Tag: United States

This is not a course of action I would recommend at this point considering the other options that have yet to be fully used to pressure the Kim regime and China:

Talk is growing in the United States of the possibility of using military strikes to take out North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities after the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, threatened he’s close to testing a long-range missile apparently capable of hitting the U.S.

Kim said in his New Year’s Day address that the communist nation has reached the final stage of preparations to test-launch an intercontinental ballistic missile. The remark was seen as a thinly veiled threat that Pyongyang is close to developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of striking the continental U.S.

The threat appears to have stoked genuine fears of security among Americans, with reporters bombarding the Defense Department with questions of what the U.S. is going to do about the North’s missile, including whether it’s going to shoot it down or even launch a preemptive strike before it’s fired.

It also prompted President-elect Donald Trump to send a tweet: “North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won’t happen!”

On Wednesday, a private intelligence analysis firm, Stratfor, even laid out a list of potential targets in North Korea, including the Yongbyon nuclear complex, home to the North’s plutonium-producing reactor and reprocessing facility.

“When considering an attack on North Korea, there are two broad categories of strikes to deliberate. The first is a minimalist strike, specifically focused on dismantling the North’s nuclear weapons program. In this scenario, the United States would engage North Korean nuclear objectives only,” Stratfor said in an analysis piece carried by MarketWatch and, titled, “How the U.S. could derail North Korea’s nuclear program by force.”

“By not launching strikes on other North Korean targets, Washington leaves the door open, if only slightly, for de-escalation if Pyongyang can be convinced that the strike is not part of a regime change operation. What benefits Pentagon planners in this scenario is that a limited strike requires less resources and preparation, enhancing the element of surprise,”

Potential targets in the minimalist strike include the Yongbyon complex, including the 5-megawatt nuclear reactor and the reprocessing plant, as well as the Pyongsan uranium mine that provides fuel for the reactor, and the Pyongsong nuclear research and development facility, known as the North’s “Silicon Valley,” Stratfor said.

“These facilities form the heart of North Korean nuclear production infrastructure. If they were destroyed or disabled, the North Korean nuclear production network would be crippled, set back years at least,” it said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but what anyone thinking of advocating for a limited strike on North Korea needs to answer is what is the response then when the Kim regime retaliates and launches a limited artillery strike on Seoul?  Can you imagine what the reaction will be from the Korean public will be especially if a left-wing President is elected this year?

Here is what one expert thinks of President-Elect Trump’s North Korea strategy:

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump appears to lack a plan on how to deal with North Korea even though his administration is set to take off in less than a month, a U.S. expert said Sunday.

Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), also said in an interview with CBS television that the Trump foreign policy team doesn’t seem to have a full strategy yet on China.

North Korea is “not an issue that Trump knows a lot about,” Glaser said, adding that the concern for the United States is that the North Koreans could pose an existential threat to the homeland if they can make a nuclear warhead that can potentially reach U.S. territory.

“Do we have a strategy that focuses on defense? Do we take a much more aggressive posture against North Korea?” Glaser said, wondering about Trump’s plan. “Some people are raising the possibility of a pre-emptive strike on a missile, if it’s on a launch pad, because we don’t know what’s atop that missile, whether it’s a satellite or a nuclear warhead.

“There may be some discussions about whether we really need to try to cut off trade and harm North Korea’s economy, go beyond sanctions that are really focused on depriving North Korea of weapons of mass destruction,” she said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but North Korea is not an “existential threat to the homeland”.  The Kim regime would need a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons along with the transport erector launchers (TELs) to launch them to be able to destroy a country the size of the United States.  Plus the DPRK’s warhead technology would have to be advanced enough to defeat the US’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system.  The Kim regime’s nukes are at best a deterrent that puts a handful of US cities at possible risk if military action is taken to remove the Kim regime.

As far as sanctions they obviously are not working to stop the Kim regime’s WMD programs because of China.  As North Korean diplomat turned defector Thae Yong-ho has already said, the Kim regime understands it can get away with nuclear development because the Chinese will do nothing to stop them.

It is pretty clear that the incoming Trump administration does have a plan, it is just that it is one that is going to focus on China instead of North Korea which Glaser has already pointed out:

“It looks to me like Trump is trying to keep China off balance, to try and signal that he’s not necessarily going to conduct business as usual in the same way that it has been conducted over the last eight years under Obama and that he thinks it can appear that he can gain some leverage by signaling a willingness to confront China,” Glaser said.

Prelude

Between 1966-1970 soldiers stationed on the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) came in regular contact with North Korean infiltrators probing US military defenses in what became known as the “DMZ War”.  Two examples of such incidents occurred the morning of August 10th, 1967 when North Korean infiltrators conducted two separate ambushes of 2nd and 7th Infantry Division soldiers:

The events that morning began when a 2nd Infantry Division military working dog by the name of “Blackie”, handled by Specialist Jack L. Tyrrell, were leading a squad sized patrol in the early morning hours.  The patrol was sent out at dusk after a sentry during the night had heard a possible North Korean infiltrator near his post.  As the patrol looked for the infiltrator Blackie smelled something suspicious and headed for a nearby tree.  That is when a North Korean infiltrator sprung out from behind the tree and shot Blackie and SPC Tyrrell.

Ambush Prevented

After the initial firing more concealed North Koreans opened fire on the American patrol.  However, the warning provided by Blackie had given the other members of the US patrol time to take cover.  This allowed the Americans the opportunity to immediately return fire at the ambushers.  The North Koreans realizing that their ambush had been compromised withdrew back towards the DMZ.  The ambush cost Blackie his life, but no other Americans were killed with SPC Tyrrell being the only person wounded.

Work Detail Ambush

However, the ambush that Blackie had prematurely triggered was not the only ambush the North Koreans had planned that morning.  US 7th Infantry Division soldiers from B company 2-31 Infantry Regiment had conducted a woodcutting mission inside the South Korean side of the DMZ that morning before returning to their camp for lunch around 11:45 AM.  The soldiers moved south in a two truck convoy up a small hill in a drizzling rain.  Each truck carried a platoon of US soldiers in the back of it.  As the convoy approached the crest of the hill approximately 3-4 North Koreans appeared on the side of the lead truck and lobbed grenades at it.  One of the grenades landed on the hood of the truck and killed the Platoon Sergeant Philip Boudreaux.

After the initial grenade attack more North Koreans opened up on the lead truck with small arms fire.  In the ensuing ambush two more US soldiers, PFC Donald Craplicki and PFC Jerry Skaggs would be killed.  The fatalities could have been much worse if it wasn’t for the actions of Specialist David Richardson who stood up on the back of the truck and returned fire at the ambushers while the other soldiers jumped out over the side of the truck and into an adjacent ditch to take cover.  SPC Richardson was wounded by grenade fragments and shot twice, but incredibly continued to return fire.  The return of fire from Richardson allowed platoon leader 2nd Lieutenant David Colwell who rode in the second truck to organize a response to the ambush.

While soldiers in the second truck took cover Colwell crawled up the hill to the first truck to check on the status of the soldiers. After helping to get wounded soldiers in the ambush zone out of the truck and administering first aid he ran back down the hill to order a soldier to run to a nearby outpost to request reinforcements.  Other soldiers in the second truck then pushed forward to return fire at the ambushers.  The firefight lasted about 30 minutes before the North Koreans withdrew back across the DMZ.  No North Korean bodies were found, but US soldiers reported seeing some of the ambushers shot and blood was later found at the scene.

The aftermath from the ambush left the US with 3 soldiers killed in action, 16 more wounded and one ROK Army Korean Augmentee to the US Army (KATUSA) also wounded.   2LT Colwell would later go on to be recognized with a Bronze Star for his actions that morning.  I could find no record of Specialist Richardson being awarded any valor medals, but it seems like he would have been a great candidate as well.

Ambush Aftermath

A few days after the ambush the United Nations Command officially protested the aggression during the 253rd meeting of the military armistice commission.  During the meeting the UNC spokesman Major General Marvin Demler blasted the North Korean delegation for the deadly attacks.  North Korean spokesman Major General Chung Kuk-pak had the audacity to claim that if any UN soldiers had been killed it was because they shot each other by mistake.  Later in the meeting Maj. Gen. Demler responded to the North Korean subterfuge by saying, “My colleagues and I agree that the proper assessment of this situation is that every ass likes to hear himself bray.”  Demler continued to say that the UNC would “hunt down and kill or capture all North Korean communist intruders.”  Despite Demler’s tough talking the North Koreans would go on two weeks later to launch an even more deadly ambush on Camp Liberty Bell that left 4 soldiers dead and 26 wounded to further escalate the growing DMZ War.

Click the below link for more DMZ Flashpoints articles:

Have you wondered how many illegal Korean immigrants there are in the United States? According to the Korea Times the number of Korean illegal immigrants has actually been declining in recent years and has dropped to 160,000 people:

Trump reaffirmed his plan to build a wall along the Mexican border.

“After the border is secure and after everything gets normalized, we’re going to make a determination on the people that you’re talking about who are terrific people, they’re terrific people, but we are going to make a determination on that,” he said.

Early this month, the Pew Research Center estimated that 160,000 Koreans were in the U.S illegally.

The center said the number of illegal Korean immigrants in the U.S. had risen steadily since 1990 to a peak of about 200,000 in 2010 before declining moderately to 190,000 in 2011 and 180,000 in 2012. [Korea Times]

For those that have visited the Yushukan Museum located adjacent to the highly controversial Yasukuni-jinja Shrine, there is definitely an alternative history of World War II taught in Japan. The majority of people in Japan do believe that the Imperial Japanese militarism was a great folly, but there are people who believe the history taught at the Yushukan Museum that Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor was to preempt an American attack on Japan and liberate Asian people from western colonialism:

The Pearl Harbor attack that led the United States into WWII is normally a historical footnote in Japan, rarely discussed on anniversaries or in depth at schools.

That changed when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced he would visit Pearl Harbor with President Barack Obama on Dec. 27 to offer “comfort to the souls of the victims.”

Most Japanese today view the war as a great folly. The clause in Japan’s constitution that renounces the nation’s right to wage war has taken root so deeply that even new, restrictive laws allowing Japan to defend its allies were viewed with suspicion last year.

However, some divergent perspectives over history remain among two of the world’s closest allies.

Americans are taught that the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor was an unprovoked sneak attack.

The view among some Japanese, and particularly among some otherwise pro-U.S. alliance conservatives, is that a Western economic embargo forced Japan’s hand.

By 1941, Japan controlled large parts of China and other parts of Asia. In July, its military occupied parts of Southeast Asia, including a key port in what is now Vietnam.

The U.S., Britain and The Netherlands responded by freezing Japanese assets in their countries, which included access to most of Japan’s oil supply.

“Indeed, the oil embargo cornered Japan,” Emperor Hirohito said in an audio memoir recorded shortly after the 1945 surrender. The memoir was found in 1990 by the Bungei Shunju magazine and then translated by The New York Times.

“Once the situation had come to this point, it was natural that advocacy for going to war became predominant,” Hirohito said. “If, at that time, I suppressed opinions in favor of war, public opinion would have certainly surged, with people asking questions about why Japan should surrender so easily when it had a highly efficient army and navy, well trained over the years.”  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but the best book I have read about the period before the attack on Pearl Harbor is Eri Hotta’s: Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy.  I highly recommend ROK Heads read this book to really understand why Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.  The Japanese had opportunities to keep parts of their Chinese and Korean colonies if they would withdraw from other areas of China and Southeast Asia as demanded by the US and its allies. How different would things be today if Japan had been allowed to continue the colonization of Korea and parts of China?

There was actually a lot of dissenting opinions in Japan, but the militarists eventually were able to convince enough people they could replicate the success of the Russo-Japanese War with a decisive naval victory against the US at Pearl Harbor.  As history has shown the bombing of Pearl Harbor became one of the great misjudgments in military history.

Regardless of the history involved it is good to see Prime Minister Abe finally make the visit to Pearl Harbor and hopefully put an end to any remaining hard feelings about World War II.

Here is the latest on the Trump phone call with the President of Taiwan that the media was initially trying to frame as him bungling US foreign policy:

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s phone call with Taiwan’s president shows the incoming administration believes China should work hard on North Korea as much as it cares about the cross-strait issue, a transition team official was quoted as saying Tuesday.

The official made the remark during a meeting with a group of South Korean lawmakers, pointing out that China has been unwilling to use its influence over Pyongyang even though Beijing provides most of the North’s energy and food supplies, according to the participating lawmakers.

They declined to identify the official.

On Friday, Trump spoke by phone with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, breaking the decadeslong diplomatic tradition that the U.S. has kept under its “One China” policy since severing ties with Taiwan and normalizing relations with Beijing.

China considers Taiwan a renegade province that must be unified with the mainland and rails against any support for Taiwan’s independence or the notion that the island is not part of the country. Despite the absence of formal diplomatic ties, the U.S. has maintained friendly relations with Taiwan.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Packing up at the @USEmbassySeoul election party. pic.twitter.com/0XR7rYxRVu

— James Pearson (@pearswick) November 9, 2016

It was an amazing US election to see Donald Trump defy expectations and win the US Presidency over Hillary Clinton.  Congratulations to him and his campaign team.  His election will definitely be something that political scientists will be talking about for decades to come.  By the way I thought his acceptance speech was really good:

“Now it’s time for America to bind the wounds of division, have to get together. To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans,” he said.

To countries around the world, Trump said, “While we will always put America’s interests first, we will deal fairly with everyone, with everyone.”

“All people and all other nations. We will seek common ground, not hostility, partnership, not conflict,” he said.  [Yonhap]

Here is what South Korean President Park Geun-hye had to say about the election of Donald Trump:

The commander-in-chief made the remarks during a briefing on the outcome of the National Security Council (NSC) session after Republican Donald Trump won the White House in a hard-fought race against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

“Given the United States is our ally and that the South Korea-U.S. relationship has a great impact on our diplomacy, security and economy, I think we need to extensively explore ways to develop close relations with the incoming Trump administration,” she said.

“In light of the grave situation in which North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats are growing day by day, I call on you to establish cooperative ties with the incoming U.S. administration early in the stage of the government transition,” she added.  [Yonhap]

So what does Donald Trump’s victory mean for the people of South Korea who were deeply against the election of Trump?  Here are my quick thoughts on the biggest areas that the ROK should expect possible impacts on:

• USFK Cost Sharing: Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire to see US allies pay more to support US forces.  To keep this campaign promise I would expect that Trump will ask that South Korea pay more for the upkeep of US forces.  Currently the ROK pays about 50% for upkeep while Japan pays about 75%.  I would expect that South Korea will be asked to pay a number closer to what Japan pays.

• US-ROK Free Trade Agreement: Due to Trump’s election victory the Korean stock market has tanked.  The market tanked because of fears that Trump will want to renegotiate the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement:A key concern is Trump’s “America first” position that includes a preference for trade protectionism.“The market will inevitably face a short-term adjustment if Trump wins,” said Kim Ji-na, a fixed income analyst at IBK Securities. “There’s even a possibility that the 1,900 barrier could fall as Trump’s victory will only raise instability and bring about policy risks.”The bigger concern is that Korea’s economy, which has been facing tough times due to shrinking exports, will suffer heavily.“The Trump victory will not only act as a potential risk for the Korean market but also the global economy,” said Hwang Na-young, a Woori Finance Research Institute researcher. “Once Trump and the Republicans take over, most of the major policies of the Barack Obama years will be reversed: repealing Obamacare, huge tax cuts, easing of financial regulations and a preference for fossil fuel.

  “Major changes are likely in regards to trade policies as protectionism deepens on top of an isolationist approach to diplomatic polices.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

  Here are some facts and figures about Korea-US trade from the Joong Ang Ilbo article:

• I would be surprised if Trump makes it a priority to go after the US-ROK FTA.  Considering the amount of manufacturing jobs brought to the US from Korean car manufacturers it seems the US-ROK FTA is a deal he would want to keep in place.  I think his immediate focus will be on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the North American Free Trade Agreements (NAFTA) which he has been highly critical of.

• North Korea Nuclear Issue: I don’t see Trump wanting to make any nuclear agreement with Kim Jong-un considering the country’s past track record of violating the agreements.  What I do think he will do is push for more sanctions against Chinese banks and businesses in an effort to pressure the Chinese government to reign in North Korea:
  

  Trump also identified North Korea as a problem for China, not the U.S.

  “I would get China to make that guy disappear, in one form or another, very quickly,” Trump said in February on the CBS TV program “This Morning.”

  “China has absolute control of North Korea. They won’t say it, but they do. And they should make that problem disappear.” [Korea Times]

• Immigration: Any Koreans living illegally in the US and hoping for amnesty should probably forget about that idea happening anytime soon.  With that said I do think ironically that with a President Trump an immigration reform deal is more likely because he will try and cut a deal that is not blanket amnesty, but at the same time provides a process for foreign workers to be sponsored to work in the US.  This would reduce illegal immigration across the US-Mexico border and possibly allow him to say he does not need to fully build his famous wall.

Conclusion: So those are my quick thoughts on what the election of Donald Trump means for South Korea.  I think the biggest impact is that the ROK should expect to pay more for the upkeep of USFK.  If not then Trump may begin relooking the US-ROK FTA which South Korea has much more to lose.  Does anyone else have any other areas that they foresee that a President Trump will have a significant impact on in South Korea over the next four years?  If so please share your opinions in the comments section.

The NY Post recently reported that Hillary Clinton had been allowing her maid to print out classified emails for her.  What really puzzled me though was this passage where the maid had access to a SCIF:

Santos also had access to a highly secure room called an SCIF (sensitive compartmented information facility) that diplomatic security agents set up at Whitehaven, according to FBI notes from an interview with Abedin.

From within the SCIF, Santos — who had no clearance — “collected documents from the secure facsimile machine for Clinton,” the FBI notes revealed.

Just how sensitive were the papers Santos presumably handled? The FBI noted Clinton periodically received the Presidential Daily Brief — a top-secret document prepared by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies — via the secure fax.  [NY Post]

Unless you are in the military or work with classified information in the government I don’t think most people realize how significant this is.  How did the maid have access to a SCIF?  How did she even get in?  I could only imagine what would happen to a servicemember who brought a random janitor for example into a military SCIF and let them run around and grab documents.

Any tri-lateral cooperation like this good between the US, ROK and Japan:

The United States, Japan and South Korea will practice detecting and stopping ships carrying weapons of mass destruction during a sea exercise this weekend.

The trilateral exercise comes in light of North Korea’s continued work on its nuclear weapons and missile program, South Korean defense officials told reporters in Seoul on Thursday.

The maritime interdiction operation will be held Saturday and Sunday in international waters south of South Korea’s Jeju Island, Yonhap News reported.

The sea services also will conduct search and rescue exercises aimed at rescuing personnel on disabled ships, the report said.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.