SinoDefence Forum

Undead Yogurt · 02-17-2007

I think the most appropriate response is: *Yawn*

Been there, done that. Christopher Hill was asked on NPR what the difference is between this agreement and the 1994 accord. He said: This time, it's a 6 party talk, not a bilateral talk, so we have China to keep on the pressure.

Here's the bottom line: this agreement is the right thing to do at this time. Of course Bolton has a point: NK is most certainly not going to give up its nukes for anything. Everyone knows that, including Christopher Hill, China, whoever. The objective right now is to appease the regime just enough to not encourage KJL to do something destructive (yes, more destructive than a half-successful A-bomb test). 50K tons of fuel is not enough to "prop up" the regime for very long. The remaining 950K tons will never be delivered because NK will never completely, irreversibly dismantle its nuclear program. Everyone at this point is just waiting for Kim Jong-il to die. It's not much of a plan, but it's the best option we have now. Of course, after KJL's death, all bets are off, since we know almost nothing about the internal workings of the regime and how much influence China has with the top generals.

bd popeye · 02-17-2007

Quote:

CNN did an interview today with former UN ambassador John Bolton and (not surprisingly!) the guy was visibly pissed off by the news from Beijing. Although Bolton is rightly criticized for his rude behaviour and diplomatic blunders his remarks regarding the deal were quite correct: North Korea is indeed rewarded for her ´bad´ (well that lies in the eyes of the beholder!) behaviour and all the ´tough´talk in recent years from Bush jr. administration was apparently only exactly just that: cheap talk. Of course Iran is watching closely and and will soon draw the necessary conclusions and this iranian reaction will certainly not further US nonproliferation interests.

I agree Violet Oboe. Any sort of agreement with N. Korea is not worth the paper it is printed upon. Worthless. They have never lived up to any agreement reguarding this issue.

BLUEJACKET · 02-20-2007

This is about Iran policy, but has some good thought about NK!The Axis of Evil: And Then There Was One

NKorea can make nuclear warhead for missile: experts

"Intelligence Brief: North Korea Deal Welcomed by China"

The Dear Leader Plays Bluff Poker

Finn McCool · 02-22-2007

I was watching a TV show on the History Channel last night and they interviewed several people from some geological monitoring center in Colorado that is the headquarters for some network with a bunch of sensors all around the world. Sorry I can't be more specific but I don't remember. Apparently they were the first people to detect the blast. Anyway they said that it was only a half a kiloton and was similar in size to many detonations related to mining that take place in the surrounding area (in Colorado, not North Korea.) It seems to me that it is likely that this blast was not even nuclear at all.

Perhaps one of North Korea's underground arms stockplies exploded and they decided to claim it was a nuclear blast. I mean rather than admit to something that that paranoid regieme would find embarassing they could have turned it into a positive.

Or perhaps I have been spending too much time on Above Top Secret.

Pointblank · 02-22-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Finn McCool

I was watching a TV show on the History Channel last night and they interviewed several people from some geological monitoring center in Colorado that is the headquarters for some network with a bunch of sensors all around the world. Sorry I can't be more specific but I don't remember. Apparently they were the first people to detect the blast. Anyway they said that it was only a half a kiloton and was similar in size to many detonations related to mining that take place in the surrounding area (in Colorado, not North Korea.) It seems to me that it is likely that this blast was not even nuclear at all.

Perhaps one of North Korea's underground arms stockplies exploded and they decided to claim it was a nuclear blast. I mean rather than admit to something that that paranoid regieme would find embarassing they could have turned it into a positive.

Or perhaps I have been spending too much time on Above Top Secret.

I am thinking more of a partial failure. Nuclear bomb design is a very exact science; just one small calculation off, and the bomb will not perform as expected. When the French were working on their first nuclear bomb, they went to the Brits, who had already perfected nuclear weapons technology before they did, and had scientists working at the Manhattan Project, check over their designs. The Brits found one minor design flaw that would have if not detected, would have resulted in the bomb failing to work.

BLUEJACKET · 02-22-2007

But according to subsequent news reports, US intel. aircraft scooped traces of plutonium that were later detected in labs. If they were to fake it, once the fakery is exposed they would surely loose face big time and be regarded as a paper tiger by both friends and foes. They aren't that stupid!
The low yield of that detonation may have something to do with this:

Quote:

Even with underground nuclear testing, you normally need a fifty to sixty kilometer square of desert for a nuclear test. In the U.S., this would be something like the Nevada desert. Unless you have the kind they have in India or Pakistan, you cannot do it. The reason for this is that the underground water system gets damaged. North Korea has a very abundant flow of underground water, and if you carry out an underground nuclear test in this kind of place, radioactive materials would get into the water supply for the whole of the Korean peninsula, and also flow out into the Sea of Japan. As a consequence, if there were any underground nuclear testing in the Korean peninsula, it would not be just the ecological system, but also the topography of the land that would be damaged.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/wo.../nuke-test.htm

Quote:

Yet Another Famous Victory
http://www.antiwar.com/prather/?articleid=10572

by Gordon Prather

When President Bush the Junior first rode into town with his vigilante entourage, North Korea was still a signatory to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and had made all NPT proscribed materials, facilities and activities subject to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

More importantly, North Korea was adhering – as best the IAEA could determine – to the US-DPRK Agreed Framework negotiated by President Clinton in 1994.

Why was the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea so adhering?

Well, as you may recall, back in 1950, North Korea had invaded South Korea and President Truman got the (somewhat illegitimate) United Nations Security Council to authorize South Korea and "Member states" allied with South Korea to oust the invaders from the North.

("Somewhat illegitimate," because Truman had prevented the People’s Republic of China from assuming the "permanent member" seat, vacated by Chiang Kai-shek when he fled the Chinese mainland in 1949, and the Soviet Union was, as a consequence, boycotting the Security Council. Technically, then, according to the UN Charter, the absence of the Soviet Union for the vote to oust North Korea was the same as if it had cast a veto.)

The UNSC didn’t authorize Truman and his entourage of vigilantes to pursue the invaders – once ousted from the South – clear through North Korea to the border with the PRC, but Truman did it anyway.

So, "hordes" of Chinese "volunteers" poured across the Yalu River and drove Truman’s invading coalition back out of North Korea.

Finally, on July 27, 1953, with the North-South boundary restored, a military armistice was concluded between "the Commander-in-Chief, United Nations Command" and "the Korean People’s Army and the Commander of the Chinese People’s volunteers."

When Clinton negotiated the Agreed Framework with the North Koreans – in lieu of launching a pre-emptive attack against their IAEA safeguarded facilities, as Congressional warhawks were demanding – the armistice had been in effect for more than forty years!

Under the Agreed Framework – inter alia –

"II. The two sides will move toward full normalization of political and economic relations.

"1) Within three months of the date of this Document, both sides will reduce barriers to trade and investment, including restrictions on telecommunications services and financial transactions.

"2) Each side will open a liaison office in the other’s capital following resolution of consular and other technical issues through expert level discussions.

"3) As progress is made on issues of concern to each side, the U.S. and the DPRK will upgrade bilateral relations to the Ambassadorial level.

"III. Both sides will work together for peace and security on a nuclear [weapons] free Korean peninsula.

"1) The U.S. will provide formal assurances to the DPRK, against the threat or use of nuclear weapons by the U.S.

"2) The DPRK will consistently take steps to implement the North-South Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

"3) The DPRK will engage in North-South dialogue, as this Agreed Framework will help create an atmosphere that promotes such dialogue.

"IV. Both sides will work together to strengthen the international nuclear non proliferation regime.

"1) The DPRK will remain a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and will allow implementation of its safeguards agreement under the Treaty."

It is perhaps worth noting at this point that the PRC was not a party to either the Korean War Armistice Agreement or the Agreed Framework.

Congressional warhawks had kittens when they learned what Clinton had done.

And, upon becoming president, Bush the Junior almost immediately repudiated Clinton’s efforts to implement the Agreed Framework, telling South Korea’s president and North Korean emissaries he had no intentions of normalizing relations with North Korea.

In October, 2002, after having gotten Congress to give him a blank check to launch a pre-emptive war against Iraq, Bush the Junior unilaterally abrogated the Agreed Framework, charging that North Korea had a secret enriched-uranium nuke program.

No longer subject to the Agreed Framework, North Korea announced on the eve of Bush’s war of aggression against Iraq that it was withdrawing from the NPT, restarting its "frozen" plutonium-producing reactor and its plutonium-recovery facility and – according to CIA estimates – now has a dozen or so plutonium implosion-type nukes.

As you can imagine, what Bush the Junior has wrought on the Korean Peninsula bothers North Korea’s neighbors – especially Russia and China – more than somewhat.

Hence, the Six-Party [China, Russia, Japan, DPRK, South Korea and its occupier these past 50-years, the United States] talks were able to issue a Joint Statement on September 19, 2005, according to which

"The DPRK committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning, at an early date, to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and to IAEA safeguards."

And,

"The DPRK and the United States undertook to respect each other's sovereignty, exist peacefully together, and take steps to normalize their relations subject to their respective bilateral policies."

Of course, Junior and his UN stooge (Bonkers Bolton) immediately began to respect North Korea’s sovereignty and to take steps to normalize relations with the "Hermit Kingdom," right?

Wrong.

Among other actions, Junior’s Treasury Department proceeded to blacklist Macau’s Banco Delta Asia – accusing it of providing "a tolerant environment for illicit North Korean activities" – which resulted in a run on the bank and the bank ‘freezing’ all accounts linked to North Koreans.

So, the North Koreans (at least semi-successfully) tested a few long-range ballistic missiles.

Why not? The Agreed Framework and the Six-Party Statement were all about nukes, not ballistic missiles.

Then, four years after Bush the Junior unilaterally abrogated the Agreed Framework, North Korea conducted an at least semi-successful test of a plutonium implosion nuke device.

Result?

The Third Round of the Fifth Six-Party talks on implementing that Joint Statement have just concluded in Beijing, wherein China and Russia got Junior to agree that

"The DPRK and the U.S. will start bilateral talks aimed at resolving bilateral issues and moving toward full diplomatic relations."

"The U.S. will begin the process of removing the designation of the DPRK as a state sponsor of terrorism, and advance the process of terminating the application of the Trading with the Enemy Act with respect with the DPRK."

The US reportedly agreed to try to undo the damage done in Macau.

And Bonkers Bolton is reportedly writing a book.

Undead Yogurt · 02-28-2007

Recently, there have been reports (or rumors) that Kim Jong-Il has decided to NOT pass on his rule to one of his sons. Instead, leadership will pass to a military junta after his death. According to a Chinese source, Kim has already trialed the junta decision-making process.

Of course this "news" should be taken with a bucket of salt.

Frankly, I don't know if I feel safer or less safe with nukes in the hands of a group of generals rather than Kim or one of his sons.

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=301592007

Pointblank · 02-28-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Undead Yogurt

Recently, there have been reports (or rumors) that Kim Jong-Il has decided to NOT pass on his rule to one of his sons. Instead, leadership will pass to a military junta after his death. According to a Chinese source, Kim has already trialed the junta decision-making process.

Of course this "news" should be taken with a bucket of salt.

Frankly, I don't know if I feel safer or less safe with nukes in the hands of a group of generals rather than Kim or one of his sons.

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=301592007

I have reports as to where his oldest son is:

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/ht...702020015.html

Someone I know who is a Asia expert (he's a professor who specializes in East Asia politics, and has taught in Macao, Hong Kong, and in China). According to him, the place he is staying in Macao is located at the seaside with very luxurious houses and beautiful scenery, and is a very high end area.

One of the reports about Kim Jong-nam says that Kim Jong-nam is actually in exile after he appreciated the Chinese style reform, that his son is studying in an international school in Macao, and that North Korean elites do not want him to return to North Korea, which is a sign of instability and uncertainty in the succession politics of Pyongyang.

The last report also mentions the "ideological penetration" of South Korean movies and soap operas into North Korea - a sort of "soft power" moving into North Korea exposing North Koreans to South Korean ideals.

Scratch · 03-01-2007

I've also heard of rumuors that there' at least a conflict between the son; the oldest one being too "modest". While the younger is still very hard and "in the line."
But there are so many signs that they are close to collapse anyway. And in the end I don't think it will matter much if the controll goes to a son or a military junta.

BLUEJACKET · 03-01-2007

US now uncertain about North Korean uranium program

U.S. Had Doubts on North Korean Uranium Drive

They may be downplaying the uranium issue to make the recent agreement more acceptable. On the other hand, this issue can be resurrected later when it would be more expedient to do so.

Quote:

So now it’s North Korea’s turn to feed at the trough of U.S. economic aid, as if exploding a nuclear weapon is all that’s needed to prove a nation’s peaceful intentions...What was not smart was jettisoning the agreement Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, had worked out to prevent North Korea from developing and testing a bomb in the first place. By that standard, we will only have peace with Iran, or Cuba, after it possesses the ability to kill lots and lots and lots of us—a lesson not likely to be ignored by other “rogue nations.” After all, this is an administration that lifted the sanctions on Pakistan the U.S. imposed after that nation developed a nuclear arsenal. Why? Ostensibly because we needed Pakistan’s support in “the war on terror” after 9/11. But aid in that war has not been forthcoming, as Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have just conceded in rare condemnations of Pakistan. Taliban supporters are thriving in the Pakistan-Afghan border region that Pakistan’s dictator abandoned to local tribal chiefs sympathetic to the militants.
Similarly, Pakistan has never been held to account for allowing its “father of the Islamic bomb,” A.Q. Khan, to spread nuclear bomb technology and expertise to rogue regimes—including North Korea and Iran.

Going Back to North Korea, Hat in Hand

Seeking aid, N. Korea vows to stop nukes

Quote:

“The 20th-century concept of unacceptable damage, defining a second-strike deterrent capability and once being calculated in percentage points of losses in population and economic resources, has shrunk to a single nuclear explosion on the American soil,” he said. “And neither a sudden attack on the enemy’s nuclear weapon facilities nor an anti-ballistic missile shield can guarantee, at least up to 2050, that a single second-strike missile armed with a nuclear warhead does not reach the United States.”
Goltz pointed to North Korea, where even the unverified notion of this country having one or two nuclear charges effectively deters possible U.S. attack. • http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=1668095&C=europe

CIA blunder 'prompted Korean nuclear race'

DPRKUnderground · 03-05-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Undead Yogurt

Recently, there have been reports (or rumors) that Kim Jong-Il has decided to NOT pass on his rule to one of his sons. Instead, leadership will pass to a military junta after his death. According to a Chinese source, Kim has already trialed the junta decision-making process.

Of course this "news" should be taken with a bucket of salt.

Frankly, I don't know if I feel safer or less safe with nukes in the hands of a group of generals rather than Kim or one of his sons.

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=301592007

It makes plenty of sense. He doesn't really like his kids that much. After Kim Jong-Nam got in trouble with the Japanese government by trying to get in with a fake visa so he could go to Tokyo Disneyland, he hasn't really liked him much. And he thinks his other son isn't manly. At least that's what his personal chef says.

A military junta would be bad for North Korea. The KPA isn't on good terms with the people and look at what is happening in Myanmar. I think it would be better for a more pro-Chinese member of the KWP to ascend to the throne. He would open up North Korea and help the economy.

BLUEJACKET · 03-06-2007

As I predicted, we are not out of the woods yet!
N Korea enrichment 'beyond doubt'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asi...ic/6423939.stm

US looks beyond initial N.Korea deal
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...d/4608070.html

Scratch · 03-17-2007

Now it seems we already encounter the first problem of the "agreement reached in the six party talks over the NK nuclear issue.
One point was that the US stops invastigation against the NK national bank, Banco Delta Asia in Macao and frees the frozen dollars there. That done, the US still bars US banks from trading with that NK insitute because they believe the Banco Delta Asia helped in washing $100 notes, wich in turn makes other banks restrain form deals either.
The NK leaders seem reluctant to accept this. (hard currency issues)
They say as long as that sanction isn't fully lifted, the Yongbjon reactor will not be shut down.
source: german news site, haven't looked for an english one now.

BLUEJACKET · 03-18-2007

U.S.: $25M North Korea dispute resolved
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070318/...YM0sWl3ML9xg8F

I'll believe it whaen I see it- even if this issue resolved, there may be other new/old issues ahead!

Ryz05 · 03-18-2007

The only reason why the US wants to end the Korean nuke issue so quickly is because of China's rising power. It's also behind America's reason to push Japan with an official appology in regard to WWII, not the inconsistant comments they have over war atrocities. Plus, the US is tied down with Iraq and Afghanistan, and the War on Terror that would last for generations.

North Korea is a prison. It's ruled by a horrible regime that will end in the future, one way or another. There're no opportunities in North Korea, with millions of disillusioned people. The leadership only cares about itself, seeing the people as mere pawns used for its own survival.

By the way, your title is wrong and misleading. The North Koreans did NOT explode an H bomb.

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