Who Won the August 20th north-South Provocation Exchange?

My initial thoughts on the provocation that occurred today in Korea.  I do not have anything more than the initial reports to base this on but it is my initial assessment.

Who Won the August 20th north-South Provocation Exchange?

On the afternoon of August 20^th the north Korean People’s Army (nKPA) apparently fired an artillery round into South Korea ostensibly to respond to the Republic of Korea’s (ROK) decision to initiate psychological operations broadcast along the Demilitarized Zone.  Although some viewed this as a weak response to the north’s next most recent provocation of emplacing a box mine on the southern side of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) that injured two ROK Army soldiers.  The purpose of that provocation might have been to protest the current ongoing ROK/US Combined Forces Command (ROK/US CFC) annual readiness exercise Ulchi Focus Guardian.

In response to the nKPA  artillery fire, reports indicate the ROK Army immediately and decisively responded at the time and place of provocation with counter fire directed against the nKPA firing units just as the new ROK/US  Combined Counter-provocation Plan calls for.

Some have speculated that the north could achieve a “victory” with this artillery exchange if the ROK/US CFC cancels or suspends the current exercise.  I think the exact opposite is going to happen and the “victor” from a psychological, political, and military perspective with the ROK military, the ROK government and the ROK/US alliance.

First we should consider the ROK response to the mine provocation.  Some accuse the ROK of only taking half measures and that a psychological operations only response is weak and inconsequential.  This is wrong.  The Kim Family Regime fears outside information more than an artillery attack.  A psychological operations response is a significant threat to the regime.  While people may discount loudspeaker broadcasts the regime will rightly assume that the ROK is going to intensify other PSYOP efforts to include supporting defector efforts to get information in the north.  Information is more dangerous to the regime than a kinetic military response.  This is why the north responded with threats and then with action.

Will the August 20th  provocation cause the cancellation of Ulchi Focus Guardian?  If that was the north’s intent then it will fail miserably.  It would be prudent for any commander to suspend the current exercise because no one can predict how far up the escalation ladder this incident could go.  The alliance must remain vigilant and ready for the north Korean response and conducting a training exercise in the face of increased tensions and open hostilities (if a single artillery exchange could be considered as such).  However, what the north has done in this case is provide an even “better” training scenario for the alliance and because the ROK and US headquarters are deployed to their operational headquarters and the ROK/US CFC chain of command is in effect for the exercises and the ROK and US forces have gone on higher alert the north’s provocation is actually having the opposite effect.  This also provides more opportunity for alliance PSYOP and information operations planners to develop themes and message to undercut the legitimacy of the Kim Family regime, which again is the biggest threat to it.

ROK and US forces now have the opportunity to review the current actions to confirm the counter-provocation plan.  It provides the intelligence community with a focus on observing for the next north Korea action that is better “training” than can be done on any computer scenario.

Furthermore, the ROK response should generate increased confidence among the Korean people because President Park issued decisive orders for counter-provocation and the ROK Army executed them as intended.   Most importantly people should understand that the ROK responded decisively and appropriately to two provocations with the first psychological operations response counter-intuitively being the stronger one because it threatens the regime more than artillery fire.

The north ‘s actions continue to paint the DPRK as a pariah state which will further cause its international isolation (as if it could be any more isolated).  Its actions will also likely increase the rising anti-north and pro-unification sentiment among the Korean people in the South as well.

The only objective the north can really achieve with this is that with the alliance demonstrating the will and capability to respond to provocations and the continued activation and manning of all the alliance operational headquarters and the raised alert status of alliance combat forces the north can continue its rhetoric that the alliance poses a threat to the regime and it can use this to demand further sacrifices of the Korean people living in the north to support its military.  Since that was going to happen anyway with the exercise there is no real benefit to the north.

Although it is the (correct) intent of the alliance to deter provocations and attack by the north, the response by the ROK Army to the mine and artillery provocations as well as the continued operations of the ROK/US CFC headquarters from their operational locations shows that the north has miscalculated and not been able to achieve its objectives on August 20^th.

I guess the secret is out.  Now the north knows.  I want to know if "hell bent" describes ways or means in strategy!

"The U.S. is hell bent on eliminating the DPRK politically, isolating DPRK economically and annihilating the DPRK militarily," Ri told reporters. "There is a great question mark why the U.S. is hell bent on increasing the tension, ignoring the DPRK proposals, very important for peace and security."

North Korea tells world 'wait and see' on new nuclear test

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/04/us-northkorea-usa-un-idUSBREA331IG20140404

BY MICHELLE NICHOLS

UNITED NATIONS Fri Apr 4, 2014 7:22pm EDT

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un addresses commanding officers of the combined units of the Korean People's Army (KPA) in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang April 2, 2014.

CREDIT: REUTERS/KCNA

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(Reuters) - North Korea said on Friday that the world would have to "wait and see" when asked for details of "a new form" of nuclear test it threatened to carry out after the United Nations Security Council condemned Pyongyang's recent ballistic missile launch.

North Korea fired two medium-range Rodong ballistic missiles into the sea on March 26. Its first firing in four years of mid-range missiles that can hit Japan followed a series of short-range rocket launches over the past two months.

Members of the Security Council on March 27 condemned the move as a violation of U.N. resolutions and that it would continue discussions on an "appropriate response.

North Korea (DPRK) reacted on Sunday with a threat to conduct what it called "a new form of nuclear test.

"The DPRK made it very clear, we will carry out a new form of nuclear test. But I recommend you to wait and see what it is," North Korea's Deputy U.N. Ambassador Ri Tong Il said on Friday during the normally reclusive state's third U.N. news conference this year.

Ballistic missile launches are banned under U.N. Security Council resolutions adopted in response to North Korea's multiple nuclear tests and rocket firings. The council expanded its existing sanctions after Pyongyang's February 2013 atomic test, its third nuclear detonation since 2006.

The Security Council's sanctions on Pyongyang target the country's missile and nuclear programs and attempt to punish North Korea's reclusive leadership through a ban on the export of luxury goods to the country.

Ri accused the United States of being "hell bent on regime change" in North Korea by blaming its leaders for human rights violations. He also said Washington was blocking a bid for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula by ignoring North Korean proposals, so it can maintain military presence in the region.

U.S. 'GOING AROUND CRAZY'

"The U.S. is hell bent on eliminating the DPRK politically, isolating DPRK economically and annihilating the DPRK militarily," Ri told reporters. "There is a great question mark why the U.S. is hell bent on increasing the tension, ignoring the DPRK proposals, very important for peace and security."

A U.S. diplomat said that Washington had long made clear that it was open to improved relations with North Korea if Pyongyang lived up to its international obligations.

"North Korea's nuclear programs will not make the country more secure. The only way for North Korea to achieve the security and prosperity it seeks is by complying with its international obligations and commitments," the diplomat said.

Nuclear expert Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in the United States, said North Korea's reference to a new form of nuclear test could mean simultaneous detonation of two or more devices as part of a program of more intense testing expected over the next few years.

Lewis said he thought it unlikely North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would move for the moment from underground to atmospheric testing - something he might do to demonstrate an ability to deploy nuclear armed missiles or artillery - for fear of inflaming Chinese public opinion.

"He's only likely to do that ... if he no longer cares what Beijing thinks," Lewis said. "Still, it is useful to remember that Kim Jong Un has a number of other unpleasant provocations from which he might choose."

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/04/us-northkorea-usa-un-idUSBREA331IG20140404

US Warns of North Korean Chemical Weapons Threat

If chemical weapons are an integral part of the north Korean war plan (which I think they are) then there is little that can be done to deter Kim Jong-un's decision to use them.  They believe it will help them achieve victory so they will do whatever they think necessary to win.  They will not limit themselves based on any deterrent actions by the US or international community.  We are going to have to be prepared to fight and win in a chemically contaminated environment.  

But in my opinion it is difficult to compare the two because north Korea is not fighting an internal civil war so it is difficult to make a fair comparison.  But in terms of control and command which my Korean mentors emphasize is the correct way to describe the north Korean C2 system, nothing happens in the north in terms of military actions and provocations that is not controlled and commanded by Kim Jong-un.  Therefore deterrence has to be focused on influencing him. 

But the north's use of chemical weapons will be very different than Syria's as I said. It will use them in wartime with the expectation that they will support successful military operations and it is unlikely that our actions in Syria will deter that kind of use by the regime.  It may very well be an integral part of their planning and it knows that it will be so pounded by ROK/US forced whether it  uses chemical weapons or not that I am sure the regime has determined that if there is a war it must use all means at its disposal in an attempt to be victorious.  To borrow and paraphrase from a former US SECSTATE "what good it is to have a military (capability) if you are not going to use it."  We have to expect that the north will use chemical weapons on the peninsula and whatever we do in Syria will not change that.

However, what does or does not happen in Syria will affect North Korean strategic decision making and it's broader reading of US will in terms of deterrence beyond the use of chemical weapons.  And I think that interpretation can be summed up as "dithering does not equal deterrence." If we were thinking of acting in Syria in order to have a deterrent effect on north Korea (in addition to achieving whatever our objectives are in Syria) we would have needed to have acted swiftly and decisively with no dithering.  While our political situation would not have supported that we have to try to understand how our actions (and inaction) are interpreted by the north.  We are fortunate however because the ROK, led by President Park,  has shown the will to respond to the north (which will be tested at the next provocation) so together the ROK/US Alliance is capable of deterring the north at this time (as long as we do not so something to weaken the Alliance).  As I have mentioned in previous posts, we are fortunate that President Park is in office because her leadership buys some time and space for our Administration in terms of strategy on the Korean Peninsula.

V/R
Dave

US Warns of North Korean Chemical Weapons Threat

BEIJING September 10, 2013 (AP)

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN Associated Press

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-warns-north-korean-chemical-weapons-threat-20207811

The United States is trying to enlist Beijing's support for military action against Syria by arguing that it would help deter North Korea from using chemical weapons and threatening security in China's neighborhood, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

China expressed support, meanwhile, for a Russian plan to avoid military intervention in the Middle Eastern country by getting the Syrian government to agree to put its chemical weapons under international supervision and eventually destroy them.

"As long as it eases the tension and helps maintain Syrian and regional peace and stability, and helps politically settle the issue, the global community should consider it positively," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters in Beijing.

U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy James Miller, who was in Beijing to meet with Chinese officials, said earlier Thursday that a retaliatory strike against the Syrian government would uphold the international norm that chemical weapons must not be used.

Miller said he emphasized to his Chinese counterpart that lowering the threshold for chemical weapons use could put U.S. troops at risk and threaten China's security and that of the entire globe.

"I emphasized the massive chemical weapons arsenal that North Korea has and that we didn't want to live in a world in which North Korea felt that the threshold for chemical weapons usage had been lowered," Miller told reporters at a briefing following his talks Monday with Wang Guanzhong, the Chinese army's deputy chief of staff.

It was strongly in China's interest that there be a "strong response to Assad's clear and massive use of chemical weapons," Miller said he told Wang.

China has joined with Russia in blocking action against Syria at the United Nations Security Council and strongly opposes strikes on Syria by the U.S. or its allies in response to an Aug. 21 chemical attack near Damascus that the U.S. says killed more than 1,400 people. Beijing has called for political talks to end the violence that has killed an estimated 100,000 people and displaced 2 million more.

Hong said China was hosting a visit starting Tuesday by Syrian opposition leaders for talks with Chinese officials. He said they were from the National Coalition for Dialogue, apparently one of a number of smaller opposition groups whose sizes, memberships and alliances are in constant flux.

China has hosted delegations from both the opposition and government since the start of the Syrian conflict nearly two years ago, telling both that it hoped for negotiations leading to a process of national reconciliation.

While China remains North Korea's most important ally, it has repeatedly expressed concerns about the regime's threat to regional stability and has sought to coax Pyongyang back to six-nation nuclear disarmament talks — so far unsuccessfully. Beijing joined the international community in tightening sanctions against the North over a banned missile launch and nuclear test that again raised the specter of armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula just across the Yellow Sea from China.

(Continued at the link below)

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-warns-north-korean-chemical-weapons-threat-20207811

Ready, Fire, Aim: Why the U.S. should have launched an ICBM during the North Korean crisis.

Although I have stated (and still believe) that what has been most useful in managing this current north Korean provocation cycle is the fact that the ROK/US Alliance did not blink and that the north's strategy to split the Alliance has not been effective this time around.  I also think that the demonstration of Alliance strength and resolve has been critical to influencing the decision making of the Kim Family Regime.  That said, I do believe that it was a mistake to not conduct the ICBM test (or more precisely it was a mistake to announce it would be delayed).  Not conducting it does not influence north Korea in a positive way, the regime interprets it as weakness especially when there are reports assessing the reason is to prevent provoking the regime.  I think this is the only significant mistake we made in terms of dealing with north since since last December (and the announcement of the delay more so than the delay of the test itself).

V/R

Dave

Ready, Fire, Aim

Why the U.S. should have launched an ICBM during the North Korean crisis.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/28/ready_fire_aim_north_korea_missile

BY ANDREA BERGER | MAY 28, 2013

Even good intentions can backfire, as the Pentagon has just been reminded. In April, amid constant threats of nuclear war from Pyongyang, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel decided to postpone the regularly scheduled test-firing of a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base. North Korea, it was feared, could misinterpret the launch either as a blunt show of resolve, which could have further escalated the crisis, or, less likely, as an actual attack which could have provoked god-knows-what. But, ironically, the decision to delay -- and to announce it very publicly -- may have created more problems for Washington than it solved.

At the time of Hagel's directive to stand down, North Korea was threatening to strike U.S. territories and allies with nuclear weapons, and it was taking its mobile-missile launchers for a joyride. During the crisis, the United States intentionally used military maneuvers as deterrence messages to Pyongyang. In response to these moves, such as B-52 overflights of the peninsula, the Kim regime's tantrum grew louder and louder. So it is understandable that the Pentagon would have been eager to avoid having one of its Minuteman launches perpetuate this escalatory spiral.

But, despite the Pentagon's insistence that the routine Minuteman test had nothing to do with North Korea and could therefore be delayed without consequence, the postponement created the opposite impression. Minuteman launches don't usually make a splash (at least not outside the South Pacific, where they come down), but international media attention to the test, which finally took place on May 22, has been unusually high. In South Korea, news of the test flight crept into reporting of North Korea's recent short-range missile launches and even of North Korean envoy Choe Yong-hae's visit to China. The Associated Press, Reuters, and RIA Novosti also covered the Minuteman launch in the context of tensions on the Korean Peninsula. All of this is exactly what the United States did not want.

The unintended link prodded Pyongyang to respond with more fiery words. Since the Pentagon's announcement, the North Korean propaganda machine has painted the planned launch as yet another demonstration of the U.S. imperialists' relentless adherence to their "hostile policy." It asserted that a U.S. Minuteman test will bring "dark clouds of a missile race to hang over North East Asia" and warned that "intercontinental missiles [are] by no means a monopoly of the U.S."

This may seem like typical North Korean posturing, but it's not. Between January 1996 and April 2013, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) mentioned the Minuteman only once -- in relation to details leaked from the 2002 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review. (When slamming U.S. "warmongering," North Korean propaganda usually references the specific weapons system being brandished. However, even searches for general mentions of U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles yield only around a dozen results.) However, since the Pentagon's delay, there have been three specific mentions of the "Minuteman." All berate the decision to proceed with the launch.

In contrast, from January 1996 to the present, KCNA condemned the B-2 approximately 52 times and the B-52 approximately 126 times. References to U.S. ballistic missile submarines are slightly more difficult to count, as North Korean propaganda happily muddies the distinction between nuclear-powered and nuclear-weapons submarines. KCNA citations of U.S. "nuclear-powered submarines" number in the hundreds, and they often refer to ballistic missile subs. In addition, there are 17 references to Ohio-class submarines -- most of which carry ballistic missiles -- and to specific submarines within that class.

Apparently, North Korea has not been scared of all U.S. nuclear weapons equally. Platforms that have been directly linked to U.S. extended deterrence guarantees for Japan and South Korea, or that can be theater-deployed, seem to be the ones that keep the Korean People's Army up at night. Bombers and submarines can be incorporated into U.S.-South Korean military exercises in the region, which North Korea allegedly fears might be used as a veil for a sneak attack against them. After all, military exercises are the cover Kim Il-Sung used to start the Korean War. KCNAspelled out its concerns with the air and naval legs of the deterrent in March: "What should not be overlooked is that the U.S. picked up B-52 and nuclear-powered submarines out of these nuclear strike means... for a nuclear strike drill under the simulated conditions of actual war against the DPRK."

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/28/ready_fire_aim_north_korea_missile

North Korea’s Risk-Taking Explained

An interesting theory of the "counter-intuitive marriage of risk-taking and rationality."  I find his conclusion sound.

As such, North Korea has taken the high-risk, high-potential-reward approach of seemingly irrational but ultimately rational action of provocative behavior to try to win further gains for regime survival. 

We may not like it, but North Korea’s risk-taking strategy is more likely to continue than end.

V/R

Dave

• May 22, 2013, 6:27 PM KST

North Korea’s Risk-Taking Explained

http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2013/05/22/north-koreas-risk-taking-explained/tab/print/

By Jasper Kim

After a period of relative calm, North Korea’s short-range missile tests this week were a reminder that the Stalinist state is never far from the headlines with a fresh bout of provocative behavior.

Most commentators who track the country say it would never aim to initiate a war with South Korea and its allies because that would inevitably lead to the end of the Kim Jong Un regime. Self-preservation is something the Pyongyang leadership has been very successful at over the last six decades.

So what explains the North’s apparent affinity for risk in routinely confronting the South, mostly verbally but occasionally with deadly force?

Mathematical modeling helps explain the counter-intuitive marriage of risk-taking and rationality at the heart of decision making in North Korea.

Consider you have one of the two choices:

A: Receive $80 guaranteed; or
B: Receive a 90% chance to receive $100

Which option should a rational decision maker chose? Studies show that most people would decide to take option A, the sure thing. The thinking is that it is generally better to receive a guaranteed return even if it means receiving less.

But the rational choice is actually option B. Getting to the answer requires what’s called a standard expected value calculation. The expected value of option A is $80 (100% x $80 = $80). The expected value of option B is $90 (90% x $100 = $90). So, because $90 (option B) is greater than $80 (option A), option B would be the rational choice even though it involves taking a risk.

The stakes are much higher for North Korea than a token sum of money, of course.

(Continued at the link below)

http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2013/05/22/north-koreas-risk-taking-explained/tab/print/

A Route to Reining in North Korea The South Korean president's Washington visit is a good time to define a firm policy regarding Pyongyang. By NICHOLAS EBERSTADT

Probably one of the most succinct descriptions of the Kim Family Regime's methods and objectives.

Excerpts:

There is one huge problem with this "engagement" game plan: North Korea has no interest in granting America or its allies a lasting regional peace. Understanding this unwelcome but critical fact is the first step toward a strategy that could make the North Korean problem smaller, not larger, over time.
…
These quintessential features of the regime help explain why all of the many Western diplomatic initiatives over the past two decades have failed: the Agreed Framework of 1994, the Perry Process of 1999, South Korea's "Sunshine Policy" of 1998 to 2008, the intermittent six-party talks since 2003 and others less well remembered. It also explains why future diplomatic overtures will fail. There can be no "getting to yes" with a regime that regards its negotiating partners as fundamentally illegitimate, no matter what diplomatic eminences may otherwise counsel.
…
The best response to North Korea's shakedown diplomacy is a threat-reduction strategy: a coherent long-term plan to reduce the regime's capabilities for extortion and the dividends it can expect to reap from predation. The heart of such an approach must be deeds not words—sustained actions, and credible responses, in both military and nonmilitary arenas. 

Such a threat-reduction strategy requires all of the deterrence policies currently in force—and more. Militarily, a threat-reduction strategy means steadily implementing countermeasures to deny Pyongyang's ability to inflict damage on other countries. These countermeasures include broadly enhanced missile defense, big improvements in the "counter-battery systems" for suppressing the thousands of artillery tubes trained on South Korea from just across the Demilitarized Zone dividing the countries, and a civil-defense system worthy of the name for South Korea's capital city, Seoul. 

The strategy also includes zero tolerance for international "crises" that the North Korean regime routinely manufactures. Pyongyang's inclination for adventurism will be smaller, not greater, if the leadership has to fear it may lose a little face the next time the regime stokes a foreign confrontation.

What Dr. Eberstadt leaves out is that this strategy must support attaining the ultimate end state of peninsula unification.

V/R
Dave

• OPINION
• May 5, 2013, 7:07 p.m. ET

A Route to Reining in North Korea

The South Korean president's Washington visit is a good time to define a firm policy regarding Pyongyang.

By NICHOLAS EBERSTADT

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324482504578453451317183488.html#printMode

When President Obama and South Korean President Park Geun-hye meet in Washington on Tuesday to consider how to deal with the latest North Korean crisis, some in policy circles will urge the leaders to undertake another round of diplomatic overtures.

In recent months, Pyongyang's adventure in brinkmanship has included launching a long-range ballistic rocket, conducting an underground nuclear test, and repeatedly threatening attacks against the U.S. and South Korea, including nuclear ones. In response to all this menace, Secretary of State John Kerry declared last month in Japan: "Our choice is to negotiate" with the Kim Jong Eun regime "and find a way to peace." Others close to Mr. Obama and Ms. Park likewise regard diplomatic "engagement" as the only viable option for reducing the North Korean threat.

There is one huge problem with this "engagement" game plan: North Korea has no interest in granting America or its allies a lasting regional peace. Understanding this unwelcome but critical fact is the first step toward a strategy that could make the North Korean problem smaller, not larger, over time.

International military extortion is an entirely logical policy for Pyongyang, indeed a practical necessity for state survival. Monumentally distorted by government planners, the North Korean economy today cannot operate without a steady flow of subsidies from abroad. Peaceful commercial trade could help revive the economy, but the North Koreans have long rejected that route—in 1998 the government news agency declared that "reform" and "opening" are "honey-coated poison" for "our own style of socialism." Consequently, for North Korean leadership, the solution to securing foreign resource transfers lies in the unending threat of international violence.

For similar reasons, the North Korean regime can never abide by any security deal it actually signs. Its leaders are firm believers in situational ethics: Whenever an international security treaty, agreement or promise looks to constrain the pursuit of their immediate interests, North Korean leaders will reject it as unacceptable—as they have since the founding of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in 1948.

Pyongyang's officials regard such promise-breaking not just as moral but as positively patriotic. In the regime's view, the DPRK is the single true authority fulfilling the historical destiny of the Korean race; interference by any DPRK official with that mission would by definition be treason.

These quintessential features of the regime help explain why all of the many Western diplomatic initiatives over the past two decades have failed: the Agreed Framework of 1994, the Perry Process of 1999, South Korea's "Sunshine Policy" of 1998 to 2008, the intermittent six-party talks since 2003 and others less well remembered. It also explains why future diplomatic overtures will fail. There can be no "getting to yes" with a regime that regards its negotiating partners as fundamentally illegitimate, no matter what diplomatic eminences may otherwise counsel.

Of course, this reality should not mean cutting off official communication with the regime. Talking with Pyongyang can serve important if limited purposes—such as reducing the scope for needless misunderstanding, or the risk of miscalculation. But conferencing with blackmailers gains nothing.

The best response to North Korea's shakedown diplomacy is a threat-reduction strategy: a coherent long-term plan to reduce the regime's capabilities for extortion and the dividends it can expect to reap from predation. The heart of such an approach must be deeds not words—sustained actions, and credible responses, in both military and nonmilitary arenas.

Such a threat-reduction strategy requires all of the deterrence policies currently in force—and more. Militarily, a threat-reduction strategy means steadily implementing countermeasures to deny Pyongyang's ability to inflict damage on other countries. These countermeasures include broadly enhanced missile defense, big improvements in the "counter-battery systems" for suppressing the thousands of artillery tubes trained on South Korea from just across the Demilitarized Zone dividing the countries, and a civil-defense system worthy of the name for South Korea's capital city, Seoul.

The strategy also includes zero tolerance for international "crises" that the North Korean regime routinely manufactures. Pyongyang's inclination for adventurism will be smaller, not greater, if the leadership has to fear it may lose a little face the next time the regime stokes a foreign confrontation.

(Continued at the link below)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324482504578453451317183488.html#printMode

North Korea Tones Down Language, Giving Hope for Dialogue

I cannot emphasize enough that if we have dialogue it will be the result of two conditions:  one is that the regime believes it has or will be able to achieve its objectives for the current crisis that it has initiated and perpetuated over these past months.  The second condition is the demonstration and of the strength and resolve of the ROK/US Alliance.  Although counterintuitive to some, the Alliance military actions likely had a very significant effect on the regime and its decision making calculus when it determined that the Alliance is not going to blink or bow to the political opposition who would follow a path of quasi-appeasement.  In actuality the military actions provided the foundation for Secretary Kerry and President Park to make their statements regarding dialogue and potentially move this crisis to a new level.

V/R
Dave

North Korea Tones Down Language, Giving Hope for Dialogue

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/world/asia/north-korea-tension.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&ref=world&pagewanted=all

By CHOE SANG-HUN and RICK GLADSTONE

Published: April 18, 2013

SEOUL, South Korea — By North Korean standards, the invective issued over the past week has bordered on civil. Instead of near daily threats of nuclear annihilation for the “nest of evil” in the United States and promises to “press the button,” the North in recent days has grumbled over a “crafty ploy” and “cunning trick” by America and its allies to strip the North of its nuclear arsenal.

The United States and South Korea, meanwhile, have made a change of their own: putting a new focus on offering talks after weeks of meeting North Korean provocations with harsh warnings that included deploying nuclear-capable stealth bombers on a practice run over South Korea.

Security analysts in South Korea and the United States expressed cautious optimism this week that the shift in tone, however understated, is a sign that after weeks of escalating threats that raised fears of armed conflict, both sides might be ready to calm tensions.

“I wouldn’t say the crisis has passed, but maybe we’re in a less dangerous phase,” said Evans J. R. Revere, a former State Department expert on Asia who is now senior director of the Albright Stonebridge Group, a consulting firm that specializes in Korea, China and Japan. “The possibility of a serious miscalculation is not as great as a few days ago.”

He attributed North Korea’s reduced bombast partly to what he called their position “at the top of the rhetorical escalatory ladder — where do you go after you threaten to nuke Los Angeles, Austin, Texas and Washington? The place to go after that is to carry out your threats, and they are not in the position to do that.”

Even those like Mr. Revere who express hope of at least a short-term quieting, emphasize that too little is known about North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, to predict what could happen next. He could launch a missile test as policy makers in South Korea and the United States have expected, and some South Korean officials privately fear the softening of the North’s tone could be a ploy meant to bolster those in the United States and South Korea who are pushing for a more lenient stance toward the North.

The offers of dialogue by the United States and South Korea, while showing some softening, also expose the gulf in expectations between them and North Korea.

The Obama administration continues to demand that Pyongyang commit to giving up itsnuclear weapons before negotiations on longer-term solutions to decades of animosity — a starting point the North has rejected repeatedly, including on Thursday.

The South Koreans, “along with their American master, are still talking such nonsense as ‘denuclearization’ in the North in a bid to make a bargain over its nukes,” a spokesman for the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said. “They would be well advised to drop such daydream.”

The North has also put forward its own terms for talks, including the lifting of United Nations sanctions for North Korea’s recent nuclear and missile tests, a precondition the United States is unlikely to accept.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/world/asia/north-korea-tension.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&ref=world&pagewanted=all

Kerry: 'U.S. will defend its allies'

I just watched Secretary Kerry's remarks from Seoul.  He emphasized the critical points – strength and resolve of the alliance, defense of our allies and ourselves, unification, and President Park's "trustpolitik" and US support to it.  I was happy to hear he mentioned unification.  (side note: I remain perplexed and disappointed that retired General Spider Marks would say on one of his CNN briefings that the ROK and US have no plans to unify Korea and that the UN Command exists to maintain the Armistice and maintain both a north and South Korea.  He later toned down his remarks and has not repeated that and CNN has not posted that specific podcast but I almost fell out of my chair when I heard him say that)

However, one of the most telling comments that puts the Secretary's personal priorities in perspective is that he noted that (I am paraphrasing) "..in 30, no 45 years, of traveling to Asia this is the first trip he has ever made to Seoul."
V/R
Dave

Kerry: 'U.S. will defend its allies'

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/04/12/kerry-south-korea-visit/2076597/

Staff and wire reports 6:34 a.m. EDT April 12, 2013

(Photo: Lee Jin-man, AP)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Kerry kicked off his Asian tour Friday
• Threats of missile tests from North Korea loom
• His trip coincides with disclosure of a new U.S. intelligence report

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in South Korea on Friday on an unusual diplomatic journey, traveling directly into a region bracing for a possible North Korean missile test and risking that his presence alone could spur Pyongyang into another headline-seeking provocation.

In a news conference in Seoul, Kerry said North Korea would not be accepted as a nuclear power and that the current rhetoric from the nation is "unacceptable."

"The U.S. will defend its allies if necessary," Kerry said. He said that the U.S. was prepared to engage in talks with North Korea but only if the nation was serious about denuclearization.

Kerry was kicking off four days of talks in East Asia amid speculation that the North's unpredictable regime would launch a mid-range missile designed to reach as far as the U.S. territory of Guam. Kerry also planned to visit China and Japan.

Kerry said that China has the ability to make an enormous difference to the situation by applying pressure to Pyongyang.

North Korea often times its provocations to generate maximum attention, and Kerry's presence in Seoul will provide plenty of that, even if the United States is engaged in intense diplomacy with China, the North's benefactor, in an effort to lower tensions. Another dangerous date on the calendar is April 15, the 101st birthday of North Korea's deceased founder, Kim Il Sung.

Kerry's trip coincides with the disclosure of a new U.S. intelligence report that concludes North Korea has advanced its nuclear knowhow to the point that it could arm a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead. The analysis, disclosed Thursday at a congressional hearing in Washington, said the Pentagon's intelligence wing has "moderate confidence" that North Korea has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles but that the weapon would be unreliable.

Pentagon spokesman George Little said afterward that "it would be inaccurate to suggest that the North Korean regime has fully tested, developed or demonstrated the kinds of nuclear capabilities referenced" at the congressional hearing.

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said he concurred with Little and noted that the report alluded to at the hearing was compiled by the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency and was not an assessment by the entire U.S. intelligence community. "Moreover, North Korea has not yet demonstrated the full range of capabilities necessary for a nuclear armed missile," he said.
(Continued at the link below)
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/04/12/kerry-south-korea-visit/2076597/

Ancient Chinese general’s strategies should guide U.S. in dealing with N. Korea

From an interview I did earlier this week.  Always good to think about Sun Tzu.

V/R

Dave

Ancient Chinese general’s strategies should guide U.S. in dealing with N. Korea

By Lou Kilzer 

http://triblive.com/usworld/nation/3809650-74/north-south-korean#axzz2PsqtGzIU

Published: Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 12:01 a.m.
Updated 4 hours ago 

Five centuries before Christ, Sun Tzu wrote “The Art of War,” which teaches enduring principles of combat:

Position troops so the enemy must face the sun. If an enemy leaves a door open, rush through. If outnumbered, retreat.

The book by the ancient Chinese general and military strategist is well-known among those in the military and in the business world. Its underlying theme was the axiom, “All warfare is based on deception.”

It is through this lens that Americans and others must view the situation with young North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. For if he has not yet had time to digest Sun Tzu, his generals certainly have, experts say.

A wise general who wanted to attack wouldn't announce it beforehand. He wouldn't pound war drums for weeks, giving an enemy time to reinforce already superior forces. He definitely wouldn't say he intended to incinerate several American cities and then move missiles into firing position in broad daylight.

Even launching a medium-range missile out to sea — which North Korea may do Wednesday — or at any time — is not really intended to ignite a war, experts told the Tribune-Review.

This is a bluff, said David Maxwell, associate director of the Center for Security Studies at George Washington University.

“The North Koreans read Sun Tzu,” said Maxwell, a retired Special Forces colonel who served five tours in South Korea. “I don't think they want to go to war at all. This is not how you go to war.”

Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii, agreed. The North Koreans, he said, “do not want to go to war.”

But Maxwell, Roy and other experts interviewed by the Tribune-Review over the recent course of rising North Korean stakes each separately used the exact same word — “miscalculation” — to describe deep concerns about what could happen.

“This situation is the most serious since the Korean War in the 1950s,” said Ellen Kim, a Korean scholar with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

DOUBLE THE DANGER

The danger, Kim and the other experts say, is two-fold. First, the North's rhetoric this time is so bizarre that to do nothing after such a build-up would involve a loss of face. Likewise, Kim Jong-un may launch a missile to sea to save face, Kim said.

Losing face is one of the most dreaded things for a Korean or others in East Asia. In the Koreas, the concept is known as Kibun. There is no literal English translation, but it means to disrupt the balanced harmony in a relationship by hurting someone's pride or causing them to lose dignity.

South Korea's new leader, Park Geun-hye, “has made it clear that she will respond,” Kim said. Maxwell, Roy and Kim agree that opinion has changed in South Korea since 2010, when the North killed 50 South Koreans by sinking the naval ship Cheonan and firing shells at the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong.

The second danger is that in the past, South Koreans responded to threats from the North with nonchalance that often surprised people in the West. Not anymore, said Kim, who was raised in the South. “They killed Koreans.”

“If the North launches a kinetic operation (against the South), the South Korean military is going to respond,” Maxwell agreed.

The key, he said, is that the reaction be strong, swift and “at the point of provocation.” If it is delayed or non-proportional, it could produce a dreaded miscalculation.

Chinese leaders have soaked up Sun Tzu since grade school. Nowhere in “The Art of War” does it say a great power (China) should let a minor one (North Korea) determine the timing or place of a conflict with a deadly enemy regardless of any agreement.

Unlike the past, China has remained mostly quiet as the United States and its friends beef up forces in the region. The carrier USS John C. Stennis is paying a visit to the newly welcoming port of Singapore. B-2 stealth bombers made practice bomb runs during a visit to South Korea as part of annual war games with its ally that the North has blamed for its rancor. The most advanced fighter jets in the world, F-22s, are landing in the South.

(Continued at the link below)

http://triblive.com/usworld/nation/3809650-74/north-south-korean#axzz2PsqtGzIU

Locklear: Tensions on Korean Peninsula Highest Since War's End

Excerpt:

Locklear recognized in his prepared remarks concerns about North Korea's nuclear and missile programs and its concentration of combat forces along the demilitarized zone. But particularly troubling, he said, has been North Korea's willingness to use tactics that could cause miscalculation and spin out of control into conflict. 

These provocations "represent a clear and direct threat to U.S. national security and regional peace and stability," he said.

The Admiral is right of course but I would also recommend that we not forget about the very real possibility of regime collapse and what that will mean for us.  If the recent reports about war games concerning securing WMD and conducting humanitarian assistance on the Korean Peninsula  are accurate we here in the U.S. do not seem to have given adequate thought about preparations for such contingencies (and I specifically say we here in the US because I am confident there are those in the ROK/US Combined Forces Command that are thinking about these problems).

But we should not be thinking only of nuclear weapons and missiles (as dangerous as they are).  We need to be looking at the entire scope of the problem – provocations, war, and collapse and the interrelationship of all three.  What is happening on the Peninsula right now could lead to any combination of these contingencies, including regime collapse and we need to keep that in mind.

V/R
Dave

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: American Forces Press Service <afps@subscriptions.dod.mil>

Date: Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 3:52 PM

Subject: Locklear: Tensions on Korean Peninsula Highest Since War's End

To: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

You are subscribed to American Forces News Articles for U.S. Department of Defense. This information has recently been updated, and is now available. Locklear: Tensions on Korean Peninsula Highest Since War's End 04/09/2013 02:12 PM CDT Locklear: Tensions on Korean Peninsula Highest Since War's End By Donna Miles American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, April 9, 2013 - With tensions on the Korean Peninsula reaching their highest level in the 60 years since the war there ended, the United States and South Korea are prepared to defend against a North Korean attack, should one come, the U.S. Pacific Command commander told Congress today. "I am satisfied that we are ready today," Navy Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Locklear expressed confidence in the capabilities of U.S. and South Korean forces and their ability to intercept a North Korean ballistic missile if one is launched in the coming days, as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has threatened. But expressing concern about any steps that could cause miscalculation and quickly escalate, Locklear said he would recommend such an action only after confirming where it was headed and to defend the homeland or a U.S. ally. "The best thing we as militaries can do is to preserve the peace, [and] to get it back to peace so diplomacy can work, and we would hope that could be done in North Korea," he said. "But it is a very dangerous situation. It is something we have to watch, and it could be quite volatile." North Korea dominated today's Senate hearing, originally scheduled to focus on Pacom's fiscal 2014 budget request. Army Gen. James D. Thurman, commander of United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command and U.S. Forces Korea, had been scheduled to testify alongside Locklear, but remained in South Korea to deal with the situation there. Locklear recognized in his prepared remarks concerns about North Korea's nuclear and missile programs and its concentration of combat forces along the demilitarized zone. But particularly troubling, he said, has been North Korea's willingness to use tactics that could cause miscalculation and spin out of control into conflict. These provocations "represent a clear and direct threat to U.S. national security and regional peace and stability," he said. Locklear said he felt confident that the allies have demonstrated to the North Korean leadership, as well as the American population, "our ability and our willingness to defend our nation, to defend our people, to defend our allies and to defend our forward deployed forces." The admiral told the Senate panel he is satisfied with actions being taken in response to the North Korean threat, including a B-2 bomber flight over South Korea and the planned deployment of missile defenses to Guam. The B-2 flight during the regularly scheduled Foal Eagle exercise "was a good opportunity for my forces in Pacom to coordinate with [U.S. Strategic Command], and for us to be able to demonstrate the capability," Locklear said. "And I believe that it was visibly demonstrated [and] was done at the right time to indicate the capabilities that the United States has to ensure the defense of our allies and our homeland." In addition, two Navy ships with missile defense capabilities have been positioned closer to the peninsula, and the Defense Department announced last week that Terminal High Altitude Air Defense System assets he would deploy to Guam as a precautionary measure. Locklear told the panel he agreed with the Defense Department decision to delay a routine reliability test of a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile in light of what he acknowledged as a "particularly tenuous time." Asked by a committee member, Locklear acknowledged he wished China would play a larger role in helping to curb North Korea's provocations. "I feel they could do more," he said. The North Korean situation is influencing resourcing decisions at a time that sequestration is having a direct impact on near-term operational readiness, Locklear told the panel. Budget constraints have forced Pacom to prioritize its assets to ensure "the most pressing problems are properly addressed with the right force levels and the right levels of readiness," he said. "And today, that most pressing situation is what is happening on the peninsula in Korea." He lamented about budget impacts that will come to light over the longer term as overall readiness levels begin to decline. In some cases, he said, large-scale exercises designed to ensure future force readiness are being cancelled for lack of flight hours, transportation or funds to cover the fuel costs. The rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region offers an opportunity to ensure the proper balance of capabilities there and to reemphasize the U.S. commitment to this vital part of the globe, Locklear said. He expressed concern, however, that sequestration and other budget shortfalls under the continuing appropriations resolution could undermine those efforts. "We have been accepting additional risk in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region for some time," Locklear told the panel. "Our rebalance strategy is in place, and we are making progress. Implementing and sustaining the strategic rebalance will require long-term, sustained commitment and resources."   Biographies: Navy Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III Related Sites: U.S. Pacific Command Special Report: U.S. Pacific Command

The Upside of Giving In to North Korea’s Blackmail

There is no upside of giving in.  I reject that assessment that it is the US military power that destabilizes the situation because that is an "unsettling" factor in the equation with north Korea.  The north may be "unsettled"  but any weakness of the ROK/US Alliance and perceived reduction of the commitment of the US to the Alliance will not result in reducing tensions but will instead affirm the north's strategy and will in fact increase north Korean belligerence because they will assess they are succeeding.  

V/R

Dave

The Upside of Giving In to North Korea’s Blackmail

By the Editors Apr 9, 2013 6:08 PM ET

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-09/the-upside-of-giving-in-to-north-korea-s-blackmail.html

With its provocation-a-day strategy, North Korea has almost exhausted the news media’s capacity for stories about the “ratcheting up” of tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Here’s some news from the North, though, that you may not have heard: In recent meetings, the ruling Korean Workers’ Party elected Pak Pong Ju, an economic reformer, to its Political Bureau, which steers political, policy and personnel decisions, and downgraded the role of the military by reducing its representation. Subsequently, Pak was made Cabinet premier. On April 5, even as North Korea warned foreign diplomats that it couldn’t guarantee their safety, the front page of Rodong Sinmun, the country’s newspaper of record, was dominated by headlines urging faster economic development. News outlets that rely on clandestine reports from inside North Korea suggest that preparing for war has given way to preparing for spring planting.

Of course, just because Kim Jong Un has no interest in starting a war doesn’t mean that he can’t stage some dangerous incident -- all designed to get the U.S. to talk to him. He wants that dialogue in order to seek relief from international sanctions, to acquire the aid that his country desperately needs and, not least, to secure his domestic political standing with a high-profile public-relations victory.

The first task of the U.S. is to respond to any actual military provocation in a firm but measured way. President Barack Obama has so far wisely resisted engaging in Kim’s war of words, and has appropriately reinforced U.S. military assets in the region.

Yet as some analysts have pointed out, the dominant military position of the U.S. is itself an unsettling factor on the Korean Peninsula. While the North’s artillery and rockets could inflict a horrific toll on the 10 million-plus South Koreans living in Seoul, the government in Pyongyang knows it would quickly lose any conventional conflict: The prospect of impending defeat could well encourage Kim to go nuclear. For that reason, the U.S. should persuade South Korea to refrain from further loose talk about retaliatory targeting of the North’s “command and control” facilities. Likewise, more publicly announced sorties over South Korea by U.S. B-2 bombers may be stirring, but they are not stabilizing.

Some proponents of a “get tough” approach with North Korea dream that isolating the regime will force its sudden collapse. They should be careful what they wish for. The inevitable humanitarian chaos of such an outcome would generate huge economic costs. Before reunification, West Germany was two to three times richer than the East. By contrast, South Koreans are somewhere between 15 and 40 times richer than their counterparts to the north. As one expert notes, estimates of the cost of reunification range from $200 billion to $5 trillion -- or almost five times South Korea’s gross domestic product.

Most South Koreans are in no hurry to pay that price. As for China and Russia, the prospect of a united, pro-U.S. Korea at their borders is far less appealing than some version of the status quo. Notwithstanding Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent veiled warnings to Pyongyang, officials in Beijing (and Moscow) will do only the minimum necessary to keep the peace.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-09/the-upside-of-giving-in-to-north-korea-s-blackmail.html

U.S. Draws Up a Counterpunch for Provocation by North Korea

A couple of my thoughts in the NY Times article highlighted below.
V/R
Dave

U.S. Draws Up a Counterpunch for Provocation by North Korea

By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER

Published: April 7, 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/world/asia/us-and-south-korea-devise-plan-to-counter-north.html?ref=global-home&pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON — As North Korea hints at new military provocations in the coming days, the United States and South Korea have drawn up plans to respond more forcefully than in the recent past, but in a limited way intended to prevent an escalation to broader war.

Amid the rising tensions, there were still efforts on many fronts on Sunday to limit the possibility of military conflict. In an indirect but clear criticism of China’s longtime ally, North Korea, Xi Jinping, China’s new president, said in a speech on Sunday that no country in Asia “should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain.”

A senior adviser to President Obama, Dan Pfeiffer, appearing on the ABC program “This Week,” played down the situation as “a pattern of behavior we’ve seen from the North Koreans many times.”

Still, the escalating tensions were underscored Sunday when the commander of American forces on the Korean Peninsula, Gen. James D. Thurman, abruptly canceled a trip to Washington for Congressional testimony and consultations. So did South Korea’s top commander.

American officials described the new “counterprovocation” plan as calling for an immediate but proportional “response in kind” — hitting the source of any North Korean attack with similar weapons. For example, if the North Koreans were to shell a South Korean island that had military installations, as has occurred in the past, the plan calls for the South to retaliate quickly with a barrage of artillery of similar intensity.

South Korea’s national security director said Sunday that the North this week might launch one of its new Musudan missiles, a modified version of a missile Russia used for decades aboard its submarines. If so, Pentagon officials said they would be ready to calculate its trajectory within seconds and try to shoot it down if it appeared headed toward impact in South Korea, Japan or Guam, an American territory. But they planned to do nothing if it were headed toward open water, even if it went over Japan, as one previous North Korean test did.

The officials doubted that the North’s new leader, Kim Jung-un, would risk aiming the missile at the United States or its allies.

Mr. Obama, officials say, has ruled out striking at the missiles while they are on their launchers — when they are easiest to destroy — unless there is evidence they are being fitted with nuclear warheads, which intelligence officials doubt North Korea yet possesses.

The key, then, is how to respond to anticipated North Korean hostilities while preventing the crisis from escalating.

“How we carry out a proportional retaliation without triggering a general conflict, or an assault on Seoul, is the hardest part of the problem,” said Gary Samore, who served until last month as Mr. Obama’s director for weapons of mass destruction and arms negotiations. “Everyone is aware there are not big margins for error here.”

Some of the public language from the South Korean government suggests that Seoul and Washington may not agree on how far any retaliation should go, although the agreement between the two countries guarantees consultation. “Overreaction by South Korea is a real risk — and we’re working on that problem,” a senior administration official said.

South Korea’s new president, Park Geun-hye, a daughter of a famed South Korean dictator from the cold war, has indicated that she might also go after the North’s command-and-control centers responsible for the provocation.

In the past, classified addendums to the war plan for the Korean Peninsula have not been publicized. So it is notable that agreement on a new plan was publicly disclosed — both to deter the North and to reassure the population of the South. The nature of the response is critical.

Ordering hostilities short of war in an effort to stage-manage the agenda with Seoul and Washington has been a major part of the playbook used by the past two generations of leaders in the North: rapid escalation of a crisis until the United States and South Korea buy temporary peace with aid or investments.

But some American intelligence officials believe that Mr. Kim may have more to gain from striking out at his enemies — within reason — to bolster his credentials with his military, still deeply suspicious of his youth and inexperience.

The absence of a clear understanding about when and how to use force on the peninsula reflects, in part, the rapid shifts over the past 20 years between hard-line South Korean governments and those advocating a “sunshine policy” of reaching out to the North.

Ms. Park was elected on a platform of restarting warmer relations with the government of Mr. Kim, but the rise in tensions has sent her to the other extreme. Under current agreements, the South Koreans remain in command on the peninsula under normal armistice circumstances, but General Thurman, as the commander of American and United Nations forces, would assume operational control if war broke out. The transfer of wartime control is set to transfer to South Korea after 2015.

Ms. Park would be under extraordinary pressure to take action if the North acted out again. When the Cheonan, a South Korean warship, was sunk in March 2010, her predecessor decided not to strike back — and it took months to complete a study that concluded the explosion aboard the ship had been caused by a torpedo shot from a minisubmarine based just over the border in North Korea. Months later, the North shelled a lightly inhabited island in the South — and was met by delayed and ineffective return fire.

“The new agreement defines action down to the tactical level and locks in alliance political consultations at the highest level,” an American official said. The official stressed that the South Korean military would take the lead in any response to hostilities from the North short of war.

“North Korea has gotten away with murder — literally — for decades, and the South Korean and American forces have rarely responded with decisive military action,” said David S. Maxwell, a retired Army colonel who served five tours in South Korea.

“It’s very important to break the cycle of provocation,” said Mr. Maxwell, now the associate director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. “These responses have to be proportional. They have to be delivered decisively, at the time and at the point of provocation.”

As part of prescheduled military exercises with South Korea, and to prove America’s commitment to regional security, the United States mounted an unusual, highly publicized show of force. It included the decision to use nuclear-capable B-2 bombers, which have a stealthy design to avoid detection, to conduct a mock bombing run in South Korea.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/world/asia/us-and-south-korea-devise-plan-to-counter-north.html?ref=global-home&pagewanted=all