North Korea (Superthread)

[The Bread Guy]

A bit more from the N.Korean info-machine:

Pyongyang, January 6 (KCNA) -- The DPRK government issued the following statement Wednesday:

    There took place a world startling event to be specially recorded in the national history spanning 5 000 years in the exciting period when all service personnel and people of the DPRK are making a giant stride, performing eye-catching miracles and exploits day by day after turning out as one in the all-out charge to bring earlier the final victory of the revolutionary cause of Juche, true to the militant appeal of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK).

    The first H-bomb test was successfully conducted in Juche Korea at 10:00 on Wednesday, Juche 105 (2016), pursuant to the strategic determination of the WPK.

    Through the test conducted with indigenous wisdom, technology and efforts the DPRK fully proved that the technological specifications of the newly developed H-bomb for the purpose of test were accurate and scientifically verified the power of smaller H-bomb.

    It was confirmed that the H-bomb test conducted in a safe and perfect manner had no adverse impact on the ecological environment.

    The test means a higher stage of the DPRK's development of nuclear force.

    By succeeding in the H-bomb test in the most perfect manner to be specially recorded in history the DPRK proudly joined the advanced ranks of nuclear weapons states possessed of even H-bomb and the Korean people came to demonstrate the spirit of the dignified nation equipped with the most powerful nuclear deterrent.

    This test is a measure for self-defence the DPRK has taken to firmly protect the sovereignty of the country and the vital right of the nation from the ever-growing nuclear threat and blackmail by the U.S.-led hostile forces and to reliably safeguard the peace on the Korean Peninsula and regional security.

    Since the appearance of the word hostility in the world there has been no precedent of such deep-rooted, harsh and persistent policy as the hostile policy the U.S. has pursued towards the DPRK.

    The U.S. is a gang of cruel robbers which has worked hard to bring even a nuclear disaster to the DPRK, not content with having imposed the thrice-cursed and unheard-of political isolation, economic blockade and military pressure on it for the mere reason that it has differing ideology and social system and refuses to yield to the former's ambition for aggression.

    The Korean Peninsula and its vicinity are turning into the world's biggest hotspot where a nuclear war may break out since they have been constantly stormed with all nuclear strike means of the U.S. imperialist aggressor troops, including nuclear carrier strike group and nuclear strategic flying corps.

    While kicking up all forms of economic sanctions and conspiratorial "human rights" racket against the DPRK with mobilization of the hostile forces, the U.S. has made desperate efforts to block its building of a thriving nation and improvement of the people's living standard and "bring down its social system".

    The DPRK's access to H-bomb of justice, standing against the U.S., the chieftain of aggression watching for a chance for attack on it with huge nukes of various types, is the legitimate right of a sovereign state for self-defense and a very just step no one can slander.

    Genuine peace and security cannot be achieved through humiliating solicitation or compromise at the negotiating table.

    The present-day grim reality clearly proves once again the immutable truth that one's destiny should be defended by one's own efforts.

    Nothing is more foolish than dropping a hunting gun before herds of ferocious wolves.

    The spectacular success made by the DPRK in the H-bomb test this time is a great deed of history, a historic event of the national significance as it surely guarantees the eternal future of the nation.

    The DPRK is a genuine peace-loving state which has made all efforts to protect peace on the Korean Peninsula and security in the region from the U.S. vicious nuclear war scenario.

    The DPRK, a responsible nuclear weapons state, will neither be the first to use nuclear weapons nor transfer relevant means and technology under any circumstances as already declared as long as the hostile forces for aggression do not encroach upon its sovereignty.

    There can neither be suspended nuclear development nor nuclear dismantlement on the part of the DPRK unless the U.S. has rolled back its vicious hostile policy toward the former.

    The army and people of the DPRK will steadily escalate its nuclear deterrence of justice both in quality and quantity to reliably guarantee the future of the revolutionary cause of Juche for all ages.

    Juche Korea will be prosperous forever as it holds fast to the great WPK's line of simultaneously pushing forward the two fronts.

-0-​

More PRK statements (including what Ho Chun Gum, chairwoman of the management board of the Kumdae Cooperative Farm in Rangnang District, Pyongyang, had to say about the test) attached.

 

[tomahawk6]

An alarming development if true.No doubt there was a recent nuclear test whether it was actually an H bomb or not will require more study.An H bomb can be fitted onto an ICBM and is much more powerful than an atomic bomb.

http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/2016/01/06/after-north-koreas-nuke-test-28000-us-troops-wait-see-what-happens-next/78363184/

 

[The Bread Guy]

An alarming development if true.No doubt there was a recent nuclear test whether it was actually an H bomb or not will require more study ...

Good points to keep in mind, indeed - this from the NY Times:

The White House said Wednesday that initial data from its monitoring stations in Asia were “not consistent” with North Korea’s claim that the nuclear test it carried out earlier in the day was its first test of a hydrogen bomb, a far more powerful weapon than the country had previously built.

The statement by Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, came as the United Nations Security Council condemned the test after a two-hour closed-door meeting, and after China, Britain, France, Japan and other powers indicated that they would consider action against the country.

The United States did not indicate the basis for its skepticism. But the seismic wave left by the explosion was smaller than what most experts would expect from the detonation of a true thermonuclear weapon. Some experts said it was possible that the North had increased the yield of a more traditional device using tritium, a technique that has often been used in the 70-year history of nuclear weapons ...

 

[CougarKing]

The US response is reported below, while another article gauges how the Chinese may respond:


Aviationist

U.S. WC-135 aircraft will sniff for radiation near North Korea to determine what today’s explosion was
Jan 07 2016 - 0 Comments
By David Cenciotti
The WC-135 is going to search for fallout from the alleged North Korean test.

A U.S. Air Force WC-135 will soon be in action near the Korean peninsula, searching for fallout from the alleged North Korea’s nuclear test.

According to the Washington Post, a U.S. defense official confirmed that the WC-135 Constant Phoenix atmospheric collections aircraft will be used to determine whether the provocative nuclear detonation claimed by Pyongyang was really a hydrogen blast.

As we reported on a previous article on this aircraft, the WC-135 is a derivative of the Boeing C-135 transport and support plane. Two of these aircraft are in service today out of the ten examples operated since 1963. The aircraft are flown by flight crews from the 45th Reconnaissance Squadron from Offutt Air Force Base while mission crews are staffed by Detachment 1 from the Air Force Technical Applications Center.

The WC-135, known as the “sniffer” or “weather bird” by its crews, can carry up to 33 personnel. However, crew compliments are kept to a minimum during mission flights in order to lessen levels of radioactive exposure.

(...SNIPPED)

Diplomat

How Will China Respond to North Korea's Nuclear Test?

Looking back at history to predict how Xi Jinping will respond to Pyongyang’s latest provocation.
shannon-tiezzi
By Shannon Tiezzi
January 07, 2016


North Korea (also known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK) claims to have conducted a successful thermonuclear test on Wednesday morning. While experts are already contesting the claim that a thermonuclear device was detonated, it does appear that North Korea tested a nuclear device of some kind, with a yield similar to the previous test in February 2013. Now the question is how the international community will respond – and that response will largely be dictated by the way China, North Korea’s traditional partner and a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council, chooses to react.

The official position from China’s Foreign Ministry was crystal clear – China “firmly opposes” the nuclear test, spokesperson Hua Chunying said in a routing press conference. “China is steadfast in its position that the Korean Peninsula should be denuclearized and nuclear proliferation should be prevented to maintain peace and stability in Northeast Asia… We strongly urge the DPRK to honor its commitment to denuclearization, and to cease any action that may deteriorate the situation,” Hua continued.

Hua also emphasized that China had not known about the test in advance. She said “experts” were conducting analysis to verify whether or not the device was a hydrogen bomb, as North Korea claimed.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[Journeyman]

How Will China Respond to North Korea's Nuclear Test?

More importantly.....the UN:  "...the UN Security Council said it would work immediately on significant new measures against North Korea"

You know that Kim Jong-un is cringing, dreading the harsh tones of that sharply-worded diplomatic note to drop.

              anic:

 

[Kat Stevens]

Perhaps a strongly worded letter to The Times is in order.

 

[dapaterson]

Or threatening to send in a half-decent barber.  That would terrify him...

 

[CougarKing]

The political implications of the North Korean test being felt in South Korea and Japan:

Diplomat

South Korea to Restart Anti-North Propaganda Broadcasts in Response to Nuclear Test

Last summer, North Korea threatened military action unless the broadcasts were stopped.
shannon-tiezzi
By Shannon Tiezzi
January 07, 2016


In response to the North Korean nuclear test on Wednesday, South Korea will resume anti-North propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone that separates the two.

Cho Tae-yong, the deputy chief of national security at the Blue House (South Korea’s presidential office), said the broadcasts would begin at noon on Friday – Kim Jung-un’s birthday – according to Yonhap.

In August 2015, South Korea resumed the propaganda broadcasts for the first time since 2004. The decision came after an incident in which two South Korean soldiers were injured by landmines. South Korea’s loudspeakers blared not only anti-North Korean rhetoric, but weather reports, global news, and K-pop music. North Korea responded by launching artillery shells at the loudspeakers and announcing a “quasi-state of war.”

(...SNIPPED)

Diplomat

North Korea's Nuclear Test: The Fallout for Japan

The latest nuclear test underscores the challenges of Japan’s relationship with North Korea.
YTatsumi_HighRes_1274
By Yuki Tatsumi
January 07, 2016


On January 6, North Korea announced that it had conducted its fourth nuclear test. Its state media broadcast a statement signed by Kim Jong-un that celebrated “opening the year with exciting noise of the first hydrogen bomb.”

If confirmed, this means a great leap forward for North Korea’s nuclear program. With its ongoing missile programs, it would pose a grave direct threat not only to its neighbors in East Asia but also vis-à-vis the United States. Even if the test turns out to be a regular nuclear test, it still is a clear violation of numerous UN Security Council Resolutions that have been adopted against North Korea, including UNSRES 2049 adopted on March 7, 2013 in response to North Korea’s third nuclear test on February 12, 2013.

What made North Korea decide to carry out a nuclear test? Some say Pyongyang was frustrated that it is increasingly isolated in Northeast Asia, particularly with the improving relationships between Japan and China as well as Japan and South Korea. Others point to the upcoming Korean Workers Party convention in May and explain yesterday’s test as a part of an overall attempt by Kim Jong-un to assert his position as the supreme leader of the hermit kingdom.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[jollyjacktar]

Bruce McKinnon Cartoon 8 Jan 16

Another excellent cartoon from the Chronicle Herald.

 

[CougarKing]

Kim Jong Un can't both have his cake and eat it:

Diplomat

North Korea’s H-Bomb Test: The (Impossible) Economic Context

Kim Jong-un wants to both build a hydrogen bomb and develop North Korea’s economy. It won’t work.
By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein
January 08, 2016

Who decides what in Pyongyang? Do fierce political battles rage between hardliners and reformers, where the former group struggles to replace nuclear belligerence with liberal market economics and trade? Whenever a purge or suspicious death occurs in Pyongyang, speculations come alive about potential policy changes by the regime.

It is a fool’s errand to make guesses about how North Korea’s claimed (but unlikely) hydrogen bomb test fits into the speculative dichotomy of modernizers versus conservatives. After all, such simple divisions are rare in the political life of any country. But looking at the test in the context of the past year makes it clear that Pyongyang is pursuing a messy mix of policies that are mutually exclusive.

Even as the regime attempts to draw foreign investment, diversify its investor base to include other countries than China, and take its industrial zones from plans to reality, it is also actively working against economic progress through nuclear tests and diplomatic belligerence. Either the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, or the two hands don’t care much about their success.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[CougarKing]

A manipulated video? Should we be surprised?

Diplomat

How Far Along Are North Korea's Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles?

North Korea’s latest submarine-launched ballistic missile video appears unconvincing.

By Ankit Panda
January 11, 2016


After grabbing headlines the world over on January 6 for its (dubious) claim of having successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, North Korea released what it claimed was video of successful submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test on Friday. The test was supposedly carried out in late-December 2015. (You can view the full video here.)

Immediately after the video was released, the South Korean military came out and said that the video appeared to have been manipulated. North Korea’s SLBM ejection tests have had trouble in the past. Last year’s test of the KN-11/Bukkeukseong-1 (“Polaris-1”) SLBM was shown to have taken place from an underwater barge, undercutting North Korea’s claim of a successful ejection from its Sinpo-class submarine. In late November, Pyongyang attempted a submarine ejection in earnest that was reported to have failed.

Though the South Korean military is yet to release any sort of definitive evidence that the video was altered, the community of open-source intelligence analysts out there has already gotten hard to work in attempting to prove that the video is less-than-genuine. Notably, the footage released this week does not show any close-ups of the missile unlike the footage from last May, clearly showing the distinctive-looking KN-11 (the missile bears a strong resemblance to  the Soviet Union’s R-27/SS-N-6 Serb SLBMs).

(...SNIPPED)

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Personally, I am surprised North Korea even has subs that can submerge, let alone shoot anything.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Personally, I am surprised North Korea even has subs that can submerge, let alone shoot anything.

I'm sure anyone can get a sub to sink - it's getting everyone back up, alive ready to continue working that's the hard part, no?  >

 

[a_majoor]

More on playing the China card in the Korean game. The Chinese use the DPRK to keep Western and Western aligned powers off balance, so returning the favour by setting conditions that favour Korean reunification (AKA regime change) might do a little "unsettling" for our side:

http://nypost.com/2016/01/13/the-only-real-solution-to-the-endless-north-korea-crisis/

The only real solution to the endless North Korea crisis
By Benny Avni January 13, 2016 | 8:20pm
The only real solution to the endless North Korea crisis

Really? Is there nothing we can do about North Korea?

Pyongyang’s Kim Jong Un celebrated his 33rd birthday with a bang, telling the world he’d tested a hydrogen bomb that can “wipe out the whole territory of the United States all at once.”

No, he can’t. Not yet. Experts think he didn’t even really detonate a thermo-nuclear bomb. Nah. It was merely the North’s fourth nuclear test.

The White House shrugs: Let the Norks be Norks. Kim went unmentioned in President Obama’s State of the Union address.

But ignoring a problem won’t make it go away. Living at Krazy Kim’s mercy is no longer an option. The megalomanic and mercurial tyrant’s missiles already can hit parts of the United States. Our Asian allies are threatened by his nukes and missiles.

And closing our eyes isn’t just a bad policy in itself. It also sends all the wrong signals to others who wish us ill.

So let’s take a cue from Michael Corleone: Where does it say that you can’t kill a regime?

After all, we’re talking about a crooked gang that’s mixed up in the rackets, proliferates arms, behaves like a neighborhood bully and starves its own people to death. We’re talking about a regime that never heard of the Cold War’s end, and that still reads George Orwell’s “1984” as a how-to book.

True, regime change is no longer in vogue. Yet it’s been America’s official policy for decades, and still is — except we call it Korean reunification. Now we must get serious about it.

A year ago, South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye said her free country must launch “meticulous preparations” toward reuniting the Koreas.

But Korean reunification is seen as a bit like awaiting the Messiah: We believe, but beyond prayers, there’s little we can do to hasten his coming. Thus, rather than vowing to get rid of the Kim regime, we call for “peaceful and gradual” unification, and then wait patiently.

Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush (in his second term) even tried to appease the North by awarding incentives, including sanctions removal, in return for promises. Even Obama — always eager to humor America’s enemies — saw the futility of that policy. So instead, he just ignored the problem altogether.

One reason: China has long opposed the collapse of a fellow Communist regime.

Beijing fears a flood of Korean refugees that’d tax its resources, and dreads the prospect of a powerful pro-Western unified Korea on its border. So it has propped the Kims up and assured their survival.

But two years ago, Kim the Third executed Jang Sung-taek, his uncle, a trusted adviser to his father — and, crucially, Beijing’s man in Pyongyang. Since then, the Chinese have become increasingly impatient with Kim’s irrationality, and he, largely, stopped listening to them.

As trouble brews in the Beijing-Pyongyang paradise, and as the North menace grows, some in Washington believe it’s time to strike. On Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan sanctions bill that, according to its initial sponsor, House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.), will “help cut off Kim Jong Un’s access to the cash he needs to fund his army, his weapons and the continued repression of the North Korean people.”

Royce’s plan to end carrots and return to sticks is a good start. The Senate is expected to soon pass its own sanctions package. Royce has consulted with the White House, but it isn’t clear whether Obama will play along or revert to his “strategic patience” with Kim.

Serious sanctions can force China to choose: Do business with America or prop up North Korea. Not both.

The Bush and Obama administrations imposed such sanctions on Iran. But Obama saw them as mere chips to be bargained away. The bargaining-chip approach, he knows, has already failed with North Korea.

A return to painful sanctions is only a steppingstone toward regime change — er, Korean reunification. Obama won’t say so — but the presidential candidates can, and should. That strategic goal, they can say, is doable, and closer than you think.

Because without it, we’re held hostage to the world’s worst — and arguably most unpredictable and therefore dangerous — regime.

 

[Edward Campbell]

OK, I agree: "ignoring a problem won’t make it go away," but why is "living at Krazy Kim’s mercy is no longer an option?" And who says we're "living at his mercy?"

The DPRK is an irritant, not much more ... sure it's a potentially dangerous irritant, but so are a lot of other things with which we live, albeit not always happily.

I'll repeat: it is my belief that the Chinese have proposed a way out. If the US withdraws, militarily, from South Korea then I think the DPRK's leadership will disappear and the Korean peninsula will be, quickly, reunited under South Korean leadership.

The Chinese employ the DPRK as an irritant because they want the US off the Asian mainland. Take away the US military formations and units and the need for (undesirable in China's eyes) DPRK regime vanishes.

 

[CougarKing]

The Chinese employ the DPRK as an irritant because they want the US off the Asian mainland.

But I'm sure you're aware that the CCP Politburo Standing Committee in Beijing have their limits when it comes to tolerating Pyongyang's saber-rattling and brinksmanship?

Like I said before, common ideology means nothing. If it fits their interest, China is not above using a military solution to quash their former proteges if Kim threatens the very regional stability the Chinese economy depends on.

Look at the precedent of the Chinese invasion of Vietnam in 1979.

Kim and the ideologues who follow him in Pyongyang might see the Chinese as revisionists who embraced both market reforms and opened up to the west.

 

[a_majoor]

I'm pretty sure the point of the article wasn't so much that the DPRK is an irritant and loose canon (which is stipulated anyway) but rather using sanctions as a way to turn the tables on the Chinese. Since they are not very keen on the idea of millions of Korean refugees flooding into China, or the repercussions for economic and political stability if the DPRK collapses (many of the points Robert Kaplan made in his article When North Korea Falls are still valid today).

While there are lots of reasons to think this is a risky COA, the status quo is not particularly appealing, and changing the game table might have better long term results for the entire region (including China).

 

[Edward Campbell]

But I'm sure you're aware that the CCP Politburo Standing Committee in Beijing have their limits when it comes to tolerating Pyongyang's saber-rattling and brinksmanship?

Like I said before, common ideology means nothing. If it fits their interest, China is not above using a military solution to quash their former proteges if Kim threatens the very regional stability the Chinese economy depends on.

Look at the precedent of the Chinese invasion of Vietnam in 1979.

Kim and the ideologues who follow him in Pyongyang might see the Chinese as revisionists who embraced both market reforms and opened up to the west.

That's it: South Korea, a booming, bustling economy that invests heavily in China is far, far more important than Kim and the DPRK ... except as a lever to wedge the Americans off the Asian mainland.

 

[CougarKing]

The fact that there are North Korean defectors at all who survive all obstacles to make it to South Korea is in itself amazing... this includes the fact that Chinese authorities aren't very sympathetic to North Koreans found fleeing through their territory. I remember seeing news footage some years ago of Chinese policemen who manhandled some North Korean refugees trying to get into a nearby South Korean consulate.

Diplomat

North Korean Defectors to South Hit 13-Year Low

The number of North Korean defectors reaching the South has declined severely since Kim Jong-un took power.

By John Power
January 15, 2016

The number of North Korean defectors who reached South Korea last year was the lowest in 13 years, data showed, continuing the sharp decline that has followed Kim Jong-un’s rise to power in Pyongyang.

According to figures released by the South’s Ministry of Unification earlier this month, 1,277 North Koreans settled in South Korea in 2015, a decline of 120 from the year before. The data shows that fewer North Korean escapees reached the South than in any year since 2002, when 1,142 resettled south of the 38th parallel that divides the Koreas.

The number reaching South Korea had been on an upward trend before Kim Jong-un assumed control of North Korea in December 2011, reaching a high of 2,914 in 2009. In 2012, Kim’s first full year in power, that number plummeted: just 1,502 North Koreans resettled in the South compared to 2,706 in 2011. Since then, the figures have remained far below pre-2012 levels; last year’s figure represents an almost 53 percent drop from 2011.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[CougarKing]

What hostile act? Wearing a haircut not approved by their "Dear Leader" himself?  :

BBC

North Korea arrests US student for 'hostile act'

    22 January 2016
    From the section Asia

North Korea says it has arrested a US student accused of committing a "hostile act" against the state.

State news agency KCNA identified him as University of Virginia student Otto Frederick Warmbier.

He had entered North Korea as a tourist with the intention "to destroy the country's unity", said KCNA, which added that the US government had "tolerated and manipulated" him.

It did not give further details, but said he was now under investigation.

(...SNIPPED)