Yet another North Korean soldier has defected across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and this time it was not as dramatic as the November defection at the JSA:
A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea across the mid-western border Thursday, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
“A low-ranking soldier defected to our GP (guard post) across the mid-western border at 8:04 a.m.,” a JCS official said, asking not to be named.
The latest defection came about 40 days after another North Korean soldier fled to the South through the Joint Security Area (JSA) at the truce village of Panmunjeom.
The JCS said the GP occupants identified the soldier coming toward the South through surveillance equipment, adding that the soldier carried an AK-47 assault rifle.
“Relevant bodies will conduct an investigation into how and why the soldier defected to the South,” the official said.
No shots were exchanged between the two Koreas during the soldier’s defection; but South Korean troops fired 20 warning rounds from K-3 machine guns at 9:24 a.m. when North Korean border guards approached the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) while searching for the soldier who defected.
“The North’s border guards stopped approaching the MDL after our warning shots,” the official said.
At 10:13 a.m. and 10:16 a.m., shots were heard from the North, but there was no damage on the South Korean side, the official added. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but I would not be surprised if the shots heard from the North were executions of the officers responsible for the soldier who defected. The same thing happened after the Russian student defected during the 1984 JSA Shootout.
This defection is the fourth this year by a North Korean soldier. Prior to these defections there were four defections of North Korean soldiers in the past 5 years.
Coincidentally on the same day two North Korean fishermen defected across the East Sea as well. They were picked up to the north of Dokdo. That makes 15 North Korean defections this year across the DMZ or maritime border compared to 5 last year. The numbers may be up this year of defecting across the border, but the numbers are still too low to draw any hard conclusions. I guess we will see what happens in 2018.
The Venerable Pomnyun Sunim is a Buddhist monk who has done aid work inside of North Korea. He believes based off his experience and history of North Korea that China is not the answer to resolving the current nuclear issue:
Today, the North Korean leadership considers China to be the primary threat to regime survival. Despite paying lip service to their alliance, the Kim dynasty cannot afford to have any forces within the regime answer to foreign governments, especially China with its huge influence on North Korea’s viability.
This has always been the case. In August 1956, Kim Il Sung purged people he suspected of seeking to overthrow him with backing from the Chinese Communist Party. Soon afterward, Kim forced Mao Zedong to remove all remaining Chinese military presence — which had saved him during the Korean War — from North Korea.
His son, Kim Jong-il, was also quoted as saying that the Chinese should never be trusted. This underlying mistrust seems to be the reason behind the death of Jang Song-thaek and Kim Jong-nam, both of whom were suspected as China’s potential alternatives to the current leadership.
As such, allowing Chinese pressure, whether economic or political, to dictate the terms of North Korea’s national security goes against the country’s fundamental nature and self-interest of the current regime. A nation founded on anti-imperialism simply cannot allow an imperial power, even a nominally friendly one, to interfere in its own affairs. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but I would say that most people that closely follow the North Korean nuclear issue know that China is not the answer because the status quo is in their national interest. However, before other options are executed the US government has a responsibility to try all diplomatic angles which working with the Chinese is one of those options even if expectations are low of it working.
North Korea’s women national football team is congratulated in high fanfare on returning to Pyongyang on Dec. 19, 2017, after winning a regional championship in this photo from the North’s Korean Central News Agency. The team won the 2017 East Asian Football Federation E-1 Football Championship with a perfect record of three wins against South Korea, Japan and China. (Yonhap)
I expect the engagement crowd will say that the Kim regime doesn’t really mean what they say:
North Korea on Tuesday rejected U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s latest proposal for dialogue without preconditions, saying that it has no interest in Washington’s scheme to make it give up its nuclear program.
Tillerson said last week that the U.S. is ready to begin talks with North Korea “without preconditions” in a possible shift of U.S. policy. But days later, he said that the North should halt its “threatening behavior” before talks can begin, backpedaling on his previous remarks.
The Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), said that nothing has changed in its stance of pursuing nuclear weapons, regardless of whether Washington has offered talks without strings attached.
“The U.S. is trying to shift responsibility for tensions on the Korean Peninsula to us with its dialogue offensive,” the newspaper said in a commentary. “The move is seen as being intended to set the tone for manipulating new U.N. Security Council resolutions that may include a maritime blockade if we do not accept dialogue aimed at discussing the abandonment of our nuclear weapons.”
North Korea made it clear that it will not put its nuclear weapons and missiles on the negotiation table if the U.S. does not ditch its hostile policy toward Pyongyang. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but I believe in believing what the Kim regime says. It is pretty clear they only want to talk if the US ditches its hostile policies. What that means is that the Kim regime wants the sanctions to go away and a peace treaty to be offered as part of negotiations. This basically rewards the regime for bad behavior before the talks have even begun. From their perspective this strategy has worked in the past and I guess they figure at some point the Trump administration will reward them as well.
I guess we will see where this leads, but Key Resolve is the joint military exercise that typically happens every March which would be the month after the Pyeongchang Olympics held in February 2018:
South Korea and the United States may consider postponing their joint military exercise as part of efforts to reduce tension and invite North Korea to the Winter Olympic Games to be held in South Korea, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Tuesday.
Moon, however, said the move really depends on the way North Korea behaves.
“It is possible for South Korea and the U.S. to review the possibility of postponing the exercises. I have made such a suggestion to the U.S. and the U.S is currently reviewing it. However, all this depends on how North Korea behaves,” he said in an interview with U.S. broadcaster NBC on Tuesday (local time). [Yonhap]
Considering that Japan already has the SM-3 missile fielded on their Aegis ships the acquisition of Aegis Ashore batteries makes since over competing ballistic missile defense systems such as THAAD:
An Aegis Ashore missile-defense system is tested at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii in May 2014. COURTESY OF THE MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY
The Japanese government is pushing ahead with plans to boost its missile defenses in response to the growing threat from North Korea.
The nation’s Cabinet on Tuesday approved the acquisition of two Aegis Ashore systems capable of defending the entire country against incoming missiles.
“North Korea’s nuclear and missile development has become a more serious and imminent threat to our security, entering in a new phase,” a Cabinet statement said. “It is necessary to drastically expand our ballistic missile defense capability in order to continuously and persistently protect our country even during normal circumstances.” [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but the 2023 timeframe is reportedly when the batteries will be in place. So this is definitely not a near term mitigation to North Korea’s ballistic missile threat.
The United States concludes that North Korea was behind the WannaCry computer worm that affected more than 230,000 computers in over 150 countries earlier this year. https://t.co/CaeeFgvohg
The family members of about 140 naval cadets welcome their return from a 98-day overseas training cruise during a ceremony at a naval base in Jinhae, South Gyeongsang Province, on Dec. 18, 2017. They visited 10 ports in 10 countries around the world aboard the 4,400-ton destroyer Ganggamchan and the 4,400–ton logistics support ship Hwacheon. (Yonhap)
Here is what a former nuclear negotiator with North Korea had to say recently about the Trump administration:
Robert Gallucci, a former U.S. special envoy to North Korea, speaks in the National Assembly, Monday. / Yonhap
Robert Gallucci, the chief negotiator during the 1994 North Korean nuclear crisis, called for dialogue with the North to make a breakthrough in the crisis on the Korean Peninsula, during his speech at Seoul’s National Assembly, Monday.
Gallucci, chairman of the U.S.-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., reiterated the U.S. should negotiate with Pyongyang, if there’s room for improved circumstances through the negotiation.
“What we should not ask is a perfect deal. We should not ask how much does it cost,” Gallucci said in an event co-hosted by Reps. Kim Kyung-hyup and Lee Tae-kyu, members of the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee.
“We should rather ask are we better off with the deal,” the former special envoy noted, referring to his past experience of talking with his North Korean counterpart Kang Sok-ju in Geneva, Switzerland.
“In 1994, our intelligence community estimated North Korea was capable to produce 200 kilograms of plutonium a year. However, when President George Bush came into office in 2001, North Korea had zero nuclear weapons,” he said. “Did the North cheat us? The answer is yes. However, the deal was still a good one.” [Korea Times]
That last paragraph is all everyone needs to see to understand the problem with past negotiations with North Korea. Gallucci is apparently more than happy to allow the North Koreans to cheat on a deal as long as there is a deal.
Here is what else he had to say:
Touching on the heightened tension sparked by the North’s Nov. 29 launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), Gallucci pointed out that it is a crisis between the North and the entire international community.
“It is a crisis because if military activity were to begin in days, indeed just days, no one in this room could be surprised, or should be surprised. That I think is a fair definition of crisis,” he said. [Yonhap]
Who is assessing military action to happen within days except for people that don’t closely follow North Korea? The ICBM launch was a research and development activity like their other prior test launches. The US military has not launched any retaliatory strikes in response to these R&D activities and has instead focused on deterrence responses. If the Kim regime fires a missile that lands in or near US territory than we will definitely have a military crisis on our hands.
The Kim regime has clearly been firing missiles in areas that are no where near US territory in order to not provoke a crisis. Additionally the Kim regime has not shelled any islands, attacked ROK naval vessels, or murdered ROK servicemembers in quite sometime. It is clear the Kim regime does not want a military crisis and instead is focusing on R&D of their ballistic missile and nuclear capabilities.
Why they are developing their ICBMs and nuclear capability Gallucci believes is for deterrence:
“This North Korean capability raises a question about whether the U.S. will fulfill its alliance responsibilities to its allies,” he said. “It raises a question about whether the U.S. will put Washington D.C. and New York City at risk in order to prevent North Korea from blackmailing South Korea and to deter any attack on Seoul specifically.”
But he noted the military dominance of the South Korea-U.S. alliance, saying Pyongyang cannot hold Seoul “hostage” with its artillery or nuclear weapons unless it is “suicidal.” He also voiced skepticism about the existence of a “good” military option without any cost or risk.
“Its nuclear weapons are good for one thing only to deter an effort at changing their regime. That is plausible,” he said.
“But the North cannot plausibly blackmail, it cannot deter a military response to its adventurism, it cannot compel the ROK (Republic of Korea) or the U.S. to do anything, it cannot break our alliance,” he added. [Yonhap]
I think his remarks that North Korea is not developing nuclear weapons to blackmail the South is in direct response to ROK Drop favorite Joshua Stanton. Stanton of One Free Korea fame has long argued that the North’s nuclear program is less about deterrence and more about driving concessions out of the South to create a confederation of the two countries on Kim’s terms.
I support Stanton’s position because reunification is a driving force within the Cult of Kim. The Kim regime has long had deterrence through its conventional weapons that could destroy Seoul. Most other countries in the world would have faced regime change retaliation for the provocations the North Koreans have executed over the years. However, the Kim regime has faced little military retaliation because of the threat to Seoul.
Developing nuclear weapons allows the regime to threaten the US homeland for the first time. It is arguable the regime wants to create a negotiating environment where it hopes to separate the ROK from the US. This would explain why the North Koreans continuously bring up wanting to negotiate a peace treaty to end the Korean War. If a peace treaty is signed then why would US troops be needed in South Korea any more? The next goal for the Kim regime would be to co-opt the ROK into a confederation on North Korean terms.
