An ageless cartoon: the risk of another North Korean attack and How Should The US Prevent It?
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On February 7, 2019 Anonymous kindly provided a comment below the article
Trump Meeting Kim in Vietnam - Where US Abandoned South Vietnam (February 7). Pete has further translated the comment, added additional links and provided extra comments in [...] brackets.
North Korea’s (NK’s) nuclear weapon and missile development has never stopped under the Kim dynastyno matter how much the Kims have been economical with the truth. Trump should not meet Kim Jong-un unless Trump insists on a genuine program of Complete, Verifiable and Irreversible Dismantlement (CVID). as assessed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). [But the goal "Irreversible Dismantlement" is impossible without constant and open international inspections of NK's military nuclear facilities and missile launch sites].
The US and SK have reached a preliminary settlement of the Special Measure Agreement (SMA). The SMA involves SK financial contributions to the non-personnel military costs of stationing US personnel in SK, which is updated every 5 years. With the SMA on the way to settlement US troops should not withdraw from SK. As such a withdrawal would only encourage NK to forcibly unite the Korean Peninsula [see [1] and [2] below]. [by invading SK].
[The defense of SK is not being helped by the mixed signals SK is giving NK.]
SK has breached international sanctions by supplying petroleum products to NK [3]
Contemporaries of SK President Moon Jae-in “the so-called 386 Generation” [4] have a leftwing view of NK and the world [rather than being anti-communist].
[1] https://thediplomat.com/2019/02/us-south-korea-reach-preliminary-one-year-burden-sharing-agreement/[paysite] On February 5, 2019 the US and SK reached a preliminary 1 year Burden-Sharing Agreement under which SK’s SMA contribution will rise to US$1 Billion per year.
[2] There is [mutual aid but no] automatic armed intervention clause in “Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of Korea”. WhenNK subsequently invades SK, after a US troop withdrawal, US intervention would need the approval of the US Senate. In the worst case scenario, by the time the US tries to intervene this would be blocked by NK stationing nuclear missiles on what would be now "former SK territory".
[3] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/01/31/asia-pacific/u-n-panel-concludes-south-korea-shipments-petroleum-north-violated-sanctions-sources-say/#.XFv1czP7TIU
“U.N. panel to accuse South Korea of violating sanctions with petroleum shipments to North, sources say”
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/386_GenerationThe “386 Generation” is the generationof South Koreans born in the 1960s who became leftwing activists in the anti-SK government democracy movement of the 1980s.
[1] https://thediplomat.com/2019/02/us-south-korea-reach-preliminary-one-year-burden-sharing-agreement/[paysite] On February 5, 2019 the US and SK reached a preliminary 1 year Burden-Sharing Agreement under which SK’s SMA contribution will rise to US$1 Billion per year.
[2] There is [mutual aid but no] automatic armed intervention clause in “Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of Korea”. WhenNK subsequently invades SK, after a US troop withdrawal, US intervention would need the approval of the US Senate. In the worst case scenario, by the time the US tries to intervene this would be blocked by NK stationing nuclear missiles on what would be now "former SK territory".
[3] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/01/31/asia-pacific/u-n-panel-concludes-south-korea-shipments-petroleum-north-violated-sanctions-sources-say/#.XFv1czP7TIU
“U.N. panel to accuse South Korea of violating sanctions with petroleum shipments to North, sources say”
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/386_GenerationThe “386 Generation” is the generationof South Koreans born in the 1960s who became leftwing activists in the anti-SK government democracy movement of the 1980s.
“members of the 386 Generation are generally not as enthusiastic about US-[South] Korean relationships as their parents’ generation, and some have gone so far as to support the removal of US troops from the Korean peninsula altogether. Some of them are also sympathetic to the North Korean regime and advocate a peace agreement with North Korea at all costs.”
[Pete Comment - Over the decades NK, a very poor country, has spent a large proportion of its national income on building up its nuclear weapon and missile capability. NK is therefore very unlikely to dismantle its nuclear deterrent (against yet another invasion by the US).
The only reasonable hope is that NK slows down construction of this nuclear capability and adopts a more positive attitude to South Korea, Japan, the US and other countries].
Anonymous and Pete