South Korea Readies for a Future Without America

Instead of North Korea coming to terms with the Western world, it’s the Western world that’s being absorbed into China’s sphere of influence in Asia. The Western plan in its current state seems to be backfiring.

 

A South Korean soldier stands guard before the military demarcation line and North Korea’s Panmun Hall. (ED JONES/AFP/Getty Images)

 

‘These disagreements have brought thorny issues over the shape and size of the U.S.-South Korea alliance back to the surface.’

The United States and South Korea are increasingly at odds over North Korea, placing the future of their military alliance in doubt.

Early last month, South Korea opened a liaison office with North Korea despite U.S. opposition to the move. Shortly after, South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha publicly criticized the U.S. for its inflexibility regarding an action of good faith that North Korea had asked of the U.S. Also in September, South Korea announced that it might remove a certain set of sanctions on the North, prompting U.S. President Donald Trump to say the South does “nothing without our approval,” a statement that irritated many South Koreans.

China’s Command Innovation

Image: Visual Capitalist

 

Hardly a day passes without some sort of China news in the financial headlines. There’s a good reason, too. China is the global economy’s 600-pound gorilla, second in size only to the US. Yes, it was largely a copycat business economy up until the early 2000s, but Chinese entrepreneurs have really taken charge in the last 10 years. Fueled by the profits from huge consumer demand, they are expanding not only in China but globally. This story is largely ignored in the US and in much of Europe. We hear about a few projects here and there, but we don’t understand the extent.

China is on its way to becoming the largest economy in the world, which because of its population, it should be (possibly with the exception of India, if they ever get their act together). Short-term events and arguments sometimes obscure this longer-term reality. China’s transition from rural poverty to export powerhouse to consumer goliath may be the most consequential economic event in centuries. Possibly ever—I can’t think of a historical example to rival it. Historians might argue the British Empire or even the US from 1800–2000, but that took centuries. China has done it in a little over 30 years.

North Korea continues to dismantle missile launch site, but no signs of any moves to scrap nuclear weapons

Satellite imagery from August 3 indicates additional dismantlement activities are ongoing at the Sohae launch facility. Photo: 38 North

 

Satellite images suggest work is continuing to demolish Sohae facilities, but analysts suggest it may want to keep other parts of its arsenal intact for now

North Korea appears to have taken another step towards dismantling its fixed missile launching facilities after the US stepped up the pressure to disarm, but so far it appears to have left other facilities and its nuclear warheads intact.

The hermit state appears to be continuing to take down its key intercontinental ballistic missile facilities (ICBM) at Sohae, located at about 200km (120 miles) northwest of the capital Pyongyang, according to the North Korea monitoring group 38 North on late Tuesday.

The US Fading into Irrelevance – A Good Thing for the World

 

Chaos reigns in the United States, spreading to its closest allies. The war amongst Western elites is in full swing, manifesting itself from commercial wars to failed diplomacy, empty threats of war, corruption, and announced military withdrawals and attacks.

To sum up the last few weeks of international events, it is worth comparing the direction taken by the multipolar troika of Russia, China and Iran, and the one taken by the fading unipolar order led by the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Pentagon Steps Up North Korea Military Planning

Without a doubt, the talks are a major breakthrough in the nuclear impasse, but to be clear, it’s only in the very beginning stages. Although it’ll seem hypocritical to many after seeing high-level talks will happen, Washington is laying down its insurance policy. There is no guarantee that anything will come to fruition with the talks, and second, there’s no guarantee Kim Jong-un won’t use this for only his benefit like Russia, China and Iran do. They make treaties to break them because they know the United States will commit to its obligations.

It’s in America’s blood to take the moral high road in this sense. The axis powers know no morality in cases like this and use deals to extract concessions. They are users and manipulators, not cooperators. A majority of the public doesn’t see this, however, due to good propaganda that projects the ideal positive spotlight on them that they want.

 

North Korean threats to turn the South Korean capital of Seoul into a “sea of fire” are not propaganda, the Senate Armed Services Committee was told. (Associated Press/File)

 

The Pentagon is intensifying military planning for war on the Korean Peninsula despite the apparent thaw between North Korea and the United States over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and long-range missile program.

Pentagon officials say the military planning has increased in recent weeks and involves reworking and refining Op Plan 5027, as the war plan for a conflict against North Korea is called.

The activity is being done by planners in the Pentagon in coordination with officials from U.S. Forces Korea, the military command in South Korea. The objective is to determine how best to execute President Trump’s order to eliminate the North Korean nuclear program.

Trump says South Korea will make major announcement on North Korea

Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump told reporters Thursday that South Korea will make a “major announcement” concerning North Korea at 7 p.m. ET.

It was not immediately clear what the South Korean announcement would entail, but it came after a South Korean delegation came to the White House to brief officials on its most recent talks with North Korea — the most significant talks between the two countries in more than a decade.

Chinese air force holds drills in ‘new routes and areas’ near Korean peninsula

The exercise involved aircraft including reconnaissance planes in areas they have “never flown before” over the Yellow and East seas near the Korean peninsula. Photo: PLA

 

Date and exact location of exercise isn’t revealed but announcement said to be aimed at sending a message to Washington and Seoul

China’s air force recently staged drills involving various aircraft through “routes and areas it has never flown before” over the Yellow and East seas near the Korean peninsula.

Air force spokesman Shen Jinke made the announcement at an airport in northern China on Monday – the same day the United States and South Korea began their biggest joint air force exercise, and days after Pyongyang launched its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile to date.

US orders 16,000 troops and 230 jets to get ready for WAR with North Korea Today

VIGILANT ACE: US warplanes including fighters and bombers often blast over the Korean Peninsula [Getty]

NORTH Korea better be watching its back today as thousands of US troops and 230 warplanes descend on Kim Jong-un’s doorstep.

Vigilant Ace – a massive joint war games – kicks off today as the US and South Korea rehearse for battle with Pyongyang.

Hundreds of aircraft and thousands of soldiers and airmen are taking part in the drill, which is one of the biggest ever of its kind.

North Korea Says “Completed State Nuclear Program”; Warns “The Whole US Is In Range”

 

North Korea claims its “new ICBM can put whole U.S. mainland within range,” says it has “realized great historic cause of completing state nuclear force”

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Following the successful test-firing of its longest range ICBM yet today, Yonhap News reports, citing North Korean media, that North Korea will make an important announcement at noon Seoul time (10:30pm ET).

In blow to U.S. alliance, South Korea’s foreign minister assures China on THAAD, Japan ties

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with South Korean President Moon Jae-In at the Blue House in Seoul on Nov. 7. / AP

 

South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-Wha, in a bow to China, has said Seoul will not seek any more deployments of the U.S. THAAD missile defense system.

Kang also assured that the South will not join the U.S. missile defense networks nor seek a trilateral alliance involving Japan, Yonhap reported on Nov. 10.

U.S. on alert for China moves

Chinese soldiers and children holding U.S. and Chinese flags line up on the tarmac to greet President Donald Trump as he arrives at Beijing Airport, Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2017, in Beijing, China. Trump is on a five country trip through Asia traveling to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

 

China’s government is known for using high-level foreign visits to conduct tests of new military equipment such as missiles and stealth aircraft, and the White House is hoping Beijing does not conduct provocative tests while President Trump is visiting the country this week.

The most notable example was the January 2010 visit to China by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates, when the Chinese military sought to sabotage the trip by flight-testing the first J-20 stealth fighter. Mr. Gates wrote in his memoir that the People’s Liberation Army nearly “wrecked” the visit. Two hours before he met with then-Chinese President Hu Jintao, China released photos of the new J-20 in what Mr. Gates called “about as big a ‘f– you’ as you can get.”

S. Korea ‘in talks to buy nuclear submarine’ from US: reports

 

South Korea is negotiating with the United States to buy nuclear-powered submarines to guard against threats from Pyongyang, local reports said Tuesday, as President Donald Trump said Seoul would buy “billions of dollars” of US weapons.

Nuclear-powered submarines can stay submerged for months, giving them a far greater range than their diesel-powered counterparts, and are also crucial to any seaborne nuclear deterrent.

The devastating tolls of a new Korean war

 

When the Korean War ended in 1953 millions of people were dead and South Korea was a smoking wasteland, Seoul having changed hands four times over the course of the conflict.

Now as well as the South’s seat of government, the city is a gleaming hub of technology, K-pop, and plastic surgery, home to 10 million people with even more again in the surrounding area.

North Korea conducts mass-evacuation drills as threat of war heightens

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un

 

North Korea has been conducting rare mass evacuation and black out drills throughout the country in preparation for war, it emerged this weekend.

Multiple sources told NK News that the drills have taken place in secondary and tertiary cities and towns, particularly along the east coast, but not in the capital city, Pyongyang.

Expert: 64,000 Koreans Die in the First Day of War

In the event war breaks out, in the first minutes, hundreds of thousands of artillery shells and rockets will rain down on South Korea from positions north of the Demilitarized Zone.

 

Army Col. David Maxwell (ret.), a former Special Forces officer who once patrolled the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea, painted a bleak picture of the opening hours of war between the neighboring countries.