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u-can-makeadifference · 6 years ago

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SHOULD THE U.S. SIGN A PEACE TREATY WITH NORTH KOREA AT THE UPCOMING VIETNAM TRUMP-KIM SUMMIT?--- On September 3, 2017, North Korea shocked the world when it detonated a 100-kiloton hydrogen bomb, producing a 6.3 magnitude earthquake. In the future this nuclear device would be mounted on a missile. The attached message to the U.S. was: It’s time to end your “hostile policy and futile sanctions”. This unprecedented demonstration of North Korea’s nuclear power came after President Donald Trump had warned the DPRK that any further threats would be met with “fire and fury like the world has never seen.” This menacing scenario is but one in a series of the toxic hostilities between the U.S. and North Korea. In that same year, Trump announced he would be hitting the DPRK with the “heaviest sanctions ever imposed before”. Then he flexed U.S. muscle by test firing a Minuteman III ICBM while continuing to conduct military exercises off the coast of the Korean peninsula. The naval operations were impressive but extremely risky as they came at a time when Pyongyang was on full alert, and any military action could have been wrongly interpreted as a prelude to an attack on North Korea. The malevolent statements and actions between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un would not be so troubling if it weren't for the fact that both of these heads of state are sitting on nuclear weapons that are immensely more powerful than those that killed hundreds of thousands of people in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions. And prior to 2017, I don’t think our military was that concerned about Kim Jong’s short-range missiles, and we certainly didn't think he had the ability to reach the American mainland. But this notion vaporized when he successfully test fired the Hwasong-14 on July 4, 2017, and then the Hwasong-15, both long-range ICBMs, the latter capable of reaching the entire U.S. continent. The June 2018 Trump-Kim Summit – A Success or Failure? The Summit of June 12 brought with it great expectations for a new relationship between the U.S. and Kim’s regime. Though nothing was officially formalized, several points were discussed in the meeting. To begin with, both the U.S. and North Korea committed to establishing new relations between their countries to bring about peace and prosperity. And it’s believed by various sources familiar with the negotiations, that Trump had conveyed to Kim that he’d sign a peace declaration after the summit to give a formal end to the Korean War. A similar option called for U.S. and North Korean cooperation to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula; and in accordance, North Korea would work towards complete denuclearization; and last, the North agreed to transfer remains of American soldiers from the Korean War to the U.S. Prior to the 12 June Summit, Washington officials had urged President Trump to take a tough stand against the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and to demand a complete removal of his nuclear missiles. But it was at that time that Trump began to tone down his rhetoric. He was no longer pushing for a CVID "complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization", but had opted for a more diplomatic approach: "We're not going to go in and sign something on June 12... We're going to start a process," he told reporters. Technically, in the interest of obtaining military leverage over North Korea, this change of attitude from the U.S. President seemed like an almost complete diplomatic failure. But in the interest of stabilizing the nuclear threat and working toward mutual peace, this could be seen as wise negotiating for reaching those goals. Following the summit, concessions were made on both sides. Trump agreed to suspend the upcoming U.S.-South Korea military exercises; and his administration said it would refrain from dishing out new sanctions against North Korea as long as negotiations continued, adding that it would work together to build for peace on the Korean peninsula. Kim Jong Un took a couple of first steps at denuclearization by proceeding to blow up one of his nuclear sites, and then called a freeze on his nuclear and missile tests. So now, a few months’ later, political analysts are saying the points of the summit were vague and not substantial enough, and that Trump should have been better prepared for that important meeting with Kim Jong Un; that he should have made concrete locked-in requirements to assure the complete denuclearization of North Korea. Others believe the administration should now increase the sanctions, stating that Kim will not denuclearize until he faces tougher measures. At the end of 2018 the sanctions against the DPRK had been ratcheted several notches and the response from the North was that U.S. sanctions are a 'miscalculation' that will backfire. Later on December 20th of that year, North Korea declared they would not denuclearize unless the U.S. removed its nuclear umbrella. North Korea’s nuclear Pandora box The fighting ceased in Korea in 1953 when the U.S., North Korea, and the U.N. Command Delegation signed the Armistice Treaty. Because of the high expenditures of the war, the U.S. resolved to reduce its military force and economic aid to the ROK (South Korea). There was strong opposition to these decisions from the South Korean President who did not want the U.S. to diminish its shield of protection from his country. Probably because of this and other reasons, the U.S. decided they would have to deploy nuclear weapons to South Korea to make up for the removal of conventional forces and weapons. But there was a problem with this course of action. To introduce “new weapons” to South Korea, they would have to breach a key clause in the Armistice Treaty that had been signed by China, North Korea, the U.S. and the UN Command in 1953. And so we abrogated Article II, section 13-d of the Armistice Treaty, which prohibited the introduction into Korea of new armaments, such as nuclear weapons. The presence of nuclear missiles in the South came as a strategic blow for North Korea who only counted on conventional weapons to deter any future hostilities with the R.O.K. and its powerful American defender. The D.P.R.K. panicked as they now feared the threat of nuclear attack from the U.S. missiles present in South Korea. They responded by digging out immense underground tunnels and structures as protection against nuclear blasts. At this time North Korea also began seeking help from China and the Soviet Union to help them get started with their own nuclear missile program. A few years later in 1962, they constructed their first nuclear research center at Yongbyon, and by 2002 their nuclear program was in full swing, and several countries were alarmed and protesting. Their first missile test came in 1993 when they fired a Nodong-1 missile into the Sea of Japan. So in retrospect, we can assume that by being the first to introduce nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula, that it was the U.S. who caused the nuclear Pandora Box to open in North Korea. Other recent U.S. strategies and attitudes that may have made Kim Jong Un a little jittery, or maybe a lot, have been some of the military options we've had on the table. One of these being the idea of using a Libyan “decapitation” model to remove Kim’s regime. Another is talk of a preventive nuclear strike—this is when you start a nuclear war because you fear another nuclear state might attack you in the future, an action which goes against Article 2, Chapter VII, of the UN Charter. There have also been the U.S., South Korean war games---which are mock attacks on North Korean targets, and these have definitely kept Kim Jong on edge. And although U.S. nuclear weapons have been removed from South Korea in past years, the North Korean leader still considers his country vulnerable to attack from the U.S. nuclear umbrella that hovers over the Korean Japan area and beyond. Consequently this modern North Korean warrior has given close observation to his current military disadvantages over the years and has ultimately decided to update his Jingum swords for something bigger and more powerful, like nuclear-tipped Rodongs, Taepodongs and Hwasongs. Some military sources have revealed that Kim Jong Un may now have as many as sixty or more of these missiles in his nuclear stockpile. The newest in his arsenal is the Hwasong-15 that has a range of 8,100 miles, more than enough to reach any city in the U.S. Now the big question in the on-going diplomatic talks is whether or not Kim Jong Un will allow for a complete denuclearization of his country, and pronto, as per the demands of John Bolton and other defense hawks in Washington. BABOON AND THE TIGER -- A PARALLEL OF NORTH KOREA AND THE U.S.? A while back I watched an African wildlife video where a tiger was in hot pursuit of a baboon that was running desperately to escape. The baboon had seen the long sharp fangs in the jaws of the tiger and knew that if it didn’t run like mad, those sharp teeth would soon cut his life in pieces---and so it ran hard and fast until it found itself in a dead-end at the base of a mountain wall. The baboon knew it was trapped now---so it quickly turned and faced his foe. Spreading his arms in a threatening manner, he bared his fangs which were almost as big as the tiger’s and in no uncertain terms let the tiger know that if he was attacked, he was ready to retaliate. The baboon, the smaller of the two, knew that most likely he would go down, but not before he’d used his sharp fangs to inflict formidable damage to the tiger. Meanwhile, the tiger, seeing the baboon now facing him head-on, and brandishing a set of sharp menacing fangs, put the brakes on. Realizing that a direct attack was no longer viable, he began to move cautiously from side to side, trying to find another way to strike the combative baboon. But no matter what strategic angle of attack the tiger analyzed, the baboon would snarl and bare its dagger-like teeth. The fangs looked mighty big and sharp to the tiger---and they proved to be enough deterrence for the tiger to finally back off and walk away, probably thinking it was too much of a risk to try and eat that little baboon. My narration of this wild-life video may not be a fully accurate analogy of the current North Korean-U.S. missile crisis, but I think there are some aspects of it that we could benefit from. Kim Jong Un, as the baboon, may feel threatened and trapped by the U.S. tiger and its sharp nuclear teeth that could easily destroy it. Had the U.S. tiger found this Korean baboon early on, when it was still developing teeth, it might have been a different story. But now that North Korea has a fully developed set of nuclear teeth, teeth that could inflict widespread destruction to U.S. cities, it may benefit the U.S. tiger to rethink its military and political strategy as did JFK in the Cuban Missile Crisis, avoid a head-on nuclear war and go the safe route of deterrence. How Reliable Is Our Missile Defense System? At present we have the Thaad system; Terminal High Altitude Area Defense to protect South Korea, Japan and Guam from North Korea’s missiles. But in August of 2017, the DPRK fired a missile over Japan, and the Thaad defense installations in Japan didn’t stop it. After the incident a Japanese official said, “We didn’t intercept it because no damage to Japanese territory was expected.” This was true as the missile had been programmed to land safely out at sea. However, even if the U.S. or Japanese had launched interceptors, they would not have been able to stop the missile that had flown 475 miles over Japan. The existing arsenal of defense missiles cannot ascend to stratospheric levels. Our defense interceptors are capable of hitting missiles on the way up or on the way down. The question then would be, why don’t we hit these missiles on their way up? But in order to accomplish that, a Navy ship equipped with Aegis would have to be stationed very close to the launch site, most likely right off the coast of the country that fired the missile. And of course that kind of maneuvering for a big ship takes time, and it wouldn't have the luxury of just floating idly by, waiting to see if and when a missile would be fired. Even if we succeeded at sending out one of our missiles to stop the enemy rocket after launch, we’d have a missile chase, one which we’d probably lose, as it would be almost impossible for our rocket to reach the enemy missile as it soars into the atmosphere. Another con against knocking out a missile at the launch pad or on its ascend is the simple fact that we wouldn't know if the missile was merely a test firing, or if it was actually aimed at Japan, Guam or an American city. Now let’s take a look at GMD, our Ground-Based Midcourse Defense. This is our system to stop intercontinental ballistic missiles, ICBMs, aimed at the continental United States. The GMD is a complex defense system consisting of ground-based radars, satellite sensors, and interception missiles that can knock out incoming warheads. But there is concern as to the reliability of the system. Kingston Reif, director of Disarmament and Threat Reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, said the following about the GMD. “The only system designed to defend the U.S. homeland, known as the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system, has suffered from numerous technical and engineering problems, and testing in controlled conditions has not demonstrated that it can provide a reliable defense against even a small number of unsophisticated ICBMs.” The key words here are “controlled conditions”. In other words, situations where the test firing is pre-planned, knowing where the target missile is coming from, the size, angle of trajectory data, and the launch time, etc., in contrast to real-time battle conditions where there are only a few minutes warning, and multiple unknown factors to contend with. Then again, in 2016 a Pentagon assessment indicated that the GMD program still had low reliability as far as knocking out incoming ICBMs. In an effort to break its poor track record, GMD conducted a live-test in May of 2017. An interceptor missile was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and successfully destroyed a target missile. The hit raised the stats to nine successful tests out of eighteen since 1999, a 50 percent hit average in mock exercises. This is not an impressive performance record for a defense system that’s supposed to protect our cities in a nuclear war. However, it’s all we have for now. WHAT WOULD A WAR WITH NORTH KOREA LOOK LIKE? Jeffery Lewis, who is an American expert in nuclear nonproliferation and geopolitics, gives a chilling account of what could happen in a nuclear confrontation between North Korea and the United States. In his book, “The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against The United States”, Lewis depicts an imagined future with a nuclear exchange between the U.S. and North Korea. The writing is fictional, but everything that takes place in the book before August 7, 2018, including the supporting endnotes, is true and based on actual events, says Lewis. In the narrative, our most feared nightmare emerges; a nuclear war breaks out between North Korea, the United States, and its allies. The story begins with the accidental shoot-down of a South Korean passenger plane that had strayed into DPRK airspace and mistaken for a military craft. In retaliation, South Korea strikes back with six missiles aimed at specific targets, and then it begins. After analyzing the attack on his country, and slapped by a harsh tweet from Donald Trump, Kim Jong Un fears he can wait no longer. He gives the order for a nuclear strike on South Korean and American forces stationed in the south. Later, on the same day of March 21, as per the book's chronology, American satellites warned our military that nuclear-armed ICBMs had been launched by the DPRK, all aimed at the U.S. mainland. The North Korean nuclear strikes, says the book, were carried out over the course of six hours. Of the thirteen missiles fired at the U.S., six managed to penetrate our defense shields. Two of the missiles veered off course and exploded off the coast of California, near San Diego. Another missile aimed at Mar-a-Lago, hit Jupiter, Florida. But then a direct hit devastated Pearl Harbor, while yet another struck Manhattan. Two other missiles fell on northern Virginia. The 200 kiloton nuclear weapons struck with a force twenty times greater than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. In this fictitious scenario of March 2020, the lives of 1.4 million Americans were lost, and another 2.8 million were seriously wounded in the nuclear strikes from North Korea. DO WE WANT PEACE OR WAR? At their September summit of 2018, Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae-in made a historical move towards peace and agreed to a unification of their countries as they flew a blue united-Korean flag at the event. Then on November 29th of 2018, they further demonstrated their inter-Korean cooperation as a South Korean train traveled the rails into North Korean territory. This was definitely a sign of peaceful cooperation as such a thing had not occurred in ten years. The events between the two Koreas accentuate statements made earlier in the year of both countries seeking to sign a peace treaty. When the Korean War ended in 1953 an armistice agreement was made to stop the fighting between North Korea and South Korea along with its powerful ally, the U.S., but this did not progress to the formal signing of a legal peace treaty. However, such a path of peace would not have been acceptable to the U.S. But even in spite of the wishes of Washington and our military, a strong union of peace and economic cooperation is already beginning to gel between the two Koreas. And why would such a peace agreement in Korea not be acceptable to the U.S.? Kim has repeatedly reached out to us, emphasizing the importance of formalizing a definitive declaration of peace between their country and ours. But our administrations over the years have set out pre-conditions before they accept any talk of a formal peace treaty with the DPRK. They want, first of all, an open door to all the nuclear sites and missiles, the dismantling of all nuclear weapons, and in short, the complete denuclearization of the North. North Korea wants a confirmation of peace, but before anything else, we want all of the above. What is obstructing the path to these goals? What is failing in our negotiations with the Pyongyang leaders? Why isn’t our policy of “Maximum Pressure” working? Why doesn’t North Korea allow us to go in there and destroy all their missiles and nuclear facilities? Perhaps we need to step back from the forest of our political and military demands and see with more clarity what the reality of our actions and expectations is. Let’s for a moment envision the interplay between the U.S. and North Korea as a movie-clip from a cowboy film; In act one we see the guy in white (U.S.) in a standoff against the guy in black (North Korea), and the guy in white says, “Drop your guns and I won’t shoot you!” Then the cowboy in black answers, “You said the same to the other two guys (Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi), and when they dropped their guns you shot them dead. In act two the cowboy in black says, “Why don’t we agree to settle this peacefully, then you drop your guns and I’ll drop mine.” Hopefully in act three both the cowboy in white and the cowboy in black will agree to forgo any gun shooting and end hostilities with a peace accord and agree to not attack each other or any of their friends or neighbors. CAN WE LEARN TO LIVE WITH A NUCLEAR NORTH KOREA? At the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, Scott D. Sagan life-streamed a talk entitled, “The Korean Missile Crisis: Why Deterrence Is Still the Best Option.” Scott begins by admitting that we’ve been unable to prevent North Korea from securing nuclear missiles and that the DPRK no longer poses a nonproliferation problem, but rather a nuclear deterrence problem. And even though North Korea is an illegal nuclear state, we should nevertheless realize that it has become a nuclear state, and to think more deeply and creatively about ways to deter North Korea. He believes that the biggest danger now is that North Korea, South Korea and the U.S. could stumble into a war that could have catastrophic consequences. Sagan reminds us that the world has traveled this dangerous path before; when in 1950 the Truman administration thought to implement a preventive nuclear strike to assure the Soviet Union would not acquire nuclear weapons. Then again in the 1960s, the Kennedy administration, worried about the mental stability of Chinese leader Mao Zedong, proposed a joint strike against the Chinese nuclear program to the Soviets. Both of these ideas were rejected. The fear that this type of strategy would blow up into a conflict resembling World War II made the military opt for the safer ground of containment and deterrence. And in one of the most jarring statements of his speech, Sagan said that if “the United States learned to live with a nuclear Russia and a nuclear China…It can now learn to live with a nuclear North Korea.” Scott makes it known that at this point there is no longer a window of opportunity for a successful U.S. attack that could halt the North Korean nuclear program. He believes the U.S. military should make plain to their political superiors and the American public that any first strike on North Korea would result in a terrible loss of U.S. and South Korean lives. And that our leaders must assure Kim that the U.S. will not seek to overthrow his regime unless he begins a war. February 2019 Trump-Kim Summit – What will be the outcome? There is great speculation about the upcoming Trump-Kim summit which is tentatively scheduled to be in Vietnam, and which some are hoping will be a turning point. The administration may again resort to pressure tactics to assure the full denuclearization of North Korea, or they may accept a piece by piece strategy to induce a gradual removal or freeze of the North’s nuclear missile program. And most likely we will emphasize the closure of the uranium-enrichment plant in Yongbyon, as well as any other site that could be used to produce new fuel for nuclear weapons. As for North Korea, we already know some of the items on their wish list. They have stressed their desire for a formal peace agreement; the removal of the nuclear umbrella and U.S. troops in South Korea, and sanctions relief. In one of Kim’s messages aimed at Washington, The Telegraph on January 1st said Kim is offering a gesture of peace but that it could be removed if the U.S. does not meet their expectations on the process of nuclear disarmament. But Washington is more interested in what they want and that is the complete denuclearization of the North. Many U.S. leaders still believe the first summit meeting nose-dived because it failed to secure a substantive agreement that would have assured the elimination of all of Kim’s nuclear weapons. But now there’s a new ingredient in the Korean-U.S. missile crisis that was not a factor during the first summit meeting in Singapore. And namely, it’s the historical peace initiative birthed during Kim’s and Sun Moon Jae-in’s Korean summit where both leaders signed a peace accord as a first step to reunite their countries. This monumental peace summit portends to change the course of events in the Korean-U.S., social, economic, and military theater. With the peaceful unification of North and South Korea, there will be little, if any leverage left to sustain a U.S. military presence in South Korea, or even a nuclear umbrella. These military land and air strategies were crafted after the Korean War, with the express purpose of protecting and safeguarding South Korea from any military aggression or attacks from the DPRK. Briefly put, the existential purpose for any U.S. military/nuclear presence in or around the Korean peninsula region, no longer exists. Japan may object to this line of thought and say they still need to be protected from North Korea. But in effect, the peace initiative between the North and the South has removed the threat of hostility to any in the area, including Japan. Presently the Korean peninsula is on a roll with their peace initiative, and now Kim Jong Un and Sun Jae-in have made another bold move towards consolidating that peace. They each walked across the Korean border into each other’s territory, something they had never done. At this point it would behoove the U.S., more than ever, to exercise their role as “Peace Keepers of the World”, and join this movement for peace on the Korean peninsula, that is, if we haven’t already forfeited our right to the Peace Keeper of the World title. Credits: -North Korea detonates 100-kiloton hydrogen bomb. From an article in QUARTZ - https://qz.com/1068659/north-korea-hydrogen-bomb-its-latest-claims/ -North Korea successfully test fires the Hwasong-14 on July 4, 2017 – From an article in THE DIPLOMAT - https://thediplomat.com/2017/07/north-korea-just-tested-a-missile-that-could-likely-reach-washington-dc-with-a-nuclear-weapon/ -North Korea test fires their new Hwasong-15 missile. – CNN - https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/29/asia/north-korea-hwasong-15-missile/index.html -Donald Trump’s “Fire and Fury”- From the Independent online newspaper. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-north-korea-fire-and-fury-like-the-world-has-never-seen-nuclear-threat-a7883386.html -At June 12 summit the U.S. and North Korea commit to establishing new relations to bring about peace and prosperity. REUTERS - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-agreement-text/trump-and-kims-joint-statement-idUSKBN1J80IU -North Korea agrees to transfer remains of American soldiers from the Korean War to the U.S. - From Vox News - https://www.vox.com/world/2018/6/12/17452616/trump-kim-jong-un-north-korea-summit - Donald Trump statement: “We’re not going in there to sign something on June 12…” From article in The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/01/kim-jong-uns-top-aide-delivers-letter-to-donald-trump -John Bolton suggests a Libyan model to handle the situation in North Korea. CNN - https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/30/asia/north-korea-bolton-libya-intl/index.html -Fighting stops in Korea in 1953 with the signing of Armistice document- Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Armistice_Agreement -Kim Jong Un may have as many as 60 nuclear missiles. – USA Today - https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/10/02/north-korea-kim-jong-un-estimated-have-up-60-nuclear-weapons/1495480002/ -The U.S. breached Article II of the Armistice Treaty in 1958 when they set up missiles in South Korea. -Article from JSTOR - https://www.jstor.org/stable/44080503?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents -Japan’s Thaad system could not have stopped North Korea’s missile that flew over their island. – Article from Defense One - https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/09/no-we-cannot-shoot-down-north-koreas-missiles/141070/ -(GMD- Ground-Based Midcourse Defense System) “… has not demonstrated that it can provide a reliable defense against even a small number of unsophisticated ICBMs.” So says Kingston Reif, director of Disarmament and Threat Reduction policy at the Arms Control Association. - https://www.foxnews.com/world/can-us-military-shoot-down-a-north-korean-missile -On November 29th of 2018, a South Korean train traveled the rails into North Korean territory for the first time in a decade. – New York Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/world/asia/north-korea-train-south.html - Why Deterrence Is Still the Best Option- A speech by Scott D. Sagan at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation. - https://vcdnp.org/the-korean-missile-crisis-why-deterrence-is-still-the-best-option/ -2nd Trump-Kim summit might put emphasis on Yongbyon facility shutdown- Article in the HANKYOREH - http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/880917.html -Kim Jong Un and Sun Jae-in walk across the Korean border into each other’s country. – Associated Press - http://www.lowellsun.com/breakingnews/ci_31836660/kim-jong-un-steps-across-korean-border-makes An essay by Carlos A. Cedillo Author of “Myra and Joe”, and soon to be published “Defusing the North Korean-U.S. Missile Crisis”, a book based on the above essay.

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