Tag: Kim Jong-un

The CIA concurs with what I have been saying for a long time, that everything Kim Jong-un has been doing from his perspective make rational sense.  He has been playing a delicate balancing act of consolidating power internally while conducting provocations and developing his ICBM and nuclear weapons programs to deter external foes:

President Donald Trump has depicted the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a “madman”—but U.S. intelligence officials do not agree.

According to Yong Suk Lee, the deputy assistant director of the CIA’s Korea Mission Center, the young North Korean ruler is actually a lot less erratic than he is often portrayed.

“Beyond the bluster, Kim Jong Un is a rational actor,” he said at a conference on the CIA at George Washington University on Wednesday, quoted by AFP.

Trump and Kim have reguarly traded insults but despite the latter’s threat to the American president last month, the North Korean ruler does not seek a military confrontation because he is more interested in ensuring his regime’s survival and stability.

“We have a tendency in this country and elsewhere to underestimate his conservatism” Lee said, adding “He wants to rule for a long time and die in his own bed.”  [Newsweek]

You can read more at the link.

field of dreams, starring Kim Jong Un pic.twitter.com/290IPADuMI

— Oliver Hotham (@OliverHotham) October 2, 2017

Here is Kim Jong-un’s reaction to President Trump’s speech to the UN General Assembly:

Famous for using bombastic, derogatory and often-awkward English slams against enemies, North Korean state media sent people scrambling for dictionaries Friday with a dispatch that quotes leader Kim Jong Un calling President Donald Trump “the mentally deranged U.S. dotard.”

The what?

Dotard means a person in a feeble or childish state due to old age. It’s a translation of a Korean word, “neukdari,” which is a derogatory reference to an old person.

It was used in an unusual direct statement from Kim that the Korean Central News Agency transmitted verbatim in response to Trump’s speech at the U.N. this week, in which he mocked Kim as a “Rocket Man” on a “suicide mission,” and said that if the U.S. is “forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.”  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link.  Here is what President Trump had to say via Twitter in response:

Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn't mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 22, 2017

Wouldn’t it be great if Kim Jong-un got his own Twitter account and him and President Trump could just have a Twitter war instead of going back in forth in the media like this?

Kim Jong-un may actually like the nickname Donald Trump has come up for him:

Donald Trump has referred to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as “rocket man” in a tweet about a conversation with the South Korean President.

The US leader tweeted that he had been speaking with Moon Jae-in about the situation with the secretive communist state, which has launched a series of ballistic missiles in recent weeks and conducted its most powerful nuclear test to date.

“I spoke with President Moon of South Korea last night,” Mr Trump wrote. “Asked him how Rocket Man is doing.”

He added that long petrol lines has been forming in North Korea, which he said was “too bad”.  [The Independent]

You can read more at the link, but I doubt whatever long gas lines there are, are effecting anyone in the regime elite.

I spoke with President Moon of South Korea last night. Asked him how Rocket Man is doing. Long gas lines forming in North Korea. Too bad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 17, 2017

I doubt Kim Jong-un is very concerned about this when he knows there is almost zero chance the ROK President is willing to execute such a preemptive strike.  This report seems more for domestic consumption to show the ROK public the government is “doing something”:

South Korea’s defense minister is publicly boasting that it will create a new “decapitation unit” called the Spartan 3000 with the express intent of taking out North Korean leadership, The New York Times reports.

The brigade-sized unit of between 2,000 and 4,000 soldiers will be established by year’s end, The Times reported the defense minister, Song Young-moo, as saying, adding that the military was already “retooling” helicopters and transporting planes to be able to penetrate North Korean airspace at night.

It’s out of the ordinary for a senior government leader to publicly say they are working on a plan to assassinate a foreign head of state. But there’s an interesting reason behind it: The South is trying to freak out its northern neighbor and get it to the negotiating table instead of further developing nuclear weapons.

“The best deterrence we can have, next to having our own nukes, is to make Kim Jong Un fear for his life,” retired South Korean Lt. Gen. Shin Won-sik told The Times.  [Business Insider]

You can read more at the link.

Meanwhile in California:

pic.twitter.com/vMbq5gNwQV

— Bruce Klingner (@BruceKlingner) September 8, 2017

Peace in our time with North Korea is just around the corner, US ambassador to North Korea former NBA basketball player Dennis Rodman is on the case:

With tensions brewing between the leaders of the United States and North Korea, one man believes he can help keep the peace.

Former NBA star Dennis Rodman hopes to “straighten things out” between President Donald Trump and supreme leader Kim Jong Un, two men Rodman calls friends.

He appeared on “Good Morning Britain” via satellite from Los Angeles on Wednesday and was asked about his relationship with Kim and the multiple trips to North Korea.

As I have said before, despite all the provocations and deadly aggressive behavior over the past few years by Kim Jong-un, some how South Koreans are more fearful of President Trump:

“My firm belief is that war will not happen. The general consensus among my friends is that war won’t break out since the U.S. and China are involved,” Choi Yong-kwan, a 20-year-old college student, said as he read an article on his mobile phone.”But I definitely do feel a sense of growing tension and fear ― it’s their sixth nuclear test and they are on their way to refining their nukes.”

“I’ll leave Korea and head for Canada or something” was the initial response from Park, an elementary school teacher. But as she went on, she dismissed the idea of war. “To be honest I don’t put too much thought into this because it’s always been this way. War does not come easily,” she said. “And we shouldn’t be worried. Fear is what leads to war.”

For the public in the South, North Korea’s provocations are not treated as something new. Although most stuck to this instinct, some added U.S. President Donald Trump as a new, unpredictable and perhaps even more frightening variable.

“This is nothing new. Just another provocation by the North as I see it and it’s been worse before but still did not lead to war. I don’t think any South Korean male who has been in the military is scared,” 29-year-old Yoon Tae-jun from Busan said, adding “But then again I’m not sure this time because of Trump.

“I’m not keeping an eye on this ― maybe this is the problem. But this time, maybe Trump will take some sort of action,” Kwon Suk-in, 27, said. “There must be no war.”  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un observes the launch of a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile in Pyongyang on Aug. 29, 2017, North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Aug. 30. The missile flew over Japan and landed in the northern Pacific Ocean. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)