The ROK Navy thinks a nuclear powered submarine is a way to counter North Korea’s nuclear threat:
South Korea has started a feasibility review for the building of a nuclear-powered submarine amid North Korea’s evolving nuclear and missile threats, government sources said Sunday.
The Navy has commissioned a private institute to find ways to resolve international restrictions in building a nuclear submarine with the results to come out as early as the end of this year, sources said.
The government and the military are likely to finalize whether to construct a nuclear-powered sub based on the study.
The move comes as North Korea has been advancing its nuclear and missile capability by firing two intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). [Yonhap]
This is definitely the stupid thing I read all day:
A court has fined a man, 73, who spread a false rumor online that Lee Hee-ho, widow of late former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, planned to marry American hip-hop musician Andre Romelle Young, better known as Dr. Dre.
Seoul Western District Court fined the man 5 million won ($4,400) on Friday on charges of cyber defamation and defamation against the deceased. [Korea Times]
I don’t know what is stupider the fact that someone would actually believe Dr. Dre would marry Kim Dae-jung’s elderly widow or that fact the person who published the blog was fined $4,400 for posting it.
Cuauhtemoc, a Mexican Navy vessel built for training cadets, arrives at South Korea’s southeastern port city of Busan on Aug. 27, 2017. Some 200 cadets and servicemen of the Mexican Naval Academy came aboard the 1,800-ton vessel named after the last Aztec emperor. (Yonhap)
I guess if you discount political executions, mass malnourishment of its people, gulags, military attacks on neighbors, state sponsored criminal activity, and being an international pariah than I guess yes you could make a comparison between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un:
A man watches a television news program showing President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, on August 9, 2017. The two nuclear-armed leaders’ public feud has raised concerns around the world as to whether one would actually initiate a war.
Not to be outdone, North Korea’s military revealed a detailed plan to strike the U.S. island territory of Guam, which hosts key Air Force and Navy bases. After further brinkmanship between the two leaders, North Korea’s state-run media showed footage of Kim himself reviewing the plans. But the leader said he would not attack unless the U.S. struck first, effectively ending an imminent missile scare.
While a number of Western media outlets portrayed this as a retreat on Kim’s part, North Korea expert Michael Madden says it actually boosted Kim’s credibility on the international stage.
“This allowed Kim Jong Un to portray himself as the more experienced leader,” Madden, a visiting scholar at the U.S.-Korea Institute, tells Newsweek, adding that Kim also appeared more likely to defer to his advisers than Trump.
“Who would have thought that when we said ‘let cooler heads prevail,’ it would be the 33-year-old leader of the DPRK?” said Madden, referring to North Korea’s official title: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Trump hailed Kim’s “very wise and well-reasoned decision” in a tweet Wednesday, but Town and Madden agree that Kim has come out stronger from the latest crisis. While Trump fired off a number of statements that were widely challenged at home—including the claim that he had improved the country’s nuclear arsenal and that U.S. missiles were “locked and loaded”—Kim remained largely silent and delegated his words to lower-level outlets of his government’s propaganda, allowing ample room for de-escalation. Even his strategic missile force’s Guam attack plan included language that offered North Korea a way out from actually going through with it.
“Kim has been very careful with his words as not to back himself into a corner by shooting from the hip, like the Trump administration,” Town says. [Newsweek]
It will be interesting to see if the protesters allow the additional THAAD equipment on to the site considering the blockade they have been maintaining. Will the Moon administration be willing to send in police to forcibly remove grandmas and grandpas off of the road? We are about to find out:
South Korea is poised to complete the installment of a US missile shield next week, officials said Friday, despite unabated controversy over the Moon Jae-in government’s flip-flopping on the timing of the deployment.
The stationing of the remaining four launchers of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system comes as the Environment Ministry wraps up a small-scale environmental review. The equipment will join the already operational two launchers, radar and other assets to form a full-fledged battery.
The move will also coincide with a maiden face-to-face meeting between South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo and US Secretary of Defense James Mattis, set for Wednesday in Washington.
“Currently a small-scale environmental impact assessment is under way, and I can’t say it for certain, but the results are likely to come out around Monday,” a Cheong Wa Dae official told reporters on customary condition of anonymity.
The Ministry of National Defense echoed the view, saying the four launchers and related apparatus will be brought to the site in Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province, as soon as the survey is finished. [Korea Herald]
The below article makes me wonder why PACOM issued a statement about the missile launches being failures before letting a full analysis be completed?:
North Korea fired three short-range missiles on Saturday — all successful — despite earlier reports suggesting failure, according to the U.S. military.
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the projectiles fired from the North’s eastern coast flew about 155 miles. It said South Korea and U.S. militaries were analyzing the launch and didn’t immediately provide more details.
According to earlier reports, U.S. Pacific Command spokesman and Cmdr. David Benham suggested two North Korean missiles “failed in flight” while the third one had “blown up almost immediately.”
The U.S. Pacific Command has since revised its evaluation of the missile launch, now reporting no missile failures — in line with the South Korean military assessment. [Fox News]
You can read more at the link, but this is what PACOM originally put out:
The U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) also said, “Initial assessment indicates three short-range ballistic missile launches.”
“The first and third missiles at 11:49 a.m. (Hawaii time) and 12:19 p.m. failed in flight,” the PACOM’s spokesman Cdr. David Benham said in an emailed statement. “The second missile launch at 12:07 p.m. appears to have blown up almost immediately.” [Yonhap]
Fortunately it seems like no one is over reacting to this launch. North Korea conducts test launches during almost every Key Resolve and Ulchi Freedom Guardian military exercise. If anything this test launch is far less provocative than what they have launched in the past considering it is being reported they are either long range rockets or short range missiles:
The office said that the projectiles are believed to be artillery rockets from a multiple-rocket launcher, while the U.S. military reaffirmed its assessment characterizing those as short-range ballistic missiles.
“As of now, the unidentified projectiles fired by the North today are presumed to be improved 300-mm artillery rockets from a multiple-rocket launcher,” Yoon Young-chan, senior presidential secretary for public relations, said in a statement issued after the NSC session.
However, the U.S. Pacific Command said the projectiles were apparently ballistic missiles. [Korea Times]
Whatever they were rockets or missiles it really doesn’t matter because the strategic messaging the Kim regime is sending is that they can attack a South Korean island with missiles or rockets and follow it up with an amphibious invasion:
Korean Cenral News Agency shows on Aug. 26 North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspecting the state’s special forces engaging a simulated invasion of South Korean border islands of Baengnyeong and Yeonpyeong. / Yonhap
In a simulated attack on the South Korean border islands of Baengnyeong and Yeonpyeong, North Korean planes hit targets as its multiple-missile launchers and self-propelled gun howitzers fired in salvo and shells hit unidentified North Korean islands.
Some of the North Korean special forces also parachuted into the islands and others landed by surprise using rubber boats. The simulated South Korean targets were later enveloped in flames, according to North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but this is all situation normal on the Korean peninsula.
Participants call for the government to stop rice imports during a rally of female farmers from across the nation in front of the National Assembly in Seoul on Aug. 23, 2017. (Yonhap)
You would think soldiers selected for sensitive positions like this would know better:
Vice President Mike Pence
Soldiers assigned to Vice President Mike Pence’s communications detail have been reassigned from White House duty after a security video caught them bringing women back to their hotel rooms during a trip overseas, defense officials told NBC News.
The senior-ranking soldiers were sent home to the U.S. and removed from their positions earlier this month after White House staff learned of their actions, NBC News reported. [Army Times]
You can read more at the link, but according to the article the women were not prostitutes. This makes me wonder if the women were intelligence operatives then collecting on the soldiers in question?
