Adam Entous and Julian Barnes

A Guy Called LULU — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 16:21:10 +0000

In reply to Whoes "Provocative Action"?

Adam Entous and Julian Barnes at the Wall Street Journal have revealed the US script that has played out over the month of March. Described as the 'Playbook', they detail events in their latest Wall Street Journal article.

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.

http://www.informationdissemination.net/2013/04/from-pacom-playbook-to-p...

Thanks for reminding me why

A Guy Called LULU — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 17:14:53 +0000

In reply to The timeline has an

Thanks for reminding me why the name ‘Don Bacon’ seemed vaguely familiar. Your memory is much better than mine.
Regarding your extension of the time line further back;

'The timeline has an interesting date cut-off, for some reason omitting the parts of the story in the weeks before:

Well, what the heck, ya gotta start somewhere. Right? I do see your point though, the starting point of the relationship getting ugly can be cherry picked. No doubt some starting-point act by either side going years previous could be picked to flip the moral onus any way a person chooses to see it.
When it comes to my own personal feelings about U.S. foreign policy, I very often agree with the stated goal[s], while at the same time am often skeptical that what is stated is honestly the prime motive. It is the methods I usually disagree with. In the instances where a successful outcome seems most important because a failure would have the most dire consequences there seems to only one solution, threaten, or carry out, military action. Honest diplomacy with the possibility of any compromise seems always to be beneath consideration.
Any criticism of our policy in this case does not mean I support any of N.Korea’s policies of threats but some/most of those threats are so obviously beyond their ability to carry out and yet are reported as if they have credibility, while our threats, which actually have the substance of being possible to carry out, are always reported as responses. Now N.Korea is threatening something really bad. Kim Jong says he will un-hang the moon. He claims good motives but reveals himself as just one more cheese-eating prick. He wants it all. This could be a very serious threat, though, worth bombing them, IF we were to take it seriously.

http://www.theonion.com/video/kim-jong-il-announces-plan-to-bring-moon-t...

The timeline has an

artappraiser — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 22:12:46 +0000

In reply to Whoes "Provocative Action"?

The timeline has an interesting date cut-off, for some reason omitting the parts of the story in the weeks before:

North Korea Confirms It Conducted 3rd Nuclear Test
By David E. Sanger and Choe Sang-Hun, New York Times, February 11, 2013

WASHINGTON — North Korea confirmed on Tuesday that it had conducted its third, long-threatened nuclear test, according to the official KCNA news service [....]

Preliminary estimates suggested a test far larger than the previous two conducted by the North, though probably less powerful than the first bomb the United States dropped on Japan, in Hiroshima, in 1945.

The test is the first under the country’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, and an open act of defiance to the Chinese, who urged the young leader not to risk open confrontation by setting off the weapon. In the past few days a Chinese newspaper that is often reflective of the government’s thinking said the North would “pay a heavy price” if it proceeded with the test. But it was unclear how China would act at the United Nations Security Council, which scheduled an emergency session for Tuesday morning as news of the blast played out.

The United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, condemned the test in a statement Tuesday.

The Obama administration has already threatened to take additional action to penalize the North through the United Nations in the event of a test. But the fact is that there are few sanctions left to apply against the most unpredictable country in Asia. The only penalty that would truly hurt the North would be a cutoff of oil and other aid from China. And until now, despite issuing warnings, the Chinese have feared instability and chaos in the North more than its growing nuclear and missile capability, and the Chinese leadership has refused to participate in sanctions.

Mr. Kim, believed to be about 29, appears to be betting that even a third test would not change the Chinese calculus [....]

In the following, note my bold, a paragraph which summarizes the interim parts of the narrative happening between Feb. 11 and Feb. 25

No Move Yet by U.N. Body After Test by Koreans
By Rick Gladstone, New York Times, February 26, 2013

The international expressions of anger and dismay that followed North Korea’s announcement of a nuclear test a few weeks ago, punctuated by a United Nations Security Council pledge to immediately work on “appropriate measures” in a new resolution, appear to have given way to slow-motion diplomacy and some frustration that not even a draft has been circulated among the Council’s 15 members.

United Nations diplomats privately said the process had become bogged down mainly over bridging differences between China and the United States about how forcefully to respond, in some ways replicating a pattern that has prevailed in deliberations taken previously in dealing with North Korea’s defiant tests of ballistic missiles and nuclear devices.

The frustration level, diplomats say, has been most prominent in South Korea, which has just sworn in a new leader, President Park Geun-hye. The frustration has been amplified because North Korea’s announcement of a nuclear test on Feb. 12, its third, coincided with South Korea’s turn as president of the Security Council under a monthly rotation system, giving South Korea a powerful measure of control over setting its priorities.

There had been hope in South Korea that a forceful Security Council resolution, expanding the economic penalties already in place against North Korea, would be completed and presented for a vote before South Korea relinquishes the presidential gavel at the end of Thursday to Russia, the Council president for March.

But given the lack of progress, that prospect appears unlikely, diplomats said. And Russia, like China, appears in no hurry to take action that, in its view, would only further antagonize North Korea and destabilize the Korean Peninsula. “The South Koreans would like to see a resolution during their tenure,” one diplomat said.

Members of the South Korean Mission to the United Nations did not respond to telephone messages or e-mails regarding the status of a North Korean resolution.

North Korea has said it would regard any new Security Council resolution as a provocation. Since the Feb. 12 test, the North has threatened to conduct more tests, promulgated video propaganda showing President Obama covered in fire, and vowed a “miserable destruction” of American and South Korean forces should they proceed with planned joint military exercises in March.

China has shown increasing impatience with North Korea, a destitute nation that depends on China for vital economic aid and trade. But on Tuesday China signaled its cautious approach on a Security Council resolution. A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, was quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency as saying the Council’s discussions “should be conducive to the denuclearization of the peninsula as well as peace and stability in northeast Asia.”

Xinhua said the spokeswoman was responding to comments made earlier by Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, who was quoted as saying in Moscow that any Security Council resolution “must confirm that negotiations are the only choice for the parties involved.”

There has been no public indication that China would be willing to expand the sanctions against North Korea, which cover military and dual-use goods, as well as luxury items for the elite. Nor has China given any indication that it would be willing to stop trade that helps keep its longtime ally afloat.

Diplomats and scholars of China-North Korea history say that although China increasingly regards North Korea as intransigent, it does not wish to take any steps that would collapse North Korea’s government. [.....]

Despite all that, the South's new president still tried making nicey nice on March 1:

South Korea’s New Leader Exhorts the North to Tread a ‘Path of Change’
By Choe Sang-Jun, New York Times, March 1, 2013

SEOUL, South Korea — Addressing her two biggest foreign policy challenges, South Korea’s new president, Park Geun-hye, urged Japan on Friday to acknowledge its aggressive past, while pressing North Korea to engage peacefully and abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

“While provocations by the North will be met by stronger counterresponses, the North’s willingness to make the right choice and walk the path of change will be answered with more flexible engagement,” Ms. Park said in her first national speech after her inauguration on Monday. “I urge the North to hasten efforts to normalize inter-Korean relations and open an era of happiness on the Korean Peninsula together with us.”

The South Korean president traditionally addresses the nation on March 1, the anniversary of the 1919 uprising against Japan’s colonization of the Korean Peninsula. The event gave Ms. Park an early opportunity to express her thoughts on North Korea and Japan.

South Korea’s testy relations with the North have grown much more antagonistic in recent months as the North has tested both a long-range rocket and a nuclear device. And the North, an isolated yet highly militarized country, threatened to conduct further tests if Washington and its allies pushed for more sanctions against it. That complicated the agenda of Ms. Park, South Korea’s first female president, even before she started her single five-year term.

During her election campaign, Ms. Park suggested that she would end inter-Korean tensions that were prolonged under the hard-line policies of her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, during whose tenure the North carried out two nuclear tests and three long-range rocket tests, and was blamed for two military attacks that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010. But she also appealed to her conservative power base by stressing that she would not tolerate the nuclear weapons program and military provocations of the North.

On Friday, American and South Korean forces started their annual Key Resolve and Foal Eagle military exercises, while in the North, the leader, Kim Jong-un, has been visiting military bases, warning of war and calling for “miserable destruction” of the American and South Korean militaries.

“North Korea must realize that nothing will be gained from nuclear development or provocations save for greater isolation and hardship,” Ms. Park said. “When North Korea abandons its nuclear ambitions and ceases its provocations, it will be able to become a responsible member of the international community. Only then will the path toward shared development by South and North be opened to us, and only then will the trust-building process on the Korean Peninsula begin in earnest.”

Her idea of first building trust as a basis for vigorous economic cooperation with the North is popular among conservative South Koreans. But she has yet to elaborate on how she will reconcile that with the policy of Washington and her predecessor, Mr. Lee, a fellow conservative whose insistence on the North’s denuclearization as a precondition of greater economic largess was met only with more provocations from the North.

Her emphasis on both retaliation and “flexible engagement” and the notable absence in her speech of any mention of human rights for North Koreans — a major concern of South Korean conservatives — suggested that she was biding her time as leaders in the region were formulating a response to the North’s Feb. 12 nuclear test.

“She is telling North Korea not to aggravate the situation any further, while keeping the door open,” said Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea analyst at Dongguk University in Seoul. [....]

Commenter Don Bacon, at the

artappraiser — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:55:23 +0000

In reply to The comments to this post are

Commenter Don Bacon, at the top, is an old TPM Cafe club member. He was real active there in the early years but veered off to other sites after the early 2008 Obama-mania invasion. Like you, he's always had a strong interest in the anti-war issues.

The comments to this post are

A Guy Called LULU — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 15:52:52 +0000

In reply to Whoes "Provocative Action"?

The comments to this post are worth reading.

dagblog - Comments for "Whoes "Provocative Action"?"

Adam Entous and Julian Barnes

Thanks for reminding me why

The timeline has an

Commenter Don Bacon, at the

The comments to this post are