Some interesting posts on North Korea

[SlyPokerDog]

Found this on Redditt. Really interesting.

Today is Tuesday in Japan. Tomorrow is Tuesday in the US.

Today (Monday) it was announced that tomorrow (Tuesday) the Commander of the US Pacific Command is going to testify before the Senate Arm's Committee that North Korea presents a, "clear and direct threat" to the United States of America, and the region.1

Today in Japan (Tuesday), or the same day as the hearing but a day after the announcement, Japan themselves announce that they are going to shoot down a missile even if it it's a test.2

This would have been a violation of the Potsdam Declaration unless the US approved it and specifically identified North Korea as a hostile threat to Japan, thus allowing their military to engage for non-defensive purposes --> which firing on a test launch may qualify as.

If war were to break out the US Commander will assume control of both the Japanese defense forces, and the South Korean military as per the Korean Armistice Agreement of 1953 and other UN resolutions/Treaties.3 Japan is incapable of making this decision independent of the US giving permission/agreeing/being of the same mind.

Now, last week the US announced that it was going to cancel a missile test off the coast of California.4 This was done because the US didn't want North Korea to misinterpret the test as being aggressive and having it lead to war. If you understand the history of the Korean War you'll understand why the North Koreans believe the US is the aggressor.5,6,7

Now, 2 days later, or this week General James Thurman (Commander of US/Korean forces) canceled a trip to Washington because of the tensions8 and now a day later the Japanese make the announcement that they will fire on a North Korean missile even if it's a test simultaneously with Admiral Samuel Locklear giving testimony before the Senate which formally allows Japan to fire. The article referenced here, the main article in this thread which states that North Korea has notified foreign embassies of their intent to test a missile on Wednesday (tomorrow) was also from the same day (Tuesday). Although I have no idea who said what to who first, the order that they came in across the international news outlets for me was (1) Admiral Locklear announcement, (2) Japan announcement, (3) North Korea announcement... meaning that North Korea may have been aware of Japan & Locklear's statements before they made their own. If they were not aware then they cannot get out of this without looking weak. The hand has been over played.

This is a way for the US to exert it's dominance. This is a way for the US to tell North Korea to do whatever the fuck it wants, but to understand that they are going to be fighting everyone. US Pacific Fleet. ROK forces. Japan. China isn't going to help[citation needed] <--this is why Obama said any response would be proportional9 and all Russia wants to do is make money.10 Kind of interesting how quickly they picked up on capitalism, no?

They're fucked now. There is no way out. This is how and where it's going to start or they're not going to bite. If they even think about firing a missile we're going to try and shoot it down. Fuck your test. The test in California just got moved to Japan. It's not a test. This just got real. No one is interested in barking anymore. You guys seriously need to understand this shit.

This is where it gets dangerous and this should NOT be minimized. North Korea is a failed state that cannot feed its own people. It will implode and self destruct without some sort of intervention. Historically, Kim Jung Un's father was able to do this every few years to get food. The new South Korean President promised to help with food but gave no specific terms. You can read about this and other comments she's made more recently here, here, here, here, and here. This is the beginning of the end for North Korea. Something is going to happen now. Even with intervention North Korea will never be the same. Kim Jung Un may or may not maintain power (or his life).

So their back is against a wall right now. This isn't funny. How they respond to Japan shooting down a missile could lead to all out war. If they don't go to war, the country is likely to implode without massive international intervention because of how bad the conditions are there, and if Kim Jung Un tries to abandon the nuclear program and oust the military? He'll likely be killed. There was already an attempt on his life last year.11

The Swiss offered their assistance to mediate this and have said to have already been in contact with the North Koreans.12

"For North Korea, symbols are very important," she told the SonntagsZeitung newspaper in an interview. "What the North Koreans still want is recognition and security guarantees from the United States."
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Essentially what you're seeing here is an impossible situation that is gradually approaching a precipice. Washington has said no negotiations whatsoever until you completely abandon their nuclear program or you will starve to death. But if they up and abandon their military... then it may also mean death, at least the North Koreans may very well believe so. This is essentially the only way they can get to negotiate directly with anyone. They must do this for their survival. You are witnessing complete desperation. They cannot go on like this any longer.
North Korea began experiencing sanctions starting in 199313, a year before Kim Sung Il died. A nice chronology of events from 1945 through the present can be found here. So you go back to the 40s and read your way up. Then Kim Jung Il takes power and his situation was at least a lot better than Kim Jung Un's situation right now. I'm not defending them, or taking their side, but from their perspective this entire situation is completely different. What's really amusing is that this chronology literally has a single entry for the 1970s, and a single entry for the 1980s. I don't feel like extensively citing this but basically what happened during this time is Mao died, China changed, and the USSR collapsed. North Korea just kind of watched it all from the sidelines and was more or less helpless to change themselves. China never officially changed. North Korea just couldn't flip a switch and become a liberal pot friendly country like the Netherlands. They had to tow the party line in order to get what they had grown increasingly dependent on (Kim Sung Il's greatest fear) and this served to not only drive them further away from the rest of the world but also drove them further away from China because as China (and the USSR) changed and became more progressive North Korea became more of a burden while at the same time US-Chinese relations have continued to improve making the need for a "buffer state" even less important. The DMZ is already the most militarized border in the world. With the rise of ICBM's do you really think China cares about the Yalu river like they did in the 1950s?

ㅋㅋㅋ The greatest irony of this entire tragedy is that of all the countries in the world that I am familiar with... the one that is most similar to the United States... is North Korea.14 North Korea is the Detroit of the world. No one else would have the pure balls to stand up to the worlds two largest super powers and put a middle finger in the air. Kim Jung Un is 30 years old and he is not in control of that country. He is just a few years older than you, the reader. He is most likely going to die a violent death because he was born into a shitty family. The only other possibility is that this is all scripted theater we are watching. Kim Jung Un is about to "win" the Korean war and then will boldly open up the country and grow to be an old man like Fidel Castro. I hope this is the case. Hopefully we can maybe lift the sanctions before he dies... because that shit with Cuba is getting ridiculous and quite frankly North Korea isn't going to last for another 50 years of embargoes and sanctions. And if hipsters start mixing soju and cola and calling it 평양자유 just because it's served with a slice of lime then I'm going to seriously flip my shit.

EDIT: The Japanese missiles are made in Massachusetts and Florida.15

EDIT EDIT: <--so long and thanks for all the fish. I'm dropping this account now

 

[SlyPokerDog]

And this was a reply -

Interesting post. Just a few minor but important corrections I'd like to make. I'm just a stickler like that.

If war were to break out the US Commander will assume control of both the Japanese defense forces, and the South Korean military as per the Korean Armistice Agreement of 1953 and other UN resolutions/Treaties.
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Mostly true, except that between 1953 and 2013 there's been a lot of changes (both organic and negotiated). There are now several South Korean military units that are beyond the jurisdiction of the ROK-US Combined Forces Command (meaning that the Republic of Korea has full Operational Command or OPCON of these units, even during wartime).

These are, in no particular order: 1. The Second Republic of Korea Army (renamed to the "Second Operational Command" or 제2작전사령부) and all units under them, 2. The Capital Defense Command (수도권방위사령부) and 3. The Army Special Warfare Command (육군 특수전사령부).

The reasons why these three units operate independently and remain beyond the jurisdiction of the CFC is that there's a loophole. The 1953 Armistice Agreement was signed by North Korea, China and the 17 nations of the United Nations Command, but the armistice was never signed by South Korea. In fact, it's because of this that you sometimes still hear people say that "technically North and South Korea are still at war", which is true.

The reasons why South Korea refused to sign the armistice were twofold. First was the fact that president Rhee wanted to continue the war and use United Nations resources and troops as a means of achieving permanent unification. He saw any armistice agreement as an acceptance that Korea had to remain a divided nation, which from an ethno-nationalist view is paramount to treason.

Second, the United Nations Command changed its policy on the exchange of prisoners of war, and in an attempt hasten the end of belligerence they agreed to North Korea's terms for a P.O.W. exchange. This sudden change in stance, particularly regarding the sensitive subject of captured combatants infuriated the South Korean government. South Korean generals and military staff were ordered to walk out of United Nations Command bases in protest and ordered to boycott all armistice negotiations until a more favorable P.O.W. exchange treaty could be hammered out, but the UNC simply refused to back down. They were tired of the war (which had by this time degenerated into a virtual stalemate involving mostly mountain or hill capture) and they wanted to end it, period. By the time the South Korean government ordered their generals and military staff to return to the bases and cooperate with the rest of the United Nations staff, the damage in trust and relations had already been done.

When the 1953 Armistice was finally signed it wasn't, as some people imagine, some grand ceremony. Only two representatives were present: one American and one North Korean. They exchanged physical copies of the Armistice Agreement written in English, Korean and Chinese, signed it right then and there and then left with their copies. Three hours later the American representative made sure that each of the 16 representatives of the participating United Nations Command countries signed the treaty as well (1.United Kingdom, 2. Australia, 3. Belgium, 4. Canada, 5. France, 6. Philippines, 7. Colombia, 8. Ethiopia, 9. Greece, 10. Luxembourg, 12. Netherlands, 13. New Zealand, 14. South Africa, 15. Thailand, 16. Turkey). One day later the People's Republic of China signed North Korea's copy of the armistice. Again, the South Korean government, though present, intentionally refused to sign the armistice. You can read more about his here by the way. It's from the 국가기록원, the National Archives of Korea.

Therefore, as a minor correction, the 1953 Armistice Agreement doesn't technically apply to South Korea, and whenever North Korea threatens to pull out of the armistice, it's basically saying it wants to renew the fight with 17 other better armed, better funded, better trained, better disciplined nations, and since no permanent Peace Treaty was ever signed, all 17 nations would automatically be at war with North Korea. It's extremely infantile and stupid of them. I mean, honestly.

But to go back to the "loophole" that allows certain South Korean units to stay outside of UNC or CFC jurisdiction, really the majority of UNC-South Korea relations come from treaties signed after the armistice, such as the 1953 US - Republic of Korea Mutual Defense Treaty.

The loophole exists in two ways. First, any units assigned specifically for "rearguard duty" (i.e. not meant to fight in the front lines but meant to serve as defensive units) were not included into what would eventually become the CFC. The entirely of the 2nd Army (i.e. Second Operational Command) thus falls under this category. The 2nd Army, by the way, is trash. I served two years in the South Korean Army with the 781st Intelligence-Communications Battalion (781정보통신대대), and I very briefly got to meet a few people from the 2nd Army and like I said, they're slackers. The majority of the 2nd Army is composed of reserve units and it generally has a reputation for being a cozy place where the sons of rich people go to "serve in the Army".

Second, no treaty was ever signed that suggested nor allowed for American or United Nations involvement into internal security matters. And as politics goes, "internal security" can be very, very broadly defined. During the right-wing dictatorship of General Park, various extremely severe anti-communist as well as anti-insurgency laws were passed. Although on the surface these were meant to curb North Korean communist influence and infiltration into South Korean society, in practice these laws were invoked and routinely used to ruthlessly purge political opponents, intelligentsia, and even non-conforming students. General Park turned out to be a surprisingly violent dictator, and the protests were getting so intense that the "Combat Police" (전투경찰) could no longer handle them on their own. By the way, I believe South Korea might be the only country in the world that has a Combat Police? They're trained in Army barracks and do basic training, but they deal with civilians and protesters (i.e. "Combat Police" isn't the same as "Military Police". We have those too).

Anyways, so what General Park did was he passed laws that allowed military units to suppress protests. These were called 충정훈련 (Chung Jong Hunryeon) and it essentially involved soldiers killing and butchering protesters, most of them young and naive students. Not the prettiest moment of my people's history, I admit.

At first only the Capital Defense Command was allowed to participate but later this was extended to the Special Warfare Command. This bizarre loophole apparently to this day, still allows these two units to be classified as "internal/domestic security" units, thus leaving them entirely outside of CFC jurisdiction. Here is an article by Yonhap News that confirms it's valid today.

By the way, our current president Park Geun-hye is the daughter of the notorious General Park. It's one reason I'm not too thrilled to have her as our head of state, though I am happy to see that we finally have a female president. Mixed feelings here, really.

Of course, the fact that minor loopholes allow a few South Korean units to stay officially outside of American wartime OPCON (which is really what the CFC is) does by no means imply nor give the wild, improbable chance that ANY of these units will act against or even without American approval. Not only would that be disastrous, many in the South Korean military fully respect and look up to American military might as a backbone (young ones today tend to be very anti-American, but most of that stems from the itch to flaunt our inflated sense of pride and from a strong need for recognition as a financially and economically successful "middle power").

Having spent 2 years serving in the South Korean Army intelligence I can tell you with no intention of self-deceit that your impression/understanding of North Korea is actually fairly accurate and that panic aside, South Korea (and I'm assuming Japan as well...?) does and will follow American orders in times of war (and in many cases during events leading up to/in anticipation of war).

Phew. Didn't think I'd get so carried away, but history + current events + military are three things I really dig, and so far I haven't seen a lot of Koreans being very active voicing their knowledge/opinions, so I thought I'd chip in.

P.S. Just a few more minor and peripheral corrections: You misspelled the name of North Korea's "Eternal President". It's Kim Il-sung 김일성 (not Kim Sung-il). It's confusing I know. The reason the names sound so similar is because it's considered and honor to "inherit" at least one of your ancestor's name-syllables (hence Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un). It's something we call Name Spinning or 이름돌림. Not sure whose "Jong" they keep using, though.

Also, "Free Pyongyang" would probably be written/called "자유 평양" rather than the other way around. 평양 자유 has a slightly different nuanced meaning, somewhat similar to "Pyongyang's freedom" or "Freedom of/in Pyongyang." I also speak Spanish and "Cuba libre" is still called/should be properly translated as "자유 쿠바" into Korean.

Cheers. Also, feel free to correct me on any errors you find.

EDIT : Wording errors.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

Link to the rest and other comments here -

 

[huevonkiller]

Ok there's no reason to panic. Japan/etc. looks more than willing to intervene first, let them blow their taxpayer load on that.

 

[jlprk]

I think North Korea posted that on Reddit. After reading it, we're all too tired for war.

 

[Further]

Absolutely fascinating situation right now, but I am so poorly informed on the particulars that I can't really provide anything intelligent to the conversation. Until I read a lot more, and spend time in contemplation, I would just be a nuisance here. Goodbye for now, but I will read your posts.

 

[Eastoff]

I think North Korea posted that on Reddit. After reading it, we're all too tired for war.

no, Kim Jong Un only let's them post to www.reddit.com/r/pyongyang

 

[jlprk]

Wow, they really post there. I was just joking that the posts above take an hour to read, analyze, click on the links, and read them too.