01-04-2018, 11:16 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-04-2018, 11:52 PM by John J. Xenakis.)
*** 5-Jan-18 World View -- North Korea reveals major change in strategic direction
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** North Korea reveals major change in strategic direction
****
![[Image: g180104b.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g180104b.jpg)
I believe that this is an artist's rendering of what North-South negotiations in Panmunjom will look like. The talks are scheduled for next week. (Yonhap)
A few days ago, I quoted a couple of sentences from the New Year
speech of North Korea's child dictator Kim Jong-un. It now appears
that the speech fits into a much larger North Korean strategy, so I'm
quoting a lengthier excerpt, translated directly from the original
Korean by KGS Nightwatch:
<QUOTE>"A significant achievement accomplished last year by
our party, state, and people is the fact that we achieved the
great historic cause of the perfection of the state nuclear
forces.
A year ago, precisely at this place, I, representing the party and
the government, made public that the preparatory work for a test
launch of an intercontinental ballistic rocket was being carried
out in the finishing stage, and many rounds of test launches were
conducted in a safe and transparent manner over the past year for
its implementation, and its definite success was proved to the
whole world.
Last year, we conducted a super-powerful thermonuclear weapon test
as well, in addition to all kinds of nuclear delivery means, and
thereby successfully and victoriously achieved our general aim and
strategic goal, and our Republic, at long last, possessed a
powerful and reliable war deterrent that no force and nothing can
reverse.
Our state nuclear force can smash and respond to any nuclear
threat by the United States, and it serves as a powerful deterrent
that restrains the United States from the adventurous game of
playing with fire.
The United States can never provoke a war against me and our
state.
The United States should clearly know that the fact that the
entire US mainland is in our nuclear striking range, and that a
nuclear button is always on my office desk, are never a threat but
reality. ...
The nuclear weapons research and rocket industry sectors must mass
produce nuclear warheads and ballistic rockets, whose might and
reliability are already firmly guaranteed, and put spurs to the
work of deploying them for action.
It is also necessary to always maintain an immediate nuclear
counterattack operational posture to cope with the enemies'
nuclear war maneuvers. ...
Speaking of the winter Olympic games to be held soon in South
Korea, they are a good opportunity to demonstrate the nation's
status and we sincerely hope that the games will be held
successfully. From this aspect, we are willing to take necessary
measures, including sending a delegation, and the North and South
authorities can urgently get together for this. It is natural for
the people who share the same blood to be happy together and help
with fellow countrymen's happy events."<END QUOTE>
The speech was considerably harsher and more belligerent than has been
reported in the mainstream media, which have mostly focused on the
"nuclear button" on his desk.
Donald Trump tweeted the following in response:
<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!"<END QUOTE>
The mainstream media responses to this appear to have been written by
teenage idiots. Some question his mental state, and as I'm typing
typing this, I'm watching CNN discuss this topic: "Psychiatrist to
lawmakers: Trump is unraveling." As one analyst on Fox pointed out,
the loony left accused Goldwater, Reagan and both Bushes of being
mentally unstable, so the latest rounds of loony left comments are no
surprise.
There's no question in my mind that Trump's tweet had a strategic
purpose. One possibility -- and this is the sort of thing I've
suspected for a while -- is that Trump is trying to goad Kim into
doing something stupid, to justify an American attack to take out
North Korea's missile and nuclear weapon capability. A more prosaic
possibility is that he's trying to force Kim into a box to reduce his
negotiating leverage, and that apparently has happened with regard to
South Korea.
Trump takes the credit for planned talks between North and South
Korea:
<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!"<END QUOTE>
As I'm typing, CNN is now broadcasting an interview with an analyst,
Ian Bremmer, who is critical of Trump but describes a likely strategic
purpose of Trump's tweets: He is crediting Trump with causing China to take
a harsher position against North Korea, and possibly causing North
Korea to talk to South Korea, while adding that the tweets might
backfire and result in a miscalculation that causes a war. Reuters and KGS Nightwatch and Chosun Ilbo (Seoul)
Related Articles
****
**** North Korea's 'clarification' of the New Year speech
****
Following Kim's New Year's speech, a North Korean official announced
that the hotline between North and South Korea has been reactivated
for the first time since February 2016. There were apparently
negotiations conducted over the hotline, there may have been a
decision that a North Korean delegation would attend the South Korea
Olympics in February, and North Korea may have been informed that
South Korea and Donald Trump had acceded to the North's demand to
postpone the joint military drills between South Korea and the US
until after the Olympics. There are reports that talks between the
North and the South will begin on January 9 in Panmunjom.
On Wednesday, North Korean media issued a "clarification" of Kim's New
Year speech beginning:
<QUOTE>"Comrade Kim Jong Un, who is chairman of the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea State Affairs Commission,
after receiving a report -- that South Korea's Ch'o'ngwadae
announced official support and welcome upon hearing his stand on
participation in the PyeongChang Olympic Games and the issue of
improvement of North-South relations that he announced in the 2018
New Year's address, and that at the first cabinet meeting on 2
January, president Moon Jae-in personally expressed an active
intention of support and instructed relevant sectors to establish
working-level measures -- gave a highly positive assessment of it
and expressed his welcome for it."<END QUOTE>
Here is the KGS Nightwatch analysis of the full clarification:
<QUOTE>"The so-called clarification is Kim’s follow-up to
South Korea’s acceptance of his offer. It is unprecedented. Kim’s
personal involvement indicates he sees this proposal as much more
than an offer to participate in the Olympics.
The agreement to work with South Korea is now as formal as an
exchange of notes can get. Kim mentioned South Korean President
Moon by name in respectful fashion. This is the first time he has
done so.
Kim personally ordered agencies and organizations to begin
working-level measures that reciprocate the measures that
President Moon ordered. The listing of the party and government
organizations that received direct orders from Kim reinforce the
judgment that this is a highest priority, serious initiative and
stratagem.
We have mentioned in prior editions of NightWatch that Kim’s
highest objective in the nuclear and ballistic missile programs
has been to hold one of more US cities hostage to a nuclear
missile threat for the purpose of keeping the US out of a future
Korean war. The logic of that position also applies to
North-South in general, especially reunification.
For Kim Jong Un, the proposal to participate in the Olympics is
not just a first step towards improving North-South relations. It
also is his first initiative in the new strategic environment in
which, in his view, South Korea cannot necessarily rely on the US
for automatic protection, owing to the threat to US cities.
This is not the same old wedge-driving tactic. In our judgment it
is the start of the second phase of Kim’s reunification
strategy. The first phase was to complete the strategic nuclear
force so that it deters the US. The second phase is to manipulate
the Korean political climate under that new strategic condition.
A key question for Kim and his acolytes is whether South Korea
will react differently to North Korean overtures, now that the US
is under a North Korean nuclear threat. The Olympics proposal
tests whether North Korean nuclear blackmail makes South Korea
more cooperative. If it is successful, Kim may be expected to cite
it as an example of what can be accomplished by the Koreans
working together without US interference.
Kim’s authorization of a clarification suggests that he and his
men are interpreting President Moon’s enthusiastic response to
Kim’s proposal as an initial success in phase two. For example,
the US Ambassador to the UN said the US would not take the North’s
proposal seriously absent a move on denuclearization. That
statement is out of step with the South Korean response to Kim’s
proposal.
Kim’s strategic weapons are integral to his reunification
strategy. Moon thus far is validating Kim’s estimate of the
prospects for improved relations with South Korea without the US
under North Korean leadership."<END QUOTE>
Yonhap News (Seoul) and KGS Nightwatch and CNN and Chosun Ilbo (Seoul)
****
**** The stark choice facing the Trump administration
****
Kim's New Year speech contains some extremely harsh messages that are
rarely mentioned in the mainstream media:
<QUOTE>[i]According to Kim, North Korea now has "a
super-powerful thermonuclear weapon" such that "the entire US
mainland is in our nuclear striking range," so that "The United
States can never provoke a war against me and our state." North
Korea will "mass produce nuclear warheads and ballistic rockets,"
in order to create an arsenal of such weapons.<END QUOTE>[/i]
We know that North Korea will not hesitate to sell its missile and
nuclear technology. In 2007, Israel bombed and destroyed a nuclear
reactor in Syria that had been built by the North Koreans. There's
little doubt that North Korea would once again sell its technology to
Syria, Iran, and another other rogue nation.
So that's the disastrous reality that the Trump administration is
facing. Those idiots who are calling Trump "mentally unstable" and
such are people who are endorsing the decades of policies that have
inevitably led to this disastrous reality.
Trump has indicated that he will not permit the above reality to
occur. I've quoted other officials, such as Lindsey Graham, who say
that a war between the US and North Korea is inevitable. In fact,
I've quoted high level Chinese officials quoted in Chinese media
saying that a war before March is likely.
As regular readers are aware, I've frequently described how Steve
Bannon, Trump's former chief adviser. Bannon is an expert on world
history and military history and, through our association, is also an
expert on Generational Dynamics theory and analysis. Trump's foreign
policy in the last year has not only been completely strategic and
rational, it has been entirely consistent with the Generational
Dynamics analyses of what's going on in the world, in particular the
certainty that a war with North Korea cannot be avoided.
As everyone knows, during the last two days there have been explosions
and fireworks in the media over name-calling between Trump and Bannon.
A split between Trump and Bannon does not mean that Trump no longer
believes that a war with North Korea is inevitable.
Kim Jong-un is aware of all this as well, and a large part of Kim's
strategy must be to derail Trump's plans, whatever they are. This is
a crucial point that the KGS Nightwatch analysis misses. There is
absolutely no way that Kim is going to get away with using nuclear
blackmail to allow him to create a nuclear missile arsenal aimed at
the US. For that matter, Japan, South Korea, and even China will not
allow that kind of blackmail, since they know that Kim would just
continue blackmailing them on other issues, and that Kim could turn
those missiles on them, and also sell the nuclear and missile
technology to other Asian states.
The South Korean Olympic games are scheduled to run from February 9 to
February 25. Whether the child dictator's new strategy will work
should become evident soon after that. National Interest and Chosun Ilbo (Seoul)
Related Articles
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, North Korea, Kim Jong-un,
South Korea, Moon Jae-in, Panmunjom,
Ian Bremmer, PyeongChang Olympic Games,
Syria, Israel, Lindsey Graham, Donald Trump, Steve Bannon,
Japan, China
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- North Korea reveals major change in strategic direction
- North Korea's 'clarification' of the New Year speech
- The stark choice facing the Trump administration
****
**** North Korea reveals major change in strategic direction
****
I believe that this is an artist's rendering of what North-South negotiations in Panmunjom will look like. The talks are scheduled for next week. (Yonhap)
A few days ago, I quoted a couple of sentences from the New Year
speech of North Korea's child dictator Kim Jong-un. It now appears
that the speech fits into a much larger North Korean strategy, so I'm
quoting a lengthier excerpt, translated directly from the original
Korean by KGS Nightwatch:
<QUOTE>"A significant achievement accomplished last year by
our party, state, and people is the fact that we achieved the
great historic cause of the perfection of the state nuclear
forces.
A year ago, precisely at this place, I, representing the party and
the government, made public that the preparatory work for a test
launch of an intercontinental ballistic rocket was being carried
out in the finishing stage, and many rounds of test launches were
conducted in a safe and transparent manner over the past year for
its implementation, and its definite success was proved to the
whole world.
Last year, we conducted a super-powerful thermonuclear weapon test
as well, in addition to all kinds of nuclear delivery means, and
thereby successfully and victoriously achieved our general aim and
strategic goal, and our Republic, at long last, possessed a
powerful and reliable war deterrent that no force and nothing can
reverse.
Our state nuclear force can smash and respond to any nuclear
threat by the United States, and it serves as a powerful deterrent
that restrains the United States from the adventurous game of
playing with fire.
The United States can never provoke a war against me and our
state.
The United States should clearly know that the fact that the
entire US mainland is in our nuclear striking range, and that a
nuclear button is always on my office desk, are never a threat but
reality. ...
The nuclear weapons research and rocket industry sectors must mass
produce nuclear warheads and ballistic rockets, whose might and
reliability are already firmly guaranteed, and put spurs to the
work of deploying them for action.
It is also necessary to always maintain an immediate nuclear
counterattack operational posture to cope with the enemies'
nuclear war maneuvers. ...
Speaking of the winter Olympic games to be held soon in South
Korea, they are a good opportunity to demonstrate the nation's
status and we sincerely hope that the games will be held
successfully. From this aspect, we are willing to take necessary
measures, including sending a delegation, and the North and South
authorities can urgently get together for this. It is natural for
the people who share the same blood to be happy together and help
with fellow countrymen's happy events."<END QUOTE>
The speech was considerably harsher and more belligerent than has been
reported in the mainstream media, which have mostly focused on the
"nuclear button" on his desk.
Donald Trump tweeted the following in response:
<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!"<END QUOTE>
The mainstream media responses to this appear to have been written by
teenage idiots. Some question his mental state, and as I'm typing
typing this, I'm watching CNN discuss this topic: "Psychiatrist to
lawmakers: Trump is unraveling." As one analyst on Fox pointed out,
the loony left accused Goldwater, Reagan and both Bushes of being
mentally unstable, so the latest rounds of loony left comments are no
surprise.
There's no question in my mind that Trump's tweet had a strategic
purpose. One possibility -- and this is the sort of thing I've
suspected for a while -- is that Trump is trying to goad Kim into
doing something stupid, to justify an American attack to take out
North Korea's missile and nuclear weapon capability. A more prosaic
possibility is that he's trying to force Kim into a box to reduce his
negotiating leverage, and that apparently has happened with regard to
South Korea.
Trump takes the credit for planned talks between North and South
Korea:
<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!"<END QUOTE>
As I'm typing, CNN is now broadcasting an interview with an analyst,
Ian Bremmer, who is critical of Trump but describes a likely strategic
purpose of Trump's tweets: He is crediting Trump with causing China to take
a harsher position against North Korea, and possibly causing North
Korea to talk to South Korea, while adding that the tweets might
backfire and result in a miscalculation that causes a war. Reuters and KGS Nightwatch and Chosun Ilbo (Seoul)
Related Articles
- Donald Trump in Seoul issues stern warning to North Korea -- and to China (09-Nov-2017)
- North Korea crisis: Would the United States sacrifice Los Angeles for Seoul? (18-Oct-2017)
- Japan will shoot down N. Korean missiles via 'collective self-defense' (13-Aug-2017)
- Donald Trump's speech in Warsaw Poland evokes the Clash of Civilizations (07-Jul-2017)
****
**** North Korea's 'clarification' of the New Year speech
****
Following Kim's New Year's speech, a North Korean official announced
that the hotline between North and South Korea has been reactivated
for the first time since February 2016. There were apparently
negotiations conducted over the hotline, there may have been a
decision that a North Korean delegation would attend the South Korea
Olympics in February, and North Korea may have been informed that
South Korea and Donald Trump had acceded to the North's demand to
postpone the joint military drills between South Korea and the US
until after the Olympics. There are reports that talks between the
North and the South will begin on January 9 in Panmunjom.
On Wednesday, North Korean media issued a "clarification" of Kim's New
Year speech beginning:
<QUOTE>"Comrade Kim Jong Un, who is chairman of the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea State Affairs Commission,
after receiving a report -- that South Korea's Ch'o'ngwadae
announced official support and welcome upon hearing his stand on
participation in the PyeongChang Olympic Games and the issue of
improvement of North-South relations that he announced in the 2018
New Year's address, and that at the first cabinet meeting on 2
January, president Moon Jae-in personally expressed an active
intention of support and instructed relevant sectors to establish
working-level measures -- gave a highly positive assessment of it
and expressed his welcome for it."<END QUOTE>
Here is the KGS Nightwatch analysis of the full clarification:
<QUOTE>"The so-called clarification is Kim’s follow-up to
South Korea’s acceptance of his offer. It is unprecedented. Kim’s
personal involvement indicates he sees this proposal as much more
than an offer to participate in the Olympics.
The agreement to work with South Korea is now as formal as an
exchange of notes can get. Kim mentioned South Korean President
Moon by name in respectful fashion. This is the first time he has
done so.
Kim personally ordered agencies and organizations to begin
working-level measures that reciprocate the measures that
President Moon ordered. The listing of the party and government
organizations that received direct orders from Kim reinforce the
judgment that this is a highest priority, serious initiative and
stratagem.
We have mentioned in prior editions of NightWatch that Kim’s
highest objective in the nuclear and ballistic missile programs
has been to hold one of more US cities hostage to a nuclear
missile threat for the purpose of keeping the US out of a future
Korean war. The logic of that position also applies to
North-South in general, especially reunification.
For Kim Jong Un, the proposal to participate in the Olympics is
not just a first step towards improving North-South relations. It
also is his first initiative in the new strategic environment in
which, in his view, South Korea cannot necessarily rely on the US
for automatic protection, owing to the threat to US cities.
This is not the same old wedge-driving tactic. In our judgment it
is the start of the second phase of Kim’s reunification
strategy. The first phase was to complete the strategic nuclear
force so that it deters the US. The second phase is to manipulate
the Korean political climate under that new strategic condition.
A key question for Kim and his acolytes is whether South Korea
will react differently to North Korean overtures, now that the US
is under a North Korean nuclear threat. The Olympics proposal
tests whether North Korean nuclear blackmail makes South Korea
more cooperative. If it is successful, Kim may be expected to cite
it as an example of what can be accomplished by the Koreans
working together without US interference.
Kim’s authorization of a clarification suggests that he and his
men are interpreting President Moon’s enthusiastic response to
Kim’s proposal as an initial success in phase two. For example,
the US Ambassador to the UN said the US would not take the North’s
proposal seriously absent a move on denuclearization. That
statement is out of step with the South Korean response to Kim’s
proposal.
Kim’s strategic weapons are integral to his reunification
strategy. Moon thus far is validating Kim’s estimate of the
prospects for improved relations with South Korea without the US
under North Korean leadership."<END QUOTE>
Yonhap News (Seoul) and KGS Nightwatch and CNN and Chosun Ilbo (Seoul)
****
**** The stark choice facing the Trump administration
****
Kim's New Year speech contains some extremely harsh messages that are
rarely mentioned in the mainstream media:
<QUOTE>[i]According to Kim, North Korea now has "a
super-powerful thermonuclear weapon" such that "the entire US
mainland is in our nuclear striking range," so that "The United
States can never provoke a war against me and our state." North
Korea will "mass produce nuclear warheads and ballistic rockets,"
in order to create an arsenal of such weapons.<END QUOTE>[/i]
We know that North Korea will not hesitate to sell its missile and
nuclear technology. In 2007, Israel bombed and destroyed a nuclear
reactor in Syria that had been built by the North Koreans. There's
little doubt that North Korea would once again sell its technology to
Syria, Iran, and another other rogue nation.
So that's the disastrous reality that the Trump administration is
facing. Those idiots who are calling Trump "mentally unstable" and
such are people who are endorsing the decades of policies that have
inevitably led to this disastrous reality.
Trump has indicated that he will not permit the above reality to
occur. I've quoted other officials, such as Lindsey Graham, who say
that a war between the US and North Korea is inevitable. In fact,
I've quoted high level Chinese officials quoted in Chinese media
saying that a war before March is likely.
As regular readers are aware, I've frequently described how Steve
Bannon, Trump's former chief adviser. Bannon is an expert on world
history and military history and, through our association, is also an
expert on Generational Dynamics theory and analysis. Trump's foreign
policy in the last year has not only been completely strategic and
rational, it has been entirely consistent with the Generational
Dynamics analyses of what's going on in the world, in particular the
certainty that a war with North Korea cannot be avoided.
As everyone knows, during the last two days there have been explosions
and fireworks in the media over name-calling between Trump and Bannon.
A split between Trump and Bannon does not mean that Trump no longer
believes that a war with North Korea is inevitable.
Kim Jong-un is aware of all this as well, and a large part of Kim's
strategy must be to derail Trump's plans, whatever they are. This is
a crucial point that the KGS Nightwatch analysis misses. There is
absolutely no way that Kim is going to get away with using nuclear
blackmail to allow him to create a nuclear missile arsenal aimed at
the US. For that matter, Japan, South Korea, and even China will not
allow that kind of blackmail, since they know that Kim would just
continue blackmailing them on other issues, and that Kim could turn
those missiles on them, and also sell the nuclear and missile
technology to other Asian states.
The South Korean Olympic games are scheduled to run from February 9 to
February 25. Whether the child dictator's new strategy will work
should become evident soon after that. National Interest and Chosun Ilbo (Seoul)
Related Articles
- Chinese experts warn China to prepare for nuclear war in North Korea (17-Dec-2017)
- China's media predict nuclear war in North Korea by March (19-Dec-2017)
- China's envoy to North Korea fails to end nuclear crisis (21-Nov-2017)
- Donald Trump in Seoul issues stern warning to North Korea -- and to China (09-Nov-2017)
- US officials plan for military strike on North Korea and war (05-Dec-2017)
- Chinese geologists warn of looming nuclear disaster from North Korean tests (01-Nov-2017)
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, North Korea, Kim Jong-un,
South Korea, Moon Jae-in, Panmunjom,
Ian Bremmer, PyeongChang Olympic Games,
Syria, Israel, Lindsey Graham, Donald Trump, Steve Bannon,
Japan, China
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
