SEOUL,
South Korea — Almost everything American intelligence agencies and
North Korea-watchers thought they understood two years ago about Kim
Jong-un, the North’s young leader, turns out to have been wrong.
The
briefings given to President Obama after Mr. Kim inherited leadership
said it was almost certain he would be kept in check by his more
experienced uncle, Jang Song-thaek. Instead, Mr. Kim had his uncle and
dozens of others executed.
The
early betting was also that Mr. Kim, who was briefly educated in
Switzerland, would emphasize economic overhaul over expanding the
nuclear and missile arsenals that were his father’s and grandfather’s
legacy. Instead, the nuclear program has surged forward, and recent
missile tests are demonstrating that after years of spectacular
failures, the North’s engineers are finally improving their aim. Their
next big challenge is proving that an intercontinental missile they have
shown only in mock-ups can reach America’s shores.
As
a result, when Mr. Obama lands here on Friday on the second stop of his
Asia tour, he will be confronting the question of whether his strategy
of “strategic patience” with the North has been overtaken by reality: an
unpredictable, though calculating, ruler in Mr. Kim, who has proved to
be more ruthless, aggressive and tactically skilled than anyone
expected.
“We
have failed,” said Evans J. R. Revere, who spent his State Department
career trying various diplomatic strategies to stop the North. “For two
decades our policy has been to keep the North Koreans from developing
nuclear weapons. It’s now clear there is no way they will give them up,
no matter what sanctions we impose, no matter what we offer. So now
what?”
It
is an assessment some of Mr. Obama’s aides say they privately share,
though for now the administration refuses to negotiate with the North
until it first fulfills its oft-violated agreements to freeze its
nuclear and missile programs. A recent effort inside the National
Security Council to devise a new approach resulted in a flurry of papers
and classified strategy sessions — and the conclusion that all the
alternatives to the current course were worse.
“We’re stuck,” one participant in the review said.
The
only place any real change is visible is in the military planning by
South Korea and the United States, which maintains a shrunken force of
28,000 troops in the South. For the first time since the armistice in
1953, officials say, the contingency plan for a conflict with the North
treats the nation as a nuclear-capable adversary, despite the
administration’s official refusal to acknowledge it as a de facto
nuclear state. (What appear to be North Korea’s preparations for a
fourth nuclear test, perhaps in the coming days, seem intended to remove
all doubt.)
The
latest revision of OpPlan 5029, the war plan for the Korean Peninsula,
assumes that if a conflict broke out, the North would be able to deliver
a crude nuclear weapon, though perhaps by truck or ship. American
intelligence officials do not believe the North is yet able to shrink a
bomb to a size that could fit on one of its Nodong missiles, the key
breakthrough it needs.
“He’s
put new effort into his nuclear program, missiles, special operations
forces and long-range artillery,” said Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, who
took over last fall as commander of United States Forces Korea and the
United Nations Command here. “They are using more underground
facilities. He’s gone to school on how we operate.”
Continue reading the main story
Advertisement
Defense
officials say they now have less warning time on missile launchings
than they had two or three years ago because Mr. Kim has put his
resources into mobile launchers that are regularly moved from tunnel to
tunnel, making them harder for American satellites to track.
Although
details of the revised plan are classified, officials have talked about
elements of it. Since the North shelled a South Korean island and was
blamed for sinking a South Korean warship four years ago, there are now
extensive plans for immediately responding to and then de-escalating
small attacks along the border regions.
The
North Korean forces remain numerically impressive at a million
soldiers, but highly unimpressive when they train. The country is so
poor that South Korean military officials say its pilots rarely have the
gas to perform practice runs.
But
in recent interviews here and in Washington, a picture has emerged of
Mr. Kim’s new focus on inexpensive weaponry, from missile launchers to
crude cyberweapons, that are hard to detect and harder to halt. Mr. Kim,
who is believed to be 30 years old, has also nurtured his reputation
for unpredictability, keeping adversaries on edge.
Administration
officials acknowledge they have largely left North Korea on the back
burner while focusing on sanctions, cyberattacks and pressure on Iran,
forcing it into negotiations.
“The
administration decided, consciously or implicitly, that Iran was more
important and there was a greater prospect of getting something done,”
said Robert Einhorn, who ran the sanctions enforcement program against
both countries until he left the State Department last year. “While you
can squeeze Iran and its oil money, it’s much harder to squeeze North
Korea” while China continues its financial support.
White
House officials argue that focusing first on Iran made sense. Its
program can still be halted before it gains a weapons ability, if that
is Tehran’s goal, and the administration believes that North Korea is
less likely to set off a regional arms race.
“You
could argue that the best North Korea strategy now is to get a deal
with Iran, and use it as a model for the North about what the world can
look like,” one senior administration official said.
But
others inside the administration fear that policy is too passive — and
perhaps a prescription for a much larger North Korean arsenal by the
time Mr. Obama leaves office.
At
the heart of the problem are dashed hopes that Mr. Kim would conclude
that his grandfather’s and father’s pursuit of a nuclear ability was a
Cold War relic, and that he would gradually steer the country to
integration with the world economy. There was modest reason for optimism
just months after Mr. Kim came to power in 2011 and struck yet another
deal to freeze all his nuclear and missile activity, in return for a
resumption of the episodic six-party talks with the United States and
other nations. That brief effort ended when the North launched a
satellite in honor of Mr. Kim’s grandfather. Diplomacy froze for the
next two years, with the administration unwilling to make concessions as
previous administrations did only to find that the North was reneging
on its promises.
In
recent months the Chinese have led an effort to restart diplomatic
talks, and the United States has quietly met with the North. But the
goal is unclear. To the United States, the purpose of the talks would be
denuclearization; Mr. Kim’s government has already declared that the
one thing he will not do is give up his small nuclear arsenal,
especially after seeing the United States help unseat Col. Muammar
el-Qaddafi of Libya, who surrendered his own nuclear program in 2003.
Joel
Wit, a former North Korea strategist for the American government, said
Mr. Kim drew an indelible lesson from that history. “It’s not an
accident he’s positioning himself to make sure the inventory of nuclear
material in the hands of the North is about to take off,” said Mr. Wit,
who edits 38 North, a website that follows the murky, often murderous politics of the Kim government.
He
was referring to the North’s effort to expand the production of highly
enriched uranium, which would give Mr. Kim a steadier, more plentiful
supply of nuclear fuel than its past reliance on extracting plutonium
from a small nuclear reactor.
“I’m
now convinced North Korea would prefer to collapse with nuclear weapons
than try to survive without nuclear weapons,” Chun Yung-woo, who
recently served as the South’s national security adviser, said this
week. Yet the strategy Washington is pursuing is based on the opposite
assumption.
Woman jumps out of vehicle on Highway 101 near Lindero Canyon Road
A woman was found lying on the eastbound portion of Highway 101 near the Lindero Canyon Road exit about 9:15 p.m. Thursday, the California Highway Patrol reported.
The woman was later rolled over to the right shoulder, the patrol reported.
Several vehicles stopped on the highway to protect the woman from oncoming traffic, the patrol said.
The Los Angeles County Fire Department was notified of the incident and the woman was placed on a helicopter, authorities said.
A representative of the Lost Hills station of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department later said the woman apparently jumped out of a vehicle and onto the freeway. She was scratched up but otherwise OK, the representative said.
The area is in Westlake Village just inside Los Angeles County
Read more: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2013/aug/15/woman-found-laying-on-highway-101-near-lindero/?comments_id=871473#ixzz2cFM9l4Rr
- vcstar.com
FREESTUFF writes:
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
TheRevWillyD writes:
LOL
kkayla writes:
Where is that "thumbs up" choice when I need it?
FREESTUFF writes:
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
whereyoufromdude writes:
So many questions unanswered or never answered by mr./ms. Staff Reports. Was the car moving at the time? Where did it end up? Did it hit anyone? What was the make and model? Were there any passengers? Was she cited? Was she speeding? C'mon, mr./ms. Staff reports, you gotta stick with the who, what, where, when whys when reporting this kind if meaningful stuff.
FactsMatter writes:
Teabaggers refer to a political group who earned that name by sending tea bags to Obama. Intelligent people realize words can have different meanings based on the context used. Glad to see the Star employees people who understand use of the English language. As some posters apparently do not.
FREESTUFF writes:
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
FactsMatter writes:
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
oilpiers writes:
24 hours after this story was originally posted, it still reads like a facebook posting by a 14 year old.
carthomas7 writes:
And you guys want MORE for the rag than world class papers. NO budget to have enough reporters! Delete the stupid comments, not defamatory ones!