IT'S NOT THEIR MAYBE NUKES TO BE AFRAID OF

Commentary: Dealing with North Korea’s dangerous cyber threat

By Bruce Klinger The Heritage Foundation | Friday, September 3, 2021

North Korea appears to have restarted its nuclear reactor, enabling it to augment its ongoing production of approximately seven or more nuclear weapons per year. Pyongyang’s missiles and nuclear weapons have long garnered fear, international condemnation, and tough sanctions.

The regime’s cyber activities, however, have elicited less response, despite their repeated attacks on governments, financial institutions and industries.

What started as rudimentary denial-of-service attacks against South Korea has been expanded into a robust array of disruptive military, financial and espionage capabilities with global reach. The regime’s cyber guerrilla warfare has stolen classified military secrets, engaged in cyberterrorism, absconded with billions of dollars in money and cyber-currency, held computer systems hostage and inflicted extensive damage on computer networks.

Its targets have ranged from nuclear power plants and other critical infrastructure to telecommunications, media and corporations. Following the onset of COVID, Pyongyang even trained its cyber-weapons on pharmaceutical companies developing COVID vaccines.

Pyongyang’s cyber protection rackets refrain from attacking entities in return for payment. Its cyber retaliation squads attack those who oppose the regime or demean its leaders. The most notable of the latter was the 2014 Sony hack inflicting financial damage on the company while threatening “9/11 style” attacks against any theater showing the movie “The Interview,” which ridiculed leader Kim Jong Un.

North Korea’s cyber weapons and tactics are consistent with its asymmetric military strategy. As the regime’s conventional military forces deteriorated in comparison with those of the United States and South Korea, Pyongyang developed new weapons to counter the growing gap in capabilities, including nuclear weapons, missiles and cyber operations.

North Korean strategists have designated cyberspace as “the fifth major battlefield” along with ground, air, sea and space. Kim describes cyber warfare is a “magic weapon” and an “all-purpose sword.”

North Korea’s cyber operations are also consistent with the regime’s long history of using criminal activities to acquire money. In recent years, Pyongyang prioritized financial targets to evade international sanctions and augment the regime’s coffers for its nuclear and missile programs. Cybercrimes are more lucrative and cost-effective than its longstanding criminal activities (counterfeiting and supplying slave labor) and its more recent practices of smuggling and illicit ship-to-ship transfers of oil.

Compared to these other criminal enterprises, cybercrimes are quite low-risk. They are difficult to detect, and there is little likelihood of international retribution.

All of which has made cybercrime a big business in the Hermit Kingdom. North Korea was estimated to be responsible for 65 percent of all global cybercrime in 2017-2018. In August 2019, the United Nations estimated that Pyongyang had cumulatively gained $2 billion from cybercrime. Some experts now assess that North Korean cybercrimes may generate $1 billion a year — a third of the value of the nation’s exports.

North Korean hackers have proved adept at deeply penetrating even highly secure computer networks of governments, militaries, banks and international financial transaction systems, as well as critical infrastructure targets. It is certainly possible — many would say likely — that Pyongyang’s cyber warriors could inflict tremendous damage during a crisis or hostilities on the Korean Peninsula.

Nor is America safe from their predations. The U.S. intelligence community assesses that North Korea is one of the top four cyber threats capable of launching “disruptive or destructive cyberattacks” against the United States. In other words, Pyongyang has the potential to engage in cyber warfare with disproportionately massive impact — a cyber 9/11, if you will.

North Korea could paralyze critical infrastructure systems such as communications, dams, electrical grids, hospitals, nuclear power plants, supply chains and traffic-control systems. It could steal massive amounts of money or undermine the stability of the international financial system or worldwide markets. It could also conduct ransomware attacks on banks to gain money, flood the system with fraudulent transactions, or disable or destroy financial computer networks.

To date, however, neither the UN nor the U.S. have imposed many sanctions or taken other legal actions against North Korean cyber groups or the foreign countries that give them safe haven to operate and launder their ill-gotten money. The United States, in conjunction with foreign governments and the private sector, needs to augment cyber defenses and respond more forcefully to attacks.

Failure to do so enables North Korea to continue undermining the effectiveness of international sanctions and leaves the United States and its partners exposed to a potentially devastating cyberattack in the future.

A senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, Bruce Klingner previously served as the CIA’s deputy division chief for analysis of Korea.

A TALE OF TWO KOREAS
S.Korea's disgraced ex-president Park freed after nearly 5 years in prison

FILE PHOTO: S.Korea's disgraced ex-president Park freed after nearly 5 years in prison

Thu, December 30, 2021
By Hyonhee Shin

SEOUL (Reuters) - Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye was released from prison on Friday nearly five years after being convicted of corruption, fuelling debate over whether she would play any role ahead of a March presidential election.

Park, 69, was the country's first democratically elected leader to be thrown out of office when the Constitutional Court upheld a parliament vote in 2017 to impeach her over a scandal that also led to the imprisonment of the chiefs of two conglomerates, Samsung and Lotte.

South Korea's top court in January upheld a 20-year prison sentence imposed after Park was found guilty of colluding with a friend, who is also in jail, to receive tens of billions of won from the companies, mostly to fund her friend's family and non-profit foundations.

President Moon Jae-in granted a special pardon to Park last week, citing her deteriorating health and expressing hope to "overcome unfortunate past history and promote national unity".

Justice ministry officials delivered the pardon to Park at the hospital where she has been staying for a month at midnight on Thursday, the Yonhap news agency reported, adding she remained there on Friday. The hospital declined to comment.

Her lawyer has said Park, the daughter of a former military ruler, had offered an apology for causing public concern and thanked Moon for making a "tough decision".

Park's release comes as her old party, the main opposition conservative People Power Party, and Moon's Democratic Party are in a tight presidential race.

Her imprisonment divided the country, with right-wing, pro-Park groups staging weekly rallies to denounce Moon and his policies and call for Park's release, until COVID-19 distancing rules stifled the rallies last year.

Hundreds of Park's supporters braved freezing temperatures to flock to the hospital where she was staying late on Thursday to celebrate her release, with more than 1,000 bouquets of flowers arriving.

About 200 people held a protest in downtown Seoul against her release, Yonhap reported.

It was not clear if Park would resume any political activity but she said in a memoir released on Thursday that her conviction was politically motivated and she expressed hopes to "meet the people again one day".

People Power's presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol, who investigated the Park scandal as prosecutor-general, said on Friday he had done his job as a public servant, adding he would like to visit Park when her health improved.

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Robert Birsel)

N.Korea's Kim talks food not nukes for 2022


North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks during the Eighth Conference of Military Educationists of the Korean People's Army at the April 25 House of Culture in Pyongyang


Fri, December 31, 2021
By Josh Smith

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un capped off his 10th year in power with a speech that made more mention of tractor factories and school uniforms than nuclear weapons or the United States, according to summaries by state media on Saturday.

North Korea's main goals for 2022 will be jump starting economic development and improving people's lives as it faces a "great life-and-death struggle," Kim said in a speech on Friday at the end of the 4th Plenary Meeting of the 8th Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), which began on Monday.

The meetings coincided with the 10-year anniversary of Kim effectively assuming leadership of the country after the death of his father in 2011.

Kim has used previous speeches around the New Year to make major policy announcements, including launching significant diplomatic engagements with South Korea and the United States.

But summaries of his speech published in North Korean state media made no specific mention of the United States, with only a passing reference to unspecified discussions of inter-Korean relations and "external affairs."

The domestic focus of the speech underscored the economic crises Kim faces at home, where self-imposed anti-pandemic border lockdowns have left North Korea more isolated than ever before.

"The basic tasks facing the part and the people the next year are to provide a firm guarantee for implementing the five-year plan and make remarkable changes in the national development and the people's living," Kim was quoted as saying.

Kim spent the majority of his speech detailing domestic issues from an ambitious plan for rural development to people's diets, school uniforms and the need to crack down on "non-socialist practices."

He cited unspecified military advancements as a major achievement of the past year and discussed "militant tasks" facing national defence in 2022. The tractor factory he discussed in the speech is also likely to be used to build launch vehicles for missiles, foreign analysts have said, and North Korea is believed to have expanded its arsenal despite the lockdowns.

The big focus on rural development is likely a populist strategy, said Chad O'Carroll, founder of NK News, a Seoul-based website that tracks North Korea.

"Overall, Kim might be aware that revealing sophisticated military development plans while people are suffering food shortages and harsh conditions outside of Pyongyang might not be such a good idea this year," he wrote on Twitter.

(Reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Chris Reese)

Unidentified person enters North Korea from South in rare border breach: Seoul
Issued on: 02/01/2022


Demilitarized Zone Laurence CHU AFP

Seoul (AFP) – An unidentified person entered North Korea from the South on New Year's Day, the military in Seoul said Sunday, a rare breach of the heavily fortified border between the neighbours.

Years of repression and poverty in North Korea have led more than 30,000 people to flee to the South in the decades since the Korean War, but crossings in the other direction are extremely rare.

The person was detected by surveillance equipment in the Demilitarised Zone -- which divides the Korean peninsula -- at 9:20 pm local time on Saturday, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Sunday.

It sparked a search operation by the military, but to no avail.

"It was confirmed the person crossed the Military Demarcation Line into the North," it added.

The person has not been identified yet, a JCS official told reporters, adding South Korean authorities sent a message to the North on Sunday regarding the incident.

No unusual activity by the North Korean military has been detected, he said.

In 2020, North Korean troops shot dead and burned the body of a South Korean fisheries official Pyongyang said had illegally crossed the maritime border.

In the same year, a North Korean who had defected to the South three years earlier sneaked back across the heavily fortified border.

His crossing prompted North Korean officials to put the border city of Kaesong under lockdown over fears he may have the coronavirus.

The vast majority of North Korean who escape first go to China before making their way to the South, usually via another country.

Only a few have dared to cross the DMZ, which is riddled with landmines and has a heavy military presence on both sides.

© 2022 AFP

North Korea confirms most powerful missile test since 2017

PROVING THEY HAVE ULTRA HIGH EXPOSIVES 

(NOT NUKES)

A combo picture released from North Korea's state-media KCNA shows the test-fire of a Hwasong 12 intermediate-range ballistic missile 

(AFP/STR)


Sunghee Hwang, Cat BARTON
Sun, January 30, 2022, 9:11 PM·3 min read

North Korea confirmed Monday it had fired its most powerful missile since 2017, capping a month-long blitz of launches that has raised the spectre of leader Kim Jong Un restarting nuclear tests.

Pyongyang conducted a record seven weapons tests in January, the most ever in a calendar month, as it threatened to abandon a self-imposed moratorium on launching long-range and nuclear weapons, blaming US "hostile" policy for forcing its hand.

North Korean state media said Monday that the country had test-fired a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile, last launched in 2017, which is powerful enough to put the US territory of Guam in range.

The test "confirmed the accuracy, security and effectiveness of the operation of the Hwasong 12-type weapon system under production," the official Korean Central News Agency said Monday.

The test was conducted in a manner that ensured the "security of neighbouring countries," KCNA said.

State media released images purportedly taken by a warhead-mounted camera while it was in space, and others showing the missile blasting off from land. There was no mention of whether leader Kim attended the launch.

South Korea said the Sunday test was of an "intermediate range ballistic missile" that flew around 800 kilometres (497 miles) and reached a maximum altitude of 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles).

With the launch, Pyongyang has "come close to destroying the moratorium declaration," South Korean President Moon Jae-In said after an emergency National Security Council meeting Sunday.

Moon noted the North was showing a "similar pattern" to 2017, when it raised regional tensions by launching intermediate range missiles and following them up with intercontinental ballistic missile tests.

In 2017, the launch of the Hwasong-12 was quickly followed by the test-firing of the Hwasong-15, an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) which is powerful enough to hit the US mainland, said Hong Min of the Korea Institute for National Unification.

With the Sunday launch of the Hwasong-12, North Korea is "signaling the possibility of an ICBM launch and an imminent destruction of the moratorium," he said in a note.

- 'Addicted' to weapons -

With peace talks with Washington stalled, North Korea has doubled down on Kim's vow to modernise the regime's armed forces, flexing Pyongyang's military muscles despite biting international sanctions.

Domestically, North Korea is preparing to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the birth of late leader Kim Jong Il in February, as well as the 110th birthday of founder Kim Il Sung in April.

With reports of soaring food prices and worsening hunger, an economically-reeling Pyongyang may be looking for a quick win, said Lim Eul-chul, a professor of North Korean studies at Kyungnam University in Seoul.

"He's addicted to advanced weapons," he said, referring to Kim Jong Un.

"He sees success in the military sector as the best weapon to restore his pride and elevate his status as a leader and of the nation to the highest level," he said.

North Korea was trying to build up its advanced missiles and weaponry to the extent that the US would be forced to "surrender" to Pyongyang's demands, he said.

"This is completely different from the past pattern of trying to create a favourable dialogue by attracting Washington's attention," he added.

The string of launches in 2022 comes at a delicate time in the region, with Kim's sole major ally China set to host the Winter Olympics next month and South Korea gearing up for a presidential election in March.

sh-ceb/ssy

ULTRA HIGH EXPLOSIVES NOT NUKES
Analysis-N.Korea looks to risky pre-fuelled missiles to reduce launch time

 A view of what state news agency KCNA reports is the test firing of a hypersonic missile at an undisclosed location

Mon, January 10, 2022, 10:59 PM·3 min read
By Josh Smith

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea's recent claims of testing hypersonic weapons overshadowed its pursuit of a potentially risky rocket fuel system that analysts say could allow the nuclear-armed state to deploy and launch its missiles faster during a war.

Most of the country's largest ballistic missiles use liquid fuel, which typically requires them to be loaded with propellant at their launch site before they can be fired - a time-consuming step that makes them easier to spot and destroy.

Pyongyang has also pursued solid-fuel technology, but so far most of those engines have been used on smaller, short-range missiles.

Recent tests suggest North Korean military scientists are pursuing a third option: a "missile fuel ampoule" system to seal the liquid propellant and oxidizer tanks within the missile's airframe, allowing them to be fuelled at the factory and ready to use.

"This would obviate the need for in-field fuelling, which could increase the responsiveness of North Korean liquid propellant missiles," said Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "They are still quite a ways off from switching to an all-solid force so this could be a useful interim pursuit."

North Korea said it first used such ampoules in September, when it claimed to have tested its first hypersonic missile, capable of carrying a warhead that can glide at more than five times the speed of sound.

At the time, state media quoted a top official discussing the significance of "turning all missile fuel systems into ampoules."

That suggests North Korea "intends to continue to retain and improve its liquid-propellant ballistic missile force for the long term rather than shift to an all-solid force," said 38 North, a Washington-based organisation that monitors North Korea.

The same type of rocket booster with an ampoule system may have been used last week in a second hypersonic test. North Korea launched another missile on Tuesday, but technical details on the type of rocket involved were not immediately available.

'DRIVING AROUND WITH A BOMB'

The volatility of the fuel-storage system the North Koreans are pursuing casts doubt on its military usefulness, said Markus Schiller, a missile expert based in Europe.

Those rocket engines use nitrogen tetroxide (NTO) as an oxidizer and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) as fuel. Both are highly toxic as well as "hypergolic," which means they react violently when in contact with each other.

That explosion is channelled through a nozzle to power the rocket. But the chemicals can be highly vulnerable to shocks and temperature.

"You are driving around with a bomb," Schiller said. "The moment the missile tanks rupture because you hit a pothole, or because someone shoots at the missile, all will be gone in a thick red cloud."

NTO, meanwhile, freezes at -11°C (12.2°F) and starts boiling at +21°C.

"If you are sitting in the woods on a Korean winter night... waiting for launch command, the NTO will freeze in your pipes, and start freezing in your tanks. Your missile will blow up at launch," Schiller said. "Also, you don't want to risk launching a missile on hot summer days, with the oxidizer boiling in the tank."

North Korea said the Wednesday test verified the "reliability of fuel ampoule system under the winter weather conditions", suggesting it is seeking to ensure the stability of such systems.

Unlike most other countries that have used such a system, North Korea does not appear to be using canisters to protect and insulate the missiles.

"This seems to confirm that 'ampoulization' is not canisterization but akin to the Soviet/Russian practice of preloading submarine-launched ballistic missiles with propellants at the factory and maintaining the fuelled missile as a sealed unit for loading into the launcher," 38 North concluded in a report on Friday.

The report said that developing more stable propellants would allow missiles to remain fuelled on a day-to-day basis.

(Reporting by Josh Smith. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Success North Korean Style

This is a curious definition of success.....

"The successful missile test was part of a regular military exercise conducted by our military to boost our self-defence," Yonhap news agency quoted a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying on KRT state TV. Defiant North Korea vows to fire more missiles

Except the missles fell short, crashing into the sea of Japan. Strange definition of success.

But being one of the last post-Stalin autarky's perhaps this was good old capitalism at play. State capitalism that is, marketing its only export.

North Korea’s test-launch of several types of missile Wednesday was an export blitz, some experts say. Missile exports are one of Pyongyang’s few sources of hard currency since the heavily militarized nation has precious few other export industries. North Korea has been exporting Scud missiles to the Middle East and Africa for up to US$4 million a pop. Pyongyang's Missile Launch 'Was Sales Pitch'

Of course there are those who see this as a more sinister geopolitcs Kim-Jong -il style. And they wouldn't be wrong. Still the point is the same. It was a sales show.

One, if the missiles are fired directly at the U.S., it may lead to misperception on the part of Washington, and Pyongyang may be faced with an unintended situation (of a U.S. military strike). Instead, by targeting the U.S.’s greatest ally, Japan, North Korea can influence Japanese public opinion to exert pressure on the U.S. This is why the North fired but blew up mid-way the missile that can reach U.S. mainland. Although the analysis from the U.S. is that Pyongyang’s last test-launch did not succeed, it is unlikely to be a failure. Through the launch, North Korea clearly showed the U.S. it has the capability to reach U.S. mainland, and then exploded the missile at mid-stage. Pyongyang will now be watching how public opinion in Japan will be formed, and whether this will exert pressure on the U.S. to engage in direct dialogue with North Korea.[Guest Column] Kim Jong-il’s Missile Crisis Strategy

Unfortunately further tests or even the sales of missles, say to Iran, will only cause the USA to increase its military spending on Son of Star Wars; BMD.

Everett Dolman, a professor at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, said the U.S. is not in a position to protect itself from a surprise missile attack."Right now, the U.S. has an immature system capable of protecting a few locations with questionable reliability," he said. "With American military forces stretched thin in the global war on terror and funding for the services in a downward spiral, it seems unlikely that America can field a reliable defense against a North Korean missile attack in the next half decade or more. Expert: Missiles real threat to US

Of course that may be part of the clever ploy of China to allow its puppet regime to further drive the US into debt to its largest creditor. Nah.....

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US and South Korea Agree to Co-Design Nuclear Weapons Policy 5 Years After Panmunjom Declaration

by Andy Corbley Posted onApril 28, 2023

The US will work alongside South Korea to develop a strategic nuclear policy and frequently station nuclear weapon-armed submarines on the peninsula, according to an agreement announced by the White House marking the first visit of the new South Korean president to the US.

Released on Wednesday, before the East Room was festooned with guests watching President Yoon Suk-yeol sing The Day the Music Died karaoke style, it marks the first time that US nuclear warheads will be present on the Korean Peninsula since they were removed in 1991, and the first outright departure from commitments to reduce the reliance on deterrence with nuclear weapons.

It also came, unlikely by chance, on the 5-year anniversary of the signing of the Panmunjom Declaration between former President Moon Jae-in and Chairman Kim Jung-un.

That was the closest the Korean Peninsula had come to peace since the Korean War was concluded with a ceasefire in 1953, and the closest to a denuclearized Korea since the North first got the bomb sometime between when it left the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 2003, and its first detonation in 2006.

“US officials said the nuclear-armed submarines will only ‘visit’ South Korea and that the US won’t permanently deploy nukes to the country,” reports Antiwar news editor Dave DeCamp. “But under the deal, the temporary deployment of US strategic assets to the peninsula will become much more frequent”.

The deal stipulates that South Korea will not seek to individually obtain nuclear weapons, something which President Yoon mused about earlier in his presidency, but which the Blue House walked back.

Atoms for survival

The North Korean state is often referred to as “rogue” vis-à-vis the international community. But they aren’t madmen or fools. They knew the only way their regime could survive Washington’s unipolar moment following the collapse of their Soviet benefactors was to harness the power of the atom bomb.

The easiest comparison to make to understand their thinking is looking at the current North Korean dictatorship, which got nukes and is still around, and compare it to the Libyan dictatorship, which had chemical weapons, got rid of them around the same time that North Korea left the NPT to pursue nukes, and was overthrown by America under Obama.

South Korea on the other hand has for some time polled strongly in favor of establishing independent nuclear capabilities, and the New York Times suggests that Yoon is looking to assuage those in favor with this cooperative strategy with the US – amounting to what is essentially a carbon-copy of the NATO nuclear weapons sharing agreement.

South Korea is part of the NPT, so in principle there’s no reason to think public pressure could change the status quo there. North Korea is the only country that‘s ever left the NPT having first ratified it.

The bigger concern should be, with nuclear weapons coming in and out of harbor in the South, to what degree does this agreement escalate tensions, reduce the future chances for better North-South cooperation, and increase the risk of a nuclear accident?

There’s always a risk when nuclear weapons are present in a geopolitical conflict zone, but with the existing conventional forces aimed at the North, the deterrence against a disarming nuclear first strike by Kim Jung-UN remains high.

Countering Trump

What is always the biggest risk, and what Daniel Ellsberg details so well in his 2021 book The Doomsday Machine, is the risk in these situations for a nuclear accident, or an unauthorized launch, particularly in the midst of other crises and communications disruptions.

On this front, the greater presence of nuclear weapons on the peninsula will do nothing to make the peninsula safer for the North and the South.

Much was made at the White House about the date being the 70th anniversary of the first alliance between the South Koreans and the US.

What the deal more likely represents is an attempt to rubber-stamp the military-industrial complex’s rejection of former President Trump’s notion, a notion that was realized five years ago today, that the way in which the peninsula could be made safer is through reduced sanctions, reduced military drills and buildup, and more cross-Korean dialogue.

With Donald Trump and Joe Biden having already announced their candidacies for the 2024 Presidential Election, making the American people’s latest memory of the stalemate in Korea be Yoon singing karaoke after agreeing to allow more US military involvement in the peninsula, is how the Biden team believes they can erase any memories of what was certainly one of the most significant events in the Trump presidency – that like Alexander the Great, he was almost able to cut the Gordian Knot of the Korean War.

The pictures of Trump, President Moon, and Chairman Kim shaking hands and crossing the turquoise border on the DMZ, and the later images of Kim clasping hands with Moon in the Blue House, having just signed an agreement to formally end the Korean War and begin talks on a stepwise disarmament effort, were exceptionally powerful images that sat on the front pages of every major news outlet on the planet for a week.

It’s a legacy that Biden hoped no doubt to erase with this recent agreement. More his part, Biden made a point in a statement on the meeting that he remains committed to negotiation with the North, and invites them back to the table. But that’s a lie, or at least foolish to say, because he’s “committed” absolutely nothing to the effort; not as president, nor as a senator.

Andrew Corbley is founder and editor of World at Large, an independent news outlet. He is a loyal listener of Antiwar radio and of the Scott Horton Show. Reprinted with permission from World at Large.

North Korea Discovers TNT

Was it really a nuclear blast? The actual explosive material has been claimed to be less than 1 kl.tonne and no more than 4 kl.tonnes. Which can be created with conventional TNT. So like their failed missle test was this another fient? A conventional explosion made to appear as a nuclear blast?! To get the US to the bargaining table? That was the case in 2004.





Success, failure or bluff? Scientists pore over data

US intelligence says detected 'sub-kilotonne' blast in North Korea

Success, failure or bluff? Scientists pore over data

Low Yield Of Blast Surprises Analysts

Experts question North Korea's test claim

N Korea N-test more fizz than pop: US agencies





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UN chief warns that rise in global distrust and improvements in nukes are ‘recipe for annihilation’

ASSOCIATED PRESS • August 30, 2023

United Nations General Secretary António Guterres addresses a news conference during the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023.

 (Themba Hadebe/AP)


UNITED NATIONS — An alarming rise in global distrust and division coupled with efforts by countries to improve the accuracy and destructive power of nuclear weapons is "a recipe for annihilation," the United Nations chief warned Tuesday.

In a statement marking the International Day Against Nuclear Tests, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that with nearly 13,000 nuclear weapons stockpiled around the world, "a legally binding prohibition on nuclear tests is a fundamental step in our quest for a world free of nuclear weapons."

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty has 196 member states — 186 have signed it and 178 have ratified it, including eight in the last 18 months. But the pact has taken effect because it needs ratification by the eight nations that had nuclear power reactors or research reactors when the U.N. General Assembly adopted the treaty in 1996.

At a high-level meeting of the 193-member assembly to observe the day there was no indication that those eight countries — the United States, China, Egypt, Iran, Israel, North Korea, India and Pakistan — were moving toward ratification.

Iranian diplomat Heidar Ali Balouji said his country "shares the frustration of non-nuclear weapon states against any delays in ending nuclear testing," but he made no mention of ratifying the treaty. He said that "the cornerstone for ridding the world of nuclear threats" rests squarely with countries with nuclear weapons.

U.N. disarmament chief Izumi Nakamitsu told delegates she stood before them "with a sense of urgency" because while the treaty has provided the foundation for "the global taboo against nuclear testing," trends are undermining it.

"The rising tide of nuclear risk threatens to engulf the hard-won gains in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation achieved over the last three decades," she said. "This includes the gains made against the testing of nuclear weapons" which has been done only by North Korea in the 21st century.

Robert Floyd, head of the U.N. nuclear test ban treaty organization, said, "Globally we're facing challenging, worrying times." But, he added, "Momentum towards universality is increasing: Recently, both Somalia and South Sudan made public commitments to sign and ratify the treaty."

The Netherlands' U.N. ambassador, Yoka Brandt, speaking on behalf of 28 mainly Western nations, said it is of "vital importance and urgency" to have the treaty enter into force.


Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its "threats of nuclear use and testing seriously undermine" and negatively affect disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation efforts, he said.

The group, where the United States is an observer, also condemned North Korea's six nuclear tests since 2006 "in the strongest terms" and expressed deep concern that Pyongyang is reportedly preparing for a seventh test, Brandt said.

European Union Charge d' Affaires Silvio Gonzato said Russia's announcement of its readiness to conduct a nuclear test is inconsistent with its ratification of the treaty, "and risks undermining confidence in the treaty in these turbulent times."

The EU also demands that North Korea comply with U.N. Security Council sanctions banning any nuclear testing, saying that the North "cannot and will never have the status of a nuclear weapon state," Gonzato said.

The date to protest nuclear testing commemorates the closing of the former Soviet Union's nuclear test site at Semipalatinsk, now part of Kazakhstan, on Aug. 29, 1991.

Kazakhstan's U.N. ambassador, Akan Rakhmetullin, reminded the world's diplomats that following the first atomic bomb detonation in 1945, "at least eight nations have carried out a total of 2,056 nuclear tests, around one-quarter of them in the atmosphere, causing severe long-term harm and suffering to humanity and the entire planet."

Kazakhstan is "extremely anxious" over increasing geopolitical tensions, threats to use nuclear weapons and "the trend towards nuclear sharing, which can lead to further proliferation and weapons accumulation," he said.

Ambassador Teburoro Tito of the tiny Pacific island nation of Kiribati said the United States and Britain carried out 33 nuclear tests on Kiritimati, its atoll also known as Christmas Island, in the 1950s and 1960s.

The tests left a "tragic legacy" for the atoll's 500 residents who received little protection, Tito said. Many complained afterward of untreatable illnesses and health complications, "most of which resulted in death," he said. There were numerous cases of cancer, congenital disabilities and abnormalities with newborn babies, he said.

Tito urged the U.S. and United Kingdom to support citizens of Kiritmati who "continue to suffer from not only physical medical problems caused by radiation exposure, but also post traumatic and intergenerational harm from these weapons of mass destruction."

Nyah, Nyah

With fingers in their ears the North Koreans defied the world. North Korea says it successfully performed its first-ever nuclear test

While Iran only wishes it could.Iran: Sanctions Threat a 'Rusty' Weapon

And all this gamesmanship would be unnecessary if the Americans would only agree to face to face negotiations with both countries.Iran to negotiate deals with US companies if sanctions dropped

Wait a minute this was North Korea's first ever nuclear test...you mean they had untested nuclear weapons? We were worried about untested untried nuclear weapons.


See:

Iran

North Korea



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No Nukes

Our PM denounces nukes in North Korea but remains silent about that other rogue nation that has nukes and does not belong to the Non-Proliferation Pact; India.

Opps thats right we sold them the nuclear reactors.

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Hiroshima, ‘Oppenheimer’ and the New Age of Nuclear Terror

North Korea is testing more missiles, Iran is rushing for a bomb, India and Pakistan are renewing the arms race — things are getting as scary as the Cold War.

 

N KOREA DO NOT HAVE NUKES

Falling out.Source: Pictorial Parade/Getty Images

By Max Hastings
August 5, 2023 

Suddenly, on this 78th anniversary of the dropping of “Little Boy” on Hiroshima by Colonel Paul Tibbets’ Enola Gay, we are again being forced to think about The Bomb. Millions of people are flocking to see Christopher Nolan’s new biopic Oppenheimer, which concludes with its protagonist’s gloomy assertion to Albert Einstein that, through the creation of atomic weapons, mankind signed its own death warrant.

Meanwhile, North Korea last month tested a new ballistic missile. Iran seems set on a course that is almost certain to end in its possession of nuclear arms. Russian President Vladimir Putin routinely rattles his nuclear saber, most recently over redeploying some of his nation’s many missiles to neighboring ally Belarus.

Less noticed by the world, in Asia three nuclear powers — China, India and Pakistan — are committing serious resources to strengthening their capabilities. Ashley Tellis’s authoritative 2022 book Striking Asymmetries explains that until recently, the Asian nations were content with a posture of minimal deterrence — holding limited stocks of weapons underground.

These suffice to ensure a devastating second-strike capability against an aggressor, without requiring a huge investment in early-warning systems for rapid response, such as Russia and America possess. The Asian states’ nuclear arsenals have in the past served political purposes more than military ones.

Today, however, that is changing. China is dramatically enlarging its missile and warhead inventory. Pakistan, albeit on a much lesser scale, is doing likewise, chiefly because in a war with the hated Indians its conventional forces could not hope to prevail. India feels unable to remain passive when its two potential adversaries escalate.

Given the unyielding tensions in the region, especially between India and Pakistan, the danger of nuclear conflict is arguably greater in Asia than in the West.

Most of us live out our lives baffled by the enormity of the nuclear menace. We take refuge in not thinking too much about it. We also tell ourselves that no rational national leader would unleash such weapons, at the risk of precipitating mankind’s total destruction.

Robert Oppenheimer thought something of this sort, before Hiroshima. When the brilliant physicist Leo Szilard lobbied him unsuccessfully to oppose the use of his terrible creation and recorded the strange, enigmatic remarks made by the director of the Los Alamos laboratory. “Oppie” told Szilard: “The atomic bomb is shit.”

“What do you mean by that?” questioned Szilard.

Oppenheimer replied: “Well this is a weapon which has no military significance. It will make a big bang — a very big bang — but it is not a weapon which is useful in war.”

When Oppenheimer said that, he was almost certainly mindful of the looming prospect of his terrible progeny being unleashed on Japan, which was incapable of any response. He then assumed, however, that if a future enemy possessed the capability to retaliate in kind, no national leader would seek to use an atomic bomb in pursuit of battlefield advantage.

Oppenheimer wrote in 1948:

[T]he weapons tested in New Mexico and used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki served to demonstrate that with the release of atomic energy quite revolutionary changes had occurred in the techniques of warfare. It was clear that with nations committed to atomic armament, weapons even more terrifying, and perhaps vastly more terrifying, than those already delivered would be developed; and … that nations so committed to atomic armament could accumulate these weapons in truly terrifying numbers … The atomic bomb must show that war itself is obsolete.

In one of his most memorable phrases, the scientist likened the US and Soviet Union to “two scorpions trapped in a bottle”: If they come to blows, both must perish. Today, almost eight decades on, Oppenheimer’s judgement about that looks rational, but oversanguine. Whatever the existential awareness of prudent national leaders, the peril persists that an aberrational figure — an Iranian ayatollah, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, an impassioned Pakistani, even a Donald Trump — might not accept Oppenheimer’s verdict, reprised by many authoritative voices since, that there can be no possible “winner” from a nuclear exchange.

I am nagged by consciousness that two years ago, I was among many students of strategy and international affairs who never contemplated the prospect of Putin launching a war to conquer Ukraine, because the cost to his own country must be so appalling. Yet he did so. His logic proved to be different from our logic. How much different, and whether also extending to nuclear weapons, remains uncertain.

In Oppenheimer, General Leslie Groves asks the scientist what are the chances that a nuclear explosion will destroy the world. Almost zero, says Oppenheimer, to which the general responds laconically: “I would have preferred zero.” Mankind will never again enjoy the luxury of zero.

Nolan’s movie captures the equivocations, the ambiguities, that overhung Oppenheimer’s career after August 1945, as he wrestled with the stupendous dilemmas and forces unleashed by his achievement at Los Alamos. His McCarthyite accusers at the hearings of 1954, seeing these as evidence of disloyalty to his country, pounced on his prewar political equivocations, notably including support for Spain’s republicans and communists in their 1936-39 civil war.


Yet the American right ignored the fact that most decent people in the democracies deplored the triumph of General Francisco Franco’s fascists — and the fact that American businesses had made millions out of backing them. Before World War II, Oppenheimer was politically no further to the left than were many educated Americans, disgusted by the social failures within their own country and the brutality of 1930s capitalism.

For better or worse, from 1941-45 the Soviet Union had been the foremost ally of the US against Germany. In the eyes of most biographers and historians, Oppenheimer was always an American patriot. He was simply a scientific genius who tried also to think beyond national frontiers.

He opposed the creation of the H-Bomb, because it posed an even more devastating threat to the planet that did the A-Bomb. Yet he became an advocate of developing lower-yield tactical weapons, in hopes — which most strategists have since deemed vain — that it might be possible to limit the scope of a nuclear exchange.

He pursued the dream of international control of atomic arms, writing, again in 1948: “We would desire … a situation in which our pacific intent was recognized and in which the nations of the world would gladly see us the sole possessors of atomic weapons. As a corollary, we are reluctant to see any of the knowledge on which our present mastery of atomic energy rests, revealed to potential enemies … The security of all peoples needs new systems of openness and cooperation.”

Perhaps surprisingly, Henry Stimson, who as secretary of war was among the leading sponsors of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, wrote likewise shortly before his death in 1950: “The riven atom, uncontrolled, can be only a growing menace to us all … Lasting peace and freedom cannot be achieved until the world finds a way toward the necessary government of the whole.”

Such words showed that he, like Oppenheimer, had come to believe that only international cooperation on an unprecedented scale could make the planet secure. Yet if Stimson were alive today, he might feel obliged to acknowledge that a world which cannot cooperate effectively to overcome climate change is even less likely to work together to save itself from the nuclear menace.

We may cherish hopes that nuclear arms limitation, as practiced by American and Russian leaders — between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, between Barack Obama and Putin — may again return to fashion. But no power that considers itself threatened by mortal foes, as are all the current nuclear weapons holders, is ever likely to renounce a second-strike capability, or to agree to place its weapons under the control of any international body.

A significant portion of the British people, myself among them, sometimes toy with the idea of giving up our submarine-based nuclear weapons. These are hugely expensive for a nation much less prosperous than the US. Most strategy gurus have long dismissed them as ridiculous: They depend on American technology, and it is impossible to imagine a British government using them if our country was abandoned by the US.

Yet today, it has become almost unthinkable that in a world in which Putin routinely threatens Europe, Britain will renounce its deterrent. Moreover, the danger appears real that a future US president might reduce, or even withdraw, military support for the continent, including the American nuclear umbrella.

Another issue to which Oppenheimer returned again and again in public debate before his death in 1967 was that of the need for honesty by politicians about nuclear issues. He argued that many Washington warlords hide inconvenient truths behind the fig leaf excuse of national security.

He wrote in 1953:

[T]here are and always will be, as long as we live in danger of war, secrets that it is important to keep secret … some of these, and important ones, are in the field of atomic energy. But knowledge of the characteristics and probable effects of our atomic weapons, of — in rough terms — the numbers available, and of the changes that are likely to occur within the next years, this is not among the things to be kept secret. Nor is our general estimate of where the enemy stands.

If Oppenheimer had lived to hear Reagan announce his Strategic Defense Initiative to the American people in a nationwide broadcast in March 1983, he would have perceived this as a classic example of a leader, apparently deluded about nuclear realities, offering a fantasy that his countrymen yearned to embrace.

The day after the president spoke, I had a chance conversation with Britain’s chief of defense staff, General Sir Edwin Bramall. He said despairingly: “Our scientists say it’s time for the funny farm” — for Reagan, the general meant. Only a small faction of mavericks on either side of the Atlantic believed that it might be feasible to create a national missile-defense system such as Reagan proposed. And had the Americans done so, it would have inflicted a deadly blow on Cold War stability — the balance of terror. As it was, billions of dollars were wasted chasing an illusion.

When I was three days old, in December 1945, my father, a journalist like myself and who had spent the previous six years as a war correspondent, composed a letter about the circumstances of himself and Western society as he then saw it, which he gave me on my 21st birthday. He wrote: “You’ve come into the world at one of the strangest and most dangerous hours in human history. Europe … is back in the Dark Ages. The development of the atom bomb has introduced a new and haunting fear. As I write, nothing is easier than to believe that Russia and America will be at war in the Far East before you read these words.”

Robert Oppenheimer wrote in 1953: “It is possible that in the large light of history, if indeed there is to be history, the atomic bomb will appear not very different than [it did] in the bright light of the first atomic explosion. Partly because of the mood of the time, partly because of a very clear prevision of what the technical developments would be, we had the impression that this might mark, not merely the end of a great and terrible war, but the end of such wars for mankind.”

Oppenheimer was half right: Though there have been many wars in the world since 1953, none of them has been an existential contest between great powers, such as was World War II, and many of us believe this to be, in large measure, a consequence of the balance of nuclear terror. Moreover, contrary to my father’s fears, my own life and that of most of my generation has been amazingly unclouded by the monstrous new reality created by Robert Oppenheimer.

Stanley Kubrick aimed to be ironic when he subtitled his classic nuclear horror story Dr. Strangelove: “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” Few of us have got quite that far. But, on this tragic anniversary of Hiroshima, we should surely seek to offer a message of hope to our children and grandchildren, such as every generation must pass to the next: “Look at us — we made it, against the odds and Oppenheimer’s fears. So can you.”

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:
Max Hastings at mhastings32@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net

Max Hastings is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former editor in chief of the Daily Telegraph and the London Evening Standard

Survival Without Bombs or Borders

BY ROBERT KOEHLER

 APRIL 12, 2024
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Image by Egor Myznik.

An enormous flash, a mushroom cloud, multi-thousands of human beings dead. We win!

Nuclear weapons won’t go away, the cynics — the souls in despair — tell us. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle. You can’t, as Gen. James E. Cartwright, former head of U.S. Strategic Command, once put it, “un-invent nuclear weapons.” So apparently we’re stuck with them until the “big oops” happens and humanity becomes extinct. Until then: Modernize, modernize, modernize. Threaten, threaten, threaten.

David Barash and Ward Wilson make the case that this is completely false. We’re not “stuck” with nuclear weapons any more than we’re stuck with obsolete and ineffective technology of any sort, bluntly pointing out: “Crappy ideas don’t have to be forgotten in order to be abandoned.

“Useless, dangerous, or outmoded technology needn’t be forced out of existence. Once a thing is no longer useful, it unceremoniously and deservedly gets ignored.”

This is a valid and significant challenge to the cynicism of so many people, which is an easy trap to get caught in. Nuclear weapons will eventually go the way of the penny-farthing (huge front-wheeled) bicycle, according to the authors. Humanity is capable of simply moving beyond this valueless technology — and eventually it will. The genie has no power to stop this. Praise the Lord.

Transcending cynicism is the first step in envisioning change — but envisioning change isn’t the same thing as creating it. The next step in the process is hardly a matter of “better technology” — i.e., a better (less radioactive?) means of killing the enemy. The next step involves a change in humanity’s collective consciousness. As far as I can tell, we’re caught — horrifically caged — in the psychology of a border-drawn, divided planet. Social scientist Charles Tilly once put it with stunning simplicity:

“War made the state and the state made war.”

The human race cuddles with the concept of “state sovereignty.” It’s the basic right of the 193 national entities that have claimed their specific slices of Planet Earth — and I certainly understand the “sovereignty” part. Who doesn’t want to make his or her own life decisions? But the “state” part? It’s full of paradox and contradiction, not to mention a dark permission to behave at one’s worst. The militarism that worships the nuclear genie couldn’t exist without state sovereignty.

To me the question in crucial need of being asked right now is this: What is our alternative to nationalism, which currently claims free rein (and reign) on the planet? And nationalism strides with a lethal swagger — especially nuclear-armed nationalism. For instance, as AP recently reported:

“President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia is ready to use nuclear weapons if its sovereignty or independence is threatened, issuing another blunt warning to the West just days before an election in which he’s all but certain to secure another six-year term.”

Or here’s the Times of Israel: “Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said Sunday that one of Israel’s options in the war against Hamas could be to drop a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip . . .”

Plunk! Finish the job!

And then, of course, there’s the global good guy — USA! USA! — leading the charge to bring peace to the world wherever and however it can: for instance, by claiming “sovereignty” (you might say) over the national interests of South Korea and declaring, as Simone Chun puts it at Truthout, a “new Cold War with China” and implementing a “massive expansion of the provocative U.S.-led military exercises in the Korean Peninsula.”

Wow, a new Cold War! More than 300,000 South Korean troops and 10,000 American troops, in a series of war games known as “Freedom Shield 2024,” have conducted numerous field maneuvers, including bombing runs, at the North Korean border.

Chun writes:

“The combined United States Forces Korea (USFK) and South Korean forces far overshadow those of North Korea, whose entire military budget is $1.47 billion compared to that of South Korea at $43.1 billion, not to mention that of the U.S. at $816.7 billion. . . .

“The U.S. is using North Korea as a pretext for its new Cold War against China,” she goes on, “and, with its control of 40 percent of the world’s nuclear stockpile, is even willing to risk nuclear war to further its geopolitical aims.”

And she quotes Noam Chomsky who, addressing the country’s blatant indifference to this risk, points out that “the United States always plays with fire.”

How do we get it to stop?

We live in a self-declared democracy but we, the people, are not the ones with real authority here. Those who run the show seem essentially blind to the consequences of militarism, war and, for God’s sake, nukes. Having power means having the ability to threaten — and, if necessary, cause — harm . . . beyond their divinely sanctioned borders, of course (not counting the likely consequences that know no borders).

If Tilly is right — if “war made the state and the state made war” — then the state, as currently perceived, at least by those besotted with military power, is the problem. Knowing this is the beginning . . . but of what? Survival means finding an answer.

Robert Koehler is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor.