31 March 2010

Nearly a year after voting for UNSCR 1874, Russia gets around to implementing anti-proliferation sanctions. Let’s hope that Russia takes enforcement more seriously than China, though I’m not particularly optimistic.

Projection: “The south Korean conservative regime is no more than a marionette as it acts according to the script written by outsiders, bereft of any independence. This reactionary ruling group is bound to go to a ruin any moment as it goes against the requirements of the times and the desire of the people.“

Take a drink!

The imperialists’ loud-mouthed “guarantee of peace” is nothing but a synonym for aggression, war and intervention, it notes, and goes on:

The reality clearly proves that the imperialists never change their aggressive nature and regard it as their physiology to launch a brigandish war of aggression and resort to military blackmail in order to achieve their avaricious and hegemonic aims. There is no change in the real nature of imperialism in the past or in that of modern imperialism. If there be any change, imperialism has become craftier and more vicious and diverse in its methods of aggression and plunder.

Their “peace” ballad is just like a sort of narcotic to create illusions among people. [KCNA]

Funny thing is, John Feffer and Christine Ahn are probably the only two people in America talking about that now.

[T]he Central Party carefully monitors the public sentiment “missing the time of the Great Leader. One party official in Pyongyang commented that “in times of the Arduous March, many people yearned for the Great Leader’s time. Since 2000, the Central Party has absolutely prohibited such public sentiment because it means we are doing worse than the period of the Great Leader. Thus, it is a real problem that such public sentiment is arising again.” [Good Friends]

The Korea Herald: “N. Korea Hints at Continued Uranium Enrichment.” But isn’t this all a mistranslation? Isn’t this really just another case of the neocons in the Obama Administration banging their war-drums to justify their hard-line policies and enrich the military-industrial complex? I’ll let you cogitate on that on your own.

I almost had to duct-tape my head together before writing that — aside from the cheap attempts to blame President Lee for the Cheonan incident — I agreed with much of what Kim Jong Dae writes here in the Hankyoreh about reforming the ROK military registered with me:

But there is one truth that we must face squarely with this incident. Not long ago, when the crashes of an air force fighter and an army helicopter took place in succession, I had a vague sense of unease about the South Korean military. This continuation of incidents where vessels that leaked and should have been repaired instead were sent into action and sank provides concrete confirmation of a deep-rooted vice that runs through all branches of the military.

This vice is the disappearance of humanism from national defense. We are witnessing a phenomenon in which “internal risks” that have grown as antiquated equipment remains in operation without being screened out are now threatening human lives. What is the real reason that the military possesses weapons that have passed through their life cycle? It stems from an obsession with maintaining numbers. If the numbers of weapons drop, the number of units and personnel must also drop, so each branch considers such a drop in weapons numbers taboo. The results have been a paradox in which internal risks become greater than the threat of the enemy. [Kim Jong Dae, The Hanky]

Let me admit up front that I may be reading too much into the word “humanism,” but it suggests one of the things I learned in the Army that I’ve tried very hard to carry into civilian life: the culture of officers and NCO’s caring about the welfare of their soldiers. That’s a key part of the morale and unit cohesion of our professional army, and it’s what kept the Army glued together with high reenlistment rates through the recent wars. In my many conversations with ROK soldiers, I did not get the impression that they felt valued or cared for by their officers and NCO’s. The only cohesion was among soldiers of equal rank, which may be a function of Confucian culture, but isn’t enough to hold a unit together under the stress of severe combat.

The flaw in Kim’s argument is that this isn’t a Lee Myung Bak problem, but one that persisted during the liberal presidencies of Kim Dae Jun and Roh Moo Hyun. It’s firmly rooted in the ROK military’s culture.

Kim goes on to criticize the MOD for overspending on new weapons. My own observation, admittedly a few years old now, is that the ROK military does have a lot of old equipment that needs replacing and adds to its maintenance burden. On the other hand, when I read about South Korea embarking on expensive R&D programs for indigenous weapons systems, I always doubt that South Korea will build or export enough of those fancy new toys for it to be worth the expense. But I’m sure it’s great for Korea’s national pride.