If China, Russia, and North Korea did try and launch simultaneous conflicts this is what would be called World War III:
Growing military cooperation among North Korea, Russia, China and Iran raises the possibility of “simultaneous conflicts with multiple nuclear-armed adversaries,” a top U.S. general warned Thursday.
Gen. Anthony Cotton, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, made the remarks during a session of the Senate Armed Services Committee, stressing that his command will “always” be “ready to fight tonight.”
“We are confronting not one, but two nuclear peers — the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China. This reality, combined by missile developments in North Korea, Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the growing relationships amongst those nations, adds new layers of complexity to our strategic calculus,” he said.
“It also raises the possibility of simultaneous conflicts with multiple nuclear-armed adversaries,” he added.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
The Korea Times recently interviewed three Korean foreign policy experts about what they thought how a second Trump presidency would impact South Korea. What I found most interesting was not the Trump talk, but how these experts believe negotations with North Korea should continue to be centered around trying to get them to denuclearize:
Q: North Korea’s threat has become sophisticated. And the North had continued to build up its nuclear capabilities to solidify its status as a nuclear power. Given this, do you believe denuclearizing North Korea is achievable? Will there be a need to discard denuclearization negotiations and adopt a new format of disarmament talks?
Kim: Denuclearization is and should continue to be an end goal to achieve. This is a daunting task unprecedented in the history of nuclear arms control and disarmament, but it cannot be given up. If we give up denuclearization, North Korea will be recognized as a de facto nuclear state. And this likely means the beginning of the collapse of the NPT. This is a nightmare for all. If North Korea becomes a nuclear weapon state, this would agitate South Koreans, and public opinion would evolve even stronger in favor of South Korea’s nuclear armament. If South Korea arms itself with nuclear weapons, other countries in the region, such as Japan and even Taiwan, will also feel the need to follow suit. If this happens, not only the U.S. but also China will face unmanageable proliferation risks.
A nuclear-weapon-free North Korea may sound unfeasible at the moment, but we need to keep trying to make it happen. For that, we need to prevail on North Korea to come back to negotiation on the basis that everything should be on the table. This means both of our and their concerns must not be precluded from any negotiation.
Ahn: The importance of the NPT cannot be overstated. When the treaty was proposed by the U.S. in 1960’s, the former Soviet Union was fully supportive because there was a shared belief that the international community needed such a scheme to prevent proliferation. The first survey that asked South Koreans about their opinions about South Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons was released in 2022 and at that time, 76 percent of South Koreans were in favor. The U.S. officials and think tank experts whom I met were stunned whenever they heard about the survey results. Eventually, South Koreans’ overwhelming support for nuclear armament became a type of leverage and convinced the U.S. to team up with South Korea to create the Nuclear Consultation Group (NCG). The NCG is a very useful institution for South Korea and we need to make the most of it to deter North Korea’s threat.
Korea Times
You can read much more at the link, but I just don’t see how you negotiate to achieve something that is not going to happen. Kim Jong-un is not going to give up his nuclear weapons, it is his ultimate regime survival trump card. Plus his nuclear weapons program to continues to make his regime relevant internationally. He has already turned down a deal for denuclearization in return for dropping of sanctions and nothing has changed in the intervening years that would change his mind.
Another March is coming up which means another major US-ROK military exercise:
Col. Lee Sung-jun, left, the spokesperson for the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, bumps fists with his U.S. counterpart Col. Isaac Taylor, the U.S. Forces Korea spokesperson, during a press conference at the Ministry of National Defense in Yongsan District, Seoul, Wednesday. Courtesy of Ministry of National Defense
South Korea and the United States will conduct their annual Freedom Shield exercise from March 4 to 14 to strengthen their combined defensive posture against North Korea’s escalating threats, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, Wednesday.
During a press briefing, the JCS said the 11-day non-stop exercise will be “a realistic exercise to strengthen the allies’ combined defense capabilities based on scenarios reflecting diverse security threats and lessons learned from recent wars.”
“It will be focusing on conducting multi-domain operations, using land, sea, air, cyber and space assets as well as countering North Korea’s nuclear operations,” the JCS said.
Freedom Shield is a large-scale combined military exercise between the allies held annually in March. In August, the allies also conduct the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise, which is held jointly with the South Korean government’s interagency training called Ulchi Exercise.
Korea Times
You can read more at the link, but expect North Korea to conduct their own provocations in response to the Freedom Shield exercise.
Is this the next tech revolution where instead of everyone walking around with smartphones, everyone is instead wearing headsets?:
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, center, poses with LG Electronics CEO Cho Joo-wan, left, and LG Corp. Vice Chairman Kwon Bong-seok, during a visit to LG Twin Tower in Seoul, Wednesday. Courtesy of LG Electronics
Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta, the U.S. tech giant behind leading social network services like Facebook and Instagram, held meetings with officials from Korean tech companies, Wednesday, to expand the extended reality (XR) ecosystem and foster cooperation in artificial intelligence (AI).
The Meta founder, who arrived in Korea the previous night, marking his first trip here since 2013, visited LG Electronics’ office and met with the company’s CEO, Cho Joo-wan. The discussions centered around technological cooperation related to extended reality (XR).
On the same day, the Meta chief also held private meetings with officials from XR-related startups in Korea. Later in the evening, he met Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong at Seungjiwon, Samsung Group’s VIP guest house located in Seoul.
Zuckerberg’s meeting with Korean tech company representatives is seen as a move to try to build a strong software and hardware manufacturing ecosystem like Meta’s rival Apple.
Korea Times
You can read more at the link.
Just another sign of how far the ROK’s defense industry has come that now even the U.S. is interested in procurement:
The U.S. Defense Department has started a process to solicit industry feedback on its pursuit of a defense procurement agreement with South Korea to allow easier access to each other’s market amid growing security uncertainties from North Korean threats and other challenges.
Last week, the department posted a notice in the Federal Register to request public comments on the pursuit of a new Reciprocal Defense Procurement (RDP) Agreement with South Korea through March 25.
Seoul and Washington have been seeking to sign the agreement as President Yoon Suk Yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden committed to strengthening partnerships in defense-sector supply chains and beginning talks on the agreement during their summit in April last year.
“The purpose of an RDP Agreement is to promote rationalization, standardization, interchangeability and interoperability of conventional defense equipment with allies and other friendly governments,” the department said in the notice.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
Can anyone think of a strike where people were protesting against the addition of jobs? That is essentially what this is. The government wants more medical school slots to address the shortage of doctors in rural areas and current doctor trainees do not want this:
A mass walkout by trainee doctors is approaching a deadline set by the government to return to work, as medical services have been crippled with both the government and junior doctors showing little signs of backing down.
About 9,000 trainee doctors walked off their jobs for the ninth day in a row Wednesday, as the government ordered them to go back to work by Thursday. Unless they return to work, they will face suspension of licenses and even indictment.
At the center of the dispute is the government’s plan to boost the medical school enrollment quota by 2,000 next year, from the current 3,058.
On Tuesday, President Yoon Suk Yeol said the plan is a “minimum necessary measure” to address a shortage of doctors and stressed that, “This cannot and should not be a subject for negotiation or compromise.”
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
