Re: The North Korea Problem
Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2019 8:36 am
Trump wants one of those “horsies”.
Page 23 of 24
Re: The North Korea Problem
Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2019 2:39 pm
Pretty informative article about this issue:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... on/603748/
This is the introduction:
"Earlier this month, at a NATO summit in London, Donald Trump declared that “we have peace” with North Korea and that he had a better “personal relationship” with Kim Jong Un than the dictator had with possibly anyone else “in the world.”
Hours later, I stood in a hotel ballroom in Washington, D.C., with U.S. and South Korean officials and North Korea experts at a reception hosted by the Korea Foundation, a public-diplomacy organization affiliated with the South Korean government. The president’s North Korea envoy, Stephen Biegun, spoke in subdued tones about how he felt the “weight” of the past year on his “own shoulders,” his actual slouched shoulders completing the picture of a diplomat repeatedly spurned. “Obviously we have not made as much progress as we would have hoped at this point, but let me be absolutely clear: We have not given up,” he stated, the platitude seeming to belie the message.
As Biegun made a beeline for the bar, attendees dining on potatoes au gratin and deviled eggs speculated not about peace in our time but rather about what sort of provocation Kim was plotting. A North Korean official had just threatened to deliver a “Christmas gift” to the United States if the U.S. doesn’t assume a more flexible position in nuclear negotiations by the end of the year. As far as punitive gift-giving goes, North Korea tends to favor demonstrations of fearsome weapons over lumps of coal.
The subtext of all the nervous talk was that Trump’s once-promising diplomacy with Kim is rapidly unraveling. The two leaders are no longer unknown quantities to each other, making a return to the military brinkmanship of 2017—perhaps the most dangerous standoff involving nuclear weapons since the Cuban missile crisis—less likely. But as the new year nears, the United States and North Korea are reverting to their old ways, however half-heartedly.
Although Trump says his friendship with Kim has produced a more peaceful North Korea, the reality, especially of late, has been quite different. Since May, North Korea has tested more missiles than it has in any other year in its history, except possibly 2016, according to the analyst Ankit Panda. It never stopped producing fissile material for nuclear bombs. Think tanks are pumping out reports on establishing “maximum pressure 2.0” against Pyongyang. The name-calling is back: Kim is once more “Rocket Man,” Trump a senile “dotard.” Satellites are spotting renewed activity at North Korean nuclear sites, while Kim has resumed testing at a rocket-launch site he had promised to dismantle in 2018. U.S. officials are yet again warning of military options. North Korean officials are proclaiming the days of denuclearization negotiations over. Kim is galloping around on white horses, and let’s just say it’s not because white symbolizes peace.
Desperate to salvage the détente, Trump has been warning Kim not to “interfere with the U.S. Presidential Election” (as if North Korea’s totalitarian leader has qualms about messing with American democracy) or to “void his special relationship with the President of the United States” (as if their bromance were contractual). He has relentlessly downplayed the recent spurt of missile tests, even as they’ve become more sophisticated and harder to dismiss. “You can’t have the North Koreans, for example, do a submarine-launched [nuclear-capable] missile test and say it’s okay, while your closest ally, Japan, is going batshit,” Joseph Yun, who served as the State Department’s North Korea envoy from 2016 to 2018, told me.
Pronouncing the diplomacy dead would be premature. There’s a chance that the North Koreans are simply trying to pressure Trump into making a deal on their terms as he faces reelection. Nevertheless, it’s a remarkable comedown for the Trump administration’s signature initiative to address what it has billed as the country’s top security threat. This is the policy in which the president has invested the most time and resources, the one that he has touted as his greatest success and made a model (maximum pressure + personal engagement by the president = wins for America) in his dealings everywhere from China to Iran. What’s at stake, though, isn’t just Trump’s legacy in foreign affairs or the Nobel Peace Prize he so clearly desires. Also at the mercy of what comes next are global efforts to stop the spread of the world’s most destructive weapons and potentially one of the last opportunities to reconcile North and South Korea after 70 years of alienation.
Washington and Pyongyang are returning so easily to the bad old days because the underlying issue that occasioned the 2017 showdown—North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons that can threaten the whole world, including the United States and its allies—has not dissipated one bit despite all the diplomacy, and has in fact become more grave.
What the president currently has to show for his efforts are the toughest international sanctions ever imposed on North Korea; a nonbinding suspension of North Korean nuclear- and long-range-missile tests; a shattered taboo against American and North Korean leaders meeting; a vague North Korean commitment to denuclearization; a semi-destroyed nuclear-test site; and the return of some American hostages and the remains of U.S. soldiers. The crisis with North Korea is less acute now than it was in 2016 and 2017, but the progress is modest and subject to change at any moment.
The story of how Trump’s North Korea policy collapsed is in part one of Pyongyang’s intransigence, obfuscation, and bad faith in talks about its nuclear program, as well as one in which U.S. and North Korean officials misread one another and at times placed too much stock in the rosy messages of the South Korean government, a key intermediary.
But it’s also a tale about the American president undercutting his own success. Trump prioritized the North Korean threat, amassed unmatched leverage against Pyongyang, and boldly shook up America’s approach to its decades-old adversary. Yet he squandered many of these gains during his first summit with Kim, in Singapore, and set several precedents there that have hobbled nuclear talks ever since. He shifted the paradigm with North Korea in style but not in substance. While transforming the role of the president in negotiations with North Korea, he did not bring the same inventiveness to the negotiations themselves."
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... on/603748/
This is the introduction:
"Earlier this month, at a NATO summit in London, Donald Trump declared that “we have peace” with North Korea and that he had a better “personal relationship” with Kim Jong Un than the dictator had with possibly anyone else “in the world.”
Hours later, I stood in a hotel ballroom in Washington, D.C., with U.S. and South Korean officials and North Korea experts at a reception hosted by the Korea Foundation, a public-diplomacy organization affiliated with the South Korean government. The president’s North Korea envoy, Stephen Biegun, spoke in subdued tones about how he felt the “weight” of the past year on his “own shoulders,” his actual slouched shoulders completing the picture of a diplomat repeatedly spurned. “Obviously we have not made as much progress as we would have hoped at this point, but let me be absolutely clear: We have not given up,” he stated, the platitude seeming to belie the message.
As Biegun made a beeline for the bar, attendees dining on potatoes au gratin and deviled eggs speculated not about peace in our time but rather about what sort of provocation Kim was plotting. A North Korean official had just threatened to deliver a “Christmas gift” to the United States if the U.S. doesn’t assume a more flexible position in nuclear negotiations by the end of the year. As far as punitive gift-giving goes, North Korea tends to favor demonstrations of fearsome weapons over lumps of coal.
The subtext of all the nervous talk was that Trump’s once-promising diplomacy with Kim is rapidly unraveling. The two leaders are no longer unknown quantities to each other, making a return to the military brinkmanship of 2017—perhaps the most dangerous standoff involving nuclear weapons since the Cuban missile crisis—less likely. But as the new year nears, the United States and North Korea are reverting to their old ways, however half-heartedly.
Although Trump says his friendship with Kim has produced a more peaceful North Korea, the reality, especially of late, has been quite different. Since May, North Korea has tested more missiles than it has in any other year in its history, except possibly 2016, according to the analyst Ankit Panda. It never stopped producing fissile material for nuclear bombs. Think tanks are pumping out reports on establishing “maximum pressure 2.0” against Pyongyang. The name-calling is back: Kim is once more “Rocket Man,” Trump a senile “dotard.” Satellites are spotting renewed activity at North Korean nuclear sites, while Kim has resumed testing at a rocket-launch site he had promised to dismantle in 2018. U.S. officials are yet again warning of military options. North Korean officials are proclaiming the days of denuclearization negotiations over. Kim is galloping around on white horses, and let’s just say it’s not because white symbolizes peace.
Desperate to salvage the détente, Trump has been warning Kim not to “interfere with the U.S. Presidential Election” (as if North Korea’s totalitarian leader has qualms about messing with American democracy) or to “void his special relationship with the President of the United States” (as if their bromance were contractual). He has relentlessly downplayed the recent spurt of missile tests, even as they’ve become more sophisticated and harder to dismiss. “You can’t have the North Koreans, for example, do a submarine-launched [nuclear-capable] missile test and say it’s okay, while your closest ally, Japan, is going batshit,” Joseph Yun, who served as the State Department’s North Korea envoy from 2016 to 2018, told me.
Pronouncing the diplomacy dead would be premature. There’s a chance that the North Koreans are simply trying to pressure Trump into making a deal on their terms as he faces reelection. Nevertheless, it’s a remarkable comedown for the Trump administration’s signature initiative to address what it has billed as the country’s top security threat. This is the policy in which the president has invested the most time and resources, the one that he has touted as his greatest success and made a model (maximum pressure + personal engagement by the president = wins for America) in his dealings everywhere from China to Iran. What’s at stake, though, isn’t just Trump’s legacy in foreign affairs or the Nobel Peace Prize he so clearly desires. Also at the mercy of what comes next are global efforts to stop the spread of the world’s most destructive weapons and potentially one of the last opportunities to reconcile North and South Korea after 70 years of alienation.
Washington and Pyongyang are returning so easily to the bad old days because the underlying issue that occasioned the 2017 showdown—North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons that can threaten the whole world, including the United States and its allies—has not dissipated one bit despite all the diplomacy, and has in fact become more grave.
What the president currently has to show for his efforts are the toughest international sanctions ever imposed on North Korea; a nonbinding suspension of North Korean nuclear- and long-range-missile tests; a shattered taboo against American and North Korean leaders meeting; a vague North Korean commitment to denuclearization; a semi-destroyed nuclear-test site; and the return of some American hostages and the remains of U.S. soldiers. The crisis with North Korea is less acute now than it was in 2016 and 2017, but the progress is modest and subject to change at any moment.
The story of how Trump’s North Korea policy collapsed is in part one of Pyongyang’s intransigence, obfuscation, and bad faith in talks about its nuclear program, as well as one in which U.S. and North Korean officials misread one another and at times placed too much stock in the rosy messages of the South Korean government, a key intermediary.
But it’s also a tale about the American president undercutting his own success. Trump prioritized the North Korean threat, amassed unmatched leverage against Pyongyang, and boldly shook up America’s approach to its decades-old adversary. Yet he squandered many of these gains during his first summit with Kim, in Singapore, and set several precedents there that have hobbled nuclear talks ever since. He shifted the paradigm with North Korea in style but not in substance. While transforming the role of the president in negotiations with North Korea, he did not bring the same inventiveness to the negotiations themselves."
Re: The North Korea Problem
Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2020 11:43 am
yup, very telling
Re: The North Korea Problem
Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2020 8:44 pm
Re: The North Korea Problem
Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2020 4:46 pm
Re: The North Korea Problem
Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2020 6:46 pm
I think it is pretty clear NK will not give up their rocket or nuclear programs anytime soon. Also seems like SK doesn't care. So SK and NK will move closer together and come to a point of much greater cooperation and a point where sanctions will become impossible to maintain. US will require a hold on SK to enforce NK sanctions and it is far from clear that SK will allow that to happen over a long period, be held hostage by the US so as to punish NK. I think it is time for the Trumpnista and War Hawks to just admit failure and that NK will remain a nuclear power with a delivery system and the US will have no choice but to live with it, which is just fine by me. I have been arguing for this for 20+ years. Nukes are useless in a world where many, most nations have them. An expensive irrelevance.
Re: The North Korea Problem
Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2020 6:09 am
A modified Romeo (non-nuc) sub, firing a 1200 mile missile = no threat to the US.
Japan has the most capable ASW capability in the world. Same equipment as the USN. More proficient. They spend much more training time tracking actual subs (their own). They were as good as us in countering the Soviet sub threat in W PAC.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-b ... good-17898
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ ... ldup-89016
https://thedefensepost.com/2019/06/18/j ... abilities/
Re: The North Korea Problem
Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2020 11:01 pm
Reports showing up that Kim had heart surgery recently and is "possibly" either in grave condition or even dead...
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/20/politics ... index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/20/politics ... index.html
(CNN)The US is monitoring intelligence that North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, is in grave danger after a surgery, according to a US official with direct knowledge.
Kim recently missed the celebration of his grandfather's birthday on April 15, which raised speculation about his well-being. He had been seen four days before that at a government meeting.
Another US official told CNN Monday that the concerns about Kim's health are credible but the severity is hard to assess.
Daily NK, an online newspaper based in South Korea that focuses on North Korea, reports that Kim reportedly received a cardiovascular system procedure on April 12.
Kim received the cardiovascular system procedure because of "excessive smoking, obesity, and overwork," according to the news site, and is now receiving treatment in a villa in Hyangsan County following his procedure.
After assessing that Kim's condition had improved, most of the medical team treating him returned to Pyongyang on April 19 and a few of them remained to oversee his recovery situation, according to the news site. CNN is unable to independently confirm the report.
Re: The North Korea Problem
Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 4:42 am
Given the lack of NK transparency you have to wonder if there's a COVID connection.RedFromMI wrote: ↑Mon Apr 20, 2020 11:01 pm Reports showing up that Kim had heart surgery recently and is "possibly" either in grave condition or even dead...
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/20/politics ... index.html
(CNN)The US is monitoring intelligence that North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, is in grave danger after a surgery, according to a US official with direct knowledge.
Kim recently missed the celebration of his grandfather's birthday on April 15, which raised speculation about his well-being. He had been seen four days before that at a government meeting.
Another US official told CNN Monday that the concerns about Kim's health are credible but the severity is hard to assess.
Daily NK, an online newspaper based in South Korea that focuses on North Korea, reports that Kim reportedly received a cardiovascular system procedure on April 12.
Kim received the cardiovascular system procedure because of "excessive smoking, obesity, and overwork," according to the news site, and is now receiving treatment in a villa in Hyangsan County following his procedure.
After assessing that Kim's condition had improved, most of the medical team treating him returned to Pyongyang on April 19 and a few of them remained to oversee his recovery situation, according to the news site. CNN is unable to independently confirm the report.
Re: The North Korea Problem
Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 7:02 am
Is “overwork” code for Coronavirus?
Re: The North Korea Problem
Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 9:27 am
Re: The North Korea Problem
Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 9:35 am
Those comorbidity issues eh! Per Dr Birx death OF COVID!9 not WITH COVID19. He'd be NK's first COVID19 Stat.tech37 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 21, 2020 4:42 amGiven the lack of NK transparency you have to wonder if there's a COVID connection.RedFromMI wrote: ↑Mon Apr 20, 2020 11:01 pm Reports showing up that Kim had heart surgery recently and is "possibly" either in grave condition or even dead...
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/20/politics ... index.html
(CNN)The US is monitoring intelligence that North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, is in grave danger after a surgery, according to a US official with direct knowledge.
Kim recently missed the celebration of his grandfather's birthday on April 15, which raised speculation about his well-being. He had been seen four days before that at a government meeting.
Another US official told CNN Monday that the concerns about Kim's health are credible but the severity is hard to assess.
Daily NK, an online newspaper based in South Korea that focuses on North Korea, reports that Kim reportedly received a cardiovascular system procedure on April 12.
Kim received the cardiovascular system procedure because of "excessive smoking, obesity, and overwork," according to the news site, and is now receiving treatment in a villa in Hyangsan County following his procedure.
After assessing that Kim's condition had improved, most of the medical team treating him returned to Pyongyang on April 19 and a few of them remained to oversee his recovery situation, according to the news site. CNN is unable to independently confirm the report.
Re: The North Korea Problem
Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 9:56 am
You can't be sure of that, 6.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52146989
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52146989
Re: The North Korea Problem
Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2020 1:50 pm
Anyone want to chip in for a nice Hallmark get well card? I have it on reliable source that he’s quite a feller.
Re: The North Korea Problem
Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2020 4:45 pm
Just read a blurb that we don't even know if KJO is in country at present.
Seems he is pulling a, "where's waldo".
Seems he is pulling a, "where's waldo".
Re: The North Korea Problem
Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2020 4:59 pm
Jim Malone wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2020 4:45 pm Just read a blurb that we don't even know if KJO is in country at present.
Seems he is pulling a, "where's waldo".
Due to the brain drain for NK nukes, healthcare has suffered. If alive, I would imagine he's somewhere more medically advanced.Re: The North Korea Problem
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2020 7:37 am
If Kim was out of NK it would certainly be known. NBC reporting Chinese sent a medical team of experts to NK on Thursday and they are apparently still there having no reports of their return to Beijing.tech37 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2020 4:59 pmJim Malone wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2020 4:45 pm Just read a blurb that we don't even know if KJO is in country at present.
Seems he is pulling a, "where's waldo".
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/24/china-s ... s-say.html
Twitter trending this AM that he's dead.
Re: The North Korea Problem
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2020 8:39 am
Re: The North Korea Problem
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2020 4:16 pm
TMZ reporting Kim is either dead or or is on his death bed with no hope for recuperation -- according to media outlets in China and Japan.
https://www.tmz.com/2020/04/25/north-ko ... y-reports/
... Today "marks a major military anniversary in North Korea, where they celebrate the founding of the Korean People's Army in 1932 -- something they hype annually with a parade, and one in which Kim might normally make an appearance.
International reporters on the ground say if Kim was doing alright and not on death's doorstep, he and his team would figure out a way for him to show up to squash the rumors.
If he doesn't, it's probably not a good sign ... almost all but confirming something is wrong."
https://www.tmz.com/2020/04/25/north-ko ... y-reports/
... Today "marks a major military anniversary in North Korea, where they celebrate the founding of the Korean People's Army in 1932 -- something they hype annually with a parade, and one in which Kim might normally make an appearance.
International reporters on the ground say if Kim was doing alright and not on death's doorstep, he and his team would figure out a way for him to show up to squash the rumors.
If he doesn't, it's probably not a good sign ... almost all but confirming something is wrong."