No one does a military parade quite like the North Koreans:
Pukguksong-2 ballistic missiles on display in 2017 North Korean military parade. [The Diplomat]
North Korea’s latest military hardware, including what analysts said appeared to be three kinds of intercontinental ballistic missiles, rolled through the North’s capital on Saturday, as the country showed off its military might amid heightened tensions with the United States.
As the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, watched from a platform, long columns of goose-stepping soldiers, accompanied by a fleet of tanks, missiles and rocket tubes, marched through a large plaza in the capital, Pyongyang, that was named after Mr. Kim’s grandfather Kim Il-sung, the country’s founding president.
Saturday was the 105th anniversary of Kim Il-sung’s birth and the North’s most important holiday, called the Day of the Sun. The United States, China and other regional powers had feared that North Korea might mark the occasion by conducting its sixth nuclear test or by launching an intercontinental ballistic missile. The United States sent a naval strike group to the area in a show of force.
But no seismic tremor emanated on Saturday morning from the North’s nuclear test site, where recent satellite photographs have shown what appeared to be preparations for an underground detonation.
South Korean analysts said Mr. Kim seemed to have decided to celebrate his grandfather’s birthday not with a nuclear test or a missile launching, but with a military parade meant to demonstrate his missile capabilities to his American foes.
To military analysts scrutinizing North Korea’s broadcast of the parade, the most noteworthy element seemed to be three types of long-range ballistic missiles, one of them apparently new. [New York Times]
You can read the rest at the link, but remember that these new ICBMs have not been tested and could be mock ups for all we know. The signaling that the Kim regime appears to be doing is to show the US that they are developing solid fuel ICBMs. Missiles with solid fuel means they can be fired quicker due to not needing to be fueled. They did recently successfully test fire the Pukguksong-2 intermediate range missile which uses solid fuel which shows they are developing the capability.
Most significant was that the Kim regime did not conduct a nuclear test yet. It will be interesting to see if in the coming days if they will attempt to conduct one. If not this is an indication that the US show of force worked to stop their planned nuclear test.
There is a reason that Northeast Asia has been stable since the end of the Korean War after decades of conflict and that is the US military presence in the region. Doug Bandow from the libertarian Cato Institute disagrees:
But that world disappeared long ago. The Korean Peninsula has lost its geopolitical significance, South Korea its helplessness, and America’s Korea commitment its purpose. While there is much to criticize in the approach of Donald Trump’s administration to the rest of the world, the president correctly sees the need for a foreign policy that more effectively protects America’s interests. A good place to start shifting course is the region home to the world’s newest and least responsible nuclear power.
The Koreas are no longer a proxy battleground between superpowers. There was a time when U.S. withdrawal from a confrontation with a Soviet ally in Asia would have, analysts believed, signaled weakness a continent away in Europe. But the Soviets are long gone and the cause for American commitment with them. An inter-Korean war would be tragic and the body count enormous, but absent American involvement the fighting would largely be confined to the peninsula. The continued presence of U.S. forces, by contrast, virtually guarantees the spread of conflict.
South Korea’s defense no longer requires Washington’s presence. The South’s economy began racing past its northern antagonist during the 1960s. Democracy arrived in the late 1980s. By the 1990s, when mass starvation stalked Pyongyang as Seoul’s economy boomed, the gap between the two Koreas was already huge and growing. The South’s military potential is correspondingly great though as yet unrealized — in part because dependence on the U.S. presence has affected strategic choices. [Foreign Policy]
You can read the rest at the link as well as read my prior analysis of why USFK withdrawal will not happen any time soon at this link.
Two child monks touch each other’s head after attending a shaving and Buddhist confirmation ceremony at a Buddhist temple near the eastern coastal city of Sokcho on April 14, 2017, ahead of Buddha’s Birthday that falls on May 3. (Yonhap)
I find it hard to believe that this many people were evacuated from Pyongyang without the embassy personnel and few western journalists in North Korea noticing:
A Russian news outlet says the North Korean regime has decided to evacuate a large number of citizens out of capital Pyongyang due to fears of a war with the U.S.
According to the Pravda Report on Wednesday, some 600-thousand people, which is a quarter of Pyongyang’s total population, are subject to immediately leave the capital city. The order was given by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The report said this is because there are not enough bomb shelters in Pyongyang to accommodate the whole population. It noted the 600-thousand people are mostly individuals with criminal records and they will have to leave Pyongyang to let others use the bomb shelters.
The report cited experts as viewing the evacuation as most likely stemming from extremely strained tensions in relations with the United States. [KBS World Radio]
I wonder how long she has been getting away with this?:
This provided image, taken from CCTV footage, shows a 20-year-old woman (in red circle) stealing two bracelets at a jeweler’s shop in the central city of Cheongju on April 1, 2017. (Yonhap)
Police have booked a 20-year-old woman for allegedly stealing two gold bracelets and hiding them in her buttocks at a jeweler’s shop in central South Korea earlier this month, they said Wednesday.
The Heungdeok Police Station in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, said the woman, along with her 21-year-old friend, visited the shop on April 1 and browsed the bracelets on display. She repeatedly put her hand into her pants while the other woman was talking to an employee over the purchase of a ring.
According to the police, the shopowner found that two bracelets, worth 980,000 won (about US$856), were gone. The woman was later spotted picking them up in CCTV footage.
She denied the allegations and demanded that the shop call the police to determine whether she stole them, saying that she wore a pair of leggings and had nowhere to hide them.
Two female police officers arrived at the shop and conducted a strip search in a bathroom near the shop after getting the suspect’s consent, eventually obtaining her confession that she had hidden them in her buttocks. [Yonhap]
You have to hand it to the Kim regime, if there is an illegal way to make money they will find it:
North Korean hackers stole about 100 million Korean won, or $88,000, worth of bitcoin from South Korean exchanges every month from 2013 to 2015, Yonhap News Agency reports, citing Radio Free Asia.
“Cyber criminals have turned to bitcoin for money as it is very difficult to track them down,” Choi Sang-myong, a senior official at South Korea’s cybersecurity firm Hauri, told Free Asia Radio, according to Yonhap. “Since tracking down the culprits is very difficult, North Korea had jumped on the bandwagon of bitcoin extortion since around 2012.” [Business Insider]
The guided missile cruiser Varyag of the Russian Pacific Fleet enters South Korea’s southeastern port of Busan on April 11, 2017, as part of a regular exchange program with the South Korean Navy Fleet Command. (Yonhap)
I guess we will soon find out, however the big question is going to be will President Trump do something in response?:
Since late 2013, piles of rocky debris from the excavation of the site’s North tunnel system have grown quite large — now big enough to cover a football field, and quite high. It’s the largest pile ever observed there. Work on the excavation has recently slowed, quite likely signaling readiness for the next detonation.
New satellite images suggest that North Korea might soon conduct another underground detonation in its effort to learn how to make nuclear arms — its sixth explosive test in a decade and perhaps its most powerful yet.
North Korea’s nuclear tests have grown steadily more destructive, and the country continues to pursue its longtime goal of putting a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental missile capable of reaching targets around the globe.
The United States recently ordered an aircraft carrier and other warships toward the Korean Peninsula in a show of force intended to discourage the North from testing a nuclear weapon.
While examining satellite imagery, experts have observed a wide range of activity at Mount Mantap, a mile-high peak where North Korea conducts its nuclear tests. Beneath the mountain, a system of tunnels has been excavated for the past five detonations of the North’s nuclear bombs.
North Korea often marks significant dates with shows of military force, and analysts say it might detonate a nuclear weapon to celebrate the birthday this Saturday of the nation’s founder, Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong-un. [New York Times]
