Four years ago, President Donald Trump and Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un were preparing for their first summit. Trump had dropped his “fire and fury” campaign and Kim had suspended intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and nuclear tests. Although skeptics filled the ranks of Washington’s established Korea analysts, for the first time in decades there was a sense of possibility about the bilateral relationship.

The ensuing détente ended the following year with the failure of the Hanoi summit, though Kim maintained his testing moratorium. Last year, he indicated that Pyongyang was planning on ending its forbearance; in January, he unleashed a flurry of short-range launches, capped by a test of long-range missile components. Last month Pyongyang deployed its first ICBM in five years, though the regime apparently misrepresented the missile that was launched. And there is activity at the North’s nuclear site, suggesting a test there is imminent.

Speculation has focused on Kim desiring to force newly elected President Joe Biden to the negotiating table. That was the old model, with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) greeting every new U.S. administration with a reminder that Pyongyang was waiting for concessions. However, few Washington analysts believe that the DPRK is willing to abandon its nuclear capability, irrespective of any promised benefits for doing so.

After all, Kim, like his father and grandfather, appears to be brutally efficient in retaining power and presumably has seen the video of Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi’s ugly demise—after he traded away his nukes and missiles for America’s and Europe’s favor. They proved to be faux friends ready to betray Qaddafi at their first opportunity. Add to that the lesson of Ukraine: give up your nukes in return for an unenforceable security guarantee, and get invaded.

Which offers a darker purpose of the North’s accelerating tests. So far, Kim has indicated no interest in talking with Biden, even though the North’s economy is suffering badly, not only from U.S. and United Nations sanctions but self-imposed, coronavirus pandemic-induced isolation. It appears that Kim has decided that he is unlikely to get the sort of economic relief he was denied at Hanoi, so there is no current reason to negotiate. That is, he is unwilling to agree to Washington’s official objective of comprehensive, verifiable irreversible denuclearization, so why bother talking?

While Kim hasn’t said so explicitly, he appears to be determined to expand and improve his nuclear arsenal sufficiently to eventually force Washington to negotiate on his terms. He certainly has not been conciliatory of late. Earlier this month he explained: “Only when one is equipped with the formidable striking capabilities, overwhelming military power that cannot be stopped by anyone, one can prevent a war, guarantee the security of the country and contain and put under control all threats and blackmails by the imperialists.”

The most obvious target of his vitriol is the United States, of course. However, South Korea, with a new, more hawkish conservative government soon to take power, also has been subject to the North’s ire. In this case, Kim loosed his favorite attack dog, his sister, Kim Yo-jong: “In case [South Korea] opts for military confrontation with us, our nuclear combat force will have to inevitably carry out its duty … a dreadful attack will be launched and the [South Korean] army will have to face a miserable fate little short of total destruction and ruin.” She described the South Korean defense minister as a “scum-like guy” and his comments as the “hysteria of a lunatic.” He had threatened preemptive strikes if the North prepared to fire missiles at the Republic of Korea (ROK).

Relations with the ROK are likely to worsen when Yoon Suk-yeol assumes the presidency. He promised to take a tougher stand toward the North and work more closely with the United States. Although this approach is unlikely to achieve much more than President Moon Jae-in’s variant of the Sunshine Policy—no South Korean administration has ever caused anything more than a temporary improvement in bilateral relations with the DPRK—it is more likely to enrage Pyongyang. After all, taking Yoon at his word suggests that there will be no more craven concessions, such as banning private efforts to spread information to the North’s people.

What to do? The current administration’s strategy looks a bit like the Obama administration’s “strategic patience”—aka, kick the can down the road approach. If Pyongyang was doing no more than insulting Washington and Seoul, that strategy might work. However, the North appears to be moving forward full speed to expand its arsenal and, more important from Washington’s standpoint, extend its reach. In just a few years, the RAND Corporation and Asan Institute figure Pyongyang could have a couple of hundred nukes with ICBMs capable of hitting the U.S. homeland. That would be a game-changer.

Although it is impossible to know Kim’s mind, building up his military while refusing to engage Washington suggests he plans to create an arsenal too large for even the harshest DPRK critic to try to dismantle. Gaining the ability to strike U.S. targets would necessarily and dramatically limit America’s options. Washington’s involvement even in a conventional conflict could trigger nuclear retaliation. Yet despite the strong ROK-U.S. ties, they are not worth risking the destruction of American cities.

Washington cannot look to other nations for answers. Through 2017, the United States could rely on China to at least discourage the North’s most ambitious plans. For a few years, Beijing even approved and enforced a succession of new United Nations sanctions. However, Chinese president Xi Jinping switched course after Washington and Pyongyang announced their summit plans, which raised the possibility of a modus vivendi between the DPRK and United States, leaving the People’s Republic of China (PRC) behind. Xi met Kim for the first time and normalized what had been a cold friendship at best. Xi has since maintained that course.

Despite the slight fillip in Sino-American relations after Biden’s inauguration, these ties seem destined to head downward. Disputes over Xinjiang, Taiwan, the South China Sea, and more are no closer to resolution. Beijing’s soft support for Russia in the latter’s war on Ukraine is driving another wedge between the United States and PRC. Kyiv’s plight has captured public attention and energized the most hawkish elements of the increasingly reckless Republican Party, which already seemed comfortable with, if not quite determined on, war with both China and Russia.

Moscow also has influence in the DPRK, though Russia long has trailed Beijing in clout. Today the Putin government has no interest in assisting the United States against Pyongyang even if doing so theoretically advanced Russian objectives. Moscow is more interested in causing trouble for America than reducing trouble by North Korea.

Japan was a member of the six-party talks and could play a role, but the status of Japanese kidnapped by North Korean agents decades ago has long deadlocked negotiations with the DPRK. Tokyo’s ties with the South also are difficult, though the incoming ROK administration hopes to improve this relationship. One advantage of improved coordination between the ROK and Japan—both market-oriented democracies seeking peace and stability in Northeast Asia—would be effectively adding Tokyo’s economic and growing military clout to the inter-Korean balance.

Seoul has the most at stake in DPRK relations but has been left with little authority by the United States. Thus, the North treated even the Moon administration, which did its desperate best to conciliate and appease Pyongyang, with contempt after the collapse of the Hanoi summit. Only an American exit, vigorously opposed by South Koreans across the political spectrum, would force the North to treat the ROK more seriously.

Absent such a switch, Washington appears to have no option other than doing more of the same, which has consistently failed over the last three decades. Despite claims that additional sanctions might bring the North to heel, the Kim government has survived both the pre-2017 period of tougher and more seriously enforced penalties as well as almost complete isolation during Covid-19.

The prospect of conventional retaliation, especially against South Korea’s capital of Seoul, was enough to deter prior U.S. administrations, most notably that of Bill Clinton, from striking North Korean nuclear facilities. Despite Trump’s flirtation with military action during his “fire and fury” stage, the North’s presumed possession of two to three score nukes would have magnified the cost of U.S. military action many times. And while the war would have been “over there,” as the ever war-happy Sen. Lindsey Graham indecorously put it, the human costs would have been catastrophic and included plenty of Americans. As Pyongyang continues to work on a panoply of weapons, including hypersonic and submarine-launched missiles, it soon will be able to retaliate “over here” too, making U.S. military action an impossible option.

The United States should prepare for ICBM and nuclear tests, as well as continued development of new and improved weapons. Alas, Washington has no answer. It complains about every test, demonstrating that it is unnerved by the North’s policy. Then the United States incrementally adds sanctions, without effect. And today the North refuses to even discuss denuclearization.

North Korea has oft been said to be the land of only bad options. That is ever more so as the North rapidly moves ahead with missile and nuclear development.

Moreover, a tougher ROK administration might move in unpredictable directions. A popular majority has supported a South Korean nuclear deterrent for years, with seven in ten currently in favor. Further recognition of allied impotence would likely fuel South Korean support for building an ROK bomb.

The Biden administration should consider a significant change in emphasis, from denuclearization to arms control. Since the latter—such as capping the North’s program, reducing the size of its arsenal, imposing proliferation safeguards, forestalling development of some weapons, and more—would move the peninsula toward the former, Washington need not admit that it had abandoned comprehensive and verifiable denuclearization. However, this appears to be the only practical means to forestall or at least limit a nuclear arms race on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea has oft been said to be the land of only bad options. That is ever more so as the North rapidly moves ahead with missile and nuclear development. With the promise of the Trump-Kim summits an increasingly distant memory, the Biden administration needs to find a new approach. And quickly.

Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of several books, including Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World and co-author of The Korean Conundrum: America’s Troubled Relations with North and South Korea.

Source: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/korea-watch/failure-launch-why-america-can%E2%80%99t-stop-north-korean-missile-tests-201730

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A record month of North Korean missile testing in January highlighted failures of Mr. Moon’s efforts to engineer a breakthrough as his term ends in May, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has suggested he could order new nuclear tests or intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launches for the first time since 2017.

“If North Korea’s series of missile launches goes as far as scrapping a moratorium on long-range missile tests, the Korean Peninsula may instantly fall back into the state of crisis we faced five years ago,” Mr. Moon said in a written interview with media in Seoul scheduled for publication on Thursday.

“Preventing such a crisis through persistent dialogue and diplomacy will be the task that political leaders in the countries concerned must fulfil together,” he added.

Mr. Moon had expressed concern that the series of missile tests was so close to the March 9 presidential election in South Korea, where the candidate from Mr. Moon’s Democratic Party is in a tight race with a conservative opponent.

Mr. Moon admitted he appears to have run out of time, saying it is unlikely a last-minute summit with Mr. Kim or the adoption of his proposal for a declaration ending the 1950-1953 Korean War would happen before he leaves office.

Still, he said the United States and South Korea have agreed on the text of the declaration, and that a summit between Mr. Kim and US President Joseph R. Biden “is just a matter of time” if all sides wish to avoid a crisis.

“Since dialogue is the only way to resolve problems, a meeting between President Biden and Chairman Kim is expected to take place eventually,” he said.

Mr. Moon has pushed for a formal end to the Korean War to replace the armistice that stopped the fighting but left it and the US-led U.N. Command still technically at war.

“I would at least like to make conditions ripe for an end-of-war declaration and pass that on to the next administration,” he said.

Mr. Moon said his most rewarding achievement was helping “shift the direction toward dialogue and diplomacy rather than military confrontation.”

The biggest regret of his term, however, is the failure of the US-North Korea summit in Hanoi, he said, where Kim and then-US President Donald Trump walked away with no agreements on reducing North Korea’s nuclear weapons or missiles in return for easing international sanctions.

“It is very regrettable that the summit ended in ‘no deal’ when the continuation of dialogue should have been ensured at least,” he said, arguing that a smaller, phased deal should still have been pursued when it became clear that a “big deal” was out of reach.

“Still now, if they learn from that experience and put their heads together to discuss mutually acceptable, realistic measures… I believe there will be ample opportunities to find a solution,” he added.

In a phone call with his US and Japanese counterparts on Thursday, South Korean Defense Minister Suh Wook said the recent launches posed a “direct and serious threat”, and vowed to bolster response capabilities based on the US alliance.

Mr. Biden’s administration has said it is willing to meet the North Koreans any time without preconditions, but Pyongyang says it will not resume negotiations unless Washington and Seoul drop “hostile policies” such as military drills, sanctions, and arms buildups.

Despite the stalled talks and increase in tensions, Mr. Moon says “necessary communication” with Mr. Kim has continued, and he doesn’t think Mr. Biden has returned to the “strategic patience” policies of the Obama administration because he continues to make practical efforts to resume dialogue.

“We cannot afford to give up this task,” he said. — Reuters

Source: https://www.bworldonline.com/new-north-korea-nuclear-icbm-testing-would-trigger-instant-crisis-moon/

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The conventional inter-Korean stalemate is deadlocked on the ground. In fact, North Korea is gradually losing that stand-off as American and South Korean technological prowess outstrip its large but antiquated conventional forces. The North knows this too. It has therefore invested for decades in nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them. These capabilities help it level the playing field.

Those investments are coming to fruition. The North probably has around fifty nuclear warheads now. It has many more missiles, probably hundreds. These rockets include intercontinental ballistic missiles to establish direct deterrence with the US homeland. They also include short and medium-range missiles which can strike all of South Korea and Japan, including US bases in those countries and in Guam.

The North has also announced interest in a wide range of adjacent technologies: submarine-launched ballistic missiles, low yield tactical nuclear weapons, rail-mounted launchers, hypersonic missiles, solid-fuel rockets, and so on. It is also suspected of possessing biological and chemical weapons.

In short, the North is building out a full-spectrum missile force, complete with powerful warheads, flexible launch capabilities, and faster, maneuverable missiles. Were the North to use this missile force, even conventionally armed, against the South in a conflict, it would be a potent battlefield tool. And if used against South Korea’s few, highly dense cities, it could throw the country into chaos behind the lines. Indeed, were weapons of mass destruction placed on these missiles, the North Korean rocket force would grow from a strategic to genuinely existential threat to the Southern republic.

Yoon’s answer to this expanding threat is obviously not ideal, but at least he is addressing it, which too much of the North Korea debate in South Korea is not doing. South Korea needs some kind of answer to this growing problem, and the two most obvious alternatives to Yoon’s aggressive proposal also have problems:

Missile Defense: Voters in modern countries often assume their nation has some manner of protection, a ‘roof.’ Missile defense would shoot down enemy rockets. And indeed, the US has multiple missile defense programs, including the controversial THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) battery stationed in South Korea. South Korea too has halting sought to deploy a ‘Korean Air and Missile Defense’ system.

These systems are a good start and better than nothing of course. Even if they shoot down only some of North Korea’s missiles, that is a great success, especially if those are nuclear missiles. But missile defense is not mature enough technologically to reckon with dozens or hundreds of inbound tracks. A large Northern strike could simply overwhelm the US and Southern anti-missile systems at present. And missile defense is extremely expensive. The ‘offense-defense balance’ between missiles and missile defense is heavily tilted toward offense (missiles) today and likely will be for another decade or two.

Negotiation: The ideal answer to the North’s spiraling nuclearization and missilization would be a deal with Pyongyang which capped or even rolled back these programs. Indeed, South Korean doves, including current President Moon Jae-In and defeated presidential candidate Lee Jae-Myung, routinely make this argument.

We all hope for this of course, but that is a slender reed against an arguably existential threat. Moon made the most determined outreach to the North in the history of South Korea. He even managed to cajole an American president into meeting a Northern supreme leader, which doves have argued for decades could break the ossified stalemate through dramatic, direct action. Yet nothing came of five years of constant effort; Moon could not even pull a toothless ‘end of war’ declaration out of Pyongyang. More broadly, the US and South Korea have tried for decades – at least since 1992’s inter-Korean declaration to forego nuclear weapons – to tie Pyongyang into binding agreements. The North’s response has frequently been evasive if not mendacious. Relying on a deal and North Korean restraint is hugely risky.

Worse, even if we clinch a deal to cut the North’s missiles and nukes, Pyongyang will almost certainly not cut enough to relieve South Korea’s strategic dilemma. The North’s economic backwardness and conventional military inferiority make these weapons so valuable that Pyongyang will almost certainly retain enough of them, despite any negotiation, to credibly deter South Korea, Japan, and the US. ‘Complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament’ was always a myth, even if the US and South Korea were to make major concessions to get some rollback.

This is a grim outlook. Negotiations may bring some cuts to the North’s missiles and nuclear weapons, but the price would be very high – such as the withdrawal of US forces from South Korea – and Pyongyang would almost certainly not reduce enough to obviate the strategic problem. Or the North would just build more missiles and warheads later. Missile defense too is a mixed response at best. It is better than no roof at all, but it simply cannot defeat as many missiles as the North will field. Indeed, an assured capability to overwhelm missile defense is probably why the North so regularly tests missiles.

Yoon and his team likely know all these arguments. They are likely skeptical of a deal, especially after Moon spent five years reaching for one and failing spectacularly. Nor does Team Yoon likely believe Pyongyang will ever make the scale of cuts necessary. And missile defense’s insufficiencies against a large strike are well-known.

Hence preempting an imminent North Korean launch become a much more attractive option. No one wants this outcome, but South Korea’s foreign policy community, especially its doves, need to work a lot harder on options if it wants to avoid Yoon’s conclusion carrying the debate.

Dr. Robert E. Kelly (@Robert_E_Kelly; website) is a professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science at Pusan National University. Dr. Kelly is a 1945 Contributing Editor as well.

Source: https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/03/north-koreas-missile-program-keeps-growing-more-dangerous/

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The two projectiles were launched from Hamhung near North Korea’s central east coast at 8 a.m. and 8:05 a.m. local time, landing in the sea after flying about 190 kilometers (118 miles) and reaching an altitude of about 20 kilometers (12.4 miles), the South Korean military said.

Pyongyang has ramped up its missile testing in 2022, saying it will bolster its defenses against the United States and evaluate “restarting all temporally suspended activities,” according to North Korea’s state-run news agency KCNA.

Just two days ago, North Korea fired what were believed to be cruise missiles into the sea.

On January 17, Pyongyang test-fired “tactical guided missiles,” which are short-range ballistic missiles, KCNA said.

North Korea claimed to have a successfully test-fired hypersonic missiles on January 5 and 11, and then what were presumed to be short-range ballistic missiles from a rail car on January 14.

Pyongyang is barred by international law from developing ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.

After the rail car test, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson admonished Washington for its posture against Pyongyang’s weapons development. “If the US adopts such a confrontational stance, the DPRK will be forced to take stronger and certain reaction to it,” the spokesman said, referring to the country by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

In a recent statement carried by KCNA, a spokesperson defended North Korea’s right to bolster its arms, saying its “recent development of new-type weapon was just part of its efforts for modernizing its national defense capability.”

Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said the recent tests show the Kim Jong Un regime is “developing an impressive diversity of offensive weapons.”

“Certain North Korean tests aim to develop new capabilities, especially for evading missile defenses. Other launches are intended to demonstrate the readiness and versatility of missile forces that North Korea has already deployed,” Easley said.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/26/asia/north-korea-missile-test-intl-hnk/index.html

The post North Korea conducts what could be its 6th missile test this month, South Korea says first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

“The government will pursue normalisation of inter-Korean relations and an irreversible path to peace until the end,” Moon said in his final New Year’s address before his five-year term ends in May. “I hope efforts for dialogue will continue in the next administration too.”

In his own address on New Year’s Eve, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made no mention of Moon’s calls for a declaration officially ending the 1950 to 1953 Korean War, or of stalled denuclearisation talks with the United States.

Moon held multiple summits with Kim, including once in Pyongyang, during a flurry of negotiations in 2018 and 2019, before talks stalled amid disagreements over international demands that the North surrender its arsenal of nuclear weapons, and Pyongyang’s call for Washington and Seoul to ease sanctions and drop other “hostile policies”.

Moon is pushing an “end of war declaration” as a way to jumpstart those stalled negotiations and his administration has hinted at backchannel discussions.

But North Korea has not publicly responded to the latest push, and the United States has said it supports the idea but may disagree with the South over its timing.

“It is true that there is still a long way to go,” Moon acknowledged, but argued that if inter-Korean relations improve, the international community will follow.

Moon said his outreach to North Korea had been enabled by a large military build-up that helped make South Korea safer.

“Peace is possible on strong security,” he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic overshadowed the stand-off with North Korea, as Pyongyang put the country into an unprecedented lockdown and Moon faced domestic pressure to tamp down the first major coronavirus outbreak outside of China in early 2020.

Since then, South Korea used aggressive tracking and tracing, as well as social distancing rules and a belated but thorough vaccination campaign to keep overall cases and deaths relatively low by global standards.

Source: Reuters/dv

Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/south-north-korea-peace-kim-jong-un-2411916

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“The government will pursue normalization of inter-Korean relations and an irreversible path to peace until the end,” Moon said in his final New Year’s address before his five-year term ends in May. “I hope efforts for dialogue will continue in the next administration too.”

In his own address on New Year’s Eve, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made no mention of Moon’s calls for a declaration officially ending the 1950-1953 Korean War, or of stalled denuclearization talks with the United States.

Moon held multiple summits with Kim, including once in Pyongyang, during a flurry of negotiations in 2018 and 2019, before talks stalled amid disagreements over international demands that the North surrender its arsenal of nuclear weapons, and Pyongyang’s call for Washington and Seoul to ease sanctions and drop other “hostile policies.”

Moon is pushing an “end of war declaration” as a way to jumpstart those stalled negotiations and his administration has hinted at backchannel discussions.

But North Korea has not publicly responded to the latest push, and the United States has said it supports the idea but may disagree with the South over its timing.

“It is true that there is still a long way to go,” Moon acknowledged, but argued that if inter-Korean relations improve, the international community will follow.

Moon said his outreach to North Korea had been enabled by a large military buildup that helped make South Korea safer.

“Peace is possible on strong security,” he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic overshadowed the standoff with North Korea, as Pyongyang put the country into an unprecedented lockdown and Moon faced domestic pressure to tamp down the first major coronavirus outbreak outside of China in early 2020.

Since then, South Korea used aggressive tracking and tracing, as well as social distancing rules and a belated but thorough vaccination campaign to keep overall cases and deaths relatively low by global standards.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source: https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/01/north-korea-has-big-plans-for-its-special-operations-forces-biggest-on-earth/

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Nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, thousands of artillery pieces, and millions of fanatical troops are the core of the North Korean threat. But Kim Jong Un has another ace up his sleeve: potent special-operations forces.

Not much is known about this force, but recent revelations by a senior North Korean spy who defected offer some insight into how Pyongyang’s commandos train and fight.

The Korean People’s Army (KPA) is one of the largest in the world, with an active-duty force of about 1.3 million. Pyongyang also has more than 200,000 special operators organized in standard formations, such as brigades, regiments, battalions, and in even smaller, more specialized outfits.

The typical special-operations unit has between 3,000 and 5,000 commandos and falls under the different branches of the North Korean military and under Pyongyang’s intelligence service, the Reconnaissance General Bureau.

North Korean special-operations units can be divided by specialty.

Reconnaissance units specialize in collecting intelligence and passing it back to headquarters. Airborne units can infiltrate by air and seize and hold targets like airfields or bridges. Maritime units can infiltrate from submarines or ships and conduct littoral raids. Commando units can conduct direct-action operations, such as raids.

North Korean troops may appear very well equipped during parades in Pyongyang, but those weapons and gear aren’t necessarily distributed to the rest of the force. Because of their special mission, North Korean special-operations units receive the best equipment and training.

In a recent report, the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) said “North Korean SOF are highly trained and well-equipped in comparison to other units, and, if successfully infiltrated into the South, would be capable of disruptive attacks in the rear area.”

That gear is rudimentary compared to other countries’ special-operations units, but even with technological or logistical shortcomings compared to US and South Korean special-operations units, North Korean commandos are a dedicated and dangerous foe.

According to the US military, KPA doctrine and tactics for ground operations have largely remained the same since the Korean War in the 1950s. Special-operations forces play an important part in KPA’s war-fighting doctrine, which seeks to attack an enemy target simultaneously from numerous angles.

North Korean special-operations doctrine emphasizes speed and surprise. Pyongyang’s special-operations forces have two strategic missions: to infiltrate South Korea and conduct unconventional warfare and sabotage on the US and South Korean rear lines and to defend North Korea against US or South Korean special-operations units.

If a major war broke out, the North Korean play would be to swiftly cross the Demilitarized Zone and flood South Korea with troops, attempting a repeat of the early stages of the Korean War, when communist forces almost drove South Korean and UN troops into the sea.

In such a scenario, North Korean heavy infantry or mechanized units would strike at South Korean and US forces’ frontlines. North Korean special-operations forces, organized in commando or light infantry units, would conduct unconventional warfare to the rear or on the flanks, attacking supply lines, command-and-control centers, and other strategic facilities.

By design, North Korea’s commandos are aggressive and would prefer to be on the offensive, which is in line with special-operations doctrine around the around.

They “would be a fierce enemy” if a war broke out, a former Green Beret who served in South Korea told Insider.

The Kim regime has cultivated a cult of personality around its leaders, with public pledges of loyalty by troops and military elites.

“We have the technological advantage and our planes and missiles can bomb them back to the Stone Age, but they will be fighting for their ‘god,’” the former Green Beret said. “Since birth, they have been brought up in this cultish environment where the supreme leader is their ‘god.’ They are fanatical and tough. Korean winters are no joke, and these guys have been trained to survive and operate in such environments. They would fight to the last man.”

Pyongyang might also use conventional military operations to distract US and South Korean forces and allow its special-operations units to infiltrate the South successfully.

In 2010, 46 sailors were killed when a South Korean vessel was sunk in a suspected North Korean submarine attack. A few months later, North Korean artillery shelled a South Korean island near the two countries’ maritime boundary, killing four people.

In a recent interview with the BBC, Kim Kuk-song, a senior North Korean intelligence officer who defected to South Korea, described how Kim Jong Un uses North Korea’s military and intelligence resources for personal enrichment or revenge against real or perceived enemies. North Korean special-operations forces may also facilitate such “gang-style” operations.

In the event of a war with South Korea, North Korean commandos would also likely attempt a strike against South Korea’s leaders and command-and-control centers, seeking to decapitate South Korean leadership and sow confusion in the initial hours of the conflict.

It wouldn’t be the first time North Korean commandos have tried something like that. On January 31, 1969, a North Korean special-operations assault force infiltrated into South Korea with the goal of assassinating South Korean President Park Chung-hee.

The commando team moved fast and aggressively and managed to reach Park’s residence in Seoul, even though they were spotted by some farmers along the way. That’s when everything unraveled, however, as the North Koreans didn’t know the code word to enter the residence and got into a running firefight with South Korean troops.

In the end, only one North Korean commando managed to get back into North Korea, with the rest captured or killed.

The threat of infiltration and of other attacks by North Korean commandos remains. North Korea may exaggerate its military capabilities regularly, but its special-operations forces are no joke.

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate.

Source: https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/01/north-korea-has-big-plans-for-its-special-operations-forces-biggest-on-earth/

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Though technologically backward for the most part—in the event of war—the North Koreans could inflict severe damage to South Korea and the U.S. forces stationed on the peninsula.

Here’s What You Need To Remember: As Washington ratchets up the pressure on North Korea—or potentially launches a preemptive strike—the Kim regime in Pyongyang has options to strike back hard at the United States and South Korea using purely conventional means.

While analysts often focus on the so-called Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s arsenal of ballistic missiles, the real threat emanating from the North comes in the form of heavy artillery and special operations forces, which could wreak havoc on the South. In the event of a war on the Korean Peninsula, Pyongyang’s ground forces are the greatest threat to the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the U.S. forces stationed there—short of nuclear weapons.

“With 70% of the Ground Force positioned south of the Pyongyang-Wonsan line, North Korea is maintaining a military posture capable of conducting a surprise attack at any time,” reads the South Korean Ministry of National Defense 2014 defense white paper. “In particular, the 170 mm self-propelled guns and 240 mm MRLS [multiple launch rocket systems] in forward positions are capable of surprise, massive concentrated fire on the Greater Seoul Metropolitan Area (GSMA). The 300 mm MRL currently under test development by North Korea is able to reach the middle part of the ROK considering its maximum firing range.”

Additionally, North Korea has reinforced its artillery forces with 122mm towed MLRS systems in the coastal area near the West Sea coast and near the frontlines. The North Korean artillery pieces would be protected by covered trenches to enhance their survivability during combat operations. Altogether, the South Korea estimates that the North has some 8,600 pieces of tube artillery and 5,500 MLRS batteries available to its forces.

Meanwhile, North Korea is also modernizing its armored forces—but the mechanized troops are not the main focus of the regime in Pyongyang. “Equipment modernization is also constantly pursued, such as replacing the existing T-54 and T-55, the main tanks of the armored and mechanized units, with the Chonma-ho and Songun-ho tanks,” the white paper reads. The DPRK has more than 4,300 tanks and 2,500 other armored vehicles at its disposal according to South Korea.

Other than North Korea’s massed dug in artillery forces, Pyongyang’s enormous and well training special operations forces are the most dangerous threat facing the United States and the South. According to U.S. military sources, Pyongyang’s special operations troops are well trained and well equipped and pose a significant danger.

Source: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/north-korea-could-seriously-damage-south-korea-without-using-nuclear-weapons-173261

The post North Korea Could Seriously Damage South Korea Without Using Nuclear Weapons first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Donald Trump, the US president, is to meet Moon Jae-in, the South Korean leader, next week in Washington in a renewed effort to revive stalled negotiations with North Korea over its nuclear weapons programme.

The talks will be the first time the two leaders have met since the failed summit between Mr Trump and Kim Jong-un in Hanoi, Vietnam, at the end of February. 

The summit was unexpectedly cut short when the Americans and North Koreans walked out before lunch after they failed to reach a deal on the extent of sanctions relief Pyongyang would get in exchange for steps to give up its nuclear assets.

The two sides initially claimed to have ended on a friendly note, but tensions have since risen over signs that North Korea has started to rebuild a key missile test site, the Sohae Satellite Launching Station, and Pyongyang has warned it is running out of patience.

Over the weekend it emerged that Kim had been blindsided at the summit when Mr Trump handed him a piece of paper that included a blunt call for the transfer of his nuclear weapons and bomb fuel to the US.

The document, seen by Reuters, was the first time the US president had explicitly told Kim what he meant by denuclearisation and it went far beyond the more incremental approach that Washington had publicly espoused in the run-up to the summit.

President Trump’s summit with Kim Jong-un started out well but ended abruptly CREDIT: EVAN VUCCI/AP

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South Korean President Moon Jae-in relayed the invitation from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to the pope verbally during a 35-minute meeting in the Vatican.

Any visit would be the first by a pope to the reclusive state which does not allow priests to be permanently stationed there. There is little information on how many of its citizens are Catholic, or how they practise their faith.

North Korea’s constitution guarantees freedom of religion as long as it does not undermine the state.

But beyond a handful of state-controlled places of worship – including a Catholic church in the capital of Pyongyang – no open religious activity is allowed and the authorities have repeatedly jailed foreign missionaries.

Kim told Moon, a Catholic, of his wish to meet the pontiff during a meeting last month and the South Korean leader announced before the trip that he would be relaying a message.

According to the president’s office, Francis expressed his strong support for efforts to bring peace to the Korean peninsula. Moon’s office quoted the pope as telling Moon: ‘Do not stop, move forward. Do not be afraid.’

Asked if Kim should send a formal invitation, Moon’s office quoted the pope as responding to Moon: ‘Your message is already sufficient but it would be good for him to send a formal invitation.’

‘I will definitely answer if I get the invitation, and I can go,’ the president’s office quoted the pope as saying.

Reconciliation

A meeting with Pope Francis would be the latest in a string of major diplomatic meetings for Kim Jong Un this year.

The two Koreas have held three summits this year. Kim also held an unprecedented summit with US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June, where the leaders promised to work toward denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

The pope is expected to visit neighbouring Japan next year and the proposed North Korea visit comes as China improves relations with the Holy See.

A deal signed in September gives the Vatican a long-sought say in the choice of bishops in China, and for the first time, Beijing allowed two bishops to attend a Vatican meeting, where they invited the pope to visit China.

A Vatican statement made no mention of the verbal invitation from North Korea’s Kim.

It spoke only of ‘the promotion of dialogue and reconciliation between Koreans’ and ‘the common commitment to fostering all useful initiatives to overcome the tensions that still exist in the Korean Peninsula, in order to usher in a new season of peace and development’.

Any trip to the North, however brief, could be contentious for the pope, given what the United Nations says is a record of gross and systematic human rights abuses.

Aides close to the pope have said he is open to taking what they call first steps in places where the Church has been persecuted in the hope that the situation could improve.

Church officials estimate that North Korea had a Catholic community of about 55,000 just before the 1950-53 Korean War.

Religious agencies have estimated the number remaining from the few hundreds to about 4,000.

Priests from the South occasionally visit, usually accompanying aid deliveries or humanitarian projects.

Source: https://www.christiantoday.com/uk/pope-gets-invitation-to-north-korea-indicates-will-consider-it/130728.htm

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