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September 19, 2006

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 10: The First Shoe Drops

Japan and Australia have imposed sanctions on a series of the companies Kim Jong Il uses to collect foreign currency and dual-use items. In Japan’s case, this includes shutting off a substantial income source for the North: cash remittances from ethnic Koreans in Japan: The sanctions will effectively freeze North Korea’s assets in Japan by banning withdrawals and overseas remittances from the targets’ accounts in Japanese banks. This is about as robust an option as I had predicted here, although...
Categories Money Laundering/NK Economics/WMD
September 14, 2006

Kim Dae Jung: Neocons Made Up N. Korean Nuke Crisis

[Updated for your pleasure, and here’s one back at the Marmot, who has much more.] It’s a ruthless totalitarian regime with a history of selling WMD’s to terrorist backers, and its state ideology revels in violence against America. And if the fact that they have a few nukes worries you, it’s obviously all in your head, says ex-South Korean Prez and Nobel prize winner Kim Dae Jung: “How North Korea will do with its missiles and nuclear weapons… Those will...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Diplomacy/WMD/WTF?
September 8, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 50: Alternative Realities and Real Alternatives

I suppose everyone is entitled a theory on why Kim Jong Il decided to launch a round of missiles on July 4th, thereby drawing the wrong kind of attention from the U.N. Security Council, Japan, China, and the U.S. Treasury Department. This blog has been lukewarm on the conventional “extortion” theory, and has recently hosted discussions of the Strategic Disengagement Theory, the “Barrel of a Gun” Theory, The Loyalty Test Theory, and most recently, the Robert Kaplan Theory. All of...
Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/WMD
September 7, 2006

‘Barrel of a Gun’ Redux

North Korean Army propaganda adds fuel to my pet theory: According to the article, North Korea developed nuclear weapon for the purpose of self-defense because “˜the vicious American gang leader Bush labeled us one of the axis of evil and rogue states, and declared not to have conversation with us unless his sinister conditions were met.’ The document says the United States bewildered after the North’s declaration of possession of nuclear weapon and then started to yield to Pyongyang. Therefore...
Categories Kremlinology/WMD
September 5, 2006

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 8

Nigel Cowie, North Korea’s most “legitimate” banker, is selling out, and this time, that’s not just a moral judgment. Richardson links this piece, written by none other than Bradley K. Martin, indicating that he’s selling his Daedong Credit Bank to the British-based Koryo Group, but will stay on to help manage the bank. As for the issue of Daedong’s much-proclaimed legitimacy, Martin adds what strikes me as a highly salient fact: The minority owner of Daedong Credit is Korea Daesong...
Categories Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Drugs & N Korea/Money Laundering/NK Economics/WMD
September 2, 2006

Another Missile Test?

Yonhap reports: South Korean and the U.S. intelligence authorities have detected suspicious vehicle movements in and out of North Korea’s major missile test site, a government source here said Sunday. [….] “Military intelligence officials have spotted movements by several large vehicles in the North’s Gitdaeryeong area,” the source spoke on condition of anonymity. “They don’t rule out the possibility that it is part of preparations for additional missile tests.” Officials at South Korea’s foreign and defense ministries have said that...
Categories NK Military/WMD
September 1, 2006

A Major Success for Missile Defense

Another success for the right of self-defense: The U.S. military shot down a target ballistic missile over the Pacific on Friday in the widest test of its emerging antimissile shield in 18 months, the Defense Department announced. The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency said it had successfully completed an important exercise involving the launch of an improved ground-based interceptor missile designed to protect the United States against a limited long-range ballistic missile attack. The test results will help improve the performance...
Categories Technology/WMD
August 31, 2006

TKL Interview with Chuck Downs on the Alliance, Diplomacy, Nukes, and Why Kim Jong Il Tested Those Missiles

[Update 2: Thanks to the reader who pointed out that I had accidentally disabled the comments! That’s fixed now; please submit any questions or comments you have.] [Update: This post will “stick” at the top of the page for a couple of days; scroll down for new entries.] Chuck Downs is an author, independent consultant, and former Pentagon official who frequently appears on television news programs to discuss North Korea policy. He has held a number of important positions in...
Categories An Alliance?/China & Korea/Geopolitics/Japan & Korea/Kim Jong Il/Korean Politics/Kremlinology/NK Military/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views/WMD
August 26, 2006

Is He Crazy After All?

A big welcome to the new readers from Gateway Pundit, and as always, many thanks to Jim for his link and his support. All of us who wonder why Kim Jong Il has does some of the bone-headed things he’s done lately have shared a few common assumptions about him as we engaged in this speculative parlor game of ours: * He is sane, rational, calculating, and reasonably well informed about his foes’ thought processes (some, however, would also argue...
Categories Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology/WMD
August 26, 2006

China’s Game in Korea: Choose Your Own Reality

[Update: This new report says that the growth rate of Chinese-N. Korean trade fell last quarter, but there are varying explanations. During the first months of this year, however, South Korea’s trade with the North also showed a modest rise, but a decrease in South Korean products (including aid) going North.] As Richardson noted earlier, there has been much recent speculation about the state of Chinese-North Korean relations, particularly since China voted for weakened but potentially significant sanctions at the...
Categories China & Korea/NK Economics/WMD
August 17, 2006

BREAKING NEWS: NK May Be Preparing Nuke Test

Thanks to a reader for forwarding; via ABC News: There is new evidence that North Korea may be preparing for an underground test of a nuclear bomb, U.S. officials told ABC News. “It is the view of the intelligence community that a test is a real possibility,” said a senior State Department official. A senior military official told ABC News that a U.S. intelligence agency has recently observed “suspicious vehicle movement” at a suspected North Korean test site. The activity...
Categories NK Military/Proliferation/WMD
July 28, 2006

Journalistic Absurdity of the Day

Yonhap News gives us this head-scratcher in the course of reporting on North Korea’s new demand for its missile launches not to affect the Kaesong Industrial Complex: Nevertheless, the joint industrial complex has been a burden for the South Korean government as there are concerns that a portion of the wages paid to North Korean workers there could be used to develop missiles. (emphasis mine) I’m in awe. Those people labor long hours in sweatshops for a pittance and still...
Categories Appeasement/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Human Trafficking/Humor/Satire/NK Economics/Uncategorized/WMD
July 27, 2006

Now What? Part 4: Someone Didn’t Get the Memo

[Several very interesting updates here; scroll down.] Recently, it has often seemed that different parts of South Korea have been applying different policies to the same issue. Take South Korea’s response to the new U.N. Security Council Resolution 1695, which requires countries and companies to exercise “vigilance” in making sure they don’t supply North Korea with the components or funds to build more missiles. UniFiction Minister Lee Jong-Seok has opted for a “don’t ask, don’t tell” interpretation of that resolution,...
Categories Appeasement/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/WMD
July 23, 2006

And They Wonder Why Relations Are Deteriorating

Update: Ouch. You can clearly see how this administration has moved to the left from where it began. UniFiction Minister Lee Jong-Seok says the United States “failed the most” when North Korea launched its missile. You thought, perhaps, those whose main event exploded 45 seconds after launch? The rising superpower whose uncontrollable satellite managed to cement a U.S.-Japanese alliance? The government whose incalculably costly and increasingly unpopular appeasement policies were exposed as a worthless sham at the push of one...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/WMD/WTF?
July 22, 2006

Now What? Part 2

Right after North Korea launched its round of missiles, I outlined a series of options, mostly financial, that the U.S. and other countries could take in response. Two weeks later, several aspects of that forecast are holding up well. What looked at first like another U.N. farce, then a modestly successful sanctions effort (by U.N. standards, anyway), now looks to be an important and hard-won component of a coordinated effort to tighten the squeeze on the regime-sustaining half of North...
Categories Appeasement/Counterfeiting/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/WMD