Tag: nuclear weapons

It figures the North Koreans would send a congratulatory message to a regime that likes to use chemical weapons on their own citizens:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has sent a congratulatory message to Syria over the founding anniversary of the country’s ruling party, Pyongyang’s media said Friday, amid global condemnation against Damascus’s suspected chemical weapon attack on civilians.

The North’s leader sent the message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to mark the 70th anniversary of the creation of the controlling Ba’ath party, according to Rodong Sinmun, North Korea’s main newspaper.

The move is seen to be aimed at showing friendly ties between Pyongyang and Damascus as about 90 people were killed by the Syrian government’s suspected uses of chemical weapons Tuesday against a rebel-held area in the northern part of the country.

“The two countries’ friendly relations will be strengthened and developed, given their fight against imperialism,” Kim was quoted as saying by the newspaper.  (…….)

 

The U.S. launched a barrage of cruise missiles at an air base on Thursday night (local time) in retaliation for the latest chemical weapon attack for which Washington blames Assad.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but long time ROK Drop readers may remember that in 2007 North Korean scientists were killed by an Israeli bombing strike into Syria that destroyed the nuclear reactor the Kim regime was helping the Syrians to construct. Now a decade later the North Korean nuclear reactor may be the next one facing a bombing strike.

Don’t tell me to talk to North Korea if you aren’t listening to North Korea. https://t.co/cKnwsRIj9o pic.twitter.com/nxXzoljv0R

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) March 28, 2017

A ROK Drop favorite Nicholas Eberstadt has an article published on the Fox News website that discusses his viewpoint in regards to what to do about the North Korean nuclear program:

As bizarre and satire-prone as the North Korean regime’s buffoonish-looking Kim Jong-Un and his servile courtiers may be, Pyongyang’s leadership is neither irrational nor suicidal. The rationale behind this confrontation would actually be to achieve a maximum of strategic gain with a minimum of actual destruction and violence.

The basic idea is to force Washington to blink in an escalating crisis on the Korean peninsula—a crisis of Pyongyang’s own making, at a time and under circumstances of Pyongyang’s own choosing.

If America hesitates or climbs down in the face of a future, stage-managed exercise in tactical North Korean aggression, Pyongyang will have undermined the credibility of the U.S. military alliance with South Korea.

The formal end to that alliance, and the exit of American troops from Korea, could quickly follow.  (…….)

Likewise more and better missile defense: the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems against ballistic missiles that the U.S. has offered  South Korea and Japan is a good step, and so is moving forward in earnest on missile defense for the USA.

As for weakening the DPRK’s military economy, the foundation for all its offensive capabilities: we should put Pyongyang back on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list—it never should have been removed in 2008. Sanctions with genuine bite should be implemented—the dysfunctional DPRK economy is uniquely susceptible to them.

The United Nations has already gotten a comprehensive report on North Korea’s grisly human rights record from its Commission of Inquiry on the situation in the DPRK: let governments of conscience now seek international criminal accountability for North Korea’s leadership.

Then there is the China question. It is by no means impossible for America and her allies to pressure the DPRK if China does not cooperate. That said: it is time for Beijing to pay a penalty for its support for the most odious regime on the planet today. [Fox News]

You can read more at the link, but I fully agree with Eberstadt’s statement that people need to understand that the Kim regime is not irrational or suicidal.  From their perspective everything they have been doing makes sense.  A nuclear deterrent ensures regime survival; their provocation cycles have historically been successful in getting concessions from South Korea and the US.  Why stop now?

This was actually good advice which so far the Kim regime has been following:

A former chief U.S. nuclear negotiator with North Korea said he advised diplomats from Pyongyang to refrain from greeting a new U.S. administration with nuclear or missile tests when he met with them in Malaysia in October.

Robert Gallucci, who negotiated a now-defunct 1994 nuclear freeze deal with the North, held meetings in Kuala Lumpur on Oct. 21-22 with senior diplomats from North Korea, including Vice Foreign Minister Han Song-ryol and Deputy U.N. Ambassador Jang Il-hun.

“When I met North Korean representatives for Track II discussions in Kuala Lumpur, I took the opportunity to advise them that they should avoid greeting a new American administration with new nuclear or ballistic missile tests, or any aggressive moves towards the U.S. or its allies,” Gallucci said.

“I suggested that whomever the next president turned out to be, they would not appreciate such a greeting and would undoubtedly respond with appropriate vigor and certainly not with an inclination to negotiate any time soon,” he said in a statement prepared for a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing set for Tuesday.  [Yonhap]

Here is what else Mr. Gallucci had to say about what other North Korea experts have been advocating for:

Gallucci said that the U.S. should not seek anything short of North Korea’s complete denuclearization, voicing concern that too many analysts are now arguing that all the U.S. needs is to stop the North Korean nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs from growing.

Seeking such a freeze is “unrealistic and dangerous,” he said.

Entering into negotiations with the North without the U.S. declaring its goal of a non-nuclear North Korea would “appear to have the United States legitimize the North’s nuclear weapons status, and thus increase the likelihood that before too long South Korea and then Japan would follow suit,” Gallucci said.

The way I look at it is that Gallucci wants the US to negotiate for something the North Koreans will never give up.  What deal could the US possibly offer for the Kim regime to give up their nuclear weapons?  I have not heard one person give a realistic option on what the incentive would be for the Kim regime to give up its nukes.  This is like going into negotiations with the Taliban and asking them to give up radical Islam, that is how important the nuclear weapons are to the Kim regime.  Nuclear weapons is something that legitimizes and assures regime survival, just like radical Islam is to the Taliban.

There have been many North Korea experts arguing that President Trump should pursue a deal with North Korea to freeze their nuclear and ICBM programs.  One US expert has now called any freeze deal with North Korea a “mirage”:

Most proponents are more careful than Mr. Clapper and refer to a “freeze” rather than a “cap.” A cap suggests U.S. acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear weapons state for the indefinite future. Doing that would destroy U.S. credibility not only with its allies in Seoul and Tokyo but throughout the world as well. It would also undermine the global nuclear nonproliferation regime and signal to Iran that it could violate its own nuclear agreement with impunity.

Most cap proponents understand this and so talk publicly instead about a freeze, arguing that it would just be a steppingstone on the way to elimination. This is disingenuous because they themselves don’t believe Pyongyang will ever give up the nuclear weapons it already has or even fully stop its nuclear development activities under a freeze.

In truth, a freeze now would just be a cap in disguise. The entire international community would also regard it as such, unlike in earlier years when the North’s nuclear capabilities were not as advanced and their elimination was still considered possible.

A negotiated freeze is like a mirage, an illusion that recedes as quickly as one tries to approach it. That applies both to what we would need Pyongyang to do and what Pyongyang would demand of us in return for a freeze.  [The Hill]

You can read more at the link, but the way I look at it is that any freeze deal should not include a peace treaty and only scaling down of US-ROK military exercises plus some lifting of sanctions.  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 bombing strike to ensure compliance.  Including bombing strike wording then gives the US world opinion on its side if it needs to use force and makes it in the Chinese regime’s interest to ensure their benefactors in Pyongyang comply with the deal.

Here is the status of the unofficial talks between the US and North Korea going on in Malaysia:

A North Korean delegation led by its deputy foreign minister held talks with former government officials of the United States here for a second day on Saturday to discuss pending issues such as the North’s nuclear and missile tests.

The U.S.-North Korea contact, although it is informal or unofficial, came after North Korea conducted its fifth and most powerful nuclear test in September, just eight months after its previous nuke test.

“I came here through Beijing,” the North’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations Jang Il-hun told Yonhap News Agency. As for topics discussed during the dialogue, he said the two sides talked about several “pending issues and each other’s thoughts on them.”

Asked whether there was an offer from the U.S. to stop its nuclear and missile tests, he fell short of clarifying, but said, “hopely moving forward.”

North Korea’s vice foreign minister Han Song-ryol was also among the five-member delegation. The four-member U.S. delegation included Robert Gallucci, who negotiated a landmark 1994 nuclear freeze deal with Pyongyang; former U.S. deputy nuclear negotiator Joseph R. DeTrani; and Leon Sigal, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) in New York.

Sigal told Yonhap News that the two parties mainly discussed the North’s nuclear and missile issues during the informal dialogue.

The North stuck to its stance that it wants to sign a peace treaty with the U.S. before it stops its nuclear and missile programs. But the U.S. reiterated its position that scrapping nuclear programs should be put before anything else, Sigal said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

US remains firm on North Korea nukes, dismisses speculation on talks with Pyongyang: official https://t.co/jVRt6eoAMm

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) October 23, 2016

I wonder what the Chinese response would be to someone threatening to launch a preemptive nuclear attack on them?:

North Korea is prepared to launch the big one.

A top North Korean official is warning that the isolated nation is ready to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the US if necessary, NBC News reported Monday.

“The US has nuclear weapons off our coast, targeting our country, our capital and our dear leader, Kim Jong Un,” Lee Yong Pil, director of the Foreign Ministry’s Institute for American Studies, told NBC News. “We will not step back as long as there’s a nuclear threat to us from the United States.”

Lee said the US does not have a “monopoly” on pre-emptive nuclear strikes.

“If we see that the US would do it to us, we would do it first,” Lee said. “We have the technology.”

North Korea may also conduct more nuclear tests, including a “sixth, a seventh or an eighth” trial, Lee said, adding that the hardened stance comes amid “increasingly aggressive” drills by the US and South Korea.  [New York Post]

You can read more at the link.

Here is another article that shows that more people are considering the surgical strike option against North Korea’s nuclear program:

Calls for “surgical strikes” against North Korean nuclear facilities have gained ground recently along with calls for more stringent sanctions, despite many observers expressing skepticism that neither South Korea and the United States have the political will to pursue such a military option.

The close allies have both recently floated the idea of a pre-emptive surgical strike on the North’s nuclear facilities after the communist regime conducted its fifth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 9.

Seoul’s defense ministry said Thursday the two allies will “have a consultation over a possible pre-emptive strike against North Korea depending on situations in case of an imminent nuclear attack by the North.”

In Washington, officials have revisited the surgical strike option which was considered against North Korea’s Yeongbyeon nuclear facilities under the Bill Clinton administration in 1994. That’s because the North has continued to improve its nuclear and missile capabilities despite international sanctions and condemnation.

Democratic U.S. vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine said Tuesday (U.S. time) he will support pre-emptive strikes against North Korea if it shows signs of launching a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the United States.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the real question is what does the US and ROK do when North Korea responds to such a strike by launching ballistic missiles and artillery against South Korean population centers?

That is what Mr. Richard Haas from the Council on Foreign Relations believes should be considered:

The U.S. should try to dispel China’s concern about potential negative effects on its national interests in the event of North Korea’s collapse in order to win Beijing’s help in pressuring Pyongyang to give up its nuclear programs, a U.S. expert said.

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, also said in an article that should such persuasive efforts toward China fail, the U.S. would have to either live with a North Korea capable of striking the U.S. with nuclear missiles or launch military action to take out the North’s nuclear and missile facilities.  (…….)

“One would be to live with a North Korea in possession of missiles that could bring nuclear bombs to U.S. soil,” he said. “The policy would become one of defense (deploying additional anti-missile systems) and deterrence, with North Korea understanding that any use or spread of nuclear weapons would lead to the end of the regime and possibly nuclear retaliation.”

The second option would be a military attack on the North’s nuclear and missile capabilities, he said.

“The danger is that such a strike might not achieve all of its objectives and trigger either a conventional military attack on South Korea (where nearly 30,000 US troops are based) or even a nuclear attack from the North,” he said.

The third option would be to launch such a conventional military attack only if intelligence showed North Korea was putting its missiles on alert and readying them for imminent use, but the danger in that option is the intelligence might not be sufficiently clear or come early enough, he said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I don’t believe we are at that point yet considering that other options such as aggressively sanctioning Chinese banks and businesses have not be used yet.  Allowing South Korea to develop their own nuclear deterrent would be preferable to a preemptive military strike that could ignite a second Korean War.

Further Reading:

https://www.rokdrop.net/2016/09/nearly-60-of-south-koreans-want-country-to-develop-nuclear-weapons/