U.S. Special Representative Sung Kim met his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, Kim Gunn and Funakoshi Takehiro, after a U.S. assessment that the North was preparing its Punggye-ri test site for what would be its seventh nuclear test.

“We are preparing for all contingencies in close coordination with our Japanese and ROK allies,” Kim said at the beginning of the meeting, referring to South Korea by the initials of its official name, the Republic of Korea.

This year, North Korea has tested several ballistic missiles, including one thought to be its largest intercontinental ballistic missile, in violation of U.N. resolutions.

“We want to make clear to the DPRK that its unlawful and destabilising activities have consequences and that the international community will not accept these actions as normal,” the U.S. envoy said, referring to North Korea.

South Korea’s newly appointed nuclear envoy, Kim Gunn, said North Korea’s “relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons will only end up strengthening our deterrence”.

“The course that Pyongyang is currently embarking on has only one inevitable destination: reduce security for North Korea itself,” the South Korean diplomat said.

Last week, the United States called for more U.N. sanctions on North Korea over its ballistic missile launches, but China and Russia vetoed the suggestion, publicly splitting the U.N. Security Council on North Korea for the first time since it started punishing it in 2006, when it conducted its first nuclear test.

Japan’s Funakoshi stressed the need for coordination, vowing to “enhance regional deterrence, including trilateral security cooperation”.

The officials said the door for dialogue was open and expressed concern over the COVID-19 situation in North Korea.

“We have made very clear directly to Pyongyang that we are open to diplomacy,” Sung Kim said later at a separate conference in Seoul, noting that Washington was willing to discuss items of interest to Pyongyang, such as sanctions relief.

“So far they have shown no interest.”

The most important thing was for the three countries to present a united front to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the U.S. envoy said.

“When he sees that we are coordinating very closely with partners and allies I hope this persuades him that the only viable path is diplomacy with us,” he said.

China and Russia were clearly not interested in working with the United States to manage North Korea’s nuclear and missile arsenal, Kim said, when asked about their veto of new sanctions.

“We’re not asking them for a favour, it’s in their interest,” he said.

The United States would not link humanitarian aid for North Korea as it battles COVID to denuclearization, U.S. officials said.

“We passed the message through our regular channel, that we were willing to provide humanitarian cooperation focused on COVID relief including vaccines,” Kim said. “But we haven’t heard back.”

It was time to look for new approaches to North Korea because Kim Jong Un would never willingly give up nuclear weapons, said Tae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat who now serves as a member of parliament in the South.

“Nuclear weapons are the core to unite the whole North Korean people and ensure continuation of Kim family rule,” he told the conference.

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Reporting by Soo-hyang Choi, Dogyun Kim, Daewoung Kim, and Josh Smith; Editing by Robert Birsel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/us-south-korea-japan-envoys-meet-north-korea-nuclear-tension-2022-06-03/

The post U.S., South Korea, Japan envoys meet as North Korea appears to prepare nuclear test first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post At Least 1,000 Dead After 5.9 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Afghanistan first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Searching through the debris, in what is left of his family home, Agha Jan’s eyes well up with tears.

“These were my sons’ shoes,” he says, brushing the dust off them. His three young children and two wives were killed in the earthquake as they slept.

As the tremors struck in the early hours of Wednesday, Agha Jan rushed towards the room where his family was staying.

“But everything was under the rubble,” he tells the BBC. “Even my shovel. There was nothing I could do. I called out to my cousins to help but when we pulled my family out, they were already all dead.”

The area around Agha Jan’s village in Barmal district, Paktika province, is one of the worst affected by the earthquake, in which around 1,000 people are believed to have been killed and 3,000 more injured.

It’s a three-hour drive to the nearest big city, on mostly dirt roads – the remote location making it all the more difficult to transport the injured. Some had to be flown to hospital in the Taliban’s military helicopters.

Almost every house in the village, generally constructed from mud and stone, appears to be badly damaged. Almost every family seems to be grieving a lost relative.

Habib Gul was across the border in the Pakistani city of Karachi, working as a labourer, when he heard the news. He rushed back to his village in Barmal to discover 20 of his relatives had been killed – 18 of them in a single house.

“Whose names can I give you? So many of my relatives were martyred, three sisters, my niece, my daughter, young children.”

Every villager we meet wants to show us the destruction to their home. Partly because they want the world to see the devastation, but also, more practically, because they are hoping their names can be added to aid distribution lists.

“If the world looks on us like brothers and helps us, we will stay here on our land,” Habib Gul tells the BBC. “If they don’t, we will leave this place where we have spent so long with tears in our eyes.”

Overhead, military helicopters whir through the sky. They’re no longer transporting injured victims but delivering supplies. Taliban officials tell us the rescue operation has been completed and is now over.

The most pressing need is shelter for the hundreds of families left homeless.

Agha Jan and one of his surviving sons are pitching a large sheet of tarpaulin between wooden sticks on a piece of empty ground. Other families are in tents, flanked by the remnants of homes they worked so hard to construct.

Khalid Jan is now responsible for his five young grandchildren who mill around by his feet. Their father, his son, was killed in the earthquake, along with two other of Khalid Jan’s children.

“I am all they have left,” he tells the BBC, perched on a metal charpoy – a traditional bed – underneath a tent. “But the house and everything here has been destroyed and I will never be able to rebuild it.”

Afghan and international aid agencies are assessing the damage and delivering supplies, but this is a major and developing crisis, one which comes on top of the country’s already dire humanitarian situation.

The United Nations, which is also helping support victims, is warning of the risk of a possible cholera outbreak.

At Habib Gul’s village, men have gathered to offer prayers commemorating the dead. Almost 50 people have been killed out of a population of around 250. Attention will now turn to the survivors, and how fast aid can reach them.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-61918430

The post Afghanistan earthquake: No food, no shelter and fears of cholera first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The U.S. and 21 other countries denounced the UN Human Rights Council’s bias against Israel, following the release of an 18-page report which blamed the Jewish state for perpetuating the Mideast conflict.

The report was prepared by a commission of inquiry formed last year in the aftermath of Operation Guardian of the Walls. It accused “persistent discrimination against Palestinians.”

The HRC is discussing the report.

“We believe the nature of the COI established last May is further demonstration of long-standing, disproportionate attention given to Israel in the Council and must stop,” said US Ambassador Michèle Taylor, reading out a statement to the session.

“We continue to believe that this long-standing disproportionate scrutiny should end, and that the Council should address all human rights concerns, regardless of country, in an even-handed manner,” Taylor added. “Regrettably, we are concerned that the Commission of Inquiry will further contribute to the polarization of a situation about which so many of us are concerned.”

Besides being signed by the U.S. and Israel, the statement was also signed by Austria, Bulgaria, Brazil, Canada, Cameroon, Colombia, Croatia, Eswatini, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, Liberia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, North Macedonia, Holland, Palau, Togo, and the United Kingdom.

Also appearing at the UN Watch event was Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan.

“It’s a little like Groundhog Day: Hamas triggers a war, the UN convenes a commission to condemn Israel for the war,” Kemp said.

Source: https://worldisraelnews.com/22-countries-slam-un-human-rights-councils-anti-israel-bias/

The post 22 countries slam UN Human Rights Council’s anti-Israel bias first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Migration reached a peak in 2015, when more than a million refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean to Europe. That number declined to 123,300 in 2021. However, the U.N. refugee agency says more than 3,200 died or went missing at sea last year, an increase of nearly 1,000 over recorded fatalities in 2018.

In addition to the rising death toll at sea, UNHCR spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo says even greater numbers may have died or gone missing along land routes through the Sahara Desert and remote border areas.

She says deaths and abuses most commonly occur in and through the countries of origin and transit, including Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Libya.

“UNHCR has continuously been warning of the horrific experiences and dangers faced by refugees and migrants who resort to these journeys,” said Mantoo. “Many among them are individuals who are fleeing conflict, violence, and persecution. The data visualization focuses specifically on the route from the East and Horn of Africa to the Central Mediterranean Sea.”

Mantoo says refugees and migrants have few options but to rely on smugglers. She says they are exposed to a high risk of abuse from smugglers, whether they take the land route across the Sahara Desert or cross the sea from Libya and Tunisia toward Italy or Malta.

“In many cases, those who survive the journey through the Sahara and attempt the sea crossings are often abandoned by their smugglers, while some of those leaving Libya are intercepted and returned to the country, where they are subsequently detained,” said Mantoo. “Each year, thousands perish or go missing at sea without a trace.”

The UNHCR is urging greater action to prevent deaths, provide alternatives to the dangerous journ

Source: https://www.voanews.com/a/6613275.html

The post Migrant, Refugee Deaths Increasing on Dangerous Mediterranean Sea Crossing first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

U.S. Special Representative Sung Kim met his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, Kim Gunn and Funakoshi Takehiro, after a U.S. assessment that the North was preparing its Punggye-ri test site for what would be its seventh nuclear test.

“We are preparing for all contingencies in close coordination with our Japanese and ROK allies,” Kim said at the beginning of the meeting, referring to South Korea by the initials of its official name, the Republic of Korea.

This year, North Korea has tested several ballistic missiles, including one thought to be its largest intercontinental ballistic missile, in violation of U.N. sanctions. read more

“We want to make clear to the DPRK that its unlawful and destabilizing activities have consequences and that the international community will not accept these actions as normal,” the U.S. envoy said, referring to North Korea.

South Korea’s newly appointed nuclear envoy, Kim Gunn, said North Korea’s “relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons will only end up strengthening our deterrence”.

“The course that Pyongyang is currently embarking on has only one inevitable destination: reduce security for North Korea itself,” the South Korean diplomat said.

Last week, the United States called for more U.N. sanctions on North Korea over its ballistic missile launches, but China and Russia vetoed the suggestion, publicly splitting the U.N. Security Council on North Korea for the first time since it started punishing it in 2006, when it conducted its first nuclear test. read more

Japan’s Funakoshi stressed the need for coordination, vowing to “enhance regional deterrence, including trilateral security cooperation”.

The officials said the door for dialogue was open and expressed concern over the COVID-19 situation in North Korea.

Earlier, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said the United States would not link humanitarian aid for North Korea as it battles COVID to denuclearization.

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Reporting by Soo-hyang Choi, Dogyun Kim and Daewoung Kim; Editing by Robert Birsel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/us-south-korea-japan-envoys-meet-north-korea-nuclear-tension-2022-06-03/

The post U.S., South Korea, Japan envoys meet on North Korea nuclear tension first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The war in Ukraine looks like it might go on for a long time.  If you listen to some, you might think it’s the United States who’s at war.  It seems that the deciders are sending all kinds of expensive military systems into the fray, so much so that some of our stocks are being depleted.  But $40 billion?  Much of it going to a nation famous for being a corrupt no-man’s-land where vast facilities could be built and operated at our expense without our knowledge, money disappeared apparently without a trace.  Maybe there is a trace, but that’s classified and better never see the light of day.

Finland and Sweden want to join NATO, and who wouldn’t?  Supposedly that brings them under umbrella protection in case of an invasion.  Trump made the European partners pay what they’d agreed to, which was treated as some kind of scandal.  Now that the adults are back in charge, they’ve stopped paying.  Russia has been supplying the energy to Finland’s grid, and that’s being cut off.  No problem, Finland says.  They can replace it with energy from Sweden.  We’ll see.   This whole thing may boil down to energy.

Strange humans are clogging the neighborhood streets in front of Supreme Court Justices’ homes chanting, “My body, my choice.”  Those who insisted that we were morons for refusing the shot or the follow up “boosters” have the audacity to repeat that phrase?  How is it that these rejects were the same ones who tried to enforce the Corona mandates.  If the subject applied to their body alone, they’d be right.  But we’re expected to engage in this pretense that there’s only one person involved.  They’ve run afoul of their own rhetoric.

It’s a real crime to try to intimidate a judge, and a serious one.  The thought that a department of law enforcement should behave politically while allowing such an abuse to take place is shocking.  Notice, the cameramen covering the incident never show the faces of these loony tunes.  You see a crowd from behind, or a shot at their shoes walking.  I’m guessing there’s a reason for that.  Where are the paddy-wagons?   They’re not coming?  Since when is it OK to attempt to intimidate a judge?  But according to the redhead, it’s a routine demonstration.  Nonviolent, and a longstanding tradition in the United States.  No big deal.

The leaker of the draft opinion still hasn’t been found.  It’s probably someone who works for a justice who doesn’t agree with the opinion, but we suspect they’re not looking very hard.  Whoever it is will go down in history, but not just yet.  The wild-eyed proponents of the hideous procedure will laud the leaker as a great hero.  They already do.

The news of the Supreme Court’s likely decision has literally driven the proponents of nonsense crazy.  They demand we cave to government advice, but go bonkers about their body their choice.    But Dr. Fauci knows best, and you better do what he says.  You think you have a choice?  Those news anchors will set you straight!  You know the ones.  You deserve every name in the book if you think you can flaunt what the “scientists” have determined.  Don’t you realize you’re endangering the health of everybody around you? (sarc)

Lately there’s been news of all kinds of famous individuals coming down with the dreaded malady.  They’re vaccinated, boosted, and they care more than you.  But they’re sick.  They’re also quick to explain how much worse it would be if they hadn’t submitted to the demands of the “authorities.”  It’s enough to make you wonder if…  No, better not.

Nothing makes sense anymore.  The voices assaulting the masses no longer feel the need to win anybody over with logic.   They love to display their fury, confident that we’ll see their insanity as justified by the righteousness of their cause.  Surely we’ll agree that their lunacy is well founded.  It’s not working.

The news is coming from all directions, there’s a shortage of baby formula at stores, but plenty at the border.  Stockpiles.  The priorities seem pretty clear, if they didn’t already.

Is it true that the U. S. under current leadership and all the nations of the Western world are poised to hand “health” authority over to a UN health organization?  You notice, the information wars are hot.  There’s talk of “disinformation” and how it has to be stamped out.  The UK and the European Union are working hard to control information.  Elon is trying to close the twitter deal, but it may not come in time.  The Western nations have tricks up their sleeves to make sure that unapproved opinions don’t enter the discourse. The U. S. has been busy lining up international support for an all powerful international organization that can demand quarantines, lock-downs and all manner of demands on the population, all in the name of keeping people “safe.” Supposedly the current national powers in our country are pushing for it.  Let’s hope it doesn’t succeed.  It sounds like something predicted for the end times.

Mark

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 13 May 2022 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

As the war in Ukraine enters its third month, more convergence has emerged between China and key states in the Middle East. Motivated by a shared frustration with the United States, China and its Middle East partners have found themselves on the same side more often than not regarding the conflict.

Evidence of this alignment is found in the voting records of three recent United Nations resolutions.

On February 26, the UN Security Council voted on a resolution that would have demanded that Moscow immediately stop its attack on Ukraine and withdraw all troops. Three members of the Security Council abstained, namely China, India, and the United Arab Emirates.

Less than a week later, on March 2, the UN General Assembly voted on a motion calling for an immediate end to the hostilities. In that vote, China, Iran and Iraq were among 35 countries that abstained.

And on April 7, the General Assembly adopted a resolution suspending Russia from the Human Rights Council. This time, a much longer list of Middle East countries abstained, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait and Iraq. China, Iran and Syria were among those voting against.

Taken together, the tallies at the UN reveal an inconvenient truth: Even as much of the world condemns Russia’s hostilities in Ukraine, the war has led to China and the Middle East having more in common on various positions.

Some of the commonalities are self-serving. For instance, support for Russia’s seat on the Human Rights Council was due to shared concern over precedent, and how their own human-rights records might be judged in the future. Others’ moves, such as the UAE’s abstention from the UNSC resolution calling for an end to fighting, was driven by annoyance that Washington failed to designate the Houthis as terrorists despite the group’s attack on an oil refinery in Abu Dhabi on January 17.

While Russia maintains relationships with and influence in the Middle East and China – through historical ties, investments, and leverage (as well as shared grievances with the West) – it is actually rifts between the US and the Middle East that are driving Gulf states closer to China.

The consequences of this alignment could be significant. In March, The Wall Street Journal reported that Saudi Arabia was negotiating with China over Beijing’s desire to buy oil with renminbi, a request the kingdom is apparently considering on economic and political grounds.

The US-Saudi relationship is at its lowest point in a decade, primarily due to Washington’s concerns over Saudi domestic politics and human-rights abuses, especially the 2018 assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. If the renminbi deal happens, it could pose a significant challenge to the dollar’s status as the global trade currency.

The war in Ukraine has also added another layer of uncertainty to Washington’s relationship with the Middle East.

President Joe Biden’s administration is divided between a focus on the Indo-Pacific region and America’s role in the European theater – between a rising China and a belligerent Russia. This presents the US with a quandary: Does it have the resources and political will to stay fully engaged in the Middle East? If the answer is “no,” the region will face many uncertainties amid a potential power vacuum.

No country is better positioned to fill that vacuum than China, even if Beijing calculates its steps carefully. Beijing has been boosting its engagement with the Middle East for a decade, and diplomatic engagement has soared.

In 2021 alone, the Chinese foreign minister visited the Middle East twice, stopping in nine countries. Moreover, in January this year, China hosted the secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council as well as the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Turkey.

Ukraine isn’t the only issue bolstering China’s role in the Middle East. The COVID-19 pandemic has strengthened the Chinese presence through the deployment of vaccines. Since 2020, millions of doses of China’s Sinopharm have been administered in the region.

Beijing is also eagerly looking for opportunities to enhance its role in regional conflict resolution, regularly making proposals to reach peace in Syria and Iran. China may not yet want to replace the US as the primary security provider in the Middle East, but it free-rides as much as it tries to expand its own influence.

That might be the most important takeaway of the last two months. While the war in Ukraine did not create the convergence between China and the Middle East, it has expedited a process that was already in motion.

With the US preoccupied in the Indo-Pacific region and in Europe, and with bilateral relations strained between the US and key Middle East allies, the region’s great-power dynamics are shifting under the clouds of conflict in Ukraine.

When the political skies clear, it could easily be Beijing, and not Washington, that gains ground in the region.

This article was provided by Syndication Bureau, which holds copyright.

Yun Sun is director of the China program and co-director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC.

Source: https://asiatimes.com/2022/05/ukraine-war-realigns-positions-between-china-middle-east/

The post Ukraine war realigns positions between China, Middle East first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

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

The post Failure to Launch: Why America Can’t Stop North Korean Missile Tests first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

FAST FACTS
—Residents of Mariupol, Ukraine, have reportedly contacted a human rights organization with complaints that Russian forces have occupied an intensive care hospital.

—Three European leaders are expected to travel to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on Tuesday before a 35-hour curfew for civilians takes effect as Russian forces advance and the city is under sustained shelling.

—The United Nations says nearly 3 million people have fled Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that sanctions it’s imposing on President Biden and other top U.S. officials are “the inevitable consequence of the extremely Russophobic course taken by the current U.S. Administration.”

“In response to a series of unprecedented sanctions prohibiting, among other things, entry into the United States for top officials of the Russian Federation… the Russian ‘stop list’ includes on the basis of reciprocity President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, Secretary of Defense Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley, as well as a number of departmental heads and well-known American figures,” it said in a statement.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, Hunter Biden and Hillary Clinton are also among those Russia says it is sanctioning.

“This step, taken as a counter reaction, was the inevitable consequence of the extremely Russophobic course taken by the current U.S. Administration, which, in a desperate attempt to maintain American hegemony, has staked, discarding all decency, on the frontal containment of Russia,” it added.

Source:  https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/ukraine-russia-live-updates-03-15-2022

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