Tag: North Korea

North Korea needs a viable ICBM threat to pressure the US in any future negotiations. Is it far fetched to believe that the Biden administration could drop sanctions in return for a freeze on their ICBM program? If offered the Kim regime would probably likely take it because they get to keep their nukes and shorter and medium range missiles to target the ROK and Japan. The money from dropping sanctions can then be used to further modernize their nuclear and ballistic missile programs:

North Korea said Friday that it successfully test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), called the Hwasong-17, the previous day on the direct order of its leader Kim Jong-un.

Making an on-site inspection of the test, Kim stressed his country would be “fully ready for long-standing confrontation with the U.S. imperialists,” according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). 

Kim was quoted as adding, “The new strategic weapon of the DPRK would make the whole world clearly aware of the power of our strategic armed forces once again.” DPRK stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Yonhap

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It looks like President Elect Yoon is setting the prelude to withdrawing from the Inter-Korean Military Agreement since North Korea is refusing to follow it:

President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol said Tuesday that North Korea’s recent artillery firing was a violation of an inter-Korean military tension reduction agreement.

Yoon made the remark during a meeting with members of his transition team, two days after South Korea’s military said North Korea fired four shots from multiple rocket launchers into the Yellow Sea.

Yonhap

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You don’t need to be an analyst to predict that the Kim regime is going to test and see what they can get away with from the incoming Yoon administration. This is the standard playbook from the Kim regime:

Amid signs of North Korea abandoning its self-restraint in regards to testing long-range missiles and nuclear weapons, President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s pledge to take a tougher stance and bolster South Korea’s deterrence against its northern neighbor ― in close cooperation with the United States ― is likely to prolong the period of non-engagement between the two Koreas under his new administration.

Furthermore, Yoon has filled the foreign policy subcommittee of his transition team with officials from the former Lee Myung-bak government, who pursued confrontational policies that almost pushed the two Koreas to the brink of war. 

With the new conservative administration to be inaugurated in May, Pyongyang is likely to test how much bandwidth the Yoon administration will allow in dealing with its provocative actions, and diplomatic observers say how the new government responds to this initial saber-rattling will set the tone for inter-Korean interactions for the next five years.

“Relations between the two Koreas once President-elect Yoon takes office will entirely depend on Pyongyang,” said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor of international relations at King’s College London.

“If North Korea goes down the test route, then I would expect the Yoon government to focus on deterrence, sanctions and denunciation of Pyongyang’s human rights abuses above all. This would strain relations,” he said.

Korea Times

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It looks like the North Koreans decided to fire something to keep tensions high while they figure out what went wrong with their recent ICBM test:

North Korea on Sunday fired four suspected shots from its multiple rocket launchers into the Yellow Sea, South Korean military officials said, the latest show of force that could heighten tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

South Korea’s National Security Council (NSC) held an emergency vice-ministerial meeting over the four shots that fell into the western waters during a span of an hour from 7:20 a.m. from an unspecified location in South Pyongan Province, according to officials.

Yonhap

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It is important to remember that the North Koreans assuming they have the proper instrumentation can still learn a lot from a failed test to help improve whatever system they were testing:

North Korea fired an apparent ballistic missile Wednesday, but the launch appears to have ended in a failure, South Korea’s military said.

The North shot the projectile from the Sunan area in Pyongyang at around 9:30 a.m., according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). It did not elaborate further, only saying an additional analysis is needed.

The missile appears to have exploded in midair at an altitude of below 20 kilometers, informed sources said later. 

“At this point, our assessment is that the projectile launch appears to have been botched as it failed to reach a certain altitude in its early boost phase,” a JCS official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

Military authorities are putting weight to the possibility the latest launch involved the same intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that the North tested on Feb. 27 and March 5.

Yonhap

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With the election of conservative Yoon Suk-yeol in South Korea, it seems that North sees no reason to keep these symbols of prior inter-Korean reconciliation which were in reality just money grabs for the Kim regime:

North Korea appears to have begun to dismantle some of the South Korean-built facilities at the Mount Kumgang resort, a report has said.

Citing satellite images taken from March 5-9 by Planet Labs, the Voice of America said Friday (U.S. time) that the roof of the Haegumgang Hotel had become darker in the photos.

The images also showed that heavy machinery was located in front of the floating hotel.

The previous day, the South Korean government said it had detected similar moves at the resort complex but did not elaborate on which facilities were subject to the suspected dismantling.

The resort area, located on the southeastern coast of North Korea, houses a reunion center and other buildings for tourists from South Korea.

Pyongyang had announced that it would remove the facilities at Mount Kumgang, a rare symbol of inter-Korean collaboration, since its leader Kim Jong-un called for tearing down all “unpleasant-looking” facilities in 2019.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see if North Korea tries and claims this is a space launch like they did on their last missile test? Who launches supposed satellites into space from a TEL?:

North Korea fired a ballistic missile toward the East Sea on Saturday, South Korea’s military said, in the latest flare-up of tensions just four days ahead of the presidential election here.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the launch from around the Sunan area in Pyongyang at 8:48 a.m. and that the missile flew around 270 kilometers at a top altitude of 560 km.

The latest launch, the North’s ninth show of force this year, came less than a week after it claimed to have conducted a “reconnaissance satellite” development test that the South called a ballistic missile launch.

“The North’s recent series of ballistic missile launches are a significant threat to not only the international community but also peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula,” the JCS said in a text message sent to reporters. “We strongly urge the North to immediately stop them.”

The North appears to have launched the missile at a steep angle from a Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL) from the Sunan airfield, a JCS official said.

Yonhap

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