Tag: North Korea

In a new book written by H.R. McMaster he discusses his time working in the Trump administration and the friction with the Moon administration over the North Korea nuclear issue:

In the book, titled, “At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House,” H.R. McMaster, who served as national security advisor from 2017-2018, revealed a series of anecdotes where the administrations of former Presidents Moon Jae-in and Donald Trump diverged on North Korea and other issues. (……..)

“Moon said that, just like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Khadafi, Kim believed that he needed nuclear weapons for defense,” McMaster wrote.

“Pence asked Moon, ‘Why does Kim Jong-un need nukes when he has conventional artillery in range of Seoul? We have to consider the possibility that Kim wants the weapons for offensive purposes,'” he added.

Yonhap

Why can’t it be both? Clearly Kim saw what happened to Khadafi and Saddam and does not want that to happen to him. His conventional artillery is enough to deter the ROK and the U.S. as long as USFK is in South Korea. However, if USFK is ever withdrawn that then gives the U.S. more flexibility to strike North Korea without fear of instant retaliation against U.S. troops.

Nucelar weapons combined with their missile program are clearly aimed to deter the U.S. by threatening to launch nuclear weapons against bases in Japan, Guam, and eventually the U.S. mainland if they develop a reliable ICBM. This is why the Kim regime has been wanting to sign a peace agreement with the U.S. during the Moon administration. If there is peace why is USFK still needed? North Korea strategy is to get USFK out and then deter the U.S. with nuclear weapons.

If North Korea feels the U.S. is deterred then tactical nukes could then be used during any offensive operation into South Korea. However, I believe this would actually be a last option for the Kim regime. During the Moon administration the Kim regime was trying to push a confederation policy with South Korea that ultimately failed, but would not be surprised if it came up again in the future.

I would not be surprised if Kim Jong-un is developing and showcasing his suicide drones in hopes of selling them to Russia:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has overseen a performance test of various drones, calling for the development and production of more suicide drones to enhance war preparedness, state media reported Monday.

Kim supervised the test organized by the Drone Institute of the Academy of Defence Sciences on Saturday, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

In the test, the drones flew along various preset courses and correctly identified and destroyed the designated targets, as they have missions to attack enemy targets on the ground and in the sea, the report said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The shots that Kamala Harris recently made against Donald Trump demonstrates that her administration would just continue what the Biden administration has already been doing:

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has said she will not “cozy up to” dictators like North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, whom she cast as “rooting for” her Republican rival Donald Trump.

In her nomination acceptance speech in Chicago on Thursday, Vice President Harris took aim at former President Trump, who has long boasted about his personal ties with Kim, stressing she knows “where I stand” in the “struggle between democracy and tyranny.”

“I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong-un who are rooting for Trump,” she told a cheering crowd of Democrats on the fourth and final day of the Democratic National Convention.

“They know he is easy to manipulate with flattery and favors. They know Trump won’t hold autocrats accountable because he wants to be an autocrat himself,” she added.

The remarks reinforced expectations that Harris, if elected, could focus on working together with allies to bolster deterrence against North Korean threats while leaving the door open for dialogue with Pyongyang — largely in line with President Joe Biden’s approach.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I have long been a supporter of flooding North Korea with as much outside information as possible to challenge the propaganda the regime indoctrinates its people with. However, the number of defections though up this year are still too small to say the regime is crumbling:

A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea, Tuesday, by walking across the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) on the heavily fortified inter-Korean border. The defection occurred about two weeks after a North Korean resident crossed the maritime border in the Han River estuary on the west coast.

In recent years, North Korea’s elite, including high-level diplomats stationed abroad, have also defected to the South. The latest defector, Ri Il-gyu, fled from Cuba to South Korea in November of last year.

North Korea watchers and defectors residing in South Korea say these defections might indicate increasing economic hardship in the North and a growing desire for freedom among its residents, driven by access to information about the outside world. (…..)

Kim Seung-chul, president of North Korea Reform Radio who defected from the North in 1993, said President Yoon Suk Yeol’s policy of embracing defectors has stirred up complex feelings in the minds of North Koreans.

“South Korea celebrated its first North Korean Defectors’ Day on July 14, and President Yoon’s outreach to 26 million North Korean citizens in his speech is affecting the minds of North Koreans. The loudspeaker campaign and anti-Pyongyang leaflets have also been effective in bringing about change,” Kim said.

Socio-economic factors, such as economic hardship and political oppression, continue to drive North Koreans to flee their country. In the first half of the year, the number of North Korean defectors arriving in South Korea reached 105, a slight increase from 99 in the previous year.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but there has never been a coordinated and sustained effort to flood North Korea with outside information. This is probably the lowest cost way to pressure the Kim regime. Just their reactions to the propaganda balloon launches by the defector group Fighters for a Free North Korea demonstrates that what they are doing is having an impact within North Korea.

I am sure Ms. Stephens feels like she is doing something positive, but in my opinion she is just enabling the Kim regime to receive tourism dollars that ultimately goes to funding their nuclear and missile programs that threatens regional peace:

When British traveler Zoe Stephens, 30, decided to tour North Korea for the first time in 2017, she didn’t think she would be doing it for a living.

“I went to North Korea as a tourist first, pretty much the same way as everyone else. I realized it’s nothing like what the media says,” she told The Korea Herald. She said “the real North Korea” took her by surprise and charmed her.

“So I decided that I wanted to start doing tours to show everyone what the media wasn’t showing — the human side to North Korea.”

Since then she has visited North Korea more than two dozen times, staying as long as a month at a time until the pandemic shut down the borders. She eventually began working as a tour guide for a Beijing-based company Koryo Tours, which mainly offers travel programs to North Korea.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but Ms. Stephens claims she has free access to go around the country and take pictures. However, I doubt they are taking her to the labor camps and firing squads. Keep that in mind every time someone tells you how great North Korea is to visit.

This is interesting because it is very rare for a North Korean Soldiers to defect across the DMZ like this. It causing officials to wonder if Seoul’s newly started propaganda broadcasts might be having an effect:

A North Korean soldier crossed the border into South Korea early Tuesday in the latest defection amid Seoul’s propaganda campaign in response to Pyongyang’s s repeated launches of trash-carrying balloons.

The South Korean military detected the soldier from north of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) within the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas in the eastern section of the border and conducted an operation to help him arrive in the South.

The North Korean, wearing a military uniform, is believed to have walked southward through a path located near the Donghae road along the east coast — one of the two rare roads connecting the two Koreas where the North has installed mines and removed street lights. (….)

The defection came just 12 days after a North Korean resident defected to the South by crossing the neutral zone of the Han River estuary located west of the inter-Korean land border.

It also came as South Korea has been conducting full-scale anti-Pyongyang broadcasts, including news and K-pop music, daily through its border loudspeakers since mid-July in response to the North’s repeated launches of trash-carrying balloons.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is what President Yoon recently had to say about North Korea’s gray zone attacks:

President Yoon Suk Yeol called for bolstering readiness against North Korea’s “gray zone” provocations and hybrid warfare as South Korea and the United States kicked off their annual joint exercise on Monday. (…….)

Yoon warned that the North might seek to create social instability through violence, propaganda and agitation at the early stages of a conflict.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but isn’t Yoon basically describing the Korean left? Violence, propaganda, and agitation is what they specialize in.

Goats may be one of the few things that Russia sends to North Korea that doesn’t violate UN sanctions, not that they care about UN sanctions in the first place:

 Russia’s agriculture safety watchdog has approved the shipment of 447 goats to North Korea after reviewing related veterinary and sanitary conditions, according to its website, amid deepening cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow.

After veterinary inspection, 432 female and 15 male goats were sent to a North Korean trading company in the first batch of exports of live animals to the North, according to a statement posted on the website of Russia’s Rosselkhoznadzor on Friday.

The shipment was intended to be delivered from Russia’s Leningrad region to North Korea’s border city of Rason, it said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is pretty clear if Kim Jong-un wants something he will get it despite the sanctions on North Korea:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un appears to be using a new model of a Mercedes-Benz SUV in a move snubbing international sanctions banning North Korea’s imports of luxury items.

Photos carried by the Korean Central News Agency on Saturday showed a black Mercedes-Benz SUV on a special train that Kim used to visit flood-hit areas of Uiju County in the northwestern province of North Phyongan last week.

The SUV is presumed to be the top-class model of the face-lifted Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600 4MATIC that was launched in April in South Korea. The price tag started at 279 million won (US$204,000).

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is a low cost provocation that North Korea could probably keep doing indefinitely to keep the pressure on the Yoon administration over the propaganda balloon launches:

North Korea launched balloons presumed to be carrying trash toward South Korea again Saturday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, marking a resumption after more than two weeks.

The JCS said it detected the launches, noting the possibility of the balloons traveling toward the northern part of Gyeonggi Province that surrounds Seoul despite winds blowing in northern and northeastern directions.

It warned the public of falling objects and not to touch the balloons if discovered, requesting they report them to the military or police.

North Korea has launched more than 3,600 trash balloons since May 28 in a tit-for-tat move against balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets flown by North Korean defectors and activists in South Korea. Pyongyang last sent the balloons on July 24.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.