Tag: North Korea

I don’t think the North Koreans would undertake an attributal terrorist attack against South Korea if it wanted to raise tensions. An operation similar to what they did with the Cheonan makes more sense. In that operation they sunk a ROK naval vessel and then blamed the South Koreans for sinking it themselves. The left wing useful idiots in South Korea then accused the former President Lee for sinking the Cheonan to blame North Korea. There are still useful idiots to this day in South Korea that believe this nonsense:

This photo, provided by the Korea Institute for National Unification on Feb. 14, 2024, shows the state-run think tank holding a forum on inter-Korean relations in Seoul.

North Korea may attempt to mobilize its spies or sympathizers in South Korea to stage a terrorist attack on the South in a manner similar to attacks by Islamic Jihad, an expert said Wednesday.

Cho Han-bum, a senior research fellow at the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU) said North Korea is expected to raise military tensions as its leader Kim Jong-un defined inter-Korean ties as relations “between two states hostile to each other” at a year-end party meeting.

“With Kim’s announcement, North Korean spies and sympathizers in South Korea could work as ‘wartime’ agents to engage in activities commensurate with a state of war,” Cho told a forum on the two Koreas’ relations.

He raised the possibility of North Korean espionage agents staging a terrorist attack in South Korea on orders from North Korea, or of South Koreans with pro-North Korean stances staging a “lone-wolf” terrorist attack.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

What they don’t know is how many of these phones are smartphones? It seems in a country with only a regime controlled intranet, a smartphone is not as useful as in other countries:

An estimated six million North Koreans have cellular phones as of 2021, a recently published report by a state-run think-tank said, indicating a wave of change among the people living under the oppressive regime.

The Korea Institute for National Unification conducted a study on how distribution of mobile phones is affecting North Koreans’ quality of life, in which they presumed that a little over 23 percent of some 25.7 million North Koreans own smartphones. The consensus was based on estimations by various research institutes and organizations.

The study said that cell phone use in the hermit kingdom rapidly has increased since 2009, which is around the time when network distribution for mobile phones started spreading among the public. According to the researchers, the number of phones using a landline is expected to be around 1.18 million, unchanged since 2008. At the same time, cellphones in North Korea outnumbered landline phones in 2011 and kept growing.

It is yet unclear how much of the mobile phones distributed in North Korea are smartphones, due to lack of related statistics. But researchers speculated that smartphones will eventually outlast any other type of mobile phone in the country, based on anecdotal evidence.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

This is a huge amount of stolen money for a country as poor as North Korea to acquire:

U.N. experts say they are investigating 58 suspected North Korean cyberattacks between 2017 and 2023 valued at approximately $3 billion, with the money reportedly being used to help fund its development of weapons of mass destruction. And the high volume of cyberattacks by North Korean hacking groups who report to the Reconnaissance General Bureau, North Korea’s primary foreign intelligence organization, is reportedly continuing, the panel of experts said in the executive summary of a new report to the U.N. Security Council obtained Friday by The Associated Press.

The report covering the period from July 2023 to January 2024 and reflecting contributions from unidentified U.N. member nations and other sources, was sent to the 15-member council as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has raised tensions in the region. He is threatening to annihilate South Korea if provoked and escalating weapons demonstrations. In response, the United States, South Korea and Japan have strengthened their combined military exercises.

Stars and Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Now the Russians are making nuclear threats on behalf of the Kim regime:

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, greets North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui in a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow on Jan. 16. [AP/YONHAP]

Russia’s top envoy to Pyongyang said that North Korea may decide to conduct a seventh nuclear test if the United States continues taking “provocative steps” in the region. 
  
“I think whether or not there will be another nuclear experiment in North Korea depends on how the military-political situation on the peninsula will unfold,” Russian Ambassador to North Korea Aleksandr Matsegora said in an interview with Russia’s state-controlled TASS news agency Wednesday.  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Some expert believe all the war rhetoric directed at South Korea from Kim Jong-un may be because of pressure he is facing domestically from millenials:

The group of people who believe fear-driven barking is more convincing than the war scenario highlights North Korea’s internal factors as a source of Kim’s belligerent behavior. They argue that such behavior serves to deflect attention from domestic issues and challenges. Inside this school of thought, views are divided. Some argue that economic frustration is a key driver of North Korea’s escalating saber-rattling.

Others argue that the primary driver behind North Korea’s increasing saber-rattling is not just a food shortage but a more fundamental concern. According to this perspective, Kim Jong-un is deeply troubled by South Korea’s cultural influence, which has become widespread, especially among teenagers and millennials in their 20s and 30s. This group, often referred to as the “Jangmadang Generation,” grew up experiencing elements of capitalism through their parents’ involvement in markets to make ends meet. They believe that if not adequately controlled, this cultural influence could pose a serious threat to the regime.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but uncontrolled access to outside information has always been a major threat to the Kim regime. Keeping the North Korean people isolated and indoctrinated with only regime propaganda is a must to maintain the current system of power.

The South Korean public understands what I have been saying for years, U.S. North Korea policy is at odds with reality because North Korea is never going to give up their nuclear weapons. The best that can be done is probably a deal that limits the amount of nuclear weapons they have and possibly eliminated their ICBM program:

Nine out of ten South Koreans are skeptical about the possibility of North Korea abandoning its nuclear program, a survey showed Monday, as the reclusive country continues to advance its nuclear weapons and missile programs.

According to the Gallup Korea poll of 1,043 adults, commissioned by the Chey Institute for Advanced Studies, 91 percent replied that the North’s denuclearization was “impossible.”

Of them, 41.4 percent considered denuclearization to be “not possible at all,” while 49.7 percent said it was not possible.

In last year’s poll, 77.6 percent of the respondents said they believed North’s denuclearization was impossible.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.