Author Archives for Grant Montgomery

Intelligence on North Korea hard to read

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Excerpt of opinion article by Mike Chinoy, a former CNN Senior Asia correspondent:

The latest controversy over whether North Korea has the technology to fit a nuclear warhead on a missile is not the first time American intelligence agencies have been at odds in assessing Pyongyang’s capabilities. And it is not the first time the Pentagon’s intelligence arm, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has been out front in reaching the most alarmist conclusions about North Korea — one with which other U.S. agencies have disagreed.

The DIA assessment, disclosed by a Congressman at a hearing on April 11, was that the DIA has “moderate confidence” North Korea has developed a nuclear warhead that can be delivered by a ballistic missile. Within hours, however, James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, released a statement saying the DIA report did not represent the consensus of the intelligence community, and that “North Korea has not yet demonstrated the full range of capabilities necessary for a nuclear armed missile,” — a view echoed by a Pentagon spokesman and the South Korean Defense Ministry.

Secretary of State John Kerry also noted that “it is inaccurate to suggest that the DPRK has fully tested, developed or demonstrated capabilities that are articulated in that report.”

The sharply different judgments about Pyongyang’s capabilities recall a similar episode in 1998, when a fierce debate erupted within the American intelligence community after U. S. spy satellites discovered an underground complex at Kumchangri, not far from North Korea’s main nuclear facility at Yongbyon. On August 17, 1998, the New York Times published a story that revealed the intelligence findings, turning what had been an internal intelligence debate into a public firestorm of controversy — just as the congressman’s revelations did on Thursday.

The Times report, with headline “North Korea Site An A-Bomb Plant, US Agencies Say” created major problems. In Washington, the Clinton administration came under attack for Pyongyang’s alleged violations of the Agreed Framework. And, unless the issue was handled with great skill, the tenuous link between the U.S. and North Korea that has existed since the 1994 deal would collapse.

In the spring of 1999, Chuck Kartman, Washington’s Special Envoy for Peace Talks with North Korea — nicknamed “Iron Butt” for his ability to sit patiently and listen to North Korean envoys spew out venom, bombast and threats across the negotiating table — engaged in protracted talks with his North Korean counterparts.

In May, Kartman convinced the North to agree to permit U.S. inspectors to visit Kumchangri. In addition, after initially demanding a payment of $300 million dollars for a one-time visit, North Korea eventually accepted a shipment of 100,000 tons of potatoes as the “price” of permitting the inspection.

Accompanied by a team of experts, Kartman flew to Pyongyang and the North Koreans took them to Kumchangri. To the Americans’ surprise and embarrassment, they found a large, empty underground cave. There was no evidence of a secret nuclear site.

Pentagon says North Korea could launch nuclear missile

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A U.S. intelligence report concludes that North Korea has advanced its nuclear know-how to the point that it could arm a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead, a jarring revelation in the midst of bellicose threats from the unpredictable communist regime.

The new American intelligence analysis says the Pentagon’s intelligence wing has “moderate confidence” that North Korea has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles but that the weapon was unreliable.

Notably absent from that unclassified segment of the report was any reference to what the DIA believes is the range of a missile North Korea could arm with a nuclear warhead. Much of its missile arsenal is capable of reaching South Korea and Japan, but Kim Jong Un has threatened to attack the United States as well.

At a separate hearing, U.S. officials offered their assessment of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong UN. They told the House Intelligence Committee that Kim, who took control after his father, Kim Jong Il, died in 2011, is trying to show the U.S., the world and his own people that he is “firmly in control in North Korea,” while attempting to maneuver the international community into concessions in future negotiations.

“I don’t think … he has much of an endgame other than to somehow elicit recognition” and to turn the nuclear threat into “negotiation and to accommodation and presumably for aid.”

AP

Meet the political elites of North Korea

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North Korea Chang and Kim Kyong huiKim Kyong-hui (right) is the younger sister of Kim Jong-un’s late father, Kim Jong-il. She and her husband, Chang Song-taek (left) have been central to North Korean politics for four decades and hold multiple titles in government.

When the inexperienced Kim Jong-un became the new leader in 2011, the couple were widely thought to be acting as his mentors. The couple were pictured flanking Kim Jong-un recently when he vowed to keep nuclear weapons as “the nation’s life treasure”.

Chang Song-taek was a trusted friend of Kim Jong-il’s, and rose through the ranks of the Korean Workers Party (KWP) after joining in the early 1970s and was elected to the Central Committee in 1992. But sometime in 2004, he suddenly disappeared from politics and was believed to have been arrested and sent for political “re-education”. Some observers said that despite his close relationship with Kim Jong-il, Mr Chang was considered to have become too influential with too large a personal support base and hence deemed a threat to the established order.

He emerged two years later to be seen regularly alongside Kim Jong-il, becoming more prominent after the leader’s suspected stroke in 2008. In June 2010, South Korean news agency Yonhap described Mr Chang as “guardian of Kim Jong-un”. North Korea watchers often consider him to be the real power behind the throne.

North Korean HyonHyon Yong-chol was promoted to the post of vice-marshal in the North Korean People’s Army on 17 July 2012. KCNA news agency later confirmed his as the chief of the general staff of the Korean People’s Army.

The previously little-known general rose to sudden prominence, replacing the powerful former army chief, Ri Yong-ho. Analysts said at the time that the reshuffle appeared to be an attempt by Kim Jong-un to stamp his authority on the army – and the apparent purge of Mr Ri suggested he is not averse to employing well-worn North Korean tactics to ensure loyalty to the leadership.

Very little is known about Mr Hyon, but he is believed to have been a general since 2010 and is a member of the central committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea. In a clear sign of his growing influence, he served on the committee for Kim Jong-il’s funeral in December 2011. 

North Korean choe ryong haeChoe Ryong-hae (pictured to left of Kim Jong-un) is seen as the chief image-maker of Kim Jong-un as a military leader, along with Mr Chang.

Mr Choe has for a long time been known to be close to the Kim family. An economics graduate, Mr Choe became a four-star general in September 2010.

In April 2012, at the major Workers’ Party conference which followed Kim Jong-un’s appointment, Mr Choe was suddenly made a vice-marshal despite having no military background – an unprecedented move in North Korea.

He is something of a toy soldier, says North Korean analyst Aidan Foster-Carter, seldom, if ever, spotted in military uniform but with a high-ranking military role. There is speculation that Mr Choe’s rapid rise could be behind the fall from grace of the top army official Ri Yong-ho, and that the pair may have fallen out. 

North Korean Choe Yong rimChoe Yong-rim is an elder statesman figure in North Korea. He was described by Yonhap as being a “long-time confidant of the late leader Kim Il-sung”, and he appears to have remained in favor with both his successors.

North Korean leaders have traditionally placed great importance on visiting and being photographed at factories, farms and industrial plants. In recent months, Mr Choe has regularly been seen on such visits, a sign of the trust placed in him and his level of influence. 

North Korean Kim Yong namKim Yong-nam is the chairman of the presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly – the highest political machine in the country – and is in effect the head of state, although the position does not in practice exist in North Korea.

The 85-year-old is technically responsible for foreign relations, and has been on several foreign trips, including to the Beijing Olympics in 2008. North Korea analyst Aidan Foster-Carter says those tours show he has some influence and is clearly listened to by the regime, but he is more a survivor than a key holder of power.

BBC

North Korean refugee speaks at TED

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North Korean refugee Hyeonseo LeeBorn in North Korea, in 1997 Hyeonseo Lee escaped to China as a 14-year-old refugee.

After more than 10 years in China, in 2008 Hyeonseo Lee arrived in Seoul, where she struggled to adjust to life in the bustling city. North Korean defectors often have a hard time in South Korea, she noted in the Wall Street Journal: “We defectors have to start from scratch. Prejudice against North Koreans and icy stares were other obstacles that were hard to cope with.”

Now a student at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, she has become an advocate for fellow refugees, even helping close relatives leave North Korea after they were targeted.

Her dream? As she told the Korea Times, she’d like to work at the UN or an NGO that advocates for the human rights of North Koreans, including their right to be treated as political refugees.

View her TED presentation.

 

Kim Jong Un moves force boost in US missile defense

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Excerpts of an opinion piece by Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review:

Kim Jong Un has done the near-impossible. He has forced the Obama administration to admit that the United States needs more missile defense.

Opposition to missile defense constitutes one of the most treasured books of the Democratic arms-control gospel. Since it was introduced by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, Democrats have reflexively denounced the idea of a defense against incoming ballistic missiles as wholly unworkable, impossibly expensive, and dangerously destabilizing.

Upon taking office, the Obama administration promptly nixed additional interceptors planned for deployment on the West Coast against the budding North Korean missile threat. George W. Bush had already put 30 interceptors at two sites on the West Coast, a symptom of his “Cold War mindset” that the supple and sophisticated Obama administration had no use for.

Rather than simply trust that a lunatic North Korean regime running its country like a vast prison camp will rationally calculate its self-interest as we would hope, the Obama administration says it is going to add back the 14 canceled interceptors. This will take the number of West Coast interceptors from 30 to 44, though with unnecessary expense and delay. The new interceptors should be online in 2017, or by the end of the president’s second term.

A Possible War Scenario

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Prior threats issued by North Korea have always been viewed by political analysis as a way to keep North Korea unjust demands in the worlds spot light and cover up its human rights violations which their government’s dictatorships have created alone.

Yet this time something in the way North Korea has taken a stance is different. In what is now viewed as an escalation in their threats, North Korea has chosen to cancel the frayed armistice that has existed for sixty years, … turn off their crisis hot line which connects them directly to South Korea, as well as threaten a preemptive nuclear attack against the United States.

If a war was to pursue, the causalities to South Korea could quickly mount into the millions, for just south of the DMZ is Seoul surrounded by Lncheon and Gyeonggi province, with a combined population of 25.6 million people. Economically speaking, any disruption of commerce to this area would have a far reaching effect on the world’s commerce just now emerging from the recession.

And in reality North Korea’s threats aimed at South Korea and the United States have also directly threaten the people of China, potentially making China North Korea’s pawn in a potential war! From the United States stand point of view any attack on South Korea by North Korea will force an immediate retaliatory response from the United States. Such a response will drag China into the war to support its long term ally, North Korea.

[Examiner.com]  

Asia’s odd couple China and North Korea

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In the U.N. negotiations over sanctions — this time as before — the Chinese have consistently played the role of watering down the degree of punishment imposed against Pyongyang. It remains to be seen whether Beijing intends to enforce the new measures.

The Chinese worry that coming down hard on Pyongyang, by cutting off their vital oil or food exports, could trigger a collapse of the North Korean government or other political instability on the peninsula. Beijing’s nightmares include a loose nukes problem and a humanitarian disaster.

Beijing also has fears about the effects of a North Korean collapse on the strategic balance in East Asia. If North Korea collapsed and the two Koreas unified, China might find astride its border a unified, U.S.-aligned Korea hosting American troops. Chinese analysts also commonly argue that North Korea serves as an important distraction for the U.S. military, which might otherwise train its focus on defending Taiwan.

Thus, despite the nuisance that North Korea regularly makes of itself, for all these reasons, it would be sorely missed by Beijing. But the days of “lips and teeth” (Mao Zedong’s’s famous statement about the closeness of Sino-North Korean relations) are clearly over. Chinese scholars and analysts increasingly express open frustration with Pyongyang’s behavior. In a meeting of an advisory group to the Chinese government — the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference — participants openly debated the question: whether to “keep or dump” North Korea?

China’s remarkable four decades of economic reform and growth have catapulted it to wealth and power — China is a global power, with global interests. China has a deep stake in maintaining stability in order to sustain its pathway to prosperity. China’s relationship with the United States can be tense [but] the two countries are vital trade partners that share a vast array of ties and often overlapping interests. Beijing also values its relationship with South Korea.

Because the specter of North Korea’s collapse could potentially destabilize the Korea peninsula, Beijing may continue to shield Pyongyang. But the two countries’ increasingly divergent interests suggest that China’s dissatisfaction with North Korea is only likely to grow.

[Excerpts of article by Jennifer Lind, associate professor of government at Dartmouth College]

China shifting stance on old friend North Korea?

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No one is suggesting China will abandon the regime of leader Kim Jong-un or even implement the new sanctions to the letter, but China’s frustration grows. An exasperated China appears to have run out of patience after years of trying to coax Pyongyang out of isolation and to embrace economic reform.

To top it off, Kim Jong-un has failed to pay fealty to China, his country’s only major ally, as his father and grandfather did. He has not visited China since taking over when his father Kim Jong-il died at the end of 2011.

Even the modicum of affection Chinese used to feel towards North Koreans, brothers-in-arms during the 1950-53 Korean War, has all but vanished, the country and its leader becoming an object of derision and incomprehension, especially as China powers ahead economically and rises in global stature.

The Global Times, an influential tabloid published by Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily, has called for China to cut North Korea off completely. It warned on Friday that Pyongyang should not underestimate China’s anger.

Signs of unhappiness with Pyongyang have seeped out of China’s military establishment too, although it is hard to know for certain what the top brass are thinking. “It does not matter if you were a comrade and brother-in-arms in the past, if you harm our national interest then we’ll get even with you,” retired major-general Luo Yuan, a prominent foreign policy hawk, wrote on his blog on Saturday.

Kim Jong Un’s actions have also become an unwanted headache for incoming Chinese president Xi Jinping, who is already facing a host of domestic problems from corruption to pollution. China’s new leadership, including Xi, do not have the emotional ties to North Korea that their predecessors had. Visits then used to be marked with smiles and bear hugs. Xi also understands there is little public sympathy at home for Pyongyang.

To be sure, China will not cut North Korea off completely. The country is a useful buffer from U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, and Japan too. China also does not want North Korea to go the same route as Myanmar, once a staunch ally of Beijing but which is now rapidly expanding ties with Washington.

And if China turns the screws too much then North Korea could collapse — Beijing’s ultimate nightmare scenario. Not only would that release a flood of refugees into northeastern China, it would also raise the question of what would happen to North Korea’s nuclear material.

[Excerpted from Reuters analysis] 

Situation ramps up as North Korea declares 1953 armistice invalid

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In the last 60 years, diplomacy between North and South Korea has zigzagged from conciliatory to bellicose.

Now the North Korean army has declared invalid the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War in 1953.  The Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported that the Supreme Command of North Korea’s army had done so, adding, “The U.S. has reduced the armistice agreement to a dead paper.”

Part of the reason for the latest move are the joint exercises between the United States and South Korea. A bigger reason is tougher sanctions passed in the U.N. Security Council against North Korea in response to its nuclear test on February 12.

The Treasury Department announced today that it was designating North Korea’s primary exchange bank, the Foreign Trade Bank, as a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction. Treasury also made the same designation, against Paek Se-Bong, the chairman of North Korea’s Second Economic Committee, which oversees production of North Korea’s ballistic missiles. The designation freezes any assets in the U.S. and prohibits transactions with Americans.

The armistice that North Korea has scrapped is the agreement that ended the war between North and South Korea. It is a truce, rather than a peace treaty. The terms of the armistice included the creation of the Demilitarized Zone, a heavily fortified 155-mile long (250 kilometers) 2.5-mile wide line separating the two countries.

North Korea has also cut off direct phone links with South Korea at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. The phone line was the emergency link for quick, two-way communication between the two sides.

The Rodong Sinmun also reported the North Korean Supreme Command saying that it can now make a “strike of justice at any target anytime, not bound to the armistice agreement.”

President Obama’s spokesman said today that the White House is concerned by war threats coming from North Korea. A military clash could risk drawing in the United States, which has about 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea as part of the security alliance between the two countries.

North Korean social media

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In North Korea, where people have almost no Internet contact with the outside world, “North Korean social media” sounds like an oxymoron. But on February 25, Jean H. Lee of the Associated Press became one of the first people to tweet from North Korea when she posted a message on the country’s new 3G wireless network, available only to foreigners.

“Hello world from comms center in ‪#Pyongyang,” she wrote. Lee has since been active from North Korea on Instagram as well, posting snapshots of street scenes, food and government propaganda posters.

Lee is joined in her social media updates from Pyongyang by AP photographer David Guttenfelder, who posts images often to his 71,000 Instagram followers.

As the AP’s bureau chief for both South and North Korea, Lee is the only American news reporter granted regular access to the secretive nation, which she has visited more than 20 times. She offers a rare glimpse of digital life beyond the DMZ.

The country lags behind much of the world when it comes to digital adoption, but there are signs that North Korea is trying to catch up, Lee said. The new Koryolink 3G network — jointly owned by the North Korean government and an Egyptian company — that launched last month marks a shift in policy for Kim Jong Un’s regime, which also has recently begun to allow foreigners to bring their cellphones into the country.

“We are starting to see more openness,” she said. “We’re talking baby steps. They’re a long way from being a free and open society.”

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