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October 19, 2009

Wanted: North Korean Assets

William Thomas Massie’s nightmares almost always begin in a dusty prison cell. His arms are lashed behind his back, and North Korean guards are karate-chopping his neck, kicking his groin and ankles, and smashing his face with fists and rifle butts. The frigid room is illuminated only by tannin-tinted light trickling through newspaper-covered windows. The guards are screaming. One thrusts an assault rifle into Massie’s mouth. The soldier’s finger is on the trigger. Sweat stings Massie’s eyes. He is terrified....

Categories U.S. Law/U.S. Military
October 9, 2009

N. Korea Expands Special Forces

For two of the four years I spent in Korea, I lived, not in a tent or a Quonset hut, but in apartments in Seoul, directly adjacent to the Han River, with breathtaking views of the city lights reflecting on the river at night. It was, ironically, the most comfortable and luxurious existence of my life. Yes, there was the occasional annoyance of rising early to come to a PT formation and the other petty despotisms of Army life —...

Categories NK Military/U.S. Military
September 3, 2009

Hope, Change, and Bigger Bombs

You can choose to dwell on the contradictions, or you can thank Zeus that we haven’t abandoned the whole notion of deterrence. Me being the glass-half-full sort, I choose the latter option and tip my hat to our president for understanding that it’s prudent to have a few “Massive Ordnance Penetrators” on the shelf as a backup to Hillary Clinton’s smooth, glib charm: The U.S. military wants to speed production of 10 to 12 huge “bunker buster” bombs, the Air...

Categories U.S. Military
July 20, 2009

Gates’s Advice to Kim Jong Il: “Don’t Do Anything Stupid.”

On a visit to lovely Fort Drum, New York, last week, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates discounted the threat of a conventional North Korean attack: “Frankly, this is an army that’s starving. The average North Korea, at this point, is seven inches shorter than his South Korean counterpart. This is a country where the famine of the mid-1990s has affected the physical and even intellectual development of those that are now coming into the zone who would be eligible for...

Categories NK Military/U.S. Military
June 24, 2009

Issue of U.S. Troop Withdrawal from ROK Resurfaces in Opinion Piece

Interesting. I remember hearing many people (American and South Korean alike) call for the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from the ROK during the Roh Moo-hyun years. Some of the calls coming from South Korea in particular were clearly based off anti-American sentiments while other people simply felt the absence of the U.S. military in Korea (or at least a reduced presence) would help the ROK become more self-sufficient militarily. At the time, I remember having conversations with people who...

Categories ROK Military/U.S. Military
June 19, 2009

In Other News, North Korea Plots Attack on Hawaii

Tora! Tora! Tora! The missile, believed to be a long-range Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers), would be launched from North Korea’s Dongchang-ni site on the northwestern coast, said the Yomiuri daily, Japan’s top-selling newspaper. The report cited an analysis by the Japanese Defense Ministry and intelligence gathered by U.S. reconnaissance satellites.  [AP] Satellite imagery of the Dongchang site here.  This is a new site, whose construction apparently continued in flagrant violation of U.N. Security...

Categories Missiles/U.S. Military
June 1, 2009

SecDef Gates Not Pushing for Agreed Framework III

Michael Yon traveled with Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Singapore and passes along these observations: One matter that you will see in the press is that North Korea is the elephant in the room. Secretary Gates has made it clear that we have no intention of rewarding bad behavior, as we have done in the past with North Korea. Many readers seem to hold a special disdain for President Obama, and I actively campaigned for McCain, but I get the...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. Military/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
June 1, 2009

Koreans Flock to U.S. Army

It’s certainly an improvement on how the Army was received in Korea when I was there. For everyone who says “Yankee Go Home,” someone else says, “and take me with you:” The program was authorized without fanfare late last year by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to attract temporary immigrants who speak strategically important languages such as Arabic, Farsi and Korean. The bait: The soldiers could immediately apply for U.S. citizenship, skipping the sometimes decadelong process of securing a green card...

Categories An Alliance?/Korean Society/U.S. Military
May 30, 2009

A Point of Order on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

G.I. Korea’s latest posting on the renewed “don’t ask, don’t tell” controversy causes me to note a point that this entire debate is missing:  I saw very few cases in which soldiers were discharged involuntarily solely because of homosexual conduct.  In my experience as a former Army JAG, at least 80% of the Chapter 15 (homosexual conduct) discharges I saw were self-reports by soldiers who may or may not have been gay, but who just wanted out of the Army. ...

Categories U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA
May 30, 2009

Korean War 2, Day 4: Gates Hints at Military Action if North Korea Proliferates Nuclear Material

Three days after North Korea repudiated the Armistice agreement it had never complied with anyway, and as North Korea was seen preparing for yet another long-range missile test, Defense Secretary Robert Gates used the occasion of a security conference in Singapore to issue a veiled threat to Kim Jong Il: “The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States and our allies,” Gates told...

Categories Proliferation/U.S. Military/WMD
May 30, 2009

Korean War 2, Day 4: Everyone, Take a Deep Breath

I’m the last one to downplay the danger that North Korea really represents.  I’ve said all along that there is no purely diplomatic solution to that danger, and I’ve spent the last five years arguing for a combination of economic strangulation, political subversion, and strong conventional deterrence with the specific purpose of overthrowing Kim Jong Il.  By showing you Kim Jong Il’s death camps and the vast fields of graves that surround North Korea’s cities, I hope I’ve helped to...

Categories Regime Change/U.S. Military
August 24, 2008

Joe Biden and North Korea Policy (Updated)

“The biggest threat to the US is, right now, North Korea.”  — Joe Biden, South Carolina Primary Democratic Debate, 2007 “I’m not the guy.”  — Joe Biden, Aug. 19, 2008 The Bigger Picture   It is notable that today I find rare probative value in what Kos says.  His first reaction was  far from  enthusiastic,  and that’s  still way more favorable than, “It’s clear his career has dragged on one election cycle too many.”  One Talk Left blogger says, “The...

Categories Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Military
July 31, 2008

The Continuum: Birth of a Nation

The restoration of Korea’s nationhood seemed to begin so harmoniously:  It is their purpose that Japan shall be stripped of all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since 1914, and that all territories stolen from China shall be restored. Japan will be expelled from all other territories taken by violence and greed. In due course Korea shall become free and independent. With these objects in view, the three Allies, in harmony with those of the...

Categories History/Korean History/U.S. Military
July 29, 2008

The Continuum: Down Range

From the Oct. 8, 1945 edition of Time: The autumn air was brisk and clear. Eagles wheeled overhead against the white clouds, their shadows crossing palaces and hovels, crumbling temples and Western buildings. The city of Seoul (pronounced soul), home of a million people, was 550 years old. Yet the Americans felt like discoverers last week as they explored Korea’s mountain-ringed capital. On the broad boulevards their jeeps competed with oxcarts, with bicycles thick as gnats. Tooting streetcars fairly bulged...

Categories History/Korean History/U.S. Military
March 5, 2008

North Korea Has a Meth Problem, Part 2

After I wrote here recently about North Korea’s growing meth problem, it occurred to me that I never talked about how, as a prosecutor, I learned how awful meth really is. I spent just shy of two years of my Army time assigned to Ft. Irwin, California, home of the OPFOR. During most of that time, I was the prosecutor, or Trial Counsel. Irwin is a great place to drive a T-72, shoot AK’s, or go out on field exercises...

Categories Drugs & N Korea/Korean Society/UCMJ & SOFA
February 4, 2008

USFK Commander Against Further Troops Cuts (Update: USFK Denies)

General Burwell B. Bell III, commander of United States Forces Korea, expressed his wish to keep the status quo at a meeting last month, the sources said. South Korea and U.S. officials met for talks in Washington on Jan. 23.  According to the sources, Bell asked Korean officials to back his proposal to hold force levels at the current 28,500 troops. As a part of a plan to realign US. troops around the world, Washington and Seoul have agreed to...

Categories An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military