(Reuters / Korea Summit Press Pool) Interview with Christine Ahn by Aaron Maté | June 19, 2018 From the RealNews.com. In decrying the Singapore summit and Trump’s freeze on U.S. military exercises, liberal pundits are ignoring popular opinion and years of peace activism in South Korea, says Christine Ahn of Women Cross DMZ. AARON MATE: It’s The Real News. I’m Aaron Mate. The peace efforts underway on the Korean Peninsula are widely popular on the Korean Peninsula. In South Korea, polls show overwhelming support for this week’s summit between President Trump and Kim Jong un. That sentiment was reinforced when just after the summit the party of South Korean leader Moon Jae-in scored a massive victory in local elections. But the reaction has been notably different among a particular group: U.S. liberal pundits. To some of them, even the sight of seeing American and North Korean flags side by side was alarming. Here, for example, is Wendy Sherman, a State Department official who served under President Obama. WENDY SHERMAN: I must say, I was a little taken aback by the North Korean flags and the American flag side by side. We really aren’t side by side. We aren’t equals to each other. And this conferred power to Kim Jong-un that I don’t believe he has yet earned in terms of the respect from the United States. AARON MATE: This liberal unease continued when President Trump announced a temporary freeze on U.S. war games in the Korean Peninsula. To MSNBC host Rachel Maddow this was an alarming development, and one that was likely the fault of Russia. RACHEL MADDOW: Russia has just this tiny little border, 11 mile long border, with North Korea, with one crossing on a train. And they’ve got a troubled and varied history over the decades with that country. But Russia is also increasingly straining at its borders right now, and shoving back U.S. and Western influence. Especially U.S. and Western military presence anywhere near what it considers to be its own geopolitical interests. And one of the things that they have started to loudly insist on is that the U.S. drop those joint military exercises with South Korea. The U.S. has kept those going as a pillar of U.S. national security strategy for 70 years, now. Until last night, when Trump casually announced that that’s over now. He’s doing away with those. Blindsided everybody involved. And gave North Korea something they desperately want and would do almost anything for. Except he gave it to them for free. How come? AARON MATE: Well, joining me for a perspective is Christine Ahn. She is the founder of Women Cross DMZ, a global movement of women mobilizing to end the Korean War. Welcome, Christine. If we could start with addressing what we, what we’ve just heard, both from Wendy Sherman decrying the sight of seeing the flags, the U.S., North Korean flags side by side. Then also there from Rachel Maddow when she says that U.S. war games in, in Korea have been a pillar of U.S. national security for, for decades now, and she sees the halt to those war games by President Trump as something to be alarmed about. CHRISTINE AHN: Well, I was actually in Washington, D.C. the day after the summit, and I walked around on Capitol Hill meeting with several Democrat offices, and it was hugely deflating, as somebody who has been working for this moment, for the U.S., a standing U.S. president to meet with the North Korean leader and to begin a process of establishing the historic enmity into one of potential friendship. And it’s just astounding to me that there is this intense U.S. exceptionalism that we don’t meet with dictators and we don’t believe in meeting with enemies as an important step towards building peace. It’s just incredible to me. And the whole thing from the quote-unquote disarmament community that what was signed between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump, especially Donald Trump’s noting about the halting of the provocative wargames was a concession, when in fact we know from South Korean president Moon that he actually had his senior envoy Moon Chung-in float the idea last year in the summer ahead of his trip to Washington, D.C. We know Moon Chung-in is often known as the envoy that is one to kind of introduce new ideas, and he was totally attacked for that. But clearly the response from the South Korean president that they would be amenable, especially if this is going to help advance inter-Korean dialogue and peace process-. And today Harry Harris, the former head of the U.S. Pacific Command and the likely new U.S. ambassador to South Korea, has said that it’s fine to do this, that we are in a new era of relations with North Korea, and that it makes perfect sense to actually halt these war drills. And clearly they have been done in the past. In 1994, Clinton also got a, halted those military exercises. And so I feel like what is completely missing is that there’s something about the Trump administration and President Trump himself, because he is in some ways so anti-establishment, he is, that he is kind of seeing the Korean situation through new eyes. And when he talks about the Korean War he talks about it as if he’s just learning about these things. Because that’s the truth, is most Americans have no idea about what happened on the Korean Peninsula. What the U.S. did in the 1950-’53 Korean War. How the U.S. even divided the Korean Peninsula, and has maintained a pretty aggressive military, economic, and political stance against North Korea. So it’s, it’s quite surprising to me that the so-called party of peace and diplomacy, you know, are the quick ones to basically decry the significant meeting that took place this week between North Korea and the U.S. AARON MATE: I’m not as confident about what Donald Trump represents and what he sees. But I do think that it’s remarkable to see liberals decry what is obviously a huge step forward, the first time a sitting U.S. president meets with a North Korean leader. There was a headline in Mother Jones, for example, the liberal magazine, reading “Donald Trump Abandons South Korea.” Seems to be quite different from the picture that you’re painting here. What has been the reaction inside South Korea? And does the victory of Moon Jae-in’s party just after the summit in local elections, does that signify an endorsement of this peace process? CHRISTINE AHN: Oh, absolutely. I mean, he just killed it. His party just killed it. And it’s, I mean, every analysis is because of the vast support for engagement for this diplomacy with North Korea. And you know, when we were in South Korea just two weeks ago with the South Korean women’s peace movements, you know, they asked us, could you please let the American people know that we want this peace process with North Korea to succeed, unlike it being derailed during the last sunshine era when George W. Bush put North Korea on the axis of evil. And they said, we accept Kim Jong-un as they are, and we believe that engagement with North Korea is going to improve the day-to-day conditions for North Korean people. And so I feel that we have to listen. I feel like the way that it is framed in the U.S. is, you know, on the one hand, Donald Trump is just trashing our historic allies Canada and France, and meanwhile, you know, cozying up to such an autocratic leader, authoritarian leader like Kim Jong-un. And the truth is that South Korea has been one of our historic allies. And if this is what the leader and the vast majority-. I mean, this is like 90 percent of South Koreans support the Moon and Kim summit. They support the Panmunjeom Declaration that was signed between North and South Korea. This is pretty astounding support that the South Korean president and the people have demonstrated for this process, the two trains that are moving forward between the U.S. and North Korea, and between Seoul and Pyongyang. And so I think we need to hear from the peace movement that very much wants this to succeed. AARON MATE: You know, when you talk about South Korea and the U.S. being allies, I think it’s worth remembering that they were also allies when South Korea was ruled by an authoritarian government, and that the the peace movement in South Korea has had to struggle very hard in recent decades. Can you talk about the evolution of the peace movement? So what this moment means for them, and how the conditions for them today contrast to how it’s been before, including not even too long ago. CHRISTINE AHN: Well, I mean, the peace movement has these moments of ebb and flow. Because we know that really the first democratic election in South Korea was in 1987, when they elected Kim Dae-jung, otherwise it had been kind of backed by U.S. backed iterators in South Korea, from Syngman Rhee, the first president that was installed by the U.S., and then Park Chung-hee, the father of Park Geun-hye. So it’s, the peace movement is able to kind of progress and evolve and develop under more liberal regimes. And you know, really, that’s in the past has only been ten years under Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun. And so many decades of-. There’s been repression, not just in terms of, you know, sentiments about wanting reunification, or some people that might have more sympathetic views on North Korea. I mean, South Korea is under a national security law that has been in place since the end of the Korean War. And so when there are moments of detente between North and South Korea, there is greater freedom of speech, greater freedom of expression, of political participation. And you know, that was, for me, one of the most significant takeaways from being at the DMZ this year when we were marching with 1200 South Korean women in the DMZ this summer, compared to 2015 when a lot of these women had to be underground. They, they put their focus on social justice and peace work towards other, other efforts, because of the repression under Lee Myung-bak and under Park Geun-hye. So this is a moment, I think that Moon Jae-in is just starting his, his term. I mean, this is just one year in a five-year term, and he has clearly won the mandate in this local election. And you know, the peace movement is just getting started. I mean, I really felt this moment of optimism as the plans that were shelved under the last 10 years of kind of conservative, neoconservative hardline rule-. I mean, they are dusting off those shelves and those plans are being revived. And so this breakthrough between the U.S. and North Korea is only going to help advance that inner Korean peace process instead of getting in the way of it. AARON MATE: Christine Ahn, founder of Women Cross DMZ, thank you. CHRISTINE AHN: Thank you, Aaron. AARON MATE: And thank you for joining us on The Real News. #Trump #KoreaPeace #KimJongUn #DPRK #ChristineAhn #MoonJaein

Summary execution of South Korean political prisoners by the South Korean military and police at Daejeon, South Korea 1950 By Charles Hanley | February 23, 2018 Charles Hanley delivered this talk as part of a roundtable, “The Korean War Today,” with Kim Dong-choon, Christine Hong, and Monica Kim (moderator) at NYU’s D’Agostino Hall on February 23, 2018. This was the inaugural event of NYU’s Marilyn B. Young Memorial Lecture program. I was approaching my third birthday in Brooklyn, New York, that Sunday long ago when those seven North Korean divisions struck south across the 38th parallel. Now here we are, a lifetime later, in a new century, and it seems as if all the last century’s turmoil and wars – both hot wars and cold wars – have been distilled into one explosive corner of the world map, one narrow peninsula that history won’t let live in peace. Or that somebody won’t let live in peace – choose your own villains. And yet, all these decades later, the Korean War, the root of all of this, remains an unknown war in so many ways, particularly to Americans. And the question will arise: Can the warring parties agree to a peace when they cannot agree on the war, on what happened, when they don’t understand what about that war motivates the other side, when they don’t acknowledge responsibility and regret? For too long the real war – what really happened – lived only in the suppressed memories of ordinary Koreans, in whispered conversations in the villages, in the pages of telltale documents growing yellow with age in classified archives. When Choe Sang-hun, Martha Mendoza, and I published the journalism confirming the U.S. massacre of civilians at No Gun Ri, on front pages across the United States, it was a shock to Americans. This didn’t fit the script of history as Americans knew it. As Marilyn Young, a historian best known for her research on the Vietnam War, noted, it seemed a story “misplaced in the wrong war.” Korea wasn’t like this. But when it comes to the Korean War, that script of history sometimes is as much fiction as reality. A few examples: The official U.S. Army history of the war tells the reader that U.S. troops recapturing the city of Taejon in September 1950 found that the North Korean occupiers had slaughtered 5,000 to 7,000 South Korean civilians before retreating. But the reality – confirmed only since the turn of this century – is that the South Korean authorities carried out most of these executions the preceding July, as part of a monstrous bloodbath in which tens of thousands of supposed leftist sympathizers across the south were summarily executed. From the very first days, North Korean executions of southerners were publicized worldwide, including this false story about Taejon. But these much more extensive killings by the southerners were hidden from history. That same July, Life magazine entertained Americans with a cover story about the heroics of U.S. Air Force jet pilots over South Korea, defending hard-pressed American troops on the ground. But it wasn’t until a half-century later that declassified archives showed that these same fighter-bomber squadrons were being ordered to attack refugee columns on the roads – or, in one case, to attack any group of eight or more Koreans … in South Korea! All because of the potential for North Korean infiltrators among them. Some months later, in January 1951, the Associated Press, my organization, transmitted a news photo showing a scene south of Seoul where 200 civilians – men, women and children – lay dead and strung out along a roadside. The caption said these refugees had frozen to death. The reality was that they had been killed by strafing U.S. planes. Some censorious hand had cut out the truth. This was now the script: frozen to death, all at once, on a main road between two towns. We’ll never know the full extent, but clearly many, many hundreds, probably thousands, of innocent Koreans were killed in this way. In August 1950, news stories on the AP wire and in the New York Times reported that U.S. Army engineers had successfully blown up a bridge over South Korea’s Naktong River, denying it to the advancing North Koreans, who wouldn’t appear in the area for another five days. What wasn’t reported – but was known to the journalists – was that hundreds of South Korean refugees, terrified families seeking safety across the river, were blown up with the bridge. The reporters censored themselves on that fact, helping write the acceptable script of history. And as late as 1999, the U.S. Army denied – to the U.S. National Council of Churches, of all people – that any evidence existed to support a claim by Korean survivors that the U.S. military massacred hundreds of people at No Gun Ri in 1950 when the truth was that the archives reviewed by the Army held many of those telltale documents. Ground troops were ordered to fire indiscriminately on approaching refugee groups. But the Army of 1999 wasn’t about to rewrite the script of history. Six months later, Choe Sang-hun, Martha Mendoza, and I blew their cover on No Gun Ri. And yet the Pentagon investigative report that followed is so full of deceptions and cover-ups that yet another Korean War fiction is kept alive. That’s South Korea. The black hole of history was – and remains – even blacker when it comes to North Korea and what happened there during the war. Most famously, the North Koreans claim the U.S. military massacred some 35,000 civilians in Hwanghae province, south of Pyongyang, in the fall of 1950. Recent scholars, including Kim Dong-choon, have concluded the slaughter was carried out by Korean right-wing paramilitaries. The question of any American connection remains unanswered. But we know anecdotally, from my own and others’ reporting, that terrible things were done by American troops when they entered the north. One 7th Cavalry Regiment veteran told me, “I personally killed anything in front of me when we moved up. … You’ve heard of the Rape of Nanking in China?” he asked me. “Similar to that.” That’s on the ground. From the air, of course, the devastation and death dealt to the north by the U.S. Air Force was unimaginable. Dean Acheson, secretary of state, proclaimed publicly that U.S. bombing in North Korea was “directed solely at military targets.” But General MacArthur’s classified directive ordered his air forces to destroy “every means of communication and every installation, factory, city and village.” Even earlier, the Pentagon told MacArthur’s command to stop issuing press communiques referring to bombed villages, but to call them “military targets” instead. There are a few honorable exceptions – Kim Dong-choon’s book, “The Unending Korean War,” is one of them, along with books by Su-kyoung Hwang, Sahr Conway-Lanz and, of course, Bruce Cumings. But the script of history that comes down to us Americans largely tends to overlook the wholesale flattening of North Korean cities, ignores the indiscriminate mowing down of South Korean refugees, takes little notice of the mass executions – of 100, 200, possibly 300,000 people – by the Syngman Rhee regime in 1950. The most recent best-selling American history of the war, David Halberstam’s The Coldest Winter, has an entire six-page chapter devoted to Douglas MacArthur’s mother, but literally not a single word – not a word – on any of the above carnage, on all the other mothers and grandmothers and countless others who died unjust deaths in Korea. David Halberstam wrote that book as though the war was fought on a peninsula devoid of civilians. With this kind of blindness and ignorance, how can today’s Americans understand the depth of inherited hatred and fear that animates North Koreans? Or understand the mixed feelings of South Koreans toward an America that, on one hand, helped them and suffered more than 100,000 dead and wounded of its own in doing so, and on the other hand helped bring about and perpetuate the unending Korean War, and destroyed much of the land and people in the process. Edward R. Murrow understood this. Two months into the war, that noted American radio correspondent sent a report from Korea back to CBS in New York in which he said the Americans were creating “dead valleys” across South Korea, and wondered whether the South Korean people could “ever forgive us.” The CBS brass killed that Murrow report. It didn’t fit the script of history. One final point: There seems to be a lack of appreciation, of knowledge, here in this country about the historic relationship between China and North Korea, that Korea is the only place where American and Chinese armies have fought each other to the death, that China saved North Korea from oblivion, that it sacrificed hundreds of thousands of young Chinese in the process, that one of them was Mao Zedong’s own son, who was buried in a military cemetery in Pyongyang. The Chinese pride in that war, their “War to Resist United States Aggression and Aid Korea,” is great and officially nurtured, despite recent frictions over the north’s nuclear program. I have a Chinese soldier’s 862-day diary from the Korean War. In late July 1953, when he hears at the war front about the armistice, this teen-aged soldier Chen Xingjiu realizes he can now go home a hero, one who helped humiliate the mighty United States. “The entire Chinese people are proud,” he writes in his diary. “How can we not be, being victorious in this war? Rejoice! We are proud because we are Chinese.” When we speak of ignorance about the Korean War and that Chinese connection, one need go no farther than this current White House. Some of you may recall that in the first presidential debate in the 2016 campaign, candidate Trump suggested that China invade North Korea to resolve the nuclear issue. “China should solve the problem for us,” he said. “China should go into North Korea.” I think my young Chinese soldier of 1953 would be a little befuddled by this American president. The historian Marilyn Young once wrote that the horrible conflict that broke out in Korea 67 and a half years ago was a war that “the American public both rejected and refused to think about.” Sadly, in too many places, that thinking has yet to begin. Charles J. Hanley is a retired Associated Press correspondent who was a member of the Pulitzer Prize-winning AP reporting team that confirmed the No Gun Ri Massacre in 1999. He is co-author of The Bridge at No Gun Ri (Henry Holt and Company, 2001). #CharlesHanley #KoreaPeace #KoreanWar

Photo by Blogtrepreneur | CC BY 2.0 By Gregory Elich | February 26, 2018 Originally published in Counterpunch.org On December 19, in a Wall Street Journal editorial that drew much attention, Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert asserted that North Korea was “directly responsible” for the WannaCry cyberattack that struck more than 300,000 computers worldwide. The virus encrypted files on infected computers and demanded payment in return for supposedly providing a decryption key to allow users to regain access to locked files. Bossert charged that North Korea was “using cyberattacks to fund its reckless behavior and cause disruption across the world.” [1] At a press conference on the same day, Bossert announced that the attribution was made “with evidence,” and that WannaCry “was directed by the government of North Korea,” and carried out by “actors on their behalf, intermediaries.” [2] The evidence that led the U.S. to that conclusion? Bossert was not saying, perhaps recalling the ridicule that greeted the FBI and Department of Homeland Security’s misbegotten report on the hacking of the Democratic National Committee. The centerpiece of the claim of North Korean culpability is the similarity in code between the Contopee malware, which opens backdoor access to an infected computer, and code in an early variant of WannaCry. [3] Contopee has been linked to the Lazarus group, a cybercrime organization that some believe launched the Sony hack, based on the software tools used in that attack. Since North Korea is widely considered to be behind the cyberattack on Sony, at first glance that would appear to seal the argument. It is a logical argument, but is it founded on valid premises? Little is known about Lazarus, aside from the operations that are attributed to it. The link between Lazarus and North Korea is a hypothesis based on limited evidence. It may or may not be true, but the apparent linkage is far weaker than mainstream media’s conviction would have one believe. Lazarus appears to be an independent organization possibly based in China, which North Korea may or may not have contracted to perform certain operations. That does not necessarily mean that every action – or even any action at all – Lazarus performs is at North Korea’s behest. In Bossert’s mind as well as that of media reporters, Lazarus – the intermediaries Bossert refers to – and North Korea are synonymous when it comes to cyber operations. North Korea gives the orders and Lazarus carries them out. James Scott, a senior fellow at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, notes that “speculation concerning WannaCry attributes the malware to the Lazarus Group, not to North Korea, and even those connections are premature and not wholly convincing. Lazarus itself has never been definitively proven to be a North Korean state-sponsored advanced persistent threat (APT); in fact, an abundance of evidence suggests that the Lazarus group may be a sophisticated, well-resourced, and expansive cyber-criminal and occasional cyber-mercenary collective.” Furthermore, Scott adds, the evidence used to tie Lazarus to North Korea, “such as an IP hop or some language indicators, are circumstantial and could even be intentional false flags” to misdirect investigators. [4] Whether an association exists or not between Lazarus and North Korea has little meaning regarding a specific attack. Joseph Carson of Thycotic emphasizes “that it is important to be clear that [Lazarus] is a group and motives can change depending on who is paying. I have found when researching hacking groups they can one day be working for one government under one alias and another using a different alias. This means that association in cyberspace means nothing.” [5] It is considered a particularly damning piece of evidence that some of the tools used in an early variant of WannaCry share characteristics with those deployed in the cyberattack on Sony. [6] However, there is ample cause for doubting North Korea’s role in the Sony hack, as I have written about before. [7] Following the Sony breach, IT businessman John McAfee revealed that he had contact with the group that attacked Sony. “It has to do with a group of hackers” motivated by dislike of the movie industry’s “controlling the content of art,” he said, and the FBI was wrong in attributing the attack to North Korea. [8] If attribution of the Sony hack to North Korea does not hold up, then linkage based on tool usage falls apart. Once malware is deployed, it often appears for sale on the Dark Web, where it can be purchased by cybercriminals. The reuse of code is a time-saving measure in building new threats. Indeed, malware can find its way onto the market quite rapidly, and almost as soon as WannaCry was wreaking havoc back in May, it was reported that “researchers are already finding variants” of WannaCry “in the wild.” [9] According to Peter Stephenson of SC Media, “The most prevailing [theory] uses blocks of code that were part of known Korean hacks appearing in the WannaCry code as justification for pinning the attacks on NK. That’s really not enough. These blocks of code are readily available in the underground and get reused regularly.” [10] Commonality of tool usage means less than we are led to believe. “While malware may initially be developed and used by a single actor,” Digital Shadows explains, “this does not mean that it will permanently remain unique to that actor. Malware samples might be accidentally or intentionally leaked, stolen, sold, or used in independent operations by individual members of the group.” [11] “Shared code is not the same as attribution. Code can be rewritten and erased by anyone, and shared code is often reused,” observes Patrick Howell O’Neill of Cyberscoop. “The same technique could potentially be used to frame another group as responsible for a hack but, despite a lot of recent speculation, there is no definitive proof.” [12] None of the shared code was present in WannaCry’s widespread attack on May 12. Although it is more likely than not that the same actor was behind the early variants of WannaCry and the May version, it is not certain. Alan Woodward, cybersecurity advisor to Europol, points out, “It is quite possible for even a relatively inexperienced group to obtain the malicious WannaCry payload and to have repackaged this. Hence, the only thing actually tying the May attacks to the earlier WannaCry attacks is the payload, which criminals often copy.” [13] The most devastating component WannaCry utilized in its May 12 attack is EternalBlue, an exploit of Windows vulnerabilities that was developed by the National Security Agency and leaked by Shadow Brokers. The NSA informed Microsoft of the vulnerability only after it learned of the software’s theft. According to Bossert, the NSA informs software manufacturers about 90 percent of the time when it discovers a vulnerability in operating software. It keeps quiet about the remaining ten percent so that it can “use those vulnerabilities to develop exploits for the purpose of national security for the classified work we do.” [14] Plainly put, the NSA intentionally leaves individuals and organizations worldwide exposed to potential security breaches so that it can conduct its own cyber operations. This is less than reassuring. The May variant of WannaCry also implemented DoublePulsar, which is a backdoor implant developed by the NSA that allows an attacker to gain full control over a system and load executable malware. The two NSA-developed components are what allowed WannaCry to turn virulent last May. After loading, EternalBlue proceeds to infect every other vulnerable computer on the same network. It simultaneously generates many thousands of random IP addresses and launches 128 threads at two-second intervals, seeking vulnerabilities in computers that it can exploit at each one of the generated external IP addresses.[15] China and Russia were among the nations that were most negatively impacted by the malware. [16] WannaCry initially targeted Russian systems, which would seem an odd thing for North Korea to do, given that Russia and China are the closest things it has to allies. [17] Digital Shadows reports that “the malware appeared to spread virtually indiscriminately with no control by its operators,” and a more targeted approach “would have been more consistent with the activities of a sophisticated criminal outfit or a technically-competent nation-state actor.” [18] Flashpoint analyzed the ransom note that appeared on infected computers. There were two Chinese versions and an English version. The Chinese texts were written by someone who is fluent, and the English by someone with a strong but imperfect command of English. Ransom notes in other languages were apparently translated from the English version using Google translator. [19] It has been pointed out that this fact does not disprove the U.S. attribution of North Korea, as that nation could have hired Chinese cybercriminals. True enough, but then North Korea does not have a unique ability to do so. If so inclined, anyone could contract Chinese malware developers.  Or cybercriminals could act on their own. Lazarus and North Korean cyber actors have a reputation for developing sophisticated code. The hallmark of WannaCry, however, is its sheer sloppiness, necessitating the release of a series of new versions in fairly quick succession. Alan Woodward believes that WannaCry’s poorly designed code reveals that it had been written by “a less than experienced malware developer.” [20] Important aspects of the code were so badly bungled that it is difficult to imagine how any serious organization could be responsible. IT security specialists use virtual machines, or sandboxes, to safely test and analyze malware code. A well-designed piece of malware will include logic to detect the type of environment it is executing in and alter its performance in a virtual machine (VM) environment to appear benign. WannaCry was notably lacking in that regard.  “The authors did not appear to be concerned with thwarting analysis, as the samples analyzed have contained little if any obfuscation, anti-debugging, or VM-aware code,” notes LogRhythm Labs. [21] James Scott argues that “every WannaCry attack has lacked the stealth, sophistication, and resources characteristic of [Lazarus sub-group] Bluenoroff itself or Lazarus as a whole. If either were behind WannaCry, the attacks likely would have been more targeted, had more of an impact, would have been persistent, would have been more sophisticated, and would have garnered significantly greater profits.” The EternalBlue exploit was too valuable to waste “on a prolific and unprofitable campaign” like the May 12 WannaCry attack. By contrast, Bluenoroff “prefers to silently integrate into processes, extort them, and invisibly disappear after stealing massive fiscal gains.” [22] Bogdan Botezatu of Bitdefender, agrees. “The attack wasn’t targeted and there was no clear gain for them. It’s doubtful they would use such a powerful exploit for anything else but espionage.” [23] WannaCry included a “kill switch,” apparently intended as a poorly thought out anti-VM feature. “For the life of me,” comments Peter Stephenson, “I can’t see why they might think that would work.” [24] When the software executes it first attempts to connect to a hostname that was unregistered. The malware would proceed to run if the domain was not valid. A cybersecurity researcher managed to disable WannaCry by registering the domain through NameCheap.com, shutting down with ease the ability of WannaCry to infect any further computers. [25] Once WannaCry infected a computer, it demanded a ransom of $300 in bitcoin to release the files it had encrypted. After three days, the price doubled. The whole point of WannaCry was to generate income, and it is here where the code was most inept. Ideally, ransomware like WannaCry would use a new account number for each infected computer, to better ensure anonymity. Instead, WannaCry hard-coded just three account numbers, which basically informed authorities what accounts to monitor. [26] It is an astonishing botch. Incredibly, WannaCry lacked the capability of automatically identifying which victims paid the ransom. That meant that determining the source of each payment required manual effort, a daunting task given the number of infected computers. [27] Inevitably, decryption keys were not sent to paying victims and once the word got out, there was no motivation for anyone else to pay. In James Scott’s assessment, “The WannaCry attack attracted very high publicity and very high law-enforcement visibility while inflicting arguably the least amount of damage a similar campaign that size could cause and garnering profits lower than even the most rudimentary script kiddie attacks.” Scott was incredulous over claims that WannaCry was a Lazarus operation. “There is no logical rationale defending the theory that the methodical [Lazarus], known for targeted attacks with tailored software, would suddenly launch a global campaign dependent on barely functional ransomware.” [28] One would never know it from news reports, but cybersecurity attribution is rarely absolute. Hal Berghel, of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Nevada, comments on the “absence of detailed strategies to provide justifiable, evidence-based cyberattribution. There’s a reason for that: there is none. The most we have is informed opinion.”  The certainty with which government officials and media assign blame in high-profile cyberattacks to perceived enemies should at least raise questions. “So whenever a politician, pundit, or executive tries to attribute something to one group or another, our first inclination should always be to look for signs of attribution bias, cognitive bias, cultural bias, cognitive dissonance, and so forth. Our first principle should be cui bono: What agendas are hidden? Whose interests are being represented or defended? What’s the motivation behind the statement? Where are the incentives behind the leak or reportage? How many of the claims have been substantiated by independent investigators?” [29] IT security specialist Graham Cluley raises an important question. “I think in the current hostile climate between USA and North Korea it’s not unhelpful to retain some skepticism about why this claim might have been made, and what may have motivated the claim to be made at the present time.” [30] To all appearances, WannaCry was the work of amateurish developers who got hold of NSA software that allowed the malware to spread like wildfire, but their own code was so poorly written that it failed to monetize the effort to any meaningful degree. WannaCry has its uses, though. The Trump administration’s public attribution is “more about the administration’s message that North Korea is a dangerous actor than it is about cybersecurity,” says Ross Rustici, head of Intelligence Research at Cybereason. “They’re trying to lay the groundwork for people to feel like North Korea is a threat to the homeland.” [31] It is part of a campaign by the administration to stampede the public into supporting harsh measures or possibly even military action against North Korea. Notes: [1] Thomas P. Bossert, “It’s Official: North Korea is Behind WannaCry,” Wall Street Journal,” December 19, 2017. [2] “Press Briefing on the Attribution of the WannaCry Malware Attack to North Korea,” Whitehouse.gov, December 19, 2017. [3] “WannaCry and Lazarus Group – the Missing Link?” SecureList, May 15, 2017. [4] James Scott, “There’s Proof That North Korea Launched the WannaCry Attack? Not So Fast! – A Warning Against Premature, Inconclusive, and Distracting Attribution,” Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, May 23, 2017. [5] Eduard Kovacs, “Industry Reactions to U.S. Blaming North Korea for WannaCry,” Security Week, December 22, 2017. [6] “WannaCry: Ransomware Attacks Show Strong Links to Lazarus Group,” Symantec Official Blog, May 22, 2017. [7] Gregory Elich, “Who Was Behind the Cyberattack on Sony?” Counterpunch, December 30, 2014. [8] David Gilbert, Gareth Platt, “John McAfee: ‘I Know Who Hacked Sony Pictures – and it Wasn’t North Korea,” International Business Times, January 19, 2015. [9] Amanda Rousseau, “WCry/WanaCry Ransomware Technical Analysis,” Endgame, May 14, 2017. [10] Peter Stephenson, “WannaCry Attribution: I’m Not Convinced Kim Dunnit, but a Russian…”, SC Media, May 21, 2017. [11] Digital Shadows Analyst Team, “WannaCry: An Analysis of Competing Hypotheses,” Digital Shadows, May 18, 2017. [12] Patrick Howell O’Neill, “Researchers: WannaCry Ransomware Shares Code with North Korean Malware,” Cyberscoop, May 15, 2017. [13] Alan Woodward, “Attribution is Difficult – Consider All the Evidence,” Cyber Matters, May 24, 2017. [14] Thomas P. Bossert, “It’s Official: North Korea is Behind WannaCry,” Wall Street Journal,” December 19, 2017. [15] Luke Somerville, Abel Toro, “WannaCry Post-Outbreak Analysis,” Forcepoint, May 16, 2017. Sarah Maloney, “WannaCry / WCry /WannaCrypt Attack Profile,” Cybereason, May 16, 2017. Rohit Langde, “WannaCry Ransomware: A Detailed Analysis of the Attack,” Techspective, September 26, 2017. [16] Eduard Kovacs, “WannaCry Does Not Fit North Korea’s Style, Interests: Experts,” Security Week, May 19, 2017. [17] “A Technical Analysis of WannaCry Ransomware,” LogRhythm, May 16, 2017. [18] Digital Shadows Analyst Team, “WannaCry: An Analysis of Competing Hypotheses,” Digital Shadows, May 18, 2017. [19] Jon Condra, John Costello, Sherman Chu, “Linguistic Analysis of WannaCry Ransomware Messages Suggests Chinese-Speaking Authors,” Flashpoint, May 25, 2017. [20] Alan Woodward, “Attribution is Difficult – Consider All the Evidence,” Cyber Matters, May 24, 2017. [21] Erika Noerenberg, Andrew Costis, Nathanial Quist, “A Technical Analysis of WannaCry Ransomware,” LogRhythm, May 16, 2017. [22] James Scott, “There’s Proof That North Korea Launched the WannaCry Attack? Not So Fast! – A Warning Against Premature, Inconclusive, and Distracting Attribution,” Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, May 23, 2017. [23] Eduard Kovacs, “WannaCry Does Not Fit North Korea’s Style, Interests: Experts,” Security Week, May 19, 2017. [24] Peter Stephenson, “WannaCry Attribution: I’m Not Convinced Kim Dunnit, but a Russian…”, SC Media, May 21, 2017. [25] Rohit Langde, “WannaCry Ransomware: A Detailed Analysis of the Attack,” Techspective, September 26, 2017. [26] Jesse Dunietz, “The Imperfect Crime: How the WannaCry Hackers Could Get Nabbed,” Scientific American, August 16, 2017. [27] Andy Greenberg, “The WannaCry Ransomware Hackers Made Some Major Mistakes,” Wired, May 15, 2017. [28] James Scott, “WannaCry Ransomware & the Perils of Shoddy Attribution: It’s the Russians! No Wait, it’s the North Koreans!” Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, May 18, 2017. [29] Hal Berghel, “On the Problem of (Cyber) Attribution,” Computer — IEEE Computer Society, March 2017. [30] Scott Carey, “Should We Believe the White House When it Says North Korea is Behind WannaCry?” Computer World, December 20, 2017. [31] John P. Mello Jr., “US Fingers North Korea for WannaCry Epidemic,” Tech News World, December 20, 2017. Gregory Elich is on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute and the Advisory Board of the Korea Policy Institute. He is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, a columnist for Voice of the People, and one of the co-authors of Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period, published in the Russian language. He is also a member of the Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific. His website is https://gregoryelich.org Follow him on Twitter at @GregoryElich #Cyberattack #GregoryElich #NorthKorea #WannaCry

North and South Korean athletes at 2018 Winter Olympic Opening Ceremony   (PHOTO: Matthias Hangst/Getty Images) By Ramsay Liem | February 10, 2018 Originally published in Counterpunch. Never before has North Korea loomed so large in the U.S. imagination.  No longer just a problem “over there,” North Korea has emerged as a much more immediate threat, one with the power to unleash nuclear Armageddon on not only East Asian but also North American shores.  Months of “fire and fury” exchanges between the leaders of the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) have stoked American fears of impending nuclear carnage. Exacerbating these anxieties is widespread U.S. ignorance of the origins and history of seven decades of hostile U.S. relations with North Korea, a country dismissed in the past as a failed state. In sharp contrast to alarmist views of an erratic and hostile North Korea, the dominant American narrative of South Korea depicts U.S.-South Korea relations as an enduring and equal partnership in the face of a shared enemy.  By the grace of U.S. sacrifice during the Korean War, decades of continuing friendship, and a rock-solid U.S.–South Korean mutual defense alliance, the Republic of Korea (ROK) has prospered as a free and independent democracy, or so the narrative goes. I. North and South Korean Cooperation as a “Wedge” What belies this comforting bilateral scenario, however, is the cynical U.S. response to recent joint ROK–DPRK initiatives during the upcoming winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.  Both sides have agreed that North Korean athletes will participate in the games supported by their own cheer squads. They have further agreed to march under a unification flag at the opening ceremonies, to have their ski teams prepare for competition at an alpine facility in the north, and to field a joint women’s hockey team. Immediately following news that South Korean president Moon Jae-in had accepted North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s proposal for talks on Olympics cooperation, key U.S. officials and prominent news outlets sounded a new specter, the “wedge.”  Not to be confused with an NFL football tactic, the “wedge” portrays mutual overtures between the North and South as an ominous sign that Kim Jong-un is trying to sow discord between Seoul and Washington in order to weaken the longstanding U.S.-ROK alliance.  Recent headlines have sounded the alarm: “Kim Jong-un’s Overture Could Drive a Wedge Between South Korea and the U.S.,” Choe Sang-Hun and David Sanger, New York Times, 1/1/2018 “Yes, North Korea could drive a wedge between the U.S. and South Korea”  Oriana Skylar Mastro and Arzan Tarapore, Washington Post, 1/12/2018 “We will not allow North Korea to drive a wedge through our resolve or solidarity, Tillerson said.” Matthew Pennington, Associated Press, 1/16/2018 The most telling of these pronouncements are illustrated by these excerpts from a New York Times article (Mark Landler, 1/3/2018) reporting on prospects for the North-South dialogue on the upcoming Olympics. “Trump administration officials said on Wednesday that they were not opposed to the idea of talks, provided that they be limited to the Olympics and that the South Koreans not make any concessions to the North that they, and the United States, would later regret.”  (italics added) “Above all, the officials said, the Trump administration will resist efforts by the North to drive a wedge between the United States and its ally.” “‘It is fine for the South Koreans to take the lead, but if they don’t have the U.S. behind them, they won’t get far with North Korea,’ said Daniel R. Russel, a former assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Obama administration. ‘And if the South Koreans are viewed as running off the leash, it will exacerbate tensions within the alliance.’” (Iitalics added) These warnings in response to inter-Korean attempts to lower tensions on the Korean peninsula speak volumes about the Trump administration’s near-total rejection of diplomacy with regard to North Korea. They also convey the unmistakable presumption that Seoul must walk in lockstep with Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure” on North Korea through catastrophic sanctions and his threat to launch a so-called surgical strike (the “bloody nose” option) against North Korea.  More worrisome to U.S. officials and observers, though, is the possibility that North Korea could drive a wedge between Washington and its South Korean ally and historic junior partner by encouraging the latter to undertake independent initiatives to cooperate during the Olympics.  This concern reflects a deeper anxiety that the U.S.–ROK Mutual Defense Treaty, the foundation for seven decades of U.S. military presence in South Korea, may itself be vulnerable.  The alliance formalized through this treaty has been lauded by every administration since the hot-fighting days of the Korean War as a model of equal partnership bound by shared vigilance against North Korea. The specter of re-triangulation, with North Korea and South Korea taking steps toward peace at a time when the United States is gunning for war, challenges the notion that U.S.–ROK interests are in fact one and the same. It also calls into question the premise of equal partnership and shared authority as foundational to the U.S.–South Korean alliance.  While Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and others moderate their dismay at Moon’s initiative by framing North Korea as a threat, Russel’s admonition to South Koreans not to “run off the leash” reveals the inequality at the heart of the U.S. relationship with South Korea.  It conveys in no uncertain terms the expectation that South Korea, the second most important U.S. ally in Asia, will heel at the command of the United States when called upon. Hardly a metaphor for a mutual alliance a “dog on a leash” ironically aligns with the familiar North Korean denunciation of its southern neighbor as a client of the United States. II. South Korean Semi-Sovereignty We should ask: how valid is Russel’s depiction of the subservience at the heart of the U.S.–ROK alliance?  The groundwork for formal mechanisms establishing U.S.-South Korean relations ironically began with Korean liberation from 35 years of Japanese colonization in August of 1945.  Following the U.S. authored-division of Korea at the 38th parallel, to which the Soviet Union acceded, the United States established an official military government in the south (USMGIK). The formation of a separate southern government flouted incipient local democratic institutions, the People’s Committees that had sprung up throughout the peninsula and the declaration of the Peoples’ Republic of Korea by Korean nationalists. The USMGIK pronounced itself the sole arbiter of state policy in the south until the founding of the Republic of Korea in 1948 under the leadership of Syngman Rhee, a thirty-year expat in the United States who returned to Korea under U.S auspices.  Although independence activists and other Korean nationalists waged a blood-shedding struggle to prevent a separate election that would doom the country to permanent division Rhee ruthlessly ascended to power with U.S. backing.  Under cover of the United Nations, the United States pushed through elections bringing the pro-U.S. Rhee Government to power. But South Korea’s taste of independence was all too brief. With the full outbreak of north – south civil war in June, 1950, the United States re-established control of the ROK through its leadership of the United Nations Command, rescued Syngman Rhee’s administration from collapse, prevented unification under North Korean  leadership, and forged a permanent “wedge” between the two Koreas. Following the truce in July 1953 that halted the fighting but failed to end the war, the U.S. formalized the U.S.-ROK Mutual Defense Treaty. The treaty ceded continuing authority over South Korean forces to the United States, which also retained control of the UN Command but now charged with policing the Armistice Agreement and directing U.S. and Korean forces in the south. In 1978, control of U.S. forces stationed in Korea and the South Korean military shifted to the U.S.-ROK Combined Forces Command (USROKCFC) led by a four-star U.S. general with the support of an ROK deputy commander.  Notwithstanding the principle of cooperation, the CFC command structure reaffirmed South Korea’s junior status in relation to the United States. In this remarkably candid statement, General Richard Stillwell, the first U.S. officer to lead the CRC, declared the  command structure to be “the most remarkable concession of sovereignty in the entire world.”[1] In 1994, the command of South Korean forces during peacetime reverted to a South Korean general yet the United States retained authority during wartime or in the face of an imminent threat of armed conflict.  This concession, however, did not alter the fact that the United States retains ultimate authority over the consummate guarantor of South Korea’s sovereignty, its military forces.  Enshrined in the Combined Forces Command structure, this extraordinary concession of independence distinguishes the U.S.-South Korean alliance as unique in the world. Furthermore, the global status of the United States as an economic and military superpower buttresses its CRC authority over South Korean affairs.  In 2000, president Kim Dae Jung defied Washington’s warnings and agreed to a historic summit with North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il. Shortly thereafter, George W. Bush declared the DPRK a member of the “axis of evil” and formally withdrew the United States from an earlier Agreed Framework that had frozen North Korea’s incipient nuclear program for eight years.  South Korea had virtually no voice in this matter. The current South Korean president Moon Jae-in, a protégé of earlier liberal leadership, has clearly learned the lesson to tread carefully in the face of conflicting South Korean and U.S. interests.  During his summit meeting with Trump shortly after the U.S. presidential election, he appeared to be in lock-step with the U.S. administration’s hard-line stance on North Korea’s nuclear program.  But when Trump unleashed his “fire and fury” rhetoric and escalating threats of a pre-emptive strike against North Korea, Moon pushed back by declaring that war on the Korean peninsula was not an option absent South Korean consent. More recently, he has taken bold steps to engage in joint Olympics planning with the North.  Almost immediately, however, he gave a nod to Washington by publicly crediting Trump for this opening with the North.  Moon’s delicate balancing act within the alliance attests to the ever-present tug of the U.S. leash. Provoked by the nuclear standoff with North Korea, the sharpening of differences in U.S. and South Korean national interests has both exposed the U.S.–ROK neocolonial relation and made it increasingly untenable.  Moreover, the strain in the alliance is likely to intensify in the near future, should the threat of war escalate and recent U.S. efforts to assert its dominance in the wider East Asian region continue.  To illustrate: + North Korea’s rapid development of its nuclear and missile programs has Washington officials clamoring for a muscular response with some declaring that “collateral damage” from pre-emptive action would happen “over there, not here.” This ill-informed and disturbing belief portends a deepening, likely irreparable chasm between U.S. and South Korean interests should the Trump administration adopt it in practice. . + Since Obama’s declaration of a “pivot to Asia,” South Korea has been drawn further and further into efforts to bolster U.S. influence in Northeast Asia. Targeted at China’s rising global influence, the pivot includes expansion and coordination of military capabilities among regional allies. For example, the installation of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system in South Korea, although aimed at protecting South Korea against North Korean strikes, has limited capacity to intercept close-quarter attacks from the North. It employs a radar system, however, that can be used to monitor China’s nuclear program.  Just one illustration of South Korea’s integration into the U.S. regional military structure, this acquiescence to the imposition of THAAD places South Korean citizens in the cross-fire of military conflicts not of their making.  It has already provoked Chinese economic and cultural retaliation, damaging South Korea’s relations with its number one trading partner.  Further exacerbating this strain on the ROK economy is Trump’s insistence that Seoul renegotiate the U.S.–Korea Free Trade Agreement and his pronouncement that the country will continue to be a market for billions of dollars of U.S. arms sales. III. The Future Looms Large For nearly seventy years the U.S.–ROK Mutual Defense Treaty has been touted as preserving the peace in Korea and demonstrating how democratically minded states can co-prosper. Yet the U.S.–ROK alliance as a bulwark against communism in Asia is in point of fact a relic of the Cold War. Recent U.S. warnings to South Korea not to “run off the leash” have opened U.S.–ROK relations to a long overdue examination. Assuming that North–South cooperation during the Olympics is successful, the Moon administration appears prepared to broker even more far-reaching talks not only between the DPRK and ROK, but also the North Korean and U.S. leadership.  Such initiatives have the potential to create openings for a negotiated approach to the nuclear crisis.  Vocal advocates in both the United States and South Korea have called for reopening economic and cultural cooperation between the two Koreas, suspending or moderating U.S.–ROK military exercises, freezing arms build-up throughout the Korean peninsula and U.S. holdings in the Pacific, and direct U.S.–DPRK talks. At the same time these bold actions, especially if taken in partnership with the North, could provoke an even greater outcry from U.S. officials than the “wedge” alarm.  It is therefore essential for international solidarity to resist Washington’s march to war but also the anachronistic alliance that usurps South Korean sovereignty.  By opposing Trump’s sabre rattling through support of Korean initiatives for dialogue, the work of the growing antiwar consensus to avert this crisis simultaneously affirms a new and more equitable alignment in U.S. – Korea relations.  Success on both fronts would constitute a remarkable and historic achievement. Ramsay Liem is Professor Emeritus and Visiting Scholar, Center for Human Rights and International Justice, Boston College and a Korea Policy Institute Associate. Notes. [1] Richard Stillwell, “Challenge and Response in Northeast Asia of the 1980s: The Military Balance,” in Strategy and Security in Northeast Asia, edited by R. Foster et al. (New York: Crane-Russak, 1979), 99, italics added. #KoreaPeace #SouthKorea #WinterOlympics #NorthKorea #USKorearelations

Players from the North Korean women’s ice hockey team receive flowers from their South Korean teammates in Jincheon, South Korea, on January 25, 2018. (Kyodo via AP Images) By Tim Shorrock | February 1, 2018 Originally published in The Nation On February 9, in a scenario that would have been unimaginable to most Americans a month ago, North and South Korean athletes will march into the opening ceremonies of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games under a single blue-and-white flag meant to signify the symbolic unity of a country divided since 1945. The historic event will culminate an intense month of diplomacy and delicate negotiations that began on January 1. That was when North Korea’s “Supreme Leader,” Kim Jong-un, accepted South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s longstanding invitation to participate in the Games, the first Olympics to be hosted by South Korea since the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul. But the competition will take place in the shadow of a deepening confrontation between the United States and North Korea over Kim’s nuclear and missile program. That conflict, which seemed to reach a breaking point in January with a false alarm about a pending missile attack on Hawaii, has moved the world closer to nuclear war than at any time since 1953, according to the famous “Doomsday Clock” calculated every year by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. “With every threat, every reckless or contradictory tweet from the Commander-in-Chief of our military, we get a little bit further from a diplomatic solution and a little bit closer to war,” Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War combat veteran from Illinois, said in a January speech at Georgetown University shortly after returning from a trip to South Korea. Trump upped the ante Tuesday night in a State of the Union address that completely ignored the hopeful drama about to unfold in South Korea. Instead, his speech demonized North Korea as a “depraved” regime, echoing language previous presidents have used before launching wars. Taking a page from recent claims by CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Trump announced that North Korea’s “reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons could very soon threaten our homeland,” and described his “campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from happening.” Rewriting history once again, Trump repeated his criticism of the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations for trying to use diplomacy to resolve the crisis. “Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation,” Trump said. “I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this dangerous position.” His speech was preceded by weeks of reports that Trump and his advisers, led by National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, are seriously contemplating taking military action—referred to as a “bloody-nose strike”—to punish Kim for his nuclear threats and the human-rights violations of his government. The message was underscored hours before Trump took the podium, when The Washington Post reported that Victor Cha, a former official with the Bush administration, had been rejected as US ambassador to South Korea. The reason, White House sources told the Post, was that Cha, a hawkish official with the Pentagon-backed Center for Strategic and International Studies, had told the White House that he disagreed with the proposals for an attack. “This story is causing shock-waves in South Korea,” Anna Fifield, the Post’s Korea correspondent and Tokyo bureau chief, immediately tweeted. “Victor Cha is well known there and people were reassured he was being sent.” Cha essentially confirmed that the “bloody nose” strategy was being considered when he wrote an op-ed for the Post that warned Trump against escalating the crisis “into a war that would likely kill tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Americans.” After sketching out an aggressive alternative that would include expanding maritime interdiction of North Korean vessels, Cha concluded, “Force will be necessary to deal with North Korea if it attacks first, but not through a preventive strike that could start a nuclear war.” Back in Seoul, which sits just 30 miles from the border, where any war would begin, the two-week “Olympic Truce” with Pyongyang is seen by many citizens as a chance to show that dialogue and reconciliation is possible, even under such tense conditions. Under the agreements reached with Pyongyang since January 1, the two sides have formed a joint women’s hockey team that will play as “Korea,” and they’re planning a series of cultural events in Seoul and other cities where North Korean artists, including its famous, all-women Moranbong pop group, will entertain their southern cousins (one of its favorites: the theme from Rocky). Shortly after the first official Northern delegation came to Seoul to discuss these arrangements, President Moon pleaded for international support for the Olympic peace process. “We must work to make the South-North Korea dialogue lead to talks between the United States and North Korea,” he declared in a weekly address on January 22. “Only then can we peacefully resolve the North Korean nuclear issue.” Kim Jong-un’s government was equally excited—not about nuclear negotiations, which it spurned in the initial Olympic talks with South, but about the joint festivities. “It’s a gesture for peace and security in the region,” a North Korean diplomat at the United Nations told People magazine in a rare example of outreach to the North by a US media outlet. “The Games are a good step for the national reconciliation of all Koreans.” Altogether, 22 North Korean Olympians will be competing in Pyeongchang. Not everything with the Games has gone smoothly, however. Some South Koreans, especially younger citizens, were unhappy about the joint hockey team, whose formation was announced without any advance notice to the team or its coach, a dual citizen of the United States and Canada. The critics say that “being forced to come together at the last minute [could] damage the existing team’s camaraderie and can be seen, especially from the outside, as preferential treatment being given to unqualified North Korean athletes,” Kim Haeyoon, a freelance journalist living in Seoul, wrote in The Diplomat. Still, Moon’s Olympic outreach and his attempts to ease tensions with Pyongyang have been broadly accepted by young people like herself, the 20-something Kim told The Nation. In an interview, she said some of the resentment about the joint team stemmed from the competitive nature of South Korean society. “Preferential treatment exclusively given to certain group of people can easily antagonize young people here, who are struggling every day to excel in schools and job markets,” she said. Public opinion bears this out. In one of the first polls conducted after the announcement of the North’s participation, nearly 80 percent favored the decision. But after the flap about the hockey team, a majority, 58.7 percent, opposed formation of the joint hockey team, while 37.7 percent supported it. But on the issue of the North and South marching under one flag into the Olympics, there was majority support, with 51 percent in favor and 47 percent opposed. Meanwhile, despite the pro-engagement mood in the country, South Korea’s vocal right wing has been busily castigating Moon for his opening to the North. In a sign of the right’s intense hostility to any sign of cooperation with the North, conservative protesters tried to disrupt the public inspections of South Korean facilities by Northern officials visiting Seoul and attacked the Moon government as dominated by communist sympathizers. The opposition to the North is led by Hong Jun-pyo, leader of the Liberty Korea Party, which split from the ruling party last year over the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye. He was the leading conservative in the presidential elections last May, garnering 24 percent of the vote to Moon’s 41 percent in the five-way race. “The Pyeongchang Olympics are being twisted into the Pyongyang Olympics through the manipulation of Kim Jong-un’s disguised peace offensive,” Hong declared early on, adding that Moon wants to manipulate the Olympics politically so he can “pass a socialist constitution.” (“Such ridiculous red-baiting defies logic,” the liberal Hankyoreh editorialized in response. “These attempts to present the Olympics as a communist event because of North Korea’s participation could make us an international laughingstock.”) The dissent, which has been unusual for the popular Moon, has been seized on and exaggerated by the US media as a sign of Korean hostility to his engagement policies toward the North. Last week, for example, The New York Times ran a story about the response to a North Korean delegation to Seoul entitled “Protesters in Seoul Burn Image of Kim Jong-un During North Koreans’ Visit.” The alarming headline and the story itself gave a false impression of a near-riot of Seoul citizens against the North. But the piece, which was datelined Hong Kong, failed to mention that the fiery protest involved only a handful of people and was led by Representative Cho Won-jin of the one-seat Patriotic Party of Korea. Apparently the reporter didn’t know that Cho’s party is so extreme that it broke with the conservative Hong last year over Park’s impeachment and considers Moon to be an illegitimate president. Partly in response to the rightist protests, on Tuesday North Korea said it was canceling a joint cultural event the two governments were planning in the North to celebrate the Olympics in early February. This action “brings inter-Korean relations, which have been showing signs of improvement recently, to a crucial crossroads,” Hankyoreh reported. Pyongyang’s cancellation was also a response to South Korean officials’ saying they were concerned about reports that North Korea was planning to stage a military parade in Pyongyang on February 8. That date, one day before the opening ceremony at the Olympics, marks the anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army. The parade “is likely to be a quite intimidating event involving a significantly large number of soldiers and nearly all the weapons at North Korea’s disposal,” South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon declared. But in a significant aside that seemed to indicate Seoul’s deeper interest in peace talks, he noted that the US-South Korean military exercises opposed by the North had been rescheduled for March 25. “The key is to lead the US and North Korea to initiate dialogue under those circumstances and during that time,” he said. There were no such signals from Washington, where the events in Korea were used by hard-liners to buttress their belief that Moon is being manipulated by Kim Jong-un. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham set the pace on January 17, when he declared that “the signals” South Korea is sending to North Korea are “undercutting what Trump is trying to do.” In fact, like Trump’s speech, the White House has by and large ignored the Korean Olympics thaw. In January, just as the Olympics talks were getting under way, the Pentagon and the US Air Force deployed nuclear-armed B-52 Stratofortress bombers and B-2 Stealth bombers to the US base in Guam, where the US fleet of conventional B1-B bombers has been stationed during the crisis. This was only the second time in history that the three kinds of aircraft had been together in one place, Navy Times reported. They are there to reinforce the US Pacific Command’s “continuous bomber presence mission” aimed at North Korea, US officials said. The same day, Representative Mac Thornberry, the Republican chair of the House Armed Services Committee, informed reporters that the US military was conducting “very serious” training for a military conflict with Pyongyang. The Trump administration is “looking at what would be involved with military options when it comes to North Korea,” he said. Vice President Mike Pence, who will attend the Pyeongchang Games as Trump’s representative, added to the tensions on January 23 by accusing North Korea of trying to “hijack the Olympics…in terms of optics and messaging.” His comment, and the Pentagon’s deployment of its nuclear-armed strategic bombers to the region, prompted a senior North Korean official to contact the Washington Post journalist who reported it, Jenna Johnson. In an interview with Johnson, Pak Song-il, North Korea’s UN ambassador, accused Trump of advocating “confrontation” at what he called “the sacred place of Olympic Games.” He added, “This only shows how weak their motives are and how shameful their ways of thinking are.” Meanwhile, even as Trump was speaking Tuesday night, cooperation on the peninsula continued. On Wednesday, the two Koreas announced they will stage four joint taekwondo demonstrations in South Korea on February 7 to celebrate the Olympics. “The North Korean squad will travel to the South by land, across the border,” Yonhap reported. Symbolically, that crossing will speak volumes: That border is the most militarized dividing line in the world today. Tim Shorrock is a Washington, DC–based journalist and the author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, and a Korea Policy Institute Associate. #Trump #KoreaPeace #DPRK #KoreanWar #SouthKorea #WinterOlympics #Pyeongchang

ROK Navy KDX II, KDX III, FFX and LHD docked at Jeju naval base. By Choi Sung-hee | February 8, 2018 Originally published in Space Alert! (Winter/Spring 2018 #36) Despite more than ten years of people’s non-violent resistance to the construction of the Jeju Island navy base, it opened in Gangjeong village, South Korea, in February 2016. In 2017, between March and November, people in the village witnessed visits by 10 foreign military ships: six from the US, two from Canada and two from Australia. Among the U.S. ships, there were three Aegis destroyers, a mine countermeasure ship, a survey ship, and a nuclear submarine. Two Canadian and two Australian ships were frigates. Most of them came to the base with the purpose of so-called ‘munition-loading’ and ‘break’ between war exercises on the sea. The foreign warships also leave behind their kitchen trash and human waste. There is no strict regulation of this trash. What welcomed them was our protest signs and kayaks against the warships and war exercises. Three concerns mainly come out. Firstly, is the Jeju navy base becoming a U.S. missile defense outpost? The Jeju navy base is a South Korean (ROK) navy base. However, compared to other South Korean navy bases such as Donghae, Pyeongtaek, and Busan respectively in the east, west, and south of the Korean peninsula, the Jeju base has a clear purpose besides defending South Korea from North Korea. The Jeju base is far from the Korean DMZ but rather close to China. Its main purpose is allegedly to secure the southern sea lane where more than 99.8 % of South Korean’s trade material passes by. It is composed of the Jeju navy base squadron, submarine squadron and importantly, the 7th task flotilla. It is the base where South Korea’s three biggest Aegis destroyers are being deployed to carry out their tasks for ‘ocean-going navy’ (compared to ‘coast navy’) and ready to join US-led multinational maritime war exercises. An R.O.K.-U.S.-Japan maritime ballistic missile defense exercise was carried out off the coast of Jeju as far back as 2013. The Jeju navy base is gradually being conditioned and equipped to host a series of war exercises, to be a port of call for the foreign warships including U.S. Aegis destroyers. Is the Jeju navy base becoming a U.S. missile defense outpost? Secondly, why Canadian [NATO member] and Australian [NATO partner] ships? The U.S. Navy ships have the ‘right’ (no matter how unjust) to enter the South Korean bases. The R.O.K.-U.S. mutual defense treaty (1953) and SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) allow this. However, how about Canadian and Australian navy ships which do not have that right? In 2016, Vincent Brooks, Commander of the United States Forces of Korea (USFK), R.O.K.-U.S. Combined Forces Command, UN Command, strongly demanded South Korean Ministry of National Defense to conclude SOFA with nine countries belonging to the UN Command. They are Australia, Canada, England, France, New Zealand, Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, and U.S. It is uncertain whether that demand is related to the entrance of Canada and Australia ships to the Jeju navy base (and other South Korean ports). The USFK is intending to secure its wartime operation control using the UN Command as a cover. On January 15–16, this year, U.S. and Canada invited 16 countries which were involved in the Korean War, along with Japan and South Korea, to talk about establishing a naval blockade against North Korea. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and U.S. are especially mobilized for this blockade. The UK sent her two warships off the Korean peninsula for a US-led joint war exercise, last December. By the Trump government’s Indo-Pacific strategy, the role of four countries (Australia, India, Japan, and US) should be noticed, too. South Korea, US, and Australia conducted joint war games off the coast of Jeju on November 6. On November 7 Japan, India, and U.S. conducted joint exercises along the Korean peninsula. Is the Jeju navy base becoming a U.S.-led multi-national launching pad in case of any outbreak of war? We should keep both of our eyes wide open this year! Thirdly, the visit by an aggressive U.S. nuclear submarine is evidence of Jeju becoming a strategic outpost for the U.S. It also gives us alarm about the possibility of nuclearization of Jeju. The Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula signed by North and South Korea in 1992 reads that ‘The South and the North Korea shall not test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons.’ The declaration has been broken by the tests of nuclear bombs started in 2006 by North Korea who faces continuing threats from the U.S. Still it is a very important declaration to remember. South Korea should not ‘receive’ those U.S. nuclear warships. It is quite devastating that during Trump’s visit to Korea, Nov. 7–8, last year, President Moon and Trump agreed to acquire and develop nuclear submarines in South Korea, along with rotation deployment of so-called U.S. ‘strategic military assets’ around and nearby the Korean peninsula. The Gangjeong Sea is already polluted by toxic materials used by domestic and foreign warships and cannot bear the risk of radiation. At a rapid pace, Jeju navy base is bringing the bad omens for the future of Jeju. As a next step, an Air Force base, too, is planned in Seongsan, on the east side of Jeju, under the cover of a civilian airport (the 2nd Jeju airport). A resident there carried out more than 45 days hunger strike against it. The Jeju navy base has become a powder keg in Northeast Asia and should be closed! Further, this year marks the 70th year of the April 3rd resistance against the U.S. Army Military Government and puppet South Korean government!  Right after the uprising on April 3, 1948, the U.S. mobilized a warship to blockade the coast of Jeju. Historians believe that between 30,000 to 80,000 Islanders were massacred by 1954. Choi Sung-hee is a Global Network advisory board member and lives in Gangjeong village on Jeju Island, South Korea #JejuIsland #SouthKorea #USMilitary

Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un cartoon on missiles against each other | designed by Vexels Panel presentation | UCLA Center for Korean Studies | January 23, 2018 On January 23rd, as part of the Korean Studies Symposium at UCLA, Korea Policy Institute Board member Martin Hart-Landsberg and KPI Associate Hyun Lee of ZoominKorea spoke, providing a clearer perspective on the North Korea-U.S. relations, one that challenges that of U.S. mainstream media and the current administration. “The Need For A New U.S. Foreign Policy Towards North Korea” The current state of hostilities between the US and North Korea comes with high cost to the people of Korea and the United States. The US government claims that it has no choice but to pursue its current policy of escalating sanctions and military exercises directed against North Korea because the North Korean leadership is not open to negotiations, is hell-bent on war, and cannot be trusted to follow through on its promises. Martin Hart-Landsberg (Korea Policy Institute), Professor Emeritus of Economics at Lewis and Clark College, who has published extensively on Korea and China, will challenge these claims and discuss why we need a new policy towards North Korea, one that starts with accepting their repeated offers for direct negotiations. “North Korea: Science and Technology as the Path to Economic Progress” U.S. sanctions against North Korea have been in place since the 1950s, and a series of UN resolutions in the past decade have forbidden, among others, the export of coal, iron, and seafood, and banned North Korea textile exports, crude oil, joint ventures. Why, then, hasn’t the country collapsed by now? How is the country able to defy the labyrinth of international and U.S. sanctions to pursue its “Byungjin line,” the policy of pursuing parallel progress in nuclear deterrence and economic development? Hyun Lee (Korea Policy Institute), managing editor of ZoominKorea, an online resource that provides news and critical analysis on peace and democracy in Korea, will discuss aspects of North Korea’s recent economic development and the preeminence placed on science and technology in that process. Watch the presentations: Part 1 Part 2 #Trump #KimJongUn #DPRK #Nuclearweapons #NorthKorea

Head of the North Korean delegation, Ri Son Gwon shakes hands with South Korean counterpart Cho Myoung-gyon in the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas, South Korea, January 9, 2018. (STRINGER/REUTERS) Interview with Tim Shorrock by Aaron Maté |  January 5, 2018 From the RealNews.com  See the interview. AARON MATÉ: It’s The Real News, I’m Aaron Maté. President Trump’s Twitter account, again, made global headlines this week, when he bragged that his nuclear button is much bigger and more powerful than North Korea’s. Trump made that comment in response to a New Year’s Day speech from North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. Un’s address included an overture to South Korea, that is now seeing results. First, North and South Korea reopened a border hotline that had been frozen for nearly two years. Just today, the two sides announced that next week, they will hold direct talks for the first time since December 2016. Despite Trump’s bellicose talk, he’s even shown signs of backing off. On Thursday, the U.S. and South Korea agreed to delay their planned joint military games that were set for the end of next month. Is all this a sign of warming relations on the Korean peninsula? Well, joining me is Tim Shorrock, a journalist who has covered North and South Korea for decades. Tim, welcome. What is your reaction to all that we’ve seen this week? Does even today’s news, especially of direct talks between the two sides, signal a shift in how things have been going? TIM SHORROCK: Well, they definitely signal a shift between North and South Korea. The problem is, I don’t think the United States is very happy about this development at all, although they have postponed the military maneuvers, the military training that’s going to happen, that’s still going to happen after the Olympics. It’s a very good sign. It’s a very good sign that North and South Korea have opened this communication line and then on Tuesday, they’re going to talk because North Korea has, you know, that Kim Jong-un said in his January 1st speech, that North Korea would be interested in sending a delegation to the Olympics, which are going to happen in February in South Korea. They’re going to talk about that and hopefully, it will lead to some other kinds of negotiations between the two sides. I think it’s very hopeful, but I don’t think the United States has much to do with it. If you read the official line on this in the New York Times and the mainstream press, and you read these quotes they bring up from Republican and Democratic foreign policy people, there’s a lot of disinterest in this. There’s a thinking that South Korea is sort of operating on its own, as if it’s not a real independent country. That’s a real danger here. AARON MATÉ: Well, Tim, one of those quotes, I’m going to read to you is from Daniel Russel, speaking to the New York Times. He was a former assistant secretary of state in the Obama administration. He says, “It is fine for the South Koreans to take the lead, but if they don’t have the U.S. behind them, they won’t get far with North Korea. If the South Koreans are viewed as running off the leash, it will exacerbate tensions within the alliance.” That’s not Trump’s Twitter account, that is a former Obama administration official, talking about South Koreans as “running off the leash.” What is he referring to there? TIM SHORROCK: Well, he and most other national security people in Washington, whether they’re Republican or Democrat, basically see South Korea as an appendage of the United States. And South Korea is on a tight leash, the U.S. basically, controls South Korea. It’s a very illuminating comment I think. Extremely arrogant. It just underscores the arrogance of America towards both Koreas since 1945. Daniel Russel, of course, he’s also the same guy who, during the Obama administration, said if Kim Jong-un obtains super weapons, he will die instantly. Obama and his people made similar threats against North Korea. They just didn’t do it quite as loudly, like on Twitter, that Trump has done. That’s what I’m talking about. That’s sort of underscoring this … The U.S. thinks that, well, South Korea can only do what we tell them to do. Moon Jae-in has been very, very frustrated since he was elected president, last May, because he ran on a platform of trying to defuse the situation by having negotiations and having direct talks with North Korea. He began his presidency by proposing military talks and also talks so divided families could meet. North Korea rebuffed him because North Korea feels that South Korea is too close to the United States, and is basically a pawn of the United States. In that sense, I think, Kim Jong-un, reaching out to the Moon Jae-in government and saying, “Let’s have some discussion,” shows that maybe the two Koreas are going to, you know, can move in their own direction and try to defuse this situation. By the way, the last talks between them were in 2005, so it’s actually a little bit longer than you said at the top of the show. The last talks were with the Park Geun-hye government, who was overthrown and was impeached. Those talks hardly went anywhere because the South Korean government at that time, had such a hard line against North Korea. I think this, there’s real opportunity here, but there’s also danger that people like Daniel Russel and his equivalent, and the Trump administration, can really throw a cold water on this and turn it, and try to torpedo any kind of discussions that go on. AARON MATÉ: What accounts for the bi-partisan hostility, as you say, towards North/South Korea engagement? TIM SHORROCK: That’s hard to say. I think that this is the attitude that most American officials have towards South Korea. It’s because of the fact that the U.S. has operational control of the Korean military during times of war. And the fact that the United States has played such a central role in South Korea militarily, politically, economically for so many years. It just kind of gives them this attitude towards South Korea, that basically, is an attitude of an imperial power toward a colony. I keep saying, over and over again, and I keep saying this on Twitter, it’s their country. They have a right, if they want to talk to North Korea and create the peace with North Korea, it’s their right, it’s their country. That seems to be something that’s very difficult to get through to the national security officials here in Washington. AARON MATÉ: Right, Tim. On this front, this is where I wonder about, to what extent this issue is even about the Korea’s at all. We know that Obama made his so-called pivot to Asia, investing a lot of military capital in the Asia Pacific. Now, South Korea is a huge component of that, over 27,000 U.S. troops stationed there. Meanwhile, also, the people behind increasing direct engagement between North and South Korea, are not just the South Korean people and the new South Korean president. Also, Russia and China have been playing an increasing role. I’m wondering to what extent, not wanting to see their competing powers and not wanting to see something that could reduce the U.S.’s military presence in South Korea, to what extent that drives the animus here towards engagement. TIM SHORROCK: I think for a lot of the national security proud here, the real enemy is China and China’s growth, China’s expansion, China’s increasing role as a military power, and a lot of American policy, including Obama’s shift to Asia, was directed at China. They basically have also treated China like it’s an imperial power over North Korea, the way they view South Korea, so that the line here still is, “Well, China’s got to do more.” It essentially asks China to force North Korea economically and militarily, to give up its nuclear weapons. North Korea doesn’t have that kind of relationship to China and it’s not going to take [inaudible 00:09:10] pressure. China and Russia continually say that this has to be a resolved through negotiations and diplomacy, not war. More recently, the Russian foreign minister has been very outspoken about the fact that he sees that the U.S. is really escalating this situation. He was very critical a few weeks ago of the last military exercises the U.S. did in the … I think they were in November, at a time when North Korea had actually stopped its testing for quite a few days, quite a few weeks. There was a period of time there, where there was an opportunity to sort of begin some kind of diplomatic approach. Instead, the United States and South Korea started these air exercises, where they brought in all the heavy weaponry of U.S. Air Force bombers and the attack fighters that would lead an attack on North Korea. I think this sent a signal to North Korea that, well, they’ve got to keep developing their weapons. Not soon after those exercises, they did test that very long, their very large, latest missile, that long-range ICBM. The Russian foreign minister was very critical of the U.S. because he said he thought, he was given the impression that the U.S. was going to use this pause in North Korea’s testing as an opening. And more recently is also, that the Russians have expressed interest in playing a role. So I think the U.S. can’t act unilaterally here. Also, the South Korean government, under Moon Jae-in, has been adamant that there cannot be a war on the Korean peninsula, and that there cannot be a war that involves South Korea, because they know what it’ll entail. I think there’s some constraints on what Trump wants to do with his people, who I think, are being led by H.R. McMaster, his national security advisor, as well as advisors like John Bolton, from the Bush administration. Bush was very hardline. AARON MATÉ: Tim, finally, speaking of constraints, looking ahead to these talks next week between North and South Korea, let’s say they go as far as possible and they do lead to an effort to make peace. Can that happen without the endorsement of the U.S. given the huge influence that the U.S. has over South Korea, with its massive military presence there? TIM SHORROCK: Well, it depends on what kind of agreement you’re talking about. I think the U.S. is open to reducing the tension and taking steps, you know, they’re in favor of South Korea taking steps to reduce tensions with North Korea. One of the things that Moon Jae-in talked about during his campaign, and he’s often talked about during his presidency, is opening up, as one step, is opening up this industrial zone called Kaesong Industrial Zone. It’s actually in North Korea, just north of the DMZ, where … that was closed during the Park Geun-hye years, about two years ago. And that would sort of bring back this sort of economic exchanges that they had at one point, until recently. U.S. officials have made very clear that, that would be a brutal problem for the U.S. if they opened up that Kaesong Industrial Zone. I think the U.S. will be very unhappy with any kind of agreement that they saw as reducing the sanctions, or actually putting in jeopardy this militaristic pressure campaign that the U.S. has launched. South Korea’s under some severe constraints also. It’s really hard to know what they’ll talk about. I think they’re probably going to talk at the Tuesday talks about the participation in the Olympics, whether North Korea will send some officials, whether they’re send some athletes. I think there’s some skaters and skiers who might participate in those games. That would be some real movement. They’ve said officially, the South Korean government, that they would like these talks to lead to further talks. I think on the initial stage, it’s probably going to be focused on the Olympics and after all, the U.S. officials, including the Trump White House, had said, you’ve got to stick only to the Olympics. I think we’re going to see some real strains. We already are seeing strains in the U.S.-South Korean relationship. AARON MATÉ: Well, we’ll continue to follow how it plays out. Tim Shorrock, journalist who has covered the Korean Peninsula for decades, thanks very much. TIM SHORROCK: Thank you. Tim Shorrock is a Washington-based journalist who has been writing about the Korean Peninsula for over 40 years, and a Korea Policy Institute Associate. #Trump #KoreanWar #SouthKorea #Olympics #TimShorrock #KoreaTalks #NorthKorea

Interview with Bruce Cumings By Amy Goodman and Nermeen Shaikh, Democracy Now!  | January 4, 2018 Originally published in Truthout. Org See the Interview TRANSCRIPT NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin today’s show with North Korea. President Trump took to Twitter this morning to take credit for renewed communications between North and South Korea. Trump tweeted, quote, “With all of the failed ‘experts’ weighing in, does anybody really believe that talks and dialogue would be going on between North and South Korea right now if I wasn’t firm, strong and willing to commit our total ‘might’ against the North. Fools, but talks are a good thing!” This comes after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered the reopening of a hotline with South Korea’s leaders, bringing the biggest thaw in relations between the countries in two years. The overture came after South Korean President Moon Jae-in said he’s open to talks with the North next week in the so-called truce village in the Demilitarized Zone. Earlier this week, President Trump drew international attention when he tweeted a threat to North Korea that was steeped in sexual bravado, writing, quote, “North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the ‘Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.’ Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” unquote. During a press conference on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders addressed questions about Trump’s taunting of the North Korean leader. PRESS SECRETARY SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS: I don’t think that it’s taunting to stand up for the people of this country. I think what’s dangerous is to ignore the continued threats. If the previous administration had done anything and dealt with North Korea, dealt with Iran, instead of sitting by and doing nothing, we wouldn’t have to clean up their mess now. REPORTER: But you acknowledge that it’s a taunting tweet — PRESS SECRETARY SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS: Tamara. Sorry, I did call on her. REPORTER: Sarah, it’s a taunting tweet to say that he has a larger nuclear button than Kim Jong-un. PRESS SECRETARY SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS: I think it’s just a fact. AMY GOODMAN: Trump’s tweet came after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared his nation a fully fledged nuclear power Monday, saying in a televised New Year’s Day speech he was prepared to launch a nuclear attack against his enemies, including South Korea, Japan or the United States. KIM JONG-UN: [translated] The entire United States is within range of our nuclear weapons, and a nuclear button is always on my desk. This is reality, not a threat. AMY GOODMAN: Kim said North Korea would now focus on mass-producing nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles for operational deployment. For more, we’re joined in Chicago by Bruce Cumings, professor of history at the University of Chicago, author of several books on Korea, including Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History and North Korea: Another Country. Professor Cumings, welcome back to Democracy Now! Why don’t we start off with the breaking news this week of communications being opened between South and North Korea? What does this mean, and the possibility that as early as next week they will somehow meet at truce village in the Demilitarized Zone? BRUCE CUMINGS: Well, it’s very important, and particularly the tone of Kim Jong-un’s statement, which was very conciliatory toward the South and was followed up by a high official who was even more conciliatory, talking about North Korea’s hopes for the South Korean Winter Olympics going well. And, of course, Kim Jong-un offered to send a delegation to the Olympics. This is in great contrast to, for example, the 1988 Olympics, which the North Koreans tried to disrupt with terrorist attacks. So, it’s a very good sign. And I would add that Kim Jong-un did say he had a big button with a lot of nuclear weapons, but he very clearly said that North Korean nuclear weapons are for defensive purposes and would not be used unless North Korea was attacked. And secondly, he said something that North Korean officials have been saying for the last six months without a lot of attention. And that is words to the effect that their nuclear program is nearly completed, which would mean they don’t have to test so much. They tested a great deal in 2017, particularly missiles, and then a very large H-bomb test last September. So, I think, on all three counts, this was generally a welcome statement, a conciliatory statement. President Trump’s tweet this morning is trying to take credit for these talks going forward. That’s fine. The fact is, the Trump administration was very opposed to President Moon Jae-in of South Korea’s proposals for talks. The North — the Trump administration position is that there can be no talks until North Korea commits to denuclearization. That’s their only hole card, so they’re not going to do that before talks open. I would give a lot of credit to President Moon in Seoul for opening up these talks next January 9th, next week, in spite of tremendous opposition, not to mention almost daily provocations coming from President Trump. NERMEEN SHAIKH: And this morning, there was a call on that hotline. The South Koreans reached out to the North. Do we know anything about the content of that call? BRUCE CUMINGS: No, I actually — it was all I could do to get through The New York Times a bit before coming down here early in the morning, so I don’t know what the content was. But that line was closed two years ago, in the context of then-South Korean President Park Geun-hye shutting down a very large industrial zone just across the DMZ in North Korea, the Kaesong Industrial Zone, where about 60,000 North Koreans were working for mostly South Korean firms. And it was the last and biggest fruit of really more than a decade of attempts at reconciliation between North and South. So I have hopes that not just this communication line, but that export zone will be reopened soon. I don’t know that, but I hope it. AMY GOODMAN: UN Ambassador Nikki Haley said Tuesday, North Korea might be preparing for another missile test, and warned such a move would necessitate tougher steps against Pyongyang. NIKKI HALEY: As we hear reports that North Korea might be preparing for another missile test, I hope that does not happen. But if it does, we must bring even more measures to bear on the North Korean regime. The civilized world must remain united and vigilant against the rogue state’s development of a nuclear arsenal. We will never accept a nuclear North Korea. … We won’t take any of the talks seriously if they don’t do something to ban all nuclear weapons in North Korea. We consider this to be a very reckless regime. We don’t think we need a Band-Aid, and we don’t think we need to smile and take a picture. We think that we need to have them stop nuclear weapons, and they need to stop it now. So, North Korea can talk with anyone they want, but the US. is not going to recognize it or acknowledge it, until they agree to ban the nuclear weapons that they have. AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can respond to this, Bruce Cumings, and respond to the US. setting preconditions? But this is direct negotiations between South and North Korea. And then talk about the tweet of Trump talking about his button bigger than — bigger than the North Korean leader’s and also his taking credit for this coming together. BRUCE CUMINGS: Well, I think you’re right that this initiative came from the two Koreas. The US. wasn’t involved, as far as we know, in this initiative. And the unfortunate fact is that not just the Trump administration, but many, many administrations, going back decades — excuse me — have not wanted the two Koreas to be alone together. They always want the US. in a supervisory role over South Korea. This morning, a high State Department official in the Obama administration was quoted as saying, “South Korea needs to be on a tight leash.” That kind of condescending crap is just coming out of the mouths of a bipartisan coalition of American officials for a long, long time. President Moon is a very experienced politician. He was chief of staff to Roh Moo-hyun, who did the deepest reconciliation with North Korea when he was in office. And I think the US. should trust Moon Jae-in to conduct these talks and make whatever deals might be possible with North Korea. As to Trump’s tweet, like everything else, even the 17 inches of snow that Boston is going to get, that Trump essentially says, you know, it’s his doing. No matter what it is, Donald Trump is snapping his fingers and making everything happen. But the hidden lining in that statement is that Trump supports the talks. He said right at the end that he supports the talks. Talks are good. I’m not a psychiatrist, and so I don’t know why Donald Trump, throughout his campaign and as president, has constantly showed his Freudian insecurities about the size of his whatever. In this case, he’s basically bringing Kim Jong-un up to his level or bringing himself down to Kim Jong-un’s level, but, in any case, focusing attention on North Korea in a way that no previous president would ever do. It’s childish, about a possible nuclear war that could literally destroy the planet. And I wish I knew what the North Koreans think of it, but I would guess that after all these months they’re starting not to take him very seriously. Last summer, they were asking Republicans in Washington, you know, “What does Trump mean when he says ‘fire and fury’ or he’s going to ‘totally destroy’ us?” Because in North Korea, every statement coming out of the government is carefully vetted, right up the line, whereas Trump isn’t vetted at all. So, it’s a dangerous situation, but it also demeans the United States and, as I said, brings Trump basically to Kim Jong-un’s level. NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, given the fact that Trump has been tweeting as much as he has, activists in San Francisco are questioning Twitter’s enforcement of its policy against violent threats. After Trump used the platform to taunt North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, members of a group called Resistance SF projected an image on the outside of Twitter headquarters in San Francisco on Wednesday directed at the Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, which read, “@jack is #complicit.” A spokesperson for Twitter said Trump did not violate its policy when the president boasted that his “nuclear button” was “bigger & more powerful” than Un’s. Twitter’s rules page reads, quote, “We consider violent threats to be explicit statements of one’s intent to kill or inflict serious physical harm against another person. … Please note that wishing or hoping that someone experiences serious physical harm, making vague threats, or threatening less serious forms of physical harm would not fall under this specific policy,” Twitter wrote. So, Bruce Cumings, can you respond to that and what you think, if anything, should be done to prevent Trump from escalating the situation between the US. and North Korea? BRUCE CUMINGS: Well, his latest statements, the ones yesterday about how big his button was, might violate obscenity statutes. But certainly, his very bellicose statements last summer about totally destroying North Korea would seem to be outside Twitter’s guidelines. North Korea was totally destroyed by the US. during the Korean War in a three-year air campaign that left almost nothing standing. And every North Korean is taught about this. They’re very bitter about it. But what you can say to Trump is, we totally destroyed North Korea already and still didn’t win the war. So, it’s very irresponsible talk. But I imagine just about everybody in the White House, including the custodians cleaning his bathrooms, would like to grab his Twitter and throw it as far — his iPhone, and throw it as far away as they can, because he’s unsettled relations with our friends and allies — and our enemies — time and time again. I mean, by lining up with the Iranian demonstrators against the ayatollahs, he puts them in a position where the ayatollahs can easily claim they’re foreign agents. He blasted Pakistan for coddling terrorists and protecting them inside the country. Pakistan has been doing that for decades, and the US. has known all about it and has tolerated it for other reasons. So, he’s basically a kind of wrecking crew. But in his case, the mallet or the wreck — the wrecking crew is Twitter. I think we’d all be really happy if Twitter would just cut him off, but that’s obviously not going to happen. AMY GOODMAN: And we just have 30 seconds, but what could come of these direct talks between North and South Korea? BRUCE CUMINGS: Well, I think it’s very probable that a North Korean delegation will come to Pyeongchang for the Olympics that begin on February 9th, and that may include athletes who would participate in some non-official form. There were two North Korean skaters who qualified for the Olympics in Canada some weeks ago, but apparently the North Koreans didn’t put in an application or failed to meet a deadline or something, so that they can’t participate as Olympic athletes. But I think it will be a time when the world can breathe a sigh of relief that at least there won’t be missiles or vicious tweets going off during the Olympics and that it could be a start to things like reopening the Kaesong zone and just reducing the terrible tension that has been wracking the Korean Peninsula ever since Donald Trump was inaugurated. AMY GOODMAN: Bruce Cumings, we want to thank you for being with us, professor of history at University of Chicago. Among his books, Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History and North Korea: Another Country. Bruce Cumings  teaches at the University of Chicago and is the author of The Korean War: A History. He is a Korea Policy Institute Associate. #Trump #BruceCumings #KoreanWar #SouthKorea #Olympics #NorthKorea

Juyeon Rhee, Solidarity Peace Delegation Coordinator By Paul Liem, August 23, 2017 | December 29, 2017 This is the fifth and last in a series of interviews with the five-member U.S. Solidarity Peace Delegation to South Korea from July 23 to July 28, 2017. The delegation coordinator, Juyeon Rhee, was denied entry to South Korea under a travel ban imposed by the Park Geun-hye administration, a ban that remained in force under the new administration of President Moon Jae-in. The delegates met with South Korean peace and labor activists, the Chair of the National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee  Shim Jae Kwon, and villagers of Seongju, Gimcheon, and Soseong-ri who are waging a struggle against the deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system in their communities. The delegation was sponsored by the Taskforce to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific as well as the Channing and Popai Liem Education Foundation. It was hosted in South Korea by the National People’s Action to Stop the Deployment of THAAD in South Korea (NPA), a coalition of 100 civil society organizations. Delegates Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK, Reece Chenault of U.S. Labor Against the War, Will Griffin of Veterans for Peace, delegation coordinator Juyeon Rhee, Jill Stein of Green Party USA, have since spearheaded an international petition campaign calling upon presidents Moon Jae-in and Donald Trump to pull back from the brink of war in Korea by halting the war games and negotiating a freeze on missile and nuclear weapons testing with North Korea. Following the delegates’ return to the United States, Paul Liem, KPI  Chairperson, interviewed the delegates about their experiences in Korea and their reflections on how to strengthen solidarity between peace activists there and in the United States. His interview with Juyeon Rhee follows. ____________________________________________ PL:  It’s August 23 and we’re talking with Juyeon Rhee, one of the organizers of the Solidarity Peace Delegation that visited Korea in July. Juyeon, you were the only Korean American on this delegation and you’ve been involved in Korea peace work based in the United States for many, many years since your college years. What started you on your trajectory of activism and what were the circumstances leading to your immigration to the U.S.? JR:  I was a sophomore in college in 1988 when my family decided to leave for the U.S. My idea was to come, help my family adjust, and then go back because I was involved in the student movement as a freshman. PL:  What school? JR: I was at Ewha Womans University, a freshman in 1987. So, starting in April, there were many street demonstrations and rallies against the continuation of military dictatorship, and many study groups were being formed. I had no idea before I went to college what was going on or knowledge of social issues. But as students, we got mobilized through various clubs and study groups. That was the atmosphere then; as a college student you owed society and you had to do something for the community and society. I wasn’t fully participating until the beginning of May, but I got arrested just by walking through the street where there was a rally. The police picked me up. And then I was confined to this police car for four hours. The detention center in Seoul was full. It was full and no one could check in so they dropped me off, I think it was in Suwon or Incheon in Kyonggido, and I had to find my way back to Seoul. After that, I wanted to find out what was going on. PL:  This was the great popular uprising against the military dictatorships. That period, right? JR:  Right. At the time Chun Doo Hwan was trying to make Roh Tae Woo his successor so people were demanding that they wanted direct voting, popular election. People wanted to vote for the president. We won. The June uprising happened and we won. The next year, my parents told me that we were going to the U.S., the beast of the imperialist forces, the one that had divided Korea, and the center of global imperialism. I didn’t want to come to the U.S. Anyway I came. I went to Stony Brook State University of New York the following year. I think in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s there were nine different organizations in New York. These sprung up in response to the Kwangju massacre in 1980. PL:  Korean organizations? JR:  Yes, all predominately Korean-speaking, just like in Korea. They were trying to mobilize and educate the communities. And my school, because it was only one hour away from New York City, there were people coming in to teach how to play buk and janggu and pungmul.  Slowly I got exposed to them and I thought, oh, maybe we can do something here while I stayed in the U.S. I got involved in a student organization called Center for Korean American Culture and I played janggu and buk. It was a cultural troupe. Our goal was to demystify the “American Dream.” Then in 1992, the LA Uprising happened and, just before then, an African American teenager, Latasha Harlins, was killed by a Korean liquor store owner, Du Soon Ja.  There were also tensions between African Americans and Korean store owners in Brooklyn, Flatbush. So there were a lot of racial tensions. At that time, we had a lot of discussions about what is the best identity or identifier for immigrants. Are we Koreans in the U.S., or “Korean-hyphen-Americans,” or “Korean Americans,” or are we “Americans with Korean heritage”? There were a lot of discussions and studies about immigration, civic rights, and about what are the best ways to change the society or community. I felt that Korean people in Korea can do the reunification work and that Koreans here in the U.S. should do more on immigration issues or racial issues. PL:  So what did you make of what happened in Los Angeles and the killing of Natasha Harlins? How did you process that? JR:  In our organization, we did a study group and concluded that the Korean community was like a filler between blacks and whites in the context of a racist society. We were caught up in the middle of the racial tensions and ended up playing by the rules of the racist society, chasing the American Dream. We concluded that we needed to educate our community that the American Dream is a myth, and that we needed to work and build our identity as a people of color in solidarity with other communities of color. We were saying that we are workers, we are people of color. And so we created these songs, too, in Korean. PL:  What’s an example of the lyrics of some of the songs, do you remember. JR:  (singing in Korean). So it’s [the song is] about a worker who has to wake up very early in the morning and then go and then stand in the deli store for 12 hours and work. And she sees the people going back and forth and she’s just a cashier, not a person. And what’s our hope? When I quit this job, another person will come and be treated like that. But we are the ones who are forming the community and who’s holding the community or society up from the bottom up. So we are capable of being an agent for change. This type of thing. PL: Later on, though, you also got involved in reunification work. JR: Yes, so good friends of mine went to North Korea with a community organization based in New York, Nodutdol for Community Development or “NDD.” I think I started paying membership dues starting in 2000. I went to a couple meetings and back and forth but I was never really deeply involved until 2002 when I went to North Korea for the first time with an NDD education and exposure delegation, called the DPRK Education and Exposure Program (DEEP). PL:  It seems like a big transition to go from being focused on working on Korean immigrant issues to organizing a DEEP delegation to North Korea. What transpired to make that change? JR:  So Nodutdol had three committees at that time. We had a health committee and we had the education committee and then we had a Korea solidarity committee. I didn’t want to be on the Korea solidarity committee, but since I was not a teacher or in the health field, I joined the Korea solidarity committee. I thought, ok, these people are second generation and don’t know as much about Korea. So maybe it’s important for them as second generation or non-Korean speaking Korean Americans to get connected to their Korean heritage, claiming it as their own. So I was kind of a bystander to reunification work. Anyway, when my friends came back from the first delegation to North Korea, they insisted that I should go. It’s an eye-opening experience, they said. That’s when I went. Those on the first delegation were Korean-speaking. Those on the second delegation, with the exception of me, were English-speaking. That’s a big difference. Off we went, but North Korea was not ready. There was no translator for us. They expected that, like the Koreans from Japan, we should all speak Korean. From day one, we were struggling with language issues. We didn’t speak Korean at all. They didn’t expect it. It was a horrible trip for me. Horrible, horrible. I came back and I said we really need to work on this program, otherwise this is not worthwhile to repeat. That was what I reported, and in 2003, I volunteered to be the program coordinator for the 2004 delegation. I wrote to North Korea six or seven, eight months ahead of the trip. I wrote to them and said we need an English translator and we need to diversify the program a little more. I told them that I want to go here, I want to go there, I want to go to a court, we need to spend a little more time on a farm, etc. Anyway I wrote a seven-page long letter. My friends were skeptical.  They felt, well, it’s not going to change. North Korean people have their agenda. They want us to see certain things. And you know, it’s going to fall on deaf ears. So I said I’m just going to write to them and see what happens. I got no reply. But when we arrived in Pyongyang, our hosts were carrying a copy of my letter all underlined, highlighted and commented with notes. And you know, they came and they switched the entire program around to accommodate our interests. And that was one of my biggest lessons. Even if you think it’s not going to work, you still have to try, you can’t just assume it’s not going to work. All we needed to do was ask. They realized we were different from the groups coming from Japan but they didn’t know what our goals were, what we wanted to see, what our interests were. They said they all read my letter, and the only criticism I got was that we would need to stay a month to do all the things we asked. They said try to prioritize your goals and then communicate them beforehand. On that trip, the North Koreans provided an excellent, amazing English speaker as a translator. She stayed with us most of the time. All site visits, she came. She never visited the U.S. or England or traveled elsewhere abroad, but her English was perfectly understood. Everyone loved her and the more she spent time with us, the more we got to know her. You know, she was someone that we really connected with at a very personal level. I think the peace group, Women for Genuine Security, published an article about translation. It said that translation is a political act. And through that experience, I learned that language is really, really important. The vocabulary, the right vocabularies are critical. But all that does not come to you naturally. You have to study it. You have to acquire it.  Afterwards, I created a vocabulary list of easy North Korean words for our curriculum. DEEP is a people’s delegation so the delegates also make an impression on the people they meet in North Korea. Our delegates need to interact appropriately, conveying their thoughts, and attitudes, in words and gestures, that resonate with the people on the receiving end. So after 2004, I realized, okay, as a first-generation immigrant activist who is bicultural and bilingual I may have an important role to play in the Korean solidarity movement. I can help build solidarity between activists here and those in Korea. What do we need to do? What motivates people to learn, what motivates people to connect? How can I be a better mediator of these two coming together? In my mind, that’s the process of reunification. I realized that we have many different levels of division. Reconciliation and reunification became something that I wanted to see and I wanted to practice with in our community organizing. PL:  The NDD delegations to North (DEEP) and South Korea (KEEP) were composed of Korean Americans. This most recent delegation, the Solidarity Peace Delegation to South Korea, was composed of American peace activists. Why the change in composition? JR: We came to realize that in the eyes of the Koreans in Korea, we tend to be accepted as one of them rather than as representative of the U.S. peace movement. So it’s important for our delegations to represent the peace movement more broadly. The mission of the Solidarity Peace Delegation was to support the Seongju villagers in their struggle against THAAD deployment, against the militaristic policies of the U.S. We wanted to make sure that we were more representative of U.S. peace groups. We decided to bring on representatives from diverse sectors. PL:  Did you feel like that was accomplished? JR: I think so. Ramsay [Liem] is actually the one who has to be commended for this. Jill Stein has a long history with environmental groups, and also understands the U.S. political system and party politics; Medea Benjamin is a leader in the women’s movement who understands the importance of advocacy work and the inner workings of Washington D.C.; then we had Will Griffin of Veterans for Peace and is connected with the more militant sector of the peace movement; and Reese Chenault who is connected to the progressive voices in U.S. labor—the anti-racist and anti-imperialists sectors of the labor movement. All the delegates have histories of struggling against U.S. militarism abroad and for struggling social justice here in the U.S. It was a very diverse group and they did an excellent job of representing progressive forces here. PL:  Do you think there was any breakthrough in terms of making connections between American peace movement and the villagers in Seongju at a human level? JR:  The delegation was only four people. It’s a very small number but they made a lasting impression on villagers. Before, when the villagers talked about the U.S., the U.S. was assumed to be unknown entity, forcing this THAAD war machine onto their village. And now, after meeting the delegates, they have a clearer idea about the U.S.—that, ah, it’s a country and they have citizens just like us who are fighting against the THAAD and militarism. So the delegation did an impressive job in making people aware that there are people who are fighting against the militaristic approaches of the state in the U.S. as well. But for the peace movement, I don’t know. It’s hard, though, Paul, when there is a problem or when there is a bombing or bombing in Afghanistan and then the next day the North Korea issues flare up and the following day there is Palestine. Addressing all of those issues and connecting the struggles without emphasizing one over the other is a big challenge. We have more work to do. Juyeon Rhee and Hyun Lee banned from entry at Incheon Airport, July 25, 2016 PL:  Unfortunately you were not able to join up with the Solidarity Peace Delegation in Korea. The South Korean government had banned your entry into the country a year earlier when you and peace activist, Hyun Lee, had organized another delegation of peace activists. That ban was still in effect while you were organizing the Solidarity Peace Delegation. But you still bought your ticket and were ready to go. What made you decide to go for it when you knew that the odds were not in your favor? And how do you feel about that whole issue of being banned? JR:  I think I feel a little sad. At the time I didn’t know how to feel, to process it all. It was kind of numbing. It was a survival instinct to try not to feel. I wanted to go for it because when Moon Jae-in became president everyone said everything has changed. People acted as if all the misdeeds of the South Korean state are over, and the new Moon administration will be different. I cannot deny that I had similar hopes too. So I was hoping for the best. PL:  Will you continue to work on these kinds of delegation projects even though you may not be able to travel to Korea? Do you feel like this is work that you can continue under the present circumstances? JR:  Yes. As much as I can, I would like to. However, if you cannot participate and share in the moments there are limitations. You cannot help rectify something when something’s not going right, or step in and mediate right away, so it’s frustrating. But I’m not the only one who has been denied entry into South Korea. Others have been denied entry; people in Japan historically, numerous times, and people in Germany, too. I heard that a committee in South Korea has been gathering the names of people who have been denied entry under the past administrations. So there are many of us, and we all have to work under similar circumstances in with the same restriction. They never stopped working for reunification and to end the Korean War with a peace treaty. So I take this as a challenge, and I am trying to sort out what my roles can be in terms of supporting future solidarity trips. But that South Korea is banning peace activists from its shores, that the U.S. is banning South Korean peace activists from its shores and also banning the travel of U.S. citizens to North Korea, is outrageous. It’s political repression. But I do have a dream. I want to organize more delegations to South Korea and North Korea. I think it’s of high importance as the U.S. peace movement does not fully understand the impacts of U.S. policy on Korea, and especially North Korea. PL: What do you see as the endgame of the Korea solidarity movement in this country? Peace treaty is the only thing. We must have a guarantee that there will never be another Korean War. If we cannot have a peace treaty right away, then we can call for non-aggression treaty as a first step towards agreeing upon the terms of a peace treaty. Diplomacy has to start right away. So many people even in the U.S., ex-politicians and ex-officials of the U.S. government, are calling for engagement with North Korea. I think the U.S. government should learn something from history, its own history, and act now to make peace with North Korea. Without the guarantee of peace, denuclearization is not realistic. PL:  I think certainly that the timing of the Solidarity Peace delegation was critical—just in time to start speaking out against Trump’s “fire and fury” bluster. In closing I wanted to ask if there anything else that you would like to share, or anything that we missed? JR:  Unfortunately I don’t think we can rely on the Moon Jae-in administration. Although he may want to take the lead in facilitating peaceful North and South relations, as the South Korean President, he is under pressure not to undermine the U.S.-South Korea military alliance. It doesn’t seem that he’s inclined to push back on those pressures. Still, we must continue to push his administration in that direction, especially now, as Trump is threatening to engulf North Korea in fire and fury. Of course this cannot be done without engulfing all of Korea in fire and fury. And I do want to end this interview by saying I was really touched by all the support that I got. A lot of people contacted me personally. A lot of people wrote signed petitions denouncing the ban. The delegation also worked on a press release opposing the ban. They spoke beautifully in support of my entry, and I really appreciated that. All of this support lifts my spirits and encourages me to keep working to build solidarity between progressive forces in the U.S. and in all of Korea. PL:  You are loved by all who have worked with you. Certainly among the younger activists, you’re a role model and even for us older ones. You’ve always been out there in front, and we will always have your back. JR:  Thank you so much. ____________________________________________ *Juyeon Rhee is a first-generation Korean immigrant grassroots organizer whose work is focused on de-militarization, minority rights, reunification and reconciliation in Korea. Juyeon is a member of the Taskforce to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific, Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, Nodutdol for Korean Community Development, and the editorial advisory board of Zoom in Korea, as well as a board member at the Korea Policy Institute. #SouthKorea #peacetreaty #THAAD #Nuclearweapons #parkgeunhye

Challenges of Modernization and Governance in South Korea: The Sinking of the Sewol and Its Causes. Edited by Jae-Jung Suh and Mikyoung Kim. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Review by Haeyoung Kim | December 28, 2017 South Korean President Moon Jae-in won in a landslide election last spring after millions of people took to the streets to call for the resignation of former President Park Geun-hye. The months-long candlelight rallies that lead to President Park’s impeachment and ushered in a liberal Democratic Party leader to head the state were protests to oust not just a president, but also a dysfunctional political and economic system with a callous disregard for the health and safety of its citizenry. What remains to be seen is whether this young administration will meet the demands voiced by the candlelight revolution and develop policy reforms that will radically restructure the political and economic landscape of South Korea. As the new Moon administration continues to formulate its domestic and foreign policy strategies, the important collection of essays in the edited volume Challenges of Modernization and Governance in South Korea: The Sinking of the Sewol and Its Causes come at an opportune time. The book provides the sorely needed analysis to make sense of the tragic Sewol Ferry disaster that took place on April 16, 2014, when the passenger ship capsized and killed 304 of the 476 on board. Of the victims, 250 were high school students. Adding to the horrific death toll was the disorganized and incompetent response by government officials and public authorities, and the endemic corruption and reckless greed revealed in the aftermath. The contributing authors to this volume engage with the ongoing dialogue on the structural challenges of the modern political and economic system in South Korea, which the sinking of the Sewol laid bare. Beginning with a February 2015 roundtable discussion held at the International Studies Association conference held in New Orleans, this edited volume represents a cumulative effort to bring attention to the assorted conditions that enabled the Sewol Ferry to sink and provoked the nationwide crisis. In so doing, the contributing authors present varied framings that critically question and pointedly analyze the nature of South Korea’s compressed modernization and the concomitant maladies endemic to its system. What emerges from this book is a note of caution, urging readers in general and South Koreans in particular to deeply consider the tremendous implications of disregarding or dismissing the hazardous societal consequences to unbridled economic growth. The volume opens with an introductory chapter by one of the editors, Jae-Jung Suh. While situating each chapter in context, Suh also offers weighty reflections on South Korea’s compressed process of modernization, subsequent neoliberalization, and their attendant complications. He concludes that the national crisis incited by the Sewol disaster exposed the tensions inherent to South Korea’s rapid economic and political development, where a singular focus on generating economic growth imposed vulnerabilities upon South Korean society while also precluding a national self-reflexivity. The introduction presents an essential theoretical backdrop to help locate how each chapter contends with the distorted and disproportionate development of Korea’s compressed modernization. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of this national crisis, while all address how the national crisis impacted the South Korean national psyche and body politic. The contributions by Yoonkyung Lee (Chapter 2) and Su-Dol Kang (Chapter 3) investigate the Sewol crisis by addressing the social impact of South Korea’s neoliberal structural reforms. Lee considers the Sewol crisis not as an incompatible or random anomaly in South Korea’s modern history, but as a predictable byproduct of South Korea’s neoliberal deregulation and the state’s collusion with private enterprise. Examining public safety hazards caused by neoliberal policies and the extraction of the state from the provisioning of public safety regulations and oversight, Lee argues that the Sewol disaster is inextricably linked to South Korea’s neoliberal turn, which led to an increasing prioritization of private profits over public safety. Lee cites the deregulation of the shipping industry initiated by South Korea’s neoliberal transformation as the first failed line of defense that led to the Sewol accident. Beginning in the early 90s during the Kim Young-sam administration and gaining relentless traction with South Korea’s subsequent presidencies, the neoliberal drive for economic and political liberalization led to ordinances in the shipping industry that extended the age limit of passenger ships from 20 years to 30, relaxed guidelines concerning inspections, extended freight loading and freight limits, and modified the legal obligations of shippers if involved in an accident. As noted by Lee, the neoliberal relaxing of regulations is what allowed for a decrepit, overloaded, and structurally unstable ferry to depart from port. Further, decades of neoliberal policy shifts led to an increased privatization of rescue missions from public institutions to private companies. During the Sewol accident, the private company Undine Marine Industries was contracted to have exclusive rescue mission rights, prohibiting other vessels and lifesaving units that were at the ready from assisting in the rescue operation. Market forces and business profit interests, according to Lee, overrode public safety, and the lives of innocent victims served as collateral damage. The flexible neoliberal labor market added to the catastrophe by allowing businesses, including the shipping industry, to treat labor as disposable and replaceable commodities rather than human capital in need of long-term investment. Shipping companies have sought to increase their bottom line by replacing regular employees with less-than-adequately trained temporary non-regular workers who earn roughly half that of a regular worker and are denied basic benefits. On April 16, the day of the Sewol accident, nearly half of the crew operating the Sewol ferry consisted of non-regular contracted workers, including the captain. In an industry where safety is an essential part of daily operations, the negligence toward safety education undoubtedly created a perilous public safety hazard as employees were inadequately trained and lacked incentives to be wholly committed to work-related obligations. Indeed, while Lee recognizes the captain and crew’s moral failings as they neglected basic professional obligations, abandoned ship, and deserted the passengers, the author nonetheless argues that their misconduct must be viewed in the context of their contingent labor status. Su-Dol Kang (Chapter 3) considers the Sewol disaster through the lens of addictive organization theory to reveal the structural dysfunctions of Korean society that have accumulated in the last 50 years in a drive for and addiction to economic growth. Addictive organizations, according to Kang, are those that exhibit behavioral traits similar to those of an addict, including denying, lying, controlling, manipulating, and forgetting. Kang argues that every aspect of contemporary South Korean society lays victim to an addictive system, leading to institutionalized social irresponsibility and tragic accidents like the Sewol disaster. In direct conversation with Lee’s claim of the predictability of the Sewol disaster in Chapter 2, Kang notes that disasters like the Sewol accident are bound to happen given South Korea’s addictive system. Kang catalogs a litany of actions and behaviors that reflect South Korea’s unhealthy addictive society. For instance, prior to the accident, the government lifted shipping industry safety regulations that interfered with profit-maximization, the Sewol routinely underwent inadequate safety checks, and reports of crewmember emergency training were overstated. In the aftermath of the Sewol sinking, the maritime police lied to the press about the size of the rescue operation, the press released false reports about the number of passengers rescued, and authorities interfered with the accurate disclosure of information. Instructed by their superiors at Chonghaejin, the company that owned the Sewol, staff even manipulated the Sewol cargo book after the fact, concealing the ferry’s overloading out of concern that insurance money could not be collected if overloading were identified to be the cause. Kang also argues that addictive systems shift blame during times of emergency, noting that Chonghaejin staff and executives held the captain and crew culpable while the government strove to quickly settle the case and quiet dissenting voices to evade responsibility. The courts eventually convicted the Sewol captain, the ship’s chief engineer, and charged the 13 surviving crewmembers of various charges. Kang argues that these judicial decisions serve to merely misdirect attention from larger systemic societal dysfunctions and are inadequate in uncovering the truth or reaching justice. The following three chapters focus on South Korea’s governance structure and role played by the state in South Korea’s neoliberal shift. In Chapter 4, Taehyun Nam argues that the Sewol disaster brought into stark relief the deficiencies in South Korea’s democracy. Nam examines the attitudes and behaviors exhibited by political elites during and after the crisis, and the structural shortcomings in South Korea’s democratic consolidation. President Park and her administration remained silent or routinely misled the public throughout the disaster, revealing the administration’s attitude on democratic principles like accountability and transparency. After the ferry capsized, the government strove to create the impression of a large and orderly rescue operation, egregiously inflating the number of rescuers, helicopters, and vessels engaged in the mission. Further, a governmental body in charge of press and mass communication reportedly created a team to monitor and filter press coverage of the Sewol disaster in order to minimize reports about the government’s mishandling and responsibility. What followed were highly curated reports and a series of theatrical public performances. For instance, Nam makes note of a staged event at a memorial hall in Ansan, the home city of the high school student victims. The televised report presented President Park embracing a solemn-faced elderly woman, who turned out to be unrelated to any victim but someone recruited by presidential aides. Victim family members, rather, shouted at the President in anger and frustration upon her arrival. Another media stunt included an officer who was ordered to wear a diving suit and was subsequently sprayed with water before a media interview. The government not only censored or sensationalized media reporting, but also repressed civilian critics, threatening the most basic civil liberty of free speech. For instance, the government targeted a schoolteacher who posted online criticism and also artists that illustrated caricatures of the president and her administration. To criticize President Park or her administration was deemed to be a condemnation of the Korean nation, and administration subordinates went so far as to launch a political campaign to protect the president’s reputation. President Park and her administration, according to Nam, repeatedly exhibited attitudes that bore close resemblance to feudal masters, rather than officials elected to serve their constituents in a modern democratic republic. South Korea’s political system grants the president unbridled political authority, and the author argues that the high concentration of power afforded the president is the most considerable defect to South Korea’s democratic consolidation. Also speaking squarely to Yoonkyung Lee’s analysis in Chapter 2, Jong-sung You and Youn Min Park challenge the notion that neoliberal reforms and various forms of deregulation caused the Sewol accident in Chapter 5. While they recognize Korea’s neoliberalization to have significantly contributed to the tragedy, they instead argue that the Sewol crisis is better explained by understanding how the pre-neoliberal government and regulatory agencies were entangled in an institutionalized web of regulatory capture – a system where regulatory agencies lose autonomy and serve private regulated industry rather than public interests. The government and regulatory agencies, the authors argue, were willfully negligent and unable to establish and enforce effective regulations because they were guided by industry lobby interests as a result of being captured by the ferry industry and the private owner of the Sewol ferry. As a result, regulatory safety checks were fatally violated over the course of the Sewol’s operation. The authors also determine regulatory capture to be a legacy of state-corporatist arrangements rather than a phenomenon initiated by neoliberal reforms. Introduced during the Park Chung-hee era, collusive relationships between public bureaucrats and private businesses became deeply embedded in every industry. The Sewol tragedy, the authors outline, reveals the long-standing history of institutional appropriation, pointing specifically to parachute appointments and corporatist business associations. The corrupt and collusive practices of public authorities and private industries date back to South Korea’s authoritarian periods, and the legacies of state corporatism played a significant role in institutionalizing regulatory capture in South Korea. In Chapter 6, Kyung-Sin Park examines the relationship between paternalism and mass disasters. According to Park, independent thinking and autonomous action have been suppressed in South Korea, with an authoritarian culture that paralyzes self-directed thought. Laws that criminalize whistleblowing have been vigorously enforced, indisposing individuals to express government dissent or speak freely about corruption. News broadcasters receive heavy-handed pressure from South Korea’s content regulation authorities, leading to unreliable and inaccurate reporting. The result, Park argues, is a disaster-prone system and a blindsided body politic. Park also points to the hierarchical social norms that dictated behavior on the day of the accident. The passengers fatally deferred to the “Stay Still” order announced by the captain and crew, who failed to issue an “Abandon Ship” message because their superiors had not instructed them to do so. While the author identifies incompetence and immorality to be the ultimate cause of the disaster, Park also suggests that there were a series of missed opportunities to exercise independent judgment and restore normalcy. Rather, a habitual adherence to conform to a social hierarchy led to a disastrous paralysis. Chapters 7 through 9 address the ways in which individuals have negotiated and positioned their place in relation to the neoliberal state after the Sewol disaster. Seungsook Moon (Chapter 7) considers education and disciplinary structures in South Korean high schools and the resultant normative subjectivities that are molded. Moon outlines the incongruity between outlined goals of high-school education and the lived experience of daily schooling. While purportedly fostering notions of democracy, human rights, and self-realization, Moon demonstrates that school days are narrowly focused on college entrance. Also, the excessive preoccupation with being admitted to a prestigious university often leads families to dedicate a significant percentage of their household incomes to subsidize commercial cram schools and private tutors. Moon notes that lower-class families also mobilize resources, however limited, to invest in their children’s education, harboring the hope for upward mobility through education. After visiting Danwon High School located in the provincial city of Ansan, a predominately working-class area in Kyonggi Province, Moon notes that the families of the students who drowned during the Sewol disaster also exhibited this aspirational behavior. The Primary, Middle, and High School Education Ordinance Reform of 2011 instituted dramatic changes to student life. Prior to the reforms, South Korean high schools exhibited militaristic practices to control and guide the daily lives of students, including corporal punishment. School authorities also regulated student appearance and behavior, enforcing meticulous restrictions on hair length and style, clothes, and shoes. The author also notes that basic civil rights were often denied to students; many schools limited student leadership roles to high academic achievers, prohibited participation in extracurricular associations, restricted involvement in political activities, and would threaten expulsion for producing, reading, or circulating “unwholesome” texts. School rules and bodily discipline, the author argues, serve to produce docile, compliant, and useful individuals in the social system. Further, this regulatory mechanism over the body, in turn, produces a conformity to and internalization and acceptance of authority. While the reforms of 2011 improved the human rights of students, the author notes that the form of disciplinary power merely shifted from a physical and brutal one to a more polite Foucauldian pastoral power that governs and guides student conduct and continues to produce docile and compliant subjects.  Moon closes the chapter by reminding the reader that the students who survived the Sewol tragedy were those that disobeyed directives offered by authorities. In Chapter 8, Hyunok Lee considers the relationship between the state and citizenship by examining how a Vietnamese family affected by the Sewol disaster navigated various political, economic, and cultural boundaries of belonging. Tracing the lived experiences of a Sewol victim’s Vietnamese family members that traveled to South Korea after being notified of the sinking, Lee demonstrates how the Sewol disaster revealed South Korea’s social stratification to be organized by socioeconomic difference and citizenship. Denied equal access to pertinent information, excluded from decision-making processes, and provided differential services and protections, the post-disaster situation exposed the precarious and marginal positionality of naturalized citizens and foreigners in South Korea. Lee also shows that the Sewol disaster exposed the vulnerability of the global household as an economic unit. The Vietnam-born Sewol victim immigrated to South Korea in 2006 and married a Korean – a union enabling two low-income households in Vietnam and Korea to collectively navigate the global political economy. The international marriage functioned as a survival strategy, allowing for the reproduction of South Korean citizenry while improving the livelihood of the extended family in Vietnam receiving remittances. The Sewol disaster disrupted this economically and emotionally linked transnational family, and revealed their disenfranchisement from the two countries they straddled. Hyeon Jung Lee chronicles how the bereaved families transformed from passive citizens to resistant subjects in Chapter 9. Outraged by government actions and attitudes after the accident, families began to realize that the state and its officials placed their own interests above those they were elected to serve. Victim families recount the endless stream of lies discharged by government officials about the rescue mission, obfuscating details about the state of affairs and making misleading claims about the families being gold-diggers or pro-North Korean leftists. Victim family members chose to take collective political action by staging sit-in protests, developing a political voice, and standing at the vanguard of the movement to expose the ineptitude of President Park and her administration. Families were also reportedly consumed by profound guilt and regret after the accident, feeling that they too were complicit in the deaths of their children. Through their traumatic losses, victim parents came to the painful self-reflexive conclusion that their all-consuming preoccupation with materialism and accumulating wealth served to reinforce the corrupt and faulty system that robbed them of their children. Their sharp critique of society and themselves have formed the basis of their enduring struggles to fight against the state and a corrupt system based on greed and lies. The volume closes with an incisive epilogue by John Lie, who sketches out the critical contours of each chapter while also asking what the sinking of the Sewol may portend for South Korea. Lie contends that the Sewol crisis, while bringing to light the various long-standing political, economic, and social issues that have eroded the country, was a distinctive rupture in South Korea’s contemporary moment. What comes of this shift in collective consciousness, according to Lie, remains to be seen. Yet, the author forewarns that the sinking of the ferry may foretell the sinking of South Korea, and asks who will come to its rescue. As the above summaries show, each piece in this edited compilation seeks to understand the causes and conditions that led to the Sewol Ferry disaster and the unremitting displays of incompetence and misconduct in the wake of the ferry’s sinking. The volume as a whole shows that the sinking of the Sewol exposed the country’s social and structural ills that have been generated and overlooked through South Korea’s process of modernization. While individual chapters trace how particular socioeconomic or political dysfunctions are not specific to the contemporary period but also linked to South Korea’s earlier authoritarian regimes, the authors could have further contextualized and historicized some of these conditions that may have genealogies that date further back. For instance, South Korea’s compressed development, state corporatism, and state-big business collaborative relations indeed have historical ties to the Japanese colonial period, as South Korea inherited Japan’s model of industrialization. Also, coercive colonial education policies aimed at molding pliable colonial subjects provided a framework for South Korea’s educational system. Finally, what does it mean for the modern South Korean president to act like a monarch or political elites to behave like feudal masters in the context of Korean history? A closer historical examination may reveal just how deeply rooted some of these conditions are. The book provides an urgent warning, underscoring the unsustainability of the current economic and political system, but the reader is left to wonder how South Korea can correct the societal ills outlined in the chapters and actualize the policy proposals presented by some of the authors. Kang, for instance, offers a set of prescriptions to revive the health of South Korean society through instituting a systemic overhaul to begin a process of healing. Like an individual recovering from addiction, the addictive society is called to admit to having a problem and stop engaging with the addictive substance, or in this case processes. Also, Nam suggests that South Korea make significant structural changes to South Korean democracy by amending its constitution to strengthen the legislature and creating a parliamentary system to limit the power of the president. Taking these measures would undoubtedly lead to addiction recovery or better governance, but how do we begin overturning this historically rooted and deeply embedded structure, particularly when political and economic elites are so invested in maintaining the status quo? Perhaps providing actionable policy prescriptions that counter the structural dysfunctions addressed by the authors is beyond the scope of this volume. Indeed, the intent of the volume to make sense of the Sewol Ferry disaster in light of specific socioeconomic conditions in South Korea is in of itself a commendable undertaking. Overall, this compilation is a tremendous contribution to our understanding of the causes and conditions that led to the unconscionable Sewol Ferry disaster. Each chapter, providing incisive and nuanced commentary on the topics involved, may well be read individually as a specialized discussion. The structural organization of the volume as a whole makes the book compulsory reading for the student, community advocate, and policy practitioner interested in understanding South Korea’s modern condition and pursuing alternative visions for a more holistic future. Dedicated to the memory of the Sewol victims and their families, let us hope the conversations contained in this text will impact the policy direction of the new Moon administration and also guide the collective consciousness of South Korea such that the deaths were not in vain. Haeyoung Kim is on the Board of the Korea Policy Institute, and a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago. #MoonJaein #parkgeunhye #Sewol #SouthKorea

(Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Trump’s incompetence and posturing threaten US credibility, with potentially dire consequences. By Tim Beal | December 21, 2017 “Back home, we have a saying: The dog barks, but the caravan continues,” Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho told reporters in New York on Wednesday when he was asked about Mr. Trump’s comment. “If he thought he could scare us with the noise of a dog barking, well, he should be daydreaming.”  Mr. Ri arrived in New York on Wednesday to attend the United Nations General Assembly, where Mr. Trump gave a speech on Tuesday in which he called North Korea a “band of criminals” and its leader, Kim Jong-un, a “Rocket Man” on “a suicide mission.” “The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” Mr. Trump said. When asked about Mr. Trump’s Rocket Man comment, Mr. Ri said: “I am sorry for his aides.” Sang-Hun Choe, New York Times, 21 September 2017[1] Oh, The grand old Duke of York, He had ten thousand men; He marched them up to the top of the hill, And he marched them down again. English nursery rhyme[2] “In my position, it is somewhat important that I should not say any foolish things.” Abraham Lincoln, 18 November 1863[3] What happens when you replace the president with a clown? Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post, 13 November 2017[4] The Clown, the Rock, and Geopolitical Struggle North Korea may well be the rock on which the Trump administration, enfeebled and destabilised at home by Russiagate, shatters. Any geopolitical situation presents an interplay between underlying historical forces and strategic imperatives, on the one level, and the decisions, rhetoric and policies of the actors involved, on another. Sometimes the actors are wise, sometimes foolish. Donald Trump brings in an unusual degree of incompetence, bluster and something to which various labels are attached but which might be conveniently called clownishness. If the basis of humour, as Aristotle and others have suggested, is incongruity then “clown,” with its connotations of slapstick, sadness and inadequacy, is perhaps the best fit. Trump plays at being president as a spoiled child might, oblivious to, or ignoring the sniggers of the adults in the room. Trump did not originate the North Korea issue—that is the result of deeper historical processes—but he has exacerbated it to a degree that might have dire consequences. By contrast North Korea is, for reasons of geography and history, a rock against which US hegemony beats, so far, in vain. The Korean peninsula is where most of the world’s major powers meet and contest – the United States, Japan, China and Russia. Possession, or denial of possession by competitors, is of utmost strategic importance. By a historical process, complex in detail but simple in theme, North Korea has ended up as an independent country beholden to none and hosting no foreign military presence. In this, it is similar to China but in contrast to South Korea and Japan. Its deterrent, initially conventional but now moving to nuclear, is the guarantee of that independence. The Kim family has been central to that historical development but what we have is the interaction of nation-states, influenced by individuals but driven by geopolitical imperatives. North Korea poses no security threat to the United States – the huge disparity in power ensures that – but its successful defence of its independence does present a long-term challenge to US global hegemony. The decline of US status in the Middle East might be more pressing, yet it is against Korea that the United States threatens war despite the fact that North Korea, unlike Afghanistan or Iraq, possesses the ability to retaliate. The United States possesses overwhelming power and can, as Trump threatened, “totally destroy” the small Asian country, long a thorn in American hegemonic pride because of its independence and resilience, but its deterrence-based defence strategy presents a dilemma to Washington. Today its deterrence is primarily local and conventional, with the nuclear component as yet uncertain in its efficacy. But there seems little doubt that its nuclear capability, both in terms of explosive power and reach of its missiles is growing fast as exemplified by the 29 November test of the Hwasong-15 ICBM. At some stage—some say already, others say soon—it will be able to retaliate against the US mainland. Yet America’s dilemma is longstanding, predating Trump. If George W. Bush had not torn up Clinton’s Agreed Framework then North Korea would not now be nuclear weapons state. As time passes, military action becomes more hazardous and a negotiated settlement becomes more difficult for the United States to accept. It is one thing to give up the development of nuclear weapons before you have a functioning deterrent but another matter when that is achieved. So any settlement will involve North Korean retaining a minimal nuclear deterrent, with subsequent damage to US prestige. Faced with an existential threat from the United States and South Korea, with Washington refusing to engage in meaningful negotiation, North Korea has little choice but to press ahead with developing its deterrent. However this not merely might trigger precipitate military action by the United States (although the likelihood is small), it also exacerbates relations with China, which is also caught in a dilemma between the fear of giving the United States an excuse to obstruct its ‘peaceful rise’ and allowing an encroachment on its strategic glacis. While the challenge to US statecraft is increasing, its ability to cope is decreasing. Trump’s foreign policy is widely considered by the US elite to be the most inept in recent history. But it goes beyond that. Trump shows no ability to ‘solve’ the North Korea issue, but then neither did Barack Obama. However he greatly exacerbates the problem, undermining America’s status and credibility. On the face of it mid-2017 was a time of crisis when the world came close to nuclear war over the Korean peninsula. In reality, there was fortunately far less danger of that than media hysteria suggested. North Korea was clearly in no position to initiate war against the United States. It had neither the means nor the motive and the idea that it might attack was bred of a combination of self-serving US propaganda and the common misunderstanding of the difference between the rhetoric of deterrence and that of belligerence.[5] The United States, which just as clearly had both means and motive, did not in fact move to a war footing, despite President Trump’s threats.[6] South Korea, despite President Moon Jae-in’s claim that it had been agreed that his administration would play ‘the leading role’ in relations with North Korea, and that he had a veto over military action, was left on the side-lines, watching impotently. [7] This gap between rhetoric and the course of events confirmed the political vitiation of Trump, not absolute of course – even the weakest presidents always have residual power – but with his authority seriously diminished. Trump is the focus of this article for obvious reasons; the United States is the global hegemon, but the other main countries involved, and their leaders, must also be taken into account. Nevertheless, the most consequential outcome of mid-2017 has been the shackling of Trump. He is like a dog barking as the caravan continues and events move on outside his control. Events suggest that his ability to bite is severely constrained by his minders, especially the military. For all the sound and fury, he does not seem, so far, to have the ability to carry out threats, particularly against North Korea. A dog that barks loudly and constantly but does not bite loses credibility and this poses a challenge to the American state that power holders cannot ignore. Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Abe Shinzo: from Peace Proposal to Remilitarisation The United States is the global hegemon, but the other main countries involved, and their leaders, must also be taken into account. Other leaders have been drawn into the maelstrom. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, whose joint peace proposal was predictably spurned by the United States, were as a consequence somewhat side-lined on peninsula issues.[8] Xi Jinping, if we are to believe the Washington Post, was much embarrassed by his failure to reduce tension and his political standing impaired.[9] However the Western media has its own reasons for such opinions, which may not accord with reality, or Chinese perceptions. Indeed, although the West deems China not to have been tough enough with North Korea, the failure can be more plausibly seen as China not being firm enough with the United States, for fear of having its ‘peaceful rise’ derailed. The elevation of Xi Jinping Thought at the 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in October suggests that the Washington Post was a bit premature about Xi’s political demise.[10]  On the contrary it is likely that, as the Hankyoreh noted, ‘China is changing’ in a way that may have profound implications: Attention should also be paid to the fact that China is changing. “The Xi Jinping Thought that was introduced during the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China at the beginning of Xi’s second term represents the complete revocation of ‘tao guang yang hui’ [韜光養晦, a strategy of avoiding the spotlight and keeping a low profile]. While Trump has failed in his ambition to ‘make America great again,’ Xi could succeed at making China great again,” said Lee Seong-hyon, a research fellow at the Sejong Institute. This means that China’s willingness to participate in UN Security Council sanctions on the issue of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missiles in order to avoid a conflict with the US could change in the future. “China’s foreign policy approach could shift toward a confident and aggressive foreign policy that regards competition with the US as ‘growing pains’ rather than something to be avoided,” Lee predicted.[11] China may well be becoming more resistant to US policy over Korea, as well as the South China Sea and a host of other issues, and this increased assertiveness will be mirrored in Russia.[12] For Abe Shinzo, the crisis was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it demonstrated his, and Japan’s, impotence to affect the course of events in the region. This was exemplified in particular by the overflight of Japan by North Korea’s Hwasong-123 IRBM test flight on 29 August and the subsequent one on 15 September, with presumably more to come. On the one hand, the tests posed little real danger to Japan – the trajectory took them across the Tsugaru Strait between Hokkaido and Honshu and well above Japanese airspace – so it is unlikely that an inflight malfunction would have caused any damage to Japan. On the other, it gave Abe good occasion to beat the drum for remilitarisation, and to divert attention from domestic corruption scandals.[13] His strategy paid off with his victory in the snap election that he called to capitalise on events.[14] However there may be seismic shifts under the surface. The US foreign policy establishment breathed a sigh of relief after Trump’s Asia visit in November not because things had gone well—they hadn’t—but because they were not as disastrous as they had been expecting.[15] Japan was the first, and easiest stop. Abe had played “the role of Trump’s loyal sidekick,” gushed the Washington Post, and “found himself in an undeniably better position than South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has not bonded with Trump.”[16] And yet, careful reading of this article and others makes clear that under the apparent bonhomie, there are less friendly undercurrents as exemplified by the vignette from their press conference on 5 November: “The Japanese people are thriving, your cities are vibrant, and you’ve built one of the world’s most powerful economies,” Trump said, before looking up from his prepared remarks. Turning his head to face Abe next to him, Trump ad-libbed: “I don’t know if it’s as good as ours. I think not, okay?” He emphasized the “okay” by drawing it out leadingly as a parent might with a child. “And we’re going to try to keep it that way,” Trump added, for good measure. “But you’ll be second.” Abe, listening to an interpreter through an earpiece, smiled and remained silent. But his face betrayed a touch of uncertainty as the U.S. leader returned to his script. Abe will presumably put up with a lot in order to advance Japanese remilitarisation and his dream of making Japan a ‘normal country’ again and that, for the moment, depends on American approval. Japanese prime ministers have been playing the role of ‘loyal sidekicks’ since the defeat of 1945. However Trump adds another dimension to the mix and it is likely that Abe, and other Asian leaders, for cultural reasons if for no others, find Trump’s crassness extremely distasteful. Personal feelings will not usually override political expediency but combined with diminished US stature in Asia, much accelerated by Trump, they may lead to a greater willingness to consider alternatives. As we know, here are no permanent friends and enemies, only permanent interests. Gavan McCormack has recently suggested that Abe might be attracted by the economic inducements of a peaceful East Asia suggested at the Vladivostok conference by Putin (and endorsed by Xi) and willing to move away from the US-Japan alliance, the strategy of subjugating North Korea and containing China and Russia. “Plan B” might be under active consideration in Tokyo, and that Vladivostok might mark a first step towards a comprehensive, long overdue, post-Cold War re-think of regional relationships.[17] At the moment, Plan B unfortunately looks highly unlikely but there may be movement in the tectonic plates that will bring surprising realignments before too long Kim Jong Un: the Challenge of Moving from Deterrence to Peaceful Coexistence On the face of it, Kim Jong Un might be considered to have come off the best. Fareed Zakaria has grudgingly called him “smart and strategic.”[18] The feint towards Guam and then testing the Hwasong-12 into the North Pacific on 29 August was adroit.[19] It raised tension with the US (in response to American threats, it should be remembered) and produced the predictable tweets from Trump (‘fire and fury like the world has never seen’) but when the test took place elsewhere, the United States was left floundering.[20] At the same time the test did demonstrate that Guam was within reach.[21] Guam is hugely important in both military and symbolic terms. It is the main forward base on US territory in the Western Pacific, and the place from which attacks on Asian enemies would largely be launched and coordinated. China is the main target of course, and the main threat –its IRBMs are known colloquially in China as “Guam killers” but it also threatens North Korea.[22] On the global stage, China and Russia are the main challenges to American hegemony. US policy towards North Korea has its own dynamics borne of American frustration at its inability to subjugate, or at the very least discipline, North Korea and that has implications for US hegemony over minor powers more generally. If the Trump administration abrogates the Iran deal, will Tehran follow Pyongyang’s example?[23] China and Russia are inevitably linked by geography and history to North Korea. The United States divided Korea in 1945, thus in effect creating the two Koreas as part of its containment strategy towards the then Soviet Union. Today an attack on North Korea would almost certainly embroil the United States in a war with China, since the South Korean conservative elite (which now seems to include or to have incorporated Moon Jae-in) would insist on attempting to gobble up the North. That, for legal and technical reasons, could only be done under US operational control, and it is unlikely that China would tolerate the violent extension of US power to its border. An American war with China, something which is frequently discussed especially in the ‘security community’ would probably involve an attack on North Korea because that would be the most feasible way of being able to utilise the substantial South Korean military machine. The deployment of THAAD in South Korea, ostensibly to defend South Korea against the North, is an expression of these strategic ramifications. Yet THAAD’s primary purpose is to provide an early-warning of ICBM launches from China and Russia and is part of US first-strike capability.[24] Given these inextricable linkages between China, Russia, and North Korea within American strategic imperatives, why is there not more coordination between them? It can be seen as a seemingly unexplored version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma in which cooperation would provide better outcomes for all but which they are prevented from achieving from mutual mistrust and their own specific relationship with the United States, in a sense the jailer of them all. The role of Kim Jong Un in this failure of coordination is unclear. Certainly relations between North Korea and Russia, and particularly China, are worse than they were during his father’s period. The 19th Congress of the CCP may well been seen, in retrospect, as the turning point if it does lead to a greater Chinese assertiveness against the United States and a readiness to cooperate with North Korea. On the North Korean domestic front, the economy is doing well, despite US-led sanctions, and the nuclear test of 3 September and recent missiles tests have been successful.[25] It is likely that Kim Jong Un’s popular standing has never been higher though since there is no direct evidence that remains conjecture. However some of this is due to luck – rockets are notoriously prone to failure, and visible failure at that, and some previous nuclear tests have been, according to Western assessments, not entirely successful. Indeed, since the United States has conducted over 1000 nuclear tests (against North Korea’s 6), we can presume it is a risky business. Moreover, although the rapid development of a nuclear deterrent may well be close to putting North Korea beyond the danger of an American attack, the danger is still there and there are great challenges ahead. North Korea has to somehow force or persuade the United States into accepting peaceful coexistence which would entail to some degree the acceptance of North Korea’s nuclear deterrent, abandonment of the hostility policy, the lifting of sanctions, the removal of the military threat and the establishment of normal diplomatic and economic relations. This still seems a distant dream and it is unclear how it can be achieved, not least because of Trump’s erratic, weak and incoherent presidency. That is a discussion for another time. In the meantime it should be noted that a US deal with North Korea would have complex regional and global implications for American power. Moon Jae-in: the Tragedy of the President Who Couldn’t Say ‘No’ One thing seems clear. If the United States is to be brought to accept peaceful coexistence with North Korea, some sort of face-saving device needs to be found and here Moon Jae-in could have played a pivotal role. It would have required great skill and, as always, a bit of luck. He would have had to distance himself from the United States, gently, slowly but firmly. He would have had to extricate South Korea from the nuclear stand-off, making clear that it was primarily a matter between the United States and North Korea and that it was the product of hostility, not the cause of it. The solution then would not be nuclear disarmament, which neither side will do, but a change in relationship which may be possible. He would need to repair relations with China and Russia soured by THAAD by promising, probably through back channels, that South Korea would remove itself from the US missile defense system.[26] He would have had to have gone some way to mending relations with the North, for instance by reopening Kaesong and Kumgangsan joint ventures and affirming that his administration would honour the agreement made by Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun. Again a lot of this could be done privately. Moon Jae-in could have attempted to seize the opportunity presented by the Candlelight Revolution to refashion the client relationship with the United States into something more to South Korea’s benefit. Instead he loudly proclaimed his loyalty to the US-ROK alliance and the subordination that entailed. The difficulties and dangers of challenging the existing relationship with the United States should, of course, not be underestimated. On the formal level, Moon Jae-in’s Democratic Party of Korea (Minjoo) does not have a majority in the National Assembly.[27] On the more important informal level, the forces arraigned against reform of the client relationship to the United States are formidable. Conservatives forces in the media, bureaucracy, business, and crucially the military are very strong. The relationship with the United States has been built up over generations. The military, in particular, has a formal, intimate and ongoing subordinate relationship with the United States exemplified by, but not limited to US Operational Command (OPCON). There have been high-profile incidents in the short period of the Moon administration when the military establishment has displayed its independence of presidential authority, including the rushed deployment of THAAD and the statements of the Minister of Defense, Song Young-moo, advocating the re-introduction of US tactical nuclear weapons.[28] President Moon has come out against tactical nuclear weapons, and nuclearisation of the ROK military – stances which annoy the conservatives but are in line with official US policy. [29] However he has not disciplined the military establishment; the Defense Minister has been ‘warned’ but not fired.[30] On the contrary, he has berated the military for a ‘lack of confidence’ that they could ‘overwhelm’ North Korea on their own ironically striking a more aggressive policy towards the North than Park Geun-hye.[31] Meanwhile the South Korea media is replete with articles about the military strengthening its subordination to the United States, increasing its offensive capabilities and ratcheting up tension with the North.[32] Instead of trying to guide the Trump administration into peaceful coexistence with North Korea, Moon has exacerbated American intransigence, declaring that ‘dialogue is impossible.’[33] It is not than he has been blindsided by events. It has long been clear that North Korea will continue developing and testing its nuclear deterrent as long as the United States does not enter into meaningful negotiations. The timing and nature of the tests are unpredictable; the course of development is not. The issue extends far beyond North Korea itself. The United States is an empire in decline and under threat, attempting to preserve its global hegemony in particular against rising China and resurgent Russia. If South Korea cannot break free of the American embrace, it will be ground up in the struggle against North Korean resistance and beyond that, as THAAD illustrates, against China and Russia. It is this element of inevitability, an ineluctable fate following from Moon’s decision not to challenge the US relationship, but rather to embrace it that led me to call this, in an earlier article, a “Korean tragedy.”[34] There is also the element of betrayal of the aspirations of the Candlelight Revolution and the promises made by candidate Moon. As Geoffrey Fattig put it: Despite campaigning for the presidency with a pledge to “say no to the Americans,” South Korean leader Moon Jae-in lately seems like a man who can’t stop saying “yes.”[35] Moon’s response to Trump’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly on 19 September threatening “to totally destroy North Korea” was truly astounding.[36] Apart from possibly killing up to 25 million North Koreans – whom Seoul claims as its citizens – any such action would also cause huge devastation to South Korea.[37] He applauded Tump’s “firm” stand and described his speech as “very powerful.”[38] He was, the Hankyoreh noted “dancing to the beat of Trump’s drum.”[39] The Problems of Donald Trump Since Trump’s winning of the election in November 2016, his administration has been beset with often interrelated domestic and foreign difficulties. Some of the foreign issues, including North Korea, the Middle East, and the confrontation with China have been inherited from predecessors; Trump may have exacerbated American problems but did not create them. On other matters, such as climate change, the liberal economic order as exemplified by free-trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and issues with South Korea over KORUS FTA, payment for THAAD and US troops, he has oscillated between his campaign promises and the advice of his minders. The one area where as candidate he offered a better alternative to the past policies of Barack Obama and the proposed policies of Hillary Clinton was a less adversarial relationship with Russia. Yet he has had to back track and US relations with Russia are as bad as they have been under Obama, or even worse.[40] None of this has helped Trump. Russiagate overshadows everything else because it joins those forces who oppose any detente with Russia with those who oppose Trump. These are, of course, often the same people, but still separate strands in the political firmament; for those opposed to Trump, it could have been Chinagate, Mafiagate, or whatever would best achieve their objective. Opposition to Trump ranges from the personal – Hillary Clinton and grandees in both parties who were shunted aside in his drive to office – and the more general objection, identified with what is often called the “deep state,” that he is incompetent, narcissistic, unpredictable and unfit to be president. What is known in shorthand as the military-industrial complex, that vast array of people and organisations which thrives on perceived threat to national security, has a particular role to play in this. Apart from the military establishment itself and the armaments industry, the military-industrial complex includes extensive swathes of the civilian bureaucracy, from the CIA to Homeland Security, much of the media, the security think tanks and, of course, politicians anxious both to drape themselves in the flag of patriotism and to attract lucrative military spending to their electorates. Inclusion and ranking in the perceived threat list varies over time and includes near-peer competitors such as China and Russia, small independent states such as North Korea, Syria, and Iran and the amorphous threat of terrorism, in practice usually Islamic. The military-industrial complex is an economic animal and from its point of view, perception matters, and the further that is from reality the better. North Korea fits the bill nicely, China is problematic because of its economic importance to the United States, whilst Russia as threat has the advantage of building on a hostility nurtured over generations, to the Soviet period and earlier. At the same time Russia, no more than the others, actually poses a real threat to US security. The military budgets of the United States and its allies account for some 70% of the world total, exceeding that of Russia 23 times. It should also be noted that the alliance outspends China seven times, and Iran 66 times.[41] With North Korea the ratio moves into the stratosphere, between 300 and up to over a thousand times.[42] The military industrial complex presumably has ambivalent feelings towards Trump. On the one hand, he loves the military, is overawed by generals, with whom he now surrounds himself. He has raised the military budget to new heights. On the other hand, he is incompetent, precipitate and must be restrained. Coping with Trump – Removalists and Shacklers We can divide the deep state into two overlapping groups – the ‘removalists’ who want to get rid of Trump entirely, through impeachment or some other device, and the ‘shacklers’ who are willing to tolerate him as long as he is under restraint. The latter group is probably small, not extending far beyond those such as McMaster, Mattis, and Kelly whose personal fortunes are tied to Trump remaining in office. Some might survive a transfer to Pence or another post-Trump administration but essentially the shacklers are themselves shackled, much as guards are to handcuffed prisoners. A 15 September article in the Wall Street Journal entitled ‘GOP Congressman Sought Trump Deal on WikiLeaks, Russia’ presents an illuminating example of shackling at work.[43] The article recounts how Congressman Rohrabacher had tried to approach Trump with an offer from Julian Assange of WikiLeaks in exchange for a pardon: Mr. Assange would probably present a computer drive or other data-storage device that Mr. Rohrabacher said would exonerate Russia in the long-running controversy about who was the source of hacked and stolen material aimed at embarrassing the Democratic Party during the 2016 election. However, according to the Wall Street Journal: Mr. Kelly told the congressman that the proposal “was best directed to the intelligence community,” the official said. Mr. Kelly didn’t make the president aware of Mr. Rohrabacher’s message, and Mr. Trump doesn’t know the details of the proposed deal, the official said.[44] Since the “intelligence community” is behind the Russiagate accusations, it is no surprise that the matter was not taken further. Rohrabacher subsequently complained that Kelly was preventing him from having access to Trump.[45] This is a telling story because Russiagate is the dagger aimed at the heart of the Trump administration. The basic problem facing the US elite is that Trump’s incompetence is not grounds for removing him constitutionally from office. Invoking the 25th Amendment – removing the president on grounds of “incapacity” – seems at the moment infeasible despite the fantasies of its advocates.[46] Impeachment, whatever its political hurdles, requires “treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors,” hence Russiagate.[47] The allegations may be fraudulent – they almost certainly are – and dangerous in that they fuel anti-Russian hysteria probably with dire long-term consequences, but they offer the best hope for a legal removal of Trump from office, and that is being worked on assiduously.[48] It is curious that President Trump did not meet with Congressman Rohrabacher to hear what he had to say because the Democratic National Committee incident – WikiLeaks said it was a leak whereas the intelligence community claims it was Russian hacking – is central to Russiagate.[49] The Mad Emperor in the Tower with Only Tweets for Solace Trump is like a mad emperor locked in a castle tower by his courtiers. He is allowed the trappings of office but denied free access to power. He is allowed out on state occasions, such as attending the United Nations to deliver a speech written by someone else. He would have endorsed the speech, especially the tough guy bits – we will totally destroy North Korea – and he and the speechwriters (Stephen Miller, assisted, it is claimed, by Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka[50]), would no doubt have considered it a masterpiece of presidential eloquence, even though few others shared that opinion. He can still do many things, such as destroying the TPP or the Iran deal but his freedom of action is severely constrained, and nowhere is this more evident than in the case of North Korea policy. The big difference between Trump and the mythical emperor is that he can makes speeches and in particular he can tweet, and that is both his solace and his scourge. His tweets are a constant source of consternation and embarrassment to his officials, frustration and humiliation to the American elite, and to US allies. It would be too simple to say that they delight America’s adversaries because although they demonstrate the incompetence and dysfunction of the Trump administration they are a reminder of the danger he poses. It is more likely that Xi, Rouhani and Kim Jong Un would prefer a more coherent and less erratic US president than Trump even though his very incompetence presents advantages. It may well be that Putin would prefer the virulently anti-Russian, but calculating, Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump. It should be remembered that all countries, not least North Korea, seek to have a good non-confrontational and working relationship with the United States, which is far too important economically and politically for them to want otherwise. Dealing with the unstable and fantasising Trump seems to be a nightmare for all concerned whether adversaries, domestic and international allies, and courtiers.[51] Nevertheless it is the courtiers that form a barrier between Trump and the real exercise of power. Trump may make a speech, or post a tweet threatening North Korea with fire and fury but it is the generals who would have to implement those threats and the indications so far is that they have no intention of doing so. If there was a serious intention of going to war there would be a mobilisation of US forces in the Pacific and, crucially, a move to evacuate US civilians from South Korea, neither of which has happened although plans for exercises are reported.[52] Another good indicator of imminent danger, like the canary in the coal mine, is the financial sector and the reaction of ratings agencies such Fitch and Moody’s, discounting fares of war, is telling.[53] North Korea’s Retaliatory Power The reasons for the reluctance are obvious. Bannon, in his famous American Prospect interview in August touched on it in a more forthright manner than is usual in public: Contrary to Trump’s threat of fire and fury, Bannon said: “There’s no military solution [to North Korea’s nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us.”[54] Bannon only scratched the surface. There are some 75,000 US troops in South Korea and Japan. [55] According to the Korea People’s Army (KPA), all US bases in South Korea are within range of its artillery alone, leaving aside missiles. There are some 200,000 American civilians in South Korea, and another 50,000 in Japan. Because North Korea is so much weaker than the United States and its allies nuclear deterrence offers the best form of defence. As a consequence it would probably retaliate with nuclear weapons if attacked and although the range and efficacy of its weapons are uncertain, the results would certainly be calamitous. Leaving aside the problem of retaliation what would happen in in the event of a US-led invasion of the North? It is likely that there would be fierce resistance from the KPA, and militia, with a people’s war being unleashed. A study in 2011 calculated then even if there were no resistance from the KPA they would still require 400,000 troops to pacify the country.[56] Since the United States has not succeeded in pacifying Afghanistan after 16 years, it might be considered that a similar enterprise in North Koreas would be hazardous. And then there is China. Many ‘experts’ have argued that China could be persuaded to acquiesce in an American occupation of North Korea, perhaps even joining in, as long as there is some buffer zone left along the Yalu, or the Americans promise to leave the peninsula at some future date. Since the underlying reason for the US interest in the Korean peninsula is the containment of China (and the Soviet Union/Russia), such dreams are clearly fanciful. Moreover China has recently warned yet again, via an editorial in the authoritative Global Times, that it will not tolerate an invasion and will intervene: If the US and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so.[57] So an attack on North Korea, the fire and fury, the attempt to ‘totally destroy’ it threatened by President Trump, would almost certainly involve war with China. While such a war has been widely discussed, and may well come to pass, it seems unlikely that the generals would be willing to embark on what would surely be the most consequential war in America’s history with Donald Trump as Commander in Chief.[58] However there remain the dangers of what is euphemistically called ‘miscalculation,’ and what might be termed strategic inexorability, which is discussed below. The possibility of an accidental stumbling into war – Armageddon by Accident[59]  – are probably exaggerated but there are indications that elements of the US, and ROK, military might be trying to provoke conflict. In September US B-1B bombers, accompanied not merely by aircraft from South Korea but also Japan, dumped lived bombs “a few dozen miles from the demilitarized zone.”[60] It would not take a B-1B long to travel a few dozen miles. Then a couple of weeks later B-1Bs were reported to have crossed the North Limit Line (NLL).[61] The NLL does not have the same legal standing as the DMZ, since it was unilaterally established by the United States (to keep Syngman Rhee from reigniting hostilities in 1953[62]) but since the US/ROK claim it is the de facto boundary, crossing it is clearly provocative. However even though North Korea claims that it will retaliate “if the U.S. dares to invade our sacred territory by even an inch,’ that should be seen as a necessary component of deterrence strategy, and it seems that it is well aware of the danger of being provoked into giving the United States an excuse for hostilities and as a consequence is very restrained and disciplined in its response to such actions.[63] Effective deterrence, especially for a country such as North Korea faced with an invincible enemy hundreds of times more powerful, has to be a judicious mix of determination, courage and restraint wrapped in an envelope of ambiguity and bluff.[64] A further possible restraint on Trump’s freedom of action is provided by President Moon and the government of South Korea. Moon has claimed on a number of occasions that the United States cannot go to war with North Korea without South Korea’s permission, and this has been reiterated recently by Defense Minister Song Young-moo.[65]  American commentators tend to be sceptical about the veto and certainly Trump’s tweets and his UN speech gave no indication that he thinks he has to ask Moon’s permission. One possible scenario is that the United States would launch an attack on North Korea using ‘offshore assets,’ rather than anything stationed in South Korea. The North would retaliate, including against US forces in the South, the United States would assume ‘wartime operational control’ over the ROK military and go marching merrily in the direction of Pyongyang. However since the United States would need the South Korean military for a gruelling land war in North Korea, and probably against China, they would need to make sure that the generals were fully cooperative. So it might be a matter of discussing things with the generals rather than with President Moon. This ‘militarisation’ of decision making in respect of war with North Korea might be considered complementary to what is already happening in Washington. Curious Consequences of the Militarisation of the Trump Administration One of the characteristics of the Trump administration has been an unprecedented role for the military, something which has been commented upon with vary degrees of approval and disapproval across the political spectrum.[66]. It is not for nothing that the most successful and enduring polities have tended to extol civilian leadership and the importance of keeping generals in their place; in Clemenceau’s phrase, “war is too serious a matter to leave to soldiers.” Certainly this seems to have been the prevailing opinion amongst the Founding Fathers.[67] Moreover it could be argued that it is civilians who have been unsuccessful in the military – Corporal Adolf Hitler comes to mind – in power tend to be most prone to military adventures. Nevertheless it is claimed, plausibly, that generals tend to be more cautious about going to war because they are aware of the possible consequences. Eisenhower is a case in point.[68] The consequences may be minor – the unpleasant duty of writing to relatives of dead soldiers.[69] However the consequences can but much more serious because war is a risky and uncertain business – “Give me lucky generals,” Napoleon said – and the basic trick of the trade is to muster overwhelming force against an inferior enemy. As Admiral Harry Harris, commander of U.S. Pacific Command put it: If we have to fight tonight, I don’t want it to be a fair fight. If it’s a knife fight, I want to bring a gun. If it’s a gun fight, I want to bring in the artillery ― and all of our partners with their artillery.[70] The United States has not fought a war against a substantial adversary for decades – the Korean War (China) and World War II (Germany and Japan) and even these could not project power to the US mainland. American wars during this period have been wars of choice and the chosen have been countries with no capacity to retaliate against the US, or its soldiers and civilians, except on their own soil. North Korea introduces a very new situation and one which may well be the harbinger of things to come, which is why it is so significant. North Korea can retaliate against Americans in its neighbourhood, and before long it will, it is widely presumed, be able to hit the US mainland; some argue that it can do that already.[71] Missile technology gives it reach and nuclear technology, power to inflict great damage. Admiral Harry Harris may have many more guns than Kim Jong Un, and far more powerful ones, but for the first time the victim also has a gun. Not a fair fight, but not the turkey shoot of the past. American officials famously, and foolishly, thought the invasion of Iraq in 2003 would be a “cakewalk”; few would be so sanguine today about an attack on North Korea.[72] This is not to say that there will be no war but if it does happen it will be a result of calculated and contested decision making amongst the generals and not on the whim of President Trump, whatever the experts might say about his theoretical legal powers. Congress may or may not be able to constrain him, but the real power lies with Mattis and his fellows.[73] Slim Prospects for Peace Negotiations If Trump cannot wage war neither can he, for rather different reasons, make peace. The American political system militates against peace negotiations, especially with far weaker counterparts. As the Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif pointed out, commenting on US attempts to extract more concessions without yielding anything: “By definition, a deal is not perfect, because in any deal you have to give and take. Otherwise you won’t have a deal.”[74] Many Americans, conscious of their county’s dominant position in the world, fail to realise this and this misunderstanding appears to extend into the highest levels of the governance structure. Certainly, given the formal adversarial nature of that structure any concessions tend to be labelled as unpatriotic betrayal by the opposition. This means that only a strong president can negotiate peace. Trump is too weak, both psychologically and politically, to negotiate a deal with North Korea. The problem is compounded as times passes and North Korea’s development of a nuclear deterrent progresses; what was on the table in past is no longer there. Bill Clinton was psychologically strong and confident, and was able to negotiate the Agreed Framework back in 1994. He was not politically strong enough to comply with US commitments, especially after the Republicans won the 1994 midterm elections.[75] The agreement faltered, then died under his successor, George W. Bush. Even so, Clinton had a much easier time of it than Trump would have. North Korea did not then have a nuclear deterrent and was willing to make concessions that of course it would not contemplate now. To achieve a settlement, Trump would have to accept North Korea retaining a minimal nuclear deterrent.[76] Whatever problems Clinton had with the Republicans, they do not compare with Trump’s political isolation, at odds with Republicans and Democrats alike and under attack from the ‘deep state,’ however defined. On top of all this, Trump is narcissistic and insecure and not the sort of person who has the strength to make concessions, however useful they might be in achieving broader aims. The hapless Tillerson and his public ‘castration’ by Trump is a red herring.[77] Tillerson was not negotiating with North Korea or even approaching it, although ‘backchannel’ contact might have been useful in defusing the situation.[78] The Secretary of State might carry out negotiations but cannot initiate them – that is a decision for the President. At this stage, it seems highly unlikely that Trump will have the strength to make that decision, and as time passes it becomes less likely because the required concessions will become larger. Policy Poverty: Neither War Nor Peace, Only Ineffectual Sanctions Trump is stuck and cannot go in the direction of either war or peace. However, despite all the talk about the ‘adults in the room,’ it should not be thought that anyone else in the elite – politicians, generals, officials, commentators and sundry experts – has much idea either.[79] There is the dishonest (“The U.S. has no interest in regime change”) , unilateralist (we will negotiate if there is an “immediate cessation … of weapons tests”) and threatening approach of Mattis and Tillerson in an article in the Wall Street Journal, “We’re Holding Pyongyang to Account.” And then there is the risible, as exemplified in an article in the PacNet Newsletter, a publication of what is claimed to be the world’s leading security think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which suggested: President Trump could send a signed copy of his book, The Art of the Deal, to Kim Jong Un. Sending a book on negotiations written by the leader of the United States is a reminder that Trump values his skills as a deal-maker.[80] Meaningful negotiations might offer a way out but the word “diplomacy,” as used by officials and the media in the present context freighted with the implication that it is peaceful and benign, is nothing of the sort. “Diplomacy” does not mean real negotiations involving give and take but using instruments of coercion that are not direct military action in an attempt to force submission. It involves threats of military action, diplomatic pressure and economic warfare, conventionally abbreviated as sanctions rather than kinetic actions which provoke retaliation. The objectives are the same, only the means varying. Sanctions, if fully implemented by China, would result in mass starvation, which is commonly considered a war crime.[81] Apparently such laws do not apply to the United States in its effort to disarm North Korea for, as an editorial in the Wall Street Journal assures us, “withholding food aid to bring down a government would normally be unethical, but North Korea is an exceptional case.”[82] Exceptionalism has its privileges. However, ethics aside, whatever damage sanctions might do to the North Korean people, they are unlikely to be effective in changing the policy of the government because, in the absence of meaningful negotiations, surrender would inflict even worse damage. Indeed, the lifting of sanctions, at least partially, would probably be a necessary precursor of genuine negotiations. What a US deal with North Korea might involve is a subject in its own right but the starting point would be the awareness, even if not publically admitted, that North Korea with its deterrence-based defence strategy, does not pose a threat to US security but rather a challenge to US hegemony. If North Korea’s deterrence works in forcing the United States to accept peaceful coexistence than that has global implications. There may be ways to tackle that underlying challenge to hegemony though the Trump administration is an unlikely font of deep strategic thinking.[83] But this goes beyond the administration itself – there is little indication in the torrent of articles and speeches published daily that this crucial reality is grasped by the elite generally. Strategic Inexorability and the Challenge to US Hegemony Trump, it seems, can neither go to war, nor formulate a strategy to defuse the situation in a way that helps to preserve US hegemony and might be presented as a victory. He is not alone in in this, but he is president and whilst he is shackled he can do certain things, such as ordering carrier groups to sail around the Western Pacific (sometimes in the wrong direction,[84] making speeches and, his own speciality, tweeting. Twitter is a new phenomenon and whilst other public figures have come to grief using it, no one does it so exuberantly and foolishly as Trump.[85] And therein lies a problem for the adults. Trump hasn’t got the ability to solve America’s North Korea predicament, but he can exacerbate it, and does. Trump’s addiction to Twitter is well known, and widely derided.[86] Twitter offers the toxic combination of the sloppiness of informal, private chat with the permanence and rapid global dissemination of the Internet. Sometimes public figures are discomforted when an ill-considered comment becomes public when a microphone is inadvertently left switched on. With Trump and Twitter neither the comment nor the microphone are inadvertent. Tweets are public and documented; the Los Angeles Times has a webpage claiming to record “Everything President Trump has tweeted”; two countries have sections to themselves, Russia and North Korea.[87] Trump has tweeted on a number of occasions, threatening that he will take action against North Koreas, fire and fury no less, if it does not desist in developing its deterrent, but has not carried through, resulting as many have pointed out, in a lack of credibility.[88] This behaviour has not been confined to North Korea. He backed down significantly in the beginning of his presidency in respect of China, but it has become such a characteristic, in both foreign and domestic affairs, that a columnist in the Washington Post dubbing him the ‘Backdown President.’[89] Credibility is the key aspect of any exercise of authority, be it by a teacher, a parent, or the leader of a global empire. Incompetence is bad enough but Trump’s continuing demolition of US credibility is another matter. Credibility goes in two directions, peace and war – it can be lost by the failure to honour an agreement, such as the Iran deal, or by not carrying out repeated military threats against North Korea. Eliot A. Cohen, the military historian, put it bluntly, if rather disingenuously: [Trump] has now repeatedly insisted that he will resolve the problem that has bedeviled three of his predecessors, and has made it clear that diplomacy is not the way. That leaves either North Korea’s surrender, which will not happen, or war, or another broken promise. The incalculable costs of war could include the loss of hundreds of thousands of Korean lives, and the loss of many thousands of U.S. soldiers and civilians, including military dependents in Korea. It could well bring about a Chinese intervention and direct confrontation with Beijing. It would shatter what remaining confidence America’s allies have in Washington’s good judgment. A climb down, however, will be far worse than Obama’s abortive red line in Syria, as bad as that was. Trump will have shown, once and forever, that he is a blowhard tapping out empty threats on Twitter. On his watch the United States can and will be defied with impunity. And again, what remains of American credibility pretty much anywhere will vanish.[90] The article is disingenuous because its title (“Rex Tillerson Must Go”) suggests that Tillerson’s resignation would somehow solve the conundrum. Eliot is a leading neocon thinker, a co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, and a strong advocate of war against Iraq, Iran and Syria. The title of his latest book makes no secret of where he stands: The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power and the Necessity of Military Force.[91] He is somewhat confused about East Asian geography – he thinks that Korea is on China’s southern border – but that may be a Freudian slip about Vietnam; he does not regret the war, only the US defeat.[92] Cohen is too astute to fuss about the nonsense of a “threat from North Korea,” seeing this as essentially a choice between war and the further, and potentially disastrous, erosion of US credibility; peace is not in his lexicon. He does not explicitly advocate war but he implies it: “A climb down, however, will be far worse.” Cohen is surely not the only person in the US elite wrestling with this problem. He does not discuss another possibility, one not to be mentioned in public, but no doubt exercising many minds. War with North Korea means war with China. Some would go for that but it is a big decision, fraught with danger. No war but Trump’ s incompetence and his empty bluster risks a precipitous decline in American credibility that extends far beyond the Korean issue. If Russiagate does not succeed in removing Trump from power, will thoughts turns to other, non-constitutional means? There was a two-and-a-half month pause in public deterrent testing after the 15 September launch of the Hwasong-12. No doubt technical reasons were part of the reason but there was speculation that this was a message from Pyongyang to Washington.[93] If so, it was a unilateral freeze that complemented the Chinese/Russia freeze-for-freeze peace proposals.[94] Since there are back-channel communications in place, the Trump administration would have been well aware of the overture. In any case, the administration rejected the overture. It put North Korea back on the terrorism list on 20 November and made it clear that it was going ahead with massive airstrike drills in coordination with the South Korean air force.[95] On 29 September North Korea launched its biggest ICBM yet, the Hwasong-15.[96] The rock holds firm and the caravan moves on, ignoring the barking dog. Retired New Zealand-based academic Tim Beal has written two books and numerous articles on Korean issues and US global policy. He is an Asia-Pacific Journal contributing editor and writes for NK News and Zoom in Korea amongst others. 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Until His Next One.” Foreign Policy, 14 November 2017.http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/14/trumps-worst-trip-ever-until-his-next-one/ Buckley, Chris. “China Enshrines ‘Xi Jinping Thought.’ What Does That Mean?” New York Times, 24 October 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-constitution.html Cairo, Michael F. “Civilian Control of the Military.” Democracy Papers [State Department, Bureau of International Information Programs], 26 October 2005.https://web.archive.org/web/20051026185242/http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/democracy/dmpaper12.htm Choe, Sang-hun. “South Korea Plans ‘Decapitation Unit’ to Try to Scare North’s Leaders.” New York Times, 12 September 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/world/asia/north-south-korea-decapitation-.html ———. “South Koreans Feel Cheated After U.S. Carrier Miscue.” New York Times, 19 April 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/world/asia/aircraft-carrier-south-korea.html ———. “Trump Likened to ‘a Dog Barking’ by North Korea’s Top Envoy.” New York Times, 21 September 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/world/asia/north-korea-trump-dog.html ———. “U.S. Military to Begin Drills to Evacuate Americans From South Korea.” New York Times, 16 October 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/world/asia/us-drills-evacuate-civilians.html Choe, Sang-hun, Jane Perlez, and Mark Landler. “China Blinks on South Korea, Making Nice After a Year of Hostilities.” New York Times, 1 November 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/world/asia/china-south-korea-thaad.html Choi, Hye-jeong. “South Korea holds ultimate decision for military action on Peninsula.” Hankyoreh, 18 August 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/807417.html Cohen, Eliot A. 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Korea, US hold ‘secret’ meeting in Switzerland: report.” Korea Times, 14 September 2017.http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/09/103_236447.html Parker, Ashley, and Greg Jaffe. “Inside the ‘adult day-care center’: How aides try to control and coerce Trump.” Washington Post, 16 October 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-the-adult-day-care-center-how-aides-try-to-control-and-coerce-trump/2017/10/15/810b4296-b03d-11e7-99c6-46bdf7f6f8ba_story.html Parker, Kathleen. “Dealmaker in Chief? More like the Backdown President.” Washington Post, 25 April 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dealmaker-in-chief-more-like-the-backdown-president/2017/04/25/7cddddc6-29df-11e7-b605-33413c691853_story.html Pilger, John. “The Coming War on China.” Counterpunch, 2 December 2016.http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/02/the-coming-war-on-china/ Rahn, Kim. “Defense ministry deceived Moon on THAAD report.” Korea Times, 31 May 2017.http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/06/205_230387.html Rauhala, Emily. “The timing of North Korea’s nuke test could not be worse for China’s leader.” Washington Post, 4 September 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the-timing-of-north-koreas-nuke-test-could-not-be-worse-for-chinas-xi/2017/09/04/f9d0677a-90bb-11e7-b9bc-b2f7903bab0d_story.html Rauhala, Emily, and Simon Denyer. “Why the cheery Trump trip to China may not be so successful.” Washington Post, 9 November 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/trump-thinks-his-china-trip-went-great-that-could-be-a-problem/2017/11/09/2aff59ea-c53d-11e7-a441-3a768c8586f1_story.html Rich, Motoko. “Tokyo Voters’ Rebuke Signals Doubt About Shinzo Abe’s Future.” New York Times, 3 July 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/03/world/asia/japan-tokyo-shinzo-abe-election.html Robinson, Eugene. “What happens when you replace the president with a clown?” Washington Post, 13 November 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-clown-goes-abroad/2017/11/13/854b7186-c8b7-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html Rosen, Jeffrey. “The 25th Amendment Makes Presidential Disability a Political Question.” The Atlantic, 23 May 2017.https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/presidential-disability-is-a-political-question/527703/ Rossman, Sean. “Trump has tweeted 17 times about North Korea since becoming president.” USA Today, 4 July 2017.https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/07/04/trump-has-tweeted-17-times-north-korea-since-becoming-president/449885001/ Roth, Andrew. “Putin orders cut of 755 personnel at U.S. missions.” Washington Post, 30 July 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/putin-orders-cut-of-755-personnel-at-us-missions/2017/07/30/8a4b0044-7555-11e7-8c17-533c52b2f014_story.html “Russia, China to put forward initiative on North Korea at UN meeting.” Tass, 5 July 2017.http://tass.com/politics/954819 Sanger, David E. “U.S. in Direct Communication With North Korea, Says Tillerson.” New York Times, 30 September 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/30/world/asia/us-north-korea-tillerson.html Savransky, Rebecca. “Obama’s tweet after Charlottesville one of most popular tweets ever.” The Hill, 15 August 2017.http://thehill.com/homenews/news/346602-obamas-tweet-after-charlottesville-one-of-most-popular-tweets-ever Selk, Avi “A cyclist flipped off Trump’s motorcade and entered the annals of presidential protests.” Washington Post, 29 October 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/10/29/a-cyclist-flipped-off-trumps-motorcade-and-entered-the-annals-of-presidential-protests/ Sharman, Jon. “Putin on US administration: ‘It’s difficult to talk with people who confuse Austria and Australia’.” Independent, 5 September 2017.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/putin-us-administration-russia-austria-australia-confuse-george-w-bush-white-house-administration-a7930241.html Shear, Michael D., and Michael R. Gordon. “How U.S. Military Actions Could Play Out in North Korea.” New York Times, 11 August 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/world/asia/north-korea-trump-military.html Shon, Jin-seok. “Fitch Says N.Korean Risk ‘Nothing New’.” Chosun Ilbo, 13 October 2017.http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/10/13/2017101301142.html “Starvation ‘as a weapon’ is a war crime, UN chief warns parties to conflict in Syria.” UN News Centre, 14 January 2016.http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=53003 Tau, Byron , Peter  Nicholas, and Siobhan Hughes. “GOP Congressman Sought Trump Deal on WikiLeaks, Russia.” Wall Street Journal, 15 September 2017.https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-congressman-sought-trump-deal-on-wikileaks-russia-1505509918 Taylor, Adam. “South Korea and China move to normalize relations after THAAD dispute.” Washington Post, 31 October 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/south-korea-and-china-move-to-normalize-relations-after-thaad-conflict/2017/10/31/60f2bad8-bde0-11e7-af84-d3e2ee4b2af1_story.html Tisdall, Simon. “Why Trump’s Afghanistan strategy risks the worst of both worlds ” Guardian, 22 August 2017.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/22/why-trumps-afghan-strategy-risks-the-worst-of-both-worlds Torode, Greg, and Ben Blanchard. “With all eyes on North Korea, Beijing looks ready to deploy fighter jets in the South China Sea.” Reuters via Business Insider, 31 October 2017.http://www.businessinsider.com/r-beijing-seen-poised-for-fresh-south-china-sea-assertiveness-2017-10?IR=T “U.S. forces in Korea to hold drill for evacuation of noncombatants in June.” Yonhap, 23 April 2017.http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/search1/2603000000.html?cid=AEN20170423001300315 Visser, Nick. “Attack On North Korea Could Spare Allies, Secretary Mattis Says. Analysts Aren’t So Sure.” Huffington Post, 18 September 2017 Wallace, Christopher. “Trump’s generals: President turns to military men for counsel, order.” Fox News, 8 August 2017.http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/08/08/trumps-generals-president-turns-to-military-men-for-counsel-order.html White, Hugh. “With their threats to China, Trump and Tillerson are making rookie blunders that will only hurt US credibility.” South China Morning Post, 17 January 2017.http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2062762/their-threats-china-trump-and-tillerson-are-making-rookie Wilson, Jordan. “China’s Expanding Ability to Conduct Conventional Missile Strikes on Guam.” U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 10 May 2016.https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/Staff%20Report_China%27s%20Expanding%20Ability%20to%20Conduct%20Conventional%20Missile%20Strikes%20on%20Guam.pdf Wire, Sarah D. “Rep. Dana Rohrabacher says Trump’s chief of staff is keeping him from talking to the president about Julian Assange.” Los Angeles Times, 4 October 2017.http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-report-rep-rohrabacher-says-white-1507155591-htmlstory.html “World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 2016.” State Department, December 2016.https://www.state.gov/t/avc/rls/rpt/wmeat/2016/index.htm Wright, David. “North Korea’s Longest Missile Test Yet.” Union of Concerned Scientists, 29 November 2017.http://allthingsnuclear.org/dwright/nk-longest-missile-test-yet Yi, Whan-woo. “Why has North Korea been silent for more than two months? .” Korea Times, 27 November 2017.http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/11/103_239990.html Yi, Yong-in, and Ji-eun Kim. “US likely to welcome compromise over THAAD deployment.” Hankyoreh, 1 November 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/817028.html Yi, Yong-in, and Byong-su Park. “Sources suggest secret negotiations taking place between North Korea and US.” Hankyoreh, 18 August 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/807415.html Yu, Yong-weon. “Seoul Drafting New Plan for Full-Fledged War with N.Korea.” Chosun Ilbo, 29 August 2017.http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/08/29/2017082901321.html Zakaria, Fareed. “Kim Jong Un — smart and strategic?” Washington Post, 14 September 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kim-jong-un–smart-and-strategic/2017/09/14/0c28a516-9988-11e7-82e4-f1076f6d6152_story.html “Zarif: If U.S. wants new nuclear concessions, we do, too.” Tehran Times, 23 September 2017.http://www.tehrantimes.com/news/417021/Zarif-If-U-S-wants-new-nuclear-concessions-we-do-too [1]               Sang-Hun Choe, “Trump Likened to ‘a Dog Barking’ by North Korea’s Top Envoy,” New York Times, 21 September 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/world/asia/north-korea-trump-dog.html [2]               Simon Tisdall, “Why Trump’s Afghanistan strategy risks the worst of both worlds ” Guardian, 22 August 2017.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/22/why-trumps-afghan-strategy-risks-the-worst-of-both-worlds [3]               Avi  Selk, “A cyclist flipped off Trump’s motorcade and entered the annals of presidential protests,” Washington Post, 29 October 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/10/29/a-cyclist-flipped-off-trumps-motorcade-and-entered-the-annals-of-presidential-protests/ [4]               Eugene Robinson, “What happens when you replace the president with a clown?,” Washington Post, 13 November 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-clown-goes-abroad/2017/11/13/854b7186-c8b7-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html [5]               Tim Beal, “Hegemony and Resistance, Compellence and Deterrence: Deconstructing the North Korean ‘Threat’ and Identifying America’s Strategic Alternatives,” Journal of Political Criticism, December 2017 [6]               David B. Larter, “If the US is going to war in North Korea, nobody told the US military,” Defense News, 11 August 2017.https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2017/08/11/if-the-us-is-going-to-war-in-north-korea-nobody-told-the-us-military/ [7]               Woo-sang Jeong and Min-hyuk Lim, “Moon Wins U.S. Support for ‘Leading Role’ in Talks with N.Korea,” Chosun Ilbo, 3 July 2017.http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/07/03/2017070300792.html; [8]               “Russia, China to put forward initiative on North Korea at UN meeting,” Tass, 5 July 2017.http://tass.com/politics/954819 [9]               Emily Rauhala, “The timing of North Korea’s nuke test could not be worse for China’s leader,” Washington Post, 4 September 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the-timing-of-north-koreas-nuke-test-could-not-be-worse-for-chinas-xi/2017/09/04/f9d0677a-90bb-11e7-b9bc-b2f7903bab0d_story.html [10]             Chris Buckley, “China Enshrines ‘Xi Jinping Thought.’ What Does That Mean?,” New York Times, 24 October 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-constitution.html [11]             In-hwan Jung and Ji-won Noh, “US-South Korea alliance hindering efforts to find an exit strategy to NK nuclear crisis,” Hankyoreh, 29 October 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/816477.html [12]             Greg Torode and Ben Blanchard, “With all eyes on North Korea, Beijing looks ready to deploy fighter jets in the South China Sea,” Reuters via Business Insider, 31 October 2017.http://www.businessinsider.com/r-beijing-seen-poised-for-fresh-south-china-sea-assertiveness-2017-10?IR=T [13]             Motoko Rich, “Tokyo Voters’ Rebuke Signals Doubt About Shinzo Abe’s Future,” New York Times, 3 July 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/03/world/asia/japan-tokyo-shinzo-abe-election.html [14]             Tim Beal, “Abe Pulls It Off, But It Will End In Tears,” Zoom in Korea, 24 October 2017.http://www.zoominkorea.org/abe-pulls-it-off-but-it-will-end-in-tears/ [15]             Emily Rauhala and Simon Denyer, “Why the cheery Trump trip to China may not be so successful,” Washington Post, 9 November 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/trump-thinks-his-china-trip-went-great-that-could-be-a-problem/2017/11/09/2aff59ea-c53d-11e7-a441-3a768c8586f1_story.htm; Oliver Holmes and Tom Phillips, “Trump attacks countries ‘cheating’ America at Apec summit,” Guardian, 10 November 2017.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/10/trump-attacks-countries-cheating-america-at-apec-summi; Robinson, “What happens when you replace the president with a clown?; Max Boot, “Trump’s Worst Trip Ever. Until His Next One,” Foreign Policy, 14 November 2017.http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/14/trumps-worst-trip-ever-until-his-next-one/ [16]             David Nakamura, “Japanese leader Shinzo Abe plays the role of Trump’s loyal sidekick,” Washington Post, 6 November 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/japanese-leader-shinzo-abe-plays-the-role-of-trumps-loyal-sidekick/2017/11/06/cc23dcae-c2f1-11e7-afe9-4f60b5a6c4a0_story.html [17]             Gavan McCormack, “North Korea and a Rules-Based Order For the Indo-Pacific, East Asia, and the World,” Asia Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, 15 November 2017.http://apjjf.org/2017/22/McCormack.html [18]             Fareed Zakaria, “Kim Jong Un — smart and strategic?,” Washington Post, 14 September 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kim-jong-un–smart-and-strategic/2017/09/14/0c28a516-9988-11e7-82e4-f1076f6d6152_story.html [19]              Chris Green, “The Strategic Thinking behind North Korea’s Missile Gambit,” International Crisis Group, 30 August 2017.https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/north-east-asia/korean-peninsula/strategic-thinking-behind-north-koreas-missile-gambit [20]             Ji-hye Jun, “Trump warns of ‘fire and fury’; N. Korea threatens to strike Guam ” Korea Times, 9 August 2017.http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/08/103_234484.html [21]             Rahn  Kim, “North Korea proves it has ability to strike Guam,” Korea Times, 29 August 2017.http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/08/103_235578.html [22]             Keith Johnson, “China’s ‘Guam Killers’ Threaten U.S. Anchor Base in Pacific,” Foreign Policy, 11 May 2016.http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/11/chinas-guam-killers-threaten-u-s-anchor-base-in-pacific; Jordan Wilson, “China’s Expanding Ability to Conduct Conventional Missile Strikes on Guam,” U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 10 May 2016.https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/Staff%20Report_China%27s%20Expanding%20Ability%20to%20Conduct%20Conventional%20Missile%20Strikes%20on%20Guam.pdf [23]             James M. Dorsey, “Playing with Fire: Trump’s Iran policy risks cloning North Korea,” S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, August 2017.https://www.academia.edu/34114222/Playing_with_Fire_Trumps_Iran_policy_risks_cloning_North_Kore; Jeffery Lewis, “Trump’s Next Self-Inflicted Crisis Is a Nuclear Iran,” Foreign Policy, 30 August 2017.http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/30/trumps-next-self-inflicted-crisis-is-a-nuclear-iran/ [24]             Tim Beal, “The Korean Peninsula within the Framework of US Global Hegemony,” The Asia Pacific Journal – Japan Focus 14, no. 22:3 (2016); ———, “The Deployment of THAAD in Korea and the Struggle over US Global Hegemony,” Journal of Political Criticism, December 2016.http://www.timbeal.net.nz/geopolitics/Beal_JPC_THAAD.pdf [25]             Christine Kim and Jane Chung, “North Korea 2016 economic growth at 17-year high despite sanctions: South Korea,” Reuters, 21 July 2017.http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-economy-gdp-idUSKBN1A607; Gwang-deok Han, “North Korea’s GDP grew 3.9% in 2016, with $1,300 per capita income,” Hankyoreh, 23 July 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/803901.html [26] .           Some of this seems to have happened in the deal struck between South Korea na China on 31 October; Editorial, “Gov’t Has Capitulated to Chinese Bullying,” Chosun Ilbo, 1 November 2017.http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/11/01/2017110101595.htm; Yong-in Yi and Ji-eun Kim, “US likely to welcome compromise over THAAD deployment,” Hankyoreh, 1 November 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/817028.htm; Editorial, “Hopeful signs as South Korea and China move beyond THAAD dispute,” Hankyoreh, 1 November 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/817027.htm; Oi-hyun Kim, “Chinese concessions on THAAD speak to fears of losing influence on Korean Peninsula,” Hankyoreh, 1 November 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/817030.htm; Ji-eun Kim et al., “SK Foreign Minister rules out additional THAAD deployments, joining US MD system,” Hankyoreh, 31 October 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/816853.htm; Sang-hun Choe, Jane Perlez, and Mark Landler, “China Blinks on South Korea, Making Nice After a Year of Hostilities,” New York Times, 1 November 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/world/asia/china-south-korea-thaad.htm; Adam Taylor, “South Korea and China move to normalize relations after THAAD dispute,” Washington Post, 31 October 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/south-korea-and-china-move-to-normalize-relations-after-thaad-conflict/2017/10/31/60f2bad8-bde0-11e7-af84-d3e2ee4b2af1_story.html [27]             Rahn Kim, “Personnel affairs dragging down Moon gov’t,” Korea Times, 14 September 2017.http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/09/356_236482.html [28]             Kim Rahn, “Defense ministry deceived Moon on THAAD report,” Korea Times, 31 May 2017.http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/06/205_230387.html; In-hwan Jung, Ji-eun Kim, and Oi-hyun Kim, “Defense Minister raises option of bringing tactical nuclear weapons back to South Korea,” Hankyoreh, 6 September 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/809931.html; Anna Fifield, “South Korea’s defense minister suggests bringing back tactical U.S. nuclear weapons,” Washington Post, 4 September 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/south-koreas-defense-minister-raises-the-idea-of-bringing-back-tactical-us-nuclear-weapons/2017/09/04/7a468314-9155-11e7-b9bc-b2f7903bab0d_story.html [29]             Editorial, “Moon’s Appeasement of N.Korea Comes at the Wrong Time,” Chosun Ilbo, 15 September 2017.http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/09/15/2017091501431.html [30]             Yu-gyung Jung, “Moon administration stands firmly against redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons,” Hankyoreh, 13 September 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/810855.html [31]             Byong-su Park, Kyu-nam Kim, and Yu-gyung Jung, “President Moon rebukes Defense Ministry for its “lack of confidence”,” Hankyoreh, 29 August 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/808827.html [32]             “Defense chief vows stronger alliance with U.S. ,” Yonhap, 26 July 2017.http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/northkorea/2017/07/26/6/0401000000AEN20170726006200315F.htm; Yong-weon Yu, “Seoul Drafting New Plan for Full-Fledged War with N.Korea,” Chosun Ilbo, 29 August 2017.http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/08/29/2017082901321.html; Deok-han Kim, “U.S. ‘Favorably Inclined’ to Boosting S.Korean Missile Power,” Chosun Ilbo, 9 August 2017.http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/08/09/2017080901433.htm; In-hwan Jung, “US to step up sales of advanced military hardware in wake of North Korean nuclear test,” Hankyoreh, 7 September 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/810088.html; Sang-hun Choe, “South Korea Plans ‘Decapitation Unit’ to Try to Scare North’s Leaders,” New York Times, 12 September 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/world/asia/north-south-korea-decapitation-.html [33]             “Moon says dialogue with N. Korea ‘impossible,’ warns of destruction ‘beyond recovery’ “, Yonhap, 15 September 2017.http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2017/09/15/0200000000AEN20170915005653315.html [34]             Tim Beal, “A Korean Tragedy,” The Asia Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, 15 August 2017.http://apjjf.org/2017/16/Beal.htm; ———, “A Korean Tragedy: Update,” Zoom in Korea, 12 September 2017.http://kpolicy.org/a-korean-tragedy-update/ [35]             Geoffrey  Fattig, “How the U.S. Makes South Korea’s Life More Difficult,” Foreign Policy in Focus, 13 September 2017.http://fpif.org/how-the-u-s-makes-south-koreas-life-more-difficult/ [36]             David  Nakamura and Anne Gearan, “In U.N. speech, Trump threatens to ‘totally destroy North Korea’ and calls Kim Jong Un ‘Rocket Man’,” Washington Post, 19 September 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/09/19/in-u-n-speech-trump-warns-that-the-world-faces-great-peril-from-rogue-regimes-in-north-korea-iran/ [37]             “The Constitution of the Republic of Korea,” Constitutional Court of Korea, Republic of Korea, 29 October 1987.http://ri.ccourt.go.kr/eng/ccourt/news/related.html; Nick Visser, “Attack On North Korea Could Spare Allies, Secretary Mattis Says. Analysts Aren’t So Sure.,” Huffington Post, 18 September 2017 [38]             Christine Kim and Kaori Kaneko, “South Korea says Trump’s warning to North Korea ‘firm and specific’,” Reuters, 20 September 2017.http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-trump-reaction/south-korea-says-trumps-warning-to-north-korea-firm-and-specific-idUSKCN1BV0D; “Moon, Trump agree to boost military deterrence, put maximum pressure on N. Korea,” Yonhap, 22 September 2017.http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2017/09/22/0301000000AEN20170922001354315.html [39]             In-hwan Jung  et al., “Moon exhibits contradictory behavior during visit to UN,” Hankyoreh, 23 September 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/812233.html [40]             Andrew Roth, “Putin orders cut of 755 personnel at U.S. missions,” Washington Post, 30 July 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/putin-orders-cut-of-755-personnel-at-us-missions/2017/07/30/8a4b0044-7555-11e7-8c17-533c52b2f014_story.htm; Jon Sharman, “Putin on US administration: ‘It’s difficult to talk with people who confuse Austria and Australia’,” Independent, 5 September 2017.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/putin-us-administration-russia-austria-australia-confuse-george-w-bush-white-house-administration-a7930241.html [41]             Calculated from data in Table 18, “Military Balance 2017,” International Institute for Strategic Studies, 13 February 2017.http://www.iiss.org/en/publications/military%20balance/issues/the-military-balance-2017-b47b. Military expenditure is only one part of the story, and moreover figures vary. The IISS gives $604,452billion for the US in 2016 but other sources estimate the real figures is closer to one trillion dollars; Chris  Hellman and Mattea  Kramer, “War Pay: The Nearly $1 Trillion National Security Budget ” TomDispatch, 22 May 2012.http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175545 [42]             Lower figure calculated using 2017 data from IISS and the average estimate for North Korea in given by “World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 2016,” State Department, December 2016.https://www.state.gov/t/avc/rls/rpt/wmeat/2016/index.htm. The higher figure calculated from a statement by a statement in the National Assembly in 2013; Kyu-won Kim, “Defense intelligence director says N. Korea would win in a one-on-one war,” Hankyoreh, 6 November 2013.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/610084.html [43]             Byron  Tau, Peter  Nicholas, and Siobhan Hughes, “GOP Congressman Sought Trump Deal on WikiLeaks, Russia,” Wall Street Journal, 15 September 2017.https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-congressman-sought-trump-deal-on-wikileaks-russia-1505509918 [44]             ibid. [45]             Sarah D. Wire, “Rep. Dana Rohrabacher says Trump’s chief of staff is keeping him from talking to the president about Julian Assange,” Los Angeles Times, 4 October 2017.http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-report-rep-rohrabacher-says-white-1507155591-htmlstory.html [46]             Ross Douthat, “The 25th Amendment Solution for Removing Trump,” New York Times, 16 May 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/opinion/25th-amendment-trump.htm; John Hudak, “The 25th Amendment,” Brookings Institution, 9 June 2017.https://www.brookings.edu/blog/unpacked/2017/06/09/the-25th-amendment; Jeffrey Rosen, “The 25th Amendment Makes Presidential Disability a Political Question,” The Atlantic, 23 May 2017.https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/presidential-disability-is-a-political-question/527703; Dahlia Lithwick, “Is Donald Trump Too Incapacitated to Be President?,” Slate, 17 May 2017.http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/05/no_the_25th_amendment_is_not_the_solution.htm; Evan Osnos, “How Trump Could Get Fired,” New Yorker, 8 May 2017.https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/08/how-trump-could-get-fired [47]             “High Crimes and Misdemeanors,”  http://www.crf-usa.org/impeachment/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors.html. [48]             Bob Dreyfuss, “Robert Mueller’s End Game: Is Trump’s Impeachment a Possibility?,” The Nation, 12 October 2017.https://www.thenation.com/article/robert-muellers-end-game-is-trumps-impeachment-a-possibility/ [49]             Gregory Elich, “Did the Russians Really Hack the DNC?,” Counterpunch, 13 January 2017.http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/13/did-the-russians-really-hack-the-dnc; Patrick Lawrence, “A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack,” Nation, 9 August 2017.https://www.thenation.com/article/a-new-report-raises-big-questions-about-last-years-dnc-hack/ [50]             Jason Le Miere, “Steve Bannon Helped Write Trump’s U.N. Speech, Claims Sebastian Gorka, Who Called it ‘Classic MAGA Agenda’,” Newsweek, 21 September 2017.http://www.newsweek.com/steve-bannon-trump-speech-gorka-669140 [51]             Karen DeYoung and Greg  Jaffe, “For some foreign diplomats, the Trump White House is a troubling enigma,” Washington Post, 9 October 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/for-some-foreign-diplomats-the-trump-white-house-is-a-troubling-enigma/2017/10/09/50323152-a534-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.htm; Antony J. Blinken, “Trump Alienates America’s Allies and Hands Iran a Victory,” New York Times, 13 October 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/opinion/trump-false-narrative-iran.html [52]             Jim Michaels, “What war? U.S. military not mobilizing despite North Korea threats,” USA Today, 14 August 2017.https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/08/12/north-korea-crisis-no-change-u-s-north-korea-military-posture/560652001/;”U.S. forces in Korea to hold drill for evacuation of noncombatants in June,” Yonhap, 23 April 2017.http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/search1/2603000000.html?cid=AEN2017042300130031; Dan Lamothe, “Despite Trump’s threats to North Korea, the U.S. military doesn’t appear to be on a new wartime footing,” Washington Post, 11 August 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/08/11/despite-trumps-threats-to-north-korea-the-u-s-military-doesnt-appear-to-be-on-a-wartime-footing; Michael D. Shear and Michael R. Gordon, “How U.S. Military Actions Could Play Out in North Korea,” New York Times, 11 August 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/world/asia/north-korea-trump-military.html; Sang-hun Choe, “U.S. Military to Begin Drills to Evacuate Americans From South Korea,” New York Times, 16 October 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/world/asia/us-drills-evacuate-civilians.html [53]             Jin-seok Shon, “Fitch Says N.Korean Risk ‘Nothing New’,” Chosun Ilbo, 13 October 2017.http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/10/13/2017101301142.html; “Moody’s Maintains Credit Rating for Korea,” Chosun Ilbo, 19 October 2017.http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/10/19/2017101901280.html [54]             Robert Kuttner, “Steve Bannon, Unrepentant,” American Prospect, 16 August 2017.http://prospect.org/article/steve-bannon-unrepentant [55]             Oliver Holmes, “What is the US military’s presence near North Korea? ,” Guardian, 9 August 2017.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/09/what-is-the-us-militarys-presence-in-south-east-asia [56]             Bruce W. Bennett and Jennifer  Lind, “The Collapse of North Korea: Military Missions and Requirements,” International Security 36, no. 2 (2011). [57]             Editorial, “Reckless game over the Korean Peninsula runs risk of real war,” Global Times, 10 August 2017.http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1060791.shtml [58]             Robert Farley, “Asia’s Greatest Fear: A U.S.-China War,” National Interest, 9 June 2014.http://nationalinterest.org/feature/asia-flames-us-china-war-10621?page=sho; David C.  Gompert, Astrid Stuth  Cevallos, and Cristina  L. Garafola, “War with China: Thinking through the Unthinkable,” RAND, 28 July 2016.http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1100/RR1140/RAND_RR1140.pd; Peter Apps, “Commentary: Here’s how a U.S.-China war could play out,” Reuters, 9 August 2016.http://www.reuters.com/article/us-commentary-china-apps-idUSKCN10I0W; John Pilger, “The Coming War on China,” Counterpunch, 2 December 2016.http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/02/the-coming-war-on-china; Benjamin Haas, “Steve Bannon: ‘We’re going to war in the South China Sea … no doubt’ ” Guardian, 2 February 2017.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/02/steve-bannon-donald-trump-war-south-china-sea-no-doub; Robert Farley, “Could America Win a War Against Russia and China at the Same Time? ,” National Interest, 3 February 2017.http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/could-america-win-war-against-russia-china-the-same-time-19305 [59]             Dan  De Luce, Jenna McLaughlin, and Elias Groll, “Armageddon by Accident,” Foreign Policy, 18 October 2017.http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/18/armageddon-by-accident-north-korea-nuclear-war-missiles/ [60][60]           Dan Lamothe, “U.S. jets drop live bombs in a new show of force aimed at North Korea,” Washington Post, 18 September 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/09/18/u-s-jets-dropped-live-bombs-in-a-new-massive-show-of-force-aimed-at-north-korea/ [61]             Byong-su Park and Yu-gyung Jung, “US B-1B bombers again conduct military exercises over Korean Peninsula,” Hankyoreh, 12 October 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/814247.html [62]             Daniel Ten Kate and Peter S.  Green, “Defending Korea Line Seen Contrary to Law by Kissinger Remains U.S. Policy,” Bloomberg, 17 December 2010.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-16/defending-korea-line-seen-contrary-to-law-by-kissinger-remains-u-s-policy.html [63]             “N.Korean Envoy Warns Nuclear War Could Break out at ‘Any Moment’,” Chosun Ilbo, 18 October 2017.http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/10/18/2017101800882.html [64]             Beal, “Hegemony and Resistance, Compellence and Deterrence: Deconstructing the North Korean ‘Threat’ and Identifying America’s Strategic Alternatives.” [65]             Hye-jeong Choi, “South Korea holds ultimate decision for military action on Peninsula,” Hankyoreh, 18 August 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/807417.htm; Rahn  Kim, “US won’t go to war without ROK: minister,” Korea Times, 12 October 2017.http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/10/103_237566.html [66]             Robert Costa and Philip Rucker, “Military leaders consolidate power in Trump administration,” Washington Post, 22 August 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/military-leaders-consolidate-power-in-trump-administration/2017/08/22/db4f7bee-875e-11e7-a94f-3139abce39f5_story.htm; Stephen Kinzer, “America’s slow-motion military coup,” Boston Globe, 16 September 2017.https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/09/16/america-slow-motion-military-coup/WgzYW9MPBIbsegCwd4IpJN/amp.htm; Masha Gessen, “John Kelly and the Language of the Military Coup,” New Yorker, 20 October 2017.https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/john-kelly-and-the-language-of-the-military-coup?mbid=social_twitte; “”Above All” – The Junta Expands Its Claim To Power,” Moon of Alabama, 21 October 2017.http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/10/above-all-the-junta-expands-its-claim-to-power.htm; Christopher Wallace, “Trump’s generals: President turns to military men for counsel, order,” Fox News, 8 August 2017.http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/08/08/trumps-generals-president-turns-to-military-men-for-counsel-order.html [67]             Michael F. Cairo, “Civilian Control of the Military,” Democracy Papers [State Department, Bureau of International Information Programs], 26 October 2005.https://web.archive.org/web/20051026185242/http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/democracy/dmpaper12.htm [68]             Andrew Bacevich, “The Greatest Person then Living,” London Review of Book, 27 July 2017.https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n15/andrew-bacevich/the-greatest-person-then-living [69]             Costa and Rucker, “Military leaders consolidate power in Trump administration.” [70]             Harry Harris, “Despite Threats and Uncertainty, America’s Commitment to Asia Remains Ironclad,” Huffington Post, 21 September 2016.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/despite-threats-and-uncertainty-americas-commitment-to-asia-remains-ironclad_us_57e14aa2e4b08cb14097f4f9 [71]             Jeffery Lewis, “Let’s Face It: North Korean Nuclear Weapons Can Hit the U.S.,” New York Times, 3 August 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/03/opinion/north-korea-nukes.htm; Michael Morell, “North Korea may already be able to launch a nuclear attack on the U.S.,” Washington Post, 6 September 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/north-korea-may-already-be-able-to-launch-a-nuclear-attack-on-the-us/2017/09/06/ce375080-9325-11e7-8754-d478688d23b4_story.html [72]             Hendrik  Hertzberg, “Cakewalk,” New Yorker, 14 April 2003.http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/04/14/cakewal; Ken Adelman, “Cakewalk In Iraq,” Washington Post, 13 February 2002.http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2002/msg00243.html; Harry J. Kazianis, “The Case for Containing North Korea,” The National Interest, 15 October 2017.http://nationalinterest.org/print/feature/the-case-containing-north-korea-22727 [73]             Garrett Epps, “Trump Doesn’t Have the Authority to Attack North Korea Without Congress,” The Atlantic, 30 August 2017.https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trump-doesnt-have-the-power-to-attack-north-korea-without-congress/538425; Jeremy Herb, “Could Congress stop Trump from bombing North Korea?,” CNN, 10 August 2017.http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/09/politics/trump-bomb-north-korea-congress/index.html;David Ignatius, “Our best hope against nuclear war,” Washington Post, 3 October 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/our-best-hope-against-nuclear-war/2017/10/03/7df61d86-a883-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html [74]             “Zarif: If U.S. wants new nuclear concessions, we do, too,” Tehran Times, 23 September 2017.http://www.tehrantimes.com/news/417021/Zarif-If-U-S-wants-new-nuclear-concessions-we-do-too [75]             John Delury, “Lessons from North Korea,” Foreign Affairs (2015). [76]             David Lai and Alyssa Blair, “How to Learn to Live With a Nuclear North Korea,” Foreign Policy, 7 August 2017.https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/07/how-to-learn-to-live-with-a-nuclear-north-korea/ [77]             Jackson Diehl, “Bob Corker on Trump’s biggest problem: The ‘castration’ of Rex Tillerson,” Washington Post, 13 October 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/bob-corker-on-trumps-biggest-problem-the-castration-of-rex-tillerson/2017/10/13/8a331abc-b03b-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html [78]             Yong-in Yi and Byong-su Park, “Sources suggest secret negotiations taking place between North Korea and US,” Hankyoreh, 18 August 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/807415.htm; Si-soo Park, “N. Korea, US hold ‘secret’ meeting in Switzerland: report,” Korea Times, 14 September 2017.http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/09/103_236447.htm; David E Sanger, “U.S. in Direct Communication With North Korea, Says Tillerson,” New York Times, 30 September 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/30/world/asia/us-north-korea-tillerson.html [79]             Ashley Parker and Greg Jaffe, “Inside the ‘adult day-care center’: How aides try to control and coerce Trump,” Washington Post, 16 October 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-the-adult-day-care-center-how-aides-try-to-control-and-coerce-trump/2017/10/15/810b4296-b03d-11e7-99c6-46bdf7f6f8ba_story.html [80]             Rorry Daniels, “Time to save face in US-DPRK relations,” Pacnet Newsletter, 10 October 2017.https://www.csis.org/analysis/pacnet-73-time-save-face-us-dprk-relations [81]             “Starvation ‘as a weapon’ is a war crime, UN chief warns parties to conflict in Syria,” UN News Centre, 14 January 2016.http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=53003 [82]             Editorial Board, “Options for Removing Kim Jong Un,” Wall Street Journal, 4 September 2017.https://www.wsj.com/articles/options-for-removing-kim-jong-un-1504556500 [83]             Tim Beal, “North Korea’s Deterrent and Trump’s Options,” Zoom in Korea, 26 July 2017.http://www.zoominkorea.org/north-koreas-deterrent-and-trumps-options/ [84]             Sang-Hun Choe, “South Koreans Feel Cheated After U.S. Carrier Miscue,” New York Times, 19 April 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/world/asia/aircraft-carrier-south-korea.htm; Amy Davidson, “Donald Trump, North Korea, and the Case of the Phantom Armada,” New Yorker, 19 April 2017.http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/donald-trump-north-korea-and-the-case-of-the-phantom-armada [85]             Ironically It was Obama who first introduced Twitter to presidential politics back in 2007 and in contrast to Trump he seems to used it sparingly and effectively; Vann R.  Newkirk II, “The American Idea in 140 Characters,” The Atlantic, 24 March 2016.https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/twitter-politics-last-decade/475131; Rebecca Savransky, “Obama’s tweet after Charlottesville one of most popular tweets ever,” The Hill, 15 August 2017.http://thehill.com/homenews/news/346602-obamas-tweet-after-charlottesville-one-of-most-popular-tweets-ever [86]             Sean Rossman, “Trump has tweeted 17 times about North Korea since becoming president,” USA Today, 4 July 2017.https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/07/04/trump-has-tweeted-17-times-north-korea-since-becoming-president/449885001; Zack Beauchamp, “Here are 2 wildly incorrect Trump administration tweets about North Korea,” Vox, 2 October 2017.https://www.vox.com/world/2017/10/2/16395048/north-korea-trump-tweet; Doyle McManus, “Trump undercuts Tillerson with every tweet,” Los Angeles Times, 4 October 2017.http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-mcmanus-tillerson-trump-north-korea-20171004-story.html [87]             “Everything President Trump has tweeted (and what it was about),”  http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-updates-everything-president-trump-has-tweeted-and-what-it-was-about-2017-htmlstory.html. [88]             Henry Farrell, “North Korea just called Trump’s bluff. So what happens now?,” Washington Post, 9 August 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/08/08/donald-trump-is-playing-a-dangerous-game-with-north-korea; Jeffrey Frankel, “Can Trump Deal with North Korea and China?,” Project Syndicate, 24 August 2017.https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-deal-making-china-north-korea-by-jeffrey-frankel-2017-08 [89]             Hugh White, “With their threats to China, Trump and Tillerson are making rookie blunders that will only hurt US credibility,” South China Morning Post, 17 January 2017.http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2062762/their-threats-china-trump-and-tillerson-are-making-rooki; Kathleen Parker, “Dealmaker in Chief? More like the Backdown President,” Washington Post, 25 April 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dealmaker-in-chief-more-like-the-backdown-president/2017/04/25/7cddddc6-29df-11e7-b605-33413c691853_story.html [90]             Eliot A.  Cohen, “Rex Tillerson Must Go,” The Atlantic, 2 October 2017.https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/trump-tillerson-self-respect-north-korea-puerto-rico-diplomacy/541695/ [91]             Eliot A. Cohen, The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power and the Necessity of Military Force (New York: Basic Books, 2017). [92]             ———, “How were we in Vietnam?,” New York Times, 21 July 1985.http://www.nytimes.com/1985/07/21/books/how-were-we-in-vietnam.html [93]             Whan-woo Yi, “Why has North Korea been silent for more than two months? ,” Korea Times, 27 November 2017.http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/11/103_239990.html [94]             “Joint statement by the Russian and Chinese foreign ministries on the Korean Peninsula’s problems,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 4 July 2017.http://www.mid.ru/en/web/guest/maps/kr/-/asset_publisher/PR7UbfssNImL/content/id/2807662 [95]             David Nakamura, “Trump puts North Korea back on state sponsors of terrorism list to escalate pressure over nuclear weapons,” Washington Post, 20 November 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/11/20/trump-puts-north-korea-back-on-state-sponsors-of-terrorism-list-to-escalate-pressure-over-nuclear-weapons; Anthony H. Cordesman, “North Korea and the Terrorism List: The Need for a Strategy, Not an Irritant,” CSIS, 20 November 2017.https://www.csis.org/analysis/north-korea-and-terrorism-list-need-strategy-not-irritant; Anna Fifield, “U.S., South Korea begin air combat drills that include simulated strikes on North Korea,” Washington Post, 4 December 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-south-korea-begin-air-combat-drills-that-include-simulated-strikes-on-north-korea/2017/12/04/9f4b43e0-d8ca-11e7-8e5f-ccc94e22b133_story.html [96]             David Wright, “North Korea’s Longest Missile Test Yet,” Union of Concerned Scientists, 29 November 2017.http://allthingsnuclear.org/dwright/nk-longest-missile-test-ye; Anna Fifield, “North Korea has shown us its new missile, and it’s scarier than we thought,” Washington Post, 30 November 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/11/30/north-korea-has-shown-us-its-new-missile-and-its-scarier-than-we-thought; “DPRK Gov’t Statement on Successful Test-fire of New-Type ICBM,” Rodong Sinmun, 29 November 2017.http://www.rodong.rep.kp/en/index.php?strPageID=SF01_02_01&newsID=2017-11-29-0002 [1]               Sang-Hun Choe, “Trump Likened to ‘a Dog Barking’ by North Korea’s Top Envoy,” New York Times, 21 September 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/world/asia/north-korea-trump-dog.html [1]               Simon Tisdall, “Why Trump’s Afghanistan strategy risks the worst of both worlds ” Guardian, 22 August 2017.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/22/why-trumps-afghan-strategy-risks-the-worst-of-both-worlds [1]               Avi  Selk, “A cyclist flipped off Trump’s motorcade and entered the annals of presidential protests,” Washington Post, 29 October 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/10/29/a-cyclist-flipped-off-trumps-motorcade-and-entered-the-annals-of-presidential-protests/ [1]               Eugene Robinson, “What happens when you replace the president with a clown?,” Washington Post, 13 November 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-clown-goes-abroad/2017/11/13/854b7186-c8b7-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html [1]               Tim Beal, “Hegemony and Resistance, Compellence and Deterrence: Deconstructing the North Korean ‘Threat’ and Identifying America’s Strategic Alternatives,” Journal of Political Criticism, December 2017 [1]               David B. Larter, “If the US is going to war in North Korea, nobody told the US military,” Defense News, 11 August 2017.https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2017/08/11/if-the-us-is-going-to-war-in-north-korea-nobody-told-the-us-military/ [1]               Woo-sang Jeong and Min-hyuk Lim, “Moon Wins U.S. Support for ‘Leading Role’ in Talks with N.Korea,” Chosun Ilbo, 3 July 2017.http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/07/03/2017070300792.html; [1]               “Russia, China to put forward initiative on North Korea at UN meeting,” Tass, 5 July 2017.http://tass.com/politics/954819 [1]               Emily Rauhala, “The timing of North Korea’s nuke test could not be worse for China’s leader,” Washington Post, 4 September 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the-timing-of-north-koreas-nuke-test-could-not-be-worse-for-chinas-xi/2017/09/04/f9d0677a-90bb-11e7-b9bc-b2f7903bab0d_story.html [1]               Chris Buckley, “China Enshrines ‘Xi Jinping Thought.’ What Does That Mean?,” New York Times, 24 October 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-constitution.html [1]               In-hwan Jung and Ji-won Noh, “US-South Korea alliance hindering efforts to find an exit strategy to NK nuclear crisis,” Hankyoreh, 29 October 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/816477.html [1]               Greg Torode and Ben Blanchard, “With all eyes on North Korea, Beijing looks ready to deploy fighter jets in the South China Sea,” Reuters via Business Insider, 31 October 2017.http://www.businessinsider.com/r-beijing-seen-poised-for-fresh-south-china-sea-assertiveness-2017-10?IR=T [1]               Motoko Rich, “Tokyo Voters’ Rebuke Signals Doubt About Shinzo Abe’s Future,” New York Times, 3 July 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/03/world/asia/japan-tokyo-shinzo-abe-election.html [1]               Tim Beal, “Abe Pulls It Off, But It Will End In Tears,” Zoom in Korea, 24 October 2017.http://www.zoominkorea.org/abe-pulls-it-off-but-it-will-end-in-tears/ [1]               Emily Rauhala and Simon Denyer, “Why the cheery Trump trip to China may not be so successful,” Washington Post, 9 November 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/trump-thinks-his-china-trip-went-great-that-could-be-a-problem/2017/11/09/2aff59ea-c53d-11e7-a441-3a768c8586f1_story.htm; Oliver Holmes and Tom Phillips, “Trump attacks countries ‘cheating’ America at Apec summit,” Guardian, 10 November 2017.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/10/trump-attacks-countries-cheating-america-at-apec-summi; Robinson, “What happens when you replace the president with a clown?; Max Boot, “Trump’s Worst Trip Ever. Until His Next One,” Foreign Policy, 14 November 2017.http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/14/trumps-worst-trip-ever-until-his-next-one/ [1]               David Nakamura, “Japanese leader Shinzo Abe plays the role of Trump’s loyal sidekick,” Washington Post, 6 November 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/japanese-leader-shinzo-abe-plays-the-role-of-trumps-loyal-sidekick/2017/11/06/cc23dcae-c2f1-11e7-afe9-4f60b5a6c4a0_story.html [1]               Gavan McCormack, “North Korea and a Rules-Based Order For the Indo-Pacific, East Asia, and the World,” Asia Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, 15 November 2017.http://apjjf.org/2017/22/McCormack.html [1]               Fareed Zakaria, “Kim Jong Un — smart and strategic?,” Washington Post, 14 September 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kim-jong-un–smart-and-strategic/2017/09/14/0c28a516-9988-11e7-82e4-f1076f6d6152_story.html [1]                Chris Green, “The Strategic Thinking behind North Korea’s Missile Gambit,” International Crisis Group, 30 August 2017.https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/north-east-asia/korean-peninsula/strategic-thinking-behind-north-koreas-missile-gambit [1]               Ji-hye Jun, “Trump warns of ‘fire and fury’; N. Korea threatens to strike Guam ” Korea Times, 9 August 2017.http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/08/103_234484.html [1]               Rahn  Kim, “North Korea proves it has ability to strike Guam,” Korea Times, 29 August 2017.http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/08/103_235578.html [1]               Keith Johnson, “China’s ‘Guam Killers’ Threaten U.S. Anchor Base in Pacific,” Foreign Policy, 11 May 2016.http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/11/chinas-guam-killers-threaten-u-s-anchor-base-in-pacific; Jordan Wilson, “China’s Expanding Ability to Conduct Conventional Missile Strikes on Guam,” U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 10 May 2016.https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/Staff%20Report_China%27s%20Expanding%20Ability%20to%20Conduct%20Conventional%20Missile%20Strikes%20on%20Guam.pdf [1]               James M. Dorsey, “Playing with Fire: Trump’s Iran policy risks cloning North Korea,” S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, August 2017.https://www.academia.edu/34114222/Playing_with_Fire_Trumps_Iran_policy_risks_cloning_North_Kore; Jeffery Lewis, “Trump’s Next Self-Inflicted Crisis Is a Nuclear Iran,” Foreign Policy, 30 August 2017.http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/30/trumps-next-self-inflicted-crisis-is-a-nuclear-iran/ [1]               Tim Beal, “The Korean Peninsula within the Framework of US Global Hegemony,” The Asia Pacific Journal – Japan Focus 14, no. 22:3 (2016); ———, “The Deployment of THAAD in Korea and the Struggle over US Global Hegemony,” Journal of Political Criticism, December 2016.http://www.timbeal.net.nz/geopolitics/Beal_JPC_THAAD.pdf [1]               Christine Kim and Jane Chung, “North Korea 2016 economic growth at 17-year high despite sanctions: South Korea,” Reuters, 21 July 2017.http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-economy-gdp-idUSKBN1A607; Gwang-deok Han, “North Korea’s GDP grew 3.9% in 2016, with $1,300 per capita income,” Hankyoreh, 23 July 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/803901.html [1] .             Some of this seems to have happened in the deal struck between South Korea na China on 31 October; Editorial, “Gov’t Has Capitulated to Chinese Bullying,” Chosun Ilbo, 1 November 2017.http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/11/01/2017110101595.htm; Yong-in Yi and Ji-eun Kim, “US likely to welcome compromise over THAAD deployment,” Hankyoreh, 1 November 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/817028.htm; Editorial, “Hopeful signs as South Korea and China move beyond THAAD dispute,” Hankyoreh, 1 November 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/817027.htm; Oi-hyun Kim, “Chinese concessions on THAAD speak to fears of losing influence on Korean Peninsula,” Hankyoreh, 1 November 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/817030.htm; Ji-eun Kim et al., “SK Foreign Minister rules out additional THAAD deployments, joining US MD system,” Hankyoreh, 31 October 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/816853.htm; Sang-hun Choe, Jane Perlez, and Mark Landler, “China Blinks on South Korea, Making Nice After a Year of Hostilities,” New York Times, 1 November 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/world/asia/china-south-korea-thaad.htm; Adam Taylor, “South Korea and China move to normalize relations after THAAD dispute,” Washington Post, 31 October 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/south-korea-and-china-move-to-normalize-relations-after-thaad-conflict/2017/10/31/60f2bad8-bde0-11e7-af84-d3e2ee4b2af1_story.html [1]               Rahn Kim, “Personnel affairs dragging down Moon gov’t,” Korea Times, 14 September 2017.http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/09/356_236482.html [1]               Kim Rahn, “Defense ministry deceived Moon on THAAD report,” Korea Times, 31 May 2017.http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/06/205_230387.html; In-hwan Jung, Ji-eun Kim, and Oi-hyun Kim, “Defense Minister raises option of bringing tactical nuclear weapons back to South Korea,” Hankyoreh, 6 September 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/809931.html; Anna Fifield, “South Korea’s defense minister suggests bringing back tactical U.S. nuclear weapons,” Washington Post, 4 September 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/south-koreas-defense-minister-raises-the-idea-of-bringing-back-tactical-us-nuclear-weapons/2017/09/04/7a468314-9155-11e7-b9bc-b2f7903bab0d_story.html [1]               Editorial, “Moon’s Appeasement of N.Korea Comes at the Wrong Time,” Chosun Ilbo, 15 September 2017.http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/09/15/2017091501431.html [1]               Yu-gyung Jung, “Moon administration stands firmly against redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons,” Hankyoreh, 13 September 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/810855.html [1]               Byong-su Park, Kyu-nam Kim, and Yu-gyung Jung, “President Moon rebukes Defense Ministry for its “lack of confidence”,” Hankyoreh, 29 August 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/808827.html [1]               “Defense chief vows stronger alliance with U.S. ,” Yonhap, 26 July 2017.http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/northkorea/2017/07/26/6/0401000000AEN20170726006200315F.htm; Yong-weon Yu, “Seoul Drafting New Plan for Full-Fledged War with N.Korea,” Chosun Ilbo, 29 August 2017.http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/08/29/2017082901321.html; Deok-han Kim, “U.S. ‘Favorably Inclined’ to Boosting S.Korean Missile Power,” Chosun Ilbo, 9 August 2017.http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/08/09/2017080901433.htm; In-hwan Jung, “US to step up sales of advanced military hardware in wake of North Korean nuclear test,” Hankyoreh, 7 September 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/810088.html; Sang-hun Choe, “South Korea Plans ‘Decapitation Unit’ to Try to Scare North’s Leaders,” New York Times, 12 September 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/world/asia/north-south-korea-decapitation-.html [1]               “Moon says dialogue with N. Korea ‘impossible,’ warns of destruction ‘beyond recovery’ “, Yonhap, 15 September 2017.http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2017/09/15/0200000000AEN20170915005653315.html [1]               Tim Beal, “A Korean Tragedy,” The Asia Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, 15 August 2017.http://apjjf.org/2017/16/Beal.htm; ———, “A Korean Tragedy: Update,” Zoom in Korea, 12 September 2017.http://kpolicy.org/a-korean-tragedy-update/ [1]               Geoffrey  Fattig, “How the U.S. Makes South Korea’s Life More Difficult,” Foreign Policy in Focus, 13 September 2017.http://fpif.org/how-the-u-s-makes-south-koreas-life-more-difficult/ [1]               David  Nakamura and Anne Gearan, “In U.N. speech, Trump threatens to ‘totally destroy North Korea’ and calls Kim Jong Un ‘Rocket Man’,” Washington Post, 19 September 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/09/19/in-u-n-speech-trump-warns-that-the-world-faces-great-peril-from-rogue-regimes-in-north-korea-iran/ [1]               “The Constitution of the Republic of Korea,” Constitutional Court of Korea, Republic of Korea, 29 October 1987.http://ri.ccourt.go.kr/eng/ccourt/news/related.html; Nick Visser, “Attack On North Korea Could Spare Allies, Secretary Mattis Says. Analysts Aren’t So Sure.,” Huffington Post, 18 September 2017 [1]               Christine Kim and Kaori Kaneko, “South Korea says Trump’s warning to North Korea ‘firm and specific’,” Reuters, 20 September 2017.http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-trump-reaction/south-korea-says-trumps-warning-to-north-korea-firm-and-specific-idUSKCN1BV0D; “Moon, Trump agree to boost military deterrence, put maximum pressure on N. Korea,” Yonhap, 22 September 2017.http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2017/09/22/0301000000AEN20170922001354315.html [1]               In-hwan Jung  et al., “Moon exhibits contradictory behavior during visit to UN,” Hankyoreh, 23 September 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/812233.html [1]               Andrew Roth, “Putin orders cut of 755 personnel at U.S. missions,” Washington Post, 30 July 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/putin-orders-cut-of-755-personnel-at-us-missions/2017/07/30/8a4b0044-7555-11e7-8c17-533c52b2f014_story.htm; Jon Sharman, “Putin on US administration: ‘It’s difficult to talk with people who confuse Austria and Australia’,” Independent, 5 September 2017.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/putin-us-administration-russia-austria-australia-confuse-george-w-bush-white-house-administration-a7930241.html [1]               Calculated from data in Table 18, “Military Balance 2017,” International Institute for Strategic Studies, 13 February 2017.http://www.iiss.org/en/publications/military%20balance/issues/the-military-balance-2017-b47b. Military expenditure is only one part of the story, and moreover figures vary. The IISS gives $604,452billion for the US in 2016 but other sources estimate the real figures is closer to one trillion dollars; Chris  Hellman and Mattea  Kramer, “War Pay: The Nearly $1 Trillion National Security Budget ” TomDispatch, 22 May 2012.http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175545 [1]               Lower figure calculated using 2017 data from IISS and the average estimate for North Korea in given by “World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 2016,” State Department, December 2016.https://www.state.gov/t/avc/rls/rpt/wmeat/2016/index.htm. The higher figure calculated from a statement by a statement in the National Assembly in 2013; Kyu-won Kim, “Defense intelligence director says N. Korea would win in a one-on-one war,” Hankyoreh, 6 November 2013.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/610084.html [1]               Byron  Tau, Peter  Nicholas, and Siobhan Hughes, “GOP Congressman Sought Trump Deal on WikiLeaks, Russia,” Wall Street Journal, 15 September 2017.https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-congressman-sought-trump-deal-on-wikileaks-russia-1505509918 [1]               ibid. [1]               Sarah D. Wire, “Rep. Dana Rohrabacher says Trump’s chief of staff is keeping him from talking to the president about Julian Assange,” Los Angeles Times, 4 October 2017.http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-report-rep-rohrabacher-says-white-1507155591-htmlstory.html [1]               Ross Douthat, “The 25th Amendment Solution for Removing Trump,” New York Times, 16 May 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/opinion/25th-amendment-trump.htm; John Hudak, “The 25th Amendment,” Brookings Institution, 9 June 2017.https://www.brookings.edu/blog/unpacked/2017/06/09/the-25th-amendment; Jeffrey Rosen, “The 25th Amendment Makes Presidential Disability a Political Question,” The Atlantic, 23 May 2017.https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/presidential-disability-is-a-political-question/527703; Dahlia Lithwick, “Is Donald Trump Too Incapacitated to Be President?,” Slate, 17 May 2017.http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/05/no_the_25th_amendment_is_not_the_solution.htm; Evan Osnos, “How Trump Could Get Fired,” New Yorker, 8 May 2017.https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/08/how-trump-could-get-fired [1]               “High Crimes and Misdemeanors,”  http://www.crf-usa.org/impeachment/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors.html. [1]               Bob Dreyfuss, “Robert Mueller’s End Game: Is Trump’s Impeachment a Possibility?,” The Nation, 12 October 2017.https://www.thenation.com/article/robert-muellers-end-game-is-trumps-impeachment-a-possibility/ [1]               Gregory Elich, “Did the Russians Really Hack the DNC?,” Counterpunch, 13 January 2017.http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/13/did-the-russians-really-hack-the-dnc; Patrick Lawrence, “A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack,” Nation, 9 August 2017.https://www.thenation.com/article/a-new-report-raises-big-questions-about-last-years-dnc-hack/ [1]               Jason Le Miere, “Steve Bannon Helped Write Trump’s U.N. Speech, Claims Sebastian Gorka, Who Called it ‘Classic MAGA Agenda’,” Newsweek, 21 September 2017.http://www.newsweek.com/steve-bannon-trump-speech-gorka-669140 [1]               Karen DeYoung and Greg  Jaffe, “For some foreign diplomats, the Trump White House is a troubling enigma,” Washington Post, 9 October 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/for-some-foreign-diplomats-the-trump-white-house-is-a-troubling-enigma/2017/10/09/50323152-a534-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.htm; Antony J. Blinken, “Trump Alienates America’s Allies and Hands Iran a Victory,” New York Times, 13 October 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/opinion/trump-false-narrative-iran.html [1]               Jim Michaels, “What war? U.S. military not mobilizing despite North Korea threats,” USA Today, 14 August 2017.https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/08/12/north-korea-crisis-no-change-u-s-north-korea-military-posture/560652001/;”U.S. forces in Korea to hold drill for evacuation of noncombatants in June,” Yonhap, 23 April 2017.http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/search1/2603000000.html?cid=AEN2017042300130031; Dan Lamothe, “Despite Trump’s threats to North Korea, the U.S. military doesn’t appear to be on a new wartime footing,” Washington Post, 11 August 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/08/11/despite-trumps-threats-to-north-korea-the-u-s-military-doesnt-appear-to-be-on-a-wartime-footing; Michael D. Shear and Michael R. Gordon, “How U.S. Military Actions Could Play Out in North Korea,” New York Times, 11 August 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/world/asia/north-korea-trump-military.html; Sang-hun Choe, “U.S. Military to Begin Drills to Evacuate Americans From South Korea,” New York Times, 16 October 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/world/asia/us-drills-evacuate-civilians.html [1]               Jin-seok Shon, “Fitch Says N.Korean Risk ‘Nothing New’,” Chosun Ilbo, 13 October 2017.http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/10/13/2017101301142.html; “Moody’s Maintains Credit Rating for Korea,” Chosun Ilbo, 19 October 2017.http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/10/19/2017101901280.html [1]               Robert Kuttner, “Steve Bannon, Unrepentant,” American Prospect, 16 August 2017.http://prospect.org/article/steve-bannon-unrepentant [1]               Oliver Holmes, “What is the US military’s presence near North Korea? ,” Guardian, 9 August 2017.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/09/what-is-the-us-militarys-presence-in-south-east-asia [1]               Bruce W. Bennett and Jennifer  Lind, “The Collapse of North Korea: Military Missions and Requirements,” International Security 36, no. 2 (2011). [1]               Editorial, “Reckless game over the Korean Peninsula runs risk of real war,” Global Times, 10 August 2017.http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1060791.shtml [1]               Robert Farley, “Asia’s Greatest Fear: A U.S.-China War,” National Interest, 9 June 2014.http://nationalinterest.org/feature/asia-flames-us-china-war-10621?page=sho; David C.  Gompert, Astrid Stuth  Cevallos, and Cristina  L. Garafola, “War with China: Thinking through the Unthinkable,” RAND, 28 July 2016.http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1100/RR1140/RAND_RR1140.pd; Peter Apps, “Commentary: Here’s how a U.S.-China war could play out,” Reuters, 9 August 2016.http://www.reuters.com/article/us-commentary-china-apps-idUSKCN10I0W; John Pilger, “The Coming War on China,” Counterpunch, 2 December 2016.http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/02/the-coming-war-on-china; Benjamin Haas, “Steve Bannon: ‘We’re going to war in the South China Sea … no doubt’ ” Guardian, 2 February 2017.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/02/steve-bannon-donald-trump-war-south-china-sea-no-doub; Robert Farley, “Could America Win a War Against Russia and China at the Same Time? ,” National Interest, 3 February 2017.http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/could-america-win-war-against-russia-china-the-same-time-19305 [1]               Dan  De Luce, Jenna McLaughlin, and Elias Groll, “Armageddon by Accident,” Foreign Policy, 18 October 2017.http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/18/armageddon-by-accident-north-korea-nuclear-war-missiles/ [1][1]             Dan Lamothe, “U.S. jets drop live bombs in a new show of force aimed at North Korea,” Washington Post, 18 September 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/09/18/u-s-jets-dropped-live-bombs-in-a-new-massive-show-of-force-aimed-at-north-korea/ [1]               Byong-su Park and Yu-gyung Jung, “US B-1B bombers again conduct military exercises over Korean Peninsula,” Hankyoreh, 12 October 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/814247.html [1]               Daniel Ten Kate and Peter S.  Green, “Defending Korea Line Seen Contrary to Law by Kissinger Remains U.S. Policy,” Bloomberg, 17 December 2010.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-16/defending-korea-line-seen-contrary-to-law-by-kissinger-remains-u-s-policy.html [1]               “N.Korean Envoy Warns Nuclear War Could Break out at ‘Any Moment’,” Chosun Ilbo, 18 October 2017.http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/10/18/2017101800882.html [1]               Beal, “Hegemony and Resistance, Compellence and Deterrence: Deconstructing the North Korean ‘Threat’ and Identifying America’s Strategic Alternatives.” [1]               Hye-jeong Choi, “South Korea holds ultimate decision for military action on Peninsula,” Hankyoreh, 18 August 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/807417.htm; Rahn  Kim, “US won’t go to war without ROK: minister,” Korea Times, 12 October 2017.http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/10/103_237566.html [1]               Robert Costa and Philip Rucker, “Military leaders consolidate power in Trump administration,” Washington Post, 22 August 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/military-leaders-consolidate-power-in-trump-administration/2017/08/22/db4f7bee-875e-11e7-a94f-3139abce39f5_story.htm; Stephen Kinzer, “America’s slow-motion military coup,” Boston Globe, 16 September 2017.https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/09/16/america-slow-motion-military-coup/WgzYW9MPBIbsegCwd4IpJN/amp.htm; Masha Gessen, “John Kelly and the Language of the Military Coup,” New Yorker, 20 October 2017.https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/john-kelly-and-the-language-of-the-military-coup?mbid=social_twitte; “”Above All” – The Junta Expands Its Claim To Power,” Moon of Alabama, 21 October 2017.http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/10/above-all-the-junta-expands-its-claim-to-power.htm; Christopher Wallace, “Trump’s generals: President turns to military men for counsel, order,” Fox News, 8 August 2017.http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/08/08/trumps-generals-president-turns-to-military-men-for-counsel-order.html [1]               Michael F. Cairo, “Civilian Control of the Military,” Democracy Papers [State Department, Bureau of International Information Programs], 26 October 2005.https://web.archive.org/web/20051026185242/http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/democracy/dmpaper12.htm [1]               Andrew Bacevich, “The Greatest Person then Living,” London Review of Book, 27 July 2017.https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n15/andrew-bacevich/the-greatest-person-then-living [1]               Costa and Rucker, “Military leaders consolidate power in Trump administration.” [1]               Harry Harris, “Despite Threats and Uncertainty, America’s Commitment to Asia Remains Ironclad,” Huffington Post, 21 September 2016.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/despite-threats-and-uncertainty-americas-commitment-to-asia-remains-ironclad_us_57e14aa2e4b08cb14097f4f9 [1]               Jeffery Lewis, “Let’s Face It: North Korean Nuclear Weapons Can Hit the U.S.,” New York Times, 3 August 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/03/opinion/north-korea-nukes.htm; Michael Morell, “North Korea may already be able to launch a nuclear attack on the U.S.,” Washington Post, 6 September 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/north-korea-may-already-be-able-to-launch-a-nuclear-attack-on-the-us/2017/09/06/ce375080-9325-11e7-8754-d478688d23b4_story.html [1]               Hendrik  Hertzberg, “Cakewalk,” New Yorker, 14 April 2003.http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/04/14/cakewal; Ken Adelman, “Cakewalk In Iraq,” Washington Post, 13 February 2002.http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2002/msg00243.html; Harry J. Kazianis, “The Case for Containing North Korea,” The National Interest, 15 October 2017.http://nationalinterest.org/print/feature/the-case-containing-north-korea-22727 [1]               Garrett Epps, “Trump Doesn’t Have the Authority to Attack North Korea Without Congress,” The Atlantic, 30 August 2017.https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trump-doesnt-have-the-power-to-attack-north-korea-without-congress/538425; Jeremy Herb, “Could Congress stop Trump from bombing North Korea?,” CNN, 10 August 2017.http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/09/politics/trump-bomb-north-korea-congress/index.html;David Ignatius, “Our best hope against nuclear war,” Washington Post, 3 October 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/our-best-hope-against-nuclear-war/2017/10/03/7df61d86-a883-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html [1]               “Zarif: If U.S. wants new nuclear concessions, we do, too,” Tehran Times, 23 September 2017.http://www.tehrantimes.com/news/417021/Zarif-If-U-S-wants-new-nuclear-concessions-we-do-too [1]               John Delury, “Lessons from North Korea,” Foreign Affairs (2015). [1]               David Lai and Alyssa Blair, “How to Learn to Live With a Nuclear North Korea,” Foreign Policy, 7 August 2017.https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/07/how-to-learn-to-live-with-a-nuclear-north-korea/ [1]               Jackson Diehl, “Bob Corker on Trump’s biggest problem: The ‘castration’ of Rex Tillerson,” Washington Post, 13 October 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/bob-corker-on-trumps-biggest-problem-the-castration-of-rex-tillerson/2017/10/13/8a331abc-b03b-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html [1]               Yong-in Yi and Byong-su Park, “Sources suggest secret negotiations taking place between North Korea and US,” Hankyoreh, 18 August 2017.http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/807415.htm; Si-soo Park, “N. Korea, US hold ‘secret’ meeting in Switzerland: report,” Korea Times, 14 September 2017.http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/09/103_236447.htm; David E Sanger, “U.S. in Direct Communication With North Korea, Says Tillerson,” New York Times, 30 September 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/30/world/asia/us-north-korea-tillerson.html [1]               Ashley Parker and Greg Jaffe, “Inside the ‘adult day-care center’: How aides try to control and coerce Trump,” Washington Post, 16 October 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-the-adult-day-care-center-how-aides-try-to-control-and-coerce-trump/2017/10/15/810b4296-b03d-11e7-99c6-46bdf7f6f8ba_story.html [1]               Rorry Daniels, “Time to save face in US-DPRK relations,” Pacnet Newsletter, 10 October 2017.https://www.csis.org/analysis/pacnet-73-time-save-face-us-dprk-relations [1]               “Starvation ‘as a weapon’ is a war crime, UN chief warns parties to conflict in Syria,” UN News Centre, 14 January 2016.http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=53003 [1]               Editorial Board, “Options for Removing Kim Jong Un,” Wall Street Journal, 4 September 2017.https://www.wsj.com/articles/options-for-removing-kim-jong-un-1504556500 [1]               Tim Beal, “North Korea’s Deterrent and Trump’s Options,” Zoom in Korea, 26 July 2017.http://www.zoominkorea.org/north-koreas-deterrent-and-trumps-options/ [1]               Sang-Hun Choe, “South Koreans Feel Cheated After U.S. Carrier Miscue,” New York Times, 19 April 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/world/asia/aircraft-carrier-south-korea.htm; Amy Davidson, “Donald Trump, North Korea, and the Case of the Phantom Armada,” New Yorker, 19 April 2017.http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/donald-trump-north-korea-and-the-case-of-the-phantom-armada [1]               Ironically It was Obama who first introduced Twitter to presidential politics back in 2007 and in contrast to Trump he seems to used it sparingly and effectively; Vann R.  Newkirk II, “The American Idea in 140 Characters,” The Atlantic, 24 March 2016.https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/twitter-politics-last-decade/475131; Rebecca Savransky, “Obama’s tweet after Charlottesville one of most popular tweets ever,” The Hill, 15 August 2017.http://thehill.com/homenews/news/346602-obamas-tweet-after-charlottesville-one-of-most-popular-tweets-ever [1]               Sean Rossman, “Trump has tweeted 17 times about North Korea since becoming president,” USA Today, 4 July 2017.https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/07/04/trump-has-tweeted-17-times-north-korea-since-becoming-president/449885001; Zack Beauchamp, “Here are 2 wildly incorrect Trump administration tweets about North Korea,” Vox, 2 October 2017.https://www.vox.com/world/2017/10/2/16395048/north-korea-trump-tweet; Doyle McManus, “Trump undercuts Tillerson with every tweet,” Los Angeles Times, 4 October 2017.http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-mcmanus-tillerson-trump-north-korea-20171004-story.html [1]               “Everything President Trump has tweeted (and what it was about),”  http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-updates-everything-president-trump-has-tweeted-and-what-it-was-about-2017-htmlstory.html. [1]               Henry Farrell, “North Korea just called Trump’s bluff. So what happens now?,” Washington Post, 9 August 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/08/08/donald-trump-is-playing-a-dangerous-game-with-north-korea; Jeffrey Frankel, “Can Trump Deal with North Korea and China?,” Project Syndicate, 24 August 2017.https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-deal-making-china-north-korea-by-jeffrey-frankel-2017-08 [1]               Hugh White, “With their threats to China, Trump and Tillerson are making rookie blunders that will only hurt US credibility,” South China Morning Post, 17 January 2017.http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2062762/their-threats-china-trump-and-tillerson-are-making-rooki; Kathleen Parker, “Dealmaker in Chief? More like the Backdown President,” Washington Post, 25 April 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dealmaker-in-chief-more-like-the-backdown-president/2017/04/25/7cddddc6-29df-11e7-b605-33413c691853_story.html [1]               Eliot A.  Cohen, “Rex Tillerson Must Go,” The Atlantic, 2 October 2017.https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/trump-tillerson-self-respect-north-korea-puerto-rico-diplomacy/541695/ [1]               Eliot A. Cohen, The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power and the Necessity of Military Force (New York: Basic Books, 2017). [1]               ———, “How were we in Vietnam?,” New York Times, 21 July 1985.http://www.nytimes.com/1985/07/21/books/how-were-we-in-vietnam.html [1]               Whan-woo Yi, “Why has North Korea been silent for more than two months? ,” Korea Times, 27 November 2017.http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/11/103_239990.html [1]               “Joint statement by the Russian and Chinese foreign ministries on the Korean Peninsula’s problems,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 4 July 2017.http://www.mid.ru/en/web/guest/maps/kr/-/asset_publisher/PR7UbfssNImL/content/id/2807662 [1]               David Nakamura, “Trump puts North Korea back on state sponsors of terrorism list to escalate pressure over nuclear weapons,” Washington Post, 20 November 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/11/20/trump-puts-north-korea-back-on-state-sponsors-of-terrorism-list-to-escalate-pressure-over-nuclear-weapons; Anthony H. Cordesman, “North Korea and the Terrorism List: The Need for a Strategy, Not an Irritant,” CSIS, 20 November 2017.https://www.csis.org/analysis/north-korea-and-terrorism-list-need-strategy-not-irritant; Anna Fifield, “U.S., South Korea begin air combat drills that include simulated strikes on North Korea,” Washington Post, 4 December 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-south-korea-begin-air-combat-drills-that-include-simulated-strikes-on-north-korea/2017/12/04/9f4b43e0-d8ca-11e7-8e5f-ccc94e22b133_story.html [1]               David Wright, “North Korea’s Longest Missile Test Yet,” Union of Concerned Scientists, 29 November 2017.http://allthingsnuclear.org/dwright/nk-longest-missile-test-ye; Anna Fifield, “North Korea has shown us its new missile, and it’s scarier than we thought,” Washington Post, 30 November 2017.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/11/30/north-korea-has-shown-us-its-new-missile-and-its-scarier-than-we-thought; “DPRK Gov’t Statement on Successful Test-fire of New-Type ICBM,” Rodong Sinmun, 29 November 2017.http://www.rodong.rep.kp/en/index.php?strPageID=SF01_02_01&newsID=2017-11-29-0002 #Trump #KimJongUn #KoreanWar #SouthKorea #Japanmilitary #Nuclearweapons #TimBeal #MoonJaein #NorthKorea