October 4, 2024:
North Korea recently revealed details of its uranium enrichment facility. Western intelligence services have long known about the facility, but only had satellite photos and some testimony and rumors from North Koreans who had been at or near the facility and could add more details.
Now, Kim Jong Un, the North Korea leader, seemed to be boasting about the North Korean ability to make more weapons grade uranium to build more nuclear weapons.
Kim Jong Un did not reveal the precise location of this operation. American and South Korean intelligence have long believed that this enrichment work takes place at the tightly guarded Kangson compound near the capital Pyongyang. It appears that Kangson is affiliated with the nearby Yongbyon nuclear research institute. Yongbyon contains a nuclear reactor that produces small amounts of plutonium, but not enough to make more than one or two nuclear weapons. North Korea produces a lot more weapons grade uranium for its growing arsenal of nuclear weapons.
North Korea began reactivating Yongbyon and its reactor in 2013. The reactor had been completely shut down since 2007 and partially dismantled in 2008. It was believed that it would take at least six months (and possibly years) to resume production at Yongbyon. This reactor was shut down as part of an aid deal but the northerners refused to completely dismantle the reactor. They insisted on leaving some of the structure intact and would not surrender unused nuclear fuel. This sort of double dealing is typical of the North Koreans. In response, South Korea increased its defense spending and made it clear North Korea would have to be more convincing to obtain any aid in the future. By 2018 work on Yongbyon facilities accelerated. Now the future is here and North Korea does not appear to have changed even though it desperately needs some economic relief.
South Korea described this public announcement as a public threat against the democratic and much more prosperous southern half of the Korean peninsula. South Korea reminded the northerners that any use of their nuclear weapons would lead to the destruction of North Korea by American nuclear weapons. For that reason Big Brother China has tried to get Little Brother North Korea to tone down the nuclear threats. North Korea explains that it makes these threats to defend itself. This bit of disinformation is directed at the North Korean population, who have become more outspoken about the expense of the nuclear and ballistic missile programs while most North Koreans go hungry and live in poverty. Despite government efforts to keep news of life in South Korea out of North Korea, most North Koreans know that the southerners are much better off. The south has a per capita-GDP that is twenty times that of North Koreas.
South Korea is a democracy with a free market economy while the north is a hereditary dictatorship run by one of the many Kim families. About ten percent of all families in the Korean peninsula are Kims. Russian-backed Kim Il Sung took control of North Korea after World War II ended in 1945. Russia and the United States agreed to temporarily divide administration between the Russian dominated north and the U.S. sponsored south. Russia backed the Kim dictatorship in the north and supplied food and weapons. This led to the 1950-53 Korean War, which Russia ordered North Korea to undertake in order to unify Korea under a communist government. This seemed a reasonable plan because North Korea was heavily armed by the Russians while most American foreign aid to South Korea was for economic improvements. In June 1949 the Americans withdrew their last 7,500 troops from South Korea. There was still a larger occupation force in Japan and a few other Pacific Islands. A year later North Korea invaded, because Russian military and political officials believed the Americans would not or could not return to prevent the North Korean forces from occupying all of South Korea.
Russia misjudged the situation badly. The Americans returned in force and quickly pushed the North Korea invaders back across the 38th Parallel border. Worse, the UN condemned the invasion and, because the Russian delegation was absent from the UN, a resolution was passed authorizing an international force to aid the beleaguered South Koreans and unite Korea under democratic rule. This was a major embarrassment for Russian leader Josef Stalin, who turned to China where communists had just won a long civil war in 1949. Russia offered lots of military aid if the Chinese intervened. The Chinese agreed to send several hundred thousand troops in to prevent the North Korean defeat. China also told Russia that the debt they owned for past military aid was now paid.
This Chinese force halted the U.S./UN forces advance to the Yalu River, the border between China and Korea. Chinese forces pushed south and, after a year of fierce combat, the two sides were back to the original 38th parallel which is now the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) that still serves as the border. In 1953 both sides agreed continued fighting benefitted no one and agreed to an armistice. There has never been a peace treaty and the Kim dictator justifies its role in the north via continued efforts to eventually unite the two Koreas by force.
While the south prospered, the north withered. Russian aid was greatly reduced when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. Over the next five years about ten percent of the North Korean population died of starvation.
North Koreans continue to live in poverty and occasional food shortages. Government priority is in producing more nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to use against South Korea and any American territories within range. Japan is also a potential target.
North Korea’s recent nuclear boasts were condemned by South Korea as illegal and counterproductive. The current increase in North Korean weapons development was a result of the country being shut down for two years during the covid19 pandemic. These lockdowns crippled the economy and reduced food supplies and distribution. The response to that was to order local officials to avoid obvious starvation deaths, or else. Farmers who fail to produce are often punished with short terms in labor camps. A few months in a labor camp won’t kill you but anything more than six months is potentially lethal.
By 2022 China resumed food shipments via railroad and trucks in an effort to prevent a government collapse in North Korea and a flood of desperate North Korean refugees seeking salvation in China. While China is less concerned about North Korean missiles and nukes, that threat has turned South Korea, Japan and the United States into a more effective coalition opposing North Korean plans.
Kim Jong Un is providing all sorts of benefits to those running his missile and nuclear programs. Many of these program managers have military ranks and Kim recently promoted many of them. In addition, the missile and nuke personnel have priority when it comes to food and consumer goods. They have better housing, medical care and adequate heat and electricity. All this comes at the expense of the military, economy and food supply. This is a continuation of the strategy Kim Jong Un adopted when he became supreme leader in 2011.
Despite over a decade of concentration on ballistic missiles and nukes, neither of these technologies have been turned into a proven threat to the United States. Progress has been made, but never enough to be more than a threat to South Korea and Japan, and the 75,000 American troops in those two countries. Both Japan and South Korea have invested heavily in ABM (anti-ballistic missile) systems. These lessen the threat but do not eliminate it. Only a change in government for North Korea can do that and the current North Korean leaders are cooperating by making themselves very unpopular in North Korea.
The appearance of covid19 in early 2020 changed North Korea’s economic situation radically. But some things did not change in the face of an economic recession and growing hunger. Back in 2019 North Korea admitted the obvious; it never had any intention of surrendering its nuclear weapons. The reality was that North Korea was using its traditional negotiating tactic of offering to behave, but only if they received some economic aid first as a show of good faith. That tactic no longer works and now North Korea is back to making threats. The North Korean nukes and military threats remain. North Korea continues falling apart economically and politically and that has led North Koreans to do the unthinkable, which includes openly criticizing the government, putting anti-government graffiti in public places and even attacking corrupt government officials, including police.
North Korea is bankrupt and not getting better. Covid19 made matters much worse because North Korea was totally unprepared to handle it and responded by shutting its borders and restricting movement within North Korea. This crippled an already weak economy and efforts to deal with the threat of another fatal famine. Even the security forces were getting less food and the emergency military food reserve was used up.
Big Brother China is openly losing patience with its unruly neighbor. China is, literally, North Korea’s economic lifeline. China is the primary or only source for delivering essentials like petroleum, food and all sorts of smuggled goods, past a long list of international sanctions. China will tolerate a lot of bad behavior in return for obedience and maintaining order along the Chinese border. North Korea is failing in both categories. China still asks the West to eliminate some of their sanctions, even though the West is where all those new North Korean missiles and nukes are aimed.
Everyone looks to China because Korea has traditionally been a Chinese responsibility and, most of the time, a difficult one. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has obediently gone to China several times since 2018 to receive criticism described as advice. Kim also met with the leaders of South Korea and the United States. So far lots of the right words but little action. China and everyone else fears that North Korea is going to try and scam its way out of another tight situation and risk the very real wrath of China while doing it. Inside North Korea the official word is that the nuclear weapons are essential and not negotiable. Unofficially, more North Koreans want a change of government or a way to get out. Meanwhile South Korea continues to visibly prosper. North Koreans caught viewing videos of life in South Korea or South Korean video entertainment is a capital, as in death penalty, offense in North Korea.