Category Archives: nuclear issues

North Korea warns ‘thermonuclear war may break out at any moment’

The Associated Press reports: A senior North Korean official has accused the US of turning the Korean peninsula into “the world’s biggest hotspot” and creating “a dangerous situation in which a thermonuclear war may break out at any moment”.

North Korea’s deputy UN ambassador, Kim In-ryong, described US-South Korean military exercises as the largest ever “aggressive war drill” and said his country was “ready to react to any mode of war desired by the US”.

The country’s deputy foreign minister, Han Song-Ryol, told the BBC that Pyongyang would continue to test missiles “on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis”. All-out war would ensue if the US took military action, he said..

The statements from the North Korean officials came as the US president, Donald Trump, told the government in Pyongyang that it has “gotta behave” and his vice-president, Mike Pence, said the “era of strategic patience is over”. [Continue reading…]

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With few options, U.S. doesn’t rule out talks with North Korea

The New York Times reports: North Korea may have refrained from detonating a nuclear device and botched another missile test this weekend, easing tensions in Asia. But it is unclear whether President Trump has found a way around the limited options against North Korea that constrained his predecessors and put it on the path to becoming a nuclear power.

Mr. Trump essentially has three choices: a military strike that could ignite a full-blown war; pressure on China to impose tougher sanctions to persuade the North to change course, an approach that failed for his predecessors; or a deal that could require significant concessions, with no guarantee that North Korea would fulfill its promises.

Thus far, Mr. Trump has tried to signal both resolve and ambiguity, suggesting at various times that he is open to all three options. The question is whether his apparent willingness to consider both war and a deal may be enough carrot and stick to persuade China to change its approach and apply enough pressure to bring the North to the table.

Vice President Mike Pence, during a visit to South Korea, raised the possibility on Monday that the Trump administration could pursue talks. No one should mistake the resolve of the United States, he said, also noting that Washington was seeking security “through peaceable means, through negotiations.” The phrasing was unusual for a senior American official discussing the Korean Peninsula with American troops in the background.

Talks have long been China’s preference, and now that Mr. Trump seems to be relying on Beijing to an unprecedented degree, Mr. Pence may have been signaling that the United States was open to negotiations. China’s chief objective is to get talks — of any kind — started to avoid conflict so close to home. [Continue reading…]

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Trump ‘will take action’ to end any North Korea threat to U.S. says national security adviser

ABC News reports: Hours after North Korea paraded its weaponry and attempted a missile launch, President Trump’s national security adviser said the U.S. leader will not allow Kim Jong Un’s regime to have the capacity to threaten the U.S.

“While it’s unclear and we do not want to telegraph in any way how we’ll respond to certain incidents, it’s clear that the president is determined not to allow this kind of capability to threaten the United States,” Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz in an exclusive interview on “This Week” Sunday. “Our president will take action that is in the best interest of the American people.”

North Korea rolled out ballistic missiles and other weaponry at a huge parade Saturday and later in the day, at 5:21 p.m. ET, made a failed attempt to shoot off a missile, which exploded immediately after launch.

McMaster said the launch “fits a pattern of provocative and destabilizing and threatening behavior on the part of the North Korean regime.”

“I think there’s an international consensus now, including the Chinese and the Chinese leadership, that this is a situation that just can’t continue. And the president has made clear that he will not accept the United States and its allies and partners in the region being under threat from this hostile regime with nuclear weapons,” said McMaster, who spoke from Kabul, Afghanistan. [Continue reading…]

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North Korea displays apparently new missiles as U.S. carrier group approaches

Reuters reports: North Korea displayed what appeared to be new long-range and submarine-based missiles on the 105th birth anniversary of its founding father, Kim Il Sung, on Saturday, as a nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier group steamed towards the region.

Missiles appeared to be the main theme of a giant military parade, with Kim’s grandson, leader Kim Jong Un, taking time to greet the commander of the Strategic Forces, the branch that oversees the missile arsenal.

A U.S. Navy attack on a Syrian airfield this month with Tomahawk missiles raised questions about U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans for reclusive North Korea, which has conducted several missile and nuclear tests in defiance of U.N. sanctions, regularly threatening to destroy the United States. [Continue reading…]

Politico reports: President Donald Trump would be best served to simply ignore the provocations of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, a former acting director of the CIA said Friday, and is “making it worse” by replying with a show of force.

Kim has moved his repressive, communist state to the top of the president’s international priority list in recent weeks, first with a missile test and now with preparations consistent with the test of a nuclear weapon. North Korea was a main point of discussion during the president’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week, and last weekend Trump ordered the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and its accompanying battle group into the waters off the Korean peninsula.

“We have a new president and Kim Jong Un is trying to challenge him, is trying to get him back to the negotiating table,” former CIA acting Director Mike Morell said Friday on “CBS This Morning,” praising former President Barack Obama for largely ignoring the North Korean regime’s efforts at saber rattling. “Kim Jong Un wants to get back to a situation where we give them gifts when they do something bad. And then we are also making it worse, right? With our bluster and by sending aircraft carriers in there, we’re raising the crisis.” [Continue reading…]

Josh Rogin writes: Despite heated rhetoric about potential military conflict, the Trump administration’s official policy on North Korea is not aimed at regime change, but rather seeks to impose “maximum pressure” on Pyongyang in the hopes of returning to negotiations to get rid of its growing nuclear arsenal. That’s the result of a comprehensive policy review the Trump White House completed this month.

Tensions couldn’t be higher as the regime of Kim Jong Un signals that it may soon detonate its sixth nuclear bomb and North Korean officials say they are ready to “go to war” if provoked by the United States. The United States has moved significant military assets into the region, and officials are even signaling that the United States is capable of launching a preemptive strike.

But behind the scenes, the Trump administration has completed a two-month comprehensive review of the North Korea policy that was approved by all of the top National Security Council officials this month, a senior White House official who has read the policy confirmed to me. [Continue reading…]

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China warns of ‘storm clouds gathering’ in U.S.-North Korea standoff

The New York Times reports: China warned on Friday that tensions on the Korean Peninsula could spin out of control, as North Korea said it could test a nuclear weapon at any time and an American naval group neared the peninsula in a show of resolve.

“The United States and South Korea and North Korea are engaging in tit for tat, with swords drawn and bows bent, and there have been storm clouds gathering,” China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said in Beijing, according to Xinhua, the state news agency.

“We urge all sides to no longer engage in mutual provocation and threats, whether through words or deeds, and don’t push the situation to the point where it can’t be turned around and gets out of hand,” Mr. Wang said after meeting with his visiting French counterpart, Jean-Marc Ayrault, according to Xinhua.

“No matter who it is, if they let war break out on the peninsula, they must shoulder that historical culpability and pay the corresponding price for this,” Mr. Wang said.

His comments were the bluntest this week from China, which has been trying to steer between the Trump administration’s demands for it to do more to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and its longstanding reluctance to risk a rupture with the North, its neighbor and longtime partner. In a phone conversation with Mr. Trump on Wednesday, China’s president, Xi Jinping, also called for restraint. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. may launch strike if North Korea reaches for nuclear trigger

NBC News reports: The U.S. is prepared to launch a preemptive strike with conventional weapons against North Korea should officials become convinced that North Korea is about to follow through with a nuclear weapons test, multiple senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News.

North Korea has warned that a “big event” is near, and U.S. officials say signs point to a nuclear test that could come as early as this weekend.

The intelligence officials told NBC News that the U.S. has positioned two destroyers capable of shooting Tomahawk cruise missiles in the region, one just 300 miles from the North Korean nuclear test site.

American heavy bombers are also positioned in Guam to attack North Korea should it be necessary, and earlier this week, the Pentagon announced that the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group was being diverted to the area.

The U.S. strike could include missiles and bombs, cyber and special operations on the ground.

The danger of such an attack by the U.S. is that it could provoke the volatile and unpredictable North Korean regime to launch its own blistering attack on its southern neighbor.

“The leadership in North Korea has shown absolutely no sign or interest in diplomacy or dialogue with any of the countries involved in this issue,” Victor Cha, the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies told NBC News Thursday.

On Wednesday, North Korea said it would “hit the U.S. first” with a nuclear weapon should there be any signs of U.S. strikes.

On Thursday, North Korea warned of a “merciless retaliatory strike” should the U.S. take any action. [Continue reading…]

John Pomfret writes: For the first time, the Chinese government appears to have laid down a bottom-line with North Korea and is threatening Pyongyang with a response of “unprecedented ferocity” if the government of Kim Jong Un goes ahead with a test of either an intercontinental ballistic missile or a nuclear device. North Korea will celebrate the 105th anniversary of the birth of its founder, Kim Il Sung, on Saturday, and some type of military show of force is expected.

In an editorial in the semi-official Global Times on Wednesday, Pyongyang was put on notice that it must rein in its nuclear ambitions, or else China’s oil shipments to North Korea could be “severely limited.” It is extraordinary for China to make this kind of threat. For more than a decade, as part of its strategy to prop up one of its only allies, China refused to allow the U.N. Security Council to even consider cutting oil shipments to North Korea. Beijing’s calculus was that the maintenance of the North Korean regime took precedence over everything. Now Beijing seems to be reconsidering its position. [Continue reading…]

Politico reports: President Donald Trump said Thursday that he does not know whether the U.S. military’s use of the so-called “mother of all bombs” in Afghanistan will send a message to North Korea, but he said “the problem” with that country “will be taken care of,” regardless.

“I don’t know if this sends a message,” Trump told reporters in the White House. “It doesn’t make any difference if it does or not. North Korea is a problem. The problem will be taken care of.”

He added: “I will say, I think China has really been working very hard. I have really gotten to like and respect, as you know, President Xi. He’s a terrific person. We spent a lot of time together in Florida. And he’s a very special man. So we’ll see how it goes. I think he’s going to try very hard.” [Continue reading…]

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North Korea ‘ready for war’ after U.S. redeploys navy strike team

The Guardian reports: North Korea has warned of “catastrophic consequences” in response to any further provocations by the US, days after a US navy battle group was sent to waters off the Korean peninsula.

The decision to divert the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier and other battleships from a planned visit to Australia to the western Pacific came after tensions increased over ongoing military drills involving American and South Korean forces that Pyongyang regards as a dress rehearsal for an invasion.

“We will hold the US wholly accountable for the catastrophic consequences to be entailed by its outrageous actions,” North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying. “(North Korea) is ready to react to any mode of war desired by the US.”

The spokesman cited Washington’s refusal to rule out a pre-emptive strike against North Korean missile sites as justification for its nuclear programme.

“The prevailing grave situation proves once again that (North Korea) was entirely just when it increased in every way its military capabilities for self-defence and pre-emptive attack with a nuclear force as a pivot,” the spokesman said, according to KCNA.

“We will take the toughest counteraction against the provocateurs in order to defend ourselves by powerful force of arms.”

Last week’s US strike against a Syrian base is also being seen as a warning to North Korea, after Donald Trump said Washington was prepared to act alone if China failed to exert more pressure on its neighbour to halt its missile and nuclear weapons programmes. [Continue reading…]

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North Korea says Syria airstrikes prove its nukes justified

The Associated Press reports: North Korea has vowed to bolster its defenses to protect itself against airstrikes like the ones President Donald Trump ordered against an air base in Syria.

The North called the airstrikes “absolutely unpardonable” and said they prove its nuclear weapons are justified to protect the country against Washington’s “evermore reckless moves for a war.”

The comments were made by a Foreign Ministry official and carried Sunday by North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency. The report did not name the official, which is common in KCNA reports. [Continue reading…]

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North Korea missile launch prompts enigmatic response from Tillerson

The Guardian reports: Japan and South Korea have condemned North Korea after it launched another ballistic missile – but the US refused to be drawn in, with secretary of state Rex Tillerson saying the country “has spoken enough about North Korea”.

Japan lodged a strong protest over the “extremely problematic launch”, which landed in waters off the Korean peninsula on the eve of a summit between US and Chinese leaders that is expected to focus on Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme.

The South Korean foreign ministry said it “threatens the peace and safety of the international community as well as the Korean peninsula”.

But Tillerson responded to the test with an a enigmatic statement saying only: “The United States has spoken enough about North Korea. We have no further comment.”

A few hours earlier, before news of the new missile launch broke, a senior Trump administration official suggested time was running out for a diplomatic solution. [Continue reading…]

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North Korea’s leader is a lot of things — but irrational is not one of them

Anna Fifield writes: It’s easy to write off Kim Jong Un as a madman. What with the colorful nuclear threats, the gruesome executions of family members, the fact that he’s a self-appointed marshal who’s never served in the military.

Indeed, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) did it just this past week, calling Kim “this crazy, fat kid that’s running North Korea.” That came on the heels of a pronouncement from Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, that “we are not dealing with a rational person” in Kim.

It’s a relatively common view. World leaders, military chiefs and Hollywood have all painted him as an unhinged maniac.

But this is not just wrong, North Korea watchers and dictatorship experts say. It also risks dangerous miscalculation.

“North Korea has consistently been treated like a joke, but now the joke has nuclear weapons,” said John Park, director of the Korea Working Group at the Harvard Kennedy School. “If you deem Kim Jong Un to be irrational, then you’re implicitly underestimating him.”

Leaders throughout the centuries have realized it can be advantageous to have your enemies think you’re crazy. Machiavelli once wrote that it can be wise to pretend to be mad, while President Richard Nixon wanted the North Vietnamese to think he was unstable and prone to launch a nuclear attack on a whim.

Writing off Kim Jong Un as a lunatic could equally be playing into his hands. [Continue reading…]

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Turkey’s frightening trifecta: ISIS, Erdogan & U.S. nukes

Christopher Dickey writes: Immediately after the coup [last July], which involved some Turkish air force officers, the Incirlik air base used by the United States in the war against the so-called Islamic State was cordoned off and effectively shut down for several days. Its Turkish commander was placed under arrest and frog-marched off the base.

Given the Turkish government’s behavior and the country’s evident instability, it’s of no small concern that under NATO’s “nuclear sharing” program, an estimated 50 to 90 atomic weapons reportedly are located at Incirlik (PDF). Although these B61 munitions are considered “tactical” weapons, each thermonuclear device has a potential blast yield of about 340 kilotons—more than 20 times that of the “Little Boy” bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

In the immediate aftermath of the Incirlik blockade and arrests last summer, spurious reports played up by Russian propagandists claimed the nukes had been moved from Incirlik to Romania. That was not the case. But there remains wide sentiment among security analysts that those nukes should be moved somewhere more secure.

As a Congressional Research Service report (PDF) noted at the time, concerns were based on “both the ongoing political uncertainties in Turkey, including the evolving state of U.S.-Turkish relations, and the base’s proximity to territory controlled by ISIS.”

The Syrian border is about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Incirlik. Towns like Al Bab and Dabiq, until recently under the control of the so-called Islamic State, are slightly further.

The argument for leaving the nukes in Turkey was to reassure Ankara against a threat from Russia. But given the obvious and growing rapprochement between Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Erdogan’s increasingly overt hostility toward his NATO allies, leaving thermonuclear weapons on the bomb racks of Incirlik seems to many a pointless and dangerous exercise. [Continue reading…]

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North Korea rocket engine test: What did we learn?

CNN reports: North Korea’s test of a rocket engine Sunday showed “meaningful” signs of progress, according to South Korean officials.

“Through this test, it is assessed that (North Korea) has made meaningful progress in engine performance, but further analysis is needed for exact thrust and its possible uses in future,” said South Korean Defense Ministry deputy spokesman Lee Jin-woo.

He said the equipment tested “appears to have one main engine with four auxiliary engines connected to it. We believe this was an attempt to develop a new engine.”

Pyongyang, for its part, touted the test as a “great leap forward” in its rocket program.

Many analysts linked the timing of the test to US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s first visit to north Asia, which ended in Beijing Sunday. [Continue reading…]

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Ready or not, here come Trump and North Korea

Albert Hunt writes: President Donald Trump is a reckless bully with authoritarian leanings and a craving for attention. Kim Jong-un is a reckless bully with dictatorial powers and a craving for attention. Oh yes, and both have fingers on nuclear triggers. That’s why so many national security experts of both political parties struggle to think of a scarier pair.

It’s not just that Kim’s outlaw North Korean regime has accelerated its nuclear weapons capacity and delivery capability, or that Kim sees nuclear weapons as his insurance policy against adversaries.

It’s also that Trump has displayed little appreciation of history or knowledge and a compulsion to show that he’s tough.

Trump has called Kim a “madman,” one of the few things he has gotten right about North Korea. Dealing with him, though, requires measured patience and smart diplomacy — not Trump’s forte — and a reliance on alliances and relationships that he has dismissed.

On his current Asia trip, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that diplomacy with North Korea hasn’t worked and that there’d be a “new approach.” That sounds like just talk. More important, Defense Secretary James Mattis impressed Asia experts during his visit last month to Japan and South Korea, in essence assuring the allies that U.S. commitments were unchanged despite Trump’s “America First” oratory.

There are few Asia specialists in this slow-to-form administration. But if Trump listens to Mattis and H.R. McMaster, his national security adviser, there will be a sense of relief in Tokyo, Seoul and Washington about the approach to North Korea. Let’s hope the president doesn’t revert instead to his penchant for relying on gut instincts or his nationalist Svengali, Steve Bannon.[Continue reading…]

Max Fisher writes: A full war, entered deliberately or accidentally, would risk terrible costs.

Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti told a congressional committee in 2016, when he was commander of United States forces in South Korea, that war with North Korea “would be more akin to the Korean War and World War II — very complex, probably high casualty.”

Analysts doubt that the United States could reproduce the rapid military victory it achieved against Iraq in 2003. In the event of war, North Korean plans are thought to call for nuclear attacks against major ports and air bases in South Korea and Japan, halting any American invasion before it could fully begin.

In the meantime, nuclear and chemical strikes against major population centers would be intended to shock the world into capitulating. Missile defense would be of limited use against short-range rockets and of no use against North Korea’s hundreds of artillery pieces, many of which target Seoul, the South Korean capital.

Potentially the hardest question of all is whether such plans would achieve American strategic aims.

Military strikes may be an imperfect tool, analysts say, for solving what is essentially a political problem: the leadership’s belief that it requires an advanced nuclear program to survive.

Strikes short of war would risk deepening, rather than altering, this calculus. Strikes that led to war would risk exactly the nuclear exchange they are meant to forestall. [Continue reading…]

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China urges U.S. to remain ‘coolheaded’ on North Korea as Tillerson warns of danger

The Washington Post reports: China urged the United States to remain “coolheaded” over North Korea and not to turn its back on dialogue, as visiting Secretary of State Rex Tillerson expressed a “sense of urgency” to curb dangerous levels of tension on the Korean Peninsula.

On his first trip to Asia this week, Tillerson earlier declared that diplomacy has failed to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear program and that a new approach was needed. On Friday in Seoul, he warned ominously that all options were on the table to counter the threat from Pyongyang.

President Trump weighed in Friday by goading China over Twitter for not doing enough to help prevent its ally from “behaving very badly.”

But in a joint news conference Saturday with his Chinese counterpart, Tillerson struck a more diplomatic note, choosing to play down differences with Beijing and affirm that both countries share the goal of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. policy of ‘strategic patience’ with North Korea over, says Tillerson, raising the specter of nuclear war

Reuters reports: A U.S. policy of strategic patience with North Korea has ended, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in South Korea on Friday, adding that military action would be “on the table” if North Korea elevated the threat level.

Tillerson began his first Asian visit as secretary of state in Japan on Wednesday and will travel to China on Saturday with a main focus on finding a “new approach” on North Korea after what he described as two decades of failed efforts to denuclearize the insular nation.

“Let me be very clear: the policy of strategic patience has ended. We are exploring a new range of security and diplomatic measures. All options are on the table,” Tillerson told a news conference in Seoul.

He said any North Korean actions that threatened the South would be met with “an appropriate response”.

“If they elevate the threat of their weapons program to a level that we believe requires action, that option is on the table,” Tillerson said when asked about military action. [Continue reading…]

Arms control expert, Jeffrey Lewis, underlines the implications of threatening military action by citing a March 9 statement published by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the state news agency of North Korea:

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North Korea tensions pose early, and perilous, test for Trump

The New York Times reports: When the United States began deploying a missile defense system in South Korea this week, it was to protect an ally long threatened by North Korean provocations. But it was instantly met by angry Chinese warnings that the United States is setting off a new arms race in a region already on edge over the North’s drive to build a nuclear arsenal.

China condemned the new antimissile system as a dangerous opening move in what it called America’s grand strategy to set up similar defenses across Asia, threatening to tilt the balance of power there against Beijing.

The tensions are testing the new Trump administration and its uneasy allies South Korea and Japan, which have complained for years that China has simultaneously chastised and coddled the North, refusing to enact stiff enough measures to force it to abandon its nuclear and missile programs.

But with the beginning of work to install the antimissile system, the delicate international cooperation against North Korea is splintering: Beijing is expressing more concern about American intentions in the region than about the dangers of the North’s latest surge in nuclear and missile testing. [Continue reading…]

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North Korea says it was practicing to hit U.S. military bases in Japan with missiles

The Washington Post reports: North Korea was practicing to strike United States military bases in Japan with its latest barrage of missiles, state media in Pyongyang reported Tuesday, and it appeared to be trying to outsmart a new American antimissile battery being deployed to South Korea by firing multiple rockets at once.

Kim Jong Un presided over Monday’s launch of the four missiles, “feasting his eyes on the trails of ballistic rockets,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported in a statement that analysts called a “brazen declaration” of the country’s intent to strike enemies with a nuclear weapon if it came under attack.

“If the United States or South Korea fires even a single flame inside North Korean territory, we will demolish the origin of the invasion and provocation with a nuclear tipped missile,” the KCNA statement said.

The four ballistic missiles fired Monday morning were launched by the elite Hwasong ballistic missile division “tasked to strike the bases of the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces in Japan,” KCNA said. The United States has numerous military bases and about 54,000 military personnel stationed in Japan, the legacy of its postwar security alliance with the country. [Continue reading…]

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Trump inherits a secret cyberwar against North Korean missiles

The New York Times reports: Three years ago, President Barack Obama ordered Pentagon officials to step up their cyber and electronic strikes against North Korea’s missile program in hopes of sabotaging test launches in their opening seconds.

Soon a large number of the North’s military rockets began to explode, veer off course, disintegrate in midair and plunge into the sea. Advocates of such efforts say they believe that targeted attacks have given American antimissile defenses a new edge and delayed by several years the day when North Korea will be able to threaten American cities with nuclear weapons launched atop intercontinental ballistic missiles.

But other experts have grown increasingly skeptical of the new approach, arguing that manufacturing errors, disgruntled insiders and sheer incompetence can also send missiles awry. Over the past eight months, they note, the North has managed to successfully launch three medium-range rockets. And Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, now claims his country is in “the final stage in preparations” for the inaugural test of his intercontinental missiles — perhaps a bluff, perhaps not.

An examination of the Pentagon’s disruption effort, based on interviews with officials of the Obama and Trump administrations as well as a review of extensive but obscure public records, found that the United States still does not have the ability to effectively counter the North Korean nuclear and missile programs. Those threats are far more resilient than many experts thought, The New York Times’s reporting found, and pose such a danger that Mr. Obama, as he left office, warned President Trump they were likely to be the most urgent problem he would confront. [Continue reading…]

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