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.

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)

I Shall Not Henceforth Share With Thee

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, The New York Times, somehow wrenching its gaze from the Mideast and Central Asia to some place not named Venezuela, has decided to offer, as it seems it believes it must to every human government, its advice on how the government of South Korean should be running its affairs.

A Lost Deal for South Korea and Japan
The New York Times

Nearly 70 years after World War II, old animosities are still making it difficult for South Korea and Japan to establish a reliably productive relationship. The result is self-defeating for both countries and for regional security.

Last week, at the last minute, South Korea postponed signing a limited military agreement with Japan. The deal would have encouraged the direct sharing and protecting of sensitive military data about North Korea and China and missile defenses. Such intelligence is now shared indirectly through Washington. The agreement was supported by the Obama administration, which has been working to strengthen a trilateral alliance with the two countries, America’s most important Asian allies.

Although Japan’s cabinet approved the deal, a political firestorm erupted in South Korea, and now its fate is uncertain. That is a huge embarrassment, for Seoul and Tokyo, creating more bad feelings between the two. President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea clearly mishandled the politics. The deal was negotiated in secret, with officials informing the public and Parliament just one day before it was to be signed. This is an election year in South Korea; Mr. Lee’s five-year term ends early next year after a successor is chosen in December. He should have anticipated that his political opponents would lash out as they have, accusing the government of being pro-Japanese. Instead of presenting the agreement as completed, he should have made the case for it publicly and worked to build support for it in advance.

Even then, it would have been a tough sell because animosity toward Japan remains very much alive in South Korea. Japan ruled that country as a colony, often brutally, for several decades until the end of World War II. Although the two nations have growing economic and cultural ties, they still have bitter disputes over a set of islets and Tokyo’s rejection of talks on compensating Korean women used by Japan as military sex slaves during the war.

The United States and Japan have said little publicly to avoid inflaming the situation. But we hope they are working to calm the waters on this issue.

(Link)

Why the New York Times should be wading into the failure, at the last minute (Literally -- according some reports, the South Korean side told the Japanese side it was backing out 20 minutes before the signing ceremony), of governments of the Republic of Korea and Japan to sign a General Security Of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) perplexes me. Not because the United States government wants Japan and South Korea cooperating and the Times in the last two decades has become the lap dog of the Washington think tank establishment. What makes Washington unhappy makes the Times unhappy.

What perplexes me is how Washington so enwrapped itself in its own logic that it forgot the hurdles in the way of such an agreement. South Korean activists have been carrying out an almost parodic global war on things Japanese, publishing full-page broadsides about Dokdo to the confusion of the world's dwindling number of newspaper readers, expending energies trying to convince the world's cartographers to change the Sea of the Japan to the East Sea (East of where? Be specific. You are not England and this is not the 18th century. Even the Chinese do not get to call their favorite bodies of water the "the East Sea" and "the South Sea") and turning the sex slaves of the Japan Imperial Forces issue (E) into a bottomless chasm in between the two neighbors.

In order to overcome these domestic political hurdles to intelligence sharing with Japan, the government of ROK would need to be receiving from the GOJ cooperation of such a vital importance to South Korea's security that ROK authorities could just tell its critics to shut the fork up.

However, it seem there is nothing in the agreement that guarantees the government of the ROK gets anything from the GOJ (E) and/or vice-versa.

The GOJ knows after after the debacle of April 13 that it needs real time data on DPRK rocket launches. As for the government of the ROK, it probably wants everything the Maritime Self Defense Forces can tell it about what is going on under the surface of the waters around the ROK, anti-submarine warfare being the one area where the SDF has world-class capabilities.

However, the ROK military would be reticent sharing real time launch data with a non-ally. As for the GOJ side, sharing ASW information with anyone except the United States would go crashing against the current interpretations of Article 9 of the Constitution.

So effectively, a promise of nothing for nothing.

However, the situation for the ROK government is even worse than the above indicates.

First, the national interests of Japan and South Korea are not in sync. Japan wants to stay a non-nuclear state in a nuclear neighborhood with minimal impacts from the presence of U.S. forces and no part in American messianic adventurism. The South Koreans want self-determination for the peninsula even as it China's immense shadow grows. South Koreans lash out at the Japanese to turn attention away from their really problematic neighbor. Lashing out at Japan provides oxygen for the Japanese right wing's effort to revive Japan's ardor for military adventure, for seventy years after the fact, Japan's neighbors still hang on to outdated stereotypes. Respect, the right argues, flows from fear, and fear only comes through strength.

Perversely, signing GSOMIA makes the most sense if Japan is on a remilitarization course favored by Japan's right wing. If remilitarization of Japan has stalled, as it seems to have done, then chances are that Japan will never find the funding for the protocols, the training and the forces necessary to implement the minimal goals of the pact.

Besides, if the government of the ROK were to share sensitive information with Japan, which has no espionage law or law controlling the leakage of information, it would be taking a chance that what should be kept secret suddenly appears three weeks later in the pages of SAPIO or the Sankei Shimbun.

Finally, if an ROK official were to set sail against a sea of troubles and seek to share vital intelligence with the GOJ, whom would he/she call? Ministries in this blessed land do not talk to other ministries. Ministries do not share in a timely fashion with the Public Security Intelligence Agency or, Amaterasu forbid, the Prime Minister's Residence. At times, agencies inside ministries do not share information with the secretariats of that ministry.

So instead of wringing hands, consider a bullet dodged. For good or ill, the government of this blessed land has not prepared this land for participation in the Great Game.

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.

Questions About Chinese Intentions

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, With democracy in Myanmar seemingly moving forward as if mounted on a freight train and the Chinese vote in the UN Security Council yesterday in favor a resolution condemning the DPRK for its rocket launch last Friday, are we seeing the results of a reassessment by the Chinese government, even during a leadership transition year when policy changes are presumably destabilizing and thus verboten, of the policy of having Asian pariah states as its clients forming "a buffer zone around China" or giving access to the Indian Ocean and natural gas? Are dictatorial regimes that isolate states from the rest of the world and leave their citizens in dire poverty now seen as being more trouble than can be justified?

Just asking.

About That Other Failure

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Last Friday, the DPRK launched a rocket in commemoration of 100th birthday of the country's founder Kim Il-sung. U.S. thermal imaging satellites immediately detecting the ignition of the rocket's engines. Under information-sharing agreements worked out long ago between Japan and the United States, the launch detection warning .was relayed to the government of Japan. The U.S. information was immediately shared with Japan's Self Defense Forces, which were on high alert to detect, track and, if necessary, shoot down the rocket-- oops, I'm sorry, missile.

The service personnel on board three Aegis-class destroyers equipped with SM-3 missiles and the personnel at the ground based radar stations on Shimokoshikijima (E), Fukuejima and numerous other sites in Kyushu, northern Chugoku and Okinawa stared at their screens, waiting for the confirmation of the rocket's rise.

And they waited.

And they waited.

And they waited.

Funny thing about the Earth: it's curved. If some object blows up before it rises above your horizon, you are going to be waiting forever.

Both the Aegis destroyers in the East China Sea were cruising far to the south (having two in the Sea was a public relations stunt: in terms of missile defense and radar coverage, one was more than sufficient). The choice of positioning did provide greater protection to the Okinawa Islands but also did not upset the Chinese. It would have made more sense from an intelligence gathering standpoint to position one of the two destroyers in the north, closer to the launch site. Unfortunately, China tends to consider the northern part of the East China Sea and all of the Yellow Sea as a no-go area for all but the most intrepid of foreign naval powers.

So following Friday morning's launch, Japan was blind to a no-longer-existing-possible-threat. Which, when you think about it, is no big shakes.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Fujimura Osamu, the government spokesman and concurrently the government's COO, did not come out of the Security Council -- which he is a part of, meaning that he is somehow responsible for reporting to the public on a meeting he supposed to be attending -- until an hour after the launch to admit the fascinating but tentative possibility that a launch may have taken place.

All of which looks terribly bad and stupid, considering that U.S. and South Korean officials were making announcements of a launch having taken place within minutes of the launch's having taken place.

Predictably, the main opposition parties have gone to town on the "failure" of the government to keep the public informed in a timely manner about what was going on. The national official security threat system called J-Alert was never engaged. Government email communications even 50 minutes after the launch were saying that a launch had not been confirmed. In a bit of humorous bad luck resulting from the width of the computer screens of the government's official communications systems and the peculiarities of Japanese sentence structure, the message from the government read what is is the equivalent of:

"As for the launch of a missile, the current status is that a missile launch confirmation has

not happened."

Whatever hyperventilations about the Japanese government's lack of preparedness or bad execution emerge, three points:

1) With the rocket doing itself in, nobody was ever in a position to get hurt.

2) The SDF and the government followed prudent protocols, showing they had learned from the false positive report in 2009 that led to an unnecessary warning being passed on to local officials.

3) The ridiculousness of Fujimura's having had to have been in two places at once may fan into flame the ever-smouldering debate over the Cabinet's need for a dedicated spokesman.

Burning one of the five Special Advisor to the Prime Minister (shusho hosakan) positions in order to appoint an individual charged solely with providing information to the public was one of the few good ideas former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo brought with him when took over as prime minister. That the decision blew up in his face was due to his having chosen the shameless self-promoter Seko Hiroshige as his Special Advisor for public communications.

Ever since the Seko fiasco, no PM has been willing to repeat the experiment -- which is too bad, as the present arrangement has never been to the public's benefit in terms of providing comprehensive and comprehensible information. It has also in some cases become something of a power trip for the man (yes, only men so far) chosen to simultaneously wear two very important government hats, turning the Chief Cabinet Secretary into something of a Chief Cabinet Jerk.

Circumlocutions - Why It Has To Be A Missile

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Scholar Earl Kinmonth, who has very little tolerance for ungrounded concepts, has a post up on the SSJ Forum on the proliferation of phrases describing the North Korean launch vehicle as being "really a missile" -- with the emphasis on the adverb -- a subject I touched upon in my bantamweight post of Saturday.

Last night, NHK tried out a brand new phrase describing the DPRK launch vehicle:

人工衛星としている、実情にミサイル

"The what-is-in-reality-a-missile, acting out the part of an artificial satellite..."

On Saturday, I half out of facetiousness, half out of actual confusion, asked the reader to chose a potential force mandating these verbal tangles.

Yesterday, I played around with the idea that refusing to call the DPRK launch vehicle a "rocket" was a way of expressing contempt for the DPRK's history of sophistry and duplicity. However, that theory had a weakness in that it is hard to get everyone to share a feeling, even in a mass-market society with a strong conformist streak.

This morning I think I have it...and it is one these, "Duh, MTC, what else could it have been?" answers that leaves one thankful there is coffee for solace's sake:

Japanese media outlets do not call the North Korean rocket a rocket because if it were a rocket, then the Self Defense Forces could not shoot it down.

The Japanese government is a stickler about terminology most of the time. On defense and security issues, however, it is outright fanatical. Fall into any kind of linguistic fuzziness on security and one runs the risk of slamming right into the wall of Article 9 of the Constitution.

Ballistic missile defense (BMD) has been judged permissible under Article 9. The term is translated directly; in Japanese it is "dando misairu boei" (弾道ミサイル防衛). If one is to use BMD to bring down anything, that thing had better be a missile. Shooting at anything else would be unconstitutional.

So, as is so often the case with these tortured circumlocutions, the reasoning is transparently practical. Call it a missile and you can shoot at it. Call it anything else and you are left with nothing but watching and praying.

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?