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China’s best efforts notwithstanding, North Korea’s total foreign trade fell by 10% between 2008 and 2009. It gives some cause for hope that China can’t completely undermine the effect of international and U.S. Treasury sanctions, although those only really came into force in 2009 and 2010, respectively. My best guess is that this drop can mostly be attributed to reduced trade with South Korea. Hat tip: James again.

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North Korean missiles a direct threat to the United States? Well, I guess, sort of. It makes me glad we did decide to deploy missile defenses. But in the grander scheme of all of the perfectly good reasons to worry about North Korea, a small number of Taepodongs worries me much less than the very real possibility of North Korea selling a nuke to Iran or Syria, or directly to a terrorist organization. What, exactly, would stop North Korea from doing that, since they probably think they’d get away with it?

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Japan and South Korea are both taking skeptical approaches to North Korea’s latest offer of talks. South Korea says that the North must first take responsibility for its attacks in 2010, and Japan says the North must first take “concrete actions” to lower tensions.

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For me to agree with any prosecution under the National Security Law, I need to see evidence of actual collusion with North Korea. Otherwise, it’s just more stupid, counterproductive censorship that makes heroes out of imbeciles.

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Another influential South Korean says the country should have its own nukes, and under the circumstances, I’d want them, too.

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North Korean hackers have struck back at DCinside, the South Korean website that claimed responsibility for hacking North Korea’s Twitter and YouTube accounts. This certainly is a better way to fight a war than shelling fishing villages, and it’s a far more commendable effort than, say, VANK.

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  1. How much would North Korea consider fair for one of their nukes? Do they then let the terrorist organization or nation deal with attaching it to a missile or ICBM? Do we suspect that any of the feared buyers have enough cash to obtain one of these? I often ask myself these questions when considering the implications of their wanting to possibly put their nuclear tech on a larger market.

    I obviously have no clue how much Burma is fronting for the North’s cooperation, but I assume a nation like Syria could enter the game as well. A terrorist organization on the other hand would have to have some Saudi support or something, otherwise I’m not so sure they’d be able to afford one. That is unless North Korea is the chaos-sowing type that would give them up cheaply in order to watch their enemies suffer.

    And who would buy just one anyways? Do we suspect that they’ll be retailing off individual bombs or just the technology and equipment as is the case with Burma? I should refer to them as SCLORC actually since the name Burma rightfully belongs to the people, not the generals.

  3. colin, trust my words, at this point China knows that itself is to blame for propping up North Korea. China also knows that the United States supports and rightfully props up worthier Nations. Nations that have proven again and again to produce. And also related by Blood from the West. China knows that The West could have squashed it like a fly a long time ago. Yet Beijing also wonders why such a New Roman Republic as the United States would choose China to hold it’s temporary debt, when that said young Republic has already done what no Nation on Earth has done, besides Ancient Rome. Splittiing the atom, sending humans to the moon and safe journey back. Sent Robots to collect data on Mars and report back. Lauching working satellites to monitor distant Galaxies, asteroid belts, Planets and Solar Systems; and the list goes on. If China still wants to support a spoiled brat and kill innocent runners from him, Beijing has less than 20 months to convince the people of Earth that it deserves Superpower status. The world will go on, The United States will too, along with it’s Superpower status. However in around the Fall solstice of 2011 both the DPRK and PRC will fall unles the PRC joins with the U.S. The younger will guarantee the elder/ancient nation pardon and repay any debts to it.

    China better be weary, Japan and South Korea are now teaming up. Imagine if Russia and the United States did the same… Oh wait, we have.

    When four parties team up concerning North Korea, none of them needs the other two. Japan, Rusia, South Korea and the United States are all fed up with China’s spoiled brat.

  4. Kim Dae-joong’s comment in the Chosunilbo makes sense. I expect South Korea to produce a high-quality, reliable, deliverable bomb, and no fizzles.

    But I don’t understand this sentence: “Nuclear balance is maintained in the Mideast and Africa.” Who are the adversaries with balanced nuclear deterrents in the Mideast and Africa?

  5. Ditto81 wrote: “However in around the Fall solstice of 2011 both the DPRK and PRC will fall.”

    One couldl wait forever for an autumn solstice, so I suppose you’re saying those two nations will never fall . . .

    Jeffery Hodges

    * * *

  6. 2that said young Republic has already done what no Nation on Earth has done, besides Ancient Rome. Splittiing the atom, sending humans to the moon and safe journey back.”

    yup… them roman astronauts really had the right stuff!

  8. Says Hu. Monster Island links to some news reports about Hu Jintao’s upcoming visit. ‘Beijing says China holds “broad common interests and goals” with US on issues related to Korean Peninsula.’ I don’t think that means China is ready to support the Glans plan, but I can dream, can’t I?

    http://www.monster-island.net/

  10. Anybody else notice the series of remarkably hawkish statements from senior US Defense Officials in the past week?

    First, you had William Gates saying that North Korea will pose a direct threat to the United States within five years

    Then, Mike Mullen said the North is an “evolving threat” to both the region and the United States.

    Yesterday, Walter Sharp said that in the event deterrence fails, the US is prepared to respond, meaning they could consider attacking NK’s missile sites.

    This is the first time in a long while that any US government official has publically stated that—essentially—all options remain on the table when dealing with the North. This is also the first time since the the ’76 Axe Murder Incident that both the US and South Korea are simultaneously talking about potentially solving North Korean issues through military action.

  11. Yes, Milton, I’ve noticed those hawkish statements. K bloggers and K blog commenters apparently can’t believe their own eyes and ears.

  12. Indeed. I eagerly await the Pentagon “leak” in the next few weeks/months that confirms Obama has asked military planners to draw up plans for a potential strike on North Korean missile and nuclear facilites.

    I wonder if Obama will say anything about the NK problem in the upcoming State of the Union address….

  13. Another thing worth pointing out is that a subtle difference of opinion is emerging between South Korea and the US, something that the North will likely be keen to take advantage of.

    During Gates’ meeting with Kim Gwan-jin today, both sides stressed that the Six-Party Talks can only resume when South-North dialogue begins and when the North demonstrates that it is willing to negotiate in good faith, but Gates said nothing about South Korea’s preconditions for South-North talks which include the North taking responsibility for the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island attacks, ceasing all further provocations, and demonstrating their sincerity towards denuclearization. Gates, on the other hand, said that the North need only formally swear off provocations and the much more nebulous “fulfill its international obligations.”

    The North could exploit this difference easily. The North could butter up to the US easily by taking superficial measures that feign sincerity towards denuclearization, perhaps by calling up the IAEA and formally inviting inspectors back to Yeonpyeong or rejoining the NPT. Then the dialogue fetishists in Washington will get the Obama administration to pressure the South to drop its own preconditions allowing the North to get away scot-free with two unprovoked attacks while wrangling Seoul into providing generous economic assistance and clearing a path to the even more lucrative Six-Party Revolving Door Talks.

    The US government should reaffirm our commitment to our ally by publically supporting the South’s preconditions.

  14. Milton – Couldn’t we say that by making North-South dialogue a precondition for 6-partys, Gates is effectively endorsing — “baking in” — the South’s preconditions on the Cheonnan and Yeonpyong?

    [That had never occurred to me, but it makes sense. – Joshua]

  15. Jeffery, what I actually wrote was this.. ;”However in around the Fall solstice of 2011 both the DPRK and PRC will fall unles the PRC joins with the U.S.”

    If you ever qoute me again you should do better. I never said China would fall. I said the PRC would in and around the fall solstice of 2011. China will survive with Beijing in tact. The PRC will not.

  16. Ditto, ditto, you’ve done it again! Isn’t that what ditto means?

    Jeffery’s point is that there never can be a “fall solstice.” The solstice, where the sun appears to stand still at noon in the sky, occurs only at the height of winter and summer, where the arc of the sun is least at noon. The equinox, where the length of the day and night are the same, occur at the mid-points between the solstices, being the mid point between the longest day in summer and the shortest day in winter.

    So there just can’t be a fall solstice — not even in Milankovitch’s worst dreams.

    I wish I’d spotted it as soon as Jeffery did.

  17. Ditto81 wrote:

    “I said the PRC would [fall] in and around the fall solstice of 2011.”

    Great! I can hardly wait for that fall solstice. But I’ve heard that it’s been rescheduled for the winter equinox.

    Jeffery Hodges

    * * *

  18. david woolley, if you’re going to correct a guy, correct him correctly. At a soltice, the sun doesn’t appear to stand still at noon. It goes as far north as it ever goes, or as far south, and turns around. That north-south motion thus stops for an instant, but the sun continues to move east to west as usual, never stopping and never reversing. The east-west motion is of course much faster, completing a cycle in only a day. The north-south motion takes a whole year to complete a cycle. But the sun is always moving.

    When the sun passes over the equator, we get an equinox. Maybe Ditto81 is thinking of that.

  19. Glans, I don’t think your explanation is quite correct. In normal speech, a solstice means the noonday sun appears to stop — because the arc around noon is shallowest at the solstices.

    For astronomical measurement, it is of course true, as you say, that the days after a solstice, the sun at noon will move higher or lower in the heavens. Nautical ephemerides will provide an essentially fictitious UTC time for precise greatest point in that progression, and will provide a specific universal time for the solstice –regardless of whether the sun is up or not at that particular time at your spot on the globe!

    But that does not appear to be the reason why the solstice is so named. The “standing sun” point relates to the behavior of the sun on the day, and not to its changes in the prior and subsequent days.

    But I don’t want to get too didactic, because I know that I, and I think Jeffery too, were trying for some humor as well as a distinction between solstice and equinox.

  22. This caught me by surprise: The Kushibo Plan
    “If Beijing supports a peaceful unification of the Korean Peninsula, Seoul agrees to give China a 99-year lease of a strip of land on the Tuman River, not so far inland that seagoing ships cannot reach it and with guaranteed access to the sea, that can be developed into a major port and a railway corridor to China’s interior.”

    That’s to be contrasted with the Glans Plan:
    1. PRC stays out.
    2. ROK annexes DPRK.
    3. USA gets out.

    I say the Glans Plan has superior moral clarity. But is the Kushibo Plan perhaps more feasible? Let’s see what emerges from the upcoming Hu-Obama meeting.

  23. Moral clarity? If only we could eat moral clarity and then use the leftovers to shield ourselves from bullets. I’d say the best thing for North Koreans is an end to despotic rule, preferably with democratic choice of their leaders, and I think we’re going to have to make some hold-your-nose choices to get there.

    Here’s the problem with the Glans Plan:
    1. PRC stays out? Well now they’re already in. How do you get them to leave?
    2. ROK annexes DPRK? See #1.
    3. USA gets out? Then it’s only a matter of time (and probably not too long a time) before far more powerful players than Korea end up trying to dominate it by coercion or even force of arms (ditto with Taiwan, depending on how far the USA gets out), at which point the USA gets pulled back in anyway, except at far greater cost of lives and treasure than if it had not left in the first place.

    The Pax Americana is the best thing in recent centuries to happen to Northeast Asia in terms of peace and stability: Four major wars in or over Korea in the nearly six decades prior to 1953, and zero wars in or around Korea in the same period since then.