North Korea: What to do?

Now that North Korea has nukes the military option, which was never palatable, has become toxic.

You've attempted for a very long time to dictate the terms of every conversation. You are sidelining the real issue so you can soapbox.

Forget the USA.

[then]

Do you have room outside your narrative to accept that not everything that is going to happen in Korea has to do with the USA?

The propaganda stream continues

The propaganda stream continues.

How original.

That was very insightful, and I wish I had some solid answers on the China connection. This update might be relevant: Chinese Envoy Urged Kim Jong-il to Negotiate

Also, you wrote:

Quote:

Now that North Korea has nukes the military option, which was never palatable, has become toxic.

While it is widely believed that NK has up to 10 nuclear devices, or at least, enough fissile material to do so, no one believes that they've managed to weaponize them yet. The key word being 'yet'. The nuclear tests that they have conducted to date were so small as to make one wonder if they weren't actually failures.

Stockpile Estimates
It is estimated that North Korea has completed the nuclear fuel cycle from acquisition to reprocessing of nuclear fuel and is on the threshold of a nuclear weapons capability. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether it has actually produced or possesses nuclear weapons due to difficulties in developing detonation devices and delivery vehicles, which require high-tech and precision technologies. According to various sources of information, North Korea seemed to have reprocessed enough plutonium to produce one or two nuclear weapons. In addition, sufficient plutonium for another six nuclear weapons remained in fuel removed from the reactor at Yongbon but stored under international supervision, under the provisions of the 1994 Agreed Framework.

Publicly available evidence does not permit an assessment of the extent of the uranium program, and there is a considerable range of uncertainty. It is generally agreed that North Korea has attempted to acquire technology related to uranium enrichment from sources in several countries, including China, Russia and Pakistan. It is also generally agreed that, compared to the plutonium program, the precise status of the uranium program would be difficult to assess using sources such as satellite imagery. In contrast to the large and distinctive plutonium production reactors, a uranium enrichment program could be dispersed and hidden underground.

As of February 2005 Defense Intelligence Agency analysts were reported to believe that North Korea may already have produced as many as 12 to 15 nuclear weapons. This would imply that by the end of 2004 North Korea had produced somewhere between four and eight uranium bombs [on top of the seven or eight plutonium bombs already on hand]. The DIA's estimate was at the high end of an intelligence community-wide assessment of North Korea's nuclear arsenal completed in early 2005. The CIA lowballed the estimate at two to three bombs, which would suggest an assessment that the DPRK either had not reprocessed a significant amount of plutonium from the 8,000 spent fuel rods removed from storage in early 2003, or had not fabricated a significant number of weapons from whatever amount of plutonium had been reprocessed. The Department of Energy's analysis put North Korea's stockpile somewhere in between, which would be consistent with the roughly 7 or 8 plutonium bombs that could be produced from all existing plutonium stocks, with no uranium bombs.

If one assumes that the DPRK produced sufficient plutonium for eight bombs, and expended one of these bombs in a test in Pakistan in 1998, then as of 2005 their plutonium bomb inventory would be seven weapons. Taking the mid-point of the DIA's estimate of between four and eight uranium bombs, the plausible uranium bomb stockpile as of early 2005 would be six weapons, increasing at a rate of one bomb every two months. Thus the early 2005 stockpile would be 13 weapons, growing to about 20 weapons by the end of the year.

Hmm. The US response to the shelling of the island was pretty robust. I'm convinced Obama would commit US forces in defense of the South, but only in defense. Not an offensive against the North.

I think Bush and the US had a significantly different relationship with China at the time, and so did China and NK. Seems to me that China is beginning to put more emphasis on trade relations, which may eventually leave NK in an even tighter spot than it already is. Can't guarantee that, of course. I just got that notion from WikiLeaks.

Also, I don't think the US public would ever support pre-emptive strikes after the Iraqi WMD fiasco. I wouldn't. But I'd strongly favor a disproportionate response should NK do something similar again. I think that would get public support here in SK and the US public would probably go along with it, given the impending nuclear threat and KJI's infamous legacy of lunacy.

I don't have any plans to leave SK. I wanna be here for the war, anyway. (There is a chance I could leave for an unrelated reason though.) Imagine how much street cred that would give me back home! And think about all the great photo ops!!

I just got that notion from WikiLeaks.

I wanna be here for the war, anyway. Imagine how much street cred that would give me back home! And think about all the great photo ops!!

(There is a chance I could leave for an unrelated reason though.)

S.Korea, U.S. Prepare for Threat of N.Korean WMD

South Korea and the U.S. in talks at the Defense Ministry on Monday discussed ways of dealing with the threat of North Korean weapons of mass destruction including nuclear arms.

They agreed that chief delegates will meet for the first time in Washington in March, a ministry spokesman said.

Japan Shifts Defense Strategy to Meet New Threats

Japan has decided to shift its defense strategy for the first time in 40 years as it sees the main threat shifting from the former Soviet Union to China and North Korea. Tokyo is going to reorganize its military into mobile units capable of engaging in operations in the Pacific Ocean and countering North Korean missile threats.

The Diet is expected to pass the revisions this week.

The most notable change is the transformation of the Self-Defense Forces from a static to a more mobile military. The current defense strategy was put in place when Japan revised defense guidelines in 1976 based on the threat of a Soviet invasion. This stance was gradually revised following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the latest changes make the shift complete.

Now troops can be deployed in concentrated formations anywhere there is a threat against Japan. Japan has defined China's rising naval strength and North Korea's intercontinental ballistic missiles as its main threats.

The ramifications are expected to be huge. Ground forces will be downsized while naval power will be enhanced. The 600 tanks in service will be reduced to 390; 600 artillery pieces will shrink to around 400; and 1,000 troops will also be cut. The remaining ground forces will be deployed on an island in southern Japan. At present, they are equally distributed throughout the country.

But capabilities will be bolstered to deal with potential threats from China and North Korea. Forces will be concentrated on defending Japan's southwestern island chains stretching from southern tip of Kyushu Island to Taiwan, as well as the country's Pacific flank. The number of operable submarines will rise from 18 to 22. The SDF will no longer retire one sub a year and replace it with a new one, but retain more subs as new ones are commissioned into service.

Around 2,000 troops will be deployed on the islands to the southwest. Japan will also speed up the deployment of its next-generation FX fighter jets and boost its three Patriot (PAC3) missile bases to six. It will equip all six of its Aegis destroyers with SM-3 missiles. At present, only four have the anti-ballistic missiles.

The shift is worrying Japan's regional neighbors. The Chinese government has already voiced its concerns, and South Korea has reacted with surprise at a comment from Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan last week suggesting the possible dispatch of forces to the Korean Peninsula to rescue Japanese citizens in case of an emergency.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku denied the comments on Monday, saying Seoul and Tokyo have never considered a role for the SDF, but the fallout from Kan's comments is expected to linger for some time.
[email protected] / Dec. 14, 2010 11:59 KST

This makes me wonder if it's the first sign of an upcoming arms race in NEAsia. How long before Japan decides it's necessary to go nuclear in response to NK's nuclear program? SK is already considering it.

One nuclear backpack makes Seoul sea of fire; NK residents


North Korean soldiers and residents have mentioned the possibility that nuclear weapons may be used against South Korea amid the recent radical claims of “nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula” by the North, Open Radio for North Korea reported Tuesday.

Earlier, Nodong Sinmun, a mouthpiece paper of North Korea’s Workers’ Party, reported that “the betrayal of South Korea has heightened the tension between the North and South and created dark cloud of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula.”

“We will make Seoul a sea of fire without fail if anyone invade our territory, airspace and waters even by 0.001 millimeter,” Uriminzok, the Internet site of North Korea’s Commission for Peaceful Unification of the Fatherland, also said on Nov. 28

According to the radio, an inside source of North Korea said that there are rumors spreading among North Korean residents that “Seoul could be a sea of fire when we detonate a nuclear bomb brought in a backpack and then immediately South Korea surrenders.”

A man, who participated in the military drill at the Samjiyeon Airport on Nov. 25, said an Air Force officer had also made a similar remark. “We can win with only one nuclear weapon.”

Such a remark came when several soldiers questioned during the drill, “Isn’t it problem that (fighter jets) could not be used due to lack of fuel.”

“Why do you say such a thing although you know all?” an officer said. “We don’t need good jets. Nuclear weapons are all. We can win (with nuclear weapons) when our General is with us.”

There are mixed opinions about the existence of nuclear backpacks in the North. Most of experts have the opinion that North Korea has no technology to make the nuclear weapons to the smaller size of backpack as it has yet to make the nuclear head smaller for missiles.

However, some have presumed that 48 of the 132 nuclear backpacks were lost when the Soviet Union got disbanded and several of them seemed to come into the North. As a result, they claimed that they could not rule out the possibility of the North to use the nuclear backpacks.

The nuclear backpack is officially called “special atomic demolition munitions” which commandos carry on their back to penetrate deep into the enemy’s rear area to hit air force bases, dams and other important buildings.

The backpack weighs about 30 kilograms, ranging in power fro 10 tons of TNT to 1 kiloton. The nuclear bomb, which exploded in Hiroshima, Japan, during the second World War, was equivalent to 12 kilotons of TNT in destruction power.

The radio said it has become apparent that the North could threaten a nuclear war against the South although it is hard to conclude that the North may actually use the nuclear weapons, when all the recent inside information is taken into account.

On October 9, 2006, North Korea announced it had conducted a nuclear test. The USGS reported a magnitude of 4.2 on the Richter Scale with a location at 41.29N 129.09E +/- 8.1 km. Initial speculations about the yield ranged from less than 1 kt up to 15 kt. On October 16, 2006, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced that analysis of air-samples conducted on October 11 had confirmed that the event had been an underground nuclear explosion near P'unggye on October 9, 2006. DNI concluded that the "explosion yield was less than a kiloton."