Korea 2013... War Game or political game changer?

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Its a forgotten war because so little is actually talked about of it and what it did long term.

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It set China as a regional player but also popped their dream of a quick invasion of Taiwan.

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delft said:

Disarming at the insistence of the US let to US aggression against Iraq and Libya. The proper response for NK is to stick up its middle finger.

Let's take a longer range look at the situation than most of us are doing. In 1950 the very lightly armed North Korean army nearly succeeded in wiping out the US sponsored Syngman Rhee dictatorship in the South, no doubt thanks to support from the local population. Next the US failed to reunite Korea under Syngman Rhee because of intervention by China. By now South Korea is military much stronger than the North but would be unlikely to be able to conquer the North even without Chinese intervention.
The end result will have to be Korean reunification but reunification under US sponsorship is unacceptable to China. At the same time South Korea is not an independent country - under the Status of Forces Agreement that ends in 2015 the armed forces of South Korea are still subject to US supervision. I think the current situation has a lot to do with the US pivot to Asia and with 2015. The US want to delay reunification according to the Chinese model - one country, two systems - and they want a new SOFA to achieve that.

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AssassinsMace said:

What the US wants from China is a ploy to put China at a disadvantage. They want China to face the risks so if the sanctions the US wants China to follow fail, it basically guarantees North Korea eventually comes under the sphere of US influence. China will have burned all bridges and may even have North Korea start aiming nukes at China. Because politicians in Washington don't even bother with China's concerns, it tells you they want to screw China. What's wrong with the US is everything is now under the guise of good vs. evil. Therefore the US expects everyone to contribute to fighting against evil. In the context with North Korea now, China is suppose to help the US under fighting an unstable evil dictator but the point really is its comes at no cost to them. If China wants something from the US, China has to pay for it in some way and under conditions. That's why everything is put under the context of some higher universal cause by the US so they don't have to pay for what they want from anyone else under the guise of duty. The media is already portraying this as a part of Obama's pivot towards Asia which they say is against China. Which also puts into play this is all an orchestration and the way the US shows no thought towards China's concerns while expecting China to sacrifice puts motives in question. If there are no significant guarantees for China from the US and South Korea, China should at least do nothing and at most plan to occupy the North. Even some South Korean official a while ago wished China would take over North Korea in order to end all the chaotic activity coming from there.

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Obama expects more provocations from North Korea over next several weeks
Published April 16, 2013
Associated Press
WASHINGTON – President Obama says he expects North Korea to make "more provocative moves" over the next several weeks.
However, he says his administration does not believe Pyongyang has the capacity to put a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile. His says his conclusion is based on current intelligence estimates.
A report revealed last week showed that the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency has "moderate confidence" that the North has the knowhow to deliver a nuclear weapon by ballistic missile.
Obama says he hopes the U.S. and international community can contain any further provocations from North Korea and move to resolve the nuclear dispute with the isolated nation through diplomacy.
The president spoke in an interview with NBC's "Today" that was aired Tuesday.


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US military helicopter crashes near North Korean border during drill
Published April 16, 2013
FoxNews.com

April 16, 2013: A U.S. military helicopter crashes near South Korea's border with North Korea. (Reuters)

April 16, 2013: None of the 21 passengers on the helicopter died in the crash, authorities say. (Reuters)

Oct. 14, 2012: CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters prepare to land and offload Marines in Crow Valley, Philippines. (U.S. Marine Corps/Pfc. Caleb Hoover)
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A U.S. military helicopter crashed Tuesday near South Korea's border with the North while conducting routine flight operations and everyone on board survived.
A spokesperson for U.S. Forces Korea tells Fox News the Marine Super Stallion CH-53E helicopter made a hard landing near South Korea's Jipo-ri Range Tuesday.
All 21 people aboard the helicopter were transported to a local hospital, where 15 were released and six were hospitalized in stable condition.
16 of the passengers were American soldiers, and five were crew members. The crew is from 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit based in Okanawa, Japan
The United States has approximately 28,000 troops in South Korea, according to Reuters.
Fox News' Greg Palkot and Reuters contributed to this report


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North Korea says it won't warn South Korea before an attack
By Jethro Mullen, CNN
updated 12:16 PM EDT, Tue April 16, 2013(CNN) -- North Korea is raising the temperature on its neighbors, saying in its latest threat that it would not give any warning before any attack on South Korea.

"Our retaliatory action will start without any notice from now," Pyongyang said in a statement published Tuesday by its official news agency, KCNA.

North Korea said it was responding to what it called insults from the "puppet authorities" in the South, claiming that there had been a rally against North Korea in Seoul -- a rally it called a "monstrous criminal act."

Hyeonseo Lee: My escape from North Korea
The renewed menacing rhetoric came a day after North Koreans celebrated the birthday of their country's founder, Kim Il Sung, who launched the Korean War.

Kim Min-seok, a spokesman for the South Korean Defense Ministry, said the latest threat from the North was regrettable.

Amid concern that Pyongyang could carry out a missile test, Kim Min-seok said South Korea continued to closely monitor the North's military movements.

Also Tuesday, a U.S. Marine helicopter participating in annual joint military exercises in South Korea made a hard landing in a province that borders North Korea, the U.S. military said.

The drills by South Korean and U.S. forces have upset North Korea, as they have done in previous years. Pyongyang has suggested that the routine exercises, which are scheduled to continue until the end of the month, are tantamount to a declaration of war.

The 21 personnel on board the CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter, which was making routine flights as part of the exercises when it came down, were taken to a hospital at the United States' Yongsan Garrison in South Korea, the military said in a statement.

Fifteen have been released from the hospital, and the other six are in stable condition, the statement said.

The military said it would carry out an investigation "to determine the facts and circumstances surrounding this incident." The five crew members of the helicopter are from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, stationed in Okinawa, Japan.

Conditions for talks

A North Korean foreign ministry spokesman dismissed U.S. calls for talks as "nothing but a crafty ploy" to deflect blame for the rising tensions, in a statement published by KCNA Tuesday.

The United States urging dialogue is like a robber "calling for a negotiated solution while brandishing his gun," it said.

On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had urged the regime in Pyongyang to ditch its nuclear program and put a lid on its fiery rhetoric if it wants to hold talks.

"The United States has made clear many times what the conditions are for our entering talks, and they haven't changed," Kerry said in an interview with CNN's Jill Dougherty in Tokyo.

"The conditions have to be met where the North has to move towards denuclearization, indicate a seriousness in doing so by reducing these threats, stop the testing and indicate it's actually prepared to negotiate," he said.

Kerry was speaking at the end of a three-day trip that focused on securing fresh commitments from South Korea, China and Japan to try to persuade Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table and renounce nuclear weapons.

His visit followed weeks of dramatic threats by Kim Jong Un's regime, including that of a nuclear strike on the United States and South Korea.

The White House announced Monday that South Korean President Park Geun-hye will visit President Barack Obama in Washington on May 7.

"President Park's visit underscores the importance of the U.S.-ROK (Republic of Korea) alliance as a linchpin of peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and in the Asia Pacific region, and of the central role of alliances in the President's Asia-Pacific rebalancing effort," the White House said in a statement.

There is uncertainty about how advanced the North's nuclear weapons program is, but Kerry reiterated Monday the U.S. government view that Pyongyang doesn't yet have the capacity to carry out a nuclear attack.

Last month, North Korea scrapped the 1953 truce that effectively ended the Korean War and said it was nullifying the joint declaration on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

It also recently pledged to restart a reactor at its main nuclear complex that had been shut down under an agreement reached in October 2007 during talks with the United States, South Korea and four other countries.

Kerry said Monday that the United States is concerned that North Korea's dogged pursuit of its nuclear weapons program could have consequences elsewhere in the world.

"It is the belief of President Obama, myself and the administration that what happens here also has an impact on perceptions in places like Iran, the Middle East and elsewhere where we're engaged in nonproliferation efforts," he said.

Pyongyang insists that its nuclear weapons are a necessary deterrent because of the threat posed to it by the United States and its allies.

'No more artificial negotiations'

Multilateral talks on North Korea's nuclear program have ended in failure in the past, and Kerry said the United States isn't interested in going over old ground.

"We're not going to go through another cycle of artificial negotiations that are geared to simply attract some kind of aid or lull in events while they continue to pursue their devices' designs," he said.

A U.S. State Department official said Monday that there are no plans to move toward direct talks, "because North Korea has shown no willingness to move in a positive direction."

On Sunday, Pyongyang rejected a different proposal for dialogue, one by South Korea last week regarding the North's suspension of activity at the manufacturing zone that the two countries jointly operate.

A statement via KCNA called the South's offer a "crafty trick" and "empty words without any content."

Kerry's trip finished on one of the biggest dates on the North Korean calendar: "The Day of the Sun," when citizens celebrate the birthday of Kim Il Sung, remembered as the "eternal president." He died in 1994 and would have been 101 this year.

Current leader Kim Jong Un paid tribute Monday to Kim Il Sung, his grandfather, as well as his late father, Kim Jong Il, by visiting the halls where both men lie in state. It was believed to be the young leader's first public appearance in two weeks.

Kerry said in Beijing over the weekend that the United States and China are calling on North Korea to refrain from any provocative steps, including any missile launches.

Pyongyang made good on its promise to launch a long-range rocket around the time of Kim Il Sung's birthday last year; the rocket broke apart after launch and fell into the sea.

North Korea has made more threats since then. It launched a rocket in December that apparently put a satellite into orbit, and in response, the U.N. Security Council approved broadening sanctions against the country.

Angered by those sanctions, Pyongyang announced in January that it was planning its third nuclear test and more long-range rocket launches as part of what it called a new phase of confrontation with the United States.

It carried out an underground nuclear bomb test in February, resulting in even tougher sanctions. Those measures, along with the joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises in South Korea, prompted an intensification in the North's threats.

CNN's Richard Allen Greene, Melissa Gray, K.J Kwon, Esprit Smith, Elizabeth Joseph and Tim Schwarz contributed to this report.

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China without North Korea

14 February 2013

NOTTINGHAM – North Korea’s third nuclear test is a game changer not only for the United States and Japan, but also for the regime’s last ally, China. The official Chinese reaction to North Korea’s latest provocation was stern: China is “strongly dissatisfied and resolutely opposed” to the test, and it is calling for the resumption of international talks. But China’s stance lacks meaningful bite, because its leaders fail to recognize that they no longer need to succumb to their unruly neighbor’s blackmail.

In carrying out the test, the North Koreans have once again compromised China’s national interests. The international community is again firmly focused on China’s relationship with its rogue ally, and expects that, as an emerging superpower seeking to reassure the world of its peaceful rise, China will play a constructive role. However limited China’s influence may be, the North Korean regime can sustain itself only with Chinese backing.

With North Korea’s latest nuclear test coming so quickly after its rocket launch in December, the United Nations has good reason to ask China, a permanent Security Council member, to take the diplomatic lead. It is simply not enough for China to call, as its official statement does, for the resumption of the Six-Party Talks with South Korea, China, the US, Japan, and Russia. That framework has been thoroughly discredited by North Korea’s repeated violation of past agreements.

China must warn North Korea that it will not be pressured into providing support even when Chinese national interests have been undermined. Indeed, China should make clear that, much as it would prefer North Korea to survive and prosper, it could afford to allow its erstwhile ally to implode.

Simply put, the conventional wisdom that North Korea’s collapse would be disastrous for China is misconceived. Any crisis sparked by North Korean refugees fleeing across the Chinese border would be short-lived, and international assistance would be readily available.

Likewise, China need not fear a South Korea-led unification of the peninsula. China already enjoys a smoother relationship with the South than it does with the North. Unification would occupy the Korean people for the next two decades, with Japan and the US compelled to inject a huge amount of aid to rebuild and reintegrate the North. This hardly runs counter to China’s interests as it continues its own advance toward becoming the world’s largest economy.

Indeed, if this process were to unfold, the US rationale for keeping its own military forces in South Korea would disappear. A phased reduction of the American presence would follow. If the US wished to maintain bases in Korea in the longer term, it would have to secure permission from a proud and newly united Korean nation – hardly a forgone conclusion.

Moreover, a united Korea will have inherited the North’s nuclear weapons. This will pose challenges to US-Korea relations, which should work to China’s advantage. The US will remain committed to de-nuclearizing the peninsula, while the Korean government will be tempted to retain the North’s nuclear capabilities. This strain further reduces the risk of having US troops stationed on the Korean side of China’s border.

China must also consider the implications of North Korea’s actions on its own fractious relations with Japan. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s top foreign-policy priority is to force the Japanese government to acknowledge, if not accept, China’s territorial claims in the two countries’ dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands in the East China Sea. Chinese naval ships have already trained their weapons on a Japanese destroyer and a Japanese naval helicopter.

In these incidents, the single most important reason for Japanese restraint has been its military’s own rules of engagement. Under current law, Japanese security forces are forbidden from firing their weapons unless clearly fired upon, which means that the country’s Maritime Self-Defense Force vessels can do little when targeted by Chinese naval radar. And revising the rules to allow Japan’s military to, say, destroy a North Korean missile before it reaches Japanese air space would increase the risk of conflict between Chinese and Japanese naval and air forces.

If the Chinese leadership can think beyond its usual default response to North Korean misbehavior – abstract condemnation followed by a call for dialogue – it can apply real pressure on the North Korean regime in full view of the international community. North Korea’s last ally should give it one last chance. And then it should be prepared to pull the plug.

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YOUNG NKOREANS TRAIN TO SEEK 'REVENGE ON US'
By JEAN H. LEE
— Apr. 19 4:34 AM EDT
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PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea's newest batch of future soldiers — scrawny 11-year-olds with freshly shaved heads — punch the air as they practice taekwondo on the grounds of the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School. Students and teachers here say they're studying harder these days to prepare for a fight.

Across the country, banners, slogans and artwork have been redrawn to focus on fighting "the imperialist Americans and their traitorous followers," a reference to South Korea. Slogans on improving North Korea's economy had dominated since 2009, but anti-American propaganda has re-emerged over the past year, particularly following U.S.-led censure of North Korea's decision to launch a long-range rocket and test a nuclear bomb.

At the military school, where students work on desktop computers without Internet access and practice their English with chants such as "The respected Marshal Kim Jong Un is our father," classwork is infused with conflict.

"Because of the present situation, I am trying to study harder, because I really think that's how I can get my revenge on the American imperialists: by getting top marks in class," one student, Jo Chung Hyok, told The Associated Press.

"It's my revolutionary duty," Jo said. "I'm working extra hard to get top marks in military subjects like tactics and shooting."

The uptick in anti-American sentiment comes on the heels of international condemnation and U.N. sanctions for North Korea's long-range rocket launch in December and its underground nuclear test in February, which Pyongyang accuses Washington and Seoul of instigating. Joint U.S.-South Korean military drills south of the border also have incensed Pyongyang.

The anti-American campaign also comes as North Korea prepares to mark the 60th anniversary in July of the close of the Korean War. The three-year conflict pitting North Korea and China against U.S.-led U.N. troops ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. The continued division of the Korean Peninsula, and the presence of 28,500 American troops in South Korea, has rankled North Korea's leadership.

For weeks, North Korea has threatened to attack the U.S. and South Korea for holding joint military drills and for supporting U.N. sanctions. Washington and Seoul say they've seen no evidence that Pyongyang is actually preparing for a major conflict, though South Korean defense officials say the North appears prepared to test-fire a medium-range missile capable of reaching the American territory of Guam.

Both sides have said that in order for dialogue, the other side needs to act.

The U.S. says Pyongyang must bring down tensions and honor previous disarmament agreements before talks can begin.

North Korea laid out a long list of preconditions for resuming talks Thursday, including the lifting of U.N. sanctions, the end of U.S.-South Korea military drills, the withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons assets from the region a halt to criticism of North Korea. On Friday, it reiterated a warning to South Korea to apologize for offending its leadership before any talk of dialogue to defuse tensions.

South Korea's Foreign Ministry called North Korea's demands illogical, but in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry put a more positive spin on Pyongyang's response.

"It's the first word of negotiation or thought of that we have heard from them since all of this has begun," he said Thursday before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. "I'm prepared to look at that as at least a beginning, not acceptable obviously, and we have to go further."

The U.S. remains open to "authentic and credible negotiations," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One. But he said the U.S. has not seen any commitment from North Koreans that they are willing to end their nuclear program.

Inside the sprawling compound of the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School, students are made aware of their government's latest invectives against its foes, in addition to usual subjects of study: biology, history, foreign languages.

"At the moment, the situation on the Korean Peninsula is tense, and America is being bad to us," said Lt. Col. Kim Hak Bin, an administrator at the military academy. "But you can see that the students here look just as bright as usual, and life and classes are carrying on the same as before.

"Our students are ready to go to the front lines whenever a war breaks out, and they are now studying harder than usual," he said Thursday.

The school, located near the birthplace of North Korea's first leader, Kim Il Sung, was created in 1947 to house, feed and educate the sons and daughters of soldiers killed while fighting the Japanese who occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945.

Today, the girls are housed in a separate academy named after Kim Il Sung's mother, the Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School in the western port city of Nampho.

Late leader Kim Jong Il attended the academy for eight months during the Korean War, school records show. His son, current leader Kim Jong Un, did not. His military education came from studying at the Kim Il Sung Military University next door.

During his 17-year rule, Kim Jong Il elevated the importance of the army and poured much of the nation's meager resources into defense. Military life became an integral part of the North Korean identity.

The students here are being groomed to serve as the "core" of the Korean People's Army, said biology teacher Ri Kyong Hui.

A visit to the military academy offered a peek into how young North Koreans learn to march and chant with such startling precision as displayed in parades held on major anniversaries.

A group of students, dressed in uniform, struggled to get their march just right as an instructor adjusted their arms. One boy grimaced in frustration. Inside, other students rehearsed for a performance, using fake rifles as props.

But boys will be boys, and the 11-year-olds who just joined the academy at the start of the month were hardly examples of discipline.

Suited up in light green and blue tracksuits, they squirmed, giggled and made faces as they practiced taekwondo.

___

Associated Press Television News in Pyongyang, and AP writers Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, and Matthew Pennington and Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington contributed to this report. Follow AP's Korea bureau chief in Pyongyang at

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The key obstacle to adopting a live-and-let-live attitude toward North Korea's nukes is that neither South Korea nor Japan are interested in living as non-nuclear neighbors to a North Korea that is happily and aggressively developing its nuclear weapons and missile assets.

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For its part, the United States is trying to keep the ROK/Japan nuclear weapons genies in the bottle (or, in the case of Japan, try to pretend that the stopper has not already been removed) since, in a region suddenly bristling with prosperous, nuke-wielding powers, the US would be well on the way to losing its self-claimed role as essential security guarantor, arms-race preventer, and beloved pivoteer in the West Pacific.

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22 April 2013 Last updated at 09:43 ET
The North Korean spy who blew up a plane
By Rupert Wingfield-Hayes
BBC News, Seoul
Kim Hyun-hui certainly doesn't look like a mass murderer. The 51-year-old mother of two has a gentle smile and soft voice.
Today she lives in quiet seclusion somewhere in South Korea; she won't say where. The day we meet she is, as always, accompanied by a group of hired heavies in ill-fitting suits.
She fears the North Korean government still wants to kill her, and with good reason.
Kim Hyun-hui was once an agent of the North Korean regime. Twenty-five years ago, on Pyongyang's orders, she blew up a South Korean airliner.
Sitting in a Seoul hotel room she describes to me how, at the age of 19, she was recruited from an elite Pyongyang University where she was studying Japanese.
She trained for six years. For three of them she was paired with a young Japanese woman, Yaeko Taguchi, who had been kidnapped from her home in northern Japan. She says Mrs Taguchi taught her to speak and act like a Japanese.
Then came her fateful mission.
It was 1987 and South Korea was preparing to host the Olympic Games in Seoul. North Korea's leader Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il were determined to stop it.
"I was told by a senior officer that before the Seoul Olympics we would take down a South Korean airliner," Kim Hyun-hui tells me.
"He said it would create chaos and confusion in South Korea. The mission would strike a severe blow for the revolution."
'Direct orders'
Kim and an older accomplice boarded the Korean Airlines plane in Baghdad. She placed the suitcase bomb in an overhead locker.
During a stopover in Abu Dhabi, the two North Korean agents got off and made their escape.
Hours later over the Andaman Sea, the bomb blew up. All 115 on board were killed.
But then their plan went wrong. The two agents were tracked to Bahrain and caught.
Her accomplice killed himself with a cyanide-laced cigarette, but Kim Hyun-hui failed. She was instead flown to Seoul and paraded before the international media.
"When I came down the steps of that aircraft, I didn't see anything," she says. "I just looked at the ground. They had taped my mouth shut. I thought I was entering the den of the lion. I was sure they were going to kill me."
Instead they took her to an underground bunker where the interrogations began.
At first she says she tried to keep up the pretence she was Japanese. But finally she broke.
"When I confessed, I did so reluctantly. I thought my family in North Korea would be in danger; it was a big decision to confess. But I began to realise it would be the right thing to do for the victims, for them to be able to understand the truth."
In her confession, Kim made it clear that the orders to bomb the plane had come directly from Kim Il-sung or his son and heir-apparent, Kim Jong-il.
'God-like figure'
"In North Korea everything was about the Kingdom of Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il," she says.
"Without their sanction nothing could happen. We were told our orders were 'ratified'. They only used that word when the orders came from the top.
"Kim Il-sung was a god-like figure. Anything that was ordered by him could be justified. Any order would be carried out with extreme loyalty. You were ready to sacrifice your life."
From what she tells me, it is clear Kim Hyun-hui has gone from one-time true believer in the Kim cult to an ardent hatred of the regime and a deep sense of personal victimhood.
"There is no other country like North Korea," she says. "People outside can't understand. The whole country is set up to show loyalty to the Kim royal family. It's like a religion.
"People are so indoctrinated. There are no human rights, no freedoms.
"When I look back it makes me feel sad. Why did I have to be born in North Korea? Look at what it did to me."
She also believes, perhaps wishfully, that the days of the Kim dynasty are numbered.
With the founders of the dynasty - Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il - now dead, their impoverished kingdom has been handed down to the 30-year-old Kim Jong-un.
"North Korea is in a desperate situation," she says. "Discontent with Kim Jong-un is so high; he has to put a lid on it.
"The only thing he has is nuclear weapons. That's why he has created this sense of war, to try to rally the population. He's doing business with his nuclear weapons."
In 1989 a South Korean court sentenced Kim Hyun-hui to death, but President Roe Tae-Woo gave her a pardon.
She later married a South Korean intelligence officer with whom she has two children.
Some might say she got off lightly considering what she did. But she says she still carries a heavy burden of guilt.
She says she has found solace in Christianity, and in meeting and being forgiven by the families of those she killed.
"Eventually when I met the victim's families," she says, "we were all in tears hugging and crying."
During our hour-long meeting, there is only one moment when her emotions break through. It is right at the end, when I ask her about her family in North Korea. With tears welling up in her eyes, she shakes her head.
"I don't know what happened to them," she says. "I have heard that they were seen being taken away from Pyongyang to a labour camp."

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