Tag Archives: North Korea

Is President Trump’s Nuclear Button Tweet a Sign of Insanity? by Scott Adams

Posted on January 4, 2018 | 1 comment

Anyone who tries to analyze President Trump solely by what he says is doomed to wrong predictions and ultimately, failure. From Scott Adams at theburningplatform.com:

On CNN yesterday, Jake Tapper described President Trump’s recent behavior — including the President’s tweet about having a bigger nuclear “button” than North Korea — as abnormal and unstable. In other words, crazy.

Is it?

One folksy definition of “crazy” is that it involves trying over and over again a solution that has never worked while hoping it works next time. President Trump is doing something closer to the opposite of that. He’s doing something new, both strategically and verbally. To be fair, new things can be crazy too. But usually only if they don’t work. When a new and unexpected thing works out well, we call it genius. And that begs the question: Is President Trump’s approach to North Korea working?

We’re seeing economic sanctions on North Korea that have the support of the UN Security Council. That part is working, and it took diplomatic skill to make it happen.

But we also see satellite images of tankers smuggling oil into North Korea. The sanctions looked as if they were not effective until South Korea detained two tankers involved in smuggling oil to North Korea. Grabbing two tankers doesn’t do much in terms of limiting supply, but it does dramatically change the perceived economics of being a smuggler. And if grabbing two tankers doesn’t get the message across, South Korea can keep detaining tankers until the economics do change. North Korea would be willing to take big risks to break the sanctions, but the shipping companies on which they depend will not. Shipping companies will only participate in wrongdoing when they are confident they won’t get caught. That calculation changed when South Korea detained two tankers.

To continue reading; Is President Trump’s Nuclear Button Tweet a Sign of Insanity?

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Behind Korea, Iran and Russia Tensions: The Lurking Financial War, by Alastair Crooke

Posted on January 1, 2018 | Leave a comment

Several countries who do not consider themselves friends of the US are moving away from US economic and financial dominance. That’s fueling tensions. From Alastair Crooke at strategic-culture.org:

What have the tensions between the US and North Korea, Iran and Russia in common? Answer: It is that they are components to a wider financial war. Russia and Iran (together with China) happen to be the three key players shaping a huge (almost half the global population) alternative currency zone. The North Korean issue is important as it potentially may precipitate the US – depending on events – towards a more aggressive policy toward China (whether out of anger at Chinese hesitations over Korea, or as part and parcel of the US Administration’s desire to clip China’s trading wings).

The US has embarked on a project to restore America’s economic primacy through suppressing its main trade competitors (through quasi-protectionism), and in the military context to ensure America’s continued political dominance. The US ‘America First’National Security Strategy made it plain: China and Russia are America’s ‘revisionist’ adversaries, and the US must and intends to win in this competition. The sub-text is that potential main rivals must be reminded of their ‘place’ in the global order. This part is clear and quite explicit, but what is left unsaid is that America is staking all on the dollar’s global, reserve currency status being maintained, for without it, President Trump’s aims are unlikely to be delivered. The dollar status is crucial – precisely because of what has occurred in the wake of the Great Financial crisis – the explosion of further debt.

But here is a paradox: how is it that a Presidential Candidate who promised less military belligerence, less foreign intervention, and no western cultural-identity imposition, has, in the space of one year, become, as President, a hawk in respect to Korea and Iran.  What changed in his thinking?  The course being pursued by both states was well-known, and has offered no sudden surprise (though North Korea’s progress may have proved quantitatively more rapid than, perhaps, US Intelligence was expecting: i.e. instead of 2020 – 2021, North Korea may have achieved its weapons objective in 2018 – some two years or so earlier that estimated)?  But essentially Korea’s desire to be accepted as a nuclear weapon state is nothing new.

To continue reading: Behind Korea, Iran and Russia Tensions: The Lurking Financial War

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Dealing With North Korea, by Walter E. Block

Posted on January 1, 2018 | Leave a comment

Maybe it’s time for something radically different in North Korea. From Walter E. Block at lewrockwell.com:

If I were President of the United States, or, more realistically, if Ron or Rand Paul were, and they appointed me Secretary of Defense, or Secretary of State, this is how I would deal with Kim Jong-un and the North Korean situation.

First, realize that Un’s theatrics are, from his own point of view, perfectly rational. He is not stupid. He looks at what happened to Muammar Gaddafi of Libya; murdered by mobs after kow-towing to the Great Satan. He notes the demise of Saddam Hussain of Iraq, another country that got on the wrong side of our imperialist nation; a similar dismal end befell him, too. It does not take much brain power to realize that Un’s only hope of escaping a similar fate would be, roughly, the one he has adopted: belligerence, nuclear armament, bellicosity, etc.

Here is what to do about the situation.

  1. Withdraw some 35,000 U.S. troops from the demilitarized zone, separating North and South Korea. What in bloody blue blazes are they doing there in the first place? Is not the Korean War of 1951 yet drawing to a close?
  2. Sign a formal agreement, a treaty, a contract, with, yes, North Korea, ending the unconstitutional, undeclared “police action” of 1950. This never should have been started in the first place. It is time, it is past time, to end it.
  3. Stop opposing any and all attempts of the two Koreas to unify with one another, perhaps along similar lines established by East and West Germany. What business is it of the U.S. what happens in that far away land? Ordinarily, I favor as many countries as possible. Seven billion plus is my ultimate goal, one for each of us. Certainly I support the secession of Catalonia, Quebec and any other breakaway province (or state! California: best of luck to you people in this regard). But, I am willing to make an exception in this one instance. In any case, this should be up, entirely, to Koreans, and the U.S. should take its big fat thumb out of this process.

To continue reading: Dealing With North Korea

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The Norks, by The Zman

Posted on December 31, 2017 | Leave a comment

Is North Korea falling apart? From The Zman at theburningplatform.com:

Is North Korea about to collapse?

That’s the question Don Surber asks in this post last week. He is looking at the recent defections of soldiers and civilians. We have at least one soldier, an elite soldier no less, who simply walked across the border unmolested. Maybe this happens from time to time, but the impression from news reports is that the Norks guard that border ferociously. The Norks have special units that do nothing but roam the border looking for anyone trying to flee. Here’s a recent video of them shooting a guy trying to escape.

Surber is looking at these recent incidents where North Koreans have managed to escapade unmolested and compares it to the last days of the Soviet empire. There’s also the fact that the one soldier was from an elite unit. That seems unusual. There was also the solider that escaped and was found to be infested with parasites, suggesting the regime is struggling to care for even the soldiers that protects it. The Kim regime can only survive if it has the absolute loyalty of the military, so they have to make sure they are fed.

I think we can also wonder if the recent Chinese cooperation may be another signal that all is not well in the hermit kingdom. It’s reasonable to assume that the Chinese know the most of any outsiders about what is going on inside the country. The assumption in the West is that they were willing to prop up the Norks, in order to avoid dealing with the collapse. Maybe they have decided that Kim’s days are numbered, no matter what they do, so they are now looking to turn the inevitable into an opportunity.

American military intelligence probably knows a great deal about what is happening inside North Korea, but it is tightly held information. As a result, the public defense experts have no idea what’s happening. Trump’s dramatic ramp up of pressure is reminiscent of what we did with the Russians in the 1980’s. Reagan’s great insight, and it was truly his insight, was that the Russians simply could not compete with the West, if we got our act together economically. That proved to be correct. The Russians were spent as an empire.

To continue reading: The Norks

 

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Say it Isn’t So Rex! by Antonius Aquinas

Posted on December 19, 2017 | Leave a comment

Rex Tillerson quickly reversed a more conciliatory course and fell back to the neoconservative, war-mongering line against North Korea. From Antonius Aquinas at theburningplatform.com:

After nearly a year of gaffes, provocations, threats, bombings, destabilizing arms deals, and, most recently, the disastrous decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the sanest member of the Trump Administration, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, appeared to have begun a new and promising diplomatic direction in relations with tiny, beleaguered North Korea.

In a surprising statement given to a Washington think tank on December 12, Secretary Tillerson said:

We are ready to talk anytime North Korea would like to talk.  We are ready to have the first meeting without preconditions.  Let’s just meet.  We can talk about the weather if you want.  We can talk about whether its going to be a square table or a round table if that’s what you’re excited about.  And then we can begin to lay out a road map.*

He perceptively added that it was “unrealistic” for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.

Tillerson’s reasonable approach, however, did not sit very well with either his boss or the blood thirsty war hawks within the Administration who now have enough ammunition to force his removal, probably after the first of the year.  One of Trump’s top aides reportedly said Tillerson “hasn’t learned his lesson.”**

A couple of days later, and probably after a tongue lashing by the Chief Executive, Tillerson had taken back his earlier statement and was once again pushing the hardcore, neocon line declaring: “North Korea must earn its way back to the table.  The pressure campaign must and will continue until denuclearization is achieved.”***

To continue reading: Say it Isn’t So Rex!

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The Road To War? by The ZMan

Posted on December 5, 2017 | 1 comment

Is Trump actually preparing to go to war with North Korea? From the Zman on a guest post at theburningplatform.com:

The base assumption of the armchair generals and foreign policy experts is that war on the Korean peninsula is suicide for all involved. The South Koreans know that the North Koreans have the capacity to inflict massive damage to South Korean cities. The North Koreans know that any war with the South brings in American air and sea power, which means the end of the Kim regime. Even assuming the Chinese step in to prevent a North defeat, the end result is monstrous for all concerned. As a result, we have a standoff.

That all sounds good, until you read something like this in the National Interest. Gordon Chang’s analysis may be way off base, but you cannot ignore the fact that Washington keeps pounding the war drums. It really does not matter if people outside Washington are listening. What matters is that official Washington seems to be gearing up for war. The Trump administration has been slowly building up offensive assets in the region. We now have three carrier groups operating within striking distance of North Korea.

Maybe it is all a bluff, but why would Washington bluff, if they accept the various war narratives popular with the foreign policy experts? If the North Koreans are sure that the South does not want a war, why would they think that Washington is doing anything other than bluffing? The whole point of saber rattling is so the other side thinks there is at least some chance that the guy rattling the saber is serious. More important, the guy with the saber needs to think he is serious too. Otherwise, you get Obama’s red lines.

There’s also the unknowns. In this case, no one really knows what South Korean and US military intelligence knows about the North Korean military. It is a safe bet that that the US has had spy satellites parked over North Korea for a long time. It’s also a safe bet that the South Koreans have been cultivating sources in the North Korean military. None of this information is made available to the so-called experts and armchair generals. In other words, Washington may be responding to things entirely unknown to the public.

To continue reading: The Road To War?

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Heaven Forbid Peace Should Break Out Between the US and North Korea! by Antonius Aquinas

Posted on December 4, 2017 | Leave a comment

It’s not out of the question that the US and North Korea could reach some sort of peaceful resolution of their conflict. From Antonius Aquinas at theburningplatform.com:

US bombing Korea

Hamhung, North Korea, June 30, 1950

As long as the US Empire can be funded and maintained on the backs of its taxpaying public, the chance of de-escalation of tensions not only on the Korean peninsula, but throughout the world are practically nil.  And, as long as the nation’s current interventionist ideology holds sway, it will only be through a financial meltdown that the US’s role as global policeman will come to a much-needed end.

The most recent example of the world’s biggest bully escalating matters is its on-again, off-again badgering of North Korea.  In contrast to Western/CIA media reports, the November 28 launch of what appears to be an intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-15, was not unprovoked.  Instead, the North Korean test firing was in response to the unexpected announcement of further US/South Korean military drills to take place starting on December 4.  The exercises are, in part, to show off the latest mass murdering “product” of America’s military industrial complex, the USF-22 Raptor stealth fighter jet.

Before the latest launch, the Kim Jong Un regime had not fired a missile for two months and was in discussions with other intermediaries about how tensions could be lessened on the Korean peninsula. For the bellicose US, however, not even an uneasy “truce” can be tolerated.  The next American scheduled drill was not to take place until the spring of 2018, yet, while negotiations were taking place, the US abruptly, and to the outrage of everyone involved, renewed exercises.  Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, explains:

We have been working with Pyongyang.  Then,

all of a sudden two weeks after the United States

had sent us the signal [about readiness to dialogue],

they announced unscheduled drills in December.

there is an impression that they were deliberately

provoking [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un to

make him break the pause and gave in to their

provocations.*

This, of course, is not the first time that the US has acted with duplicity in foreign matters.  Its barbaric dealing with two Middle Eastern strongmen (Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi) are grisly examples of what happens to those who run afoul of the US Empire, especially those who do not possesses a nuclear deterrent.

To continue reading: Heaven Forbid Peace Should Break Out Between the US and North Korea!

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Little Rocket Man’s Risky Game, by Patrick J. Buchanan

Posted on December 1, 2017 | Leave a comment

The betting favorite is little rocket man wins his risky game. From Patrick J. Buchanan at buchanan.org:

In the morning darkness of Wednesday, Kim Jong Un launched an ICBM that rose almost 2,800 miles into the sky before falling into the Sea of Japan.

North Korea now has the proven ability to hit Washington, D.C.

Unproven still is whether Kim can put a miniaturized nuclear warhead atop that missile, which could be fired with precision, and survive the severe vibrations of re-entry. More tests and more time are needed for that.

Thus, U.S. markets brushed off the news of Kim’s Hwasong-15 missile and roared to record heights on Wednesday and Thursday.

President Donald Trump took it less well. “Little Rocket Man” is one “sick puppy,” he told an audience in Missouri.

U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley told the Security Council that “if war comes … the North Korean regime will be utterly destroyed.” She then warned Xi Jinping that “if China does not halt the oil shipments” to North Korea, “we can take the oil situation into our own hands.”

Is Haley talking about bombing pipelines in North Korea — or China?

The rage of the president and bluster of Haley reflect a painful reality: As inhumane and ruthless as the 33-year-old dictator of North Korea is, he is playing the highest stakes poker game on the planet, against the world’s superpower, and playing it remarkably well.

Reason: Kim may understand us better than we do him, which is why he seems less hesitant to invite the risks of a war he cannot win.

While a Korean War II might well end with annihilation of the North’s army and Kim’s regime, it would almost surely result in untold thousands of dead South Koreans and Americans.

And Kim knows that the more American lives he can put at risk, with nuclear-tipped missiles, the less likely the Americans are to want to fight him.

His calculation has thus far proven correct.

As long as he does not push the envelope too far, and force Trump to choose war rather than living with a North Korea that could rain nuclear rockets on the U.S., Kim may win the confrontation.

Why? Because the concessions Kim is demanding are not beyond the utterly unacceptable.

To continue reading: Little Rocket Man’s Risky Game

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Is North Korea Really a ‘State Sponsor of Terrorism’? by Ron Paul

Posted on November 27, 2017 | Leave a comment

On that list of state sponsors of terrorism, one looks in vain for Saudi Arabia or the United States, both of whom have sponsored numerous terrorists, notably ISIS and al Qaeda. From Ron Paul at ronpaulinstitute.org:

President Trump announced last week that he was returning North Korea to the US list of “state sponsors of terrorism” after having been off the list for the past nine years. Americans may wonder what dramatic event led the US president to re-designate North Korea as a terrorism-sponsoring nation. Has Pyongyang been found guilty of some spectacular terrorist attack overseas or perhaps of plotting to overthrow another country by force? No, that is not the case. North Korea is back on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism because President Trump thinks the move will convince the government to give up its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program. He believes that continuing down the path toward confrontation with North Korea will lead the country to capitulate to Washington’s demands. That will not happen.

President Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson argued that North Korea deserved to be back on the list because the North Korean government is reported to have assassinated a North Korean citizen – Kim Jong-Un’s own half-brother — in February at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. But what does that say about Washington’s own program to assassinate US citizens like Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16 year old son under Obama, and later Awlaki’s six year old daughter under Trump? Like Kim’s half brother, Awlaki and his two children were never tried or convicted of a crime before being killed by their own government.

The neocons, who are pushing for a war with North Korea, are extremely pleased by Trump’s move. John Bolton called it “exactly the right thing to do.”

Designating North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism will allow President Trump to impose the “highest level of sanctions” on North Korea. Does anyone believe more sanctions – which hurt the suffering citizens of North Korea the most – will actually lead North Korea’s leadership to surrender to Washington’s demands? Sanctions never work. They hurt the weakest and most vulnerable members of society the hardest and affect the elites the least.

So North Korea is officially a terrorism-sponsoring nation according to the Trump Administration because Kim Jong-Un killed a family member. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is in the process of killing the entire country of Yemen and no one says a word. In fact, the US government has just announced it will sell Saudi Arabia $7 billion more weapons to help it finish the job.

To continue reading: Is North Korea Really a ‘State Sponsor of Terrorism’?

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America’s Renegade Warfare, by Nicolas J.S. Davies

Posted on November 17, 2017 | Leave a comment

One of the weird things about modern warfare is that it kills large numbers of civilians, but those deaths are essentially ignored, while most military deaths generate all sorts of attention. From Nicolas J.S. Davies at antiwar.com:

Seventy-seven million people in North and South Korea find themselves directly in the line of fire from the threat of a Second Korean War. The rest of the world is recoiling in horror from the scale of civilian casualties such a war would cause and the unthinkable prospect that either side might actually use nuclear weapons.

Since the first Korean War killed at least 20 percent of North Korea’s population and left the country in ruins, the U.S. has repeatedly failed to follow through on diplomacy to establish a lasting peace in Korea and has instead kept reverting to illegal and terrifying threats of war. Most significantly, the US has waged a relentless propaganda campaign to discount North Korea’s legitimate defense concerns as it confronts the threat of a US war machine that has only grown more dangerous since the last time it destroyed North Korea.

The North has lived under this threat for 65 years and has watched Iraq and Libya destroyed after they gave up their nuclear weapons programs. When North Korea discovered a US plan for a Second Korean War on South Korea’s military computer network in September 2016, its leaders quite rationally concluded that a viable nuclear deterrent is the only way to guarantee their country’s safety.

What does it say about the role the US is playing in the world that the only way North Korea’s leaders believe they can keep their own people safe is to develop weapons that could kill millions of Americans?

The Changing Face of War

The Second World War was the deadliest war ever fought, with at least 75 million people killed, about five times as many as in the First World War. When the slaughter ended in 1945, world leaders signed the United Nations Charter to try to ensure that that scale of mass killing and destruction would never happen again. The U.N. Charter is still in force, and it explicitly prohibits the threat or use of military force by any nation.

To continue reading: America’s Renegade Warfare

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