Tag: intelligence

I always figured that the Trump administration would try and keep the perception of progress going with North Korea up to the mid-term elections.  Limiting damaging information leaks seems to be part of this strategy:

The Trump administration is drastically cutting back on who on Capitol Hill gets to see intelligence reports on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, according to multiple congressional sources.

Under the new rules, only each party’s House and Senate leaders, along with chairs and ranking members of foreign relations and intelligence committees, get direct access to the reports. It is a drastic change from previous distribution of North Korea related intelligence reports which, for the most part, gave access to the entire committees and the staffers on those committees.

The fear on Capitol Hill is that the limited distribution, which has been implemented over the past few weeks, will leave Congress largely in the dark when it comes to what U.S. intelligence has collected about North Korea’s motivations and nuclear developments. Some on the Hill, citing President Trump’s outreach to North Korea, worry that the White House is limiting the flow of information because the reports might indicate Pyongyang is accelerating its nuclear program.  [CBS News]

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the US is getting closer to getting Japan and South Korea to final conclude an intelligence sharing agreement which from a military perspective makes so much sense considering the common threat posed by North Korea:

South Korea, the United States and Japan will look to expand their sharing of military intelligence in response to the growing threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, a top U.S. diplomat said Wednesday.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken made the remarks in an interview with South Korean reporters, saying the three countries are boosting security cooperation to protect their citizens from any North Korean provocation.

“Information-sharing among us is one important element of being as safe and secure as possible,” he said. “And we will look for ways to deepen that information sharing as we move forward.”

The prospect of sharing military intelligence with Japan has been a sensitive issue in South Korea where there are still deep-seated reservations about the former colonial ruler. In 2012, the two sides tried to sign a General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) to share intelligence on North Korea, but the plan was scrapped, as critics accused the government of arranging the deal behind their backs.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link.

Hacking led to intelligence on North Korea weapons, Seoul says http://t.co/uCGwZOMIJr

— Elizabeth Shim (@GlobalAsianista) July 29, 2015

This is a start at least to these two countries learning to play nice with each other:

South Korea, the U.S. and Japan will sign a trilateral information-sharing arrangement on Monday to better handle the evolving nuclear and missile threats from North Korea, Seoul’s Defense Ministry said Friday.

The arrangement is expected to strengthen the three-way security cooperation that has been lackluster due to historical and territorial feuds between Seoul and Tokyo, and Seoul’s push for a deepened strategic partnership with Beijing.

South Korea’s Vice Defense Minister Baek Seung-joo, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work and Japan’s Vice Defense Minister Masanori Nishi will sign the arrangement separately in their respective countries on Monday.

Under the deal, South Korea and Japan will not directly share their military information, but they will share it via the U.S. upon their consent, Seoul officials explained. Such an indirect method has been devised apparently in consideration of the public sentiment in the South against any military collaboration with its onetime colonizer.

“If South Korea offers information to the U.S., the U.S. would provide it to Japan upon South Korea’s consent. On the other hand, if Japan offers information to the U.S., the U.S. would give it to the South upon Japan’s consent,” a senior official at the Defense Ministry told reporters, declining to be named.

“The sharing will be limited to information about North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats. The country that has produced a particular piece of information will determine to what extent it will share its information.”  [Korea Herald]

You can read more at the link, but an example of how this would work is if the Japanese received intelligence of an imminent nuclear test they would give that intelligence to the US to give to South Korea instead of directly.  The whole setup seems juvenile, but President Park remembers what happened to President Lee Myung-bak when he tried to pass this deal a few years ago and it caused a public outcry and he had to cancel the deal.  It was so bad he had to fly to Dokdo to prove he was not a Japanese traitor.  Park is being smarter about this intelligence sharing deal with this indirect approach and noticed when she is having the deal signed; right in the middle of the holidays when few people are paying attention.