A member of Save Korean Dogs, an activist group opposing the dog meat trade, stages a solo rally in Seoul on July 11, 2017, to express the group’s objection to eating dog meat and call for the government to enact a law prohibiting dog-meat consumption. (Yonhap)
This is another example of the momentum building towards a freeze deal with North Korea:
A pro-North Korean newspaper in Japan said Tuesday that President Moon Jae-in should not expect a positive response from Pyongyang to his latest reconciliatory proposal, as Seoul is still not giving up its submission to the United States.
The Chosun Sinbo also called on South Korea to end its joint annual military exercises with the U.S. if it hopes to prove its willingness to improve ties.
Moon unveiled a broad vision for bringing peace to the Korean Peninsula during his speech in Berlin last Thursday, two days after the North test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
“If the proposal is based on South Korea’s subversion to the U.S. and hostility toward the North, Seoul cannot expect Pyongyang’s positive response,” the newspaper said.
The paper serves as an unofficial mouthpiece for Pyongyang. North Korea’s state media has yet to unveil its official response to Moon’s proposal. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but calls from the North Korean media to end US-ROK military drills will be ceased upon by the freeze deal advocates as a sign that the Kim regime is acceptable to such a deal. The Chinese and Russians have also come out in support of suspending US-ROK military drills in return for North Korea suspending their missile and nuclear programs.
During a recent interview with Defense Secretary James Mattis conducted by a high school journalism student; Secretary Mattis recommended that people read a 2013 article in the Atlantic by James Wright that discusses what was learned from the Korean War. The main point the article makes is that the Korean War began a trend of the US becoming involved in military conflicts before settling on political objectives:
Korea established a pattern that has been unfortunately followed in American wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. These are wars without declaration and without the political consensus and the resolve to meet specific and changing goals. They are improvisational wars. They are dangerous.
The wars of the last 63 years, ranging from Korea to Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq (but excepting Operation Desert Storm, which is an outlier from this pattern) have been marked by:
Inconsistent or unclear military goals with no congressional declaration of war.
Early presumptions on the part of the civilian leadership and some top military officials that this would be an easy operation. An exaggerated view of American military strength, a dismissal of the ability of the opposing forces, and little recognition of the need for innovation.
Military action that, except during the first year in Korea, largely lacked geographical objectives of seize and hold.
Military action with restricted rules of engagement and political constraints on the use of a full arsenal of firepower.
Military action against enemy forces that have sanctuaries which are largely off-limits.
Military action that is rhetorically in defense of democracy–ignoring the reality of the undemocratic nature of regimes in Seoul, Saigon, Baghdad, and Kabul.
With the exception of some of the South Korean and South Vietnamese military units, these have been wars with in-country allies that were not dependable.
Military action that civilian leaders modulate, often clumsily, between domestic political reassurance and international muscle-flexing. Downplaying the scale of deployment and length of commitment for the domestic audience and threatening expansion of these for the international community.
Wars fought by increasingly less representative sectors of American society, which further encourages most Americans to pay little attention to the details of these encounters.
Military action that is costly in lives and treasure and yet does not enjoy the support that wars require in a democracy. [The Atlantic]
John Wolfsthal a nuclear policy expert writes in Foreign Policy about how the United States needs to accept North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and learn to live it like we have China and other countries:
At the same time, we have to accept that the game has changed. The dangers of a military conflict between the United States and North Korea have global implications. This means the United States and North Korea must begin immediate talks to avoid such conflicts, and to communicate directly to North Korea’s leaders exactly what actions would require a direct U.S. military response. We have had to do this as other states gained nuclear capabilities, because failure to do so left too much to chance. This is no concession, but self-preservation.
This list is not exhaustive, but the president, his cabinet and advisors, and our leaders in Congress need to begin the long-overdue conversation about what North Korean actions we seek to prevent. Unlike Trump’s tweets, our conclusions need to be specific and we need to back them up, lest confidence in U.S. commitments — to deter our enemies and protect our allies — gets even weaker. [Foreign Policy]
You can read the rest at the link, but his recommendations include communicating to the Kim regime that proliferation will lead to a “direct response” whatever that means. North Korea has already tried to proliferate nuclear technology to Syria and nothing happened to them then. So would the US be willing to attack North Korea in future if it tries to proliferate again? I am skeptical. He also recommends that the US respond to proliferating missile technology. They have already done this with little consequence as well. He also thinks that North Korea needs to be engaged at the sub strategic level when they commit bad acts such as cyber attacks.
A police officer uses a device in a bathroom at the Han River Pool in Seoul on July 11, 2017, to detect whether there is a hidden camera as part of efforts to rid public places of privacy infringement. (Yonhap)
As we have seen with North Korea’s missile program it is only a matter of time before they develop the reentry technology:
North Korea has yet to fully secure the development of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) as it remains unknown whether the country’s recently fired ballistic missile successfully re-entered the atmosphere, lawmakers said Tuesday quoting the spy agency.
On July 4, North Korea fired a ballistic missile called Hwasong-14 which reached an altitude of 2,802 kilometers and flew 933 km for 39 minutes. The North touted it as the country’s first successful ICBM launch.
But South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) concluded that the latest missile still lacked re-entry technology although it flew as far as an ICBM does, Rep. Yi Wan-young of the Liberty Korea Party and Rep. Kim Byung-kee of the ruling Democratic Party said following the spy agency’s parliamentary report on the July 4 launch.
“Although North Korea claimed that (the missile’s) heat resistance was verified, whether it re-entered (the atmosphere safely) was not confirmed and the country has no relevant test facility, making it look like it has not secured the technology,” the NIS was quoted as reporting to the parliamentary intelligence committee. [Yonhap]
Here is an interesting historical analysis of the Chinese, Russian, and North Korean relationship during the early years of the Kim Il-sung regime. This historical analysis does have some interesting parallels on why the Chinese government continues to support the Kim Jong-un regime today:
From left to right: Mao Zedong, Nikita Khrushchev, Nikolai Bulganin, Anastas Mikoyan, Mikhail Suslov, Kim Il-sung, V Shiroky, and Enver Khohgha, At the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution, 1957.
But for all the frustration, North Korea is an important piece on Beijing’s diplomatic board. If played incorrectly, it could backfire on China to the detriment of its bid for global leadership. Bringing Kim to his knees on behalf of the international community does nothing to advance Xi’s vision of a China-centered order in East Asia.
This is not new. Beijing has played this game before—most disastrously in 1956, when then North Korean leader Kim Il Sung brutally purged his political opponents suspected of ties to China and the Soviet Union. Moscow and Beijing intervened on their behalf, but Kim outplayed his allies with Machiavellian guile.
The crisis was also a turning point for China’s relations with North Korea. It was in 1956 that Beijing realized it had to go easy on Pyongyang, despite Kim’s maddening obstinacy, because the alternative was to surrender the country to the Soviet influence. As difficult as Kim was, he kept his distance from Moscow, and he could be an important ally in Beijing’s bid for leadership in the socialist bloc. Overnight, North Korea became an issue in China’s relationship with the Soviet Union, much as today it complicates China’s relationship with the United States. [China File]
Here is some interesting dialogue between Chinese premier Mao Zedong and the Soviets based off of records released from the Soviet archives:
Mao agreed with Mikoyan that there were serious problems in Pyongyang. Himself a ruthless dictator, Mao claimed Kim, who “still does the Stalin thing,” appalled him. “He brooks no word of disagreement and kills all who tries to oppose him,” Mao said.
But he claimed that China had no influence on the North Koreans. “This time we have to mainly rely on you,” he told Mikoyan. “They won’t listen to China!” Mikoyan retorted that Moscow’s leverage was hardly any better, but Mao disagreed: “They won’t listen to China 100 percent of the time. They won’t listen to you 70 percent of the time.”
Mikoyan said he simply did not understand why Kim was acting this way. Mao knew why: “He is afraid that our two parties are digging under the wall [of his house].”
And Mao, sensing, rightly or wrongly, that Moscow was plotting Kim’s ouster, warned the Soviet envoy they should not try to topple him. The Chinese leader opposed the Soviet practice of overthrowing recalcitrant tyrants. Nor did he think Kim’s regime was as bad as the Soviets claimed. After all, Mao’s own regime was not exactly democratic either. If he helped bring down Kim’s house, he would set a precedent that could one day be used against him.
There was another reason for Mao’s hesitation. He was beginning to challenge Moscow for leadership in the socialist camp. He accused the Soviets of arrogance, and of trying to impose their will on other countries. Much as he feared letting Kim get away with brutalities would lead to North Korea’s collapse, he did not want the Soviets to use him as a proxy.
You look at what is happening today and you see the parallel that the Chinese do not want the Kim regime toppled and have continued to oppose attempts by the US to impose its will on other countries around the world to include North Korea.
It is worth reading the whole article at the link.
I think this high school student probably just scored himself an A in his journalism class after landing an interview with Defense Secretary Mattis:
A US high school student has scored an exclusive interview with Pentagon chief Jim Mattis after an aide of President Donald Trump inadvertently exposed the defense secretary’s cell phone number.
The Washington Post in May ran a photo of Trump and his bodyguard Keith Schiller walking outside the White House, with Schiller clutching a bunch of papers.
Sharp-eyed readers noticed that atop the papers was a yellow sticky note that said “Jim, Mad Dog, Mattis” along with a phone number.
Retired four-star Marine general Mattis has been nicknamed “Mad Dog” by some in the media and by troops that served under him.
The newspaper quickly took the photo down but not before Teddy Fischer, a sophomore (about 16 years old) from Mercer Island High School saw the number and called Mattis with an interview request.
“I called it to see if it was him, because I was pretty curious if this is actually his number or is it kind of a joke,” Fischer told the King 5 local news channel in his home state of Washington.
He didn’t leave a message but went on to text an interview request.
To his surprise, Mattis called back and agreed to schedule an interview, which ultimately would last for about 45 minutes. [AFP]
For those that think war with North Korea is imminent I think this passage from Secretary Mattis during the interview is quite telling:
“The most important thing is, if you have to go to war, then do everything you can not to go to war if at all possible,” the defense secretary added. “Then you’ve got to get the political end state right or you’ll never figure out how to end it successfully.”
Mattis cited the 1991 Desert Storm campaign against Iraq as an exception to the US’s half-century pattern of entering conflicts without a planned political end state. In that conflict, Mattis says, President George H.W. Bush formed a coalition and pushed Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, stopping short of invading Iraq, despite calls to do so.
“We went in with more troops than we needed and we ended it quickly, because he had the political end state right,” Mattis said. [Business Insider]
I don’t think anyone can make the case yet that all options to deal with the North Korean threat have been exhausted. Based on Secretary Mattis’ statement I don’t think he is going to be an advocate of launching any strike on North Korea until all options are exhausted.
The full interview with Mattis can be read at the high school newspaper’s website. The student I thought did a really good job because the interview was actually quite interesting and worth taking the time to read.
