On The DPRK's Military Stategy Under Kim Jong-eun

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, It is rare to find a Japanese commentator who does not resort to this-is-meant-to-be-hair-raising scenarios when talking about the DPRK's military capabilities and strategies. Rarer still is to find such a person who writes in clear English. Even rarer is finding a Ground Self Defense Forces reserve officer with such capacities. That said reserve officer is pursuing a doctorate at an Australian university must be unique.

What is best is that Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi (dig that hyphenated surname!) also seems to know what he is talking about:

North Korea’s defence planning: symbolism vs substance

The key takeaway: the DPRK's WMD programs have failed to develop at the speed necessary to provide for the regime's security as the country's poverty grinds the away at the regular armed forces, despite the "military first" policy orientation. The upshot is that the armed forces are falling back on the low cost alternative of equipping core asymmetric fighting forces, rather than maintaining fully functional battlefield armies.

Nota Bene: Do not get me wrong; I love the Russians. It is just that I am at the point where I have read so much of their work that I basically know what each is going to say about any specific development.

To The Nuclear Non-Option, An Addendum

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, After linking to the Associated Press' decidedly unsatisfactory report on discussions of Japan's nuclear reactors and the latent nuclear weapons capability they represent, it is only fair and proper to link to a worthwhile read.

This would be the update from the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) on Japan's civilian highly-enriched uranium (HEU) programs.

Civilian HEU: Japan

Now this is the real deal. Plutonium is nasty stuff and difficult to transform into big bang weapons (just ask the North Koreans). HEU is nasty stuff and way too easy to transform into big bang weapons.

Where does Japan have its HEU? The update page lists four locations.

Yes, I too hope these sites are well guarded.

The Nuclear Non-Option

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Yuri Kageyama has an interesting article out about the relationship between Japan's currently crippled civilian nuclear power program and Japan's need for a virtual nuclear weapon capability:

Japan’s muted pro-bomb voices become louder as nation debates phasing out nuclear power
Associated Press

TOKYO — A contentious debate over nuclear power in Japan is bringing another question out of the shadows: Should Japan keep open the possibility of making nuclear weapons — even if only as an option?

It may seem surprising in the only country devastated by atomic bombs, particularly as it marks the 67th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima on Aug. 6 and Nagasaki three days later. The Japanese government officially renounces nuclear weapons, and the vast majority of citizens oppose them.

But as Japan weighs whether to phase out nuclear power, some conservatives, including some influential politicians and thinkers, are becoming more vocal about their belief that Japan should have at least the ability to make nuclear weapons.

The two issues are intertwined because nuclear plants can develop the technology and produce the fuel needed for weaponry, as highlighted by concerns that Iran is advancing a nuclear power program to mask bomb development...

(Link)

Part of "interesting" is, sadly, sarcasm. The writing is often higgledy-piggledy, like the last paragraph quoted above. Until nuclear power plants grow arms and eyes, I would find it hard for any of them could develop any technology. Nuclear weaponry does not need fuel. And, as the Iranian nuclear fuel technology programs...oh forget, the paragraph is a lost cause.

Later in the article is the howler: "Japan has 45 tons of separated plutonium, enough for several Nagasaki-type bombs." As a commenter to the article has noted, 45 tons of separated plutonium can be converted in a bit more than "several" Nagasaki-type bombs.

As for the presumption behind the article, that defense and security commentators have heretofore been quiet about drawing a direct line between the operation of nuclear power plants and a nuclear deterrent, this is simply not true. Indeed, the article itself points out that an "outspoken" Ishihara Shintaro and Abe Shinzo have been asking for Japan to make more vigorous use of its virtual deterrent (Note to self: do not include in any argument evidence that contradicts the thesis).

The article concludes with this weird quote:

"If people keep saying (nuclear energy) is for having nuclear weapons capability, that is not good,” Suzuki said. “It's not wise. Technically it may be true [my emphasis - MTC], but it sends a very bad message to the international community."

When something is technically true, saying the opposite is technically false. Technically.

The end quote indicates the story that Kageyama has missed: that talking about a civilian nuclear power program as a virtual nuclear deterrent is just nuts.

In isolation, the position sounds rational: Japan is surrounded by nuclear weapons states; Japan needs a backstop should the U.S. withdraw its nuclear umbrella; North Korean threatens Japan so Japan should be able to pose an equal and opposite threat to North Korea; the international non-proliferation system, with its nuclear and non-nuclear states, is not only unequal, it has outliers and rogues like Israel, India and Pakistan who remain solidly encased in the international community.

However, the position cannot be put forward in isolation. When one tries to map out step-by-step scenarios where the U.S. abandons Japan, or where Japan unilaterally declares itself a nuclear weapons state, or where Japan pulls a South Africa/Israel assembled-in-secret trick -- and then one takes the further step of imagining how regional actors and the international community would react, one realizes one has fallen off the edge of the world.

To put in another way, Herman Kahn may have asked you to think the unthinkable, and you can flatter yourself thinking yourself up to that task. However, Aesop's much older Fables should remind us all that while, yes, having a bell on the cat would be nice...

The Atlantic Needs To Try Harder

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Someone writing about Chongryon (in J. Chosen soren). Neat!

Not so neat.

The Strange Rise and Fall of North Korea's Business Empire in Japan
The Atlantic

Armin Rosen

Since its 1950s founding, a Pyongyang-linked group called Chongyron has run everything from banks to newspapers, pushing propaganda out and pulling hard currency in. But now that's ending.

It's been a big couple of weeks for North Korea's 29-year-old dictator. Kim Jong Un appointed himself titular head of the country's military last week and took his marriage public on Tuesday. But amid the celebrating, Kim's Stalinist regime suffered a little-reported setback on the other side of the Sea of Japan. At a time when North Korea is as desperate as ever for hard currency, one of its few reliable generators -- and one of its few links to the outside world -- has gone broke, likely ending the bizarre but significant half-century history of Japan's once-formidable North Korea lobby.

In late June, a Japanese court ordered Chongryon, a business, education, and banking organization formally representing pro-North Korean members of Japan's ethnic Korean minority, to auction off its ten-story office building in downtown Tokyo, effectively ending its mission of bringing money into North Korea and pushing propaganda out. The group's problems are essentially financial: Chongryon owes the Japanese government nearly $750 million for a late-90s emergency bailout that rescued the group's network of credit unions, which were rapidly de-capitalized because of remittances to North Korea during the country's devastating mid-90s famine, an economic and humanitarian catastrophe that killed up to 2 million people...

(Link)

The author talks to Kong-do Oh, who is as knowledgeable a person as there is about what has gone on in North Korea, what is going on there, and about those who have either escaped from or are passing in and out of that country.

The author talks to Michael Green, getting Dr. Green to wax anti-Liberal Democratic Party over the Tanaka-Takeshita Faction's embrace of the DPRK and its Japan-based operatives and operations.

But why must all good things come to an end? Why does the author...

- claim that Korean residents of Japan suffer discrimination even today, offering as evidence an inoffensive but informative Minoru Matsutani article on the new foreign registration law (E)? The Matsutani article makes no a claim of discrimination, unless you consider the convenience of going to the local ward or municipal office for one's new foreign registration card, as the non-naturalized have always done, discrimination. Of course the law discriminates, but not in a pejorative sense.

- state that Koreans of the two nations of the Peninsula make up the largest group of foreign residents of Japan? That status belongs to the Chinese (J). This has been the case for several years now.

- provides as a reference for Chongryon's use of pachinko parlors as as main funding mechanism a page from an aggregator "Japan stuff" website that does not even once make such a claim? What there is on the linked page is a further link to the website of an anonymous British blogger who makes this claim, without supporting evidence.

- quote the English-language page of a North Korea friendship organization as the source for numbers of Chongryon's members at the height of the organization's wealth and influence?

The fall of Chongryon over the government's bailout of its credit unions should be a fascinating tale. However, this is not the article to read about it.

How this rubbish slipped past the editors at The Atlantic is beyond me.


Later - The need to run an errand prevented me from noting the caption to the seven-year old file photo accompanying the article. You will love it; I am sure. Just click on the below image for a larger view.

The operatically minded have to ask: what has made Rosen so cavalier?

I'll Have Two Orders of Kimchi And An Alphorn, Please

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Over at Global Talk 21, the perspicacious Okumura Jun has noted a peculiar deviation in the northern of the two Koreas: the complete junking of the Confucian commandment, observed by Kim Jong-il after the death of his father, of a 3+ year period of mourning. (Link)

A lot of really weird stuff has been happening in the DPRK of late -- press availabilities at supposedly super-secret rocket launch sites, non-testing of atomic devices, the reinvitation of Kim Jong-il's Japanese chef back to Pyongyang, the unlicensed Disney characters dancing and projections of scenes from Rocky movies at televised concerts for the elite. (E).

All this weirdness keeps the folks who write for 38North very busy. James Church, for example, has written a very helpful post arguing that the word to look for in any current statement coming out of the DPRK is "belt."

Little do I know about the DPRK and the ins and outs of Pyongyang. However, this I do know: the Kid is not North Korean. Whatever it might say on his current official DPRK passport, if he has one, North Korean is not his true nationality. He is, for all intents and purposes, Swiss -- having seemingly spent almost his entire life in that country.

To expect him to make an about-face and really dig being the evil dictator of a dirt-poor, culturally deprived, enemy-of-all-humankind rathole does not make much sense. Note how quickly the leadership has found him his Lady Diana, whom we can assume is from a family with impeccable political credentials, is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, is presumed fecund and is likely schooled in certain arts to keep him...occupied (E)...lest he become annoyed with the Confucian monarch routine after growing up in the land of cuckoo clocks, chocolate, cheese, skiing and UBS.


Later - The sharp-eyed and knowledgeable have nailed down the newly-minted missus as being a much-touted singer and former member of the DPRK cheering squads (J).

The leadership have thus provided the Young General with a spouse who knows how to charm and perform and who has not the least doubt about the rightness of the regime.

Jiang Qing, any comments?

Later still - The Onion News Service (satire) has a report out from inside the private world of Kim Jong-eun and his wife. (Link)

The Morimoto Appointment

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, There are many stories to be chasing after.

There is the humanization of arrested Aum Shinrikyo fujitive Kikuchi Naoko in the news media and the implications the humanization of a mass murderer could have on the imposition of the death penalty in her case -- a given, considering the sentences handed out to the other members of the cult -- or even the death penalty's continued application. Can the state kill a person who has, during her life on the run, worked as an eldercare provider? Is there such a thing as redemption after committing great evil? And what of the National Police Agency's incapacity to capture anyone unless that person is handed to them on a platter* or in the case of Hirata Makoto, tries desperately (E) to hand himself in on a platter? And what of the irony of the Kikuchi arrest coming the day after rededication of a monument to Sakamoto Kuniko -- the Sakamotos being the first of Aum's victims, whose killings, had they been investigated (it would not have been too hard. One of the cult members, horrified at what he and his fellow followers had done, left his Aum Shinrikyo badge at the scene of the crime) would have stopped the whole mad murderous machine in its tracks? (J)

One talk about the flip side of the collapse of the economies in rural areas: that larger-than-one-would-imagine-in-a-country-with-a-population-as-big-as-Japan's tracts of uninhabited land are available for renewable energy resource projects -- nicely graded and leveled abandoned rice paddies, failed golf courses, unused rural economic development zones and perhaps even an underused airport or two make fine candidates for solar farms. (E) **

However, the big story is the Cabinet reshuffle (E) and the big story of the Cabinet reshuffle the appointment of academic Morimoto Satoshi as Minister of Defense.

For those looking for background on the appointment there is a wealth of material. Morimoto has been in the public eye for two decades as a public intellectual of the first rank, serving as the media's go-to conservative academic on matters such as the Japan-U.S. security alliance, the DPRK, defense systems, the revolution in military affairs and the rise of Chinese military power. If someone were looking for "gotcha" moments -- stunningly incorrect predictions, overblown rhetoric, rumor mongering, untenable analysis -- there are hundreds of hours of video and ten of thousands of words to troll through. Luckily for Morimoto and Prime Minister Noda, the organizations with the most reflexive tendencies to go trolling for items with which to embarrass Morimoto and the government -- the Yomiuri Shimbun and its Nihon Terebi terrestrial TV network and the Sankei Shimbun and its terrestrial network Fuji TV -- both have relied on Morimoto as the outside expert most likely to hew to their editorial line.

Morimoto is a hardline realist. He has little love for Article 9 and the limits placed upon Japan's ability to engage in multilateral security actions. A former Air Self Defense Forces (the most gungho of the services) officer and a graduate of the National Defense Academy, he has probably always dreamed of being Minister of Defense. Now he has the responsibility to be one. He will be the man in the cross hairs and the guy with his name on the dotted line when the government signs the contract for the acquisition of F-35 Lightning IIs, with the costs and delivery dates to be determined.

Morimoto has previous experience in government, having been appointed the first Special Advisor to the Minister of Defense after the position was created during the premiership of Aso Taro. As a former member of an LDP administration with no previously noted links to the Democratic Party of Japan, he represents a bit of wicked deviousness on Prime Minister Noda's part: after disgracing the position with two Ozawa Ichiro-nominated defense ignoramuses -- whom the LDP had the House of Councillors censure -- he gives the country a defense minister about whom the LDP can raise not a peep of protest.

Morimoto, despite his defense smarts, comes into office with severe handicaps that will limit his ability to transform his own ideas into action. First, he is a non-politician: he will facing the bureaucracy naked, without even a political secretary to back him up. Such support as he will enjoy will come from the Prime Minister's Residence (the Kantei) and in the person of the man who appointed him. Second, the cost of acquiring the F-35 threatens to upset the balance between the ASDF and the already beset Ground Self Defense Forces and the proud and dominant Maritime Self Defense Forces. After personnel costs and procurement costs, Morimoto will have little to spend on actual operations or any expansion of operations he might press the government to consider.

The appointment of Morimoto once again raises the question of whether or not Noda is his own defense minister. While he for once has less experienced in defense matters than person he has appointed as his defense minister, being only the son of an SDF man rather than a former SDF man himself, Noda still believes himself an expert in the nuts and bolts of defense policy.

The appointment seems more a tactical move rather than a strategic one. At a stroke Noda has neutralized potential LDP, right wing and center-right media and nationalist complaints about his support for a robust Japanese defense capability and outlook. Left-leaning and leftist news media have indeed been hopping up and down that the appointment of an academic rather than a politician means that the MOD bureaucracy and uniformed officers will be too powerful, undermining the concept of civilian control (shibirian kontororu***). He will win the applause of the American think-tank-political-appointee merry-go-round ridership, who will be thrilled by Morimoto's heretofore unshakable support of the Japan-U.S. alliance and his hardline security stances, ignoring Morimoto's rather weak bureaucratic and non-existent political support. He also removes from the commentariat one of his most potent and visible potential critics.

So Morimoto has the "right" views and the wrong attributes. We shall have to see which of the two initial conditions proves the more significant.


Later - And yes, I did notice. It was the first thing out of my mouth when I saw the Cabinet lineup in the paper this morning: "What? Again? Where are the women, you torpid [expletive deleted] sea slug?"


Later still - This post has been edited for greater clarity.

Way later - The Magnificent Kiwis have checked in -- Bryce Wakefield in Comments and Corey Wallace over at Japan Security Watch (Link) -- with far more intelligent things to say about the Morimoto apppointment than I have.


-------------------------------
* Until further notice, I will remain agnostic regarding the police story that a neighbor recognized Kikuchi and turned her in. The difference in appearances between the 1994 Kikuchi and the woman arrested on Sunday are significant (E). It seems unlikely that anyone looking at her would see the chubby, smiling former runner, especially as Kikuchi, while living in Sagamihara, was, according to residents, always hiding her face by looking at the ground.

A more likely scenario is that her lover, exhausted by life on the lam, turned her in with a promise of clemency for himself and mercy for her, with police concocting the alert neighbor story to keep the public on the lookout for the last remaining Aum fugitive, Takahashi Katsuya.

** Note to The Economist: the title of your story about this subject has to be, "Huge...tracts of land..."

*** One critic whose opinions I value has said that whenever elites in this blessed land want to reduce the ability of citizens to understand certain concepts, they simply take the English word and transliterate it using katakana. The plague of katakana eigo terms in finance industry terminology (konpuraiansu, gabanansu...) would tend to support the "let's keep them in the dark" thesis.

There Is A Reason They Call It Rocket Science

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, One can have ideological blinders on and keep warning all and sundry about death raining down from above and drumming up fears about the silly mockups of ICBMs the DPRK government put on parade on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung...or one can read Markus Schiller and Robert H. Schmucker.

Regarding the mockups:

"A Dog and Pony Show" (Link 1)

Regarding the internal structure and the engineering limits of purported ICBMs, if someone ever tried to build an actual missile looking like the ones paraded:

"The Assumed KN-08 Technology" (Link 2)

That "woof" sound you just hear after you finish reading the two papers is the editorial offices of the Sankei Shimbun undergoing spontaneous diurnal combustion.

Both papers come via the good graces of Dr. Jeffrey Lewis and Arms Control Wonk.

That Southern Sort Of Sanity

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Usually the thought of a National Bureau of Asian Research interview of a director at the Lowy Institute for International Policy would send me running for the hills.

However, the NBR interview with Rory Metcalf is a worthwhile read, realist in the most positive sense of that loaded word. (Link)

I must confess a particular affinity for one of Metcalf's propositions, though my heart knows it to be little more than a vain wish:

And certainly the closer the Australia-U.S. alliance becomes, the more confident Canberra should feel in offering candid counsel to Washington about Asia policy.

I had always hoped that the government of this blessed land might play a such a role in its dealings with the United States, that of the friend who grabs the other friend's shoulder and says, "Will you please just calm down and consider the repercussions, for just one second, before you react?"

Having the world's second largest economy and a significant capacity to carry out soft power initiatives should have given this blessed land enough leverage to stand its ground and talk sense to the United States, when the United States, for its own internal domestic political reasons could not make sense of a situation. However, strategic confusion within this blessed land as regards its neighborhood, with the right wing ramping up the DPRK abductees issue and fears of strategic abandonment over Futenma to the point where intelligent debate over Japan's own position in the world was driven to the fringes, quashed the development of an intellectual alternative to whatever-the-United-States-says-as-long-as-we-do-not-have-to-provide-troops bureaucratic default response to any of the world's crises.

Of course, internal strategic confusion was only half of the problem. The U.S. prides itself as the defender of democratic values. However, the sheer size of the U.S. security apparatus means those values do not necessarily extend to the U.S. listening to what any of its friends and allies say. The size of Japan's population and economy could have made this blessed land a worthwhile sounding board for the saner minds in Washington, However, the relationship between Japan and the U.S. was and is radically asymmetric, with the U.S. committed to the defense of Japan while Japan is not committed to the defense of the United States. Japanese expressions of caution would have fallen on deaf ears.

A similar asymmetry exists in the Australia-U.S. relationship. Given Australia's intense economic integration with the People's Republic of China and its diplomatic relations with the DPRK, Canberra should and does have a different and useful take on the politico-economic development of East Asia, one the U.S. could profit from if its government and non-government players choose to listen. Unfortunately, because the U.S. is such a disproportionately huge presence not just in the region but around the globe, it will likely refuse to listen to advice, no matter how sound. "Shut up and take our Marines," will be the response from the Washington echo chamber, where flexibility and patience are not considered the worthwhile counsels of serious thinkers.

On Capuchin Monkeys And The DPRK

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Corey Wallace recently wrote a lengthy thought piece on the options of Ozawa Children in the face of the Democratic Party of Japan's low popularity ratings and the Noda government's likely contractionary imposition of a higher consumption tax. I think he gives the Ozawa children a little more freedom of choice than they possess, unless they have the personal resources (i.e., personal wealth) to pay for their own reelection campaigns or, barring that, an appetite for self-destruction.

Wallace has also just posted up on Facebook a TED speech by the animal behaviorist Frans de Waals of the Yerkes Primate Center. In the speech, de Waals reviews the possible evolutionary origins of morality. Take the time to watch the full 17 minutes of the video, if only for your edification and amusement. (Link)

I have always thought that the Capuchin experiment, where the monkey who receives the cucumber becomes so angry about being cheated out of getting a grape that it throws the cucumber at the experimenter, provided an insight on how negotiators, particularly American and Japanese ones, get played by negotiators from the DPRK. Coming from societies where reciprocity is valued and presumed to the point where it becomes invisible, the American and Japanese negotiators have time and time again been willing to throw away whatever they have gained when they see the DPRK getting more out of a deal.

In the video, de Waals, by being a little too funny, fails to nail down the point the audience should be taking away from the presentation: not that Capuchin monkeys have what have been previously thought to be a human sense of fairness, but the obverse, that we humans, when raised in a normal environment, are no more than tall, hairless Capuchins. We react emotionally to unfairness because we are programmed to do so.

In the horrible Stalinist nightmare (in George Orwell's immortal image, "Imagine a booted foot, stamping a human face, forever") that is the DPRK, those who have risen in the hierarchy and/or survived it have had much of their organic humanity ground out of them. They are true economic animals, treating every meeting as a one-off (because one never knows if one will be meeting that person again) and always seeking to maximize one's profit immediately, without seemingly caring about what happens in the future.

This startling capacity to go against the fundamental programming of the human species is at the base of the insane/logical dispute over the nature of the DPRK regime. Seen from the point of view of normal human society, that is to say from the point of view of the Capuchin monkey, the behavior of the DPRK is insane – it constantly rejects reciprocity in favor of bat-excrement crazy threats and cheating. At the same time, analysts, when looking at the results the DPRK has managed to extort with its behavior, see a basic outline of reasoning and calculation.

The two supposedly contradictory views of DPRK behavior are actually two sides of the same coin. The superiority affected by the analysts and commentators who see logic in the behavior of the DPRK is unmerited: those who see the DPRK as insane have an equally vital an insight into the true nature of the regime.

So what does one do with a negotiating partner who is ultimately unreliable?

1) Take the damn cucumber – When dealing with a purely economical partner, one has to accept whatever small profit one attains. This will be hard, especially to explain to legislators and a populace who expect you to walk away from a negotiation having received a grape for a grape. If it is necessary to drop down to the level of popular culture to explain the hopelessness of trying to walk away from a negotiation with the DPRK with one’s honor intact, quote the Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #109: “Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack.”

2) In the long run reciprocity pays, whereas purely economic behavior is the road to penury – This assertion seems to run counter to primitive economic reasoning, where the maximum benefit for all is achieved through each individual attempting to maximize his/her own profit. However, societies with a strong sense of fairness, or "trust" as Francis Fukuyama chose to call it, become rich out of an ability to plan ahead, thanks to the faith that a sacrifice or act of altruism done today will be paid off equally or even in excess some other time. Societies where reciprocity runs deep -- United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea -- are rich: the DPRK is a basket case.

3) When all you really have is cucumbers, a cucumber is costly – For immensely wealthy nations such as the United States, Japan and the R.O.K. a tiny reward is close to nothing. For immense poor nations like the DPRK, every sacrifice is costly, in real and relative terms. In terms of Capuchin behavior, every cucumber the fat monkey accepts from the thin one brings the thin one pain. It would rather consume the cucumber itself.

So what would a rejection of our natural programming – i.e., our Capuchin monkey brains – direct us to do?

The first step would be to stop the silly nonsense of going to the UN Security Council for stronger sanctions or a condemnation of the DPRK after its failed rocket launch, or of cutting off promised food aid (the official euphemism is "nutritional assistance" – which sounds like a vitamin supplement drop from the back end of a C-130) because the DPRK ingnored a warning to not test "ballistic missile technology." Insisting that the rocket launch was a test of ballistic missile technology focuses on the rocket as a technological object, ignoring the more important function it had a political object – a function it failed to perform, due, it must be said, to its shortcomings as a technological object. Cutting off assistance and going to the UN Security Council because the DPRK humiliated U.S. negotiators of the Leap Day "agreement" (for the reason why the word agreement should be in quotes, see this post by Dr. Jeffrey Lewis) is just the sort of Capuchin behavior that will give the DPRK justification to conduct a nuclear test.

Second, test the nerve of the DPRK’s new leader. The U.S. and Japan should put the rocket launch "under consideration" pending the perpetration of further provocative acts. Let the DPRK leadership be torn over the outside world's willingness to forbear retaliation. Make it hard for them to really go forward with a nuclear test, as that will certainly bring all hell down upon them, and they would lose the grape they got out of February's face-to-face meeting with the United States.

Japan and the United States should give the DPRK something to lose, rather than nothing to lose. Let us rely on what we know of the DPRK: that they neither assume generosity nor operate without a certain logic. If the DPRK goes ahead with the currently prophesied nuclear test, the outside world loses nothing – since it will turn out the test was inevitable, no matter what the outside world did. Furthermore, the outside world will gain valuable piece of information: that the DPRK regime is not coldly calculating but instead profoundly, irredeemably stupid.

A Way Too Newsy Day

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, What we know after yesterday is:

- The DPRK is a miserably poor country locked in a Stalinist nightmare ruled by a kid who grew up in Switzerland who likely as not wishes the whole horrible structure would go to hell. The country can threaten the Republic of Korea with the annihilation of Seoul through artillery fire and Japan with a barrage of fairly reliable Nodong missiles. Other than that it is a pathetic candidate for a threat to human civilization.

In other words, it is right now a land offering a hint of opportunity, not to be walloped with the same tired routines of going to the UN Security Council for a bunch of whiff and poofing.

Also that Japanese news programs, driven by pressures from (viewers/advertisers/government/right-wing organizations/the United States - circle one or more) have an almost infinite creativity when it comes to thinking up pejorative alternatives, no matter how long-winded -- "the artificial satellite, in reality a long-range ballistic missile," "the long-range ballistic missile called an earth-sensing artificial satellite," "the artificial satellite in name only, actually a ballistic missile" -- to the simple, neutral term "rocket."

- You do not need a confession to convict a person of murder and sentence her to death. All you need is a string of bodies left behind someone who extorted all the money she could from the victims before they managed to commit suicide whilst drugged. (E)

Also that the lengthy trial of an unattractive woman capable of luring in, defrauding and killing three lonely men, keeping up a blog of her activities, is a huge draw among middle-aged and young women. For the record, which is slim, the these out-of-the-ordinary trial attendees have been dubbed the Kanae Girls (kanae gyaru).

- A former banker with Nomura Securities can go before the microphones in the Diet in sworn testimony, admit to producing accounts in no way reflecting the realities of the fund he was managing, admit to running a Ponzi scheme (tenbai sukiimu)-- and still insist he had no intent to defraud anybody.

The guy has got a hell of a lawyer: "Just keep telling the truth but repeating that you're sorry and you never meant to hurt anyone and the judge will go easy on you, I promise."

Sad thing is, that lawyer is almost certainly right.

- When you as a government body hurriedly approve the restart of two nuclear reactors, after the nation has suffered the worst civilian nuclear disaster since and the only one on a par with Chernobyl, based on a safety assessment finding that procedures for preventing the repeat of the disaster have, for the most part (omune ni), been put into place -- the Japanese public, prefectural governments and the press will go bananas. (E)

I mean like top-of-every-newscast, first-four-pages-of-the-newspaper-on-a-day-that-the-DPRK-fires-off-a-rocket bananas.

Yesterday I posited that the fate of Maeda Takeshi, the ethically compromised and extremely unhelpful Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, would be a page 2 story in this morning's newspaper.

Heck, he is not even in this morning's newspaper.

Boom!

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, 9:24 - Much ado about nothing. All the major networks have reverted to their daily television pap, save Fuji Terebi, the home of paranoia about the DPRK and China.

9:07 - The focus now shifts to Pyongyang: who gets blamed, who gets demoted. Will Kim Jong-un take this very public failure to move against elements that stand in the way of the DPRK's opening up to the world, in the manner that China did in the 1980s? The faction advocating provocation, duplicity and brinkmanship has taken a hit. Will they go quietly, or will the capital be swept up in factional conflict? Having everyone in Pyongyang for the party conference makes for a great opportunity for a lot of mutual finger pointing.

8:57 - The Defense Ministry has announced that the rocket split into four pieces at a height 120 kilometers in altitude. This would seem to preclude a self-destruct message from the ground.

8:55 - True to the national consensus, NHK is referring to the rocket as a missile. Historically, as Japan is the only country threatened by the DPRK Nodong missile force, the government of Japan and the Japanese in general take the most intolerant view of the DPRK's rocket/missile program.

8:45 - According to the Defense Ministry, the rocket blew up one minute into its flight. Like I said on Monday, the international ban on the testing of ballistic missile technology created what would be an unacceptable chance of this launch being a failure.

8: 40 - The North Korean rocket has blown up in midflight. More details as they come in.

No one seems to have gotten hurt. The Japanese government, like everyone else, is trying to figure what has happened. The Security Council is meeting: an announcement will be forthcoming.

NHK is broadcasting live from Pyongyang: the DPRK media has not as yet reported on the launch failure.

Look for a few of the DPRK generals and the rocket scientists to disappear.

Saying "Yes" To North Korea

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,,

ミサイルを
オモチャに駄々っ子
おねだりし

misairu o
omocha ni dadakko
onedari shi

The missile
A spoiled child pleads for it
As though for a toy

- Tomie Haruo
a resident of Setagaya-ku
printed in the Tokyo Shimbun of 2012.03.24

Now that the government of the DPRK has blown the lid off the secrecy surrounding its planned rocket launch, in the biggest way possible (J), the onus is now on the international community -- or at least the members of the international community that thought they had boxed in the DPRK on the matter of testing ballistic missile technology under the guise of a satellite launch -- to figure out how to respond. By letting the non-DPRK media visit the launch site and see a mock up of the supposed satellite, the calls to shoot down the rocket have become absurd (E).

Japanese preparations for a missile intercept of a launch or separation failure, however, are not absurd. There is real danger inherent in the rocket launch. Unless it is a copy of the North Korean designs successfully launched by the Iranians, the launch in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Kim Il-sung's birth will be a test flight. Engineers and scientists have not been allowed their own opinions as to the soundness of the rocket's design nor of the necessary minimum conditions under which the rocket can be launched. They have, of course, a strong incentive to have the rocket perform as planned as their livelihoods or indeed their lives will be at stake. However, the final decision to launch is a political, not a scientific, decision.

The rocket launch has two technical objectives: putting a satellite into earth orbit and having the booster rockets fall within the announced splashdown zones. The chances that an untested design will meet these objectives is unacceptably low, by international standards. Paradoxically, much of the uncertainty regarding the safety of the launch is due to the international community’s ban on North Korean testing of ballistic missile technology – although the North Koreans have had an outlet in having Iranians and Pakistan run test flights of what are basically North Korean designs. It is not clear, however, what indigenous refinements of the basic North Korean design have been shared by the Iranians and the Pakistanis with their original supplier.

Something can and most likely will go wrong. America and its allies have guffawed at previous North Korean failures but such schadenfraude is misplaced and puerile. While North Korean designers have likely learned a great deal from previous failures, they have had far too few failures – because they have been allowed no tests – to learn enough to make sure that this upcoming launch, this incredibly important political event, goes off as planned.

By letting the press view the rocket, however, the North Koreans may have committed a major tactical blunder. The North Korean government invited eight countries and governments to send observers to its satellite launch (E). The Japanese government, the American government, the European Space Agency and even the Russian government (E) have all turned down the invitations on the principle that accepting these invitations would be giving tacit approval of what has been portrayed as U.N. Security Council-prohibited test of ballistic missile technology. The North Korean government indeed issued these invitations on the assumption they would be rejected.

The press event at the launch site, however, allows the Japanese government, other governments and the ESA an opportunity to rescind their refusals, and ask politely to have observers at the launch.

Such a request would put the DPRK in a quandary. The government propaganda department will announce the reversals of the decisions of the previously reluctant countries and the ESA as a coup. Of course, the propaganda department is in the business of transforming everything into a coup, redefining death from starvation, for example, as a triumph of self-determination.

For the DPRK's generals and the coterie surrounding Kim Jong-un, having foreigners, most likely select, knowledgeable analysts, on site will put an unmanageable amount pressure on the launch to be a success. The launch is unstoppable; it has become an event too important to regime survival for any international intervention to countermand (E). With foreign observers, some from hostile powers, on site means the damn thing will have to work. Otherwise the primary goal of justifying the existing regime will be damaged, possibly fatally. A failure in the initial boost phase or at the separation of the primary and secondary boosters could indeed serve as a pretext for Kim Jong-un to launch a purge of the generals surrounding him on the grounds the launch failure ruined his grandpa's birthday party.

If the launch goes forward without a hitch, the observing nations suffer no loss of face. Indeed they have a vested interest in backing down from the appearance of holding bellicose intentions toward the rocket launch. The DPRK has put forward a strong case that the launch is its right under international law guaranteeing open access to peaceful uses of space. If it succeeds in placing the satellite in orbit, which is a big if, it cannot crow that other nations failed to bring the rocket down as they intended. It can crow that the mission's success has left the world dumbfounded -- but the propaganda crew intended to do that anyway, no matter if the rocket put a satellite into orbit or took a quick dive into the East China Sea.

So undo the overhasty announcements of cutoffs of nutritional aid or further negotiations regarding the DPRK's nuclear programs, send observers, wish the DPRK well on the flight -- and have the SM-3s and PAC-3's ready to respond if it becomes clear the rocket is off course and threatening Japan, South Korea or even China.

That the North Koreans are devious buggers who slipped this launch in after a unilateral declaration on a breakthrough on the resumption of nutritional assistance from the United States (E) should have been a surprise to no one. Making a big deal of the North Koreans being duplicitous was a terrible move -- for if after 18 years of negotiating with the DPRK's representatives the DPRK specialists have not learned the art of shrugging their shoulders when the DPRK subsequently acts in way undermining the spirit, if not always the letter, of an agreement, then they are really, really, really stupid. Especially since in this instance the duplicity is so mild, nothing nearly as flat out dangerous nuts as, let us say, setting off a nuclear device or building another nuclear facility for a client like the Syrians.

So let the DPRK have its fireworks display for its big centenary celebration. Adopt the pretense of enjoying it. Put the onus on the DPRK's rocketeers to not mess up. For heads will roll, big-hatted ones, if they blow it.


Later - Many thanks to reader NP, who is French, for correcting my German.

Gratuituous Insults Of The DPRK's Nominal Leader

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,,
To his formal titles of "Great Leader," "Head of the Worker's Party Central Committee,""Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces" and "Fatty," North Korean wonder boy Kim Jong-un can add a new one: Party Pooper (E).

10,000 invitations - that is one heck of a party. With all the money saved maybe the Government of Japan can buy a few more SM3 Block-1a missiles for the Maritime Self Defense Forces.

Photo: Early blooming cherry at Shinjuku Gyoen. March 20, 2009.
Photo credit: MTC

Let's Try This, One More TIME

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, TIME magazine blogs has a post (E) about the government's possible use of the Self Defense Forces' anti-ballistic missile capabilities should North Korea proceed with its planned rocket launch.

I here reproduce the TIME text, with my annotations.

TOKYO – Japan knows just what to do if North Korea goes ahead with a thinly disguised test of a new ballistic missile next month: shoot the @#$! thing down.

Japanese Defense Minister Naoki Tanaka told Diet members Monday that “We will take the (necessary) procedures in the event of a contingency that threatens our country’s security,” and pointed out that Japan has Patriot PAC-3 and Aegis destroyers that could do the job. Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Forces began deploying Patriot batteries to Japan’s southern islands today.

What Defense Minister Tanaka Naoki has said is that he is thinking about giving the order to shoot down the rocket, pending the prime minister's approval. In the event of pieces of the rocket falling or such a similar contingency (implictly, the rocket falling as a whole) in a manner threatening Japanese territory, the SDF under existing law can attempt an intercept of the threatening material. (J)

Not exactly "Shoot the @#$! thing down."

The Japanese are still traumatized by a 1998 test in which nuclear-armed North Korea lobbed a ballistic missile directly over the home islands. The incident prompted the Japanese to join the US in missile-defense R&D, and it remains a cornerstone of Japanese defense policy.

North Korea said Friday it will attempt to put an Earth observation satellite into orbit sometime in April. But that’s seen as a cover for a testing a long-range ballistic missile, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, of course. Technically, the launch would violate UN Security Council Resolution 1874. Tokyo could claim it was enforcing the mandate, although it does not authorize use of force.

First, the nuclear anachronism. In 1998, North Korea was not nuclear-armed. Yongbyon's spent nuclear fuel rods were under IAEA seals until 2002. The DPRK did not claim to have weaponized the plutonium it extracted from the fuel rods until 2004. It did not carry out a nuclear test until 2006.

Second, according to the Ministry of Defense, cooperation with the U.S. on BMD research began in 1978. At the same time, Japan was asked to prepare facilities for U.S. BMD systems on Okinawa. (J)

Third, a launch of a space vehicle does not violate UN Security Council 1874. The North Koreans know this. That is why they are calling the launch a space vehicle launch.

Fourth, Tokyo cannot claim it is enforcing the mandate if the resolution does not authorize the use of force.

North Korea said the missile will be fired in southerly a location, which means Tokyo-ites won’t see contrails flying overhead. Nevertheless, Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba said he couldn’t rule out the possibility that the missile would pass over Okinawa or other southern islands.

Whether the Japanese could actually take out the missile would depend on whether an Aegis destroyer or Patriot battery were in the right place. The Patriot missile travels has a published range of about 70 kilometers.

If Japan does try to take out the missile, it would be its first shot fired in anger since World War II. That’s one reason it’s unlikely to happen. In addition to annoying the North Koreans, it could also make the Chinese and South Koreans — ever suspicious of Japan — nervous.

The "first shot in anger" statement is true only for the SDF. The Maritime Self Defense Force's predecessor, the Coastal Safety Force, had a gun battle with a Soviet spy ship off the coast of Hokkaido in 1953. So Japan has fired shots in anger.

Shooting down a space-bound vehicle would more than just "annoy" the North Koreans. That I can assure you.

Why would Japan firing a defensive missile at a rocket make the Chinese and the South Koreans any more nervous about Japan? Japan is already deeply bought into BMD. Japan has liquid and solid-fueled rockets capable of boosting payloads into space. Now that capacity represents a threat to China and South Korea, but it is one that has existed for a long time.

Japan has conducted tests of the Patriot and Aegis systems, but has never fired at a real ballistic missile. That’s another reason the Japanese are unlikely to make good on the threat, says Ralph Cossa, president of Honolulu-based Pacific Forum CSIS: “It would be embarrassing if they missed.”

Part of the testing of the Aegis-linked Standard III system has been the intercepting of missile warheads over the Pacific. Those were real missile warheads. If by "real" the writer meant "in battle" - well, he should have said so.

Cossa's comment on how embarrassing it would be should the SDF's anti-ballistic missile systems miss their target makes sense only if Japan fires willy-nilly at a rocket headed in its direction, which would be akin to an act of war. Since the rules of engagement outlined by the Minister of Defense preclude a rash and unnecessary act, the comment is superfluous. If the Standard III and Patriot systems miss their target and a piece of or a whole rocket lands in Japanese territory, with consequent damage or casualties, the result would be a lot worse than merely embarrassing to the SDF.

An academic of great standing recently complained to me about blogs, how even the ones with editors allow any idiot with a computer and an opinion to vomit forth some perverse piece of nonsense, which thanks to the the low cost of computer storage and search is kept alive, rendering the world just a little bit stupider, non erit finis.

What can I say?

Essential Reading on Hashimoto Toru

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, This has been a fertile weekend for postings on the rolling snowball that is Hashimoto Toru.

First we have the essay from Spike Japan on the personal history, amazing sayings and local achievements of Osaka's more-than-just-a-mayor. (Link 1)

I, for one, do not really care if Hashimoto and his family came from the wrong side of the tracks. The Liberal Democratic Party's Nonaka Hiromu came from the wrong side of the tracks and he managed through grit, patience and knowing-where-you-had-dinner-last-night-and-with-whom to push past many a princeling and former elite bureaucrat to become a force within the party, eventually becoming secretary-general. Nonaka, however, never forgot about where he came from, and he would lacerate bureaucrats for their institutionalized prejudice against persons with suspicious ancestral addresses. Nonaka also retained a sympathy for Japan's North Korean population -- the country's least beloved and most misunderstood minority.

What worries me about Hashimoto is he has seems to have the airs of a self-made man. Few things are worse than self-made men, as they believe their success is due to their own special form of greatness, rather than because in their case talent transected with chance and opportunity.

Then we have the always comprehensive Corey Wallace on the confusion Hashimoto has whipped up in the political world, particularly the cosy little corner of the world inhabited by the Liberal Democratic Party. (Link 2)

The part of Hashimoto's Ishin no kai's declaration that has me shaking in my boots (and I am wearing boots) is the proposal for direct elections of prime ministers. (J) Such a proposal faces the same soaring constitutional hurdles as the other major radical reform: the abolition of the House of Councillors. Unlike the abolition, which has no chance of passing as the House of Councillors would have to vote itself out of existence -- a decidedly unlikely event -- a move toward a direct election of prime ministers could gather up enough support to pass through both Houses of the Diet and then received the people's imprimatur in a national referendum.

Nothing would guarantee gridlock in the Diet or, paradoxically, tyranny than to have a popularly elected prime minister. Floating Japanese voters do not vote for something, they vote against the status quo, often in the absence of logical examination of the content of a person's political program (Japanese undecided voters are, of course, far from unique in possessing this trait). Japan lacks the formal institutional brakes or political and social structures necessary to channel the energies of a leader voted into office for negative reasons into positive, rather than merely populist, directions.