Models display cool pants ahead of the upcoming summer season at a Lotte Mart outlet in Seoul on May 11, 2017. (Yonhap)

The Kim regime has welcomed the new ROK president the way they typically do by conducting a provocation:

North Korea launched a ballistic missile Sunday morning from a site north of Pyongyang, South Korea’s military said, as President Moon Jae-in immediately convened an emergency meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) to discuss the issue.

“North Korea fired an unidentified missile at around 5:27 a.m. today from an area in the vicinity of Kusong, North Pyongan Province,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement

The projectile flew some 700 kilometers, it said, adding it’s analyzing more details.

The flight distance suggests a success of the missile test, the North’s first military provocation since the inauguration of Moon last week.  [Yonhap]

The type of ballistic missile has not been disclosed yet, but PACOM has already said that it was not an ICBM.  However, the Japanese are calling this the highest fired missile they have seen yet from North Korea:

Japan’s Defense Ministry said the missile flew for about 30 minutes, reaching an altitude of more than 2,000 kilometers and was believed to have traveled some 800 kilometers before falling about 400 kilometers outside of Japan’s exclusive economic zone, according to the Japan Times.

Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada was quoted as saying that the launch, which was likely conducted at a steep or “lofted” trajectory, could be of a “new type of ballistic missile.” It hit the highest-ever altitude recorded by Japan’s defense authority for a North Korean missile.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

At least one scientist thinks this is a new type of missile that has been tested:

“I don’t believe the missile test Sunday involved existing models, such Pukguksong-2 or Scud-ER, considering its flight distance was about 700 kilometers,” said Kim Dong-yup, a professor at the Institute for Far East Studies of Kyungnam University. “The test appears to be aimed at developing a new type of missile with an improved performance.”

David Wright, co-director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told the Associated Press that Sunday’s launch may have been of a new mobile, two-stage liquid-fueled missile that North Korea displayed during an April 15 military parade to mark that 105th anniversary of the birth of its founder Kim Il-sung

Wright estimated that the missile had a range of 4,500 kilometers if it travelled on a standard, instead of lofted, trajectory.  [Korea Times]

If the range of this missile is 4,500 kilometers that means it is not designed to strike South Korea or Japan which it already has SCUD and Nodong missiles to hit these two countries with.  Instead the only reason to develop a missile with this range would be to strike Guam which would be within its 4,500 kilometer maximum range since it is roughly 3,300 kilometers from North Korea:

This test may be a response to the fact that the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group is supposed to be in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) conducting exercises.

In response to the provocation the Chinese are urging all parties to show the typical “restraint” they always seem to put out after a North Korean provocation.  The United States is trying to play the Russians against the North Koreans after this test since the missile landed close to Russia:

Fox News reported that the White House said North Korea has been a “flagrant menace for far too long” and that Trump “cannot imagine that Russia is pleased” with the latest missile test because the missile landed closer to Russia than to Japan. U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster also condemned the launch in a 25-minute phone call with his South Korean counterpart Kim Kwan-jin and agreed to combine forces towards denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

I doubt Putin really cares, and then in South Korea new President Moon Jae-in wants North Korea to change its attitude if it wants negotiations:

During his first NSC meeting at Cheong Wa Dae, President Moon strongly condemned the launch, saying, “It was an apparent violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and also a serious challenge to peace and security on the Korean Peninsula as well as the international community.”

Moon said he found North Korea’s provocation regretful, citing that it came despite his speech to make full-pledged efforts to bring peace to the peninsula during his May 10 inauguration ceremony.

“I’m strongly warning North Korea, and at the same time, I find its reckless provocation deeply regretful.”

The president said he is open to resuming dialogue with North Korea, but added his government would deal sternly with the North’s provocations to ensure that the reclusive state does “not make a misjudgment.”

“We must show the North that dialogue will be possible only when it changes its attitude,” he said.  [Korea Times]

Good luck with that since people have been waiting decades for North Korea to change its attitude.  As this test proves, a new ROK President promising Sunshine Policy 2.0 is not going to change the nature of the Kim regime.

New ROK President Moon Jae-in was once a ROK Special Forces commando who served during the 1976 Operation Paul Bunyan.  Moon’s involvement with this operation reminded me of this story of the crazy ROK commandos who accompanied the US soldiers who chopped down the tree:

The dumptruck with the engineers pulls up next to the tree, so they can stand on it instead of having to use a ladder. The ROK’s with us, who are “supposed to” be limited as we are, with just .45’s and axe handles, begin throwing sandbags out of their deuces, Under the sandbags they have M-16’s, M-60’s, and a few M-79’s.

Several f them head over to Exum’s deuce and stand around watching the KPA guards across the bridge. I’m on the detachment that’s facing north, and I can see the 4 guards over there frantically running about and trying to get a hold of a superior on the phone. I look over at KP#3, a North Korean checkpoint just outside of the JSA and situated up on a hill, and I can see the guards up there run outside with a machinegun and set it up covering us. About two minutes later, a bunch of the KPA guard trucks and several buses pull up across the bridge from us. It seems like they sit there forever, several minutes at least. A few of the ROK marines with us unbutton their shirts, showing that they have claymore mines strapped to their chests and they have the clacker (firing mechanism) in their hands. They start yelling and waving at the KPA to come on over. One of the ROK’s is laying on his side, on the ground, supporting his head his his hand, looking all casual and care free. Once in a while he lifts his head a bit and hits the rear tire of Exum’s deuce with the back of his fist, shaking the entire truck bed. Anybody who’s ever been on a deuce knows that’s not easy.

Unfortunately President Moon was not one of the crazy commandos with claymores strapped to their chest.  He was in a back up role to respond to assist the crazy commandos if trouble was to occur.  Regardless it must have been interesting for Moon to be part of such a major moment in South Korea’s modern history.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

Choi seems to be trying to suppress laughter when asked about the new Moon administration. "We'll take a look," she says.

— Noon in Korea (@NoonInKorea) May 13, 2017

This photo, taken on May 12, 2017, shows a banner saying “Congratulating Alumnus Moon Jae-in for being Elected 19th President” hanging from the gate of Kyunghee University, the alma mater of President Moon Jae-in who studied law at the school. (Yonhap)

Here is a power tip for everyone, if the MP tells you to get out of the cab, then get out of the cab especially on a weekend when they have little tolerance for foolishness:

Never say “NO” to a MP! This soldier gets dragged out and arrested because he refused to get out of the taxi cab at a ECP.  [US WTF Moments]

This phone call would have likely been much more interesting if President Trump would have repeated his demand for Seoul to pay for the deployment of the THAAD system to Korea:

U.S. President Donald Trump raised the topic of renegotiating a free trade deal with South Korea first before mentioning cooperation on the North Korean nuclear front in a recent phone conversation with Moon Jae-in, South Korea’s new president, an informed official here said Saturday.

“President Trump, during the phone conversation, first delivered congratulatory remarks, then said the FTA should be renegotiated for the mutual interest of both countries,” an official at Cheong Wa Dae, South Korea’s presidential office, told Yonhap News Agency Saturday.

Moon and Trump spoke over the phone on Wednesday, vowing to maintain close cooperation in handling North Korea’s nuclear threats.

The official, who was next to Moon as he spoke with Trump, also said the U.S. president mentioned the trade issue “in a light fashion, mentioning it on a principle level” and added that the “focus was on the North Korean nuclear issue.”

Moon reportedly did not offer a particular reply to Trump’s mentioning of renegotiating the trade deal.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

TIME Magazine this week has a long profile and interview with the new ROK President Moon Jae-in that is worth reading for those unfamiliar with his background.  Here is an excerpt about his views on North Korea:

Moon has seen these kinds of negotiations in action before and believes they can work again. As chief of staff to Roh, he helped engineer the South Korean President’s historic summit with Kim’s father Kim Jong Il in 2007, and the six-party denuclearization talks between North and South Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan, which ran from 2003 to 2009. A satellite launch by Pyongyang ended the talks, and critics say the $4.5 billion of aid funneled to the regime during the “sunshine policy” of engagement actually accelerated the weapons program. Moon, however, points to the Sept. 19, 2005, Joint Declaration — encompassing full dismantlement of North Korean nuclear weapons, a peace treaty and even normalized relations with the U.S. — as evidence the sunshine policy was better than the following decade of isolation and censure. “The North even blew up the cooling tower of its nuclear reactor,” he says. “The same step-by-step approach is still workable.”

Given Trump’s stated disdain for the nuclear deal the U.S. helped fashion with Iran, it’s hard to imagine he would be eager to pursue a similar agreement with the Kim regime, which has a track record of noncompliance. But Moon says he and Trump already agree that the Obama Administration’s approach of “strategic patience” with North Korea was a failure. Surely the U.S. President could be persuaded to take a different tack, he says. “I recall him once saying that he can talk with Kim Jong Un over a hamburger.” Trump, he adds, is above all a pragmatist. “In that sense, I believe we will be able to share more ideas, talk better and reach agreements without difficulty.” Indeed, on May 1, Trump told Bloomberg that he “would be honored” to meet Kim.  [TIME]

You can read more at the link, but the destruction of the cooling tower was only in response to the Bush administration freezing millions of dollars of North Korean money in a Macau bank.  Kim Jong-il would have never agreed to the deal without the pressure from the asset freezing.  They will never agree to a deal today without similar pressure which it appears the Trump administration is trying to do.

At the time I called the 2007 deal a charade because there were no measures in place to ensure verifiable denuclearization and history has proven me right.  I guess we will see in the coming months if history repeats itself and the Kim regime signs another deal to receive free aid without verifiably dismantling their nuclear weapons.

Another example of the urgency the Trump administration has put on stopping North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

The Central Intelligence Agency has created a special team dealing exclusively with North Korea in an unusual move underscoring the seriousness the United States attaches to the nuclear and missile threats from the communist nation.

The Korea Mission Center was established to “harness the full resources, capabilities, and authorities of the Agency in addressing the nuclear and ballistic missile threat posed by North Korea,” CIA said in a statement. “The new mission center draws on experienced officers from across the agency and integrates them in one entity to bring their expertise and creativity to bear against the North Korea target.”

A veteran CIA operations officer has been selected as the new assistant director for Korea and presides over the mission center, the statement said without identifying the officer, adding that the team will work closely with the intelligence community and the entire U.S. national security community.

“Creating the Korea Mission Center allows us to more purposefully integrate and direct CIA efforts against the serious threats to the United States and its allies emanating from North Korea,” CIA Director Mike Pompeo said. “It also reflects the dynamism and agility that CIA brings to evolving national security challenges.”  [Yonhap]