Why sticks don't work with North Korea

For diplomacy to work, the north has to participate.  Mr. Armstrong's  conclusion is completely logical from the point of view of the ROK, China, Japan, Russia and the US.  Unfortunately the Kim Family Regime does not have a similar view and since it has never conducted diplomacy in accordance with any acceptable international standard for the last 60 years I am not optimistic it will at any time in the future.  Certainly the actions of Kim Jong-un and the regime over the past year have reinforced that.  Actions speak louder than words (although north Korean propaganda is pretty loud too). But it is better to jaw jaw than war war.

So, where do we go from here?  The United States and the United Nations have little choice but to impose sanctions in response to North Korea’s actions, which clearly violate earlier sanction conditions. But it is hard to see how such sanctions can deter a determined and defiant North Korea, especially if the sanctions are not rigorously enforced. The best we can hope for is that the latest confrontation will finally bring all sides together – including both Koreas, the United States, China, Russia, and Japan – to solve this issue. 

Diplomacy, not threats or sanctions – and certainly not military action – is the only viable path to resolution.

V/R
Dave 

January 25th, 2013

11:59 AM ET

Why sticks don't work with North Korea

By Charles Armstrong, Special to CNN

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/25/why-sticks-dont-work-with-north-korea/

Editor’s note: Charles Armstrong is the director of the Center for Korean Research at Columbia University. The views expressed are his own.

Anyone who has followed North Korean affairs for the last several years (or the last two decades) could have predicted North Korea’s defiant response to the U.N. Security Council resolution this week condemning North Korea’s rocket launch last December and strengthening international sanctions against Pyongyang. But it should also be clear by now that while carrots only occasionally deter North Korea’s provocative behavior, sticks – whether in the form of sanctions or threats of military action – only make North Korea defiant and more bellicose.

In 1994, the first time the United States proposed taking the North Korean nuclear question to the United Nations, North Korea announced that any impositions of U.N. sanctions would be considered “an act of war.” In 2006, and again in 2009, North Korea responded to U.N. sanctions not by giving up missiles and nukes, but ratcheting up the rhetoric. In the past, promises of security and economic aid have persuaded Pyongyang to freeze or reduce its missile and nuclear programs: North Korea halted its plutonium program for eight years following an agreement with the United States in 1994, adhered to a voluntary moratorium on missile tests from 1998 to 2006, and shut down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor in 2007 as part of a multilateral agreement. The record may not be terribly encouraging, but carrots do occasionally work.

Much has been made of the fact that North Korea this week directed its threats specifically against the United States (before issuing a warning to South Koreaearlier today), calling America its “sworn enemy” and claiming that its would “target” the United States with its weapons. But this too is nothing new. North Korea has for years denounced America’s “hostile policy” toward Pyongyang and has long insisted that its nuclear program is designed to defend the country against an American attack. North Korea’s ability to strike American territory with missiles is questionable, and North Korea almost certainly lacks the technological capability to mount a nuclear weapon on a missile. Neither side is willing to back down, but threats and sanctions are unlikely to resolve the key issues dividing them.

(Continued at the link below)

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/25/why-sticks-dont-work-with-north-korea/

Clinging to North Korea: A Chinese Traditionalist View

An interesting Chinese view on the relationship.  The author hits a lot of topics.  Note the comments on Air Power as well as aircraft carriers; US forces "occupying" both Afghanistan and north Korea and the threat that poses to China, the comparison with WWII, and the US superpower status and foreign aid.  The author makes the case for the importance of north Korea to China but does not state the Chinese "Three No's" policy:  No War, No Collapse, and No Nukes. The emphasis of this article has to be on the "Traditionalist View."  I look forward to the comments of "China Hands" on this perspective. Conclusion:

The U.S. ability to become the world’s only superpower and U.S. foreign aid are inseparable.  The U.S. (use of) foreign aid, prevented war from destroying the U.S. and also strengthened the control of every country in the world. U.S. assistance to the world not only did not cause the U.S. to lose money, but even earned not a little [美国不仅没有赔，而且赚了不少]. 

The current situation on the Korean Peninsula and pre-World War II situation have many similarities. The relationship between North Korea to the safety of the Chinese nation can in no way be questioned.  Protecting North Korea’s security is protecting China’s security.  Those “elite experts” calling to abandon North Korea should understand North Korea’s significance to China; the purpose of their call is all too clear. Didn’t China learn during World War II that the British and French policy of “appeasement” led to a diametrically opposed struggle? China once again stands at a crossroads that will determine its fate.

V/R

Dave

Clinging to North Korea: A Chinese Traditionalist View

North Korea and China in better, pre-Nixonian, times. | Image courtesy Stephan Landsberger

Positive signs of the old “blood alliance” between China and North Korea have been few and far between in the past ten weeks. Rodong Sinmun wrote a barely veiled allegory of how China was giving in to imperialist betrayal, and the PRC got even nastier with its mockery of Kim Jong Un. But scratch the enamel of recent Chinese anger hard enough and you might just find some lingering memories of the Korean War, not to mention admissions that China might need strange friends in strange times. The following apologia for the PRC-DPRK alliance, published as a featured blog editorial on the Huanqiu Shibao website, is a rather unusual direct attack on the growing scholarly consensus in China that the old reasons for the alliance with North Korea have become outmoded.  Thanks to Roger Cavazos, the essay is able to speak for itself. — Adam Cathcart, Chief Editor

Tang Ge [唐歌], “Why China Clings to North Korea: Finally Clarifying North Korea’s Importance [为什么中国要死守朝鲜：终于明白朝鲜重要性],” Huanqiu Shibao (featured blog post), January 12, 2013. Translated by Roger Cavazos

If one were to carefully research a map of China, one discovers that if the United States wanted to forcibly enter China, the most logical place through which do so is North Korea, followed by Vietnam. Therefore, North Korea’s safety ［安危］ is related to the safety of China.

In spite of this some Chinese “experts” and “elites” say that the concept of North Korea as a strategic buffer is outdated. They shout that North Korea has no meaning for China’s security, that China should abandon North Korea, and that China can no longer be abducted by North Korea [中国不能再被朝鲜绑架了]. I have a few responses:

Viewing things from a purely military aspect, no matter if in the past or now, North Korea’s significance to China’s security cannot be doubted.

Considering the Role of Air Power | These so-called experts and elites say that because of technological advances — such as long-range weapons and the development of naval and air power — foreign countries wishing to attack China will no longer need a land springboard to do so, and that therefore North Korea has no strategic meaning to China. Is that really the case?

Long-range weapons originally were not  the main weapon and despite a great deal of development, even in the future war, long range weapons will still not play the decisive roles played by short range weapons and ground troops.

Production costs for long range weapons are high so they can’t be produced in large batches because of the cost.  Second, the enemies being fired at have sufficient time to prepare and a high probability of intercepting the long range weapons because of their long flight time.  Even if the weapons are not intercepted the ones fired upon still have time to react.  The reality of modern war is that short range weapons play the main role even among the most advanced U.S. weaponry, whether in the former Yugoslavia, or the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

China is preparing a third-generation surveillance craft to cope with new US technology | Via Huanqiu

In order to defeat a country, even though the Air Force is unquestionably significant to modern war, through its roles in surveillance, bombing and precision strike, air forces have never been a substitute for ground forces. Only when the Air Force and ground troops are paired together can they defeat a country.  The Air Force alone must have ground troops to really achieve the goal of controlling a country.

(Continued at the link below)

http://sinonk.com/2013/01/24/clinging-to-north-korea-a-chinese-traditionalist-view/

2012 Global Go To Think Tank Report Released

Some very interesting data in the attached report (for those that follow think tanks).  Interestingly table 7 on page 55 lists the Top Asia think tanks (excluding China, India, Japan, and the Republic of Korea – which are in table 8).  The number one think tank in Asia is the Lowy Institute in Australia.  But I thought Australia was not in Asia (unless there has been a change in geography that I missed).  

V/R

Dave

2012 Global Go To Think Tank Report Released

Posted by ttaylor - January 21, 2013 - Front Page

http://www.gotothinktank.com/2012-global-goto-tank-index-report/

The Global GoTo Think Tank Index is the result of an international survey of over 1,950 scholars, public and private donors, policy makers, and journalists who helped rank more than 6,500 think tanks using a set of 18 criteria developed by the TTCSP. The purpose of the rankings is to help improve the profile and performance of think tanks while highlighting the important work they do for governments and civil societies around the world.

As we move forward, TTCSP will continue to engage think tanks, policy makers and other stakeholders in a peer-to-peer dialogue and knowledge exchange on major policy issues while discussing issues of capacity-building and the organizational and environmental challenges facing think tanks. Our broader objective is to build partnerships across regions and sectors in order to encourage international cooperation. It is our hope that together we can develop a number of global public goods that will lead to collective action on some of the key transnational issues we face today.

We have already organized two very successful Think Tank Summits in the US and Europe to meet this objective. A third Summit will take place in Latin America in March 2013. We are actively planning Summits in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. There will also be an annual Global Think Tank Summit If you would like to participate and help build the agenda and program for these Summits, please send me your thoughts and suggestions.

We look forward to working with you as we develop and sustain a global network of the leading think tanks in the world.

The entire report can be downloaded at this link: 

http://www.gotothinktank.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/2012_Global_Go_To_Think_Tank_Report_-_FINAL1.pdf

S. Korea may have an opportunity to unify with North: official

This is a nice sentiment and I hope he will be right.  Somehow I do not think the ROK government (or any government for that matter) can be sufficiently proactive to save money in anticipation of the huge bill that will come due when unification occurs.  But I am gratified to hear officials talking about it and he is absolute right that the ROKG (and its allies and even the UN)  must prepare for it – real  preparations such as influencing the population and the 2d tier leadership.  I cannot emphasize how important it is for the ROKG and the Alliance to conduct an aggressive influence campaign.  The inefficient and shoe string effort of defector organizations should serve as a useful test  - their work is having an effect on the north Korean people but it is not enough.  There needs to be an Alliance influence campaign that is sustained until unification occurs..  Planning is not enough –active preparation should be undertaken.  If anyone puts any credence in US joint doctrine there is no other situation in the world that calls for a "shaping operation" than north Korea. 

V/R
Dave

S. Korea may have an opportunity to unify with North: official

2013-01-23 17:58

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   South Korea may have an opportunity to unify with the North in the not too distant future, so the country and its people must prepare for such possibilities, a senior government official said Wednesday.

   Vice Unification Minister Kim Chun-sig said in a meeting with Buddhist leaders in Busan, 453 kilometers southeast of Seoul, that the country has witnessed rapid changes in the past 20 years and forecast that this trend will continue in the future.

   The official said, in particular, countries whose leaders are not elected by popular vote are facing tough challenges, adding the spirit of democracy and change has reached Asia and is spreading in the region.

   North Korean leader Kim Jong-un took over control of the communist country in late 2011 after the sudden death of his father Kim Jong-il. The late leader also inherited power when North Korea's founder Kim Il-sung died in 1994.

   The vice unification minister stressed that dictatorships are crumbling and South Korea must seek out chances to unite with the North in such rapidly changing times.

(Continued at the link below)

http://m.yna.co.kr/mob2/en/contents_en.jsp?cid=AEN20130123010200315&domain=3&ctype=A&site=0100000000&mobile

The Galula Doctrine: An Interview with Galula's Biographer A.A. Cohen

Excerpts:

What Galula offers, first and foremost, is a doctrine – not a strategy. His doctrine is underpinned by an important theory about people and what motivates them to take up arms, or to side with those who do. 

... 

To illustrate these points, I consider in my book that there are two very critical assumptions at the heart of the Galula Doctrine – or at the heart of any other doctrine for that matter that seeks to pacify a population through anything else but unbridled force and terror. The first assumption is that the population you are trying to pacify is not hostile to you from the get-go. If you are a detested dictator or a detested foreigner in the eyes of the majority, protecting the population will do you little good, because even if the population feels “safe”, it will not willingly choose to side with you. The second assumption is that the cause that you uphold, representative governance for example, and the improvements that you make to the population’s everyday life, must be greater and more appealing than what the insurgency will [counter-] offer. Failing this, again, the population will not choose to side with you, as it will perceive the other side as being better suited to address its higher order needs and beliefs beyond security.

V/R

Dave

The Galula Doctrine: An Interview with Galula's Biographer A.A. Cohen

by Octavian Manea and A.A. Cohen

Journal Article | January 22, 2013 - 3:30am

Editor's Note: A.A. Cohen is a senior infantry officer in the Canadian Army and the author of Galula: The Life and Writings of the French Officer who Defined the Art of Counterinsurgency which was published in summer 2012 by Praeger.

Motto:  

Reason strengthens Strength;

Reason, because of Strength, can spread.

Strength without Reason, shall wither;

Reason, without Strength, shall fail to spread;

(Words addressed by Marshal Yen His-shan to “Chalula” at the height of the Chinese Civil War.  29th of March 1947)

OM: Which were the role of Mao and the exposure to Chinese civil war in Galula’s story? It seems to be his decisive formative lab experience like Russia was for George Kennan.

AAC: Unquestionably, of all the influences exerted on Galula’s treatise, Mao and the Chinese Civil were the greatest. Galula had a strong intellectual admiration for Maoist revolutionaries, despite being very opposed to what they stood for. Before the Chinese Civil War, Galula had no interest in insurgency or counterinsurgency. He had not fought as a Partisan during WW2; he had no experience or interest in these fields until he was exposed to China as of late 1945, in the thick of its civil war. There, his analytical penchant led him to see himself as the decipherer of Mao, intent on getting to the bottom of what the revolutionaries were fundamentally about. Galula cut through the egalitarian propaganda and all that surrounding the People’s revolution. Above all, he wanted to understand why these guys were gaining momentum as they were despite the unfavorable odds. When he figured it out, he reverse-engineered their methods to arrive at a counter-process to revolution and insurgency. His embrace of Chinese dialectics, and with these, the notion of unity of opposites or yin and yang, was helpful in achieving this.

Is counterinsurgency to Galula more of a strategy or  more of a technique and a methodology?

What Galula offers, first and foremost, is a doctrine – not a strategy. His doctrine is underpinned by an important theory about people and what motivates them to take up arms, or to side with those who do. The theory goes that in times of danger (war), the majority of people will be motivated primarily by a fundamental need for security. Galula is adamant about this. But he also recognizes that there will be a minority of people – the instigators at the core of a movement – that will be ideologically, or even fanatically motivated. These are the true believers. He makes no qualms about prescribing that this is the group that the counterinsurgent or counterterrorist will need to find and neutralize, while protecting the rest of the population that aspires to a normal, if not better life. If you buy into this theory, Galula’s doctrine offers a multi-step framework for operations; in other words, a method to counterinsurgency. His famous eight steps are there to provide some logical linearity to what is otherwise a very nonlinear form of warfare. Within that framework, you have the flexibility to formulate your strategy and to conduct your operations to achieve your objectives.

So does this mean that in the wars amongst people or in the people’s wars, understanding the motivation of the people that support the insurgency is the first key step of the entire COIN process? And that based on reading that motivations the counterinsurgent should develop the strategy and the incentives package to attract the targeted-audience on his side?

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1249389/1/.html

U.S. circulates draft North Korea rebuke at UN

I do have to question the logic here:

The U.S.-Chinese deal, they said, was that Washington would forgo the idea of immediate new sanctions, while Beijing would accept the idea of a resolution instead of a statement. This makes the rebuke more forceful.

Some six weeks after north Korea violated UN Resolutions we might see the Security Council finally vote on a resolution that will contain no new sanctions and no substantive punishment for violating UN Resolutions yet because China would accept the idea of the Resolution it is somehow more forceful. Do we think that north Korea is really afraid of China and that it fears Chinese support of a "forceful rebuke?"   I think Kim Jong-un and his advisors will only be more emboldened to undertake future provocations (after they get done laughing about how they got away with something again).  Some of the winners in this will certainly be Kim Jong-un's advisors who can say "I told you so" - they knew that there would be no substantive response and no real punishment other than words.

V/R

Dave

U.S. circulates draft North Korea rebuke at UN

By Louis Charbonneau | Reuters – 49 mins ago

http://news.yahoo.com/u-circulates-draft-north-korea-rebuke-un-000042407.html

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States has circulated a draft resolution to the U.N. Security Council that would condemn North Korea for its December rocket launch and calls for tightening existing U.N. sanctions, diplomats said on Monday.

The draft was the result of a deal between the United States and China, the envoys said on condition of anonymity. Even though the draft does not call for any new sanctions against Pyongyang, diplomats said China's support for the resolution represented a significant diplomatic blow to Pyongyang.

"We hope to have a vote midweek," one diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

China said earlier on Monday that the Security Council needed to pass a cautious resolution on North Korea, adding that this was the best way to ensure regional tensions did not escalate further.

Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin voiced Moscow's backing for the draft text last week.

(Continued at the link below)

http://news.yahoo.com/u-circulates-draft-north-korea-rebuke-un-000042407.html

THE FORCE: How much military is enough?

Two points.  Our nation asks its military to do more than the other militaries combined.  Second, at least some of the defense spending is directed by Congress and not requested by the Defense Department.  But it all comes down to National Security Strategy – what does our nation want its military to do and what does our nation want our military to be ready to do in the future, what are the priorities (current and long term) and what risks is our nation willing to accept?  Answer those questions and then we can have a discussion about the appropriate size of the military and military spending (which of course have to be also based on a realistic understanding of and balance with the realities of our fiscal constraints).  There is hard work ahead for our national security decision making apparatus because there are no easy answers.

V/R
Dave

A CRITIC AT LARGE

THE FORCE

How much military is enough?

BY JILL LEPORE

JANUARY 28, 2013

The U.S. once regarded a standing army as a form of tyranny. Now it spends more on defense than all other nations combined. Photograph by Grant Cornett.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2013/01/28/130128crat_atlarge_lepore?currentPage=all

Sixty-two legislators sit on the House Armed Services Committee, the largest committee in Congress. Since January, 2011, when Republicans took control of the House, the committee has been chaired by Howard P. McKeon, who goes by Buck. He has never served in the military, but this month he begins his third decade representing California’s Twenty-fifth Congressional District, the home of a naval weapons station, an Army fort, an Air Force base, and, for the Marines, a place to train for mountain warfare. McKeon believes that it’s his job to protect the Pentagon from budget cuts. On New Year’s Day, after a thirteenth-hour deal was sealed with spit in the Senate, McKeon issued a press statement lamenting that the compromise had failed to “shield a wartime military from further reductions.”

The debate about taxes is over, which is one of the few good things that can be said for it. The debate about spending, which has already proved narrow and grubby, is pending.

The United States spends more on defense than all the other nations of the world combined. Between 1998 and 2011, military spending doubled, reaching more than seven hundred billion dollars a year—more, in adjusted dollars, than at any time since the Allies were fighting the Axis. The 2011 Budget Control Act, which raised the debt ceiling and created both the fiscal cliff and a Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, which was supposed to find a way to steer clear of it, required four hundred and eighty-seven billion dollars in cuts to military spending, spread over the next ten years. The cliff-fall mandates an additional defense-budget reduction of fifty-five billion dollars annually. None of these cuts have gone into effect. McKeon has been maneuvering to hold the line.

In the fall of 2011, McKeon convened a series of hearings on “The Future of National Defense and the United States Military Ten Years After 9/11.” The first hearing was held on September 8th, the same day as, and down the hall from, the first meeting of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, which is known as the Supercommittee. It was no one’s finest hour. By the time McKeon gavelled his meeting to order, just after ten in the morning, only seventeen members of the House Armed Services Committee (five Democrats and twelve Republicans) had shown up to hear the three former heads of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who had been called to testify. Congressional attendance lies, ordinarily, somewhere between spotty and lousy. In committees, roll is generally called only if there’s a vote, and, despite pressure for reform, attendance isn’t even recorded except on “gavel sheets,” compiled by staffers, which are said to be unreliable. In short, it’s easy for lawmakers to skip meetings in which there’s little to be decided. In any case, the point of the Armed Services Committee hearings wasn’t really to debate the future of the American military; it was to give the Department of Defense the chance to argue against the automatic, across-the-board cuts that were scheduled to go into effect this month if the Supercommittee failed to reach a compromise.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2013/01/28/130128crat_atlarge_lepore?currentPage=all