South Korean navy ship sinking near North - possibly torpedoed

[jimmy olsen]

If Tim is going to post every time the North Koreans do something evil we'll need an entire new board.  I know he's fairly new to that country but the fuckers do this all the time.  The people of south just learn to deal with it.

Actually, people are extremely upset by the sinking of the Cheonan and even the liberal newspapers have called for a harsh response.

[Razgovory]

What sort of harsh response?

[HisMajestyBOB]

Mostly things like military strikes on the submarine base. There's a very good article somewhere that points out that military strikes like this are effectively playing into the North's hands, and that instead the ROK should announce its intentions to hit the DPRK leadership, or just try to hit them. That's probably easier said than done.

I'll try to find the links later, I've got an night class now.

[jimmy olsen]

Mostly things like military strikes on the submarine base. There's a very good article somewhere that points out that military strikes like this are effectively playing into the North's hands, and that instead the ROK should announce its intentions to hit the DPRK leadership, or just try to hit them. That's probably easier said than done.

I'll try to find the links later, I've got an night class now.

This is a similar article, though not the same one I think. It says, a limited conflict would play into Kim's hands and ensure a successful succession.

http://newledger.com/2010/04/averting-a-second-korean-war/

Sunday, April 18th, 2010 |
Averting a Second Korean War
by Joshua Stanton

It is still premature for any government to accuse North Korea of sinking the South Korean warship Cheonan before it reviews the detailed findings of the complete investigation.  For many South Koreans, however, the conclusion is already inescapable that North Korea did it. That's my hunch, too. Let me start by explaining the basis for my own speculation (please see these posts for additional citations):

- The extensive history of North Korean provocations that are as bad as this, or worse.

- The extensive history of North Korean provocations in these still-disputed waters,  the most recent of which was an unavenged defeat for the North Korean Navy.

- The recent rise in North-South tensions as President Lee refused to give in to Kim Jong Il's increasingly extortionate demands to bail out his politically and financially bankrupt regime.

- North Korea's recent unilateral renunciation of the 1953 Armistice that did not end, but did scale down, the surge of hostilities we call the Korean War.

- North Korea certainly had the capability to do this.  North Korea has a large inventory of semi-submersibles that operate well in shallow waters, are hard to see on radar, can move quickly on the surface, and can carry mines or torpedoes.  It has trained frogmen for suicide missions against the ROK Navy, and the South Korean Navy lost track of one of North Korea's 70 small submarines on the day of the attack.

- The elimination of other plausible theories. First, we can eliminate early theories that the Cheonan struck a rock or sank due to an internal explosion. Both the surviving crew members of the Cheonan and an investigator who has seen the severed hull (and thus the direction in which its metal was bent by explosion) have told reporters that the blast came from the outside. Could this have been friendly fire? I've seen nothing to rule that out, but nothing to suggest as much, either. It has been suggested that a sea mine left over from the Korean War could have been the cause. Sea mines can certainly remain destructive for many decades, but this area is a heavily trafficked sea lane and fishing ground. No other sea mines have been found in the area since 1984. It seems unlikely, though not impossible, that the next one would be struck by a ROK naval vessel at a time of increased tensions.

- A radar blip was seen heading North cross the Northern Limit Line at about 30-40 knots shortly after the explosion, and ROK Navy commanders on shore ordered the frigate Seokcho to open fire on it (or them). I continue to have some difficulty believing the early reports that this blip was a flock of birds moving with deliberate haste from where a South Korean warship had just sunk, through disputed waters, in the middle of the night, and at approximately the same speed that a North Korean semi-submersible moves (or perhaps two, thus explaining why the "blip" divided into two at one point). Maybe some ornithologist out there knows something on this subject that can enlighten us. The radar on the smaller ROK Navy vessels in the area at that time may not have been able to determine the blip's altitude. I don't completely rule out that hyper vigilant sailors could have shot at almost anything in those tense hours; but what are the odds that a flock of birds would have been moving with such deliberate speed in that time, place, direction, and manner?  I'll be interested in seeing the investigation's findings about this.

- Some less probative evidence: the idea that North Korea sank the Cheonan certainly doesn't seem implausible to those who've spent their lives under North Korean indoctrination. For what it's worth (probably not much) hearsay reports echoing widespread rumors claim that many North Koreans think their own "government" was behind the sinking. The manner of the Cheonan's sinking may or may not bear some resemblance to a popular North Korean movie. Also for what it's worth North Korea has finally gotten around to denying that it sank the Cheonan, but significantly, it didn't initially broadcast that denial. Now, North Korea is saying that it's being framed.

For now, President Lee is doing what he should be doing. He has restored enough message discipline in his own government to staunch the flow of ever-changing speculation about the cause. Nothing is concluded, and nothing is ruled out. He has reached out to his allies for investigative assistance, probably to inoculate the investigation's findings against predictable conspiracy theories by the leftist opposition that President Lee fabricated the evidence (conspiracy theories will circulate no matter what, and they'll probably wear a more anti-American tint if the U.S. Navy assists with the investigation, but helping is probably our obligation as an ally). Despite these misgivings, I'm glad to see the U.S. Navy is already at the scene.

I recently said that it might take a North Korean attack to finally break the spell of many South Koreans' inexplicable sympathy for Kim Jong Il's regime. It may be that that moment has already arrived. Editorials in major South Korean newspapers have begun to call for the unspeakable. Says one, "[N]o developed country tolerates provocation without punishing the offender. If Korea is a proper nation, it should, in principle, destroy the North Korean submarine base." This may not be so surprising coming from the staunchly conservative and nationalist Joongang Ilbo, but when the editors of The Korea Herald, arguably the most liberal of the mainstream South Korean papers, echo President Lee's still-hypothetical call for "resolute actions," it suggests a significant shift in the public mood.  The Herald recites a long series of North Korean provocations that have gone unanswered, argues that South Korea's past failures to respond have invited more attacks, and concludes:

    A military retaliation is a justified response to an unprovoked attack. It can be reserved when the adversary admits guilt and makes an apology, promises no recurrence and punishes the directly responsible individuals in cases where it acknowledges their involvement but denies the state's role. Whether or not North Korea will take any of these steps is anybody's guess.

    Among possible reactions, the government could bring the Cheonan case to the U.N. Security Council with proof that North Korea violated Article 2 Paragraph 4 of the U.N. Charter which asks all members to refrain "from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." The attack on a ship engaged in a routine mission inside Southern territorial waters calls for punishment in the form of a U.N. sanction. The problem is that North Korea has already proved its resilience against U.N. sanctions over the past years of international pressures for its denuclearization.

    Here we are seeing a shortage of options to punish North Korea in the event its involvement has been confirmed. Still, we have to do something to manifest the territorial integrity and political independence of the Republic of Korea. That something should be resolute and effective to guarantee that there is no recurrence of the wanton attack.

It is gratifying to see such a broad sampling of South Korean opinion with a realistic view of Kim Jong Il's nature, but I would say in response that not everything that is justified is necessarily wise. I do not read either of these editorials as calling for all-out war but a limited one. Both assume that the war would start as a limited war and would end as a limited war. On balance, they're probably right. Kim Jong Il isn't about to risk triggering OPLAN 5027.  On the other hand, there are other risk factors that these editorial writers may not have thought through, but which President Lee and his advisors probably have.

The major premise of this still-hypothetical discussion is that Kim Jong Il and/or Kim Jong-Eun ordered the attack on the Cheonan, facially a grave miscalculation of the likely South Korean reaction. Kim Jong Il's personality has a high tolerance for risk, and a tendency to misjudge risk. What would Kim's next miscalculation be? A "limited" artillery barrage of Camp Casey, Uijongbu, or Seoul? Ordering terrorist attacks by commandos or sleeper agents? Delivering some dreadful weapon via North Korean's suspected tunnels under the DMZ, believing that his responsibility would be (as with the sinking of the Cheonan) plausibly deniable?

It is important for us to remember the cheapness of life between the Imjin and the Yalu. That is one reason why the question of human rights matters in our diplomatic and military thinking, and why the horrors of Camp 12 and Camp 22 (to name just two) can't be isolated from our calculation of the North Korean threat. The loss of life on either or both sides of the DMZ would not be punishment for Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Eun. A military humiliation might be, assuming that word of that humiliation spread widely within the North Korean armed forces, but despite the advanced erosion of North Korea's information blockade, the regime probably still has substantial control over what its armed forces hear and know. And in any event, there are plenty of other demoralizing things a determined South Korean government could tell the North Korean armed forces without risking war.

North Korean missiles

In contrast to the risk that a limited war would demoralize North Korea's armed forces and population, we must balance the risk that a limited war is actually the very outcome that Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Eun desperately need to extend their dynasty. Imagine yourself as Kim Jong Il today — your nation's long-moribund economy may have starved a million or two of your most expendable subjects, but by keeping the secret police well-fed, blaming the troubles on American sanctions, and characterizing the arrival of international food aid as the payoff for your masterful act of nuclear extortion, you muddled through. Despite widespread discontent, the loss of much control over the food supply, and even a rumored mutiny by a corps-level army unit, the system defied the predictions of foreign experts and held. Now you're under unprecedented pressure from international financial sanctions, and you've decided that international monitoring is too high a price to pay for the American food aid that helped you keep the army and your party minions fed. The "wavering" and "hostile" portions of your civilian population no longer depend on the state's rations and rely on capitalists markets to earn an independent living. Your recent desperate effort to confiscate the wealth of a nascent middle class and regain control over the food supply was a fiasco that caused more open public anger — and even some rioting — than at any time in North Korean history (there is even some empirical evidence to support this). Not only is your currency almost worthless, those capitalist markets are recovering quickly.  This time, your subjects aren't blaming the Americans; they're blaming your minions, and shooting a few scapegoats won't restore their confidence in you. All of the crises you'd slogged through for the duration of your misrule have reached a critical phase. The world is closing in on you.

Worse, you're dying, and in the only way that really matters, you're dying intestate. Your eldest, the natural successor under traditional Korean concepts of primogeniture, is too corrupted by foreign influences, and besides which, starving people aren't going to give unquestioned devotion to Jabba the Kim. Your second son has all the manly command presence of Richard Simmons and performed poorly when tested in a leadership position. Your third son may well have the necessary DSM-IV diagnosis to be a proper successor, but he's just 27 years old, and lacks the experience or the cred to survive (much less rule) in that octagenarian vipers' nest known as the National Defense Commission. If you want your legacy to outlast you, you need to find a way for him to "make his bones," and fast. In a society where every citizen is inculcated with the ideology of war, fearlessness, and sacrifice, a "limited" war is precisely the thing to legitimize your successor and to change the topic of national conversation to anything but the hardship that your misrule has caused.

Which is to say, South Korean military "retaliation" would be anything but: because Kim Jong Il knows that South Korea will want to avoid all-out war as much as he does, he would be able to cast almost any outcome to a limited war in terms that would consolidate and legitimize a transfer of power from the father to the son. Without such a war, and given the current mood among North Koreans, it seems doubtful that such a transition would have the mandate of heaven.

The stern section of the Cheonan is raised; L.A. Times photo

Perhaps for some of the same reasons, my friend Andrei Lankov says that even if North Korea is found to have sunk the Cheonan, that President Lee can't do anything about it. I would agree that the balance of risks and rewards does not favor a military response, but this does not mean that there is nothing that President Lee can do.

What Kim Jong Il fears is the weakening of his political control, not the loss of a few old boats, and certainly not the loss of a few dozen, hundred, or thousand lives. For the aforementioned reasons, a limited war would only strengthen his political control. What Kim Jong Il wants is to consolidate his power, to restore the credibility of his propaganda, to change the subject of his subjects' grumbling to talk of external threats, and to extort more money from South Korea, but without starting a total war. If what President Lee wants is to deter future North Korean aggression, throwing Kim Jong Il the political lifeline of a limited war is no way to do it. Instead, Lee should intensify what is already working: the economic constriction and political subversion of Kim Jong Il's regime, both of which have significantly eroded the regime's influence over its domestic economy, food supply, public opinion, and capacity to suppress dissent. That's why President Lee still has options.

First, he can stop feeding the beast — he can cut off South Korean economic aid to the North. For cosmetic purposes, he can offer to resume aid if Kim Jong Il cooperates fully with the investigation and personally apologizes to the sailors' families (don't worry; he won't). Lee can stop importing goods from North Korea and cut this flow of hard currency. The other main conduits of South Korean hard currency for Kim Jong Il include the Kumgang Tourist Project, whose property the North has just begun to confiscate anyway, and the Kaesong Industrial Park, which has fallen victim to North Korean political meddling and clearly won't ever become a profitable export manufacturing center now. Lee can also order his banks to take a more aggressive approach to enforcing the financial provisions of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874. Politically, he should increase his government's support for a community of 17,000-plus North Korean defectors who are leading efforts to broadcast independent news back into their homeland, news that seems to have attracted a significant following in North Korea. He can increase the number of defectors his government admits, and do more diplomatically to force China to let would-be defectors in China travel to South Korea safely. He might even permit defectors to establish a North Korean transitional government-in-exile on his country's soil; after all, with proper education and training, those defectors could be a key part of President Lee's strategy to re-stabilize post-Kim Jong Il North Korea if, as seems increasingly likely, the Kim Dynasty ceases to exist within the next five years.

Certainly these options carry with them some risk that North Korea will engage in further provocations, but the risk will probably still be less than the risks of doing nothing, paying extortion money, or launching military retaliation. In any event, it seems unlikely that as long as Kim Jong Il inhabits a series of palaces whose location is known to the American and ROK air forces, that he would launch a full-scale attack or use nuclear weapons. And as is clear even to the editors of The Washington Post now, the end of the Kim Dynasty is the only realistic end of North Korea's nuclear weapons program, and all of the proliferation it threatens. They might also have said that it's the only way life for the vast majority of North Korea's people will ever become something other than a living hell.

Joshua Stanton is an attorney in Washington D.C. who formerly served as a U.S. Army Judge Advocate in Korea and also blogs at OneFreeKorea.  The views expressed here are solely his own.

[Caliga]

instead the ROK should announce its intentions to hit the DPRK leadership, or just try to hit them. That's probably easier said than done.

Interesting.  I've never thought about what might happen if the ROK assassinated Kim Jong-il.

[HisMajestyBOB]

instead the ROK should announce its intentions to hit the DPRK leadership, or just try to hit them. That's probably easier said than done.

Interesting.  I've never thought about what might happen if the ROK assassinated Kim Jong-il.

He'll probably be as difficult to kill as Saddam, if not more so. There's rumors that a big explosion years ago was an assassination attempt: here.
Not only are there reports and rumors of him using body doubles, but it's likely he spends a lot of time moving around and staying hidden. He has to fear coups, after all, and having an unpredictable movement pattern is a way to avoid getting offed.

Here's the article I was talking about.

There is only one place at which North Korea hurts: the safety of Kim Jong-Il's family and confidants and by extension the maintenance of the authoritarian system. That is the only place. Any retaliation that does not point to this place is no retaliation at all. There is no way to extract a surrender from Kim Jong-Il other than making him bet his own life.

Well worth a read. Also, http://freekorea.us/ has a few good writeups if you scroll down a bit.

[HisMajestyBOB]

Saw something interesting on my way home from school today:

Walking on the dirt road leading from the main road back to the mountains, one of which has a military installation on it, was a long line of soldiers,with ponchos, glowing sticks (like the ones used by those guys guiding aircraft at airports), and of course rifles. It looked like each squad or maybe platoon had a different color, with red sticks being carried by pairs in between them. They were walking toward the main road that runs by my school.

I've seen soldiers before, but nearly always riding around in jeeps, and never so many together. I also never ordinarily walk home from school at that time, either.

[Razgovory]

I will eat my hat if the South Koreans attack North Korea over this.

[HisMajestyBOB]

I will eat my hat if the South Koreans attack North Korea over this.

Yeah, I'd be kinda surprised too.
Even with Lee Myung Bak in office. He's almost the Korean G.W. Bush, except a little more competent, less crusader-y, and more anti-free speech. Maybe more like a mini-Park Chung Hee.

Roh Moo Hyun would have surrendered.

[jimmy olsen]

Only a matter of time now until the Government makes a formal accusation.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63L08W20100422

North Korea torpedoed South's navy ship: report

SEOUL
Wed Apr 21, 2010 10:20pm EDT

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's military believes a torpedo fired from a North Korean submarine sank its navy ship last month, based on intelligence gathered jointly with the United States, a news report said on Thursday.

The Yonhap news agency report appears to be the clearest sign yet that Seoul blames Pyongyang for the sinking, thought to have killed 46 sailors in what would be one of the deadliest incidents between the rivals since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

The military's intelligence arm sent the report of "certain" North Korean involvement to the presidential Blue House soon after the incident, Yonhap quoted a high-ranking military source as saying.

The report could be an embarrassment to South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, whose government has come under criticism for its handling of the incident.

"North Korean submarines are all armed with heavy torpedoes with 200 kg (441 lb) warheads," the military source was quoted as saying by Yonhap. "It is the military intelligence's assessment that the North attacked with a heavy torpedo.

"The military intelligence has made the report to the Blue House and to the Defence Ministry immediately after the sinking of the Cheonan that it is clearly the work of North Korea's military," the source was quoted as saying.

South Korea plans to soon raise the front half of the 1,200-tonne Cheonan, which went down near a disputed sea border with North Korea, and will issue its verdict on the cause of the explosion that sank the warship after that.

Analysts said there is little South Korea can do even if Pyongyang is found to be the culprit, because a military response was likely to hurt its own quickly recovering economy and bolster North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's standing at home.

The reclusive North has denied it had anything to do with the sinking near the disputed sea border off the west coast that has already been the scene of two deadly naval battles in the past decade.

It accused Lee of using the incident for political gains ahead of crucial local elections in June.

Yonhap said the South Korean and U.S. military suspected the North was stepping up drills to infiltrate a submarine south of the naval border, hidden among Chinese fishing boats, and wage a surprise attack against the South. (Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Jon Herskovitz and Alex Richardson)

[Habsburg]

Seoul's handwringer's will never take action against the Student Killing of Peiping's puppet.

Move on.

[Josquius]

I'm torn.
I would like the South to finally grow some balls and smack down the north and free the peasents. They would certainly win
But...that would involve messing themselves up quite a lot, Seoul is screwed.

[Savonarola]

The North strikes back against puppet regime of dictatorial fascists:

N Korea seizes South-owned property 
 
North Korea has said that it has seized five South Korean-owned buildings in a jointly-operated mountain resort amid rising tensions between the two neighbours.

Pyongyang said on Friday that it had seized the property at the Mount Kumgang resort, criticising Seoul for suggestions that the North was involved in the sinking of a South Korean warship last month.

The state Korean Central News Agency reported the government as saying "the confiscated real estate will be put into the possession of the [North] or handed over to new businessmen according to legal procedures".

Last week, a fire station, duty-free shop, cultural centre, spa and reunion centre for families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War at the resort were cordoned off and staff were forced out.

Tours halted

Tours to the area were halted in 2008 after a North Korean soldier shot and killed a South Korean tourist.

The South has demanded a joint investigation into the death.

Tensions between the two sides were high after a South Korean warship sank near a disputed sea border after an explosion, killing 46 sailors.

Seoul has still not officially confirmed the cause of the blast, but a South Korean intelligence report apparently leaked to local media has said that it was almost certainly caused by a torpedo.

"It's our military intelligence's assessment that North Korean sumbmarines attacked the ship with a heavy torpedo," the Yonhap news agency quoted the report as saying.

Pyongyang has denied it was involved and on Friday said that South Korea was "crying out for the total severance of the North-South relations" by "deliberately" linking the sinking to the North.

Tours to Mount Kumgang began more than 10 years ago as part of reconciliation efforts between the two sides.

'Extreme phase'

The resort provided much needed income to the impoverished country, but the North Korean state agency in charge of tours said in a statement published by state media on Friday that tours were unlikely to resume soon.

"The situation has reached such extreme phase that it is at the crossroads of a war or peace, much less thinking of the resumption of the tour," it said.

"It is quite natural that we can no longer show generosity and tolerance to the south side under this situation," the statement said.

Relations between the two Koreas, who are still technically at war, have been increasingly hostile since Lee Myung-bak became president of the south two years ago.

Earlier this week, Lee, who ended years of generous aid to the North, criticised Pyongyang for spending millions of dollars on a huge fireworks display to mark the birth of Kim Il-sung, North Korea's founder, suggesting the money would be better spent on feeding the population.

All your duty free shopping are belonging to glorious leader Kim Jong-Il.

[jimmy olsen]

The telegraph says their sources claim it was taken out by a kamikaze attack.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/southkorea/7619087/South-Korean-ship-sunk-by-crack-squad-of-human-torpedoes.html

[Razgovory]

Seizing jointly owned property in a kamikaze attack is strange even for North Korea.