When He Says, "Training," He Means, "For Real"

Minister of Defense Onodera Itsunori has issued a secret directive ordering a Maritime Self Defense Forces vessel to sea prepared to shoot down any North Korean missile launch threatening Japan. (Link)

In a manner of speaking.

It would make zero sense to have SM-3 equipped Aegis vessels sailing the oceans without authorization to shoot down ballistic missiles threatening Japan. When seconds separate possible intercept and a pointless miss, the system cannot possibly rely on a call the Prime Minister's Residence and/or the Defense Minister to receive authorization.

So if authorization is standard, what has Onodera done?

According to The Asahi Shimbun, Onodera ordered the MSDF Kirishima (Photo) to sea on a training mission lasting from April 3 to April 25 -- a training mission where the captain has been given special authorization to engage in anti-missile combat activities, if he thinks circumstances merit them (Link). Had he addressed the crew before departure, Onodera's message would have been, "Sailors and officers of the Kirishima, no 'defense of Japan' stuff while you are out there -- unless. of course, it's absolutely necessary. Bon Voyage."

Bon voyage, indeed.

For those keeping score, yet another instance of extraordinary casuistry deployed by Japanese security officials in the course of conducting their daily tasks.

As you were.


Later - On Twitter Andrea Ortolani writes that the ship-to-shore communications mentioned above would like be via fax, not voice.

What Is In Fact An ICBM

Update @13:52 - National broadcaster NHK is reporting that the Epsilon launch has been scrubbed for today.

There is always tomorrow--or even later. After the huge media buildup of the past week over the launch, however, today's cancellation represents a huge embarrassment for the space agency.

The official press release on the non-event can be found here.

Update @13:48 - The clock has run down to zero but the Epsilon rocket is still sitting on the pad. No explanation for what is going on, since what was supposed to happen has not happened. The rocket sits, immobile and silent.

--

In a few minutes' time, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will be attempting to launch the first of its new Epsilon rockets. JAXA will be using this Epsilon launch to boost a 350 kg SPRINT-A ultraviolet band observatory (Link) in to Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

The Epsilon-1 is a new generation of low-cost, high frequency launch vehicles capable of carrying 1200kg satellite into space, or a 700 kg satellite if a liquid-fueled propulsion unit is required for final orbital positioning (Link). The new rocket is designed to make Japan a niche player in the international commercial launch vehicles market. Japan's current heavy lifting offerings are simply too expensive to be competitive with other launch vehicles built in lower-cost countries and launched from sites closer to the Earth's equator.

Or at least that is the narrative that the mainstream, "let's go Team Japan" media has been feeding us.

The problem with this narrative? There is likely no market, not even a niche market, for the Epsilon's services.

Here is the table from the June 2013 report of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation on the market for satellite launches through the year 2022:

Click on image to open in a larger window

See that last line in the Launches table? For NGSO Small, i.e. Non-Geosynchronous Orbit Small, launches? The projections are for 2 launches in 2013, one in 2016 and then a big line of fat line of zero launches until the end of the time frame.

Three launches over 10 years.

What makes this doubly sad is that this projection is less than half of the number of small-scale launches estimated only last year.

While the FAA is projecting the lofting of dozens of satellites of less than 1,200 kilograms over the next few years, all of these can be accommodated as add-ons to satellite launches for larger satellites. What would be left for the current programs (Japan, Europe and China, for now) in the NGSO-Small class is the tiny, if it even exists, market for time-sensitive launches. (Link - see page 73)

The only real role for the Epsilon and its competitors in the commercial sphere is the role of space ambulance -- an emergencies-only vehicle, sitting in its assembly building most of the time, waiting for the call to launch within hours of receiving a precious payload.

OK. Let us cut the crap, shall we?

The Epsilon is a solid fueled rocket. It can sit on the ground, ready to launch basically on command -- no need for time-consuming gassing up.

The Epsilon's payload is too small for commercial satellites, even in LEO and definitely nothing of any size for GSO.

The Epsilon has one active competitor in the European Space Agency's Vega rocket. It will soon have a Chinese competitor. The South Koreans and America's SpaceX group are also in the running.

For a market that is too small to support even a single program.

So you tell me what the heck I should think the Epsilon is, really.

At best, it is an enormous waste of time, money and talent -- a make work project keeping Japan's space engineers from leaving the archipelago.

At worst, it is a signal.

Another North Korean Success Story

It is difficult to see what, if any, successes North Korea can secure out of its current course of actions. The unilateral withdrawal from the armistice, the positioning of large missiles mounted on mobile launchers, declaration of U.S. targets and targets around the Pacific, and the closure of Kaesong all seem to injure the North’s negotiating position.

Let us assume, therefore, that a Musudan rocket/missile firing, or a double shot, is not being prepared with the intent to eke some advantage out of successful test launches. Let us assume instead that the primary goal is failure – that the DPRK government or some part of it wants the U.S. and its allies to shoot the Musudans down.

What would be the ideal scenario, for all the interested parties?

At some point just around 10:00 a.m. a Musudan missile is fired from a location on North Korea's west coast. Assuming the missile flies – which is a question (Link) -- it climbs up into the sky and veers south-southeast.

The U.S. government is momentarily stunned by the launch, the known missile having being spotted on North Korea’s east coast. Given the prior North Korean threats of attacks on Okinawa and Guam and the surprise of a west coast launch, the order is given for a shoot down. By previous agreement, a U.S. Arleigh Burke class missile destroyer, with a Japanese Kongo class destroyer providing assistance, takes the first shot with its SM-3 missiles.

The North Korean missile is intercepted and falls in pieces over the East China Sea and Eastern Pacific.

The national security councils of affected nations are assembled. In Tokyo, the Cabinet is convened (luckily it was a Tuesday/Friday morning).

From Pyongyang – silence.

An hour and 15 minutes later, a second Musudan, the known one on North Korea's east coast, launches, with a course nearly due east. With missile's course taking it over Honshu and in the direction of the United States, the conditions are met for a Japanese shoot down. The Kirishima, a Kongo-class destroyer, in cooperation with a U.S. destroyer, fires an SM-3.

The intercept is again successful with the pieces of this second missile falling into the North Pacific.

Now it is the allies turn to fall silent, as they wait, on hair trigger, for what the North Koreans do next.

What the North Koreans do next is…nothing. Instead, inside Pyongyang, all hell is breaking loose, with the various ministries, offices and commands all yelling at each other, urging to further escalate, to pull back, to sue for peace, to demand total war, to flee to shelters…setting the stage for the young prince, wise beyond his years, to declare the prevailing war policy laudable in spirit but misguided and insufficient in practice – requiring a new way of thinking and acting.

Please Everyone Just Calm Down

On March 5, in anticipation of the United Nations Security Council approving a new round of economic sanctions on the already sanction-blessed Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Korean People's Army released a statement on its plans for meeting the UN's challenge.

Since the Korea Central News Agency presents information in a fashion that does not allow linking, I present the KPA statement here in all its superheated glory:

On Dec. 12 last year the DPRK legitimately and successfully launched a satellite for peaceful purposes, ensuring international transparency, going beyond practice, and choosing a comparatively mild situation for it.

Seizing the DPRK's satellite launch as an occasion for stifling it from the outset, the U.S. and its allies deliberately negated the DPRK's sovereignty over its satellite launch. They finally prodded the UN Security Council into adopting a "resolution on sanctions" before opting for high-handed hostile acts against the DPRK.

These hostile acts are still going on.

Under this situation the DPRK was compelled to take practical counteractions to defend the security and sovereignty of the country. On Feb. 12 it admirably and successfully conducted the third underground nuclear test for self-defence at the highest level as part of those counteractions.

However, the U.S. imperialists and their allied forces including south Korea are making more persistent and desperate efforts to slap new tougher "sanctions" against the DPRK, far from drawing a due lesson.

Not content with this, they kicked off again the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises to stifle the DPRK by force of arms by mobilizing huge armed forces of aggression. They will reportedly last for two months from March 1.

Unlike last year the current joint military exercises will be participated in by super-large nuclear-powered carrier task force carrying at least 100 nuclear warheads, B-52H strategic bombers and other means of the U.S. imperialist aggression forces for making ground, sea and air nuclear strikes and its allied forces including south Korea, U.K. and Australia.

From this point of view, the exercises cannot be construed otherwise than the most dangerous nuclear war maneuvers targeted against the DPRK and the most undisguised military provocation to be made by a group of all hues of hostile forces.

This serious situation clearly indicates that the actions of the U.S., south Korea and other hostile forces to infringe upon the sovereignty of the DPRK are now leading to a military offensive for aggression, going beyond the level of outrageous economic "sanctions."

In view of the prevailing situation, the Supreme Command of the KPA which is responsible for the national defence and security of the country and the destiny of the nation sent a meaningful warning message to the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces through the KPA Panmunjom mission on February 23. It warned them that if they ignite a war of aggression in the end, from that moment their fate will be hung by a thread with every hour.

But, the joint military exercises have persisted and the U.S. and the south Korean puppet forces have become all the more undisguised in their base moves to kick up their "sanctions."

Looking back on history, the Korean people have neither shot even a single arrow nor thrown a single stone at the land of the U.S.
The U.S. is, however, working with bloodshot eyes to swallow up the DPRK, not content with having incurred the pent-up grudge of the Korean people which can never be settled.

What matters is that the south Korean puppet forces steeped in worship and sycophancy toward the U.S. are dancing to its tune.
Of late Kim Kwan Jin, puppet minister of Defense, and Jong Sung Jo, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, inspected frontline army corps, fleet command and guided missile units where they blustered that a sort of military provocation is expected from the north and cried out for making "deadly strikes" and "preemptive strikes" at the "bases for provocations."

As far as these guys are concerned, they are a group of traitors who pushed the inter-Korean relations to a collapse together with traitor Lee Myung Bak who knows nothing about politics and military affairs. They are military gangsters who go reckless, unaware of what their master U.S. has in mind, what is the intention of the neighbouring countries and what all fellow countrymen and nation desire.
The puppet authorities, too, are crying out for the dismantlement of nukes and halt to provocation as dictated by their master, without knowing what is precious wealth for the nation. They move like a robot and repeat anything like a parrot.

The sovereignty and dignity of the nation are violated and the supreme interests of the country are seriously threatened by the U.S., the sworn enemy of the Korean people, and maniacs of confrontation with fellow countrymen grouping worst traitors. The army and people of the DPRK can never remain a passive onlooker to this fact.

The spokesman for the KPA Supreme Command is authorized to declare the following important measures:

First, it will take the second and third strong practical counteractions in succession to cope with the high-
handed war acts of the U.S. and all other hostile forces as it had already declared.

The army and people of the DPRK never make an empty talk.

It is the mettle of Songun Korea to do what it is determined to do.

It won victories in the two wars and has advanced along the road of victory despite manifold difficulties.

The army groups on the front, ground forces, the navy, air and anti-air units, strategic rocket units of the KPA, the Worker-Peasant Red Guards and the Young Red Guards have launched an all-out action according to the operational plan finally signed by the dear respected Supreme Commander Kim Jong Un.

Now that the U.S. imperialists seek to attack the DPRK even with nuclear weapons, it will counter them with diversified precision nuclear strike means of Korean style.

Those means are bound to be launched once their buttons are pressed, and the enemies' strongholds be turned into a sea in flames.
This land is neither the Balkans nor Iraq and Libya.

The army and people of the DPRK have everything including lighter and smaller nukes unlike what they had in the past.
Second, the KPA Supreme Command will make the Korean Armistice Agreement totally nullified.

The war maneuvers being staged by the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet forces are a vivid expression of their systematic violation of the AA.

Accordingly, the Supreme Command of the KPA will completely declare invalid the AA, which has existed for form's sake from March 11, the day when the war maneuvers will enter into a full-dress stage.

The DPRK will make a strike of justice at any target anytime as it pleases without limit, not bound to the AA, and achieve the great cause of the country's reunification, the cherished desire of the nation.

Third, the KPA Supreme Command will totally stop the activities of the Panmunjom mission of the KPA which was tentatively established and operated by it as a negotiating body for establishing a peace-keeping mechanism on the Korean Peninsula.

In this regard it will simultaneously make a decision to cut off the Panmunjom DPRK-U.S. military telephone.

Our choice has become clear now that the moves of all hostile forces to encroach upon the sovereignty and dignity of the DPRK are reaching a dangerous phase.

It is the unshakable stand of the army and people of the DPRK and the mode of counteraction of Mt. Paektu style to counter enemies coming in attack with a dagger with a sword, a rifle with an artillery piece and nukes with precision nuclear strike means of Korean style more powerful than them.

The U.S. imperialists and their allies should not forget even a moment that they are standing at the crossroads of their life and death.

A final victory is in store for the army and people of the DPRK who are all out to protect its sovereignty.

The issuance of this statement has led to demands from U.S. (Link), South Korean (Link) and Japanese (Link - J) quarters for a more severe international response.

Question: is there anything so terribly striking, new or frightening about the March 5 statement and its follow up statements?

Here are some of the purportedly torrid lines from the statement and my take on them:

"First, it will take the second and third strong practical counteractions in succession to cope with the high-handed war acts of the U.S. and all other hostile forces as it had already declared."

This seems to be a declaration of at least two more tests will take place that the UN will not like, either of long-range rockets or nuclear devices, sometime in the current calendar year.

"The army and people of the DPRK never make an empty talk."

This is an admission that the Kim regime and KPA have a credibility problem. If they did not have a habit of indulging in empty talk, they would be so determined to explain the seriousness of their threats.

"Now that the U.S. imperialists seek to attack the DPRK even with nuclear weapons, it will counter them with diversified precision nuclear strike means of Korean style."

This seems to only reconfirming that the DPRK rocket and nuclear weapons development programs will not be abandoned or delayed, as "precision nuclear strike means of Korean style" seems to be DPRK-talk for a nuclear weapon-bearing intercontinental ballistic missile.

"This land is neither the Balkans nor Iraq and Libya."

The Kim Dynasty and the KPA have learned lessons from those conflicts and will use all means possible in an attempt to thwart regime change. Duh.

"The army and people of the DPRK have everything including lighter and smaller nukes unlike what they had in the past."

When the KPA is claiming to have these smaller nuclear warheads one should probably assume it in fact does not have them. It would, however, make sense to for the KPA to claim greater capabilities when it is trying to influence the contents of sanctions resolutions.

"Second, the KPA Supreme Command will make the Korean Armistice Agreement totally nullified.

The war maneuvers being staged by the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet forces are a vivid expression of their systematic violation of the AA.

Accordingly, the Supreme Command of the KPA will completely declare invalid the AA, which has existed for form's sake from March 11, the day when the war maneuvers will enter into a full-dress stage.

The DPRK will make a strike of justice at any target anytime as it pleases without limit, not bound to the AA, and achieve the great cause of the country's reunification, the cherished desire of the nation."

This could be a threat warning of an imminent incident.

It might just as just likely be an admission that the leadership itself does not know when the next violation of the Armistice Agreement will take place. By announcing a violation in advance it can take credit for whatever unapproved incident that occurs (note to local commanders: you will not get the credit for your show of initiative).

"It is the unshakable stand of the army and people of the DPRK and the mode of counteraction of Mt. Paektu style to counter enemies coming in attack with a dagger with a sword, a rifle with an artillery piece and nukes with precision nuclear strike means of Korean style more powerful than them."

From the list of comparatives, one can assume that, as noted before, a "precision nuclear strike means of Korean style" is the current operating euphemism for a nuclear-tipped ICBM.

OK, so the Kim regime and the KPA are angry at the world for being angry at them for their pursuit of a credible nuclear threat that they can then wave at the United States.

Considering that the DPRK's guarantor of extended deterrence is China, can one blame the members of the DPRK ruling regime for pursuing an independent deterrent? Given the weakness of the Chinese nuclear response guarantee, is not the current pace of the DPRK's nuclear and rocketry development programs rather desultory?

(Poverty promotes lassitude, folks.)

As for the the DPRK, running as it is looking over its shoulder at the dust broom of history, let us be real: right now is a lousy time to be an anti-capitalist, anti-American dictator -- and an even worse time to be the anti-capitalist, anti-american dictator's default candy store.

El Commandante has just checked out. The Colonel met death in a culvert; the Al-Tikrit Gang have met the rope. Assad Family Syria (the only one of North Korea's customers to shell out for a nuclear reactor) is teetering on the brink. Myanmar seems to have lost the tyranny script entirely.

Authoritarianism and lawlessness both look like they are in for the long haul. Dictatorship...looks ever so 20th century.

With its twin to the south going from strength to strength and its best customers going belly up, can we just keep calm at DPRK Incorporated's desperate releases of implausible declarations that

a) things are going great, and

b) they are only getting better?

Of late, we have been hearing a lot from the Eastern Seaboard of the United States about Japan and China having a need to cool it over the Senkakus. (Link)

Sound advice.

Can those keeping a careful eye on the pathetic, dysfunctional irritant that is North Korea "cool it" too?

Toxicity 2.5

The Japan Times has published an editorial advising to the Chinese and Japanese governments as to actions they should undertake regarding airborne pollutants swirling across the East China Sea.

China's pollution problem

Air pollution has become a serious issue in China and the government there is facing rising public criticism. Concern in Japan is also increasing as winds carry the pollution here. The Chinese government must take drastic measures to rectify the situation. Having experienced and overcome similar problems that cropped up during its period of high economic growth, Japan should provide whatever technical assistance it can.

Especially problematic are fine particles called PM2.5, whose diameter is 2.5 micrometers or less (1 micrometer is one-millionth of a meter). These particles can penetrate deep into lungs, causing asthma and bronchitis and increasing the risk of lung cancer. It is also feared that inhalation of PM2.5 can lead to hardening of the arteries, which in turn can result in myocardial or cerebral infarction.

Automobiles, factories, coal-burning power plants and heaters at home using coal are the sources of PM2.5 in China. Japan's standard is a daily average of 35 micrograms in one cubic meter of air. The corresponding Chinese standard is 75 micrograms.

According to the Chinese Environment Protection Ministry, during the Chinese New Year holiday from Feb. 9 to 15, a maximum 306 micrograms of PM2.5 was detected per cubic meter of air in Beijing, 577 micrograms in Tianjin (Tientsin) and 527 micograms in Shijiajuang in Hebei Province.

[snip]

To better protect the health of citizens, the Japanese government should try to get relevant information on pollution from China in a timely manner. It should also provide financial assistance to local governments so they can set up more monitoring posts. The Environment Ministry has a goal of setting up some 1,300 monitoring posts, but fewer than 600 posts are expected to be established by the end of March.

When fine articles from China are forecast to blow to Japan, the government should quickly issue warnings so citizens can protect themselves by wearing face masks or limiting their time outside.

(Link)

The escape of China's choking air pollution, most particularly (pun not intended) the PM 2.5 soot from vehicles and power stations, from out of China's immediate confines, has become a major subject of concern in Japan this winter. (Link)

Last week, the Tokyo Shimbun's political cartoonist Sato Masaaki, in his usual dense sardonic way, depicted the PM 2.5 problem as just one of a sudden spate of airborne assaults.

The title of the cartoon is Ue o muite aruko ("Let's Walk, Looking Up") - the title and opening line of Sakamoto Kyu's 1961 megahit -- the "Gangnam Style" of its day in terms of being a song in an Asian language that went mainstream in the English language world.

The first half of the joke is the theme of Sakamoto's song is inverted. Whereas the song has the singer looking up with hope, forgetting his troubles on the earth, the cartoon suggests that the source of troubles is above, with Russia's meteor, the DPRK's rocket, Japanese silviculture's annual spring gift of sugi and hi no ki pollen and China's clouds of both yellow dust from the desertification of the country's northern plateaus and 2.5 m soot particles are all raining down.

The kicker is the woman in the front, who remarks in an aside, "And let's look below too." Beneath the surface of the ground lurk an unexploded bomb like the one that brought the city of Hamamatsu and the Tokaido Shinkansen to a halt last week and an active geological fault (katsudanso) -- the latter of which are somehow, in Japan of all places, being found running right through most every nuclear power station site. (Link)

A week ago (February 16), the Tokyo Shimbun published a senryu by a reader on the foreign threat coming in via the air:

スモッグの
領空侵犯
抗議なし

Sumoggu no
ryoku shinpan
kogi nashi

To the smog
Criminally breaching our airspace
There is no protest

Kogi is very much in the air about Nagata-cho and Kasumigaseki these days, seeing as how "vigorously protesting" is the only action the constitutionally-restrained government of Japan will undertake in response to aerial incursions by Chinese and Russian aircraft and targeting radar flashes. The author is noting, bitterly, that the vigorous protestation that the Abe government has been whipping out again and again this winter over temporary, only indirectly threatening phenomena is nowhere in evidence over a much longer lasting and clearly damaging intrusion.

The reader is given hints, however, that the anger in the poem is theatrical, a bit of fun with the over-the-top rhetorical flourishes of nationalist outrage. The author's pseudo-Chinese pen name of 和　平 -- i.e., "Peace," in the reverse of the usual order of the word, with the character wa, the ancient name of Japan and the word for harmony, first -- indicates that the tone of outrage is affected, with tongue firmly in cheek.

As for the Japan Times's grim clucking or the Tokyo Shimbun's drollery, I cannot participate in either. I look around at the room and see all the items with Japanese brand names on them. Turn those same items over and they will, each and every one of them, have "Made in China" label. I think of the blue skies and open spaces that have made Kawasaki and other former industrial towns -- their smokestacks gone, their factories demolished and cleared away -- the hot places to live -- and realize that my material comfort and environmental good fortune come at the cost of the strangulation of China.

I am complicit in a crime, the offshoring of the consequences of my lifestyle.

Can I complain or laugh about the wind's bringing a bit of invisible dust back to haunt me?


Later - To clarify, the geological faults criss-crossing nuclear power plant sites were known. What has happened since 3/11 is that faults judged during the surveying stage to have been conveniently inactive are now being classified as being inconveniently active. No doubt the expert panels now making the determinations are erring on the side of caution. However, one only has to look at a geography of a site like that of Tsuruga Power Station (Link) to know that some seriously delusional thinking was going on.

Unclear

Oche, who raised me to love the English language though it was not his native tongue, had a pithy dismissal: "Unclear on the Concept."

That is all I can say when I read Ron Huisken's latest posting to the East Asian Forum, “North Korea's nuclear test." (Link)

Huisken identifies regime security as the DPRK's goal in its nuclear test program. He then suggests that what the other five members of the Six Party Talks should not do is offer the North Koreans regime security.

Huh?

This would be the course of action if the goal were the confusion of the North Koreans.

Would it not be better to get the North Koreans to understand something, namely that

1) they can continue to pursue the goal of a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile, only

2) it is pointless, as no one in the region has a desire to topple the DPRK regime and

3) if they continue their pursuit of this goal, they will end up utterly cut off from the rest of humankind?

The decision as to whether the Stalinist Kim dynastic state lingers on or is replaced should be left up to the North Koreans, based upon their own calculations of national and personal interest.

To be fair, Huisken at least frames his issues correctly and believes in his answers. Sadly, these minimal decencies are too much for some published commentators.

More On The North Korean Nuclear Test

Pacific Forum CSIS has posted Muthiah Alagappa's February 13 essay "North Korean Nuclear Test: Implications for Asian Security" (Link). Over at the Foreign Affairs, Dr. Jennifer Lind, who made her reputation studying war apologies, joins with two arms experts to deliver a similar message -- that continuing to pursue CVID (complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement) of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's nuclear program is a pipe dream, as the DPRK is hell bent on developing a nuclear deterrent. (Link)

I agree wholeheartedly with the above authors in calls for pragmatism. The North Koreans are not going to give up their nuclear and missile development programs no matter the incentives.

However, both essays are seriously flaws in their rage at arms control experts. Dr. Muthiah's rubbishing of the non-proliferation regime, its architects and its managers, is borderline deranged:

Nonproliferation enthusiasts contend that accepting the DPRK as a nuclear weapon state would further undermine the NPT regime.This simplistic argument does not bear scrutiny. Throughout its history the NPT regime increased the cost and slowed the spread but did not prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by determined states. Further, there is no rationale for some states to have nuclear weapons and for others to be denied that capability. This is not to argue that “more is better” or that every state that desires it must be free to develop such capability. Those interested in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons must address the demand side of the equation (insecurity) and not just the supply side as is the case with the present NPT. Like all other armaments, nuclear weapons are symptomatic of insecurity not the cause of it.

Accepting reality of nuclear Asia

Contrary to conventional wisdom, nuclear weapons have increased security and stability in Asia though there are also dangers and insecurities that should be addressed. Rather than hide behind the NPT regime and persist with a failed approach, it is time to confront the reality that, broadly defined, Asia has seven of the nine nuclear-weapon states (US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea). A
determined Iran could well become the eighth nuclear weapon state in Asia and the tenth member of the world nuclear club. The Asian nuclear era is fundamentally different from that of the Cold War.

Not only will the acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear weapons state not disrupt the non-proliferation regime, but the non-proliferation regime has been ineffective, and it's unfair, but unfair is not all bad, and it's not Asia aware...whaaaaaat?

As for Dr. Lind's essay, she and her co-authors attack a straw man. None but a fool -- and the folks who tackle the proliferation of nuclear weapons and rocket systems are not fools -- would argue that the DPRK's nuclear test program is a bargaining chip. It is a complex knot of drives, aspirations and hard science -- immensely useful for the DPRK and immensely difficult to halt precisely because it is not just one thing.

Yes, arms control experts are annoying in their rectitude -- but it is because arms control experts have to be. They are trying to keep a lid on the most dangerous objects humankind has ever made.

I am still looking for the essay offering the synthesis -- one acknowledging that the DPRK's pursuit of a nuclear deterrent is intrinsic to geo-strategic and political situation of North Korea and insisting that non-proliferation and disarmament are fundamental to the human project.

Later - This post has been edited for clarity.

Holding The Line In North Korea

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea's detonation of a nuclear test device on Tuesday caught folks off guard. The test itself was, of course, not unexpected -- the preparations having been visible from space for weeks. Not inexplicable either was the timing of the test -- just hours before President Barack Obama's State of the Union Address, where an act of North Korean defiance would have maximum impact on the U.S. national conversation, and a safe few days before the anniversary of the birth of leader Kim Jong-un's father, Kim Jong-il (a.k.a., the Day of the Shining Star).

As for the detonation, my feelings are congratulatory -- as in "Congratulations, DPRK. You have replicated the technological sophistication of the United States of the late 1940s, at the cost of only the loss of membership in the family of humankind and most of the basic necessities of human life."

In order to keep a sense of proportion about the North Korean regime, one needs to adopt an attitude of sad resignation. Fearful of the outside world and of each other, the North Koreans pursue a weapons capability with the very reasonable goal of putting their enemies at a risk level equal to the one the DPRK faces. Of course, each step in the direction of such a capability boxes the leadership in more and more. Eventually the DPRK will produce, Amaterasu knows when, a nuclear-tipped long-range ballistic missile. What is certain is by that time they do they will be working on it by candlelight, chewing on leather for the flavor.

Japan and its U.S. ally are demanding a reversal of the programs building toward a North Korean nuclear-tipped ICBM. Given the fundamental insecurity of the DPRK regime, both on psychological and politico-economic grounds, such demands are ludicrous. The best anyone could hope for is a suspension of ongoing research & development -- and the only way that could happen would be if all in the United States collectively declared themselves utterly terrified by the awesome capabilities of the mighty and legitimate Kim regime.

Of course, for reasons of both politics and sanity, the United States cannot play the role of the elephant terrified of the mouse. Instead the U.S. plays the role of the exasperated adult, scolding the misbehaving child:

"...the Government of North Korea should abandon and dismantle its provocative ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs, cease its proliferation activities, and come into immediate compliance with all United Nations Security Council resolutions and its commitments under the 2005 Joint Statement of the Six-Party Talks"

Yes, the DRPK should do these things, in order that the world might be more convenient for a hyperpower with a short attention span. Funny thing, though, the leaders of the DPRK will not do what they should, and moreover would not be leaders for very long if they did.

My thinking on the need for greater realism as to North Korea's nuclear and missile programs is best reflected in the recent essay by Dr. Muthiah Alagappa, "North Korean Nuclear Test: Implications for Asian Security," published by PacNet (no URL for the essay yet - but the PacNetters assure me that there will be one soon). At the same time, I am sympathetic to the Nth country problem outlined by Dr. Jeffrey Lewis in his essay "Friends with Benefits" published by Foreign Policy last week (Link -- the South Koreans did what in 2000?!?). Indeed, I am on record at the same publication for concern pre-election about Japan's capacity to become a Nth nation, a view which earned me the scorn, probably deserved, of Dr. Michael Green. (Link)

And the above image? It is a shot through the glass at the Perry Hall in Kurihama (Link - J) of an 1854 woodcut showing a fearful and tear-stained Commodore Matthew C. Perry and his similarly awe-stricken and crying officers cringing in terror as they present a letter from U.S. king Millard Fillmore to the mighty magistrate (bugyo) of Uraga.

When it comes to surrealist, seemingly delusional misrepresentations of one's country's stature in international affairs (Link) pretty much everyone's been there, done that.

Just remember what happened to the bakufu that greenlighted the above representation of Japan's place in the world.

Three Cheers For the North Koreans!

Sure that title will get me into trouble. But one has to cut through the harrumphing verbiage and look on the bright side:

- By firing off its rocket when the Chinese specifically told it not to the Kim regime has humilated the new Chinese leadership lineup. Suffice it to say that the Chinese government may not be too solicitous of the mewling of its cat's paw on the Korean peninsula.

- By successfully testing a multi-stage, long-range rocket, a prototype for a nuclear-tipped ICBM (if the North Koreans can develop a small enough nuclear warhead), the DPRK has put the United States in the same boat as its South Korean and Japanese allies.

North Korean artillery threatens South Korea with massive loss of life and destruction of its capital. North Korea's well-tested Nodong missiles threaten Japanese cities with similar damage. Now U.S. cities are targetable.

Until yesterday, there was ambiguity over whether or not basing large numbers of U.S. forces in the theater made tactical sense. Now it does not matter where U.S. East Asian rapid reaction forces are based: the DPRK can now hit them.

- By thumbing its nose at its ostensible master, the DPRK has exposed the fallacy of China's growing ability to cow countries in the region. If any regime should jump when Beijing says, "Jump!" it is neophyte Kim Jong-eun's.

This has been a lousy year for the CCP-enabling and ally-betraying Sino-centric world order crowd. The DPRK is disobedient; Myanmar has gone off its own sweet way; and Cambodia's clumsy service as China's lapdog has reminded ASEAN of its origins in fighting the influence of China in Southeast Asia.

Take that, Hugh White (Link) and the "over most of human history China has been a benign hegemon" flunkies!

So raise a glass (of orange juice) or a mug (of coffee) to the North Koreans today. The launch of their big birthday celebration rocket is a shot for liberty.

China Acts Out Of Self-Interest

The news today has reports that the DPRK rocket test has been postponed (Link). This makes last week's hysterical full deployment of the Self Defense Forces anti-missile capacity (Link) a very nice, robust rehearsal for an actual crisis.

There were important technical arguments for the DPRK scientists not attempting to launch a large, liquid fuel rocket from an outdoor pad in mid-December.

It seems, however, that the DPRK's decision was political rather than technical. Consider this remarkable statement from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs' December 6 press conference:

Q: The DPRK has completed the installation of its rocket and is likely to launch a satellite next week. What is China's comment?

A: The Chinese side has made clear its position several times on the DPRK's plan to launch a satellite. As a sovereign country, the DPRK has the right of peaceful use of the outer space. However, given the situation on the Korean Peninsula and the restrictions of relevant UN Security Council resolutions, the Chinese side hopes that the DPRK could act prudently with the larger interests of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula in mind. We also hope that other parties to the Six-Party Talks can take a long-term and calm approach and avoid taking actions that may further escalate the situation.

(Link)

Translated into plain speech, that would come out:

"We maintain that the DPRK has the sovereign right to shoot off rockets until, of course, it should ever try to exercise that right. As for you other participants in the Six-Party talks, you owe us for this, big time."

I hope that despite the election-enervated state of this blessed land, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sends the Chinese Embassy a nice bouquet, a big box of Belgian chocolates or a culturally sensitive equivalent.

As for how this turn of developments will play out on the campaign trail, I do not think it likely that either Liberal Democratic Party president Abe Shinzo, Japan Restoration Association leader Ishihara Shintaro or Democratic Party of Japan leader Noda Yoshihiko will be yelling, "Hey! Thank you, China!" to the crowds.

I do not think the PRC government expects them to do so either.

A hat tip to Chris Nelson for pointing out the relevant passage in Hong Lei's press conference.

Japan's Anti-Missile Defenses -- Where They Are

To intercept an off course DPRK rocket-that-is-actually-a-long-range-ballistic-missile™ (roketto jijitsujo no chokyori dando misairu) or the an off-course jettisoned first stage of said rocket-that-is-actually-a-long-range-ballistic-missile™:

Patriot PAC-3 Missile Batteries

Protecting the Capital Area = 3

1) Ichigaya, Tokyo Metropolitan District
Grounds of the Ministry of Defense

2) Asaka City, Saitama Prefecture
GSDF Camp Asaka

3 Narashino City, Chiba Prefecture
GSDF Camp Narashino

Protecting the Nansei Islands and Okinawa = 4

1 and 2) Okinawa, Okinawa Prefecture

3) Miyakojima, Okinawa Prefecture

4) Ishigakijima, Okinawa Prefecture


Aegis Destroyers Equipped with SM-3 Missiles

Sea of Japan = 1

1) MSDF Myoko (DDG 175)
Left Maizuru Port on December 6, 2012

East China Sea = 2

2) MSDF Kongo (DDG 173)
Left Sasebo Port on December 6, 2012

3) MSDF Chokai (DDG 176)
Left Sasebo Port on December 6, 2012

Deploying three SM-3 equipped Aegis destroyers is a wee bit of overkill. For a comparative, three SM-3 equipped Aegis destroyers would be sufficient to protect all of Europe. But a) you can never be too sure and b) it is election season.


Later - The above will, of course, be supplemented by U.S. Navy anti-missile missile-bearing ships (Link).

Suffice it to say that Japan and South Korea will be over-protected from a rocket (or pieces of thereof) attempting to lift a satellite or a dummy payload weighing as much as a nuclear device.


Sources:

Fuji Terebi
http://www.fnn-news.com/news/headlines/articles/CONN00236607.html

The Asahi Shimbun
http://www.asahi.com/politics/update/1206/TKY201212060449.html

Mainichi Shimbun
http://mainichi.jp/select/news/20121206k0000m040091000c.html

On The DPRK's Military Stategy Under Kim Jong-eun

It is rare to find a Japanese commentator who does not resort to this-is-meant-to-be-hair-raising scenarios when talking about the DPRK's military capabilities and strategies. Rarer still is to find such a person who writes in clear English. Even rarer is finding a Ground Self Defense Forces reserve officer with such capacities. That said reserve officer is pursuing a doctorate at an Australian university must be unique.

What is best is that Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi (dig that hyphenated surname!) also seems to know what he is talking about:

North Korea’s defence planning: symbolism vs substance

The key takeaway: the DPRK's WMD programs have failed to develop at the speed necessary to provide for the regime's security as the country's poverty grinds the away at the regular armed forces, despite the "military first" policy orientation. The upshot is that the armed forces are falling back on the low cost alternative of equipping core asymmetric fighting forces, rather than maintaining fully functional battlefield armies.

Nota Bene: Do not get me wrong; I love the Russians. It is just that I am at the point where I have read so much of their work that I basically know what each is going to say about any specific development.

I'll Have Two Orders of Kimchi And An Alphorn, Please

Over at Global Talk 21, the perspicacious Okumura Jun has noted a peculiar deviation in the northern of the two Koreas: the complete junking of the Confucian commandment, observed by Kim Jong-il after the death of his father, of a 3+ year period of mourning. (Link)

A lot of really weird stuff has been happening in the DPRK of late -- press availabilities at supposedly super-secret rocket launch sites, non-testing of atomic devices, the reinvitation of Kim Jong-il's Japanese chef back to Pyongyang, the unlicensed Disney characters dancing and projections of scenes from Rocky movies at televised concerts for the elite. (E).

All this weirdness keeps the folks who write for 38North very busy. James Church, for example, has written a very helpful post arguing that the word to look for in any current statement coming out of the DPRK is "belt."

Little do I know about the DPRK and the ins and outs of Pyongyang. However, this I do know: the Kid is not North Korean. Whatever it might say on his current official DPRK passport, if he has one, North Korean is not his true nationality. He is, for all intents and purposes, Swiss -- having seemingly spent almost his entire life in that country.

To expect him to make an about-face and really dig being the evil dictator of a dirt-poor, culturally deprived, enemy-of-all-humankind rathole does not make much sense. Note how quickly the leadership has found him his Lady Diana, whom we can assume is from a family with impeccable political credentials, is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, is presumed fecund and is likely schooled in certain arts to keep him...occupied (E)...lest he become annoyed with the Confucian monarch routine after growing up in the land of cuckoo clocks, chocolate, cheese, skiing and UBS.


Later - The sharp-eyed and knowledgeable have nailed down the newly-minted missus as being a much-touted singer and former member of the DPRK cheering squads (J).

The leadership have thus provided the Young General with a spouse who knows how to charm and perform and who has not the least doubt about the rightness of the regime.

Jiang Qing, any comments?

Later still - The Onion News Service (satire) has a report out from inside the private world of Kim Jong-eun and his wife. (Link)

I Shall Not Henceforth Share With Thee

The New York Times, somehow wrenching its gaze from the Mideast and Central Asia to some place not named Venezuela, has decided to offer, as it seems it believes it must to every human government, its advice on how the government of South Korean should be running its affairs.

A Lost Deal for South Korea and Japan
The New York Times

Nearly 70 years after World War II, old animosities are still making it difficult for South Korea and Japan to establish a reliably productive relationship. The result is self-defeating for both countries and for regional security.

Last week, at the last minute, South Korea postponed signing a limited military agreement with Japan. The deal would have encouraged the direct sharing and protecting of sensitive military data about North Korea and China and missile defenses. Such intelligence is now shared indirectly through Washington. The agreement was supported by the Obama administration, which has been working to strengthen a trilateral alliance with the two countries, America’s most important Asian allies.

Although Japan’s cabinet approved the deal, a political firestorm erupted in South Korea, and now its fate is uncertain. That is a huge embarrassment, for Seoul and Tokyo, creating more bad feelings between the two. President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea clearly mishandled the politics. The deal was negotiated in secret, with officials informing the public and Parliament just one day before it was to be signed. This is an election year in South Korea; Mr. Lee’s five-year term ends early next year after a successor is chosen in December. He should have anticipated that his political opponents would lash out as they have, accusing the government of being pro-Japanese. Instead of presenting the agreement as completed, he should have made the case for it publicly and worked to build support for it in advance.

Even then, it would have been a tough sell because animosity toward Japan remains very much alive in South Korea. Japan ruled that country as a colony, often brutally, for several decades until the end of World War II. Although the two nations have growing economic and cultural ties, they still have bitter disputes over a set of islets and Tokyo’s rejection of talks on compensating Korean women used by Japan as military sex slaves during the war.

The United States and Japan have said little publicly to avoid inflaming the situation. But we hope they are working to calm the waters on this issue.

(Link)

Why the New York Times should be wading into the failure, at the last minute (Literally -- according some reports, the South Korean side told the Japanese side it was backing out 20 minutes before the signing ceremony), of governments of the Republic of Korea and Japan to sign a General Security Of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) perplexes me. Not because the United States government wants Japan and South Korea cooperating and the Times in the last two decades has become the lap dog of the Washington think tank establishment. What makes Washington unhappy makes the Times unhappy.

What perplexes me is how Washington so enwrapped itself in its own logic that it forgot the hurdles in the way of such an agreement. South Korean activists have been carrying out an almost parodic global war on things Japanese, publishing full-page broadsides about Dokdo to the confusion of the world's dwindling number of newspaper readers, expending energies trying to convince the world's cartographers to change the Sea of the Japan to the East Sea (East of where? Be specific. You are not England and this is not the 18th century. Even the Chinese do not get to call their favorite bodies of water the "the East Sea" and "the South Sea") and turning the sex slaves of the Japan Imperial Forces issue (E) into a bottomless chasm in between the two neighbors.

In order to overcome these domestic political hurdles to intelligence sharing with Japan, the government of ROK would need to be receiving from the GOJ cooperation of such a vital importance to South Korea's security that ROK authorities could just tell its critics to shut the fork up.

However, it seem there is nothing in the agreement that guarantees the government of the ROK gets anything from the GOJ (E) and/or vice-versa.

The GOJ knows after after the debacle of April 13 that it needs real time data on DPRK rocket launches. As for the government of the ROK, it probably wants everything the Maritime Self Defense Forces can tell it about what is going on under the surface of the waters around the ROK, anti-submarine warfare being the one area where the SDF has world-class capabilities.

However, the ROK military would be reticent sharing real time launch data with a non-ally. As for the GOJ side, sharing ASW information with anyone except the United States would go crashing against the current interpretations of Article 9 of the Constitution.

So effectively, a promise of nothing for nothing.

However, the situation for the ROK government is even worse than the above indicates.

First, the national interests of Japan and South Korea are not in sync. Japan wants to stay a non-nuclear state in a nuclear neighborhood with minimal impacts from the presence of U.S. forces and no part in American messianic adventurism. The South Koreans want self-determination for the peninsula even as it China's immense shadow grows. South Koreans lash out at the Japanese to turn attention away from their really problematic neighbor. Lashing out at Japan provides oxygen for the Japanese right wing's effort to revive Japan's ardor for military adventure, for seventy years after the fact, Japan's neighbors still hang on to outdated stereotypes. Respect, the right argues, flows from fear, and fear only comes through strength.

Perversely, signing GSOMIA makes the most sense if Japan is on a remilitarization course favored by Japan's right wing. If remilitarization of Japan has stalled, as it seems to have done, then chances are that Japan will never find the funding for the protocols, the training and the forces necessary to implement the minimal goals of the pact.

Besides, if the government of the ROK were to share sensitive information with Japan, which has no espionage law or law controlling the leakage of information, it would be taking a chance that what should be kept secret suddenly appears three weeks later in the pages of SAPIO or the Sankei Shimbun.

Finally, if an ROK official were to set sail against a sea of troubles and seek to share vital intelligence with the GOJ, whom would he/she call? Ministries in this blessed land do not talk to other ministries. Ministries do not share in a timely fashion with the Public Security Intelligence Agency or, Amaterasu forbid, the Prime Minister's Residence. At times, agencies inside ministries do not share information with the secretariats of that ministry.

So instead of wringing hands, consider a bullet dodged. For good or ill, the government of this blessed land has not prepared this land for participation in the Great Game.

There Is A Reason They Call It Rocket Science

One can have ideological blinders on and keep warning all and sundry about death raining down from above and drumming up fears about the silly mockups of ICBMs the DPRK government put on parade on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung...or one can read Markus Schiller and Robert H. Schmucker.

Regarding the mockups:

"A Dog and Pony Show" (Link 1)

Regarding the internal structure and the engineering limits of purported ICBMs, if someone ever tried to build an actual missile looking like the ones paraded:

"The Assumed KN-08 Technology" (Link 2)

That "woof" sound you just hear after you finish reading the two papers is the editorial offices of the Sankei Shimbun undergoing spontaneous diurnal combustion.

Both papers come via the good graces of Dr. Jeffrey Lewis and Arms Control Wonk.

Questions About Chinese Intentions

With democracy in Myanmar seemingly moving forward as if mounted on a freight train and the Chinese vote in the UN Security Council yesterday in favor a resolution condemning the DPRK for its rocket launch last Friday, are we seeing the results of a reassessment by the Chinese government, even during a leadership transition year when policy changes are presumably destabilizing and thus verboten, of the policy of having Asian pariah states as its clients forming "a buffer zone around China" or giving access to the Indian Ocean and natural gas? Are dictatorial regimes that isolate states from the rest of the world and leave their citizens in dire poverty now seen as being more trouble than can be justified?

Just asking.

About That Other Failure

Last Friday, the DPRK launched a rocket in commemoration of 100th birthday of the country's founder Kim Il-sung. U.S. thermal imaging satellites immediately detecting the ignition of the rocket's engines. Under information-sharing agreements worked out long ago between Japan and the United States, the launch detection warning .was relayed to the government of Japan. The U.S. information was immediately shared with Japan's Self Defense Forces, which were on high alert to detect, track and, if necessary, shoot down the rocket-- oops, I'm sorry, missile.

The service personnel on board three Aegis-class destroyers equipped with SM-3 missiles and the personnel at the ground based radar stations on Shimokoshikijima (E), Fukuejima and numerous other sites in Kyushu, northern Chugoku and Okinawa stared at their screens, waiting for the confirmation of the rocket's rise.

And they waited.

And they waited.

And they waited.

Funny thing about the Earth: it's curved. If some object blows up before it rises above your horizon, you are going to be waiting forever.

Both the Aegis destroyers in the East China Sea were cruising far to the south (having two in the Sea was a public relations stunt: in terms of missile defense and radar coverage, one was more than sufficient). The choice of positioning did provide greater protection to the Okinawa Islands but also did not upset the Chinese. It would have made more sense from an intelligence gathering standpoint to position one of the two destroyers in the north, closer to the launch site. Unfortunately, China tends to consider the northern part of the East China Sea and all of the Yellow Sea as a no-go area for all but the most intrepid of foreign naval powers.

So following Friday morning's launch, Japan was blind to a no-longer-existing-possible-threat. Which, when you think about it, is no big shakes.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Fujimura Osamu, the government spokesman and concurrently the government's COO, did not come out of the Security Council -- which he is a part of, meaning that he is somehow responsible for reporting to the public on a meeting he supposed to be attending -- until an hour after the launch to admit the fascinating but tentative possibility that a launch may have taken place.

All of which looks terribly bad and stupid, considering that U.S. and South Korean officials were making announcements of a launch having taken place within minutes of the launch's having taken place.

Predictably, the main opposition parties have gone to town on the "failure" of the government to keep the public informed in a timely manner about what was going on. The national official security threat system called J-Alert was never engaged. Government email communications even 50 minutes after the launch were saying that a launch had not been confirmed. In a bit of humorous bad luck resulting from the width of the computer screens of the government's official communications systems and the peculiarities of Japanese sentence structure, the message from the government read what is is the equivalent of:

"As for the launch of a missile, the current status is that a missile launch confirmation has

not happened."

Whatever hyperventilations about the Japanese government's lack of preparedness or bad execution emerge, three points:

1) With the rocket doing itself in, nobody was ever in a position to get hurt.

2) The SDF and the government followed prudent protocols, showing they had learned from the false positive report in 2009 that led to an unnecessary warning being passed on to local officials.

3) The ridiculousness of Fujimura's having had to have been in two places at once may fan into flame the ever-smouldering debate over the Cabinet's need for a dedicated spokesman.

Burning one of the five Special Advisor to the Prime Minister (shusho hosakan) positions in order to appoint an individual charged solely with providing information to the public was one of the few good ideas former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo brought with him when took over as prime minister. That the decision blew up in his face was due to his having chosen the shameless self-promoter Seko Hiroshige as his Special Advisor for public communications.

Ever since the Seko fiasco, no PM has been willing to repeat the experiment -- which is too bad, as the present arrangement has never been to the public's benefit in terms of providing comprehensive and comprehensible information. It has also in some cases become something of a power trip for the man (yes, only men so far) chosen to simultaneously wear two very important government hats, turning the Chief Cabinet Secretary into something of a Chief Cabinet Jerk.

Circumlocutions - Why It Has To Be A Missile

Scholar Earl Kinmonth, who has very little tolerance for ungrounded concepts, has a post up on the SSJ Forum on the proliferation of phrases describing the North Korean launch vehicle as being "really a missile" -- with the emphasis on the adverb -- a subject I touched upon in my bantamweight post of Saturday.

Last night, NHK tried out a brand new phrase describing the DPRK launch vehicle:

人工衛星としている、実情にミサイル

"The what-is-in-reality-a-missile, acting out the part of an artificial satellite..."

On Saturday, I half out of facetiousness, half out of actual confusion, asked the reader to chose a potential force mandating these verbal tangles.

Yesterday, I played around with the idea that refusing to call the DPRK launch vehicle a "rocket" was a way of expressing contempt for the DPRK's history of sophistry and duplicity. However, that theory had a weakness in that it is hard to get everyone to share a feeling, even in a mass-market society with a strong conformist streak.

This morning I think I have it...and it is one these, "Duh, MTC, what else could it have been?" answers that leaves one thankful there is coffee for solace's sake:

Japanese media outlets do not call the North Korean rocket a rocket because if it were a rocket, then the Self Defense Forces could not shoot it down.

The Japanese government is a stickler about terminology most of the time. On defense and security issues, however, it is outright fanatical. Fall into any kind of linguistic fuzziness on security and one runs the risk of slamming right into the wall of Article 9 of the Constitution.

Ballistic missile defense (BMD) has been judged permissible under Article 9. The term is translated directly; in Japanese it is "dando misairu boei" (弾道ミサイル防衛). If one is to use BMD to bring down anything, that thing had better be a missile. Shooting at anything else would be unconstitutional.

So, as is so often the case with these tortured circumlocutions, the reasoning is transparently practical. Call it a missile and you can shoot at it. Call it anything else and you are left with nothing but watching and praying.

On Capuchin Monkeys And The DPRK

Corey Wallace recently wrote a lengthy thought piece on the options of Ozawa Children in the face of the Democratic Party of Japan's low popularity ratings and the Noda government's likely contractionary imposition of a higher consumption tax. I think he gives the Ozawa children a little more freedom of choice than they possess, unless they have the personal resources (i.e., personal wealth) to pay for their own reelection campaigns or, barring that, an appetite for self-destruction.

Wallace has also just posted up on Facebook a TED speech by the animal behaviorist Frans de Waals of the Yerkes Primate Center. In the speech, de Waals reviews the possible evolutionary origins of morality. Take the time to watch the full 17 minutes of the video, if only for your edification and amusement. (Link)

I have always thought that the Capuchin experiment, where the monkey who receives the cucumber becomes so angry about being cheated out of getting a grape that it throws the cucumber at the experimenter, provided an insight on how negotiators, particularly American and Japanese ones, get played by negotiators from the DPRK. Coming from societies where reciprocity is valued and presumed to the point where it becomes invisible, the American and Japanese negotiators have time and time again been willing to throw away whatever they have gained when they see the DPRK getting more out of a deal.

In the video, de Waals, by being a little too funny, fails to nail down the point the audience should be taking away from the presentation: not that Capuchin monkeys have what have been previously thought to be a human sense of fairness, but the obverse, that we humans, when raised in a normal environment, are no more than tall, hairless Capuchins. We react emotionally to unfairness because we are programmed to do so.

In the horrible Stalinist nightmare (in George Orwell's immortal image, "Imagine a booted foot, stamping a human face, forever") that is the DPRK, those who have risen in the hierarchy and/or survived it have had much of their organic humanity ground out of them. They are true economic animals, treating every meeting as a one-off (because one never knows if one will be meeting that person again) and always seeking to maximize one's profit immediately, without seemingly caring about what happens in the future.

This startling capacity to go against the fundamental programming of the human species is at the base of the insane/logical dispute over the nature of the DPRK regime. Seen from the point of view of normal human society, that is to say from the point of view of the Capuchin monkey, the behavior of the DPRK is insane – it constantly rejects reciprocity in favor of bat-excrement crazy threats and cheating. At the same time, analysts, when looking at the results the DPRK has managed to extort with its behavior, see a basic outline of reasoning and calculation.

The two supposedly contradictory views of DPRK behavior are actually two sides of the same coin. The superiority affected by the analysts and commentators who see logic in the behavior of the DPRK is unmerited: those who see the DPRK as insane have an equally vital an insight into the true nature of the regime.

So what does one do with a negotiating partner who is ultimately unreliable?

1) Take the damn cucumber – When dealing with a purely economical partner, one has to accept whatever small profit one attains. This will be hard, especially to explain to legislators and a populace who expect you to walk away from a negotiation having received a grape for a grape. If it is necessary to drop down to the level of popular culture to explain the hopelessness of trying to walk away from a negotiation with the DPRK with one’s honor intact, quote the Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #109: “Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack.”

2) In the long run reciprocity pays, whereas purely economic behavior is the road to penury – This assertion seems to run counter to primitive economic reasoning, where the maximum benefit for all is achieved through each individual attempting to maximize his/her own profit. However, societies with a strong sense of fairness, or "trust" as Francis Fukuyama chose to call it, become rich out of an ability to plan ahead, thanks to the faith that a sacrifice or act of altruism done today will be paid off equally or even in excess some other time. Societies where reciprocity runs deep -- United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea -- are rich: the DPRK is a basket case.

3) When all you really have is cucumbers, a cucumber is costly – For immensely wealthy nations such as the United States, Japan and the R.O.K. a tiny reward is close to nothing. For immense poor nations like the DPRK, every sacrifice is costly, in real and relative terms. In terms of Capuchin behavior, every cucumber the fat monkey accepts from the thin one brings the thin one pain. It would rather consume the cucumber itself.

So what would a rejection of our natural programming – i.e., our Capuchin monkey brains – direct us to do?

The first step would be to stop the silly nonsense of going to the UN Security Council for stronger sanctions or a condemnation of the DPRK after its failed rocket launch, or of cutting off promised food aid (the official euphemism is "nutritional assistance" – which sounds like a vitamin supplement drop from the back end of a C-130) because the DPRK ingnored a warning to not test "ballistic missile technology." Insisting that the rocket launch was a test of ballistic missile technology focuses on the rocket as a technological object, ignoring the more important function it had a political object – a function it failed to perform, due, it must be said, to its shortcomings as a technological object. Cutting off assistance and going to the UN Security Council because the DPRK humiliated U.S. negotiators of the Leap Day "agreement" (for the reason why the word agreement should be in quotes, see this post by Dr. Jeffrey Lewis) is just the sort of Capuchin behavior that will give the DPRK justification to conduct a nuclear test.

Second, test the nerve of the DPRK’s new leader. The U.S. and Japan should put the rocket launch "under consideration" pending the perpetration of further provocative acts. Let the DPRK leadership be torn over the outside world's willingness to forbear retaliation. Make it hard for them to really go forward with a nuclear test, as that will certainly bring all hell down upon them, and they would lose the grape they got out of February's face-to-face meeting with the United States.

Japan and the United States should give the DPRK something to lose, rather than nothing to lose. Let us rely on what we know of the DPRK: that they neither assume generosity nor operate without a certain logic. If the DPRK goes ahead with the currently prophesied nuclear test, the outside world loses nothing – since it will turn out the test was inevitable, no matter what the outside world did. Furthermore, the outside world will gain valuable piece of information: that the DPRK regime is not coldly calculating but instead profoundly, irredeemably stupid.

A Way Too Newsy Day

What we know after yesterday is:

- The DPRK is a miserably poor country locked in a Stalinist nightmare ruled by a kid who grew up in Switzerland who likely as not wishes the whole horrible structure would go to hell. The country can threaten the Republic of Korea with the annihilation of Seoul through artillery fire and Japan with a barrage of fairly reliable Nodong missiles. Other than that it is a pathetic candidate for a threat to human civilization.

In other words, it is right now a land offering a hint of opportunity, not to be walloped with the same tired routines of going to the UN Security Council for a bunch of whiff and poofing.

Also that Japanese news programs, driven by pressures from (viewers/advertisers/government/right-wing organizations/the United States - circle one or more) have an almost infinite creativity when it comes to thinking up pejorative alternatives, no matter how long-winded -- "the artificial satellite, in reality a long-range ballistic missile," "the long-range ballistic missile called an earth-sensing artificial satellite," "the artificial satellite in name only, actually a ballistic missile" -- to the simple, neutral term "rocket."

- You do not need a confession to convict a person of murder and sentence her to death. All you need is a string of bodies left behind someone who extorted all the money she could from the victims before they managed to commit suicide whilst drugged. (E)

Also that the lengthy trial of an unattractive woman capable of luring in, defrauding and killing three lonely men, keeping up a blog of her activities, is a huge draw among middle-aged and young women. For the record, which is slim, the these out-of-the-ordinary trial attendees have been dubbed the Kanae Girls (kanae gyaru).

- A former banker with Nomura Securities can go before the microphones in the Diet in sworn testimony, admit to producing accounts in no way reflecting the realities of the fund he was managing, admit to running a Ponzi scheme (tenbai sukiimu)-- and still insist he had no intent to defraud anybody.

The guy has got a hell of a lawyer: "Just keep telling the truth but repeating that you're sorry and you never meant to hurt anyone and the judge will go easy on you, I promise."

Sad thing is, that lawyer is almost certainly right.

- When you as a government body hurriedly approve the restart of two nuclear reactors, after the nation has suffered the worst civilian nuclear disaster since and the only one on a par with Chernobyl, based on a safety assessment finding that procedures for preventing the repeat of the disaster have, for the most part (omune ni), been put into place -- the Japanese public, prefectural governments and the press will go bananas. (E)

I mean like top-of-every-newscast, first-four-pages-of-the-newspaper-on-a-day-that-the-DPRK-fires-off-a-rocket bananas.

Yesterday I posited that the fate of Maeda Takeshi, the ethically compromised and extremely unhelpful Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, would be a page 2 story in this morning's newspaper.

Heck, he is not even in this morning's newspaper.