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Category: Proliferation

November 1, 2014

And in other news, North Korea now has nuclear warheads

So last week, when I was busy writing about the U.N. and human rights, the Commanding General of U.S. Forces Korea went to a press conference at the Pentagon and said, “I believe [the North Koreans] have the capability to miniaturize a device at this point and they have the technology to potentially deliver what they say they have.” The general added that even if we haven’t seen a test, we’re at the point where we have to operate under...
Categories Missiles/WMD
October 10, 2014

Seoul finally decides it needs a missile defense plan

South Korea and the United States are drawing up a joint contingency plan to employ Washington’s missile defense (MD) system against growing threats from North Korea’s ballistic missiles, a government source here said Tuesday. The joint contingency plan would employ not only missiles and surveillance equipment the U.S. Forces Korea and South Korea have been developing under their Korean Air and Missile Defense (KAMD) project, but also key assets of the U.S. MD system, according to the source. The U.S....
Categories An Alliance?/Missiles/U.S. & Korea
September 9, 2014

IAEA: Yongbyon is running

“Since late August 2013, the Agency has observed, through analysis of satellite imagery, steam discharges and the outflow of cooling water at the 5 MW(e) reactor, signatures which are consistent with the reactor’s operation.” [via Reuters] If I’m nonplussed, it’s because I keep hearing this reported again and again. I’ll know that South Korea is more serious about disarming North Korea than it is about profiteering from slave labor when Park Geun-Hye tells Kim Jong-Un to choose between Yonbyon and Kaesong.
Categories WMD
September 2, 2014

Does this mean we’re paying for THAAD for South Korea?

The United States has wrapped up its survey of candidate sites for its advanced missile defense (MD) system to be deployed in South Korea, with a final decision likely to be made before their annual defense ministers’ meeting in October, sources said Monday. Washington has made no secret that it is considering deploying a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery, an integral part of its MD system, to South Korea, citing evolving threats from North Korea. [Yonhap] Does the “it”...
Categories An Alliance?/Anju Links/Missiles/ROK Military
August 20, 2014

South Korea’s missile problem, and ours

For the last year, the South Korean government has been saying that it considers a North Korean attack a very real risk, and it has also said that if attacked, its retaliation will be swift and severe. Its President, Park Geun-Hye, recently expressed concern about a North Korean “misjudgment,” and touted the U.S.-ROK military alliance as the best deterrent against that. As recently as this week, she has been warning her army of the dangers of “complacency.” I don’t have access...
Categories Missiles/NK Military/ROK Military
August 6, 2014

Insiders debate North Korea’s EMP capability

The simplest electro-magnetic pulse or EMP weapons are, put simply, nuclear weapons detonated at high altitude. A high-altitude nuclear blast would overload and destroy electrical circuits and infrastructure, and create blackouts over wide areas for extended periods of time. Imagine your life without the internet, telephone, electricity, or cars — in short, being part of a 21st Century population trying to sustain itself with Colonial Williamsburg technology — and you get the idea. Without the means to recover from that sort of attack...
Categories NK Military/ROK Military/WMD
August 4, 2014

Obama’s soft line on North Korea sanctions has failed.

AT LEAST ONE NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER thinks North Korea has never been nastier to the United States, and if its racist attacks on President Obama aren’t proof enough of that, maybe this message from North Korea’s U.N. Ambassador, Ri Tong-Il, is: He accused the United States of using its military power to deliberately subvert any dialogue between North and South Korea — which is also a standard North Korean assertion. But in a variant of that theme, he said...
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Missiles/Proliferation/WMD
July 27, 2014

Kim Jong Un stages missile test for the hard-of-hearing

“QUIET” NORTH KOREA has tested another missile to celebrate the anniversary of its survival of its invasion of South Korea. Based on the range, it was probably a SCUD, which makes the test a violation of UNSCR 1695, 1718, 1874, 2087, and 2094, in case you’re keeping track. According to Yonhap: Saturday’s firing is the 15th rocket launch, and the sixth ballistic missile launch, by the North this year, which the international community condemned as a violation of the United...
Categories Missiles
July 22, 2014

Test something louder, Dear Leader. John Kerry still can’t hear you.

With the world erupting in the greatest cascade of escalating conflicts since 1975 and President Obama’s approval rating on foreign policy at negative 21.2% – 11% lower than his overall (dis)approval rating — John Kerry eked out some time over the weekend to tempt fate with a dubious boast: I just came back from China, where we are engaged with the Chinese in dealing with North Korea. And you will notice, since the visit last year, North Korea has been quieter. We...
Categories Diplomacy/Missiles/NK Military
July 17, 2014

Treasury nukes bank with possible North Korea links (updated)

The Treasury Department has gone full Banco Delta on Cyprus-based, Tanzanian-chartered FBME Bank for money laundering, terrorist financing, and possibly even Syrian WMD proliferation — proliferation that is closely linked to North Korea. According to Treasury’s press release, FBME promoted itself as a provider of no-questions-asked banking services with loose anti-money laundering controls, although I saw no evidence of this at FBME’s Web site. But according to Treasury’s more detailed Notice of Finding, FBME was laundering money for Hezbollah, illegal online...
Categories Money Laundering/Proliferation/Sanctions
July 1, 2014

“Happy Fourth of July!” – Kim Jong Un

It is already the 2nd of July in Korea, where Yonhap is reporting more missile launches off North Korea’s East Coast. This time, the missiles are said to be KN-09 cruise missiles,* a brand whose alleged proliferation to the North recently generated controversy between two bloggers, each of whom is not me. The latest launch follows the weekend launch of two short-range (300-mile) SCUDs missiles into the Sea of Japan from the vicinity of Wonsan. (Here is KCNA’s commentary on Kim Jong Un’s on-the-spot guidance of the fireworks.) The launches...
Categories Abductions/Japan/Missiles
May 9, 2014

N. Korea threatens annual missile, nuke tests

Our setting is a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on the prevention of WMD proliferation, last Wednesday. Ironically, a diplomat from South Korea, a non-permanent member of the Security Council, chaired the meeting. The turn of North Korea’s U.N. Ambassador, Ri Tong Il, came. When it did, Ri added further evidence to support the Theory of North Korean Exceptionalism — that is, North Korea is neither inclined nor expected to follow the simplest of rules that apply to everyone else on earth. Ri...
Categories "United" Nations/WMD
April 29, 2014

Just test the damn thing already.

So the news this week is that the Obama Administration, which for the last five years has stayed its hand from sanctioning North Korea because of Chinese sensitivities, has just blocked the assets of top members of Vladimir Putin’s government over their seizure of the Crimea. That sounds like an effective way to piss them off, but I can’t see how it poses a serious threat to Russia’s economy or Putin’s domestic support, or how it will deter his next aggression. (If you want to...
Categories Sanctions/U.S. & Korea/WMD
March 6, 2014

Open Sources, March 6, 2014

~  1  ~ THANK YOU TO THOSE WHO CAME to this event on Capitol Hill yesterday and helped make it a huge success. We filled the room well beyond its capacity. There was an energy in the room that went beyond the question of numbers. It was who was there — young, old, in-between, conservatives, liberals, and a variety of ethnicities, including a very sizable Korean-American contingent. I don’t have words to express my admiration for the leadership of Suzanne...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/Proliferation/Sanctions/U.S. Politics
November 27, 2013

North Korea approaching provocation phase of its “vicious cycle”

North Korea’s bipolar cycle is now familiar to most Korea watchers, including the President of South Korea. The North pursues its nuclear weapons capability with consistent determination in all phases of that cycle, but not always with consistent ostentation. There are periodic acts of satellite theater — a new excavation here, a new launch pad there, or steam from a cooling tower. Words vacillate between conciliation (often cryptic) and belligerence (but mostly, belligerence). You can’t really time North Korea’s cycles...
Categories Propaganda/WMD
November 25, 2013

How the Iran deal affects North Korea policy

You would think that the world’s biggest government would be capable of handling more than one global proliferation crisis at a time. Unfortunately, Washington isn’t wired for that kind of bandwidth. Major policy initiatives require political capital, and it will take all of this administration’s dwindling reserves to fend off a new round of Iran sanctions in Congress.* The administration couldn’t defend a deal with North Korea now if it had one, and that goes double for the sort of...
Categories Axis of Evil/Iran/Sanctions
October 10, 2013

Review: Treasury’s War, by Juan Zarate

Let me begin with an apology for the lack of posting lately. While tossing a football around with some friends, I took a direct head-on hit to that finger you need for typing words that contain the letters “l” or an “o,” which turn out to be less dispensable than you might think. The time I didn’t spend typing, I spent reading instead: [clicking the image takes you to Amazon] If you want to understand why the Banco Delta Asia...
Categories Axis of Evil/Books & Films/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Sanctions