News & commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and published by Duncan Moore.
1. South Korea sends destroyer after Iran seizes tanker
2. Seoul to send delegation to Iran to negotiate release of seized S. Korean ship
3. Iran says South Korea holding $7 bln Iran funds 'hostage'
4. S. Korea, Iran in talks over use of frozen money to purchase vaccines
5. North Korea requests Covid-19 vaccines from global group
6. A self-defeating policy
7. N. Korea shows no sign of 'major provocation' for now: USFK chief
8. U.S. Forces Korea CO: America still conducting theater-level training exercises
9. As birthrate falls, South Korea’s population declines, posing threat to economy
10. N. Korea remains silent on rare party congress
11. South Korea’s population falls for first time, likely worsened by Covid-19
12. South Korea should stop acting as North Korea’s doormat
13. Pyongyang celebrates 2021, but a parade is still to come
14. New Congresswoman sports hanbok to swearing-in
15. S. Korean shipyards tipped to take No. 1 spot in new orders in 2020
16. S. Korean unit begins operations in Hormuz Strait after Iran's oil tanker seizure
17. U.S.-South Korea alliance: a new vision for the global challenges ahead
18. UN petition concerning the Song Young-Gil Amendment to the Inter-Korean Relations Development Act (North Korean information gag law)
19. Observing the "immovable object": an interview with A.B. Abrams on North Korea
1. South Korea sends destroyer after Iran seizes tanker
Asia Times · Andrew Salmon · January 5, 2021
The South Korean Navy and SEALs conducted an excellent rescue operation of a South Korean vessel from pirates off the Horn of Africa during anti-piracy operations. I do not think a similar rescue operation is in the cards in Iran.
I do think, given the geostrategic situation in the Middle East, we are seeing a 3 dimensional chess game play out.
2. Seoul to send delegation to Iran to negotiate release of seized S. Korean ship
Yonhap News Agency · 강윤승 · January 5, 2021
Negotiate from a position of strength. Please learn from the mistakes of dealing with North Korea. Appeasement will not be successful.
3. Iran says South Korea holding $7 bln Iran funds ‘hostage’
Jerusalem Post · Reuters · January 5, 2021
Hmmm... Iran's "blackmail diplomacy?"
4. S. Korea, Iran in talks over use of frozen money to purchase vaccines
Yonhap News Agency · 송상호 · January 5, 2021
Again, 3D chess.
5. North Korea requests Covid-19 vaccines from global group
Wall Street Journal · Timothy W. Martin · January 4, 2021
I would make provision of vaccines contingent on transparency of the COVID situation in North Korea.
We should also keep in mind that the regime's hackers are attacking vaccine manufacturers as it keeps all its options open.
6. A self-defeating policy
Chosun Ilbo · Victor Cha · January 5, 2021
An important critique from Dr. Cha.
7. N. Korea shows no sign of 'major provocation' for now: USFK chief
Yonhap News Agency · 변덕근 · January 5, 2021
The operative words are "for now."
General Abrams provided a pretty comprehensive overview of the security situation. I am surprised the press did not discuss our conversation about training and OPCON transition and the general's explanation of the conditions and the 26 discrete mission essential tasks. I thought the Koran media would pick up on that. I concluded my comments with the remark that failure to meet the conditions required for OPCON transition will put the security of the ROK at great risk.
8. U.S. Forces Korea CO: America still conducting theater-level training exercises
USNI News · John Grady · January 4, 2021
General Abrams debunked the myth that training has been halted in Korea. He outlined some of the challenges, especially with regards to live fire training. But he has been conducting training in accordance with his 2019 posture statement for his Senate testimony by using the "4 dials" to adjust training in support of diplomacy:
“However, we must continuously strike a balance between the clear need to train and exercise military capability and the requirement to create space for and support strategic diplomacy. To help achieve this equilibrium, we are innovating and evolving our approach by tuning 4 dials that adjust exercise design and conduct – size, scope, volume, and timing. Adjustments to these dials allows exercise design to remain in tune with diplomatic and political requirements without sacrificing the training of essential tasks and evolving our approach by tuning 4 dials that adjust exercise design and conduct – size, scope, volume, and timing. Adjustments to these dials allows exercise design to remain in tune with diplomatic and political requirements without sacrificing the training of essential tasks. Additionally, such fine tuning allows for the mitigation of impacts inherent to rapidly switching from our traditional large-scale exercise program to one of more targeted events.”
He also made the key point that they are just not talking about training as one of the reasons why people think we have hated training (which was among our recommendations in 2018 for adjusting training to test Kim Jong-Un).
Unfortunately, Kim's actions have shown he has not passed this test and all our efforts to reduce the perceived provocative nature of the training in the hopes that there would be a diplomatic breakthrough have been for naught.
Last evening a journalist asked me if we should cancel training altogether in return for negotiations and denuclearization. He asked if that would be a good tradeoff. Here is my response:
All militaries must train. Training is a perishable skill. Every day that goes by that an army does not train makes it weaker. Just as a professional football team or a golfer or a chess player must train in order to maintain their skills, armies must train. Or, as Confucius said, "to send an untrained army to war is to throw it away." As we speak, North Korea is conducting its annual winter training cycle, which occurs from the end of November to the end of March. This exercise is designed to bring the North Korean People's Army (NKPA) to the highest state of readiness by March, which is the optimal time for attack of the South, because the ground is still frozen and the farmers in the South have not planted the rice fields, both of which benefit maneuver of military vehicles. This is one of the reasons we have always conducted Team Spirit (which was at one time the largest training exercise in the free world and which we ended in 1993 as a concession for the failed Agreed Framework of 1994). Because North Korea continued to prepare for offensive operations, we later developed exercise RSO&I and Key Resolve. We then moved Foal Eagle from the fall to the late winter so we would have a major training exercise to bring ROK and US forces to the highest state of readiness to both deter the North and be ready to "fight tonight" should Kim choose to execute his campaign plan to unify the peninsula by force. Failure to train would be the height of irresponsibility on the part of military and political leaders.
But the premise to your question is a dangerous one. First, it presupposes that Kim Jong-Un would come to the negotiating table if we would stop training. We have tested this premise since June 2018. The Comprehensive Military Agreement of September 2018 between North and South Korea was designed to implement confidence building measures, but there has been almost zero reciprocity from the North, only token actions in the JSA, and the removal of a handful of guard posts. The North continues to have its forces postured for offensive operations with 70% of its 1.2-million-man army forward deployed in an offensive posture between the DMZ and Pyongyang. The North has done nothing of substance to reduce the threat to the South or reduce tensions in a substantive way.
Second, would it be worth the gamble to put the security of the ROK at risk by not conducting training? Again, failing to train would render ROK and US forces incapable of deterring and when deterrence fails the combined military force would be incapable of conducting the necessary missions of defending the ROK and defeating the NKPA. The belief that the regime would respond in good faith is not born out by history and illustrates a lack of understanding of the nature of the Kim family regime and its strategy to dominate the Korean peninsula. We must understand the strategic interests, aim, and objectives of the regime. These can be summed up this way:
The Kim family regime as a seven decades old strategy of subversion, coercion-extortion (blackmail diplomacy), and use of force to achieve unification dominated by the Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State in order to ensure the survival of the mafia-like crime family cult known as Kim family regime. In support of this strategy, Kim Jong-Un has the objective to split the ROK/US Alliance and get US forces off the peninsula. He has a divide-to-conquer strategy: divide the alliance to conquer the ROK.
Kim Jong-Un will neither come to the negotiating table nor denuclearize in return for our ending exercises. His rhetoric about exercises is really designed to accomplish his objectives. His demand for an end to the US "hostile policy" is described this way:
Kim's view of the steps required from the Singapore statement:
1. Change relationship - declaration of the end of the war (end of hostile US policy - i.e., peace regime)
2. Sanctions relief (permanent removal)
3. Denuclearization of the South (end of alliance, removal of troops, end of nuclear umbrella over ROK and Japan)
4. Negotiate dismantlement of the north’s and ICBM programs
In Short:
NK demand: change relationship, build trust, denuclearize
US desire: denuclearize, build trust, change relationship
The problem with the North Korean demand is that it would put the ROK at great risk, and, once US forces are off the peninsula, it is likely conflict will occur.
Ending training on the Korean peninsula in return for the hope of denuclearization would be the first step on the path to splitting the ROK/US alliance and putting the North on the path to use force to unify the peninsula. Again, offering to end training would be the height of irresponsibility.
9. As birthrate falls, South Korea’s population declines, posing threat to economy
New York Times · Rick Gladstone · January 4, 2021
This is getting some attention in the US mainstream media.
It is more than a threat to the economy. It is a national security threat as well with the declining pool for military-age personnel.
Korea must solve the "Korea question" to mitigate the effects of this decline.
10. N. Korea remains silent on rare party congress
Yonhap News Agency · 이원주 · January 5, 2021
Keeping us guessing and waiting with bated breath. What will we see, hear, and read?
11. South Korea’s population falls for first time, likely worsened by Covid-19
Wall Street Journal · Eun-Young Jeong · January 4, 2021
It is not just the declining birth rate but also the increase in the numbers of the elderly. South Korea is facing a complex problem.
12. South Korea should stop acting as North Korea’s doormat
National Interest · Doug Bandow · January 4, 2021
Do we really think North Korea can ever become a "normal country" given the nature, strategy, and objectives of the Kim family regime?
13. Pyongyang celebrates 2021, but a parade is still to come
38 North · Martyn Williams · January 4, 2021
We could see some kind of military event.
14. New Congresswoman sports hanbok to swearing-in
Chosun Ilbo · Kim Jin-myung · January 5, 2021
15. S. Korean shipyards tipped to take No. 1 spot in new orders in 2020
Yonhap News Agency · 곽영섭 · January 5, 2021
How many commercial ships were built in the US?
16. S. Korean unit begins operations in Hormuz Strait after Iran’s oil tanker seizure
Yonhap News Agency · 오석민 · January 5, 2021
17. U.S.-South Korea alliance: a new vision for the global challenges ahead
Forbes · Scott Snyder · January 4, 2021
Important recommendations.
I would add to these thoughts and recommendations the key point that the Biden and Moon agreement must come to sufficient agreement on strategic assumptions regarding North Korea.
A political strategy alone will not defeat the Kim family regime's political warfare strategy. We need a superior form of political warfare.
A wise Korea hand once said to me that just about everything that could be tried with North Korea has been tried and all we can do is keep repackaging previous actions in new ways to try to achieve some kind of progress.
But we need to thoroughly assess the nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim family regime and then develop a new strategy that will result in a new, acceptable, durable political arrangement that will protect, serve, and advance US and US-ROK alliance interests.
A key initial effort of the Biden administration should be a convening of the MOFA-State strategy working group. A review of alliance strategies should be conducted with a focus on assessing the fundamental assumptions upon which ROK and US policies and strategies are based. The Moon Administration has been laboring under the erroneous assumption that Kim Jong-Un supports President Moon’s vision of peace and reconciliation and that there can be North-South engagement on reciprocal terms. A thorough analysis and understanding of the Kim family regime will reveal the Kim family regimes’ strategy is to use political warfare to subvert South Korea and, when conditions are right, to use force to unify the peninsula under northern rule. Basing policy and strategy on the Moon administration’s assumptions is the path to failure on the Korean peninsula.
We should never forget this point: the root of all problems in Korea is the existence of the mafia-like crime family cult known as the Kim family regime that has the objective of dominating the Korean Peninsula under the rule of the Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State.
18. UN petition concerning the Song Young-Gil Amendment to the Inter-Korean Relations Development Act (North Korean information gag law)
Transitional Justice Working Group · December 30, 2020
A very comprehensive description of the law and issues.
19. Observing the "immovable object": an interview with A.B. Abrams on North Korea
Daily NK · Gabriela Bernal · December 30, 2020
Can you say revisionist history? I think A.B. Abrams must be the next generation Bruce Cumings. Blame America.
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