Of course it would not be a new Korean War but a continuation of the current one that was temporarily suspended by the 1953 Armistice.  But we do not always get to choose the titles of our articles.

How U.S., South Korean Special Ops Would Join Forces in a New Korean War

thecipherbrief.com · June 18, 2017

June 18, 2017 | COL David Maxwell

Col David Maxwell
Associate Director, Center for Security Studies, Georgetown University

Tensions are rising on the Korean Peninsula. There is fear that the Korean War could restart, since there has only been a temporary suspension of hostilities since the 1953 Armistice. Although this fear is not new and we have experienced high tensions many times over the years, given the global security situation, with two new administrations in Washington and Seoul and the uncertainty of Kim Jong-un’s future actions, some fear that the chances for some form of conflict are greater than ever. There is great focus on North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities, continuing North Korean provocations to gain political and economic concessions, and the potential for a conventional war. But there is little focus on the combined special operations forces of the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the U.S., except for occasional rhetoric.

There were a number of ad hoc special operations units led by the U.S. during the Korean War. They went by such names as the UN Partisan Infantry Korea, the 8240th Army Unit, the White Tigers, the Combined Command Reconnaissance Activities Korea, and Joint Advisory Commission Korea. The combined special operations capability today has built on this history and has evolved to a quite capable force, the Combined Unconventional Warfare Task Force, and it will provide critical support to the Commander of the ROK/U.S. Combined Forces Command (ROK/US CFC).

There are two important points to keep in mind about special operations forces (SOF) in Korea. First is that all the legislated U.S. SOF activities specified in U.S. Code will be conducted during conflict. Although there is focus on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) since the transfer of the counter-WMD mission from U.S. Strategic Command to U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) in 2016, there are many more SOF requirements to support the ROK/US CFC.

The second point is that ROK special operations forces are among the most capable forces with which the U.S. partners. Although they are not the same as U.S. SOF, they share a long history of training and working together not only in Korea but also in Iraq, Afghanistan, and even in places such as the Horn of Africa with ROK Navy SEALs supporting anti-piracy operations. The combination of ROK and U.S. SOF provide a powerful capability to the Commander of ROK/US CFC.

To provide context for the type of operations SOF will conduct it is important to understand the “Big 5” of the Korean strategic challenges:

(Continued at the link below)

https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/exclusive/asia/how-us-south-korean-special-ops-would-join-forces-new-korean-war-1093

For all the hype on the movie and getting it into north Korea I hope people realize that this is absolutely no substitute for what is really needed in terms of a sophisticated Psychological Operations effort to undercut the legitimacy of the regime without undercutting the personal identifies of the north Korean people.  While this is a feel good for us in terms of the humor and insults to Kim Jong-un we must understand that a sustained sophisticated PSYOP effort is necessary to both support resistance as well as help prepare the people for unification.  We should be under no illusion that this film will do either or both.  It will not by itself.  That said, the north's actions toward the movie will make a bigger contribution to undercutting its legitimacy  and that is why I support getting the movie into the north.  But the movie itself is going to have little long term impact because it is not the appropriate vehicle to influence the key target audiences of the north Korean second tier leadership and the general population.  But the PSYOP campaign that is necessary must be based on thorough target audience analysis and understanding the Korea culture in general both historical and contemporary.  Even Juche cannot be ( or should not be) directly attacked or satirized but instead must as an example be shown to be an irresponsible adaptation of Korean culture in order to show that there there are underlying cultural continuities between north and South and there are more similarities at the fundamental cultural level than there are differences at the more superficial levels (e.g. the two Korean "miracles - the one on the Han (i.e., South Korean people thriving on the opportunity a free political system and open market economy) and the one on the Taedong (i.e., north Korea people surviving 60+ years of oppression and extreme adversity).  But a film like the Interview cannot get to that level of subtlety and sophistication (and of course it its defense it is not meant to - but that is why we need to focus on a real PSYOP campaign (that is focused on supporting President Park's Dresden Initiative for Koran unification) and not be taken in by our western emotional response to this movie and the mirror imaging analysis that we are unwittingly conducting, i.e., if this movie makes us despise Kim Jong-un then the north Korean people will despise him as well).

South Korean to drop Sony film into North by balloon

http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/south-korean-to-drop-sony-film-into-north-by-balloon-1.321755

By HYUNG-JIN KIM

The Associated Press

Published: December 31, 2014

On Oct. 10, 2014, anti-North Korea activists launch balloons containing anti-Pyongyang leaflets into the North from South Korea.

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SEOUL, South Korea — A South Korean activist said Wednesday that he will launch balloons carrying DVDs of Sony's "The Interview" toward North Korea to try to break down a personality cult built around dictator Kim Jong Un.

The comedy depicting an assassination attempt on Kim is at the center of tension between North Korea and the U.S., with Washington blaming Pyongyang for crippling hacking attacks on Sony Entertainment. Pyongyang denies that and has vowed to retaliate.

Activist Park Sang-hak said he will start dropping 100,000 DVDs and USBs with the movie by balloon in North Korea as early as late January. Park, a North Korean defector, said he's partnering with the U.S.-based non-profit Human Rights Foundation, which is financing the making of the DVDs and USB memory sticks of the movie with Korean subtitles.

Park said foundation officials plan to visit South Korea around Jan. 20 to hand over the DVDs and USBs, and that he and the officials will then try to float the first batch of the balloons if weather conditions allow.

"North Korea's absolute leadership will crumble if the idolization of leader Kim breaks down," Park said by telephone.

If carried out, the move was expected to enrage North Korea, which expressed anger over the movie. In October, the country opened fire at giant balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets floated across the border by South Korean activists, trigging an exchange of gunfire with South Korean troops.

But it is not clear how effective the plan will be, as only a small number of ordinary North Korean citizens are believed to own computers or DVD players. Many North Koreans would not probably risk watching the movie as they know they would get into trouble if caught. Owning a computer requires permission from the government and costs as much as three months' salary for the average worker, according to South Korean analysts.

Not everyone supports sending balloons into the North, with liberals and border town residents in South Korea urging the activists to stop. North Korea has long demanded that South Korea stop the activists, but Seoul refuses, citing freedom of speech.

Park said the ballooning will be done clandestinely, with the pace picking up in March when he expects the wind direction to become more favorable.

Calls to the Human Rights Foundation on Wednesday were not immediately answered. The foundation says on its website that it works with North Korean defectors to use hydrogen balloons to send material across the border, as well as smuggling items through China and broadcasting radio transmissions to reach those who own illegal short wave radios.

The U.S. Army Has Quietly Created a New Commando Division 1st Special Forces Command brings together thousands of Green Berets

At this link to the web site at Ft Benning you can download 14 charts from BG Rogers (the commander of the 1st Special Forces Command) that explain the ground truth to this article.  (note also that nowhere on the charts does he use the term "commando.")

 http://www.benning.army.mil/mcoe/maneuverconference/presentation/pdf/BGRogers.pdf

As you can see what this does is to reorganize the units of US Army Special Operations command in order to provide the Theater Special Operations Commands and the Geographic Combatant Commanders for whom they work with an integrated and holistic approach to employment of Special Warfare Capabilities equal to the level of effort of our Surgical Strike capabilities.  Or another way to describe this is to provide capabilities to operate in the "missing middle" between diplomacy and war.

So on this Thanksgiving Day I am thankful for the rise in stature of our nation's Special Warfare organization and capabilities.

Wish we could get the commando word out of the press and the pundit's vocabulary at least as it applies to Special Forces, Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations which is what this new command consists of.  And the Special Forces (Green berets) have always been "together" assigned to the US Army Special Forces Command.  Now that command has been redesignated as the 1st Special Forces Command

Excerpts:

But from the 1940s into the 1990s, the Special Forces mostly practiced unconventional warfare—indirect action, if you will, and the focus of the new 1st Special Forces Command. In that way, the new HQ brings Special Forces “back to its roots,” said Newson, a SEAL officer who served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen.

This indirect method of warfare is ideal in situations where an American presence could be “too costly or be counter-productive,” Newson explained.

A return to the roots for a vision of the future (that was the title of my first master's thesis in 1995).

We should keep in mind this fact:

Now, the Army’s new Special Forces structure doesn’t actually add manpower. In fact, the Green Berets will actually cut 1,000 people in order to stay within shrinking budgets, an official told War Is Boring.

The U.S. Army Has Quietly Created a New Commando Division

1st Special Forces Command brings together thousands of Green Berets

On Sept. 30, the U.S. Army unceremoniously stood up a new headquarters—

the 1st Special Forces Command—at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The division-level unit 

brings together more than 15,000 

Green Berets and other special troops in a single new organization.

Previously, the Army’s Special Operations Command had directly controlled all of these troops plus 

others on a wide range of missions. The idea behind the new HQ is to assemble a force specifically 

tailored for dealing with what the Pentagon calls “hybrid warfare.”

Simply put, hybrid warfare is a blend of straight-up traditional combat—with infantry, tanks and 

artillery—and secretive insurgency. Probably the biggest practitioner of hybrid warfare is Russia.

Just look at what’s going on in Ukraine, where Russian-supplied separatist insurgents are fighting 

alongside disguised Russian troops in an attempt to seize territory from the government in Kiev and 

bring it under Moscow’s sway.

Among other tasks, the U.S. Army’s new 1st Special Forces Command could help the ground combat 

branch counter hybrid warfare—by sending Green Beret advisers to train, advise and lead native troops 

in embattled countries.

“This is … a real requirement based on Russia’s hybrid warfare approach, as well as the need for partners 

in places like Libya, Syria and Iraq, where we want to help stabilize the chaos,” Navy captain Robert Newson, 

a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said of the new Army HQ.

(Continued at the link below)

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-u-s-army-has-quietly-created-

a-new-commando-division-2b90961b4821

Although this report is not verified it is plausible and a good follow-up to the article and my comments on psychological operations.  Although this is tragic it should not deter psychological operations and if anything these actions by the Kim Family Regime can be interpreted as a measure of effectiveness and indelicate how vulnerable the regime is to information from the outside.

V/R

Dave

North Korea publicly executes 80 people

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/north-korea-publicly-executes-80-people-033016904.html#erwJpAK

By AFP | AFP – 6 hours ago

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  AFP/KCNA/AFP/File - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects an open-air theatre in Wonsan, a city where executions were said to have taken place, in a picture handout on May 31, 2013

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  North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (C) during a firepower strike drill of the Korean …

North Korea publicly executed around 80 people earlier this month, many for watching smuggled South Korean TV shows, a South Korean newspaper reported Monday.

The conservative JoongAng Ilbo cited a single, unidentified source, but at least one North Korean defector group said it had heard rumours that lent credibility to the front-page report.

The source, said to be "familiar" with the North's internal affairs and recently returned from the country, said the executions were carried out in seven cities on November 3.

In the eastern port of Wonsan, the authorities gathered 10,000 people in a sports stadium to watch the execution of eight people by firing squad, the source quoted one eyewitness as saying.

Most were charged with watching illicit South Korean TV dramas, and some with prostitution.

Several of the cities, including Wonsan and Pyongsong in the west, have been designated as special economic zones aimed at attracting foreign investment to boost the North's moribund economy.

The Seoul-based news website, Daily NK, which is run by North Korean defectors and has a wide network of sources, said it had no information on the executions.

But another defector-run website, North Korea Intellectual Solidarity, said its sources had reported several months ago on plans for a wave of public executions.

(Continued at the link below)

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/north-korea-publicly-executes-80-people-033016904.html#erwJpAK

This short article front The Independent should give some hope to psychological operations professionals and unconventional warfare strategists.   There is growing resistance potential.

David Kang of the Korean Studies Institute at the University of Southern California, told Channel 4: “It’s these DVDs and USBs being smuggled in. Information and knowledge of the outside world is beginning to widen out. That means central control is breaking down.”

Recall that we define regime collapse when there is no longer central governing effectiveness combined with the loss of coherency of the military and security services.

I recently attended an off the record conference (ROE is we can discuss the ideas but not for attribution).  We discussed the concept of "byungjin" which is the regime's policy of simultaneous pursuit of nuclear weapons and economic development (e.g., Guns AND Butter).  One of the comments by one of the speakers was that the economic development is leading to a rise of the "princelings" or "outer elite" in Pyongyang.  They are starting to gain economically.  As we know from studying Ted Gurr and Why Men Rebel, those that are starving and only trying to survive have no motivation to seek political change.  However, those with food in their bellies who see the potential for more and a better life are the ones who may be motivated to seek political change.  We have long focused on the 2d tier leadership as key to influence in any post regime scenario but now with the rise of this nascent "princeling" or "outer elite" class we should be focusing on that we well.  The anecdotes in this article indicate the psychological operations potential.

The irony is that from among the emerging outer elite who are benefiting from "byungjin" and its economic development could arise potential resistance leaders who could begin the long hard task of developing resistance among the population.  However, it will not be able to be established, let along grow until there is further breakdown in the military and security services.  But that could be coming.

This of course all bears watching because we do not know what will happen or when.

A digital escape from North Korea's secret state: Kim Jong-un faces threat from undercover films posted on the web

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/a-digital-escape-from-north-koreas-secret-state-kim-jongun-faces-threat-from-undercover-films-posted-on-the-web-8931494.html?printService=print

Kim Jong-un has almost total control over what North Koreans see of the world. But he is fighting against a digital revolution, in which pop culture, not guns, might bring down his totalitarian regime

James Jones

Sunday, 10 November 2013

Eight-year-old Min staggers forwards, unsteady on his feet from hunger and exhaustion, wearing a shabby, blue overcoat discarded by an adult twice his size, and tells the hidden camera: “My mum tried to look after me but it got too hard so she told me I have to go, so I left and now I live outside.”

Min is among dozens of homeless street kids who gather around North Korean markets begging for money and looking for scraps of food. Their lives are featured in undercover footage to be screened this week in a Channel 4 documentary.

A network of ordinary North Koreans have been filming secretly inside the country and smuggling the footage out across the border with China. The footage gives a rare insight into the most isolated nation on earth, revealing the reality of everyday life in North Korea and showing the first signs of cracks in the regime’s control.

The network is run by Japanese journalist, Jiro Ishimaru, who has been training undercover reporters for 15 years.

“In North Korea, even filming everyday life is considered a form of political treason. If they are caught they’d be locked up and may never be let out again,” he said.

Unseen footage filmed by Mr Ishimaru’s reporters earlier this year shows Kim Jong-un’s speeches being pumped from speakers on street corners. One speech, promising his people a bright, economic future, had been on a continuous loop for three months. The footage shows whole villages rounded up to build monuments to the new Supreme Leader.

Even making a joke at the expense of the Supreme Leader can lead to life in a political prison camp. Satellite imagery shows that since Kim Jong-un came to power two years ago the political prison camps have grown. Today it’s estimated that almost one in 100 North Koreans is a political prisoner.

One former political prisoner who features in the documentary to be screened on Thursday is now leading the opposition to Kim Jong-un by revealing the reality of the outside world to North Koreans.

Mr Chung was caught crossing the border with China while doing business illegally in April 2000 and accused of being a spy. He spent three years in North Korea’s most notorious political prison camp, Yodok, where he was beaten, tortured and starved.

“Before I got arrested I weighed 75kg,” he said. “After 10 months I had a physical examination. When I looked at what I weighed I was 36kg. I couldn’t endure it anymore.”

After serving three years of his sentence Mr Chung was released when the authorities decided he wasn’t a spy after all. Soon after, he illegally crossed the border again, but this time he escaped for good. He now lives in Seoul, South Korea’s capital, and works with other defectors plotting against the regime. He realises that the best way to break the spell of North Korean propaganda is by exposing the people to popular culture.

Mr Chung smuggles radios, USB sticks and DVDs of soap operas and entertainment shows into the North, posing as a mushroom importer.

“The men prefer watching action films,” he said. “Men love their action films! I sent them Skyfall recently. The women enjoy watching soap operas and dramas. The more people are exposed to such media the more likely they are to become disillusioned with the regime and start wanting to live differently.”

In September he filmed himself secretly travelling to the China-North Korea border, the same spot where he was caught and branded a spy 13 years ago.

Since Kim Jong Un came to power border control has become much tighter. He realises that his power depends on maintaining a tight grip on information flows across the border and stopping people like Mr Chung. Border guards have a shoot-to-kill policy. Being caught with illegal DVDs could mean immediate imprisonment, but it’s now estiamted that half of North Koreans have watched foreign television.

David Kang of the Korean Studies Institute at the University of Southern California, told Channel 4: “It’s these DVDs and USBs being smuggled in. Information and knowledge of the outside world is beginning to widen out. That means central control is breaking down.”

In interviews with more than a dozen recent defectors a picture emerged of a rapidly changing society. Each has a story of the moment they saw the outside world in foreign films and television shows: the cars, the tall buildings, the abundance of food and the apparent freedom all caused the scales to fall from their eyes.

Far from regarding their South Korean cousins as American puppets and slaves, as portrayed in North Korean propaganda, they see they speak the same language but live in a country that is decades ahead in technology and prosperity.

(Continued at the link below)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/a-digital-escape-from-north-koreas-secret-state-kim-jongun-faces-threat-from-undercover-films-posted-on-the-web-8931494.html?printService=print

Truth Or Propaganda? Finding Real Stories In North Korea

Photos can be seen at the link (which are actually just some of the usual fare we see from western photographers traveling in the north).  However, there are some interesting anecdotes in this story with the Buddhist monk, the bowling alley, and Gone with the Wind.  And we should keep this in mind:

One man, a smuggler who fled North Korea, wanted Sullivan to understand that.

"'You gotta remember, we're normal,' " he told Sullivan. "'We're normal people, we're like you. We're like everybody else. Our hearts break, we have fights at the office, we fight with our wives; we're just like anybody else.' "

All of these and many other anecdotes should help convince us that we need to have an aggressive psychological operations campaign to increase information flow inside north Korea.  One of the two major contributing factors for why East and West Germany had a relatively smooth reunification was that there were many contacts between the East and West and the East Germans had much great knowledge of the West that then north has of the South (though the gap is closing).  The second reason was that the infrastructure in the East, though much below that of the West was still relatively much closer to the West than the north's is to the South.  There is not much that can be done about the north's infrastructure now since the regime has been slowly destroying it for the past 60 years due to its bankrupt economic policies.  However, active preparations for unification can be conducted using the information instrument of national power.

But I am reminded of this quote:

"Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind, it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate - - and quickly."
- Robert A. Heinlein from The Notebooks of Lazarus Long: Time Enough for Love 

V/R

Dave

Truth Or Propaganda? Finding Real Stories In North Korea

by NPR STAFF

September 29, 2013 5:02 PM

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/29/226888234/truth-or-propaganda-finding-real-stories-in-north-korea

A Peek Inside North Korea

National Geographic photographer David Guttenfelder went on assignment to North Korea with AP correspondent Tim Sullivan, and came back with these photos.

North Korea remains one of the most closed places in the world. And that makes Tim Sullivan kind of a rarity: As the Asia correspondent for the Associated Press, he's spent about six weeks in the country over the course of two trips.

It's a different kind of reporting trip, he tells All Things Considered host Arun Rath.

"A lot of my time is spent ... gauging what is real, what is fake," he says. "If something is fake, in what way is it fake? Do they really do this job and they're simply acting for me? Or do they not do this at all, and it's complete Potemkin?"

But for some reason, he says, he forgot that temporarily during his most recent trip, when he visited a Buddhist monastery.

"All I could think of was that I was dealing with monks, that these people could be genuine believers and if they saw me as an opportunity to criticize the regime and they were heard — which they would be because my minders are with me always — they would go to prison," he says. "Their families would go to prison. People could die."

So he avoided the one topic he wanted to discuss, freedom of religion.

It was an uneventful visit. Sullivan says he asked banal questions, chit-chatted with the monks, then left.

Then something happened on his way out: Suddenly, the senior monk and Sullivan's minder were waiting, looking at him.

"The monk said to me, we know what you want to ask, and he was right," he says.

So Sullivan asked about freedom of religion. There is absolute freedom of religion in North Korea, the monk told him, and it's your responsibility to tell that to the world.

But of course, Sullivan says, religion has been crushed in the last 60 years. While there are a handful of churches and Buddhist temples, he says, they're basically there to show foreigners.

Short Skirts And Muscle Shirts

Not every story Sullivan is told has been scripted. One of his favorite places in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang is a bowling alley called Gold Lane.

The 1970s-style bowling alley — a big showcase during the regime of Kim Il Sung — is a popular gathering place for soldiers now.

"The soldiers take off their shirts, they love to bowl in their sleeveless white t-shirts, showing off their muscles," he says.

The scene, Sullivan says, tells you a lot about recent changes in the country.

"By simply being in the army and living in the capital, that makes them a part of an elite, even if they're not high elite. They're somebody. And they're there with their girlfriends, who can dress in a way that was never seen before," he says.

Their girlfriends parade around in short skirts and high heels. Sullivan says it was basically illegal to wear a short skirt until about a year ago. North Koreans are more plugged in than they used to be — hence they realize how out of date they are, Sullivan says.

There is more money flowing into the country, from mineral and timber sales to China. Sullivan says the tiny but growing middle class wants the same things the Chinese middle class wants.

"They want to wear nice clothing and high heels and have iPods," Sullivan says. "They now do have a consumer ideal, which didn't exist there before."

A Country That Identifies With Scarlett O'Hara

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/29/226888234/truth-or-propaganda-finding-real-stories-in-north-korea

Something to consider from a psychological warfare/psychological operations, propaganda perspective.  Some good words from Crispin Burke.

V/R

Dave

Useful Idiots: How a Facebook Campaign Became Propaganda For Bashar Assad

Posted on 13 Sep 2013 by Starbuck

http://wingsoveriraq.com/2013/09/13/useful-idiots-how-a-facebook-campaign-became-propaganda-for-bashar-assad/

Syria is a proverbial Gordian Knot; the two-year old conflict is a vexing web of proxy armies, tenuous allies, and a myriad of factions with competing goals.

But just as the real conflict has been a lightning rod for all manner of hidden agendas, so has the domestic debate been here in the United States.  According to polls, the country remains deeply divided over the prospect of air and missile strikes on Syria.

Of course, war is the most serious undertaking of any state, and should only be embarked upon after great deliberation.  After all, debate is healthy in a democracy.

Still, partisan rancor often trumps careful analysis.  Nowhere was this more true than on the 43,000-strong Facebook page for the “Armed Forces Tea Party“, in which purported service members–in full uniform–masked their faces with signs protesting involvement in Syria.

Not only was this an egregious transgression in civil-military relations (Psst, here’s somegreat reading), but the campaign played directly into the Assad regime’s propaganda, as hackers from the Syrian Electronic Army defaced the US Marine Corps’ website with the aforementioned images, urging the United States not to interfere in Syria.

For decades, the Communist Party wooed influential Westerners into showing sympathy for their causes.  Dozens of authors, actors, and celebrities have, intentionally or not, lent legitimacy to all manner of dictators.  Such activity isn’t limited to the Cold War, either, as we’ve recently seen with basketball star Dennis Rodman’s overtures towards North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, whom  he refers to as “my friend”.

During the Cold War, misguided elites were referred to as “useful idiots“; and whether through vanity or naiveté, they advanced the interests of some very unsavory characters.

(Continued at the link below)

http://wingsoveriraq.com/2013/09/13/useful-idiots-how-a-facebook-campaign-became-propaganda-for-bashar-assad/