When Patience and Deterrence Fail, We Will Still Have Secretary Mattis and His Forces in the Wings

THE REAL NEWS CONTINUES TO BE ABOUT NORTH KOREA. Quo vadis, Kim Jong-un?? • • • The UK Express gave an account on Tuesday of NORTH Korea being spotted moving yet another intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) towards its western coast. Vincent Wood writes : "The rocket started moving on Monday, a day after North Korea's sixth nuclear test and was reportedly spotted moving at night to avoid surveillance. The zestern side of the peninsula brings the missile closer to enemies of the Kim regime, including Japan and the US, amid rising fears of World War III." • A Hwasong-14 ICBM tested earlier this year by Kim Jong-un's regime was found by some experts to be capable of a flight of 6,200 miles, sufficient to reach the US mainland if fired at the right trajectory, but South Korean defense officials have not yet confirmed these claims. However, South Korea's defense ministry did say on Monday that North Korea is considered ready to launch more missiles, including ICBMs, at any time. September 9 is the date many NK followers have suggested as the launch date because it would coincide with the commemoration of North Korea’s Founders Day. • Following Kim Jong-un’s testing of what his state media called "a hydrogen bomb," President Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed thatt the South should develop even more powerful missiles. The two leaders made the agreement in a phone call to lift the cap on the power of South Korea’s arsenal, Seoul’s presidential office announced. The agreement is aimed at building South Korea’s ability to defend itself against further provocation by removing a limit on the payload their missiles are allowed to carry. The decision followed weeks of discussion between US and South Korean defense and foreign officials. South Korean presidential spokesman Park Soo-hyun said : "President Moon noted the condition was very concerning in that the latest nuclear test showed more power than any previous tests and that North Korea itself has claimed the test involved a hydrogen bomb to be mounted on intercontinental ballistic missiles.” President Trump said he recognises the need for Seoul to have powerful practical measures and promised to work closely with the South. • • • NORTH KOREA'S "GIFT PACKAGE." Worldwide media is reporting that North Korea’s recent nuclear bomb test and missile launches have been described as a “gift package” to the United States by Pyongyang’s UN ambassador. Speaking in Geneva, Han Tae Song told his counterparts at the UN-sponsored Conference on Disarmament that the world should expect more nuclear testing and missile launches in a terrifying warning : "The recent self-defense measures by my country, DPRK [North Korea], are a gift package addressed to none other than the US. The US will receive more gift packages from my country as long as it relies on reckless provocations and futile attempts to put pressure on the DPRK.” The threat came just two days after North Korea detonated its sixth and largest nuclear test, which prompted a 6.3-magnitude earthquake and was branded the “perfect” detonation of a hydrogen bomb by Pyongyang that was described by a statement form the North Korean People’s Army as “thrilling nuclear thunder,” as “heavy punishment,” and a “sledgehammer blow” to Donald Trump, whose answer was to tweet that he is selling a "substantially increased amount" high-tech military equipment to South Korea and Japan. The NK military statement lashed out at the West, claiming the US is failing to take the country seriously over its nuclear warheads, with their preferred action being “brigandish sanctions.” The propaganda message also attacked US imperialists, who are “bringing the worst touch-and-go situation on the Korean peninsula while being carried away by ill-advised bravery....It is time for the war hawks of the US to acknowledge again that its whole mainland and the operational area in the Pacific are within the annihilating and merciless nuclear fist of the powerful Paektusan revolutionary army. If they persist on extremely dangerous war drills around the Korean peninsula and provoke a nuclear war on this land, the powerful Paektusan revolutionary army will annihilate the source of aggression and evil on the earth with the nuclear strategic force consolidated with the great line of simultaneously developing the two fronts.” • Meanwhile, a leading Chinese scientist has warned that if North Korea continues with its repeated blasts it could lead to the collapse of its mountainous nuclear testing site, according to Reuters : "The Punggye-ri site in the north-west of the country is where North Korea has conducted its five most recent nuclear bomb tests and any further blasts could cause the entire site to collapse, which would have a devastating effect on the region. • • • INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY SPLIT OVER NORTH KOREA. The international community has offered a variety of proposals to resolve the escalating crisis on the Korean peninsula, but is yet to unanimously agree on a solution. Russia and China have called for diplomacy and said new threats and sanctions will not deter the Kim regime. Putin has criticized plans for more sanctions on North Korea, while German Chancellor Merkel thinks they're necessary. The US, Japan and South Korea appear to be moving away from diplomacy and towards more powerful means of reducing the threat, with Seoul conducting a series of live-fire military drills in a show of force against their hostile northern neighbors. • South Korea's Moon Jae-in has been calling for direct talks with the North to solve the crisis, which is nto President Trump's position. The New York Times said : "On Twitter on Thursday, [Trump] declared that “talking is not the answer!” in dealing with North Korea, casting aside the push by the new South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, to hold talks with the North. On Saturday, he threatened to withdraw the United States from a five-year-old free trade agreement with South Korea over what he considers its unfair protectionist policies. And on Sunday, after North Korea detonated its most powerful nuclear device yet, Trum^p essentially called the South Koreans appeasers, tweeting : ”South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!” Trump is right, at least about the fact that talking to North Korea would tacitly recognize it as a nuclear power, making North Korea's WMD program legitimate. This means that anytime Kim wants to extract concessions from South Korea or the US, they'll test another bomb or shoot off another ICBM. Where will it end? • As American Thinker's Gary Gindler put it on Tuesday : "After Kim Jong-un tested his hydrogen bomb, everything in the world went just as we could expect. Someone started saber-rattling, and someone insisted that the problem of nuclear North Korea cannot be solved by military means under any circumstances." Gindler says both side have strong arguments : "Those who support appeasement of Kim quite reasonably note that the capital of South Korea, with its 25 million-strong population, is at an artillery salvo distance from the border with North Korea. Even a limited volley from the north will lead to hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties. Supporters of a massive blow to North Korea argue that it is better to have thousands of casualties among Koreans than to wait until the hydrogen bomb explodes over San Francisco and Americans become the victims." • US mainstream media takes the appeasement side every day in its reports and editorials -- becase talking is their modus operandi and they are not about to change their way of operating just because San Francisco might be "nuked." Some Progressive Democrats agree, using the current crisis to renew their flagging attacks on a President they are still trying to oust. RINOs are strangely quiet, as are the #NeverTrump crowd in Congress. • Meanwhile, Gindler has a different explanation for Kim Jong-un's seemingly suicidal actions : "Fat Kim does not present a threat to the United States at present. Fat Kim is a threat to President Trump. Fat Kim is not a dumb bump. He's just one of the players in the next political show of the Axis countries. The North Korean crisis allows others hostile to America -- countries such as Iran, Russia, and Syria (i.e., Axis countries) -- to check Trump's resolve. China is not a member of this Axis, but it watches Trump with great pleasure as he tries to get out of this entrapment." Gindler makes the point that all the "Axis countries" are linked "by longstanding nuclear technology ties. Of all the Axis countries, only Syria lacks this technology." Why, we might ask would Iran leave Syria without its own nuclear warhead? -- the Syrian nuclear reactor, built by North Korean engineers, was bombed by Israel in 2007, so at least Israel got it right when a new nuclear outlaw showed up in its backyard. • Gindler offers his analysis of the situation, which is a lot like the MSM arguments we can read in any major US or European newspaper, but with a twist that puts the entire problem in China's lap, so to speak. Gindler says : "The Axis countries are waiting for Trump's move. A standard geopolitical analysis shows that there are many options for Trump, but they all range from bad to very bad. It's time for Trump to make an unconventional move -- a move no one expects. It is better not to increase the US military potential in the region. On the contrary, it is better to completely withdraw all American troops from both South Korea and Japan. In fact, American troops need to be relocated not into the continental US, but to Taiwan. This move by Trump will make China stop playing the role of an outside observer. China will be faced with a choice -- either China joins Trump on this issue, or she will never get back Taiwan, where the headquarters of the 7th US Navy Fleet will now be located. Of course, America's allies in the region, Japan and South Korea, in the face of the withdrawal of US troops, will quite justifiably demand new guarantees of protection from the US government. America should renew its lend-lease program from the Second World War and lease over to Japan and South Korea, for a term of 99 years, all the nuclear weapons they will ask for. The military budgets of these countries will skyrocket. China's inaction toward the Fat Kim regime will lead to the fact that in addition, China will get two unfriendly nuclear powers armed to the teeth at her own border. If Trump adds to this the ban on trade with all countries that have trade relations with North Korea, then China, with four fifths of its economy dependent on the US market, will suffer the most. There is every reason to believe that China will make a reasonable choice. Most likely, she will do this much earlier than the first transport from Japan with the US Marine Corps docking in Taipei. It is unreasonable to assume that China does not have a well conceived plan for rapid regime change in North Korea. If wisdom escapes the Chinese communists, then as the icing on the cake, they will get a united Korea at their side. Capitalistic. And nuclear." • Gindler's argument has a certain poetic ring to it. Can it ever happen? Not if the UN and America's European allies have any voice in the matter. But, we may wonder if this is the "secret plan" that the MSM says the US Defense Department has ready to roll out. • • • THE CNBC TAKE ON THE NORTH KOREA NUCLEAR ISSUE. One CNBC strategist says Kim Jong-un's missile launch over Japan was "very rational," and based on a "sense of acute timing"....Philippe Dauba-Pantanacce, global geopolitical strategist at Standard Chartered Bank, explained that the pariah state's latest missile test was timed specifically while US President Donald Trump was busy with Hurricane Harvey, and a coherent coalition between China, Russia and other international players is yet to be assembled. Dauba-Pantanacce said : "From (Kim Jong-un's) perspective, basically all options on the table for the international community are bad, and he knows that. So, Kim Jong Un is strengthening his hand by trying to get to the point where he's recognized as a nuclear power." Dauba-Pantanacce explained that Kim's move to test the missile at a more horizontal angle was "to prove that they can reach a certain distance" -- namely, North Korea's threat against the US Pacific territory of Guam. Up until now, missile tests have been vertical, Dauba-Pantanacce added. The international community seems to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. "Upping the rhetoric is dangerous," Dauba-Pantanacce argued, because it sets precedent for stronger moves to come. This could be difficult to achieve, given the "fragile, if not fractured coalition" at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). There is "no possibility...of a military strike from the US, which would cause disastrous consequences to Seoul in particular." • Another CNBC analyst, Gina Sanchez, CEO of Chantico Global, said that China and Russia, permanent members on the Security Council and therefore with the power to veto sanctions, are understood to only consider the testing of a nuclear missile or long-range weapon as worthy of triggering increased sanctions. They warned against the US potentially deploying a missile system to South Korea. Sanchez added : "China would likely stay on the sidelines" should the U.S. and South Korea opt for military involvement in the North. Intervention would only be a "very quick geopolitical event," she added. • • • WORLD POWERS LINE UP FOR APPEASEMENT. American Thinker's Rick Moran wrote a lengthy article on Tuesday that concludes that world powers lining up to oppose US military action against North Korea. Moran writes : "Over the last 24 hours, China, Russia, and South Korea have all warned the US against taking military action against North Korea. At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, US Ambassador Nikki Haley made it clear that the US patience "had its limits" and that Kim Jong-un was "begging for war." Putting aside Haley's ill-chosen phrasing, her point that incremental sanctions on North Korea imposed by the Security Council since 2006 had failed to stop Pyongyang's march toward more powerful and dangerous weapons is accurate. Haley said : "Despite our efforts the North Korea nuclear program is more advanced and more dangerous than ever. We must adopt the strongest possible measures." • RUSSIA. Moran says Haley's call for new sanctions is falling on deaf ears in Moscow and Beijing. He cites NBC News : "Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Tuesday that ramping up the 'military hysteria' around North Korea's escalating nuclear and missile tests could lead to a 'global catastrophe.' He also questioned the effectiveness of tightening sanctions, as the US has suggested, saying that they will not change the behavior of Kim Jong-un and his regime. North Korea 'would rather eat grass' than abandon its nuclear program 'as long as they do not feel safe,' " Putin said, urging dialogue with Pyongyang. His comments came two days after Kim's government detonated its sixth and largest nuclear test. We remind President Putin that since Kim Jong-un came to power in 2011, NK's nuclear bomb tests have gone from 10 kilo-tons to 120 kilo-tons. It should also be noted that South Korea's response of firing missiles into the sea to simulate an attack on the North seems like a total waste f time and good ammunition, but more military drills were held on Tuesday. Putin also suggested that Kim's government had learned lessons from the US invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein, pointing out that after that dictator "abandoned weapons of mass destruction everyone remembers how he ended up. North Korea remembers this, too." Putin said in his live news conference on Tuesday that : "North Korea has stated in public statements that it wants an official end to the Korean War -- which was halted by a 1953 armistice but no peace treaty has been signed. It also wants nothing short of full normalization of relations with the US and to be treated with respect and as an equal in the global arena." • CHINA. The use of the word "hysteria" by Putin is described by Rick Moran as "a deliberate effort to delegitimize US claims that North Korea's missile and nuclear program represents an existential threat to the United States. I don't think we can count on any support from Russia if the US goes to war with the North Koreans." Then Moran adds : "Same goes for China, although Beijing may also be reaching the end of it patience with Kim. They warned that China would 'never allow chaos and war on the peninsula.' " TheHill reported on the China position : "During an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, Liu Jieyi said the situation on the Korean peninsula is 'deteriorating constantly' and the issue needs to be resolved 'peacefully.' The parties concerned must strengthen their sense of urgency, take due responsibilities, play their due roles, take practical measures, make joint efforts together to ease the situation, restart the dialogue and talks and prevent further deterioration of the situation on the peninsula." While China may be "pressing North Korea hard" not to stage a nuclear test, China's leadership seems unwilling to do much else to control their client state. China opposes sanctions, largely because sanctions on trade would hurt China more than any other nation. China is NK's largest trading partner and if, as has been discussed by President Trump and US national security officials, the next round of sanctions would be levied against North Korea's trading partners, it would undoubtedly get a veto from China at the Security Council. And, instead of being honest about its trading position, China has responded to President Trump’s threat to cut off trade with countries that deal with North Korea as “unfair,” while claiming they are making “arduous efforts” to de-escalate tensions in the region. Responding to Trump’s threat, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said such a move would not be justified as China is making “arduous efforts to peacefully resolve” the issue. Shuang said : "What we absolutely cannot accept is that on the one hand (we are) making arduous efforts to peacefully resolve the North Korean nuclear issue, and on the other hand (our) interests are being sanctioned or harmed." An article in the state-run English language newspaper Global Times argued that China was the “main external victim” of the North Korean nuclear crisis, warning that “Washington needs to accept the fact that it does not hold absolute authority over the world.” Trump, for his part, has previously asserted that China could “easily solve the problem” and contended that they had done “nothing” to help appease the situation : “I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem.” In a White House press conference on Sunday, Secretary of Defense General James Mattis warned that continued North Korean aggression would be met with a “massive military response” that would be “both effective and overwhelming. We are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea. But we have many options to do so,” he said. • • • CHINA OIL EXPORTS TO NORTH KOREA. Experts have told CNBC that it's time to stop oil exports to North Korea as sanctions after it defied the international community by testing a nuclear bomb on Sunday. Kim Jong-un's regime is skilled at working around international trade sanctions, but it needs crude oil to power its military and its transport operations, according to Scott Seaman, the director for Asia at the geopolitical consultancy Eurasia Group : "If China decides to cut off that vital supply of crude oil going to North Korea, there will be an immediate and pretty costly impact on the economy." The move, if implemented, would have a major impact on North Korea's military and transport operations, Seaman told CNBC. Jonathan Pollack, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution, said : "The real issue here is whether China and Russia will be prepared to go into domains that until now they have not been prepared to enter and that very specifically concerns oil. If the Chinese and the Russians both would be prepared to limit, or suspend outright, oil deliveries to the North, that's a very consequential step. It may have a much, much more potent effect than all of these issues related to sanctions." Chinese July gasoline exports to North Korea were down 97% from a year ago, but analysts said its crude oil exports to Pyongyang still keep the regime operating. China does not report crude oil exports to North Korea, but industry sources told Reuters in April that the country supplies about 520,000 tonnes of crude a year to North Korea through an old pipeline. Meanwhile, bilateral Russia-North Korea trade doubled to $31.4 million in the first quarter of 2017 from a year ago, Reuters reported in August. Most shipments were oil, coal and refined products. On Sunday, President Xi and Russian President Putin agreed on the sidelines of a summit that they will "appropriately deal with" North Korea's latest nuclear test, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported. Seaman and a colleague wrote in a Eurasia Group note that with Pyongyang's latest provocation, Beijing will finally reduce crude oil exports to North Korea substantially. Still, they wrote, that would only be "for a limited period to prevent a total economic collapse. China wants to impose real pain without bringing down the system." The Chinese have been reluctant to take that route because they have feared that doing so may destabilize the Kim Jong Un regime and the region, but Pyongyang's latest underground nuclear test -- its sixth since 2006 -- may have crossed Beijing's "red line of sorts," Eurasia said. • • • IS THERE A NEW ICBM TEST COMING? According to South Korea, the DPRK is currently preparing for an ICBM launch amid reports of Pyongyang’s hydrogen bomb testing, local media reported Monday, citing sources in the Defense Ministry. The South Korean Environment Ministry has made a decision to conditionally approve the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense systems deployment on the territory of the Asian nation. The Yonhap news agency reported, citing its own sources, that the decision had been made after the review of research prepared by the South Korean Defense Ministry, which focused on the environmental impact of deployment in the country’s eastern, North Gyeongsang province. Despite the opposition of local environmental activists and residents, the ministry is expected to make an official announcement later in the day that would remove the last administrative barrier on the issue of deployment, the news outlet reported. The opponents of deployment consider the ministry’s research not credible enough and demand its revision, the news agency added. • • • DEAR READERS, it seems silly to call this one of the most dangerous moments in world politics in the last century. Real Clear Politics contributor Charles Lipson, the Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, writes that last week, despite UN sanctions and China’s public call for restraint, Kim Jong-un tested his nation’s most powerful nuclear device yet. Analysts have not confirmed that it was a hydrogen bomb, but western intelligence believes H-Bombs are coming soon. Lipson says the NK regime is miniaturizing its weapons and improving its long- and medium-range missiles. It also has thousands of conventional weapons pointed at South Korea, including some that could hit nuclear power plants. US presidents, from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama, could not slow these North Korean programs. so far, neither has President Trump -- although he has tried an open hand to China, a closed fist to North Korea, and repeated demonstrations of US military power. They have had no effect. Kim will not halt his weapons program, perhaps until he fears imminent death and destruction. So far, he feels safe. So does his major backer, China. Since, China is Kim’s lifeline, and it dreads a war on the Korean Peninsula. China is also deeply opposed to being encircled by adversaries, led by US troops and ships, and China is appalled by the prospect of a re-armed Japan. • China has only itself to blame for this increasingly toxic environment, according to Lipson. It chose to make North Korea a lethal threat by giving it vital economic and military aid. Now, China must decide whether to go on supporting Kim Jong-un or choose regime change. China's choice is critical and time is running out. Soon, North Korea will be able to hit American cities and destroy millions of lives. President Trump says that is unacceptable -- but, is he willing to go to war over North Korea’s nuclear program, knowing Seoul is within easy artillery range of North Korea? If Trump will not go to war, and if Secretary Mattis and the US military agree, that leaves deterrence, and the certainty that American forces would annihilate North Korea if the Kim regime used nuclear weapons. But, deterrence has never been used against anyone with Kim's surrealistic approach to his place in the world -- except for Iran, which is North Korea’s close working partner in nuclear and missile programs, and that is tomorrow's topic. The real question is whether the ‘near certainty’ that deterrence will work good enoughfor Trump and the world. Near certainty -- nobody has any idea what the odds are. But, despite all the international pressure, Kim continues.And, he is causing the US, Japan, and South Korea to respond by arming and cooperating. That, says Lipson, makes North Korea a strategic liability for China. And, China must fear that even moderate pressure on Pyongyang could inadvertently cause the regime to implode. That could lead to mass migration across the Yalu River into China, a unified peninsula under Seoul’s leadership, an American ally on China’s border (much as Russia feared in Ukraine), and possibly a regional war if Beijing enters to save North Korea and prevent unification. If this new environment does not force Beijing to change policies, what could? "China can signal North Korea by voting for tough UN sanctions, but that won’t matter to Pyongyang unless China cuts off access to its banks, trade revenues, military technology, and fuel. If China does that, then it is serious. If not, it is merely playing for time," says Lipson. • As we read last week, Manzo and Warden counsel "deterring North Korea from initiating a war and, if that fails, deterring North Korea from using nuclear weapons in that war. To strengthen deterrence...the United States and South Korea also should improve their combined conventional force posture on the peninsula, particularly their ability to fight and win limited wars. To counter the threat of regional nuclear strikes, the United States, South Korea, and Japan should improve their ability to strike and defend against North Korea’s theater-range missiles. In truth, North Korea may see nuclear coercion targeting Japan or South Korea as a more likely path to terminating a war than directly threatening the United States." Because North Korea "may be driven to nuclear use by misinterpreting certain military actions as a prelude to invasion....Taking steps to diminish tension, reduce misunderstanding, and assure Pyongyang that the United States and its allies would only pursue regime change in the most extreme circumstances would decrease the risk of miscalculation....In certain wartime circumstances, the United States and its allies might calculate that pursuing regime change in Pyongyang, despite the enormous costs, is the least bad option. In that case, disarming as much of North Korea’s nuclear force as possible would be a necessity. But in many other scenarios, especially ones in which North Korea has not yet crossed the nuclear threshold, US and allied interests would be better served by conveying to Kim Jong-un that de-escalation is his best chance of survival....Effectively deterring a nuclear-armed North Korea requires measured resolve backed by real strength. By rejecting vulnerability to a North Korean nuclear strike and improving damage limitation capabilities, the United States and its allies can challenge North Korea’s theory of coercive nuclear escalation, inducing caution in both crisis and conflict." • And, if patience and deterrence fail, we still have Jim Mattis and his forces on call.