Showing posts with label ROK. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ROK. Show all posts

Monday, October 2, 2017

Not so scary under Korean skies: the things that happen while the world yells.

as published just now at John Menadue's blog


DENNIS ARGALL. Not so scary under Korean skies

2 October 2017
Australia has had yet another high level former US defence official breeze in, this time to warn that we might be attacked by the DPRK. Whether there is or is not a concerted plan to all this, the visits of the grave and famous and warnings about improbable threat serve a purpose of keeping us from wandering away from Uncle Sam’s skirt in these strange times. It is useful to step away from speculation and look at some things actually happening, taking the last few days as a slice of life. 
On 1 October the US Secretary of State, visiting Beijing, told journalists “…the United States is in direct contact with North Korea and is looking into whether Kim Jong Un is open to talks.” [Washington Post]
I think it’s a perilous business to tell journalists you may have a fish biting. On the same day a DPRK spokesman “called on the United States…to halt what it claimed to be a hostile policy toward Pyongyang, threatening to turn America into a “sea of flames.” [Yonhap, Seoul]. On 28 September Choe Son-hui, director general of the North American department at the DPRK Foreign Ministry, at talks in Moscow, “stressed that it is necessary for the U.S. to stop its hostile policy toward the DPRK in order to defuse tension and ensure peace and security in the Korean Peninsula and the Northeast Asian region.” [KCNA]
If Secretary of State Tillerson claims he’s winning something in this contest, he won’t.           [I wrote that yesterday before Trump told his Secretary of State via Twitter not to waste his time.]
On 28 September on ROK Armed Forces Day, ROK President Moon awarded a “the highest unit-level award given by the ROK government … to all the Sailors of CNFK [US Combined Naval Forces Korea] for “outstanding contribution to the defense of the Republic of Korea” [Stars and Stripes]. Since the Korean War ROK forces have remained under US control in wartime. In his speech on the same occasion President Moon called again for transfer of ‘OPCON’ from the US to the ROK: “It’s only when we regain wartime operational control of our military that North Korea will fear us more and the South Korean public will trust the military more. The goal of this administration is to accelerate the transfer of wartime operational control,” [Hankyoreh]
Then President Moon and Mrs Moon went to have lunch with ordinary seamen on an ROK naval vessel, the Yonhap photo showing happy laughter.
On 1 October, the ROK monthly trade figures showed a year-on-year increase in exports of 35%. In September “outbound shipments came to US$55.1 billion for the month, up from $40.8 billion tallied a year earlier…Imports also rose 21.7 percent on-year to $41.4 billion.” Petrochemical exports in the wake of hurricane damage to the US oil industry were a significant component.
Another round of discussions on the US ROK Free Trade Agreement will take place in Washington on 4 October.
Also on 1 October the Korea Resources Corporation published an estimate of the value of DPRK mineral resources at approximately USD2.8 trillion, fourteen times those of the ROK. Modest joint ROK-DPRK minerals projects have been suspended for some time. Sanctions exist, prospects remain.
Again on 1 October in response to the decision of the ROK government to extend electrical vehicle subsidies to Tesla cars previously excluded because they take more than ten hours to charge, Tesla announced plans to extend its network of charging stations in South Korea.
Also on the same day, President Moon released a video wishing everyone well for travel home over the Chuseok (Harvest Moon) holiday break… and separately congratulated DPRK figure skaters on their qualification for the Winter Olympics in the ROK next year.
Meanwhile in the wake of the trilateral summit between heads of state of the US, ROK and Japan in New York (at the Korean Lotte hotel, not a Trump hotel), “[t]he Blue House and White House have reportedly shared concerns that “distorted” reports from the Japanese press could “cause fissures” in trilateral coordination.”
This report does not implicate Prime Minister Abe in the shaping of the news items attracting concern, but anxious Prime Minister Abe has been using articulation of tension and criticism of the ROK as well as the DPRK and China (plus a USD18 billion education and aged care package, to be paid for by a GST increase of 2% in 2019) in support of his campaign for re-election on 22 October.
On 27 September, at an event to mark the tenth anniversary, on 4 October, of the meeting in 2007 between then ROK President Roh Moo-hyun and the DPRK President Kim Jong-il, President Moon said: “Many of the matters agreed upon in the Oct. 4 summit statement can be implemented even now. I hope that both North and South Korea will declare that the Oct. 4 summit statement remains valid,” He once again called for the restoration of military talks, humanitarian cooperation and the reunions of the families divided by the Korean War. Restoring military talks was particularly urgent, Moon said, “to relax inter-Korean tensions.” [Hankyoreh]
In his address to the UN General Assembly in New York on 21 September, President Moon quoted former US President Ronald Reagan: “Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.”
This ROK Government demonstrates a flexibility and skill in dealing with all sides in the current difficult situation. Many domestic supporters were alarmed by President Moon’s siding with President Trump on issues relating to the DPRK, but had Moon been strident rather than flexible, troubles would abound domestically and perhaps more dramatically in the trade relationship with the US. Nothing would have been gained strategically by antagonism, just as nothing is gained by being joined at the hip with a major power.
Dennis Argall, a former Australian Ambassador to China, has been an observer of North Asian affairs since 1970
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Thursday, April 13, 2017

and again regarding Korea

A contribution at The Conversation this morning:


Dennis Argall

logged in via Google
There is a lot of fact missing from this discussion. The aircraft carrier heading for Korean waters left Korean waters several weeks ago. It was there at the beginning of annual US-ROK exercises which have involved more and more massive forces in recent years which are perceived reasonably in Pyongyang as rehearsals of a decapitation plan for action against the north.
Also, amid all the shouting, note that this week, the Reunification Ministry, the Defence Ministry and the armed forces in South Korea have issued statements urging people to calm down, that what is done in the peninsula will be decided by South Korea, that their policy is peaceful, and there will be no war.
Also, if one steps away from the glare of US reporting as echoed by Australian media and commentators and politicians, note that this week the Chinese Vice Foreign Minister responsible for Korean and nuclear issues has been in Seoul to debrief on Xi-Trump and has taken the opportunity to meet all candidates for the 9 May presidential elections. Note also that Seoul newspapers are giving nice coverage to a friendly visit by two Russian warships to the ROK naval headquarters.
It seems remarkable that a country at the centre of such tension could be so sensible. Any reflection on DPRK behaviour has to involve empathy and awareness that no other country has been under such sustained nuclear threat for so long.
As with Beijing-Taipei relations the future of Korea will be decided by Seoul and Pyongyang.
This leaves us with Trump as comparable to a loutish parent getting belligerent at a school sports event. It’s not that he thinks Koreans in particular are children, he acts the same way towards everyone. We are curiously dependent on two generals, Mattis and McMaster, at Defense and National Security Agency. As well as perhaps Kushner to keep Trump away from the button. Read McMaster’s “Dereliction of Duty” for his views on high decision making. Read Yonhap Newsagency online to discover South Korean news.

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    Trevor Kerr

    logged in via Twitter
    In reply to Dennis Argall
    Thanks for mentioning Russia, an essential part of outcomes in North Asia.
    McMaster’s book is an essential, and rare, text on the conduct of war by civilians.

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      Dennis Argall

      In reply to Trevor Kerr
      “McMaster’s book is an essential, and rare, text on the conduct of war by civilians.” … or, critically, now, an insight into a main man’s view of that. War is always conducted by civilians except by military governments. It remains important, as Clausewitz argued, that statesmen know that war, as a policy instrument, once adopted, tends to drive out policy and pursue its own ends. It seems to me that the hypertrophic development of American much more than DPRK forces has largely driven out policy. There is no comfort in the fact that the US is now over-armed and under-brained or in the notion that soldier smarts (McMaster/Mattis) will keep policy in order.
      See
      for details of the 2016 exercises by US-ROK, this year’s no smaller.
      I wrote more on that here:
      Regarding the Russians, in 1982, in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs I secured approval for another Australian effort to shift the Korean issues somewhere. With no significant outcome, except that a comment by Mikhail Kapitsa,
      then the deputy Soviet foreign minister, has stuck with me. He said, in relation particularly to DPRK relations, that “Where two countries that should be friends are not friends, the fault is with the more powerful.” I have waited to see good examples of this principle in action. China perhaps heads more that way than Russia or the US. Israel the epitome of the contrary.
      There is a terrible ignorance here and elsewhere of both the ROK and the DPRK, and of Korean culture. Media and public policy driven by the US military posture and the spectacle of the DPRK wrestling with having been locked in the broom closet of Asia for half a century. From my very brief experience visiting Pyongyang long ago, the main thing I took away was of administrative weakness and bungling, comparable in Australian terms, with, say the Border Force + Centrelink were they both under a Morrison and were he unrestrained.
      We await the results of ROK elections on 9 May.
      There is mention there of THAAD.
      The idea of defending south Korea from north Korea with a HIGH ALTITUDE system is bizarre. The record of THAAD thus far is weak. It would seem irrelevant to a shower of missiles at low level such as the DPRK has recently demonstrated. THAAD is plainly directed at China. In political terms, rather than military hardware terms, it is another rope around south Korean, holding it to the US and away from prospect of peaceful outcomes on the peninsula.
      It seems also reasonable to speculate that the American show of force is an intervention in the south Korean presidential elections, to reduce support for moderate candidates concerned to engage in dialogue with the DPRK and China.

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          Dennis Argall

          logged in via Google
          In reply to Trevor Kerr
          “… "pacification” of the regions and to prop up a flailing government.“
          Are you referring to Ohio? :-)
          And next day...
        2. Trevor Kerr logged in via Twitter
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              Dennis Argall

              In reply to Trevor Kerr
              Good point… and I have to wonder about that now in the context of MOAB. And it does seem relevant to this (otherwise rather alarmingly Trumpist-ill-informed-spontaneous-violence-prone) discussion inasmuch as McMaster is there and without question involved in the MOAB decision. Here are the nearby mineral resources:
              McMaster has, in Afghanistan, with MOAB, now demonstrated his sense of escalation… for a second time. But in Afghanistan, unlike Syria, there is now the question of subsequent action by ground forces. There is a huge question whether this massive bomb has been used in a place very remote from human habitation. I can imagine people (including children, Mr President) at great distance incapacitated for life, deaf and brain damage, damage to many organs.
              Use of MOAB in the DPRK would be a crime against humanity unless the nuclear assets in DPRK are very remote. This says there are 15, or perhaps now 14http://heavy.com/news/2017/04/mother-of-all-bombs-moab-gbu43/
              We don’t know where the 14 MOABs are. This is a weapon that bridges from conventional to nuclear in its effects, in a ‘clean’ way. It’s only been used once before, this the first time in war. This use in Afghanistan is the first real test. Which is perhaps the main reason why McMaster has been in Afghanistan. We must follow the steps of the McMaster.
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                Darren Yorston 
                Darren Yorston is a Friend of The Conversation

                In reply to Dennis Argall
                The worst aspect of US military policy is that they have no concept of proportionality. They drop the largest non-nuclear weapon in their arsenal, a non penetrating weapon, onto a bunch of fighters in Afghanistan. I doubt very much that the MOAB was in theatre, one would suggest it was brought in for a strategic purpose and it would appear self evident what that purpose was.
                When I was in Afghanistan in 2007 a US B-1B bomber dropped 20 000lb of ordnance on a Taliban machine gun emplacement with the result “unsuccessful”. The US was sending a message.
                The MOAB was a message and not necessarily for North Korea alone; we will be your judge, jury and executioner.
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                  Trevor Kerr

                  logged in via Twitter
                  In reply to Darren Yorston
                  I guess it’s McMaster’s job to convey John Nicholson’s assessment of the bomb’s efficacy back to Trump and NSC. Whatever Trump has in his “mind” for DPRK, he must be tossing over a small bunkerbusting nuke. Love to know what China & Russia, let alone RoK & Japan, are telling him.
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                    Dennis Argall

                    In reply to Trevor Kerr
                    The DPRK targets are scattered.
                    Chinese President rang Trump during the week to say don’t do it.
                    Chinese former Vice-Minister dealing with Korea and nuclear spent the week in Seoul having friendly meetings with five presidential candidates. Five presidential candidates appeared in TV debate yesterday and all spoke against any military action.
                    Two Russian naval ships (destroyer and supply) making a friendly visit to ROK naval HQ this week.
                    To add a Japanese vessel to an American carrier task force is to say the least odd, unless one is trying to really annoy a lot of Koreans.
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              Monday, March 13, 2017

              Korea: Trump back in the bottle; too much in the bottle but no war this year.

              I drafted this text below on 9 March 2017 for another blog but was asked to rewrite it because it contained too many links for a blog. I declined to rewrite. In the era of Trump it is essential that we maximise links, not just assert from whatever claimed status.

               Since I wrote this the impeachment of the President of the Republic of Korea has been confirmed by the court. A presidential election must now be held by 9 May 2017. There is a possibility that a new president may be more open to the DPRK. The consequences for relations with the USA are not clear. That's a new subject for separate treatment.

               SKIP TO THE END IF YOU JUST WANT CONCLUSIONS
              

images can be enlarged by clicking on the image

              from googlemaps
              In January 2016, candidate Trump argued that South Korea was going to have to do more to defend itself. In March 2016 Trump argued that South Korea and Japan should pay their share of defence and consider developing their own nuclear weapons.
              

              That was at the same time as annual exercises between US and ROK forces involved a much larger than before number of US and south Korean troops and astonishing 'platforms'.
              

              This report in The Guardian emphasises the expanded character of the 2016 exercises and reports that the DPRK believes the drills reportedly now include training designed to prepare troops for the invasion of the North’s capital and “decapitation strikes” aimed at killing top leadership.
              

              The World Socialist Web Site has reported on the 2017 exercises thus.
              

              The numbers involved in the 2017 exercises, begun on 1 March do not appear to be published but are likely to match last year’s.
              


              As business as usual, the US Eighth Army continues to advertise a posting to Korea as a great opportunity.

              
The US Republican Party’s foreign policy platform – “America Resurgent” – put Korea up front in Asia, desiring, in particular, that “China … recognize the inevitability of change in the Kim family’s slave state”.
              

              In thinking about the apparent assassination of Kim Jong-un’s half-brother Kim Jong-nam  in Kuala Lumpur with VX applied to the skin, there is context of that Republican Party platform advocacy of regime change, of DPRK apprehensions about the changing nature of US-ROK exercises to include preemptive decapitation of the leadership in Pyongyang ... AND ALSO the ruckus attending the 2014 US comedy The Interview about assassination Kim Jong-un, including reprisal against Sony but where the fictional CIA plan was to assassinate with Ricin. Compare VX and Ricin here. Underscore this: the ruthless, cutthroat, authoritarian dynasty in the DPRK is currently ruled by a less senior family member, Kim Jong-un, than the reluctant prince, his half brother, now assassinated, perpetrators not legally determined. The more senior, playboy Kim Jong-nam, had been living mainly inside the Peoples Republic of China. Both, as is the pattern of their family for male descendants, Swiss educated. Edward VIII, say hello to Stalin. Kim Jong-nam say hello in heaven or hell to Lin Biao. Deng Xiaoping, which of these four will you exclude from a bridge game? (Someone of more classical education might name the relevant Shakespeare.)
              

              from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38850995
              The new US Defense Secretary James Mattis went swiftly to Seoul and Tokyo to give assurances on 2 February of continued stable support and spoke with the ROK Defence Minister on the first day of the current exercises, including expressing appreciation of acquisition of a golf course by the ROK government for location of the THAAD missile system. The long-anticipated deployment of THAAD was announced on 6 March, the day after the firing of four missiles by the DPRK into the Sea of Japan. The missiles were nothing new (nor was the attendant media hysteria) and their firing undoubtedly enabled all sides to test reaction and counter-reaction to such event, when everyone was on alert with the current exercises. See these links at allthingsnuclear and 38North.
              

              38North is a coherent advocate for negotiation by the US with the DPRK, but such does not seem feasible in the current situation in Washington, probably also Pyongyang (we have knowns about the US, mainly unknowns about the DPRK).
              

              Some excited reports said missiles had fallen within Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Here is a paper published in the journal of the US Naval War College on the legality of military activities in other people’s EEZs.
              

              In February the DPRK scheduled a missile launch to coincide with the visit to the US of Japanese Prime Minister Abe, exposing to the world some shonky processes of national security deliberation, surely now tightened up ... and leading to a cautious response by the White House.
              

              There has been no formal end to the Korean War (1950-53). Every day, year by year, a pantomime of hostility and balance and occasional incident is played out in the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom in the Demilitarised Zone, dead centre of this extraordinary continuing gamesmanship. Book a visit.

              Sound familiar? Source
              The point is not what he had in mind, but how he was perceived.
              There was subsequent quibbling, some indignant, about the defensive line drawn in East Asia by Dean Acheson, US Secretary of State in a speech to the Washington Press Club in January 1950 — a defensive line drawn from north of Japan, including Japan, the Ryukyu Archipelago (which includes Okinawa) and the Philippines... but not the Korean peninsula.

              Whatever later quibbling, Acheson made the speech and it was open to interpretation at the time that US support for South Korea was less than firm. North Korea launched a full attack on the south on 25 June 1950. It is reasonable to consider that the DPRK this year considered it appropriate to test the resolve of Trump... unless you consider the North Koreans simply mad, in which case please also consider Trump simply mad. Neither is true, though each side bewildering from time to time. Trump says he seeks to bewilder, so I think does the DPRK.
              

              ---o---

              So where is the balance this month?
              

              ·     •  Trump has been put back in the bottle of established US security policy and machinery on Northeast Asia. US military posture is sharper.
              


              ·     • THAAD is in place in South Korea, with a little action by the DPRK to make it easy, much to the fury of China.
              


              ·      • China is a major target in US high policy focus on Korea, as it was in 1950. There are nuclear weapons on the table.
              


              ·      • If China ever had any notion that Kim Jong-nam could be a replacement for Kim Jong-un, that game is over. We have a neglected/ignored/avoided framework of DPRK apprehensions in which to find understanding of the murder of Kim Jong-nam.
              

              ·      • There isn’t going to be a real war this year: I have revised my perspective away from anticipation of war in preparing this note.

              ·      • We need to watch the election campaign in the ROK. The doorway to not-war is via the relationship between Seoul and Pyongyang, not the big powers around them.
              

              PS: for another perspective see Geoff Miller Too Nuclear to Fail?

              ---ooOoo--

              Dennis Argall has been an observer of north Asian affairs since 1970 
              and was Australian Ambassador to China in the 1980s.


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