement, it can simply arm its soldiers in the Demilitarized Zone.”

You can read more at the link.

This is something that very visible, but at the same time no cost to North Korea to do:

North Korea blew up the inter-Korean joint liaison office in its border town of Kaesong on Tuesday, sharply escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula after near-daily threats to punish Seoul over anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets.

The surprise explosion sparked concern that the communist nation could put other threats against the South into action, including taking military action and moving troops to border regions disarmed under inter-Korean agreements.

South Korea expressed “strong regret” and warned the North not to aggravate the situation.

“The destruction … is an act that breaches the hope of all people wishing for the development of inter-Korean relations and a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula,” Cheong Wa Dae said in a statement after an emergency meeting of the National Security Council.

“The government makes clear that all responsibility caused by this rests totally with the North Korean side,” he said. “We sternly warn that if North Korea takes steps further aggravating the situation, we will respond strongly to it.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the Kim regime has no fear that the Blue House “will respond strongly to it” and that is part of the problem. The Kim regime expects a Hans Blix style response.

The Kim regime will likely next occupy all the DMZ outposts they vacated two years ago. This will force the ROK Army to reoccupy their outposts, but they blew them up and would have to rebuild them all. By the way does anyone still think the shots fired last month by North Korea at a ROK DMZ guard post was still unintentional as the Moon administration has been claiming? This is all part of the usual provocation patterns used by the Kim regime for decades to extract the concessions they want from South Korea.

In this case it is to defy international sanctions and move forward with the cross-border projects they want the ROK to fund. It also appears they are using this provocation cycle to build up Kim’s sister, Kim Yo-jong’s standing within the regime since she has been the main spokesperson so far.

I guess we will see if North Korea follows through with its Christmas gift threat:

Few signs of unusual military moves have been detected in North Korea so far, officials said Tuesday, amid concern Pyongyang could test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) as a “Christmas gift” to the United States.

Officials noted, however, that the North could undertake a surprise provocation at any time and that the South’s military is maintaining readiness for a worst-case scenario while keeping a close watch over the communist neighbor.

“There have not been specific moves in the North as of now that indicate high-profile military actions,” a military officer said. “We have been fully prepared for any incidents, and we always keep in mind a worst-case scenario.”

As denuclearization negotiations with the U.S. have made little progress, North Korea warned that it is entirely up to the U.S. to decide what Christmas gift it gets, sparking concerns that Pyongyang could carry out highly provocative acts such as an ICBM launch.

When firing its Hwasong-14 ICBM on July 4, 2017, the North labeled it as “a gift” for the U.S.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is something ROK Heads have known for quite some time, but the media is catching up:

For Trump, keeping the status quo would be the best policy at this point because any future deal with North Korea will be criticized within the U.S. as a “bad deal,” according to Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies of Kyungnam University.

“After North Korea gave up Yongbyon, the U.S. still did not give up on sanctions. If the U.S. were to make concessions in any future deal, it will be criticized domestically. Trump considers it best to maintain the current state of tension without any additional agreement. This is the most conducive to keeping up Trump’s case that North Korea has not tested missiles or launched an ICBM,” the professor told The Korea Times, Monday. “If North Korea launches an ICBM, it could affect the U.S. election. But it will not be easy for North Korea to do this, although it has been testing engines and so forth.” 

Another analyst explained that Kim could be aiming to pressure Trump ahead of the U.S. election, but was negative about an ICBM test in the near future. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Another play straight out of the North Korean provocation playbook:

South Korea’s military on Thursday confirmed it had completed an operation to evict a North Korean merchant ship from its waters some 17 hours after the vessel crossed to the southern side of the Northern Limit Line (NLL) the previous day. 

However, it took South Korean military authorities nearly six hours to realize the vessel was a North Korean merchant ship sailing on the southern side of the NLL, the de facto maritime border between the two Koreas in the Yellow Sea.  

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said Wednesday that the 500-ton merchant ship crossed the NLL, northwest of Baengnyeong Island, at around 6:40 a.m. Wednesday. 

At one point, the South Korean Navy fired warning shots after the vessel did not respond to multiple warnings it had issued to immediately leave the NLL, in accordance with protocol.

On Thursday, the JCS confirmed that the South Korean Navy guided the merchant ship out of South Korean waters and completed the operation around 11:30 p.m. that night. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Another typical North Korean playbook play here with conducting a test firing that corresponds with a U.S. holiday:

North Korea fired two projectiles from what is presumed to be a super-large multiple rocket launcher on Thursday, South Korea’s military said, in the latest in a series of military moves amid stalled denuclearization talks with the United States.

The projectiles were fired from Yeonpo in the country’s eastern South Hamgyong Province into the waters off the east coast at around 4:59 p.m., the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a release. 

Both flew around 380 km, reaching a maximum altitude of around 97 km, and were fired within a 30-second interval, the JCS added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but this is all just more of the pressure campaign that the Kim regime is putting on the Trump administration to get them to give in to their demands to drop sanctions.

Yes it is probably a good idea to plan for a provocation cycle after the New Year because it is does not appear any denuclearization deal is close to being negotiated:

The United States is trying hard to coax North Korea into restarting nuclear talks, as South Korea is also quite “serious” about the year-end deadline set by Pyongyang, a top Cheong Wa Dae official said Sunday.

The North has emphasized that the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump should change tack and put forward fresh offers based on a “new calculation method” by the end of this year or face an end to the already troubled dialogue process itself.

Regarding the North’s own deadline, “The South Korean government is also keeping an eye on (relevant situations) quite seriously,” Chung Eui-yong, head of the presidential security office, told reporters. (…….)

South Korea is also coordinating closely with the U.S. so that denuclearization talks can proceed smoothly, getting “various contingency plans” ready for use, he said without elaborating.

The South Korean government’s position is that security conditions on the peninsula should never return to the level before 2017.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I would not be surprised if the Moon administration’s response to a North Korean provocation would be to unilaterally violate sanctions to pay off the Kim regime and say it is for humanitarian reasons.