The Wall Street Journal reports: After a high-visibility display of military power aimed at deterring North Korean provocations, the White House is dialing back the aggressive posture amid fears that it could inadvertently trigger an even deeper crisis, according to U.S. officials.

The U.S. is putting a pause to what several officials described as a step-by-step plan the Obama administration approved earlier this year, dubbed “the playbook,” that laid out the sequence and publicity plans for U.S. shows of force during annual war games with South Korea. The playbook included well-publicized flights in recent weeks near North Korea by nuclear-capable B-52 and stealth B-2 bombers, as well as advanced F-22 warplanes.

The U.S. stepped back from the plans this week, as U.S. officials began to worry that the North, which has a small nuclear arsenal and an unpredictable new leader, may be more provoked than the U.S. had intended, the officials said.

“The concern was that we were heightening the prospect of misperceptions on the part of the North Koreans, and that that could lead to miscalculations,” a senior administration official said.

At Foreign Affairs, Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press write: As North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un issues increasingly over-the-top threats — including intimations that he might launch nuclear strikes against the United States — officials in Washington have sought to reassure the public and U.S. allies. North Korea, they say, may initiate cyberattacks or other limited provocations, but the leaders in Pyongyang wish to survive, so they are highly unlikely to do anything as foolhardy as using nuclear weapons.

Despite those assurances, however, the risk of nuclear war with North Korea is far from remote. Although Pyongyang’s tired threats are probably bluster, the current crisis has substantially increased the risk of a conventional conflict — and any conventional war with North Korea is likely to go nuclear. Washington should continue its efforts to prevent war on the Korean Peninsula. But equally important, it must rapidly take steps — including re-evaluating U.S. war plans — to dampen the risks of nuclear escalation if conventional war erupts.

Ironically, the risk of North Korean nuclear war stems not from weakness on the part of the United States and South Korea but from their strength. If war erupted, the North Korean army, short on training and armed with decrepit equipment, would prove no match for the U.S.–South Korean Combined Forces Command. Make no mistake, Seoul would suffer some damage, but a conventional war would be a rout, and CFC forces would quickly cross the border and head north.

At that point, North Korea’s inner circle would face a grave decision: how to avoid the terrible fates of such defeated leaders as Saddam Hussein and Muammar al-Qaddafi. Kim, his family, and his cronies could try to escape to China and plead for a comfortable, lifelong sanctuary there — an increasingly dim prospect given Beijing’s growing frustration with Kim’s regime. Pyongyang’s only other option would be to try to force a cease-fire by playing its only trump card: nuclear escalation. [Continue reading…]

“Thermonuclear war will be our only option” is the title for this North Korean state television broadcast posted on YouTube on March 27. The English voiceover is barely any louder than the presenter’s Korean, so it’s a bit hard to follow. The second video it titled “Worker-Peasant Red Guards Members Ready for All-out Action” and is partially subtitled and was posted April 2.

The New York Times reports: North Korea announced plans on Tuesday to restart a mothballed nuclear reactor, the latest in a series of provocations by its leader, Kim Jong-un, to elicit a muted response from American officials, who believe they can wait out Mr. Kim’s threats until he realizes his belligerent behavior will not force South Korea or the United States to make any concessions.

“Right now, they’re testing the proposition that we’ll choose peace and quiet, and put it on our MasterCard,” said a senior American official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the administration’s internal calculations. “When they get through this cycle, they will have gotten no return on their investment.”

Secretary of State John Kerry, using time-tested diplomatic language, said North Korea’s plan to restart the reactor would be a “provocative act” that is “a direct violation of their international obligations.” Speaking in Washington after his first meeting with South Korea’s foreign minister, Yun Byung-se, Mr. Kerry reaffirmed the determination of the United States to defend its ally.

American officials still worry about the consequences of any miscalculation, given the hair-trigger tensions on the Korean Peninsula and Mr. Kim’s inexperience at this type of brinkmanship. The top American commander in South Korea, Gen. James D. Thurman, described the situation as “tense” and “volatile” in an interview with ABC News.

But the senior official predicted that North Korea would eventually back down, as Mr. Kim’s need for food aid and hard currency outweighed the domestic political gains from his threats to shoot missiles at American cities. [Continue reading…]

Stephan Haggard writes: March brought us a series of what pundits like to call “provocations” by North Korea. On closer inspection, Pyongyang has opted for rhetoric over actual military actions.

While Kim Jong Un’s pursuit of nuclear and missile capability remains worrisome, escalating signals of resolve could suggest nervousness as much as strength.

So, is the regime in trouble?

The first round of saber-rattling came as the U.N. Security Council deliberated on a new sanctions resolution after North Korea’s satellite launch in December and its third nuclear test in February. The Supreme Command of the Korean People’s Army, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a party organ dealing with North-South relations began putting out public statements in an effort to chip away at the institutions of the armistice, such as military hot lines and the stationing of a North Korean military mission in Panmunjom.

North Korea ultimately “withdrew” from the armistice, but it had done so before and it is not clear what its recent statements actually mean. The armistice is not a peace treaty, but merely a cease fire. The armistice is stable not because of verbal commitments but because of the deterrent capability of both sides. [Continue reading…]

AFP reports: North Korea on Wednesday delayed the entry of South Koreans to a joint industrial complex in a rare move amid high tensions on the Korean peninsula, the South’s Unification Ministry said.

“North Korea has not yet given us the daily permission for the entry of 484 South Koreans into Kaesong today,” a South Korean Unification Ministry spokeswoman told AFP.

The border crossing usually takes place at 8:30 am (2330 GMT), but there has been no word from the North’s officials for almost an hour, she said.

The delay sparked fears the North could carry out its threatened shutdown of the Seoul-invested industrial estate, which has continued to run during previous crises on the peninsula.

Border crossings for Kaesong, which lies 10 kilometres (six miles) inside North Korea, have been functioning normally despite soaring tensions in recent weeks between the North and the South.

The operating stability of the complex is seen as a bellwether of inter-Korean relations, and its closure would mark a clear escalation of tensions beyond all the military rhetoric.

The Wall Street Journal reports: American defense officials are vowing additional displays of advanced U.S. military might as they continue joint maneuvers with South Korea in the midst of growing tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Defense officials declined to detail their next steps, citing operational security concerns. But a new show of force would come after a pair of B-2 bombers flew over South Korea on Thursday and dropped dummy munitions. Earlier this month, U.S. B-52s flew over the peninsula.

The assertive U.S. response came in an intensifying exchange of threats and oaths with North Korea and as Russia and China appealed for calm. U.S. officials are seeking to dissuade Pyongyang from rash steps while assuring allies that, if necessary, American force would be used to defend them.

Pentagon officials said they expected to see still-more-heated rhetoric from North Korea. With joint U.S.-South Korean exercises scheduled to last for about 45 more days, there also will be additional demonstrations of American firepower.

“The United States will continue to demonstrate unique advanced capabilities as these exercises continue,” said a defense official.

Although the use of U.S. heavy bombers risks provoking the North into a dangerous miscalculation, U.S. officials believe the joint exercises with South Korea ultimately will have a stabilizing effect.

Robert Mackey interviewed B. R. Myers, a North Korea analyst at Dongseo University in South Korea who said:

We need to keep in mind that North and South Korea are not so much trading outright threats as trading blustering vows of how they would retaliate if attacked. The North says, “If the U.S. or South Korea dare infringe on our territory we will reduce their territory to ashes,” and Seoul responds by saying it will retaliate by bombing Kim Il-sung statues. And so it goes. I think the international press is distorting the reality somewhat by simply publishing the second half of all these conditional sentences. And I have to say from watching North Korea’s evening news broadcasts for the past week or so, the North Korean media are not quite as wrapped up in this war mood as one might think. The announcers spend the first 10 minutes or so reporting on peaceful matters before they start ranting about the enemy.

The regime is exploiting the tension to motivate the masses to work harder on various big first-economy projects, especially the land-reclamation drive now under way on the east coast. Workers are shown with clenched fists, spluttering at the U.S. and South Korea, and vowing to work extra hard as a way of venting their rage.

It is all very similar to last year’s sustained vilification of South Korea’s then-president, Lee Myung-bak, when you had miners saying that they imagined Lee’s face on the rocks they were breaking, and so on. The regime can no longer fire up people with any coherent or credible vision of a socialist future, so it tries to cast the entire work force — much as other countries do in times of actual war — as an adjunct to the military. Work places are “battlegrounds,” and all labor strengthens the country for the final victory of unification, etc.

So, given these domestic reasons for North Korea’s bellicose rhetoric and given that it’s threats are all retaliatory threats, why should the U.S. respond with displays of American might? It seems like the U.S. itself is trapped in its own knee jerk reactions and a fabricated need to assume a military posture where none is required.

In a presentation to the World Affairs Council in San Francisco earlier this year, BR Myers spoke about the way North Koreans think of themselves and how their image of their own racial purity shapes their view of the world.

While Kim Il-sung’s legitimacy had rested on two pillars: economic success and military strength, Kim Jong-il’s legitimacy as a leader rests exclusively on military strength.

This country really has nothing else with which to inspire its people with pride than shows of military or nuclear strength… North Korea has enshrined the military-first principle in the constitution. It has deleted the word communism from the constitution, as well. So this regime is looking at this military-first paradigm for the long haul, in other words.

It’s not really important [who the next leader is]… because whoever takes over is going to be faced with this same quandary really, which is: how do we go from being a military-first country, to say, a economy-first country without losing all reason to exist as a separate state. And this is why it is so unrealistic for us to expect them to trade military strength for a mere aid deal.

Let’s say we increased their standard of living by 20% over the next five years, which would be an awful lot, that would not help King Jong-il politically because North Korea would still be hopelessly behind South Korea in economic aspects, and therefore, North Korea would have no reason to exist as a separate Korean state. All that it has now, its only source of legitimacy, is the claim that it alone is standing up to the Yankee enemy — the race enemy.

So to people who are optimistic about the six-party talks or the bilateral talks or whichever talks are supposed to take place, I ask the question: where does North Korea go, if it disarms? What does it do with itself? How does it justify its existence? And none of the optimists with whom I’ve talked to has been able to give me an answer. And they may not consider this a big problem, but we can be pretty sure that Kim Jong-il realizes how big a problem it is, and this is why I am so pessimistic for the prospects for arms talks. Because you can talk a regime into doing a lot of things, but one thing you can’t make it do is commit political suicide. And this is where the left wing and the right wing and the center in America are all wrong about North Korea. The left wing is wrong because you cannot bribe or sweet talk a country into committing political suicide. The right wing is wrong because you can’t bully it into doing that either. The center is wrong for thinking that you can get the Chinese to persuade them to do it.

“The United States has only one choice in dealing with North Korea, even after its deadly artillery attack on a South Korean island,” writes Tim Shorrock, an investigative journalist who has covered Korea for more than 30 years. “Negotiate directly with its government, forge an agreement to end Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program, and move towards a peace agreement to formally end the Korean War.” (Democracy Now!)