Is max pressure dead? Well, there's moderate pressure. If "max pressure leading to engagement" was 2017, then 2018 might be "engagement supported by moderate pressure." Need to be plugged in to know re movement of military hardware? No, it's all pub infohttps://t.co/8M5UAKRojg
Maybe US Defense Secretary Mattis’ recent trip to South Korea was to drop off a copy of the Army’s SHARP manual: 😉
Defense Minister Song Yong-moo (2nd from R) speaks during a meeting of top ministry and military officials at the ministry’s building in Seoul on July 4, 2018, in this photo provided by his office. (Yonhap)
Defense Minister Song Young-moo pledged Wednesday to eradicate the military’s political interference and sexual violence following a series of unsavory incidents that have sapped public confidence and troop morale.
Operatives from the cyber warfare command and the Defense Security Command (DSC) have been accused of having posted online comments in favor of former conservative governments in breach of their duty to maintain political neutrality.
This week, the military also came under fire after a senior Navy officer was put under emergency arrest for allegedly attempting to sexually assault his female subordinate while under the influence of alcohol.
“Recently, things that should never have happened in the military have occurred. These incidents have resulted in a tremendous loss of citizens’ confidence in the military,” the minister said in his opening remarks at an emergency meeting of about 40 top ministry and military officials on discipline.
“I, as the minister, will take measures to ensure that the illegal political interference by the DSC and cyber command will be the last in the history of our armed services. Also, through the efforts, I will try to make organizational, institutional and legal improvements,” he added.
The meeting that Song called to check on “lax discipline” comes amid concerns that the emerging mood for peace with North Korea and the recent suspension of a major South Korea-U.S. military exercise could weaken the allies’ military readiness.
At the meeting, participants focused on the causes of sexual violence and deadly accidents in the military, and measures to prevent them. [Yonhap]
Kim Jong-un should have invited Dennis Rodman to attend this:
South and North Korean men’s and women’s basket ball teams will play goodwill matches today and Thursday in Pyongyang, possibly with the North’s leader Kim Jong-un attending.
The “Unification Basketball Competition” is the fourth of its kind and is being held for the first time in 15 years since the last games were played in 2003. The Koreas agreed to schedule the event at a meeting on sports cooperation last month.
A 101 member delegation departed for Pyongyang Tuesday, led by Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon. The delegation includes 50 basketball players, government officials, reporters and a broadcasting team.
“The PyeongChang Winter Olympics became the foundation of peace on the Korean Peninsula, so I hope that the Pyongyang unification basketball competition serves as an occasion to further develop peace on the peninsula,” Cho told reporters before departure.
The delegation headed to Pyongyang Sunan International Airport from Seoul Airport in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, via an air force transport aircraft, given international sanctions on North Korea.
This is the first time for the unification minister to visit Pyongyang in 11 years. His last visit was in 2007 as a presidential secretary. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but I wonder what the cost of the “hotel bills” are that South Korea will have to pay to North Korea to play these games?
ROK Drop favorite Professor B.R. Myers has posted some thoughts about the Singapore Summit:
Considering how much of the agreement was obviously worked out before the summit — and with how many portents of American weakening — it’s wrong to blame Trump for what happened on the day itself. His buffoonery was mortifying, yes, but edifying too. All he did was act out the hoary conventional wisdom as if on a pantomime stage. The spectacle was a devastating caricature of all our wishful dealings with the North.
As the day unfolded it became clear that, once again, our side had devoted far more attention to event-planning than to ideological reconnaissance. We saw the usual indifference to the question of how the North could justify its existence after disarming. We saw the lie given to our tough-guy rhetoric. We saw a familiar and quintessentially American combination of credulity and condescension.
All this was as old as the nuclear crisis itself. But for once we got it without any dignifying sheen of sophistication. I suspect many observers who professed to be appalled by Trump’s performance were really only lamenting the lack of that sheen. Their criticism of him for not getting more from Kim in writing makes little sense. Either the regime has changed fundamentally or it hasn’t. If it has, it would indeed be counter-productive to impose a series of hurdles that must be jumped over within a certain time. If it hasn’t, no concessions it might commit to paper are going to have any more value than the last ones. [B.R. Myers]
As always I recommend reading the whole posting at the link, but Professor Myers’ big issue with the Trump administration is that they are viewing North Korea as a failed communist state eager to open up and develop like China. Myers believe this is wishful thinking if one studies and understands the ideology of the Kim regime. The very legitimacy of the ruling Kim regime is threatened if it disarms and no longer seeks reunification under North Korean terms.
Professor Myers has been one of the strong advocates of the viewpoint that the overall goal of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is to force the withdrawal of US troops and create a confederation of the Korean peninsula under North Korean terms. This viewpoint has led to criticism by people who think the nuclear weapons are just to keep the US from trying to militarily remove the Kim Regime and that the North Koreans are not stupid enough to think they can actually unify the peninsula on their terms.
What this viewpoint does not understand is that the Kim regime is not going to seek reunification in a 1950’s like invasion, but rather through a war of skirmishes ending in a confederation on North Korean terms. One Free Korea sums up the Kim regime’s strategy the best in the below analysis:
The fall of Seoul will not end with the crash of tank treads through the Blue House gates, or by renaming Seoul Kim Il-Sung City, but with signatures, handshakes, smiles, clicking shutters, and the praise of editorialists that two warring states “de-escalated tensions pragmatically” by embarking on a “peace process.” The surrender will be too gradual, and the terms too vague, to be recognizable as such. It will have something like the consent of the governed — that is to say, the soon-to-be-ruled — through the assent of elected leaders who will approve a series of easy, lazy decisions to yield to Pyongyang’s calculated confrontations, embarking irreversibly toward the gradual strangulation of free debate, and then, a slow digestion into one-country-two-systems hegemony on Pyongyang’s terms. [One Free Korea]
Here is the latest response by President Trump to critics of his North Korea policy:
President Trump speaks to reporters on the North Lawn of the White House on June 15, 2018. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)
President Trump on Tuesday brushed aside questions over whether his assertion that he “solved” the crisis with North Korea was premature amid reports its leader, Kim Jong Un, is trying to conceal parts of its nuclear weapons program.
“Many good conversations with North Korea — it is going well!” Trump tweeted. “In the meantime, no Rocket Launches or Nuclear Testing in 8 months. All of Asia is thrilled. Only the Opposition Party, which includes the Fake News, is complaining.”
“””
Trump’s brash declaration comes two days before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is set to travel to North Korea to meet with Kim — his third trip to the rogue nuclear nation. [Yahoo News]
How long have we been hearing that North Korea is going to open up just like China?:
Jim Rogers
Legendary investor Jim Rogers said Monday that the world will face serious economic problems over the next few years, but North Korea’s opening will create a huge economic opportunity for South Korea.
The global guru made the remarks during a press briefing in Seoul hosted by major local brokerage Samsung Securities.
“Many of your trading partners are going to suffer. But you have this opening up, and if you remember what happened in China as it opened and changed, that is going to happen here and you will be the major beneficiary,” the American businessman said.
Pointing out that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un spent his early days in Switzerland and has ample knowledge about the outside world, Rogers projected that Kim will surely open up his economy.
“North Korea has lots of disciplined, educated, very cheap labor and a lot of natural resources. And [South Korea] has lots of capital, management ability and expertise,” he said, adding that the marriage of those factors will create synergy effects to make South Korea “the most exciting country in the world over the next 10 to 20 years.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but what Mr. Rogers seems to forget is that China opened up after the death of Mao Zedong which ended the cult of personality in China. The cult of personality is still alive and well in North Korea with the Kim regime. A Chinese style opening of the economy would threaten the stability of the Kim regime.
Moon Jae-in wants political cover as he compromises Seoul's strategic position & US troops give moderate voters a false sense of security. But without robust missile defenses & a host-nation ally that has our backs, our troops are vulnerable — really, just hostages for N. Korea. https://t.co/DRFevqpAoQ
