Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Xerxes]

Amazing, I'm waking up slowly on my (Monday ) day off, and North Korea has up and

DETONATED A NUCLEAR DEVICE.

It has registered 4.0 on the Richter scale as measured in South Korea, so the device is small, smaller than the one detonated last time (4.4 on Richter Scale).

At the time last, many didn't believe such a small device could have been nuclear, but the ambient radioactivity detected confirmed the nuclear nature of the blast. I'm seeing this on TV and cannot find any written articles on this as of yet. Any written news in English or in any other media would be welcome.

They seemed to have set this off at 10 am local Korean time this Monday, May 25.

The timing of this is strange too: the suicide of NMH should have had the favorable effect for North Korea of South Korean society tearing itself apart, if not right away then in a bit more time. The nuclear test effectively casts the media eye on the blast and away from the suicide. The blast will have a unifying effect on South Korea, and probably the effect of the South Korean people rallying around the incumbent 2MB government and give justification for his hard-line stance against North Korea upto now.

What is Kim Jong-Il thinking? Or, is this blast a gambit on his part to silence his detractors in his own country and solidify his own power base and damn what the South Koreans do or how they react? Odd timing, and the North Koreans rarely pick a date for something like this without careful consideration.

It's interesting that N. Korea has developed such small nuclear devices. Just the right size for terrorist uses, rather than deterrent use.

[Manner of Speaking]

The timing does seem strange. It's possible that NK chose to do this today to put additional pressure and stress on LMB during the fallout from former President Roh's death.

Then again, it's possible that NK had been planning this for some time, and it was just a coincidence that they chose to test their device today...also, maybe it takes so much preparation and coordination to conduct a test that postponing it would have incurred unacceptable delays or costs.

What gets me...KJI has just handed LMB a perfect excuse to order all South Korean companies to close and pull out of the Kaesong industrial park. That is going to hurt North Korea more than it will hurt South Korea.

[Xerxes]

The Gaesung Industrial Complex issue is very relevant, and a very good point. That too suggests, as you say, for NOT testing the device now.

The logic not to test now being so clear makes me think that KJI did this test for internal purposes more than any other reason: If North Korea wanted Obama's attention, its best gambit in that regard was the "satellite" launch and the nuclear test would be not that much more effective in getting the US attention and the aid that it wanted.

If the timing makes no sense, I have the sinking feeling that it's an internal time clock motivating this detonation. The severity of the action "needed," as perceived by KJI or a rogue general in NK, makes me think that NK internal politics is very very volatile and may be a prelude to an implosion of the current regime, but in a messy refugees all over the map, last fits of aggression, type of implosion. And, now the last fits of aggression before and during implosion, could be very severe, it has shown.

But, back in 1994, when I was here, the US then was the closest to going military against N. Korea, but then nothing happened.

A very mysterious country and very opaque in predicting its actions.

[Xerxes]

Apparently, as an encore performance, the North has shot two long range missiles, one at noon and another at 5pm this afternoon.

This is the greatest level of saber rattling that the regime has ever done to date. Does that have a significance as in a clue to what is going on in the country? It seems an awful lot to do just to get Obama's attention.

Although, getting his bilateral meet with their Dear Leader would unequivocally shut up the detractors in his own country that he is losing control. If he got that, he would have "accomplished" much more than his dad ever did. It would show the North was a real "player" in the international community, a fulfillment of all of their heavy water wet dreams.

Or, he figures he's going to die anyway, what with the stroke he had last summer, so he wants to leave a "legacy," just a little sumthin to remember him by: an irradiated Korean peninsula.

The KOSPI index fell from about 1400 to 1310 at about 11:30 am, then recovered to 1409, a daily loss of 2 points. I guess the Korean stock market, at least the local buyers, didn't think much of the stunt?!

[The Great Wall of Whiner]

[Robot_Teacher]

Makes me wonder where they're going with this. Is the USA financing them in humanitarian aid like how Korea is doing? Are they just intimidating Korea and the US for more aid? The thing that is very different this time is they didn't announce ahead of time what they did today unlike all the previous times they were going to do something intimidating. This goes to show they're pulling the surprise strategy rabbit out of the hat. I know I just don't want to get caught in the middle of a nasty surprise.

Do they need they butts kicked? Are they actually still more powerful than South Korea in terms of military capacity?

[mises]

I suppose now we have to freak out and "do something" about the DPRK. The useless pundits are sharpening their pencils, the academics are readying their conferences. Here we go..

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

This will all keep going on until the US has something like this.

http://orbitalvector.com/Space%20Weapons/Orbital%20Bombardment/rods%20from%20god.jpg

[Xerxes]

Well, they certainly don't want to invade Korea or even Japan: who would be stupid enough to announce an invasion in such a dramatic way so that a vastly superior force can have their warships off of DPRK's coast shortly thereafter.

They don't want to return to the Six Party talks because the "donations" have been meager and have required much humiliating handwringing, to the likes of Japan for example, which it detests.

They want a face-to-face meet with a US President to score not only big concessions but a propaganda slam dunk. The meet would immediately quiet any dissention in KJI's own country, and there seem to be many (remember how KJI changed the venue of meeting Roh Moo Hyun at the last minute? Apparently, it was speculated, because he had enemies who wouldn't mind hanging his head on their wall as a trophy for a regime change, among other possibilities). It would allow his starving countrymen to tighten their belts and believe in him, in a moment or many years longer, he would hope, of suspended disbelief in the prospects of their country. The press he would get abroad would convince any potential buyers of DPRK missile/nuclear technology, our friendly global terrorist hoard, to take him seriously, and the stuff would go flying off the shelves, pretty much selling themselves. Time is on DPRK's side.

That last is the problem though. The easy answer is Obama conceding, "So what?": so what if KJI has a victory lap at my expense? At least, it'll keep the global village idiot in his place, and we can do a lot, like the PSI scheme, to keep the half-dead crone from selling the stuff. That's all fine and good, but what if the DPRK people finally get free? They would blame the good ole US of A for being complicit in their capture and exploitation. It would be bad press. Ok, it is only a small group of people after all, so maybe it's ok. Maybe if we meet the idiot, it'll buy us time for us think of a plan B. Since, after all, maybe PSI would work, maybe not. The US has really nothing to gain from the meet, only much to lose. Attacking/invading North Korea isn't an option, because it will be obvious to all the other countries too that North Korea had no intention at invasion, what with a nuclear bomb detonation and at least 4 missiles shot on the same day. An over-the-top performance like that could only be interpreted like that by many. And the US wouldn't want any more such humiliations after the wonders of invading Iraq and Afghanistan.

If KJI got the mano a mano talk with Obama, the former may just be so happy to give up the nukes after all. But that's a big if. Getting the meet may just be big enough a score for the man that he actually might: it would solve a whole slew of his problems and maybe support his son's succession after him too to boot, or at least give the poor boy a running start with the propaganda blaring full force as the son of the architect that put the puny communist corner store on the global map.

But then, KJI may never give up the one ace, and it would be his prerogative, after all, to do so. He hasn't given up much in the past and done pretty well anyway. Why, in the world, should he ever start to do so just when things are looking on the up and up? Just when things are finally going his way?

That's why Obama isn't meeting with him, and I hope he isn't even entertaining the idea. A CNN dude correspondent, I don't recall his name, made an observation today that was very insightful: he said that China, more so than any other country in the Six Party talks and maybe anywhere else in the world, knows the North Korean position all too well. It itself was in it before. Isolated, economically and industrially backward, no one at the old boys table giving them even an acknowledgement that they exist. But, China changed. It opened up, it industrialized, it reinvented itself. China is the key.

The problem, however, is that China isn't willing to give up its buffer country for a possibility of a direct-contact border with a US presence in South Korea, and North Korea isn't nearly as big, populous, or gifted in natural resources to pull off the trick China has near perfected.

If North Korea can be coaxed to come to table with its face intact, it just might be willing to give up its nukes, behave, and learn some table manners. Or, like 2MB, we could just wait for North Korea to implode, or wait for an act of God or the US to clean this mess up. In fact, I have no idea if 2MB has a strategy on this at all. He has to know that North Korea is not willing to come begging with hat in hand for the hand out that he says he is willing and happy to give?

All the while, China drags its feet since it too realizes North Korea isn't going to invade anyone anytime soon, and hey, the neighborhood bad boy makes them, the newly reformed thug, seem like a prince in comparison. And North Korea makes its surreptitious sales on the side, just enough to make the project pay for itself and be sustainable.

This is an impasse with North Korea only looking more clever and the US looking only more idiotic in the process. After all, why is the superpower struggling so stupidly with this diminutive irritation?

I've thought about this a lot and I can't see a solution out of the tangle. Maybe a messy implosion is the only sane answer? I certainly hope not. Doing what Roh Moo Hyun and KDJ did with the Sunshine nonsense seems fruitless with no end game in sight. As long as China exists, North Korea will too. When USSR folded, East Germany folded too. East Germany is not a model that can be followed in this situation therefore: China is not closing shop anytime soon holding so much cash in its economic mitts. Many make the comparison, but the comparison is not helpful.

Any suggestions? I have yet to see some real good ideas on the subject in news print or online.

[semi-fly]

Will this latest exercise in foolishness detract potential teachers from coming to Korea? What was the general consensus of the expat community back in 2006 when the first bomb went off?

[Rteacher]

Posts on this thread up to this point don't seem to acknowledge how powerful the latest test was ...

Russia's Defense Ministry confirmed an atomic explosion occurred early Monday in northeastern North Korea and estimated that its strength was similar to bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090526/ap_on_re_us/un_koreas

And those were strong enough to end WWII ...

[mises]

[chris_J2]

USGS are reporting 4.7 at around 10:26 am on Monday, South Korea time: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2009hbaf.php#summary

[juskajo]

so... call me a paranoid retard, but at what point should we waygooks get the hell out of here?

[chris_J2]

I was in South Korea in October 2006, & nothing happened. Just a lot of saber rattling. The South Korean Army put on a show for bravado, around the DMZ area, where I was living at the time. It had blown over within a week. I found out the address of my consulate in Seoul, just in case, but never needed to contact them.

China, the USA & the UN are all condemning the tests, in unison. If China was supporting the DPRK, then I'd be worried.