Sunday, March 31, 2013

Threat from the North - DPRK

Tensions flare up again on the Korean Peninsula

March 31, 2013 Olga Doronina, special to RBTH Asia

Pyongyang has announced that it is in a state of war with South Korea. Experts believe the statement is a response to the joint US-South Korean military exercises near the DPRK borders and hope things will not come to real fighting.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, discussing strategic plans with military personnel. Source: Reuters

The situation on the Korean Peninsula deteriorated on the night of March 30. Western news agencies report that the DPRK has announced that it is in a state of war with South Korea and is ready to react to the provocations on the part of Washington and Seoul, not stopping short of nuclear retaliation. Russia, which has a 17 km common land border with North Korea, is anxiously watching the situation.

Experts stress that the threats are political and real combat actions are not on the cards.

Full Story: North Korea

“I see this statement not as a direct declaration of war or the start of hostilities. Rather, Pyongyang for its part considers that the state of truce is over. This is not a declaration of intent to start combat actions, but a show of determination to retaliate in the event of possible provocations,” says Alexander Vorontsov, the chief of the Korea and Mongolia Department at the Russian Academy of Science Oriental Studies Institute.

But he stresses the unprecedented pitch of the rhetoric. The last time similar tensions or confrontation occurred was in the 1960s, when the DPRK seized an American ship in its territorial waters. In the event a diplomatic solution was reached - but it took a year, the RAS representative notes.

The worst-case scenario is the start of a real war with unpredictable consequences.

“There is no guarantee that a local conflict could be prevented from spreading,” the expert goes on pointing out that this would pose a threat to Russia’s 17 km land border with North Korea.

The negative scenario will also threaten the Russian Primorye (Maritime) province. There is a risk of an ecological disaster because the 30 nuclear reactors in the north and south of the KDPR “could turn into 10 Chernobyls and Fukushimas”, Mr Vorontsov warns. The flow of refugees will inundate China and may then reach Russia.

“I hope that common sense will prevail and that the DPRK is not harbouring first nuclear strike plans - although it reserves the right to a pre-emptive strike. Seoul and Washington are showing a responsible attitude to the situation and hopefully, will not cross the line,” Mr Vorontsov told RBTH.

Under the circumstances the best option for Russia, which has more than once acted as a broker in the Korean conflict, is the language of diplomacy. Excessive military build-up near the borders with North Korea will not be conducive to diplomatic dialogue. “But we should think about securing our own border. So Russia should strike a balance and proceed carefully and judiciously,” the expert concluded.

The head of the Current Political Studies Centre, Alexei Chesnakov, says the next few days will show whether the conflict will sharpen, threatening a disaster, or whether the DPRK will find a roundabout way.”

“In any case just putting the problem on the back burner is no longer an option and the responsibility for solving the Korean issue rests not only with these two countries, but with all the members of the six-party settlement process,” the political scientist said.

Russia for its part should waste no time in joining the process of lessening tensions, he believes.
Alexei Pushkov, the chairman of the State Duma Foreign Relations Committee, links North Korea’s actions to the recent military exercises South Korea and the USA held close to North Korea’s borders.

He thinks Pyongyang’s statements are primarily meant to send a signal to the USA.

“They have drawn a lesson from the Iraq war when Saddam Hussein was unprepared and unable to deliver a strike on the enemy territory. North Korea, by threatening the USA, its bases and allies, is warning America that it will not be treated like Iraq: don’t touch us, or else we will act as we see fit. And they have the potential to retaliate,” the Duma deputy argues.

Though the international community sees all this as a fit of hysteria, the North Koreans have achieved their aim and made the USA take their statement seriously, Mr Pushkov is convinced. Now America will reckon with Pyongyang’s position in deciding what to do next.

“Russia is following the situation and is extremely worried about it. It is one thing to give a signal and use political pressure, but using military force to solve the issue is inadmissible and unacceptable,” the head of the Duma Foreign Relations Committee told RBTH.

Battle of the maps: North Korea's actual missile capability vs. North Korea's threatened missile capability | FP Passport

Think Again: North Korea - By David Kang and Victor Cha | Foreign Policy

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

HENDRIX VooDoo

YOUTUBE CLIP OF YOUNG KOREAN WOMAN PLAYING HENDRIX

This is a great clip of a young Korean woman playing a traditional instrument. Enjoy.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Asia Times Online :: China can defuse North Korea time-bomb

Friday, March 15, 2013

No One Trusts North Korea

Obama's Failure in Korea: David Ignatius

David Ignatius: Opinion Writer

North Korea and the price of patience

By David Ignatius, Published: March 13

The Obama administration’s approach toward North Korea has been described as “strategic patience.” A more accurate evaluation of U.S. policy would be “failure.” The administration has alternately wooed and threatened North Korea for four years, with no discernible effect.

Here’s what failure looks like: Since President Obama took office, Pyongyang has conducted several missile tests and two nuclear weapons tests, the most recent on Feb. 12. When the international community has tried to hold Pyongyang accountable, the regime has become even more erratic.

David Ignatius writes a twice-a-week foreign affairs column and contributes to the PostPartisan blog.

North Korea’s latest reckless action came this week, when it nullified the 60-year-old armistice that ended the Korean War and cut its hotline with U.S. forces in the South. This was Pyongyang’s way of protesting the U.N. Secu rity Council’s unanimous decision to impose new sanctions after last month’s nuclear test. Perhaps it was also a way of hazing South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye, who took office two weeks ago.

What’s next? Unfortunately, the only thing that’s predictable about North Korea is its belligerence. Pyongyang has taken violent actions in the first months after the inauguration of each South Korean president since 1992, according to Victor Cha, a Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

What happens when diplomacy fails? This is the most disturbing problem in international relations, and it’s posed now by North Korea: How should the international community respond when a nation consistently ignores red lines? What policy options exist when patience finally runs out?
Tom Donilon, President Obama’s national security adviser, had some newly tough words for Pyongyang in a speech Monday to the Asia Society: “The United States will not accept North Korea as a nuclear state, nor will we stand by while it seeks to develop a nuclear-armed missile that can target the United States.” But what does this language mean? The North already is a nuclear state, and it is developing missiles that could strike the United States with miniaturized warheads.

“North Korea will have to change course,” Donilon insisted. Otherwise, it will face more sanctions and new U.S. defense moves aimed at countering a “grave threat to the United States and our allies.” But what if North Korea doesn’t bend? One result will be more aggressive defense policies from South Korea and Japan, complicating security in Asia. The North Korea problem is scary because its leadership seems to get more volatile over time. Kim Jong Eun, the new leader, “quickly consolidated power” after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, in December 2011, according to U.S. intelligence. But some U.S. analysts believe the new president is more unpredictable and provocative than was his father.

Through two administrations, the underlying U.S. strategy toward North Korea has been to seek China’s help in containing this destabilizing force in northeast Asia. But this policy, too, has largely failed, and the United States should be running out of patience. With depressing consistency, China has failed to step up to its responsibilities as a regional superpower. It doesn’t like the mercurial North Koreans, but evidently it even more dislikes taking action to restrain them.

Will China’s new president, Xi Jinping, lift Beijing’s game by dealing more aggressively with North Korea? Some analysts see signs of a toughening Chinese stance in recent articles published in the English-language newspaper owned by the official People’s Daily. Xi is also assembling a team, including Yang Jiechi, the top foreign-policy official, and Wang Yi, his successor as foreign minister, who are thought to favor more emphatic negotiations with Pyongyang, such as the so-called Six-Party Talks that took place from 2003 to 2009. The fact that China worked closely with the United States in drafting the latest U.N. sanctions resolution is also taken as a positive sign.

Some longtime Korea watchers argue that Kim is rattling sabers to get attention and that Washington should give it to him. “Even if we’re at an impasse, there has to be dialogue,” argues Joseph DeTrani, a former special envoy for negotiations with North Korea.

But when a country is developing nuclear weapons that could hit U.S. territory, and when its party newspaper responds to sanctions by calling for a “final showdown,” the United States needs options beyond diplomacy and the threat of more U.N. sanctions. So it’s reassuring that the U.S. Navy is readying ballistic missile defenses in the Pacific, and that it has such total dominance underwater that it can threaten any adversary in Asia instantly.

Counting on North Korean restraint has been a bad bet. It may be wiser to assume the worst and plan accordingly.
davidignatius@washpost.com
Read more from David Ignatius’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.

Monday, March 11, 2013

North Korean Landscapes from Foreign Policy Online.

NORTH KOREA LANDSCAPES

Roger Shepherd Photography

The Baekdu Daegan mountain range twists its way more than 1,000 miles down the length of the Korean Peninsula, from the sacred peak of Baekdusan on the North Korea-China border to Jirisan in central South Korea. Today, it is choked off by landmines and barbed wire at the demilitarized zone, but once, it was considered the "spine of the nation" -- a source of spiritual energy and strength for the Korean people.
At least 75 percent of the Korean Peninsula is covered by mountains, and long before the country was divided -- first by Cold War politics and then by a war -- Koreans shared a reverence for the power of these peaks. Mountains are prominent in Korean art and literature. Koreans practicing animism once paid homage to mountain spirits to ensure them safe passage on their journeys. Today, the lyrics of both countries' national anthems still sing the praises of Baekdusan, or Great White Mountain, the sacred peak said to be the place of ancestral origin for the Korean people.

Over the past two years, New Zealand native Roger Shepherd was granted rare permission to spend more than two months in the mountains of North Korea as part of his efforts to document the Baekdu Daegan as one ridge, north and south. Shepherd has made three trips to the country, during which he covered more than 6,000 miles and visited more than two dozen mountain peaks.

"These days we see Korea as divided," Shepherd says. The Baekdu Daegan system, he tells FP, helps remind us that geographically, Korea is still one entity with a shared history and a shared culture as mountain people. "I hope my work can reinvigorate that mindset." These are the revealing photographs from his time in the country known to most of the world as "one of the most closed and secretive nations on earth."
Above, farmers catch a lift across the Saepo-gun plateau below the Baekdu Daegan ridge in Kangwondo, DPRK.

Roger Shepherd is a native New Zealander and the owner of Hike Korea, a company based in Songnisan Mountain in central South Korea. His book of mountain photography, BAEKDU DAEGAN KOREA, will be published in July 2013. In July 2014, he plans to spend six months walking the entire length of the Baekdu Daegan.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Lean Forward - By Valerie M. Hudson | Foreign Policy

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

North Korea Is a Nuclear Power - By Andrei Lankov | Foreign Policy

No One Trusts North Korea – OpEd

The Inside Story of How the White House Let Diplomacy Fail in Afghanistan - By Vali Nasr | Foreign Policy

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Dennis Rodman: ‘Not apologizing’ for ‘my friend’ Kim Jong Un - Mike Allen - POLITICO.com

Rodman Inadvertantly Shines Light on North Korean Human Rights

Rodman Inadvertantly Shines Light on North Korean Human Rights: pFor the first time in at least a decade, the world is talking about former basketball star Dennis Rodman. The former Chicago Bull, known for his “quirky” behavior while winning championships with the likes of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, made news this week with a short trip to North Korea with members of the [...]/p

Vice Media’s Foolish North Korea Stunt

Vice Media’s Foolish North Korea Stunt: pThe New Criterion and PJ Media might have to retire their Walter Duranty Prize named after the infamous New York Times correspondent who whitewashed Joseph Stalin’s crimes during the 1930s. I think Dennis Rodman has earned a lifetime achievement award in this category, as Bethany’s post makes clear. It is hard, certainly, to top his [...]/p

Dennis Rodman & Little Kim: Strange & Stranger

Rodman Meets With North Korean Leader, Courtside

Jason Mojica/VICE Media, via Associated Press

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and the former N.B.A. star Dennis Rodman watched an exhibition basketball game in Pyongyang on Thursday.

By LYNN ZINSER

Photographs of Dennis Rodman laughing while watching a basketball exhibition in Pyongyang, North Korea, with Kim Jong-un, the leader of one of the world’s most repressive countries, may be some of the strangest sights in the history of accidental American diplomacy.

Not only did Kim attend the game Thursday and watch alongside Rodman, but he also invited Rodman, three Harlem Globetrotters and the Vice Media crew filming the trip for a documentary to his palace for a party, said Shane Smith, the founder of Vice Media, who dreamed up and organized the trip.

The group landed in Pyongyang on Tuesday with approval from North Korean authorities to conduct the exhibitions and film the documentary, but it was not promised that Kim would meet with the group.

“Apparently, he had a blast at the game,” Smith said, after speaking by phone with Ryan Duffy, a Vice Media correspondent who was on the trip. “So he invited them back to his home for a party, and they had a grand old time. Speeches were made — Dennis made a very nice one — and they were met with rounds of applause.”

The scene was particularly bizarre because of the tense relations between the United States and North Korea, which made that relationship more difficult recently by declaring it had conducted a nuclear test. Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, went in January to try to persuade the leadership to allow Internet access for more than a fraction of its people, but he did not report meeting with Kim.

Basketball, though, apparently has the power to thaw most anything because Kim, like his father, Kim Jong-il, is said to be a devoted fan. Rodman and Kim Jong-un talked without a translator assisting them courtside. Duffy said that the two spoke in English but that Kim spoke only limited English and that a translator was used at the dinner.

Smith said communication with his crew had been difficult, but he spoke with Duffy by phone for a bit and via Skype. He said his crew was allowed to film the party, as well as Kim’s appearance at the exhibition game. The video will be used on the HBO series “Vice,” which will make its debut on April 5.

The exhibition game featured 12 North Korean players on mixed teams with the American contingent, led by the three Globetrotters: Anthony Blakes, Alex Weekes and Will Bullard. Duffy also played.

Rodman spent the game watching from a courtside table with Kim. Rodman also gave a speech to the crowd, in which he told Kim, “You have a friend for life.”

The game was said to end in a 110-110 tie.

Kim expressed to Rodman that he hoped this would improve North Korean-American relations, Smith said Duffy told him. Duffy said he invited Kim to the United States.

“We just couldn’t have asked for anything more,” Smith said. “It was a long shot, no pun intended. We knew he loves the Chicago Bulls and he was a huge basketball fan, and we hoped he would want to meet a five-time N.B.A. champion” and a Chicago Bull.

“But we had no guarantees,” he said.

A version of this article appeared in print on March 1, 2013, on page B14 of the New York edition with the headline: Rodman Meets With North Korean Leader, Courtside.

Seasons in the Kingdom