These are the two takes on the crisis that I think are the closest to what has and hasn’t worked and what the deal is is right now. I think combining the two make the most sense in this problem. My son asked so I posted this on his FaceBook after the following two videos (in the second video zero in on Charles Krauthammer):
Kim Jong-il is passing on the countries reins to his son, Kim Jong-Un. I like the last experts take on this whole thing. They have been producing since the 50’s, we have failed to stop it since 93′ — and there is a new nut taking control → all under the guise of China’s wanting it this way. The only way we can respond to this to make China really figure out that we aren’t playing their game anymore is to let Japan and South Korea respond in kind to North Korea’s and China’s capabilities. Almost like Reagan putting ICBM’s up along the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.
Korea experts are trying to establish whether North Korea’s shelling of a South Korean island is linked to recent disclosures about Pyongyang’s nuclear programme.
In a report published on 20 November US nuclear scientist Dr Sigmund Hecker confirmed Jane’s reports of activity at Yongbyon Nuclear Complex in North Korea, where an “ultra-modern” uranium enrichment plant is in operation.
On 23 November North Korea fired more than 170 artillery rounds at the island of Yeonpyeong in what it said was a response to “provocative” Republic of Korea (RoK) Navy exercises.
L Gordon Flake, executive director of The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, said that although there was unlikely to be a direct link between the nuclear revelations and the artillery attack, Pyongyang was using low-intensity and low-risk tactics to recapture the initiative in dealing with the international community.
Flake said “North Korea is not looking for escalation”, but added that the attacks left South Korean President Lee Myung-bak with “no good options” and put the US on the back foot.
Scott Snyder, director of the Center for US-Korea Policy in Washington, DC, said that he had “not yet found compelling evidence to suggest that the two incidents are linked”.
For the guys who want to know other possible attacks against North Korea, an article over at Debka is quite a read:
What was in the background of our foreign policy has now steamed to the forefront with the shelling of South Korea. The Wall Street Journal asks and answers if this incident was different than others in the past, in that while there have been military flare-ups between North and South, this is the first time a civilian area was hit. And it was almost fortuitous that I decided to post the night before this indecent a commentary by Chasrles Krauthammer that is worth re-posting here:
So how does all this change our foreign policy overnight in regard to this military cult? Jane’s posts a bit on one aspect that is now under scrutiny (non-subscriber section):
US nuclear scientist Dr Sig Hecker has confirmed Jane’s reports of activity at Yongbyon Nuclear Complex in North Korea and revealed that a state-of-the-art uranium enrichment plant is in operation at the site.
Hecker, who visited Yongbyon for the fourth time in mid-November, identified construction at the site as the foundation of a 100 MW thermal light-water reactor, a finding that has been confirmed by new satellite imagery.
A co-director of Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Hecker wrote in a CISAC report published on 20 November that he had also seen a “small industrial-scale uranium enrichment facility with 2,000 centrifuges that was recently completed and said to be producing low enriched uranium (LEU) destined for fuel for the new reactor”.
The existence of the new reactor site is confirmed by satellite images taken on 4 November 2010 by DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-2. They show the newly paved concrete pad of the reactor core and the foundation of the reactor containment wall. The circular pad is about 22 metres in diameter and is situated within a 43 m 2 recently entrenched cut that will accommodate the reactor containment building.
Jane’s first reported renewed activity at this site after analysis of a 24 September 2010 GeoEye-1 satellite image showed four construction vehicles preparing the site. The concrete pad of the reactor has since been laid and two massive cranes – one tower crane with a 54 m horizontal jib and one mobile crane – have been deployed to the site.
China must persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear plans, a senior United States official has said, after the rogue state’s latest atomic plant was revealed.
The revelation that North Korea is building a new light water nuclear plant at its Yongbyon site was proof that it remains a “dangerous country” intent on making nuclear weapons, said Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“We have to continue to bring pressure on [Kim Jong-il] specifically.
[….]
Siegfried Hecker, a nuclear scientist at Stanford University, revealed at the weekend that he had been taken to a plant at the Yongbyon nuclear complex this month where he saw hundreds of centrifuges that North Korea said were operational.
North Korea has said the new facility is for electricity generation, but the sophistication of the plant has surprised experts, and drawn a warning from Robert Gates, the US Defence secretary, that North Korea may use the plant for enriching uranium.
Pyongyang may have deliberately shown its hand in order to gain an advantage in any upcoming negotiations on aid for disarmament.
So the question is this, and is really Charles suggestion, would it be wiser for us to ramp up Japan and South Korea (and Taiwan) to make the point hit home that China better do something with North Korea and stop playing games?
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korea published a photo in state media Thursday of leader Kim Jong Il’s youngest son and heir apparent Kim Jong Un in the first official image of him released.
A photo of a group of senior Workers’ Party officials was published in Thursday’s edition of the authoritarian regime’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper.
An article accompanying the front-page photo listed the names of those in the picture. The 20-something Kim Jong Un was one of the officials named and appeared to be sitting near his father with a military officer between them.
The release of the photo comes after the younger Kim earlier this week was handed top military and party posts at a Workers’ Party conference….
