North Korea Archive

Terrific: North Korea And Iran Grab US Military Intel In Back-To-Back Hacking Attacks

By
Omri Ceren
Published: December 18, 2009Posted in: Iran, Military News, North KoreaTags: , , , ,

Terrific

Perfect. Just absolutely perfect:

South Korea’s military said Friday it was investigating a hacking attack that netted secret defense plans with the United States and may have been carried out by North Korea. The suspected hacking occurred late last month when a South Korean officer failed to remove a USB device when he switched a military computer from a restricted-access intranet to the Internet, Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said. The USB device contained a summary of plans for military operations by South Korean and U.S. troops in case of war on the Korean peninsula.

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China Recommits To Shielding North Korea, Boosting Ties

By
Omri Ceren
Published: October 6, 2009Posted in: China, Diplomacy, North Korea, World NewsTags: , , ,

Boosting

Thereby presenting the immediate question: is there a destabilizing nuclear rogue that China isn’t trying to boost? I was going to say maybe Pakistan but Google News indicates otherwise. So at least they’re consistent:

China pledged to strengthen bonds with isolated North Korea… The renewed courting between the two communist neighbors came in messages between Chinese President Hu Jintao and North Korea’s top leader, Kim Jong-il, who on Sunday hugged Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at the start of a visit intended to bolster bilateral relations. The messages marked 60 years since the countries established formal ties on October 6, 1949, and did not mention of the North’s nuclear weapons program, instead stressing their focus on shoring up ties. “History demonstrates that developing China-North Korea relations is in keeping with the fundamental interests and shared wishes of both countries’ people,” said the congratulatory message from China, issued by the official Xinhua news agency. “It also benefits protecting regional peace and stability.”

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UAE Seizes North Korean Arms Ship Bound For Iran, Pro-Engagement Foreign Policy Experts Perplexed

By
Omri Ceren
Published: August 28, 2009Posted in: Arab and Muslim World, Diplomacy, Engagement, Iran, North Korea, World NewsTags: , , , , , ,

Expert

About time. The UAE has been the gaping hole in the Iran sanctions net for years:

The United Arab Emirates has seized a ship carrying North Korean weapons to Iran, marking the first time a nation has acted on UN sanctions to stop the communist state’s proliferation, a diplomat said Friday… A diplomat, speaking to AFP in New York on condition of anonymity, said UAE government officials had informed the UN Security Council’s sanctions committee, which is responsible for implementing sanctions on Pyongyang. “It is an issue that is being processed by the committee,” said the source, who declined further comment on details on the weapons.

I was going to end with the MR post from last April about how Obama prevented our cutting-edge missile defense from getting deployed lest it “provoke” the North Koreans. But instead here’s a post from last Tuesday about how Obama’s diplomatic push toward Pyongyang is paying off.

Do you think the informal club of celebrity tyrants who so fascinate our liberal foreign policy community actually laugh out loud when they talk about Obama?

With regime change off the table, and President Obama dishing out “mutual respect” faster than the rulers of Tehran, Tripoli, Pyongyang or Caracas can spit their contempt right back in his face, tyrants are becoming ever more weirdly trendy. They are globalized, in our face, on the Web, on television–and as New York braces for the September opening of the United Nations General Assembly, some of them, with considerable ceremony, are coming to town.

The most flamboyant among them enter a VIP orbit, in which they may be officially reviled, but also eagerly sought after. Recall the banquet hosted by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last September at the midtown Manhattan Grand Hyatt for 1,000 or so of his closest friends. Or remember the gushing accounts two years ago of the invitations sent out, as Time magazine described it, on “creamy stationery with fancy calligraphy,” to a select 50 or so American opinion-makers to sup with Ahmadinejad at the Intercontinental Hotel in New York. Whatever the protesters shouted outside the security cordon, it has become an accepted part of New York’s fall season that Ahmadinejad and his retinue arrive for a hoopla of motorcades, talk shows, press conferences and banquets.

It’s easy to forget that Ahmadinejad was endlessly fascinating to the left, right up until his “no gays in Iran” stunt made it declasse to defend him. Before that happened foreign policy experts were actually flirting with painting him – apocalyptic lunatic though he is – as a relative moderate:

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Clinton: Oh, By The Way, Engaging North Korea Probably Won’t Work

By
Omri Ceren
Published: August 5, 2009Posted in: Diplomacy, Engagement, North Korea, World NewsTags: , , , , , ,

Won't Work

Oh you think so doctor?

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday she isn’t counting on a breakthrough in relations with North Korea now that the communist nation has freed two American journalists… Still, she held out hope of a thaw in relations with North Korea. “Perhaps they will now be willing to start talking to us within the context of the six-party talks about the international desire to see them denuclearize,” she said Wednesday on NBC’s “Today” show.

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Great News: DOD Says We’ll Be In Range Of North Korean Missiles By 2012

By
Omri Ceren
Published: June 17, 2009Posted in: North KoreaTags: , ,

range

Here’s the thing. I was told in no uncertain terms that Obama’s flip flops are “for the public good” and “a stark contrast to… Bush’s inflexibility.” It was explained to me – at length – that he’s a Machiavellian pragmatist. So how come this doesn’t spur him to change his position on missile defense the way he’s reversed himself on, say, homosexual civil rights?

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North Korea: Actually, We’re Thinking About Using Our Nukes Offensively

By
Omri Ceren
Published: June 9, 2009Posted in: Iran, North Korea, United NationsTags: , , , , ,

Thinking

At times like this, I like to remember the wisdom of UN nuclear specialist and IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei: Israel is a bigger threat than North Korea. But just in case he’s wrong, how about we get Obama to give a speech to the “Asian World.” Preferably soon:

North Korea said Tuesday it would use nuclear weapons in a “merciless offensive” if provoked — its latest bellicose rhetoric apparently aimed at deterring any international punishment for its recent atomic test blast. Pyongyang raised tensions a notch by reviving its rhetoric in a commentary in the state-run Minju Joson newspaper Tuesday. “Our nuclear deterrent will be a strong defensive means … as well as a merciless offensive means to deal a just retaliatory strike to those who touch the country’s dignity and sovereignty even a bit,” said the commentary, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Remember how before the April launch Gates announced – in advance – that we had no military options against a North Korean missile launch? And how Clinton signaled – in advance – that we wouldn’t really be able to do anything diplomatically either? And how Obama proved them right when he banned our cutting-edge radar system from monitoring the launch and failed to get the UN to respond adequately, having personally fumbled the question during a press conference?

You don’t think that emboldened these sociopaths, eventually encouraging them to conduct the May nuclear test that caught us flatfooted, do you?

Oh well. At least Iran isn’t tracking Obama’s weakness in response to North Korean provocations. That would really degrade our negotiating position.

References and previously after the jump…

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Nazi Toy Soldiers In Korean Apple Seller Store (Plus: Multiculturalism Is An Excuse)

By
Omri Ceren
Published: January 27, 2007Posted in: North KoreaTags:

We live in an age of hypersensitivity, where individuals and corporations are expected to go out of their way to avoid giving offense. It doesn’t matter, incoherent, or hypocritical someone’s “identity” is – in our multicultural age, boycotts can be called and threats can be made on the most absurd pretexts. This isn’t just about the world exploding when the Pope gave a dry speech about Biblical hermeneutics. It’s about Burger King changing the design on their ice cream cones because the swirl looked too much like the word Allah – and someone darkly dropped the word “sacreligious”. It’s also about Air New Zealand proactively bleeping out the word God from the movie The Queen so Muslims wouldn’t get offended.

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Reuters: Problems With North Korea Began In 2002 Under Bush

By
Omri Ceren
Published: October 31, 2006Posted in: Anti-Israel Journalism, North KoreaTags:

We commented yesterday about the bad habit that Reuters has for reimagining history, where it becomes they want it to be rather than what it actually was. This afternoon they’ve got a timeline of the NoKo crisis up – and it begins only in 2002:

Six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme will resume soon, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday. Following is a chronology of major milestones in the North Korean nuclear crisis: – October 2002: Top State Department envoy James Kelly confronts Pyongyang…

Now a concerned citizen might comment that – wait – weren’t there a lot of things that contributed to the crisis that happened before 2002? Events that are relevant to understanding the current shape of the crisis and to making judgments about future anti-proliferation efforts? Things like this:

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And the Wheels Come Off – (1) North Korea

By
Omri Ceren
Published: October 8, 2006Posted in: North KoreaTags:

CNN’s posts their prewritten story, with time and date filled in:


South Korean government officials said North Korea performed its first nuclear weapons test Monday, the South’s Yonhap news agency reported. North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported the country has performed a successful nuclear test. According to KCNA, there was no radioactive leakage from the site. South Korean officials could not immediately confirm the Yonhap report. South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun convened an urgent meeting of security advisers over the issue, Yonhap reported. The North said last week it would conduct a nuclear test as part of its deterrent against a possible U.S. invasion.

This invasion would be with the phantom divisions ready to go as soon as the President, backed by phantom public support, gives the order. Welcome to the nuclear club, North Korea. Enjoy your “most recent member” position as long as you can – which we’re pegging at like two months, right?

North Korea Will Test Nuke (?!)

By
Omri Ceren
Published: October 3, 2006Posted in: North KoreaTags:

But Bill Clinton told me that he fixed this:


North Korea said on Tuesday that it would conduct a nuclear test in the future but remained committed to the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, Pyongyang’s official KCNA news agency said. Following are parts of the North Korean foreign ministry’s statement in English carried by KCNA: “The DPRK (North Korean) Foreign Ministry is authorised to solemnly declare as follows in connection with the new measure to be taken to bolster the war deterrent for self-defence: Firstly, the field of scientific research of the DPRK will in the future conduct a nuclear test under the condition where safety is firmly guaranteed. The DPRK was compelled to pull out of the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) as the present US administration scrapped the DPRK-US Agreed Framework and seriously threatened the DPRK’s sovereignty and right to existence.”

How great is it that the Bush administration kept China’s deployment of anti-satellite weapons under wraps because China was being so helpful with North Korea? Never mind that using ASATs violates like a billion treaties – China’s playing ball!

US Pressuring South Korea to Weaken South Korean-Israeli Ties

By
Omri Ceren
Published: December 8, 2005Posted in: North KoreaTags:

The United States is placing inordinate pressure on South Korea not to sigh a lucrative arms deal with Israel so that Boeing can get the contract:


Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) and Elta have proposed selling the Koreans four early-warning aircraft (EWA) for $1.25 billion. In efforts to thwart the deal, the Americans have argued that part of the system includes U.S.-made parts, which require an export license. Washington is applying great pressure on South Korea to give the tender to the American firm Boeing, even though the Israeli offer is far less expensive.

Money from the export market is, of course, how the Israeli defense industry stays in business and on the cutting edge of new technologies. And the Israeli defense industry is, of course, the only thing holding off Israel’s enemies – which outnumber Israel by entire orders of magnitude. If Boeing was actually more efficient, then it would be a good thing for South Korea to purchase arms from them – it would force the Israeli industry to compete, bettering the industry as a whole. But the United States’ actions here amount to nothing more or less than forcibly cutting off funds to the Israeli defense industry – while allowing US firms to remain complacent in their lack of competitiveness. It’s bad for US defense industries, it’s bad for Israeli defense industries, and it’s bad for Israel and the US.

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Global Realignment Affects South Korea

By
Omri Ceren
Published: January 17, 2004Posted in: North KoreaTags:

Some news off of the Reuters wire:


South Korea and the United States have agreed to pull out all American troops from Seoul as part of a global realignment plan of the U.S. forces, South Korea’s defence ministry said on Saturday.

The decision to move U.S. troops south, away from the border with North Korea, was taken on a request by Washington and after a meeting between the two sides in Hawaii, a ministry spokesman said.

The U.S. military presence in the centre of the South Korean capital over the past 50 years has been a constant source of anti-U.S. sentiment in South Korea.

Of course, the presence of US troops in Seoul never had any military value. A North Korean ground invasion would overrun them along with the rest of South Korea’s conventional forces. The only good they do there is as a trip-wire. In light of that role, this makes sense:


The Korea Times newspaper said there would likely be only about 50 U.S. soldiers at a liason office adjacent to South Korea’s defence ministry building in central Seoul.

It’s just as easy to be symbolic with 50 troops as it is with 100,000.