Tag: nuclear weapons

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/

What I am wondering is why were these people allowed to operate in the U.K. in the first place considering North Korea’s long history of using insurance fraud to bring in foreign currency:

Britain has effectively deported two London-based officials of North Korea’s state insurance firm by refusing to renew their visas after the firm was slapped with sanctions in the wake of Pyongyang’s January nuclear test, a diplomatic source said.

In April, Britain blacklisted the North’s Korea National Insurance Corp. and its London office in line with European Union sanctions imposed after the North’s fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February.

“It’s part of implementation of sanctions to deny visas for those working for a sanctioned entity,” a source said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Further reading:

https://www.rokdrop.net/2010/03/north-korea-reportedly-has-4-billion-in-european-banks/

She is probably one of many Chinese companies aiding the North Korean regime.  However, she for whatever reason may be the one being used by Beijing to show the US that the Chinese are “doing something” to rein in North Korea:

A Chinese businesswoman under U.S. scrutiny for her alleged role in aiding North Korea’s nuclear program is also a suspect in a Chinese criminal investigation into her trading business, a corporate filing shows.

Friday’s disclosure about Ma Xiaohong is the first to tie her to a criminal investigation. Police in the northeastern Chinese province of Liaoning said earlier this month that they were investigating the trading firm that Ms. Ma founded, Hongxiang Industrial Development Co., for alleged “serious economic crimes,” without naming her.  (………………)

The investigation into Ms. Ma and her company appears to mark a new effort by U.S. and Chinese authorities to pursue Chinese businesses that are suspected of supporting North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program. The U.S. and China have often sparred over how best to rein in North Korea.

Earlier this month, Pyongyang conducted its fifth atomic test in a decade.

Liaoning police announced their investigation after prosecutors from the U.S. Department of Justice made two trips to Beijing last month to alert Chinese officials about alleged activities by Ms. Ma and Hongxiang Industrial, The Wall Street Journal reported this week.

The Justice Department cited alleged evidence that the businesswoman and her company had aided Pyongyang’s nuclear program and its efforts to evade United Nations and Western sanctions, according to U.S. officials.

It isn’t known if the Liaoning police probe is related to the U.S. allegations.  [Wall Street Journal]

You can read more at the link.

I really can’t blame South Koreans for wanting their own nuclear deterrent considering the threat they are facing on a daily basis from the Kim regime:

Nearly 60 percent of South Koreans support the country’s development of its own nuclear weapons, a poll showed Friday, amid the rising calls among hawkish lawmakers for Seoul to consider the aggressive option to curb Pyongyang’s provocations.

According to the data compiled by pollster Gallup Korea, 58 percent of the respondents agreed with South Korea’s nuclear armament scenario, while 34 percent expressed an opposition. The study was conducted on 1,010 South Koreans throughout the country this week.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.