August 24, 2014

Rand Paul: You people got me all wrong about this non-interventionism stuff.

Paul’s shift may be even less credible than Clinton’s, and just as mercenary. Unfortunately for Paul, isolationism, emotional authenticity, and financial puritanism are his brand image. Without those things, he’s just Mike Huckabee with better hair. It is Paul’s misfortune that we’re re-awakening to the dreary truth that the low characters of our world won’t let us ignore them away. I’m still waiting for someone — anyone — to advocate sustainable, plausible strategy for defeating ISIS. The only such strategy I can see is...

Categories Geopolitics/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Politics
August 22, 2014

John S. Park of the Harvard Kennedy School thinks North Korea has …

become more adept at sanctions evasion, and sounds bearish about the prospects for success. I have no doubt that the first part of Park’s thesis is correct. I’m sure Pyongyang has diversified its income streams since Banco Delta Asia, which means that it will be harder to get back to where we were in 2005. On the other hand, I don’t think it will be impossible for sanctions to work, either. Al Qaeda, Iran, and the Medellin Cartel all have smart money launderers,...

Categories Sanctions
August 22, 2014

“N. Korean opium floods northeast China,” according to a new article …

in The Chosun Ilbo. The article shows a photograph of opium being grown in North Korea and infers that the drug production is regime-directed, but it’s also possible that, consistent with recent trends, the regime simply tolerates the production and taxes it heavily. That has the advantage of giving North Korea both the income and plausible deniability, when China and other states complain about state-sponsored drug trafficking. ~   ~   ~ Update: More on North Korea’s meth smuggling here,...

Categories Drugs & N Korea
August 21, 2014

Those who’ve been assigned to Yongsan, or who sometimes went to Itaewon, …

will appreciate this well-researched history of the neighborhood’s sleazy past and present gentrification, although sleaze has been a difficult thing to extinguish from the places where it has put down its roots. During my last visit to Seoul, the brothel district near the former Yongsan Station, now a massive E-Mart, was still plying its trade, just a bit more sedately, and just around the corner from a police precinct. Judging from the link, Hooker Hill still features hookers, despite the new development two...

Categories Korean Society/U.S. Military
August 20, 2014

John Kerry was right about North Korea (and so was John Bolton)

More than six months after a U.N. Commission of Inquiry found Kim Jong Un responsible for crimes against humanity, our State Department has offered no credible or coherent policy response to that report. At least it hadn’t until last week, when our Secretary of State, John Kerry — no doubt, after much agonizing deliberation — finally authorized the deployment of precision-guided tactical ballistic words: “But make no mistake, we are also speaking out about the horrific human rights situation,” Kerry...

Categories Diplomacy/Human Rights/Media Criticism
August 20, 2014

In Pyongyang, men are locking themselves in the bathroom to download …

I hear that’s not all they’re downloading (ahem). ” the deeds were done from the Ryugyong-dong district – also the place where all my hits from North Korea come from – a “neighbourhood in the northeast of Pyongyang … which contains … the Pyongyang International Communications Centre” and Koryolink’s main office. So that’s why. On reflection, I suppose Martyn Williams is probably correct in identifying foreigners as the most likely culprits. You know what this means, of course: Pyongyang may...

Categories Foreigners in N. Korea/Subversion
August 20, 2014

South Korea’s missile problem, and ours

For the last year, the South Korean government has been saying that it considers a North Korean attack a very real risk, and it has also said that if attacked, its retaliation will be swift and severe. Its President, Park Geun-Hye, recently expressed concern about a North Korean “misjudgment,” and touted the U.S.-ROK military alliance as the best deterrent against that. As recently as this week, she has been warning her army of the dangers of “complacency.” I don’t have...

Categories Missiles/NK Military/ROK Military
August 20, 2014

Another outbreak of the Madonna Syndrome, this time …

at the Wall Street Journal. Despite all the references to “risk,” “tension,” and “testing the … limits,” the slide show shows us the same stations in the same old state-sanctioned tour that hundreds of people have been hyping for a decade and a half. It is all so very dull now. You could find more arresting images of almost any other city on Earth without attracting the interest of a single newspaper, yet no image of Pyongyang is too trite to be at least...

Categories Foreigners in N. Korea
August 19, 2014

Peter Hahn speaks out about China freezing his accounts and investigating him …

for his humanitarian activities. Hahn says, “We feed 22,000 children every day,” including the most pitiful children of all, the kkotjaebi. While I’m generally skeptical of claims that food aid can reach the intended recipients inside North Korea, Hahn tells a sympathetic and compelling story. Read and decide for yourself. I’m not sure if Hahn is doing as much good as he thinks he is, but I am sure that China and Kim Jong Un are the villains of this story....

Categories China & Korea/Famine & Food Aid
August 19, 2014

One of the few examples of potentially effectively engagement by foreign governments …

in North Korea is being shut down by the regime after being outed. The Diplomat reports that the unsecured wireless networks of foreign embassies had allowed North Koreans living nearby to access the internet without restriction, and that the hunger of North Koreans for that information was so great that it caused something of a housing boom in those neighborhoods. Now that the security forces know about this, they’re cracking down, and forcing embassies to secure and password-protect their signals....

Categories Foreigners in N. Korea/Subversion
August 19, 2014

How terrorism works: N. Korea uses Japanese hostages to censor “The Interview”

Last week, I wrote that the North Koreans who had unwittingly lavished free publicity on “The Interview” by threatening its makers still had a thing or two to learn from the mobs of angry Muslim extremists who extorted President Obama into asking YouTube to “consider” removing “The Innocence of Muslims.” My judgment may have been premature. Film industry trade journals are now reporting that Sony Pictures Japan has demanded changes to the script of “The Interview” to minimize the offense...

Categories Abductions/Censorship/Japan/Terrorism (NK)
August 18, 2014

Also, Rimjin-gang did it better seven months ago, so there’s that.

Eric Talmadge, the AP’s Pyongyang Bureau Chief, denied the opportunity to do reporting of the apartment collapse story by his North Korean hosts and partners last May, offers an honest assessment of the unknowns as the next best thing, three months after the fact. Despite Talmadge’s obviously earnest effort, he doesn’t quite succeed, but least he’s willing to raise some hard questions about North Korea’s construction boom: In a country that sorely needs to improve its basic infrastructure, there is no public debate over whether North...

Categories AP Watch/Media Criticism