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johnsonma23

North Korea: How to get serious with it (Opinion) - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

korea opinion US

shared by johnsonma23 on 18 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • How to get serious with North Korea
  • (CNN)North Korea's nuclear test last week follows a well-worn pattern that spans over a quarter century: Resort to periodic provocations, wait out the flurry of condemnations
  • All the while as Pyongyang advances its nuclear and missile technolog
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  • The record of the past quarter-century of nuclear diplomacy vis-à-vis Pyongyang is distinguished by blame, denial, and fantasy masquerading as policy.
  • The only way to change this equation is to persuade Pyongyang that its regime preservation is dependent on reform and disarmament.
  • Today, China will yet again make token gestures like signing on to U.N. Security Council resolutions while repeatedly violating those resolutions and actually increasing trade with Pyongyang
  • Second, delegitimize Kim's rule in the eyes of his people and the world by engaging them through broadcasting and other information operations directed at the North Korean people
  • Such tactics proved lucrative during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, when the U.S. appeased Pyongyang with some $1.3 billion in effectively unconditional aid. Instead, we must show Pyongyang that time is not on its side.
  • Pyongyang's first long-range missile test on August 31, 1998, led to the Clinton administration's reengagement of the North
  • First, block the Kim Jong Un regime's offshore hard currency reserves and income with financial sanction
  • But all Beijing has done so far is demonstrate a disingenuous pattern of diplomatic ambidexterity.
  • China will not solve the North Korea problem for the United States until China sees the Kim regime as a financial liability
  • A regime that systematically brutalizes its own people, deliberately starves its population and remains unaccountable to its people or the norms of civilization will feel little moral restraint about making war on its neighbors or arming terrorists.
  • Recent U.N. reports confirm that North Korea continues to rely on the dollar, and its access to the dollar system, to move its streams of hard currency, much of it derived from proliferation and illicit activities, in and out of its vast offshore deposits.
  • sanctions against North Korea have failed to achieve their objectives.
  • The Treasury Department has blocked the assets of Sudanese officials for human rights violations, of Iranian entities for censorship, of the leaders of Belarus and Zimbabwe for undermining democratic processes or institutions, and of Russian officials and financiers for aggression against a neighboring country
  • It has imposed comprehensive anti-money laundering restrictions on Iran and Myanmar, but not North Korea, the only state in the world known to counterfeit U.S. currency.
  • Until Washington applies sufficient financial pressure to threaten the survival of the regime in Pyongyang, it will lack sufficient leverage for diplomacy to work. T
  • The North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act, which this Tuesday passed the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly, would codify this strategy and require the administration to keep this pressure in place until it verifies North Korea's disarmament and humanitarian reforms.
criscimagnael

North Korea Launches Ballistic Missile, South Korea Says - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...orth-korea-missile-launch.html

shared by criscimagnael on 07 Mar 22 - No Cached
  • North Korea on Saturday launched a ballistic missile toward the sea off its east coast, its second missile test in a week, South Korean defense officials said.
  • The missile, launched at ​8:48 a.m. from Sunan, near Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, flew 1​68 miles to the east, reaching an altitude of 3​4​8 miles, the South’s military said. No further details were immediately released, but the data ​was similar to the data collected when North Korea last conducted a missile test on Sunday​.
  • its state media released aerial photos of the Korean Peninsula that it said had been taken by a camera mounted on the rocket.
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  • North Korea conducted seven missile tests in January, more than in all of 2021. ​It refrained from weapons tests ​for most of February, possibly out of deference to China, its neighbor and only major ally, which was hosting the Winter Olympics in Beijing.
  • ​The resumption of North Korean weapon tests comes as the Biden administration is focused on the crisis in Ukraine, and as South Korea is in the midst of a presidential campaign. South Korea goes to the polls on Wednesday to elect the replacement for President Moon Jae-in, whose single five-year term ends in May.
  • North Korea has often been accused of attempting military provocations to influence elections in the South. Prof. Lee recalled that in December 2012, just a week before the South Korean presidential election, North Korea launched a rocket under the pretext of putting a satellite into orbit.
  • Since the North does not want a hawkish right-wing leader to take power in the South, it will refrain from attempting a major military provocation before the election, said Cheong Seong-chang, director of the Center for North Korean Studies at the Sejong Institute in South Korea.
  • But once the election is over, it will likely step up weapons tests to celebrate the 110th birthday of Kim Il-sung, the North Korean founder and grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong-un, Mr. Cheong said. The senior Kim’s birthday is April 15.
julia rhodes

China Looms Over Response to Blast Test by North Korea - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...north-korea-nuclear-test.html

china response politics crisis policy obama north korea nytimes test nuclear

shared by julia rhodes on 14 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • At the United Nations, the desire to impose ever harsher sanctions on North Korea to try to curb its development of nuclear arms and ballistic missiles has long stalled in the face of Chinese opposition
  • They include banning specific, high-tech items used in the nuclear program, like epoxy paste for centrifuges; limiting or outlawing some banking transactions; and a far more stringent inspection of ships bound to and from North Korea.
  • “If we had the kind of product listing and focus on financial flows and interdiction on North Korea that we placed on Iran, we would not be in this spot,”
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  • But the sanctions in place are almost exclusively focused on nuclear and ballistic missile activity.
  • One nuclear test will not make China’s new administration decide to ‘abandon North Korea,’ but it will definitely worsen China-North Korea relations
  • there is little chance that the new Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, will move quickly to change the nation’s long-held policy of propping up the walled-off government that has long served as a buffer against closer intrusion by the United States on the Korean Peninsula.
  • Chinese military strategists adhere to the doctrine that they cannot afford to abandon their ally, no matter how bad its behavior, analysts here say.
  • Indeed, relations between the two countries are conducted largely between the two parties rather than between the two foreign ministries, the more normal diplomatic channel.
  • China will almost certainly join the United States in supporting tougher sanctions over Tuesday’s test, accompanied by sterner reprimands from Beijing against its recalcitrant ally in Pyongyang, which ignored Chinese entreaties not to take provocative actions.
  • With Hu out of the picture, the administration is intent on determining whether Xi Jinping will prove more attentive to U.S. security concerns
  • China’s calculations will be crucial to what happens at the Security Council, where the policy has always been to pursue unanimity over toughness; it is considered far better to get all members on board to send a message to North Korea rather than have China abstain or worse, veto.
  • “Threatening a missile-capable warhead with a successful third nuclear test gives the United States, South Korea and Japan good reason to step up their regional ballistic missile defense capabilities,” said Siegfried S. Hecker,
  • Some experts say it needs to keep up the tough talk, even if it understands that its efforts at the Security Council may not do much to limit the North’s capabilities.
  • Now experts say the North may be simply trying to wait the United States out, hoping it will eventually recognize its program as it did Pakistan’s.
  • As the world’s powers struggle to refine their policies, North Korea continues to make technological advances. A long-range rocket test in December has been judged by outside experts to have been a success after many failures.
  • “It moves the question of North Korea as a nuclear contender from ‘if’ to ‘when,’ ” said one senior Obama administration official. “The ‘when’ may still be years away, but at least now it is in sight.”
julia rhodes

North Koreans Question Test Costs - 0 views

www.rfa.org/...costs-02122013181953.html

north question test costs korea policy economic culture economics crisis

shared by julia rhodes on 22 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Pyongyang’s third nuclear test which they say underscores a diversion of scarce funds towards weapons programs instead of coping with chronic food shortages.
  • the people are frustrated that precious resources are being diverted from efforts to address economic impoverishment, North Korean defectors and rights groups told RFA’s Korean service.
  • “North Koreans cannot understand the nuclear test when they see hunger in the country,” Song said.
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  • “It’s unacceptable because there are many North Koreans starving to death while the authorities are wasting a lot of money—several hundred million dollars—on the test.”
  • Pyongyang had spent U.S. $1.3 billion on its rocket program in 2012.
  • he official estimated that the cost was the equivalent of 4.6 million tons of corn, which could have fed North Koreans for “four to five years
  • The leadership change has created a stir at the lowest levels of the military,” said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
  • “Not only me, but many North Korean defectors in South Korea, knew that Kim Jong Un was young and had studied abroad, so we believed that he would be different from his father and grandfather [national founder Kim Il Sung] in terms of policy making,” she said.“But our initial hope has clearly not materialized, making us sad
  • “The North Korean regime has no consideration for human rights—it is only concerned with maintaining political power.”
  • “The reason for the test is to divert or soothe the people’s discontent over the malfunctioning of the regime. In order to do that they must find an enemy from outside,” Jang said.
  • f North Korea’s Yanggang province, which borders China, told RFA that anger within the regime following the removal of several generals from the ranks of government during a broad political reshuffle had forced Kim Jong Un to test the device as an overture to the military
  • the regime was attempting to assuage the anger and fears of the North Korean people, who he said no longer trust their government
  • China’s Liaoning province said that the action is likely to affect North Korea’s trade with China, valued at U.S. $5.64 billion in 2011.
  • it is surprising
  • that North Korea conducted the test during the Chinese Lunar New Year [China’s most important holiday of the yea
  • “I’m worried about the possibility that I might not get back money for the goods I gave to my North Korean counterparts on credit, because they are likely to say that the country is in a state of emergency and that they are unable to pay me back due to political reasons
katyshannon

U.N. Security Council condemns North Korea launch - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

security council north korea launch satellite missile cnn politics crisis

shared by katyshannon on 08 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • North Korea launched a satellite into space Sunday, its state media reported, triggering a wave of international condemnation and prompting strong reaction from an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council.
  • Though North Korea said the launch was for scientific and "peaceful purposes," it is being widely viewed by other nations as a front to test a ballistic missile, especially coming on the heels of North Korea's purported hydrogen bomb test last month.
  • Pyongyang carried out both acts in defiance of international sanctions.
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  • At an emergency meeting Sunday, members of the U.N. Security Council "strongly condemned" the launch and reaffirmed that "a clear threat to international peace and security continues to exist
  • U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the launch is "deeply deplorable" and in violation of Security Council resolutions "despite the united plea of the international community against such an act.
  • With tensions high, South Korea fired warning shots Monday morning after a North Korean patrol boat crossed the maritime border between North and South Korea, South Korea's Defense Ministry said. The North Korean boat withdrew about 20 minutes later, the ministry said.Such incidents are not uncommon, CNN's Paula Hancocks reports. But the timing of this one -- so soon after North Korea's rocket launch -- will likely bring additional scrutiny to the incident, she said.
  • The Kwangmyongsong carrier rocket blasted off from the Sohae launch facility at 9 a.m Sunday (7:30 p.m. ET Saturday), entering orbit nine minutes and 46 seconds after liftoff, North Korea's state news agency KCNA reported.
johnsonma23

U.S. Prods China on North Korea, Saying Soft Approach Has Failed - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...to-north-korea-has-failed.html

new york times US china

shared by johnsonma23 on 08 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • U.S. Prods China on North Korea, Saying Soft Approach Has Failed
  • The Obama administration warned China on Thursday that its approach to reining in North Korea had “not worked” and said the time had come to end “business as usual” with the country Beijing has supported for the past six decades.
  • China’s approach to influencing North Korea — issuing warnings while also trying to warm long-strained relations — had proved a failure.
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  • “China had a particular approach that it wanted to make, and we agreed and respected to give them space to be able to implement that,
  • But today in my conversation with the Chinese I made it very clear: That has not worked and we cannot continue business as usual.”
  • Beijing has only agreed to impose bans on weapons shipments to the North and sanctions on specific companies and individuals linked to the nuclear program,
  • Kerry did not specify the sanctions that he wanted China to agree to, but two officials familiar with the discussions between the United States and its Security Council partners say the United States is drafting a resolution that envisions far more severe sanctions
  • But the scope of that ban is unclear;
  • The first would be a ban on North Korean ships in ports around the world
  • exceptions for food and humanitarian goods
  • A second set of sanctions under consideration is a cut-off of North Korean banking relationships, akin to the restrictions placed on Iran in the successful effort to drive it to the negotiation table on its nuclear program.
  • During the George W. Bush administration, the United States shut down transactions at one particular institution,
  • The most effective step against North Korea, most experts believe, would be the one that the Chinese most oppose: a restriction or cut-off of oil exports to the North.
  • South Korean and American officials said there was also renewed discussion of deploying an advanced missile defense system
  • Taken together, those steps amount to what one American official called “a big wish list.” And they all reflect the reality of economic interdependence, which makes it hard for the South Koreans, or the United States, to be too confrontational with China.
  • North Korea then threatened to attack the loudspeakers, which it said sullied the “dignity of our supreme leadership,” and put its military on what it called a “semi-war” footing,
millerco

A Potent Fuel Flows to North Korea. It May Be Too Late to Halt It. - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...orea-rocket-fuel-missiles.html

history Us Trump north korea politics missile

shared by millerco on 18 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • A Potent Fuel Flows to North Korea
  • When North Korea launched long-range missiles this summer, and again on Friday, demonstrating its ability to strike Guam and perhaps the United States mainland, it powered the weapons with a rare, potent rocket fuel that American intelligence agencies believe initially came from China and Russia.
  • The United States government is scrambling to determine whether those two countries are still providing the ingredients for the highly volatile fuel and, if so, whether North Korea’s supply can be interrupted, either through sanctions or sabotage.
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  • there is a growing belief that the United States should focus on the fuel, either to halt it, if possible, or to take advantage of its volatile properties to slow the North’s program
  • Intelligence officials believe that the North’s program has advanced to the point where it is no longer as reliant on outside suppliers, and that it may itself be making the deadly fuel
  • Despite a long record of intelligence warnings that the North was acquiring both forceful missile engines and the fuel to power them, there is no evidence that Washington has ever moved with urgency to cut off Pyongyang’s access to the rare propellant
  • “based on North Korea’s demonstrated science and technological capabilities — coupled with the priority Pyongyang places on missile programs — North Korea probably is capable of producing UDMH domestically.” UDMH is short for unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine
  • Some experts are skeptical that the North has succeeded in domestic production, given the great difficulty of making and using the highly poisonous fuel, which in far more technically advanced nations has led to giant explosions of missiles and factories.
  • the Trump administration has been far more focused on ordinary fuels — the oil and gas used to heat homes and power vehicles. The United States has pushed to cut off those supplies to the North, but it settled last week for modest cutbacks under a United Nations resolution.
  • “If North Korea does not have UDMH, it cannot threaten the United States, it’s as simple as that,” said Senator Edward J.
izzerios

Trump may have to be patient about North Korea - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by izzerios on 19 Apr 17 - No Cached
  • Lean on China to turn off its life support to its neighbor, for another
  • warnings that Trump will fix the showdown with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, it's so far unclear whether at its foundation, his strategy is all that different from previous administrations -- which for the last quarter century have failed
  • "The era of strategic patience is over," Vice President Mike Pence
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  • the US, working closely with the UN and Japan, South Korea, China and Russia, could create enough international pressure to eventually push North Korea to denuclearize
  • Pyongyang recently conducted its fifth nuclear test and is soon expected to conduct a sixth, part of its accelerated drive to develop missiles that can reach the continental US with nuclear weapons small enough to place in the nosecones.
  • it's possible that Trump has pushed Beijing to pressure its unpredictable ally and trade partner
  • possible cost of North Korean retaliation for any military action against its nuclear and missile complex -- an artillery barrage targeting civilians in Seoul and thousands of US troops south of the border
  • China's capacity and willingness to make North Korea bend to Washington's will, for instance by cutting off fuel, food and investment supplies that sustain Kim's regime.
  • "We're definitely not seeking conflict or regime change," Susan Thornton, acting assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
  • The US has "made a decision -- and it's a decision that's been made with all of our allies and partners on this issue -- to maximize pressure, economic pressure, on the North Korean regime to try to get it to make tangible steps to roll back their illegal programs," Thornton said. "We just have to stick with it, be patient."
  • I think we should give the Chinese president some opportunity, some time, as well as pursuing the economic and diplomatic pressures that we have and our allies have that we can bring to bear on North Korea."
  • White House optimism about China's evolving role in the North Korea crisis was the summit earlier this month between Trump and Xi in Florida
  • China accounts for some 80% of North Korea's trade and as such, could have outsized influence on Pyongyang. "President Trump is very hopeful the Chinese will use the leverage they have,"
  • Trump, for instance, praised China last week for sending back a fleet of coal ships to North Korea, in line with international sanctions on the Stalinist state's exports adopted during the Obama administration.
  • Beijing is determined to avoid any action that could trigger the chaotic downfall of his regime and send refugees fleeing across the border into China.
  • China also wants to avoid the eventual scenario of a unified Korea, which could produce a US-allied nation on its frontier
  • "The conditions are not really ripe for any kind of talks until North Korea shows it is serious about what would be accomplished by undertaking such talks,"
  • "We're looking for some sort of signal that they've realized that the status quo is unsustainable."
g-dragon

How Did North Korea's Weapons Tech Get So Good So Fast? - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...538959

north korea weapons missils nuclear

shared by g-dragon on 10 Sep 17 - No Cached
    • g-dragon
      g-dragon on 10 Sep 17
       
      ~ North Korea has made rapid progress over the year considering their state of sanctions and being a closed off country. ~ Their progress is not the best, but it is good in terms of their condition ~ North Korea is becoming more independant, relying less on the black market and being able to produce their own materials domestically
  • Kim, like his father Kim Jong Il, “threatened these scientists with their lives if they don’t make progress. That can be a very powerful motivator
  • Two of this year’s tests were of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that are capable of reaching the United States
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  • North Korea has also been assessed as possessing a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can be fitted onto an ICBM
  • it stunned the world by testing what it called a hydrogen bomb, far more powerful than anything the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki
  • It used to be that they emphasized the importance of the military in their politics. Now they’ve begun de-emphasizing that and they’ve begun to emphasize the role of scientists in society both for advancing their economy and, even more than that, for advancing their nuclear weapons and missile technology
  • So far in 2017, the North has carried out a dozen successful missile tests, and is well on its way to surpassing last year’s 14 successful launches
  • The fact that they are willing to test missiles so frequently suggests they are not really worried about suppl
  • There’s evidence to suggest that North Korea is, in fact, accelerating its push toward the domestic manufacturing of parts needed for its missile and nuclear programs, turning slowly away from the international black market on which it had traditionally relied
  • That’s not to say that North Korea’s missile and nuclear technology is state-of-the-art. Many of the designs date back to the Cold War, when the North received nuclear technology from the Soviet Union. Over the years, it acquired weapons technology from China, Iran, Pakistan, and others, and through what can only be described as perseverance cobbled together successful programs
  • they are willing to have higher tolerances for failure and for less reliability.” That, ultimately, might be North Korea’s biggest advantage in the current standoff with the U.S. and its allies
  • Narang pointed out that the probability that North Korea is able to deliver a nuclear warhead over San Francisco, or Chicago, or a city on the U.S. East Coast, is not 100 percent—because its technology is not yet that accurate. “But to deter the United States or really induce risk, what percentage is necessary before you cause Washington to have some pause: Is 5 percent acceptable? Are you willing to lose 5,000 to 50,000 Americans, on average? Probably not, right?
  • The larger the warhead, the less accurate it needs to be
woodlu

North Korea Says It Will Skip Beijing Olympics Because of the Pandemic - The New York Times - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...th-korea-beijing-olympics.html

politics culture policy

shared by woodlu on 24 Jan 22 - No Cached
  • North Korea said on Friday that it would not participate in the Beijing Winter Olympics because of the coronavirus pandemic and moves by “hostile forces.”
  • Its no-show at the Beijing ​Games would deprive South Korea of a rare opportunity to establish official contact with the ​North.
  • the country’s Olympic Committee and its ministry of sports wished Beijing a successful Games even though “the U.S. and its vassal forces are getting evermore undisguised in their moves against China aimed at preventing the successful opening of the Olympics,”
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  • although North Korea “could not take part in the Olympics due to the hostile forces’ moves and the worldwide pandemic,” it “would fully support the Chinese comrades in all their work to hold a splendid and wonderful Olympic festival.”
  • The 2022 Winter Olympics has been hit by a series of diplomatic boycotts from Australia, Britain, the United States and other countries as human rights groups and Western governments have accused China of atrocities in its Xinjiang region.
  • Mr. Kim used the North’s participation in Pyeongchang ​as ​​a signal to start diplomacy after a series of nuclear and long-range missile tests. Soon, inter-Korean dialogue followed, leading to three summit meetings between Mr. Kim and Mr. Moon. Mr. Kim also met with President Donald J. Trump three times.
  • It has rejected outside aid and shut its borders, reportedly placing its guards there under “shoot to kill” orders. The country has claimed no Covid-19 cases, and it has rejected offers of millions of vaccine doses, leaving its population vulnerable to explosive outbreaks should its borders reopen.
  • Officials in South Korea had hoped the Beijing Olympics could provide a venue where officials from the United States, China and the two Koreas could meet.
  • The North is one of China’s closest allies. It depends on China for most of its external trade while struggling under heavy sanctions imposed by the United Nations for its nuclear weapons development
  • But since the collapse of Mr. Kim’s diplomacy with Mr. Trump in 2019, North Korea has shunned official contacts with South Korea or the United States. The pandemic has deepened its diplomatic isolation and economic difficulties. ​On Wednesday, it launched what it called a hypersonic missile.
Javier E

North Korea Suffers One of Its Worst Food Shortages in Decades - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...ood-crises-in-decades-ee25aa86

north korea food economics history crisis policy

shared by Javier E on 02 Mar 23 - No Cached
  • North Koreans are experiencing widespread hunger and dying of starvation as the country suffers one of the worst food crises in decades as a result of its international isolation and natural disasters that have damaged crops, reducing yields.
  • North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered officials to resolve the food-supply problems with better farming equipment and scientific methods
  • the situation worsened in recent months as a result of its border restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic and floods and droughts last year that hurt its harvests. Last May, North Korea reported its second-worst drought since the country began measurements in 1981, affecting the capital city of Pyongyang and nearby provinces. Over the summer, towns along the border with China flooded after heavy rainfall.    
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  • North Korea produced an estimated 4.5 million tons of grain last year, dropping 3.8% from 2021, according to the South Korean government. South Korea’s spy agency has said North Korea needs about 5.5 million tons of grain to feed its population.
  • More than 10 million North Koreans suffered malnourishment and hunger during the pandemic, with 41% of the population undernourished between 2019 and 2021
  • About one-fifth of North Korean children suffer from impaired growt
  • North Korea spends nearly a quarter of its gross domestic product on its military, according to U.S. State Department estimates. The Kim regime spent between $340 million and $530 million on ballistic missile launches last year
  • Military officials didn’t receive food rations for their families during some months last year, he said. Pharmacies have only one-fifth of the medical supplies that they had before the pandemic, he said.
  • “The inability to provide for the military, the Kim regime’s most loyal support base, indicates that the food problem is very real,” Mr. Lee said.
julia rhodes

North Korea's Lesson - Nukes for Sale - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...eas-lesson-nukes-for-sale.html

north korea lesson nukes sale nytimes US politics history crisis obama

shared by julia rhodes on 26 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • HE most dangerous message North Korea sent Tuesday with its third nuclear weapon test is: nukes are for sale.
  • Testing a uranium-based bomb would announce to the world — including potential buyers — that North Korea is now operating a new, undiscovered production line for weapons-usable material.
  • North Korea’s latest provocation should also remind us of the limits of Western policies, led by the United States, that focus on “isolating” the hermit kingdom.
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  • Hence the grim conclusion that North Korea now has a new cash crop — one that is easier to market than plutonium. Highly enriched uranium is harder to detect and therefore easier to export
  • American policy makers’ attention has been consumed by Iran’s attempt to build its first nuclear weapon. During those years, American officials believe, North Korea has acquired enough plutonium to make an arsenal of 6 to 10 nuclear bombs,
  • American experts therefore believe that Pyongyang must have another still-undiscovered parallel plant that has been operating for several years. That plant by now could have produced several bombs’ worth of highly enriched uranium.
  • history shows that the North Koreans will “sell anything they have to anybody who has the cash to buy it.” In intelligence circles, North Korea is known as “Missiles ‘R’ Us,” having sold and delivered missiles to Iran, Syria and Pakistan, among others.
  • With what consequences for North Korea? Pyongyang got paid; Syria got bombed; and the United States was soon back at the negotiating table in the six-party talks.
  • Given America’s failure to hold Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il, accountable when he sold Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, the technology from which to make a bomb, could the younger Mr. Kim imagine that he could get away with selling a nuclear weapon or bomb-making material?
rachelramirez

U.N. Toughens Sanctions on North Korea in Response to Its Nuclear Program - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...north-korea-un-sanctions.html

sanctions new york times US politics crisis policy

shared by rachelramirez on 03 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • U.N. Toughens Sanctions on North Korea in Response to Its Nuclear Program
  • Exasperated with North Korea’s defiant testing of nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles, the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously on Wednesday to severely toughen its penalties against the isolated country.
  • The 15-member Council approved a draft resolution, negotiated for weeks by American and Chinese officials, that called for inspecting all cargo going in and out of the country, banning all weapons trade and expanding the list of individuals facing sanctions.
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  • Much depends, however, on whether China — North Korea’s leading trade partner and diplomatic shield — will enforce it.
  • The measure’s toughest component would require all countries to inspect all cargo passing through their territory to or from North Korea. In the past, inspections were required only if there was reasonable suspicion of contraband aboard.
  • It prohibits North Korea from sending martial arts experts to train police officers in foreign countries, as a United Nations panel recently accused Pyongyang of doing in Uganda.
  • Although prices have fallen in recent years, minerals still account for 53 percent of North Korea’s $2.5 billion in exports to China, its chief supplier of oil.
  • The Chinese ambassador, Liu Jieyi, focused on the North’s Jan. 6 and Feb. 7 tests, done in violation of previous resolutions. He also expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of sanctions, and used the occasion to criticize an American proposal to deploy a missile shield in South Korea.
  • China’s agreement to limit imports of North Korean coal and iron ore came with a condition: that it should be demonstrated that such imports would support the North’s illicit weapons programs
malonema1

Trump Barely Has Anyone to Talk to North Korea - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...555041

US politics NK

shared by malonema1 on 12 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • There is no U.S. ambassador to South Korea. The U.S. diplomat in charge of negotiations with North Korea recently quit—and no replacement has yet been named. The State Department official in charge of East Asian affairs is a career diplomat who is serving in an acting capacity. So if North Korea does end up talking with the U.S., as the South says it’s offered to, whom exactly would they talk with?
  • But the question remains of whether the U.S. has the bench strength needed to negotiate directly with North Korea—should such talks actually begin. Joseph Yun, the senior-most official who was in semiregular meetings with North Korean officials, announced late last month that he was retiring. His departure underscored the shortage of current U.S. officials who have ever met with a North Korean representative. Suzanne DiMaggio, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, told me in an interview on Tuesday that it is uncertain “whether or not the United States has the capacity to engage in a major diplomatic effort with the North Koreans.”
  • Wit said the U.S. has been relying too much on analyses of North Korean press reports and intelligence reports, “but the fact is we have almost no experience anymore of face-to-face meetings with the North Koreans, and that’s going to be absolutely essential in conducting any negotiation.”
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  • “It’s a good idea for everybody to keep some perspective, take a deep breath, keep in mind that we’ve have a long history, about 27 years of history, of talking to the North Koreans, and the results over the 27-year history are of them breaking every agreement that they’ve ever made with the United States and with the international community,” that official said. “So, we are open minded, we look forward to hearing more, but ... the North Koreans have also earned our skepticism, so we’re a bit guarded in our optimism.”
malonema1

Let Trump and Kim Meet - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...555314

politics US trump crisis

shared by malonema1 on 12 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • On Thursday, Chung Eui Yong, South Korea’s national security advisor, told a stunned group of journalists at the White House that President Donald Trump had accepted an invitation to meet with Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea. Like so many other decisions in this White House, this one felt chaotic. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, for example, seemed to learn of the decision to hold the meeting, which is planned to occur by May, only after it was made. (He and other administration officials have since downplayed its significance, though Trump on Friday night tweeted: “The deal with North Korea is very much in the making.”) And yet: While one may wish that Trump acted less impulsively, a Trump-Kim summit is a good idea, one that may solve the problem of a truculent North Korea.
  • It’s also worth remembering that when it comes to North Korea, nukes are hardly the only danger. Even if Pyongyang relinquished its entire nuclear arsenal, it would still possess a large stockpile of chemical and biological weapons, and could decimate Seoul, South Korea’s capital, with its conventional weaponry. The real problem is not North Korea’s nuclear arms, but its potential willingness to use them, along with the rest of its weapons, in a way that harms U.S. interests.
  • The reasonable best-case scenario for North Korea is that the Kim regime focuses almost exclusively on staying in power and delivering economic growth to its citizens rather than threatening the United States or its neighbors. (Think something like Vietnam after its 1980s economic liberalization—but with nuclear weapons.) Actually pushing for regime change is risky. A coup could replace Kim with a benevolent dictator who prepares the country for elections and reunification with the South under Seoul—or with a general who decides that launching nuclear weapons at the United States, or selling them to a group like the Islamic State, serves Pyongyang’s interests.
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  • Ahead of the proposed Trump-Kim summit, there are some key questions to keep in mind: What really matters here? That Trump cows Kim, cudgeling him and his nation with the threat of American might? That the United States risks war, the decimation of Seoul, a nuclear missile screaming towards Hawaii, and the deaths of millions of North Koreans, just so it doesn’t have to admit that Pyongyang outmaneuvered the Trump administration? Or, instead, that egos are set aside in the pursuit of peace?
knudsenlu

Bill Perry: America 'Blew the Opportunity' Stop Kim's Nukes - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...555239

america opportunity nukes history

shared by knudsenlu on 10 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • As South Korea’s national-security adviser told it on Thursday, Donald Trump will meet with Kim Jong Un this spring for one purpose only: to achieve the “permanent denuclearization” of North Korea. But according to one of the U.S. officials who came closest to striking that kind of deal, the president better lower his expectations. By a lot.
  • “I don’t think [the North Koreans are] going to want to negotiate giving up all their nuclear weapons,” he added. “But even if they did … I have no idea how we could verify it.”
  • The years since have brought a series of nuclear agreements that at times froze the North Korean nuclear program, but over the long term failed to prevent the North from becoming a nuclear-weapons state. The achilles heel of many of these accords was the Kim government’s refusal to disclose all its nuclear activities and permit outside monitors to verify that those activities had ceased.
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  • Establishing safeguards against North Korea transferring nuclear components and technology to other states or non-state actors like terrorist groups would be difficult to verify but still worth pursuing in negotiations, Perry said. (North Korea has a history of proliferating missiles and other materials related to weapons of mass destruction.)
  • hile recognizing North Korea diplomatically and finally concluding the Korean War might seem like grand gestures, Perry argued that they are actually “easy and cheap” for the United States to implement—and, maybe most importantly, “reversible” in the event that North Korea reneges on its end of the bargain. The outcome Perry envisions is, as he put it, possible, desirable, and verifiable. It's also a far cry from the denuclearization of North Korea.
oliviaodon

Lindsey Graham: There's a 30 Percent Chance Trump Attacks North Korea - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...548381

war

shared by oliviaodon on 15 Jan 18 - No Cached
  • It’s become a grim ritual in Washington foreign-policy circles to assess the chances that the United States and North Korea stumble into war. But on Wednesday Lindsey Graham did something different: He estimated the odds that the Trump administration deliberately strikes North Korea first, to stop it from acquiring the capability to target the U.S. mainland with a long-range, nuclear-tipped missile. And the senator’s numbers were remarkably high.
  • “I would say there’s a three in 10 chance we use the military option,” Graham predicted in an interview. If the North Koreans conduct an additional test of a nuclear bomb—their seventh—“I would say 70 percent.”
  • “War with North Korea is an all-out war against the regime,” he said
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  • “We’re not to the tipping point yet,” he noted, but “if they test another [nuclear] weapon, then all bets are off.”
  • “I don’t know how to say it any more direct: If nothing changes, Trump’s gonna have to use the military option, because time is running out,” Graham said. “I don’t care if North Korea becomes a Chinese protectorate. … I don’t care who [the Chinese] put in charge of North Korea, as long as that person doesn’t want to create a massive nuclear arsenal to threaten America. There are a couple ways for this to end: The Chinese could kill the guy if they wanted to, or they could just stop oil shipments [to North Korea], which would bring [Kim Jong Un’s] economy to [its] knees.” Graham’s scenarios for resolving the crisis short of war, along with his vision for war, notably conclude with regime change in North Korea, which the Trump administration claims to not be pursuing.
Javier E

'Speed dating': Critics worry Trump is already handing propaganda victories to North Korea - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...8-99d2-0d678ec08c2f_story.html

diplomacy appeasement negotiation korea north korea authoritarian

shared by Javier E on 03 Jun 18 - No Cached
  • When former president Bill Clinton traveled to North Korea in 2009 on a humanitarian mission to free two U.S. journalists, he delivered strict instructions to his team ahead of their meeting with dictator Kim Jong Il: “We’re not smiling.”
  • . “You build trust, don’t talk business, establish camaraderie and allow the Trump charisma to steep and marinate to soften them up.”
  • The two posed for a photo in the Oval Office with Trump proudly showing off the envelope — an image that White House aides promptly distributed to the public.
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  • “No question this is speed dating,” said Christopher R. Hill, a former State Department diplomat who led the U.S. delegation in the Six-Party Talks with North Korea during the George W. Bush administration. He recalled being rebuffed in his bid to personally deliver a letter from Bush to Kim Jong Il — in a standard business-size envelope. By contrast, Hill said, the North Koreans already “have gotten the whole enchilada” from Trump.
  • “Photo ops of the two together, smiling, those are disseminated in North Korea to show the two leaders are equal,” said Bill Richardson, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who met with several dictators, including Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, and made several trips to Pyongyang. “Trump should avoid the propaganda, the one-on-one smiling and hugging.”
  • Yet Trump views the photos as a victory, too — a symbol that he is willing to discard the diplomatic conventions that have limited his predecessors and stymied their attempts to curb North Korea’s nuclear program. White House aides said Trump’s sudden decision in March to agree to the summit was made with the confidence that his own negotiating skills would quickly pay greater dividends than three decades of failed lower-level talks.
  • Time and again, Trump has also upended the more cautious diplomatic approaches of his predecessors in showing warmth toward authoritarian figures.
  • “The Trump thesis of international diplomacy is the Trump thesis of New York real estate dealmaking, which is that step one is to establish a personal — individual or family to family — close relationship with your mark,
  • President Trump took a decidedly different approach on Friday when he welcomed a North Korean official to the White House for the first such meeting in 18 years. Trump beamed as Kim Yong Chol — a former spy chief accused of masterminding the sinking of a South Korean navy vessel in 2010 that killed 46 sailors — presented him with a cartoonishly oversize envelope containing a letter from Kim Jong Un, the nation’s current dictator.
  • Trump critics call his approach to foreign policy inconsistent and naive, handing his rivals unintended victories by allowing his instincts to undermine his own administration’s strategy
  • On Friday, Trump said that, in the spirit of the diplomatic talks, he would no longer use the phrase “maximum pressure” to describe the administration’s policy of economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation — even as his aides have vowed to keep the pressure on.
  • With Trump, he added, “there’s a feeling that he is so inexperienced and lacking in understanding of what he’s dealing with. Certainly, he knows he’s dealing with a dictatorial regime, but he seems to be so driven by his own desire for kudos and celebration of his own achievements.”
  • In 2016, President Barack Obama visited Havana as part of his administration’s restoration of diplomatic relations with Cuba after more than half a century. At the end of a joint news conference, Cuban leader Raúl Castro attempted to raise Obama’s arm in triumph, but Obama let his arm go limp.
  • An Obama aide told reporters that he had sought to deny Castro an “iconic photo” because the two sides still had significant disagreements.
  • For years, Trump and other Republicans had criticized Obama for cozying up to dictators and looking feckless and weak on the world stage. But after meeting with Kim Yong Chol for more than 90 minutes, Trump said the two did not discuss human rights — even though the Kim family regime has imprisoned tens of thousands of North Koreans in hard-labor camps and abducted American, Japanese and South Korean citizens.
  • “I don’t do any more penance to these Republicans,” said Hill, the former diplomat who was second-guessed during his negotiations with North Korea. “I did my best, held to a pretty hard line, but these guys complained we were appeasing North Korea. Where are they now?”
woodlu

North Korea Launches 2 Ballistic Missiles, South Korea Says - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...north-korea-missile-test.html

politics us history crisis economics

shared by woodlu on 09 Feb 22 - No Cached
  • North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast on ​Thursday ​in its ​sixth missile test this month, the South Korean military said.
  • The latest launch came ​two days ​after North Korea​ fired what South Korean defense officials said were two cruise missiles.
  • The two missiles flew 118 miles after they were fired from Hamhung, a port city on the North’s east coast, according to the South Korean military, which said its analysts were studying the trajectory and other flight data to help determine the types of missiles launched.
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  • The latest flurry of missile tests suggests that ​North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, is both pushing ahead with his program of modernizing his country’s missile forces and trying to jolt the Biden administration out of its diplomatic slumber​ and force Washington to engage with North Korea on Mr. Kim’s terms.
  • In 2017, North Korea launched three intercontinental ballistic missiles and claimed it was capable of targeting the continental United States with nuclear warheads. Mr. Kim then entered into diplomatic talks with President Donald J. Trump.
  • In late 2019, Mr. Kim warned that he no longer felt bound by his self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests.
  • North Korea’s latest launch came amid reports that its internet service appeared to have been hit by a second wave of outages in as many weeks, possibly caused by a so-called distributed denial-of-service cyberattack.
  • In North Korea, only a small group of elites are allowed access to the global internet. Its websites, all state-controlled, carry propaganda for Mr. Kim’s government and report developments, such as its weapons tests, that it wants the world and the North Korean people to be aware of.
johnsonma23

Uganda Halts Military Cooperation With North Korea - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...rth-korea-uganda-military.html

uganda north korea Policy

shared by johnsonma23 on 31 May 16 - No Cached
  • Uganda Halts Military Cooperation With North Korea
  • Mr. Museveni agreed to comply with United Nations sanctions aimed at limiting North Korea’s capacity to earn foreign cash for its banned nuclear and missile program.
  • “We are disengaging the cooperation we are having with North Korea, as a result of U.N. sanctions,”
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  • Under economic pressure from international sanctions, North Korea has relied on the exports of weapons and the deployment of military instructors abroad as a source of foreign currency.
  • Mr. Museveni, in power since 1986, visited North Korea in 1987, 1990 and 1992 and met with Kim Il-sung. When he visited South Korea in 2013, he surprised officials by greeting them in Korean; he said he had learned it from Kim Il-sung, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.
  • During her visit, Uganda and South Korea signed 10 cooperation agreements in areas like defense, health, rural development and communications technology, both governments said.
  • South Korea has exported $350,000 worth of helmets, bulletproof jackets and grenades to Uganda in the last three years, according to South Korean government data.
  • For decades, South Korea and North Korea have tried to undercut each other’s influence in Africa.
  • On Tuesday, North Korea launched a missile, but the test ended in failure, the South Korean military said. It was the latest in a recent string of test flops that have embarrassed Kim Jong-un, who has positioned his country’s missile and nuclear programs as his key achievement.
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