Tag: nuclear weapons

This shouldn’t come as any surprise considering the main reason for the Kim regime’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is to prevent regime change:

North Korea will launch a nuclear strike at the heart of the United States if Americans attempt a regime change in Pyongyang, the North’s state news agency said Tuesday in denunciation of recent remarks by the Central Intelligence Agency director.

In a forum last week, Mike Pompeo, the chief of the U.S. intelligence agency, alluded to the possibility of a regime change in North Korea by saying that the most important thing the U.S. can do is “separate (nuclear) capacity and someone who might well have (nuclear) intent and break those two apart.”

“Should the U.S. dare to show even the slightest sign of attempt to remove our supreme leadership, we will strike a merciless blow at the heart of the U.S. with our powerful nuclear hammer, honed and hardened over time,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, quoting a spokesman of the North Korean foreign ministry.

The report said Pompeo’s remarks “have gone over the line, and it has now become clear that the ultimate aim of the Trump administration … is the regime change.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

This is another example of the momentum building towards a freeze deal with North Korea:

A pro-North Korean newspaper in Japan said Tuesday that President Moon Jae-in should not expect a positive response from Pyongyang to his latest reconciliatory proposal, as Seoul is still not giving up its submission to the United States.

The Chosun Sinbo also called on South Korea to end its joint annual military exercises with the U.S. if it hopes to prove its willingness to improve ties.

Moon unveiled a broad vision for bringing peace to the Korean Peninsula during his speech in Berlin last Thursday, two days after the North test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

“If the proposal is based on South Korea’s subversion to the U.S. and hostility toward the North, Seoul cannot expect Pyongyang’s positive response,” the newspaper said.

The paper serves as an unofficial mouthpiece for Pyongyang. North Korea’s state media has yet to unveil its official response to Moon’s proposal.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but calls from the North Korean media to end US-ROK military drills will be ceased upon by the freeze deal advocates as a sign that the Kim regime is acceptable to such a deal.  The Chinese and Russians have also come out in support of suspending US-ROK military drills in return for North Korea suspending their missile and nuclear programs.

John Wolfsthal a nuclear policy expert writes in Foreign Policy about how the United States needs to accept North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and learn to live it like we have China and other countries:

At the same time, we have to accept that the game has changed. The dangers of a military conflict between the United States and North Korea have global implications. This means the United States and North Korea must begin immediate talks to avoid such conflicts, and to communicate directly to North Korea’s leaders exactly what actions would require a direct U.S. military response. We have had to do this as other states gained nuclear capabilities, because failure to do so left too much to chance. This is no concession, but self-preservation.

This list is not exhaustive, but the president, his cabinet and advisors, and our leaders in Congress need to begin the long-overdue conversation about what North Korean actions we seek to prevent. Unlike Trump’s tweets, our conclusions need to be specific and we need to back them up, lest confidence in U.S. commitments — to deter our enemies and protect our allies — gets even weaker. [Foreign Policy]

You can read the rest at the link, but his recommendations include communicating to the Kim regime that proliferation will lead to a “direct response” whatever that means.  North Korea has already tried to proliferate nuclear technology to Syria and nothing happened to them then.  So would the US be willing to attack North Korea in future if it tries to proliferate again?  I am skeptical.  He also recommends that the US respond to proliferating missile technology.  They have already done this with little consequence as well.  He also thinks that North Korea needs to be engaged at the sub strategic level when they commit bad acts such as cyber attacks.

Only North Korea would feel that a nuclear attack is the correct response to joint military exercise https://t.co/V2ts5jC0qf

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) July 9, 2017

Another example of the advancements in North Korea’s nuclear program:

North Korea clearly has the ability to produce tritium internally, a basic element for making hydrogen bombs, although the country has yet to weaponize it, an American nuclear expert said Tuesday.

“The evidence is quite clear that North Korea is able to produce tritium, which is necessary for a hydrogen bomb to create fusion. So you need tritium when you are going to have hydrogen bombs,” Siegfried Hecker, a professor at Standford University, told a group of journalists here.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

This is easier said than done:

China and the United States agreed that efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula should be “complete, verifiable and irreversible”, Chinese state media said on Saturday, reporting the results of high level talks in Washington this week.

“Both sides reaffirm that they will strive for the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” a consensus document released by the official Xinhua news agency said.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had said on Thursday that the United States pressed China to ramp up economic and political pressure on North Korea, during his meeting with top Chinese diplomats and defense chiefs.

China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi and General Fang Fenghui met Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis during the talks. Yang later met with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House, where they also discussed North Korea, Xinhua reported.

The consensus document also highlighted the need to fully and strictly hold to U.N. Security Council resolutions and push for dialogue and negotiation, which has long been China’s position on the issue.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the Moon administration is still pushing for Sunshine Policy 2.0 and a peace treaty with North Korea:

South Korea may consult with the United States about scaling back joint military exercises and deployment of American strategic weapons if North Korea suspends nuclear and missile activities, an adviser to President Moon Jae-in said Friday.

Moon Chung-in, a foreign affairs scholar and special presidential adviser, made the remark during a Wilson Center seminar in Washington, saying President Moon has proposed the idea.

“He proposed two things. One, if North Korea suspends its nuclear and missile activities, then we may consult with the United States to (on) scaling down ROK-US joint exercises and training. I think what he has in mind is we may scale down deployment of American strategic weapons over the Korean Peninsula,” the adviser said.

“Another one is linking North Korea’s denuclearization to creation of a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula,” he said.  (……..)

During the seminar, the adviser said that President Moon pursues “incremental, comprehensive and fundamental” denuclearization with North Korea, beginning with a freeze on its nuclear and missile programs and a verifiable dismantlement of its nuclear facilities and materials.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but here is my view on a freeze deal.  Any freeze deal should not include a peace treaty and only include the scaling down of US-ROK military exercises.  A peace treaty should only be offered in return for the complete dismantlement of their nuclear and ICBM programs which we know they will never do.

The freeze deal should then have strong language in it that any non-compliance by North Korea opens them to a kinetic strike to ensure compliance.  Including language that includes the use of force to ensure compliance gives the US world opinion on its side if it needs to strike North Korea.  It additionally puts pressure on China to ensure that Pyongyang is complying with the deal to avoid the use of force being used against North Korea.

This AP article stresses what I have been saying for years, that the Kim regime is not crazy or suicidal, but rather quite rational in regards to their pursuit of ICBMs and nuclear weapons:

Early one winter morning, Kim Jong Un stood at a remote observation post overlooking a valley of rice paddies near the Chinese border.

The North Korean leader beamed with delight as he watched four extended range Scud missiles roar off their mobile launchers, comparing the sight to a team of acrobats performing in unison. Minutes later the projectiles splashed into the sea off the Japanese coast, 620 miles from where he was standing.

It was an unprecedented event. North Korea had just run its first simulated nuclear attack on an American military base.

This scene from March 6, described in government propaganda, shows how the North’s seemingly crazy, suicidal nuclear program “. Rather, this is North Korea’s very deliberate strategy to ensure the survival of its ruling regime.

Back in the days of Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s “eternal president” and Kim Jong Un’s grandfather, the ruling regime decided it needed two things to survive: reliable, long-range missiles and small, but potent, nuclear warheads. For a small and relatively poor country, that was, indeed, a distant and ambitious goal. But it detonated its first nuclear device on Oct. 9, 2006.

Today, North Korea is testing advanced ballistic missiles faster than ever — a record 24 last year and three in just the past month. With each missile and each nuclear device, it becomes a better equipped, better trained and better prepared adversary. Some experts believe it might be able to build a missile advanced enough to reach the United States’ mainland with a nuclear warhead in two to three years.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link, including the scenarios that anyone against developing missile defense systems needs to consider.

Another example of the urgency the Trump administration has put on stopping North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

The Central Intelligence Agency has created a special team dealing exclusively with North Korea in an unusual move underscoring the seriousness the United States attaches to the nuclear and missile threats from the communist nation.

The Korea Mission Center was established to “harness the full resources, capabilities, and authorities of the Agency in addressing the nuclear and ballistic missile threat posed by North Korea,” CIA said in a statement. “The new mission center draws on experienced officers from across the agency and integrates them in one entity to bring their expertise and creativity to bear against the North Korea target.”

A veteran CIA operations officer has been selected as the new assistant director for Korea and presides over the mission center, the statement said without identifying the officer, adding that the team will work closely with the intelligence community and the entire U.S. national security community.

“Creating the Korea Mission Center allows us to more purposefully integrate and direct CIA efforts against the serious threats to the United States and its allies emanating from North Korea,” CIA Director Mike Pompeo said. “It also reflects the dynamism and agility that CIA brings to evolving national security challenges.”  [Yonhap]

Here is the latest North Korea scare story:

North Korea could be planning an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) strike on the US with two satellites already orbiting above the Earth, an expert has claimed.

Dr Peter Vincent Pry claims that Pyongyang may be secretly developing the ability to detonate a high-altitude nuclear weapon in space which would set off the pulse, wiping out electrical systems below.

The secretive kingdom is believed to have started a satellite programme during the 1980s and successfully launched two observation satellites in 2012 and 2016, which take an estimated 94 minutes to complete an orbit of the earth.

Dr Pry, executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security who sits a US Congress committee on EMPs, claimed North Korea is practising a “cyberage version” of battleship diplomacy so they can always have “one of [their satellites] very close to being over the United States”.

He said the North Koreans may use this as a bargaining chip if the US threatens to carry out military sanctions against the regime.  [The Independent]

You can read more at the link, but North Korea in the recent months has actually claimed to have conducted a test run of using an electro magnetic pulse attack against US satellites.