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Following the launch of the “largest ever” US-South Korean aerial military drills, and Pyongyang’s latest, most impressive, missile test, the Russian foreign ministry issued a warning that “the situation on the Korean Peninsula is on the brink of war,” adding that “Kim seeks to raise the stakes before any talks.”

The US and South Korea launched their largest aerial drills yet on Monday, less than a week after North Korea tested its new Hwasong-15 missile which military observers said has the capacity to strike Washington DC, or nearly any other location in the continental US. The launched shattered nearly two months of calm as many suspected the North’s benefactors in China were making good on their promises to rein in the restive state’s belligerent behavior.

As we reported Sunday, the annual US-South Korean drills, called Vigilant Ace, will run until Friday. Six F-22 Raptor stealth fighters will be deployed among the more than 230 aircraft taking part. The North has condemned the exercises as yet another provocation.

F-35 fighters will also participate in the drill, which will involve the largest number of 5th generation fighters, according to a South Korea-based US Air Force spokesman quoted by Reuters.

Around 12,000 US troops, including the Marines and Navy, will join South Korean troops. Aircraft participating in the drills will take off from eight different US and South Korean military installations.

And now Interfax reports that, amid concerns that war is inevitable, the Russian foreign ministry has offered to facilitate dialogue between North Korea and The US:

We have open channels of communication with DPRK, ready to use our influence on Pyongyang.

Washington needs to work out security assurances for DPRK to get Pyongyang back to the negotiating table.

Russia assigns blame equally for the rising tensions to Korea’s nuclear missile tests and joint US-South Korea drills.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is Korea Just a Smokescreen?

November 7, 2017

Is Korea Just a Smokescreen?

In my last article (Sticking the arson charge on a couple of patsies) I questioned why North Korea’s nuclear program was attracting such attention from the United States. North Korea is a very poor and backwards country whose bellicosity reflects the regime’s need for an external enemy like the United States to galvanize domestic support. Attacking America and its allies in the region is the last thing North Korea’s leaders would want to do as such an attack would guarantee an American response that would be sure to destroy their lives, their government and the lives of millions of innocent Korean civilians.

However, this month I was made aware of another possible reason for the attention being paid to North Korea and its nuclear program. What if the escalating tensions over Korea are just a smokescreen intended to legitimize an American military buildup in the region aimed at intimidating China?

In 2011, former U.S. President Barack Obama announced a change in U.S. foreign policy that was termed a ‘Pivot to Asia.’ The official thinking was that as China and the emerging countries of South-East Asia gained in economic importance, it made sense to devote more military and diplomatic attention to the region while reducing the attention paid to Europe and the Middle East.

Of course, observers also saw the pivot as a response to the rising economic, political and military power of a resurgent China. Just as the U.S. sought to contain the Soviet Union during the Cold War with a string of encircling alliances and economic agreements, so America today seeks to keep China in check through military alliances with East Asian countries like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan and trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Associated Press Associates Itself With War

October 26, 2017

Associated Press Associates Itself With War

Robert Burns and Matthew Pennington of the Associated Press tell us:

“U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is visiting the Korean Peninsula at a momentous juncture in the faltering effort to persuade Pyongyang to halt and dismantle its nuclear weapons program. Ominous questions hang in the air.”

Why momentous? North Korea has in the past been successfully so persuaded. And it’s subsequently been antagonized and threatened until it recommenced. This has gone on for decades, while it’s been 64 years since a peace treaty should have been signed that never has been. It’s been 14 years since North Korea resumed building nukes. It’s been ten grueling months of Trump’s regime during which nasty comments and threats have been passed back and forth across the Pacific schoolyard. What makes this moment momentous? Stay tuned. AP will explain.

“Is diplomacy failing? Is war approaching?”

Is the wind blowing? Are you kidding? Are diplomacy and war external forces that impose themselves on humanity? North Korea has been very clear and reasonable in its demands, even while screaming its threats and defiance. If the United States will stop moving missiles and planes and ships close to a country it once destroyed, and stop threatening to destroy it again, North Korea will discuss doing what Iraq and Libya did before they were attacked: disarming. The question is not “Is war approaching?” “Ominously!” The question is: will Trump and his subordinates continue to refuse to negotiate? Will they insist on war?

“Mattis’ second trip as Pentagon boss to Seoul will take place Friday, following his consultations with Asian partners on a unified approach to resolve the North Korea crisis. In the Philippines, his Japanese counterpart spoke darkly of an ‘unprecedented, critical and imminent’ threat posed by the North’s repeated demonstrations of its ability to launch an intercontinental-range missile, potentially armed with a nuclear warhead.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Barbarism and Shame: Why the US Refuses a Korea Peace Treaty

September 22, 2017

Barbarism and Shame: Why the US Refuses a Korea Peace Treaty

The Korean crisis is a powerful lens on American barbarism, past and present. Despite Washington’s self-righteousness and pretensions of virtue, the modern history of Korea is an especially powerful lesson that destroys the American national mythology.

Listening to President Trump’s conceited rhetoric about wiping out North Korea has an eerie resonance with the rhetoric of President Truman. Truman launched into the Korean War more than six decades ago with same arrogant, mythical presumptions of American virtue and self-ordained right to use overwhelming military force.

For reasons of political self-preservation, Washington must live in denial of historical reality. US leaders out of necessity have to construct an alternative, fictional narrative for their nation’s conduct. Because if historical reality were acknowledged, the rulers in Washington, and the whole edifice of presumed American greatness, would implode from the endemic moral corruption.

The Korean War (1950-53) has been described as the most barbaric war since the Second World War. Up to four million people were killed in a three-year period. The US air force dropped more tonnage of bombs on the country than was dropped during the whole of its Pacific War against Japan.

Despite this massive and barbaric effort in Korea, the first war of the incipient Cold War turned out to be a source of potentially crippling shame for the US. This risk of shame to the American mythical self-image of virtue explains why the Korean War has become known as the “forgotten war”. It would also explain why present and past US governments prefer to bury their responsibility to end the conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

South Korea President Threatens To Destroy North “Beyond Recovery”, Warns Of Accidental War

September 15, 2017

South Korea President Threatens To Destroy North “Beyond Recovery”, Warns Of Accidental War

Following the latest ballistic missile launch from North Korea, South Korea’s president Moon Jae-in warned that further provocations could result in the complete destruction “beyond recovery” of the northern neighbor. He also repeated tjat the possibility of opening a dialogue with the belligerent North is now gone.

“In case North Korea undertakes provocations against us or our ally, we have the power to destroy (the North) beyond recovery,” the South Korean leader said on Friday according to Yonhap.

Seoul immediately convened a National Security Council meeting following the latest launch by North Korea, in which Moon condemned the missile test, saying the North had once again breached United Nations Security Council resolutions and “poses a grave challenge to the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the global community,” according to RT’s Ruptly news agency.

“I sternly condemn and express anger at this series of provocations by the North,” Moon was quoted as saying.

The South Korean president also said that dialogue between the South and the North is currently impossible and called for greater pressure on the North. “Dialogue is impossible in a situation like this,” Moon said.

“International sanctions and pressure will further tighten to force North Korea to choose no other option but to step forward on the path to genuine dialogue.”

South Korea also should be prepared to new types of threats from the North, including biological ones and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons, Yonhap reports citing presidential spokesman Park Soo-hyun. Even as Seoul still wants to wants use diplomatic means to solve the crisis on the Korean Peninsula and put an end to Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs, it has been pushing for cooperation with the US in the defense sphere. President Moon called for an early revision of the agreement with US President Donald Trump, allowing the deployment of heavier warheads on South Korean missiles.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US Army Prepares Troops Deployed In South Korea For WMD Attack

September 8, 2017

US Army Prepares Troops Deployed In South Korea For WMD Attack

On Thursday, amid de-escalation chatter, President Trump once again insisted that US military action in North Korea remains a possibility should the North continue its threatening behavior against the US and its allies. If the US were to strike, it would be a “sad day” for the isolated North, Trump promised, adding that while “it would be great” if the issue of containing the North’s nuclear program could be resolved without military action, “nothing is inevitable.” Not peace, not war.

Meanwhile, instead of remorse, Kim Jong Un has only expressed what appears to be frustration that global financial markets aren’t taking his threats more seriously, and has vowed to continue. With its neighbor and client state threatening to upset the global apple cart, China on Thursday hinted that it could support tighter UN economic sanctions, but also pushed the two sides to begin a dialogue. Meanwhile, Russia Today reports that the US military is continuing to prepare for another ground war on the continent. A recent procurement posting suggests that the US Army is seeking a contractor to train its forces in South Korea to respond to potential attacks involving a weapon of mass destruction.

According to a contract proposal posted by the Army on the Federal Business Opportunities website, the Army’s 718th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Company (EOD) in South Korea should be taught to identify hazardous materials, “know how to perform basic control, containment and/or confinement operations,” and implement decontamination procedures.

The contractor would be expected to provide a two-week training course, taught on-site at the US Camp Humphreys base in South Korea. The US has 25,000 troops deployed at some 80 sites across the country. In August, the Pentagon posted another proposal that hinted at heightened anxieties about an attack: Contractors were needed to build walls around four US bases, according to Russia Today.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

On the Brink of Nuclear War

September 6, 2017

On the Brink of Nuclear War

Special Report: As nuclear war looms in Korea, the life-or-death question is whether President Trump and his team can somehow marshal the skill and strength of President Kennedy in the Cuban Missile Crisis, writes historian William R. Polk.

In the first part of this essay, I gave my interpretation of the background of the current confrontation in Korea. I argued that, while the past is the mother of the present, it has several fathers. What I remember is not necessarily what you remember; so, in this sense, the present also shapes or reshapes the past.

A nuclear test detonation carried out in Nevada on April 18, 1953.

In my experience as a policy planner, I found that only by taking note of the perception of events as they are differently held by the participants could one understand or deal with present actions and ideas. I have tried to sketch out views of the past as we, the North Koreans and the South Koreans, differently view them in Part 1 of this essay.

Now I want to undertake a refinement of the record I have laid out. I want first to show how our perception, the interpretation we place on the events that swirl past us, adds a new and formative element to them. Whether consciously or not, we tend to put events into a pattern. So the pattern itself becomes part of the problem we face in trying to understand events. Staking out a path – an interpretation or a theory of what random bits and pieces mean or how they will be interpreted and acted upon by others — is a complex and contentious task.

Getting it wrong can lead us astray or even be very dangerous. So the interpreter, the strategist, must always be tested to see if his interpretation makes sense and the path he lays out is the one we want to travel. I will make this explicit below.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Insanity in Korea – But Is it Logical?

September 6, 2017

The Insanity in Korea – But Is it Logical?

The South China Post reported that Chinese scientists fear that a mountain in North Korea under which the last five bombs detonated as tests, may collapse crumbling into a crater. They fear that the radiation underground would then leak across region.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that the escalating crisis concerning North Korea’s weapons program is placing the world at risk of developing into a “global catastrophe” with massive casualties. Putin has UNREALISTICALLY said that the only way to resolve the crisis was through diplomacy. For that to be even a possibility, it requires talking. Kim Jong Un has not even met with the leader of China – its once closet Allies.

Let’s put this is perspective. Why is Kim pushing the world to the brink? Kim Jong Un looks at this differently He believes that the survival of his regime depends on possessing nuclear weapons. He is most likely NOT interested in starting a nuclear war for he cannot be so stupid to believe he would win. Yet, Kim also realizes that the prospect of the USA sending a nuke to North Korea is also not likely for that would antagonize China and risk pollution drifting to South Korea and Japan, not to mention China. So with all the saber rattling, Kim is not stupid and realizes that the USA cannot launch a first strike.

Now, what is the goal of Kim? To be honest, Kim Jong Un does not trust the USA for from the outsider perspective, he has watched how American intervention in Iraq ended in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, his execution as well as family members, and left the country ravaged by war and a puppet of Washington.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Japan Prepares For Mass Evacuation Of 60,000 Citizens From South Korea

September 4, 2017

Japan Prepares For Mass Evacuation Of 60,000 Citizens From South Korea

It won’t be the first time that a near-panicked Japan has came close to the edge when it comes to North Korea, and in preparation for an “emergency” was planning to evacuate its citizens located in South Korea. The last such notable spike in escalations took place in April, when as the Yomiuri Shimbun reported at the time, the Japanese government had asked the U.S. to provide advance consultation if it is about to launch military action against North Korea, and “ramped up preparations for emergency situations”, including the potential evacuation of some 57,000 Japanese citizens currently in South Korea.

Fast forward to today, when moments ago Japan’s Nikkei reported that as tensions on the Korean Peninsula reach new heights following Pyongyang’s first (allegedly) hydrogen bomb test, Japan is planning a possible mass evacuation of the nearly 60,000 Japanese citizens currently living in or visiting South Korea.

“There is a possibility of further provocations,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at a Monday meeting with ruling coalition lawmakers. “We need to remain extremely vigilant and do everything we can to ensure the safety of our people.”

In response to North Korea’s sixth nuclear test, Japan and the U.S. are seeking a peaceful resolution by ratcheting up economic pressure on the rogue state through an oil embargo and other measures, while South Korea’s president has also called for a currency/FX blockade of the Kim regime. And yet, what has spooked Tokyo is that on Sunday, Defense Secretary James Mattis also said any threat to the U.S. or its allies “will be met with a massive military response – a response both effective and overwhelming.” Which means thousands of Japanese may soon be in harm’s way.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The New Trump: War President

August 22, 2017

The New Trump: War President

Exclusive: President Trump’s reversal on the Afghan War – now promising to “win” not withdraw – further makes him a “war president” along with his “fire and fury” belligerence over North Korea, as Jonathan Marshall observes.

Say what you will about Charlottesville, the national debate over neo-Nazis at least took our minds off the threat of nuclear war with North Korea. With the start of U.S.-South Korean war games, that specter will quickly return to haunt us.

President Donald Trump describing his policy toward the Afghan War, at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, on Aug. 21, 2017. (Screenshot from Whitehouse.gov)

How worried should we be? The answer lies much more in Washington than in Pyongyang. The Kim regime has been almost entirely consistent in its policy: It means to keep building a credible nuclear arsenal, complete with ICBMs, until it has the capacity to deter a U.S. attack. For all its posturing and bombast, North Korea’s policy is fundamentally defensive.

In contrast, the Trump administration has sent a host of confusing messages. Some top officials buy into sane, defensive notions of mutual nuclear deterrence. Others, however, insist that Kim’s regime must be vanquished before it acquires greater nuclear capabilities. The fate of millions of people rests on which policy President Trump adopts.

One of Steve Bannon’s last declarations before being fired by the White House was that no “military option” exists for dealing with North Korea, because of the extraordinary damage a war would cause.

As I’ve discussed before, however, another influential Washington figure, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, has lobbied Trump to order an all-out attack if Pyongyang continues testing missiles capable of reaching the United States — even if a war turns South Korea and Japan into wastelands.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

USA Is Now Twice As Likely To ‘Default’ Than Germany

August 18, 2017

USA Is Now Twice As Likely To ‘Default’ Than Germany

While the market turmoil (stocks down a few percentage points from all-time record highs) is being pinned on various factors (from North Korea, Trump, & Cohn to terrible retailer earnings and J-Hole anxiety), we suspect the real cause of market uncertainty is starting to peak through – the looming debt ceiling crisis that has now become too big and too imminent to ignore.

Of course, uncertainty in The White House is starting to make investors realize the chance of successfully navigating the debt ceiling crisis without a government shutdown are dwindling…

With the T-Bill market pricing in serious disruption at the end of September, the risk of a technical default for US Treasury debt is starting to rise and is now spiking relative to Germany.

In fact, as the chart above shows, the current ‘risk’ in USA debt/devaluation markets is twice that of Germany’s – worse than at the peak of the shutdown in 2013 and worse than the shutdown debacle in 2015.

USA Default Risk premium has not been this high since Lehman.

Korean War Part II: Why It’s Probably Going To Happen

August 17, 2017

Korean War Part II: Why It’s Probably Going To Happen

Though a lot of people in my line of work (alternative economic and geopolitical analysis) tend to be accused of “doom mongering,” I have to say personally I am not a big believer in “doom.” At least, not in the way that the accusation insinuates. I don’t believe in apocalypse, Armageddon or the end of the world, nor do I even believe, according to the evidence, that a global nuclear conflict is upon us. In fact, it annoys me that so many people seem desperate to imagine those conclusions whenever a crisis event takes shape.

I think the concept of “apocalypse” is rather lazy — unless we are talking about a fantastical movie scenario, like a meteor the size of Kentucky or Michelle Obama’s Adam’s apple hurtling towards the Earth. Human civilization is more likely to change in the face of crisis rather than end completely.

I do believe in massive sea changes in societies and political dynamics. I believe in the fall of nations and empires. I believe in this because I have seen it perpetually through history. What I see constant evidence of is that many of these sea changes are engineered by establishment elitists in government and finance. What I see is evidence of organized psychopathy and an agenda for total centralization of power. When I stumble upon the potential for economic disaster or war, I always ask myself “what is the narrative being sold to the public, what truth is it distracting us from and who REALLY benefits from the calamity.”

The saying “all wars are banker wars” is not an unfair generalization — it is a safe bet.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Logic of War

August 12, 2017

The Logic of War

This was the week that the logic of war collided with the illogic of bubbles. So far, the bubble is winning, but that’s about to change.

The “logic of war” is an English translation of a French phrase, la logique de la guerre, which refers to the dynamic of how wars begin despite the fact that the war itself will be horrendous, counterproductive, and possibly end in complete defeat.

As applied to North Korea, the U.S. has made it clear that if it is forced into a preemptive attack to destroy North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, it will not stop there. The U.S. will aim to decapitate the regime and replace it with something more reasonable.

This could be the start of a gradual reunification of the Korean peninsula on terms favorable to the U.S. In effect, we would be winners in the original Korean War fought from 1950 to 1953.

North Korea has made it equally clear that any attack by the U.S. will result in massive artillery and missile bombardment of South Korea, and possibly Japan and U.S. bases in the region.

Even if North Korea has not yet produced nuclear armed missiles, it does have enormous conventional firepower and missiles. It could possibly detonate a nuclear “device” even if it does not yet have a miniaturized nuclear warhead.

The bottom line is that the U.S. and its allies will suffer enormous casualties and economic damage, China may find a pro-U.S. regime on its doorstep, and the North Korean regime will face annihilation.

Given these outcomes, “logic” says that war should be prevented. This would not be difficult to do. If North Korea verifiably stopped its weapons testing and engaged in some dialogue, the U.S. would meet the regime more than halfway with sanctions relief and some expanded trade and investment opportunities.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Korea Times: “China Bracing For Emergency Situation Involving North Korea”

May 1, 2017

Korea Times: “China Bracing For Emergency Situation Involving North Korea”

With the North Korean situation tense after Friday’s latest failed missile attempt, the South Korea’s Korea Times reports that a Chinese town near the border with North Korea is “urgently” recruiting Korean-Chinese interpreters, “stirring speculation that China is bracing for an emergency situation involving its nuclear-armed neighbor.”

The Korea Times cites The Oriental Daily, a Hong Kong-based news outlet, which reportedly published the story on Apr. 27, including a photo of a Chinese government document ordering the town of Dandong to recruit an unspecified number of Korean-Chinese interpreters to work at 10 departments in the town, including border security, public security, trade, customs and quarantine.

The document did not specify the reason behind the unusual, large-scale recruiting. But experts and local citizens said the move indicated that China was bracing for a possible military clash between the United States and North Korea.

The Korean outlet goes on to speculate that this “might trigger a huge exodus of North Koreans to border towns in China.”

Whether this dismal scenario will become a reality is largely up to North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un.

The Dandong administration also has ordered its officials to work rotating night shifts since April 25, according to South Korea’s news agency Yonhap.

Meanwhile, China has dismissed recent reports that it has sent 150,000 additional troops to its border with the North.

The Anything President And The Everything Bubble

April 20, 2017

The Anything President And The Everything Bubble

[Ed. Note: To see exactly what this former Reagan insider has to say about Trump and the fiscal threats from politics and the debt ceiling, David Stockman is sending out a copy of his book Trumped! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin… And How to Bring It Back to any American willing to listen – before it is too late. To learn how to get your free copy CLICK HERE.]

The lemmings were running hard towards the cliffs yesterday. Despite a renewed burst of bombs and drones careening into the already rubble-strewn wastelands of Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and Iraq.

Or the outbreak of cold war style nuclear brinksmanship on the Korean peninsula — what one commentator properly called a Cuban missile crisis in slow motion.

Likewise, forget that the vacationing Congress is set to return on April 25 to an endless sequence of shoutdowns, showdowns and shutdowns on continuing resolutions and debt ceiling increases.

That is, it will be struggling to keep the fiscal lights on in the Imperial City, not enacting the Donald’s DBA (dead before arrival) fantasy about making the American economy great again.

Indeed, while the Donald has been out huffing and puffing in his new role as global Spanker-in-Chief, the domestic front has turned from bad to worse. His economic policy machinery has now been seized entirely by the Vampire Squid’s latest chieftains in the White House — Gary Cohn, Steve Mnuchin and Jared Kushner.

I am quite confident that none of these three has ever voted Republican in their life or have even the foggiest idea of how to craft a fiscal plan and tax program that could coalesce the warring GOP factions from the hardline Freedom Caucus to the moderate Tuesday Group.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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