News & commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and published by Daniel Riggs
1. An “Area Study:” North Korea in A Nutshell
2. What enticements will Sung Kim offer to North Korea?
3. Special North Korean Military Investigation Reveals Combat Reserve Supply Shortages
4. North Korea mistakenly credited with $300,000 in foreign aid to post-coup Myanmar
5. N. Korean leader watches musical performance after key party meeting
6. N. Korea replaces chief of Kim Il-sung University: state media
7. Push to honor Otto Warmbier by renaming street outside North Korean UN mission gets bipartisan support
8. Kim Carefully Nudges the Dialogue Door Open Wider
9. Incoming Vatican Prefect You Heung-sik expected to serve as bridge builder for pope's NK visit
10. Counterattacks have begun
1. An “Area Study:” North Korea in A Nutshell
North Korea in a Nutshell: A Contemporary Overview, by Kongdan Oh and Ralph Hassig
2. What enticements will Sung Kim offer to North Korea?
koreatimes.co.kr · by Kang Seung-woo
I hope the answer is that we are offering Kim Jong-un the opportunity to become a responsible member of the international community.
The suspension of exercises will not influence him to come to the negotiating table just as holding the exercises will not influence him to avoid negotiations. We need to stop with these unhelpful beliefs. Kim will make the decision to negotiate based on his calculus of whether he can achieve his objectives. As long as he thinks his strategy is working he will continue to execute it. And the surest way for him to believe his strategy is working is to make concessions or appease him. It is only when he believes that we will no longer appease him will he consider changing his strategy. Unfortunately we have decades of giving the regime concessions.
If we suspend exercises at the Moon administration's request we may as well begin the withdrawal of US troops and if we do not end the alliance we can put it on the same level as our alliance with the Philippines. We will never be able to change the security situation if we follow the concessions and appeasement path and we will be putting US forces and US interests at great risk if we are unable to conduct combined alliance military training. Yes this sounds like hyperbole and over the top commentary but we will really need to do some critical analysis about the possibilities of the way ahead on the Korean peninsula if the Korean leadership will not support military training and instead continues to try to execute fantasy courses of action.
Excerpts: “The U.S. side may consider downsizing or suspending its combined military drills with South Korea, scheduled for August among other “carrots” for the resumption of nuclear talks. The North Korean regime has strongly denounced the annual exercises, held biannually in spring and summer, as a rehearsal for invasion.
Last month, President Moon Jae-in also mentioned the impossibility of a full-scale drill, citing the COVID-19 pandemic, although many believe that his reference had to do with his last-ditch efforts to improve inter-Korean ties before his presidency ends in May of next year.
3. Special North Korean Military Investigation Reveals Combat Reserve Supply Shortages
rfa.org · by Myungchul Lee
Another important indicator, not only of declining combat readiness and depleted logistics capabilities but also for the potential for the loss of coherency of the nKPA and what that means for regime stability.
4. North Korea mistakenly credited with $300,000 in foreign aid to post-coup Myanmar
upi.com · by Thomas Maresca · June 20, 2021
The lesson: attention to detail.
5. N. Korean leader watches musical performance after key party meeting
en.yna.co.kr · by 송상호 · June 20, 2021
Maybe nK-pop but no real K-Pop.
Excerpt: “The article also emphasized the need to repay "people's trust and expectations" by making notable achievements on a path to the improvement of their livelihoods.
This reminds me of reading the "top ten lies" the regime tells the people as outlined in Kongdan Oh's and Ralph Hassig's new book that I just reviewed HERE
1. The Kim family is an irreplaceable family of heroes.
2. Socialism is the bedrock of the economy; world capitalism is doomed.
3. All the policies of the Workers' Party of Korea are absolutely correct.
4. Juche - that is doing things our own way - is the correct guiding principle for all endeavors.
5. North Koreans are the only people who are truly free because they are guided by juche.
6. South Korea, on the other hand, have always been slaves of the American imperialists.
7. The UNited States and South Korea started the Korean War, which was one by the North Koreans under the brilliant leadership of Kim Il-sung.
8. The North Korean military is the strongest in the world - and needs to be because the United States is always trying to start another war.
9. North Korea's nuclear weapons are a guarantee of future peace.
10. North Korea's prestige in the international community has always been high.
6. N. Korea replaces chief of Kim Il-sung University: state media
en.yna.co.kr · by 이치동 · June 20, 2021
5 months? Due to complaints from Germany over phony partner relationships? I wonder where he will end up? He will at least face "re-education." Perhaps some hard labor to get his mind right.
7. Push to honor Otto Warmbier by renaming street outside North Korean UN mission gets bipartisan support
foxnews.com · by Eric Shawn
The effort continues. Let's get this done. Every effort to call out human rights abuses helps.
As I tweeted to Rep Young Kim:
“Young Kim
@RepYoungKim
· 22h
Otto Warmbier experienced what no American – or human being – should ever have to go through. Four years after his tragic death at the hands of the North Korean regime, we honor his life & are reminded that the US cannot back down in the fight for global human rights.
·
The root of all evil on the Korean Peninsula is the existence of the mafia-like crime family cult known as the Kim family regime that seeks to dominate all Korea under the rule of the Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State. We must solve the “Korea question.” (Para 60, armistice)
Excerpts: “The Washington, D.C.–based activist group The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea hopes Manhattan's "Otto Warmbier Way" will be the first of many more such streets that will be renamed in front of the 49 North Korea's embassies scattered around the globe.
"The Kim regime imprisoned and killed Otto Warmbier," said HRNK executive director Greg Scarlatoiu.
"Millions of unknown North Koreans are similarly subjected to the brutality of this regime. More than a hundred thousand men, women and children are being tortured, starved, and abused in North Korea’s political prison camps. Renaming the stretch of road in front of the North Korean permanent mission to the United Nations in New York City ‘Otto Warmbier Way’ could be the opening salvo in a global effort to call the Kim regime to account for its crimes."
Push to honor Otto Warmbier by renaming street outside North Korean UN mission gets bipartisan support
8. Kim Carefully Nudges the Dialogue Door Open Wider
38 North · June 18, 2021
Interesting and hopeful analysis.
Or is it business as usual and continued political warfare?
But we should give him a chance. We welcome him to come to the table. All he has to do is decide to act as a responsible member of the international community. Is that too much to ask? Why should we allow anything less? Why should we give Kim a pass for his continued malign behavior?
9. Incoming Vatican Prefect You Heung-sik expected to serve as bridge builder for pope's NK visit
koreaherald.com · by Yonhap · June 20, 2021
I fear the Vatican will get played here.
10. Counterattacks have begun
koreajoongangdaily.joins.com · by Kim Min-seok · June 20, 2021
Quite a critical essay that looks at the great power competition with China, Russia, the US, East Asia, etc.
It ends with this critique of South Korea: “
Because there is a limit to America dealing with a resurgent Russia and China on its own, U.S. President Joe Biden urged NATO members to join in the campaign and issued a joint statement in Belgium last week. Despite heightened tensions around the globe, South Korea doesn’t seem concerned in the least. Sexual harassment continues to take place in the military, soldiers’ discipline is cracking, and the government is still suspicious of a North Korean torpedo attack on the Cheonan warship, which sank in 2010 in the West Sea. South Korea is surrounded by North Korea, China and Russia, all nuclear powers. Yet the liberal administration does not make any demand for nuclear dismantlement from North Korea. The uniquely sad history must not be repeated whatsoever.
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"The result of the war has been the vindication of the country’s cause, as against that of section; of manhood over the system of master and slave; of the liberty which means law, right, humanity, over that which is lawless, barbarous, and insolent"
- Joshua Chamberlain, 1867
"I am sure if you get away from telling the truth, then there is no place where you stop."
-Under Secretary of State Dean Acheson, May 1947.
"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matter of principle, stand like a rock."
- Thomas Jefferson