World Threats

South Korea believes that the North Korean regime is behind an act of cyber sabotage against a major bank in April and has profited from hacking into online gaming servers. The increasing cyber aggression should worry the West, as the North Korean regime is unpredictable and could also help other enemies of the U.S. carry out attacks of their own. Its hackers are only one order away from doing serious damage to the economy of one of its enemies.

The attack on Nonghyup Bank came through the infected laptop of a contractor. The hackers were able to use the laptop to disseminate viruses throughout the bank’s computer networks, and on April 12, half of its servers suddenly crashed. About 30 million people were unable to make online financial transactions or use the bank’s ATMs, and the bank lost important information.  Investigators traced the attack back to servers used in previous North Korean attacks, including one belonging to a regime entity in China. The sabotage was eventually linked to the North Korean regime’s Reconnaissance General Bureau. The lead South Korean investigator declared, “This was an unprecedented act of cyberterror involving North Korea.”

Click here to read the rest of my FPM article.

This from the Chosun Ilbo.

The rogue state will continue experimenting with intercontinental ballistic missiles that put the U.S. within striking distance until it succeeds in 2012, said Larry Niksch, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. (…) Niksch said that if Pyongyang secures the appropriate technology, it will never abandon its nuclear program, thereby rendering the six-party talks aimed at denuclearizing the country ineffective. He said the U.S. needs to fundamentally rework its policies regarding the North’s nuclear weapons programs in order to make progress.

Please read the entire article for more information.

Analysis. The Kim family wants the same thing that they have always wanted: a guarantee of existence for North Korea. Absent a peace treaty that makes the division of Korea permanent, the North will continue its drive to insure its permanence through nuclear means. It will then use its nuclear capability to blackmail South Korea and the United States into supporting it. We must prevent North Korea from obtaining the ability to blackmail us.

The other point to remember is that a North Korean nuclear capability implies an Iranian nuclear capability. While North Korea is most likely not suicidal, the same cannot be said for the mullahocracy running Iran. North Korea is simply a feudal state with Communism as the theoretical justification for the feudalism. Iran is a state run by religious zealots whose goal is to bring forth the Mahdi (Twelfth or Hidden Imam) through causing the chaos necessary to bring the Mahdi forth.

NewsMax is reporting that North Korea may have tested a nuclear weapon designed to produce a large electro-magnetic pulse (EMP).

Gary Samore, a top Obama administration national security official, warned of new sanctions if North Korea conducted a third round of nuclear tests on Monday, as reports surfaced that North Korea has miniaturized its nuclear warheads so they can be delivered by ballistic missile. North Korea’s last round of tests, conducted in May 2009, appear to have included a “super-EMP” weapon, capable of emitting enough gamma rays to disable the electric power grid across most of the lower 48 states, says Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, a former CIA nuclear weapons analyst and president of EMPact America, a citizens lobbying group. Samore, who handles arms control and non-proliferation issues, warned that “additional strong sanctions will be imposed on the North with the support of Russia and China.”

Please read the entire article for more important information.

Analysis. There are several reasons for developing “low yield” nuclear weapons, generally those with a TNT equivalent yield of 20 kilotons or less. Low yield weapons may be used for small targets that can be struck with extreme precision. This limits the damage to the surrounding territory. For a demonstration of how yield effects damage see The Federation of American Scientists website. A low yield fission detonation is used as the trigger for a fusion (hydrogen) detonation. The fission detonation supplies the required heat and pressure to cause tritium atoms to form helium as occurs in the sun. A low yield fission detonation may be specially designed to enhance the radiation given off by the detonation. This can be in the form of an electro-magnetic pulse that is significantly larger than the detonation would normally produce or in the form of an enhanced number of neutrons (AKA the “neutron bomb” we were afraid of in the 70s and 80s). Neutron bombs are specifically designed to kill people through enhanced radiation without causing great property damage. The North Korea/Iranian tests could have been for any of these purposes.

To be reasonably sure of what the North Koreans/Iranians are really developing we would have to know what their nuclear doctrine is. That information, if we even have it, will not be seen in unclassified form. However, it would appear to be illogical that North Korea would develop an EMP weapon for use against South Korea. The effects would spill over into the eastern People’s Republic of China as well as Japan. The PRC would not be happy. An EMP weapon would be more likely directly employed against the United States by North Korea or by Iran.

A neutron bomb, on the other hand, could be employed by North Korea against South Korea to great effect. It would be a distinct advantage to North Korea to take South Korea relatively intact but mostly depopulated. This would be especially true if the North could avoid destroying South Korea’s agriculture with conventional explosives in any conflict. The same would be true of the Iranians vis-a-vis the Saudi oil facilities.

I believe we will know shortly what the Iranians and North Koreans are doing. The next test will pretty much tell the tale. If it is another low yield test then we may presume that some kind of enhanced radiation weapon is being developed. If it is a high yield detonation greater than approximately 20 KT, then they are developing large yield weapons and the prior test were of a fission trigger for a fusion bomb. Neither of these outcomes is particularly good for World stability.

Having a nuclear weapon is an advantage of any nation, especially those acting on the bad side of major powers like the United States. While North Korea has been nuclear-capable for over a decade, it appears that the dictatorship has made a major advance in its development. The miniaturization of a nuclear warhead would allow the DPRK to place such a weapon on a ballistic missile– which they have tested at the range of around 5,000 miles.

This is coming from South Korea, which has been monitoring the situation tensely.

“It has been quite a while, enough time for them to have succeeded in miniaturization,” he told a parliamentary defense committee.

If true, it would mark a key advance in the North’s drive to develop a functioning nuclear weapon though that threat appears to be potential rather than actual.

Burma is a rogue state that has not received much attention on the world stage. The military dictatorship has at least polite ties with both the People’s Republic of China and India and has largely stayed to itself, even while oppressing its own population. However, there has been more talk of the mineral-rich nation (called Myanmar by its leading junta) building a nuclear program with the help of North Korea.

Now we see that the relationship goes even deeper. Two weeks ago the United States turned back a North Korean vessel apparently carrying missile technology going to Burma.

Gary Samore, special assistant to President Barack Obama on weapons of mass destruction, told South Korean media that the ship may have been bound for Burma carrying small arms or missile-related items.

North Korea is subject to United Nations sanctions designed to curb its missile and nuclear programmes.

Of course, the North will deny sending anything but toys and medicine but this is just another provocation made by the North.

A Japanese newspaper reports that over 200 North Korean engineers are working at a dozen Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile sites, including the Natanz centrifuge farm. The revelation comes after a U.N. report said that the North Koreans are sending missile technology to Iran via China.

I think this number is a bit low. If you look at how deeply involved North Korea is in Burma’s nuclear weapons program (click here for my article on the subject), 200 engineers in Iran seems rather small.

For a summary of the North Korean-Iranian-Syrian nuclear Axis of Evil, click here for an article I wrote in March 2010. The good news is that both Iran and North Korea are cash-strapped and dependent upon one another. The North Korean regime needs money from rogue state customers, especially Iran. The Iranian regime needs North Korean help to continue its WMD programs. And the Syrian needs both, just as both need it.

Hurt one, hurt all.

This from Joongang Ilbo.

The North Korean military is conducting training on the Yellow Sea and East Sea, which could be infiltration exercises for additional attacks on the South, according to South Korean military sources. … “They are being observed doing military exercises in their bases, including a submarine base in Bipagot, Nampo, mobilizing five or six submarines,” a military source told the JoongAng Ilbo on Wednesday. Nampo is a city on the Yellow Sea near the Northern Limited Line, the de facto maritime inter-Korean border. The source said naval exercises were also observed in the East Sea. “It is very rare that the North performs submarine military exercises in March, so we are keeping a close eye on them,” the source said. According to some sources, the North also appears to be mobilizing new Shark-class 40-meter K-300 submarines in the exercises, in addition to older 35-meter submarines. (Edited for space.)

Since North Korea is also moving some hovercraft to the vicinity of the the disputed islands around the Northern Limit Line, additional emphasis is being put on watching all of these movements.

Please read the entire article for more important information.

Analysis. It would appear that North Korea’s requests for food aid have fallen on deaf ears. The “charm” offensive didn’t work so it is time to scare people again. This little demonstration may also be connected to the current meeting of the Supreme People’s Assembly and the elevation of Kim Jong Un to the National Defense Commission.

However, the Daily NK is carrying a story detailing how the price of rice has stabilized as the value of the NK Won has stabilized.

Despite it being the spring shortage season, the price of grain in North Korea’s markets is actually falling and the food security status of the average citizen is relatively good. … However, the price of rice in North Korea’s markets seems to be taking the urgency out of Choi’s public call for assistance, given that while Choi has flown all the way to Europe in pursuit of aid, the price of rice in the market is actually falling. On March 28th, the day Choi arrived, the price was 1,800 won, a colossal decline in comparison with the price at the end of January, which reached a momentary high of 3,000 won. The decline since then has been steady; from 3,000 won to 2,000 won last month, and even as low as 1,600 won at the turn of April.

In North Korea’s case, declining food prices are closely related to declining exchange rates, which have also been stable since mid-February. Where one Yuan was worth 520 won at the beginning of this year, it is now worth just 400 won. According to one domestic source who sells clothes in the market, “It looks like the price of rice will be 1,500 won by the middle of this month. There are sufficient supplies of rice in the market, so as long as you have money you can buy it anytime.” However, the picture is not perfect, because the people’s purchasing power is still not what it was and, in particular, those in the poorest classes struggle under high rates of interest on loans of money or food, making it hard to secure the supplies they need to survive.

This from Newsmax.

SEOUL – North Korea’s rubber-stamp assembly will meet on Thursday amid reports that leader Kim Jong-il’s son will likely be given a key post in the powerful National Defence Commission to further consolidate his position as leader-in-waiting. The Supreme People’s Assembly is one of the country’s three main governing bodies that formally approves the budget and other decisions by the leadership. Key officials of the ruling party and the military are typically its elected members. The defence commission is the pinnacle of power in the secretive North and leader Kim Jong-il rules the country as its chairman. His top lieutenant on the commission died last year after a long illness, leaving the post vacant.

The Chosun Ilbo daily quoted a unification ministry official as saying last month that Kim Jong-un will need the title if he is to visit China as his father’s heir and meet Xi Jinping, who is widely tipped as the next Chinese president. (Edited for space.)

Please read the entire article for more information.

Analysis. So far it appears that Kim Jon Eun (Kim 3) is well on his way to occupying all of the correct positions to succeed his father. His problem is the perennial one in North Korea: food. To solve that problem he must open up the North in about the same manner as the People’s Republic of China opened up beginning with the rule of Deng Zhao Ping. It is difficult to tell how much Kim 3 has absorbed during his short tenure as heir apparent. However, the governing clique in the North evidently believes that Kim 2′s health is good enough that he will be around a while longer. This will give Kim 3 a chance to absorb more statecraft from his father.

This from the JoongAng Ilbo.

North Korea’s parliamentary speaker appealed for food aid from Britain, saying his country is suffering from an acute food shortage, according to a U.S. radio report Saturday.
Choe Tae-bok, chairman of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly, visited Britain from March 28 to 31 on an invitation from the British-North Korea All-Party Parliamentary Group.
David Alton, a British lawmaker, said in an interview with the Voice of America that Choe had requested food aid when he met with British government officials. Alton quoted Choe as telling British officials that the upcoming two months would be the most serious for North Korea to feed its people. (Edited for space.)

Please read the entire article for more information.

Analysis. This is something that has been talked about in another recent posting. However, there is very little possibility that either South Korea or the United States, and therefore pretty much any body else except the People’s Republic of China, will give Kim any food. Kim knows what he has to do to get food aid. He must take responsibility for and pay reparations for the sinking of the Cheonan and the shelling of YP Do. Until he does that his people will not be eating well. He must also allow the food agencies such as the World Food Program to do the food distribution to insure that the food gets to the neediest people and not just to the army and the party.

The temperatures in North Korea are above freezing at night now all the way to the Yalu. The Spring planting has either started or will begin shortly. Kim’s major need now besides immediate food aid is lots of fertilizer. Without fertilizer, whatever crops are planted will not produce to capacity in North Korea’s worn out soil.

The question is: How close is North Korea to the breaking point?

The Financial Times is citing a United Nations report that one quarter of North Korea’s population may be starving.

A quarter of North Korea’s 24m(illion) people are starving and the public food distribution system could run dry as early as May, the UN has concluded. Friday’s warning of an impending food crisis poses a dilemma for South Korea and western nations, which have argued that Pyongyang could be exaggerating its needs to extract aid which could be channeled to the army.
…
The UN had expected the total cereal shortfall to be 867,000 tonnes in November but has now increased this estimate by 219,000 tonnes. It also reported that the cash-strapped North was importing less grain than expected and had only bought 40,000 tonnes of the 325,000 tonnes it said it would purchase last autumn. A senior South Korean security official urged donor nations to be cautious about the report, saying the North Koreans were deceiving foreign inspectors on controlled tours. “North Korea is building up stockpiles while allowing children to starve,” he said. (Edited for space.)

Please read the entire article for more information.

Analysis. As with anything that pertains to North Korea, this is a Scientific Wild Ass Guess (SWAG). We do know the state of North Korean agriculture pretty well thanks to the LANDSAT satellite system. Considering the wonderful weather in Korea over the last few months, the estimate of winter wheat and barley losses is probably pretty close to the truth. Nor do I doubt for a minute that the general population of North Korea gets what remains after the army and the party have been fed. That has never been much.

The cancellation of the “Sunshine” policy has not helped North Korea. All of the under the table aid from South Korea to North Korea ceased. It is quite possible that North Korea has had to draw down stocks to make up for those losses. One previous article talked about taking rice out of the army’s stocks to feed the populace in 2009. That did not happen last year. We can presume that the rice taken out of army stocks was not replaced. The destruction of the private market system in November, 2009 by revaluing the North Korean Won did not help the situation. As far as I can tell, unlike the Soviet Union, North Korea does not have any kind of private plot system that would make up for the failures of the collectives. This puts another serious crimp in North Korea agriculture.

This report may also be the beginning of North Korean moves to extract aid from South Korea and especially the United States. Kim Jong Il has figured out that he no longer has control over the information that comes into the North. The recent fits over defectors and the propaganda campaign emanating from the DMZ make clear that the North’s lies about the South will not be believed by the majority of people in the North. Information about the revolutions in the Middle East and the Jasmine revolution in the PRC is reaching the North. That is not good for the Kim family.

We must carefully monitor the progress of the Spring Planting and the extent of KPA participation therein. This is simply another factor to throw in the pot with the sinking of the Cheonan, the shelling of YP Do and the problems associated with the succession of Kim Jong Un. The upcoming Korean legislative session may be another indicator of the actual situation in the North. However, we cannot allow the mess in the Middle East to distract us fully from monitoring North Korea. Kim is at his most dangerous when he believes nobody is watching.

The Jasmine Revolution and its aftereffects are usually thought of as a regional phenomenon confined to the Middle East but such a picture is incomplete. Barely noticed clashes have erupted in North Korea, calls for revolution are been voiced in Vietnam and the Chinese government is scrambling to stop protests that have been planned for every Sunday.

The North Korean government had good reason to be worried and set up a special force once the Jasmine Revolution began. For the first time, its population expressed outrage at the government’s currency reform plans in November 2009. The backlash was enough to force the policy to be dropped. An apology was even made and a top official was executed. Over half of the population is now reading foreign news and an underground network circulatesinformation in and out of North Korea. The succession process makes the regime more nervous, resulting in military provocations and political purges.

Trouble began for the regime on February 14 after it failed to deliver promised goods in the days leading up to Kim Jong-Il’s birthday.  Dozens of people in North Pyongan Province demanded electricity and food. On February 18 in Sinuiju, the security forces had a confrontation with traders at the market, resulting in an assault on one trader to the point where he was unconscious. The family members of the victim protested and were quickly joined by other traders, resulting in the deployment of more soldiers and police. A source to one newspaper reported that “hundreds” were involved in the clashes. The true number is unknown but the clashes are an unprecedented and important development in the Hermit Kingdom.

Click here to read the rest of my FPM article.

ABC News is reporting that North Korea is apparently working on an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon.

The North is believed to be nearing completion of an electromagnetic pulse bomb that, if exploded 25 miles above ground would cause irreversible damage to electrical and electronic devices such as mobile phones, computers, radio and radar, experts say. “We assume they are at a considerably substantial level of development,” Park Chang-kyu of the Agency for Defense Development said at a briefing to the parliament Monday. … Major Korean newspaper editorials today called the recent jamming a “wake-up call,” pointing out that consequences could be severe if North Korea succeeds in discharging full-fledged electromagnetic waves. On top of disrupting major communication tools used by both civilians and the military, the waves would affect financial transactions and civilian airplanes dependent on radio signals. (Edited for space.)

Please read the entire article for more information on current North Korean electronic warfare activities.

Read the rest of this entry »

The JoongAng Daily is reporting that South Korea is looking for an alternative to Microsoft’s ActiveX controls for its computer systems.

The latest round of cyber attacks has highlighted Korea’s vulnerability to security breaches and raised calls to re-examine the country’s unusually high reliance on ActiveX and Internet Explorer. Designed by Microsoft for the IE browser, ActiveX downloads applications needed for online tasks like banking and shopping, as well as viewing and downloading certain content.

The recent cyber attack that affected some 40 government and corporate Web sites is thought to have been triggered by the distribution of malicious codes through a peer-to-peer file sharing Web site – or to be more precise, as people accessed ActiveX technology through the site. Against this backdrop, the Korea Communications Commission, the country’s broadcasting and telecommunications regulator, said yesterday it will announce this month a set of guidelines aimed at reducing the country’s dependency on ActiveX and IE.

“For the last five months, we have examined ways to enhance our Internet environment, which is largely based on ActiveX,” said a KCC official. “We are working on guidelines that suggest alternatives for ActiveX and technological support for the shift.”

Please read the entire article for more information.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yahoo! News is reporting a Reuters story that North Korea may shoot at South Korea if the South continues to send balloons over the North.

South Korea’s military has been dropping leaflets into North Korea about democracy protests in Egypt, a legislator said on Friday. As part of the psychological campaign, the South Korean military also sent food, medicines and radios for residents in a bid to encourage North Koreans to think about change. “South Korea is driving the Korean peninsula to overall confrontation, with beefing up anti-republic, psychological plots,” KCNA news agency said. “If this action continues despite our repeated warning, we officially inform that our military will shoot the area where the anti-republic, psychological plots, come from, including Imjingak, under the right of self-defense,” it said. Imjingak is an area in South Korea near the heavily armed Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) which separates the two Koreas.

North Korea maintains tight control over communications, including the use of telephones and over movement of people, leaving many in the country unaware of world affairs. South Korea’s military has resumed its campaign of speaking directly to North Korean residents after the North bombarded an island near a disputed sea border in November, killing four people.

This article had not been posted to the KCNA site as of 27 Feb 11: 0420Z. Please read the entire Yahoo! article for more information.

Analysis. Flip a coin on this one. Considering all that is going on in the world and the state of the North Korean economy, anything is possible. Kim may well need to distract his subjects with war fever or at least war fear. So far he has not been able to get what he wants by “charm” so it may well be back to fear. South Korea is making a calculated (I hope) assessment that it may not take a lot to topple the Kim regime or at least get Kim to start talking realistically about Korean affairs.

Judging by today’s weather in Sinuiju and Pyongyang, we are still about a month from the Spring planting. As usual, that will be an event to watch very carefully. If last year’s harvest actually did come in at 4.48 million tons, that is still 500,000 tons short of estimated minimum need. The North will need large infusions of fertilizer to prepare the ground if it is to get good yields. This would mean that the army would have to participate with its trucks and tractors. One of the indicators of coming conflict in a Communist nation has been the level of participation of the army in the planting and the harvest. Another has been the level of rations distributed to the army. If the army is being “fattened up”, you had best be ready. So far that has not happened in the North to my knowledge.

The Joongang Ilbo reports that the Grand national Party wants to discuss the return of US nuclear weapons to South Korea as a defense against North Korea’s weapons.

Senior members of the ruling Grand National Party yesterday argued the U.S. should reintroduce tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea to protect the country against a military threat from the North. In a National Assembly session on foreign, unification and security affairs, Chung Mong-joon, former chairman of the Grand National Party, made the proposal, calling it a cautionary move against a nuclear-armed North Korea. “Would it be possible for the South to peacefully coexist with a nuclear-armed North?” Chung asked. “The U.S. nuclear umbrella is necessary, but it cannot be a negotiation card to dismantle the North’s nuclear arms programs.” From 1958 until 1991, the United States deployed tactical nuclear weapons in the South. According to recently declassified U.S. documents, the number of nuclear weapons reached 950 in 1967. The last 100 were withdrawn in 1991. (Edited for space.)

Please read the entire article for more important information.

Analysis. Considering my preceding post on Korea, this should be taken as an increase in South Korea’s level of anxiety regarding recent and current events in North Korea.