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May 8, 2018

Moon Chung-in throws U.S. Forces Korea out the Overton Window (Update: & so does Trump)

A PATTERN WE’VE SEEN REPEATED OVER THE LAST YEAR goes roughly as follows: First, Moon Chung-in, the left-wing South Korean President’s crazy old uncle1 shouts something wacky from his attic when the Americans are within earshot. The Americans wince and pretend they didn’t hear. President Moon Jae-in and his cabinet walk the wacky remark back and gently hush the crazy old uncle. But once Moon Chung-in has defenestrated the wacky idea out of his attic’s Overton Window, the hard-left base loots...
Categories An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
December 2, 2014

In 2006, Ashton Carter called for blowing up a N. Korean missile on the launch pad

At the time, I wasn’t especially enthusiastic about the idea, and I’m still not enthusiastic about it today, but had I known then that George W. Bush and Barack Obama would let things get to where they’ve gotten today, I might have agreed with the idea of an aerial intercept. One thing we know about Ashton Carter is that he talks a good game.
Categories Missiles/U.S. Military/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
August 21, 2014

Those who’ve been assigned to Yongsan, or who sometimes went to Itaewon, …

will appreciate this well-researched history of the neighborhood’s sleazy past and present gentrification, although sleaze has been a difficult thing to extinguish from the places where it has put down its roots. During my last visit to Seoul, the brothel district near the former Yongsan Station, now a massive E-Mart, was still plying its trade, just a bit more sedately, and just around the corner from a police precinct. Judging from the link, Hooker Hill still features hookers, despite the new development two...
Categories Korean Society/U.S. Military
January 28, 2014

Please buy Don Kirk’s new book on Okinawa and Jeju

A few weeks ago, it was my pleasure to meet up with Don Kirk for beers at the Press Club. Don was kind enough to give me a copy of his new book. I’ve only had time to poke through it so far, but it does (as you would expect) a comprehensive job of discussing the politics of military basing on both islands, each with its own history of conflict and controversy. Don asked me to give it a plug,...
Categories Books & Films/Korean History/ROK Military/U.S. Military
October 11, 2013

N. Korea says Park GH’s father “smelled of elderberries,” S. Korea responds with “large wooden badger” plan

I don’t know about you, but I sure got tired of Park Geun Hye’s hippie Earth mother act last summer, after North Korea started making nice, right after banks all over China and Europe started blocking North Korean accounts. Thank God that’s over with. We’re back to steaming reactors, spinning centrifuges, war drums, nasty taunts, and all the things we’ve grown to love and miss about North Korea. The North was uncharacteristically quietly during August’s Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercises, but for reasons known only...
Categories North-South/ROK Military/Sunshine/U.S. Military
December 15, 2012

Obama Administration’s N. Korea policy evolves from the 90s to the 60s.

Not surprisingly, North Korea’s missile test is bringing out a lot of criticism of President Obama’s North Korea policy, but sometimes, that criticism writes itself.  Writing at The Cable, Josh Rogin tells us that just as Kim Jong Un was counting down the launch sequence between drags on a smuggled Marlboro, Wendy Sherman and the State Department’s crack team of Asia experts were relaxing at a cocktail party in honor of — smack your forehead now — the Emperor of...
Categories "United" Nations/An Alliance?/Diplomacy/U.S. Military
May 28, 2012

Really? A U.S. General Said Our Special Forces “Have Been Parachuting into North Korea?” (Update: No, Not Really)

What could possibly go wrong with this? US and South Korean special forces have been parachuting into North Korea to gather intelligence about underground military installations, a US officer has said in comments carried in US media. Army Brigadier General Neil Tolley, commander of US special forces in South Korea, told a conference held in Florida last week that Pyongyang had built thousands of tunnels since the Korean war, The Diplomat reported. “The entire tunnel infrastructure is hidden from our...
Categories NK Military/U.S. Military
June 14, 2011

Another North Korean Vessel Intercepted, Turned Around

In an incident reminiscent of the Kang Nam I incident, a U.S. Navy ship has forced another suspected North Korean arms ship to turn around at sea, rather than face the risk of being searched in port. David Sanger of the New York Times reports: The most recent episode began after American officials tracked a North Korean cargo ship, the M/V Light, that was believed to have been involved in previous illegal shipments. Suspecting that it was carrying missile components,...
Categories "United" Nations/Anju Links/Sanctions/U.S. Military
January 9, 2011

Heritage Scholar Calls for Asian Missile Defense Alliance

Bruce Klingner at the Heritage Foundation is proposing an idea whose time has come: a comprehensive, multi-national missile defense system for Asia. Klingner’s argument begins with an explanation of what should be obvious — that diplomacy has failed to disarm North Korea, as China’s own missile arsenal is growing rapidly. The land- and sea-based system Klingner proposes would protect Asian democracies from both North Korea and China, and enhance U.S. national security, as well. Here’s the abstract: The United States...
Categories An Alliance?/Anju Links/China/Japan/Taiwan/U.S. Military
November 27, 2010

North Korea: Sorry We Shelled Your “Human Shields”

You have to admit that it was pretty diabolical of Lee Myung Bak to have planted those human shields in their own villages and homes years before he was even inaugurated. In fact, the two civilians who were actually killed were construction workers on the ROK Marine post, but the given the North’s shelling of civilian neighborhoods, it’s lucky there weren’t a lot more “human shields” killed: The North really does have a special gift for adding insult to injury....
Categories Propaganda/Subversion/U.S. Military/Yeonpyeong Attack
June 23, 2010

On McChrystal and Petraeus

I can’t pass on the chance to say a few things about the firing of General McChrystal. I don’t think President Obama could have not fired him, leaving him in charge of our war effort in state where he clearly lacks the confidence of the President, his cabinet, the people, and quite probably his own soldiers. I knew few soldiers who had strong partisan views, but fewer who held much respect for conduct like this. More than a few must...
Categories U.S. Military
May 4, 2010

Oh, for F**k’s Sake: Not Another Do-Gooder Congressman Out to Rid the USFK of Juicy Girls

Normally, I actually like Chris Smith, but it’s just plain dumb to go after U.S. service members who, while thousands of miles from home, pursue (a) human nature, and (b) a form of commerce that’s more-or-less openly available to 23 million South Korean men around them: A bill to create a director of global anti-human trafficking policies in the Department of Defense was introduced Thursday in an effort to better monitor the way the military deals with South Korean “juicy...
Categories Korean Society/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA
March 20, 2010

Rumor: U.S., China Planning for “Upheaval” in N. Korea

The United States Thursday denied reports that it will soon have closed-door discussions with South Korea and China on plans for upheaval in North Korea. “I have not been told we are going to have this type of meeting at this particular point,” a senior State Department official said, asking not to be named. “If we are working on that in sort of an early stage, that could be possible.” [Yonhap] Normally, I’d be tempted to believe this because they...
Categories China/Reconstruction/Regime Change/U.S. Military
March 8, 2010

North Korea Re-Re-Declares War, Threatens “Merciless Physical Force,” Demands Peace Treaty

So Operations Key Resolve and Foal Eagle have started again. I boldly predict that this year, as has been the case for each year for the many decades we’ve had troops stationed in South Korea, the exercise will not end with an American invasion of North Korea. Just as predictably, North Korea is threatening the United States and/or South Korea. The challenge for North Korean propagandists is always how to make each year’s threat stand out from such previous-year classics...
Categories Diplomacy/ROK Military/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Military/Useful Idiocy
February 21, 2010

Were the Taliban Casing Yongsan?

By what unhappy accident did the muses of Seoul’s urban planning put a large mosque with a significant population of Pakistani fundamentalists in its congregation smack-dab on top of Hooker Hill? Walking through Itaewon shortly after 9/11 and shortly before my DEROS date, watching chitrali hats and shalwar kamiz coexist uneasily with spandex mini-dresses, Dimple scotch, and crowded nightclubs frequented by U.S. military personnel, I confess to having thought: it’s just a matter of when. A Pakistani man who claims...
Categories Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
January 28, 2010

Equality Begins Where Dependence Ends

South Korea, which spent the better part of the last two decades bitching that it wanted to be treated like America’s equal, has been bitching ever since the Pentagon decided that Korea was just about ready to take over wartime operational control of its own military, you know … for its own defense. Needless to say, and largely as a result of having served in the USFK myself for four years, I’m neither as sympathetic nor as diplomatic as our...
Categories An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA
November 11, 2009

Happy Veterans’ Day

Sure, I could link to a sappy YouTube tribute, but my weakness for empirical data gets the best of me in my weaker moments, so I decided to link to the latest Brookings Iraq Index instead. If you’re like me, you also look forward to the day when Iraqis are banning GI’s from their booking clubs, protesting the SOFA, and bitching about the high price the Americans are charging for the biofuels that began to edge gasoline aside in 2015...
Categories U.S. Military