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What Can Trump Do About North Korea? His Options Are Few and Risky
Jul 4, 2017 | New York Times
By David E. Sanger
When President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Twitter in early January that a North Korean test of an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States “won’t happen!” there were two things he still did not fully appreciate: how close Kim Jong-un, the North’s leader, was to reaching that goal, and how limited any president’s options were to stop him. -
North Korea appeared to use China truck in its first claimed ICBM test
Jul 4, 2017 | Reuters
By James Pearson and Jack Kim
North Korea appeared to use a Chinese truck originally sold for hauling timber to transport and erect a ballistic missile that was successfully launched on Tuesday, highlighting the challenge of enforcing sanctions to curb its weapons program. -
China and Russia Strike $11bn Funding Deal
Jul 4, 2017 | Financial Times
By Max Seddon and Kathrin Hille
Beijing is to extend nearly $11bn to two Russian state entities that are under western sanctions. -
Low-Cost Digital Container Seal Developed
Jul 4, 2017 | The Maritime Executive
A new low-cost, digital seal has been developed for the CORE (Consistently Optimized Resilient Secure Global Supply-Chains) European Research Project by Dutch software company Itude Mobile.
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What Can Trump Do About North Korea? His Options Are Few and Risky
Jul 4, 2017 | New York Times
By David E. Sanger
\When President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Twitter in early January that a North Korean test of an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States “won’t happen!” there were two things he still did not fully appreciate: how close Kim Jong-un, the North’s leader, was to reaching that goal, and how limited any president’s options were to stop him.
The ensuing six months have been a brutal education for President Trump. With North Korea’s launch on Tuesday of what the administration confirmed was an intercontinental ballistic missile, the country has new reach. Experts said the North Koreans had crossed a threshold — if just barely — with a missile that could potentially strike Alaska.
Mr. Kim’s repeated missile tests show that a more definitive demonstration that he can reach the American mainland cannot be far away, even if it may be a few years before he can fit a nuclear warhead onto his increasingly powerful missiles. But for Mr. Trump and his national security team, Tuesday’s technical milestone simply underscores tomorrow’s strategic dilemma.
A North Korean ability to reach the United States, as former Defense Secretary William J. Perry noted recently, “changes every calculus.” The fear is not that Mr. Kim would launch a pre-emptive attack on the West Coast; that would be suicidal, and if the North’s 33-year-old leader has demonstrated anything in his five years in office, he is all about survival. But if Mr. Kim has the potential ability to strike back, it will shape every decision Mr. Trump and his successors make about defending America’s allies in the region.Continue reading the main storyRELATED COVERAGEU.S. Confirms North Korea Fired Intercontinental Ballistic Missile JULY 4, 2017North Korea Fires Another Missile Amid Rising Tensions With U.S. JULY 3, 2017SEOUL JOURNALWorry About War? ‘I Am Too Busy,’ South Koreans Say APRIL 27, 2017The Drumbeats Don’t Add Up to Imminent War With North Korea APRIL 26, 2017South Korea Seeks to Assure Citizens U.S. Won’t Strike North Pre-emptivelyAPRIL 11, 2017
For years, the North’s medium-range missiles have been able to reach South Korea and Japan with ease, and American intelligence officials believe the missiles are capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
But this latest test suggests that the United States may already be in range as well, and that, as one former top American intelligence official noted recently, would put enormous pressure on American missile defenses that few trust to work.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump’s secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson, called for “global action” and for the United Nations Security Council to “enact stronger measures” against the North’s government in Pyongyang. He added that the United States would consider nations that provide economic or military help to North Korea to be “aiding and abetting a dangerous regime.”
Mr. Trump still has some time to act. What the North Koreans accomplished while Americans focused on Independence Day celebrations was a breakthrough, but not a vivid demonstration of their nuclear reach.
Their missile traveled only about 580 miles, by itself no great achievement. But it got there by taking a 1,700-mile trip into space and re-entering the atmosphere, a flight that lasted 37 minutes by the calculation of the United States Pacific Command (and a few minutes longer according to the North Koreans).
Flatten that out, and you have a missile that could reach Alaska, but not Los Angeles. That bolsters the assessment of the director of the Missile Defense Agency, Vice Adm. James D. Syring, who said at a congressional hearing last month that the United States “must assume that North Korea can reach us with a ballistic missile.”
Perhaps that is why Mr. Trump has not issued any “red lines” that the North Koreans cannot step over.
He has not even repeated the policy that President George W. Bush laid out in October 2006 after the North’s first nuclear test: that he would hold the country “fully accountable” if it shared its nuclear technology with any other nation or terrorist group. Mr. Trump’s advisers say they see little merit in drawing lines that could limit options, and they would rather keep the North guessing.
So what are Mr. Trump’s options, and what are their downsides?
There is classic containment: limiting an adversary’s ability to expand its influence, as the United States did against a much more powerful foe, the Soviet Union. But that does not solve the problem; it is just a way of living with it.
He could step up sanctions, bolster the American naval presence off the Korean Peninsula — “we’re sending an armada,” he boasted in April — and accelerate the secret American cyberprogram to sabotage missile launches. But if that combination of intimidation and technical wizardry had been a success, Mr. Kim would not have conducted the test on Tuesday, knowing that it would lead only to more sanctions, more military pressure and more covert activity — and perhaps persuade China that it has no choice but to intervene more decisively.
So far, Mr. Trump’s early enthusiasm that he had cajoled China’s president, Xi Jinping, to crack down on the North has resulted in predictable disappointment. Recently, he told Mr. Xi that the United States was prepared to go it alone in confronting North Korea, but the Chinese may consider that an empty threat.
He could also take another step and threaten pre-emptive military strikes if the United States detects an imminent launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile — maybe one intended to demonstrate the potential reach to the West Coast. Mr. Perry argued for that step in 2006, in an op-ed in The Washington Post that he wrote with a future defense secretary, Ashton B. Carter. “If North Korea persists in its launch preparations, the United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy” the missile on the pad, they wrote.
But Mr. Perry noted recently that “even if you think it was a good idea at the time” — and he now seems to have his doubts — “it’s not a good idea today.”
The reason is simple: In the intervening 11 years, the North has built too many missiles, of too many varieties, to make the benefits of a strike like that worth the risk. It has test-flown a new generation of solid-fuel missiles, which can be easily hidden in mountain caves and rolled out for quick launch.
And the North Koreans still possess their ultimate weapon of retaliation: artillery along the northern edge of the Demilitarized Zone that can take out the South’s capital, Seoul, a city of approximately 10 million people and one of the most vibrant economic hubs of Asia.
In short, that is a risk the North Koreans are betting even Mr. Trump, for all his threats, would not take. “A conflict in North Korea,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” in May, “would be probably the worst kind of fighting in most people’s lifetimes.”
Which leads to the next option, the one that South Korea’s new president, Moon Jae-in, talked about in Washington on Friday when he visited Mr. Trump: negotiation. It would start with a freeze on North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests in return for an American agreement to limit or suspend military exercises with South Korea. Mr. Xi has long urged that approach, and it won an endorsement on Tuesday from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, after he met with the Chinese leader.
That, too, carries risks. It essentially achieves the North Korean and Chinese goal of limiting American military freedom of action in the Pacific, and over time it would erode the quality of the American-South Korean military deterrent.
Negotiating with the North is hardly a new idea: President Bill Clinton tried it in 1994, and Mr. Bush in the last two years of his term. But both discovered that over time, once the North Koreans determined that the economic benefits were limited, the deals fell apart.
Moreover, a freeze at this late date, when the North is estimated to have 10 to 20 nuclear weapons, essentially acknowledges that the North’s modest arsenal is here to stay.
Mr. Tillerson said as much when he visited Seoul in mid-March and told reporters that he would probably reject any solution that would enshrine “a comprehensive set of capabilities” in the North. He has since softened his public comments. Administration officials now suggest that a freeze would not be a solution, but a way station to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula — in other words, an agreement that Mr. Kim would give up all his nuclear weapons and missiles.
But it is now clear that Mr. Kim has no interest in giving up that power. As he looks around the world, he sees cases like that of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, an authoritarian who gave up his nascent nuclear program, only to be deposed, with American help, as soon as his people turned against him. That is what Mr. Kim believes his nuclear program will prevent — an American effort to topple him.
He may be right.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/us/politics/trump-north-korea-missile-icbm.html
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North Korea appeared to use China truck in its first claimed ICBM test
Jul 4, 2017 | Reuters
By James Pearson and Jack Kim
North Korea appeared to use a Chinese truck originally sold for hauling timber to transport and erect a ballistic missile that was successfully launched on Tuesday, highlighting the challenge of enforcing sanctions to curb its weapons program.
North Korea state television showed a large truck painted in military camouflage carrying the missile. It was identical to one a U.N. sanctions panel has said was "most likely" converted from a Chinese timber truck.
Since 2006, U.N. sanctions have banned the shipment of military hardware to North Korea. But control of equipment and vehicles that have "dual-use" military and civilian applications has been far less stringent.
The vehicle was imported from China and declared for civilian use by the North Korean foreign ministry, according to a 2013 report by the U.N. panel. Tuesday's launch was the first time the truck had been seen in a military field operation in pictures published in state media.
China, North Korea's largest trading partner and its sole major ally, is under increasing pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, who has said Chinese efforts to rein in North Korea's weapons programs have failed.
The truck had been previously on display at military parades in 2012 and in 2013 carrying what experts said appeared to be developmental models or mock-ups of North Korea's intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Images on the North Korea's state television showed soldiers working on the vehicle mounted with a missile, which was then erected and off-loaded ahead of the launch at a hillside location. Leader Kim Jong Un supervised the test.
The transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) is a vehicle designed to move a ballistic missile and stand it upright, allowing for a mobile system that makes surveillance difficult for spy satellites.
In its 2013 report, the U.N. panel of experts said the features of the vehicle in the 2012 parade exactly matched those of a vehicle sold by China's Hubei Sanjiang Space Wanshan Special Vehicle Company.
DELIBERATE BREACH?
The company is a subsidiary of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, a state-owned company that makes the Shenzhou rocket as well as missiles.
A company manager reached by telephone declined to comment citing the sensitivity of the issue.
China submitted to the U.N. panel a copy of the end user certificate provided by the North stating that six of the vehicles were being imported for the purpose of transporting timber.
The panel said it "considers it most likely that the (North) deliberately breached" the certificate and converted the trucks into transporter-erector-launchers.
This year, North Korea used another Chinese-made truck model to tow submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) at a military parade on the 105th anniversary of the birth of state founder Kim Il Sung.
Last year, state media published photos showing Chinese-made trucks being used in a new North Korean mobile rocket artillery system.
Both vehicles showed the logo or had markings specific to the Chinese company Sinotruk.
A Sinotruk sales official said in April he was not aware the company's trucks were used in the military parade.
North Korean state media has in the past released images of Sinotruk chassis and cabins related to construction or mining.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, after the launch, it was opposed to North Korea contravening rules laid out in U.N. Security council resolutions. China was working hard to resolve the issue and urged all sides to meet each other half way, it added.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-china-truck-idUSKBN19P1J3
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China and Russia Strike $11bn Funding Deal
Jul 4, 2017 | Financial Times
By Max Seddon and Kathrin Hille
Beijing is to extend nearly $11bn to two Russian state entities that are under western sanctions.
The renminbi-denominated funds allow the Russian counter parties — the Russian Direct Investment Fund, a $10bn sovereign fund, and Vnesheconombank, Russia’s state development bank — to escape possible penalties under US sanctions for dollar transactions. The funding was announced after Russian president Vladimir Putin met his counterpart Xi Jinping in Moscow on Tuesday.
The funds from Beijing’s state-run China Development Bank are the fruit of years of efforts by Moscow to attract funding for private industry in Russia. Western corporate lending has fallen dramatically after recession and US and EU sanctions.
CDB is to create a Rmb68bn fund with RDIF, which invests in Russian private equity projects with foreign partners. The joint fund will invest primarily in Russia-China cross-border projects as part of Mr Xi’s One Belt One Road initiative and Mr Putin’s Eurasian Economic Union, said Kirill Dmitriev, RDIF’s chief executive. Separately VEB said it had secured a 15-year, Rmb6bn loan from CDB to set up a new innovation-focused fund. Sergei Gorkov, VEB’s chief executive, said the fund would invest in energy, industry and transport in Russia, as well as cross-border projects in Siberia and Russia’s far east. VEB is increasingly looking to China as an alternative source of funding after the sanctions left it struggling to pay off more than $18bn in foreign debt.
The agreements come at a time of growing skepticism in Moscow over the benefits of its relationship with Beijing. Mr Xi was visiting Russia for the sixth time since he took office in 2013, and the Moscow talks marked the leaders’ third meeting this year.
But Russian government officials and corporate executives have complained that economic ties have failed to keep up with the closer political relationship. Moreover, Beijing’s One Belt One Road initiative — for massive infrastructure investments linking east Asia with Europe — has triggered fears that China is encroaching on Central Asia, a region Russia sees as its sphere of influence, and seeking strategic dominance in all of Eurasia.
The real economic benefits of the Chinese initiative and the Russian-backed Eurasian Economic Union were “at risk of being undermined by geopolitical factors”, said Ivan Safranchuk, an associate professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. Despite Moscow’s efforts, China has been reluctant to invest broadly in Russia, limiting big deals to two connected to Mr Putin’s inner circle.
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https://www.ft.com/content/323f8254-60d2-11e7-8814-0ac7eb84e5f1?mhq5j=e1
RDIF’s previous attempts to ramp up Chinese investment in Russia had mixed results. Concerns over sanctions and Russia’s lagging equities market have seen the Russia-China Investment Fund, a joint venture with China Investment Corporation, RDIF’s counterpart in Beijing, invest only $1bn of the estimated $4bn raised since 2012.“If it took them five-and-a-bit years to invest $1bn in 19 projects, it’ll take them 50 years to spend $10bn,” said Alexander Gabuev, a specialist in Russia-China relations at the Carnegie Moscow Center, a think-tank. On Thursday, RDIF also announced a deal to market Russian food in China with a company chaired by Igor Chaika, the son of Russia’s prosecutor-general.
Mr Xi and Mr Putin again failed to make progress towards clarifying whether and how their two regional integration projects could be combined, despite pledging a year ago to work towards the creation of a “Comprehensive Eurasian Partnership”.
However, the Russian and Chinese governments agreed to outline by the end of the year the technical and economic foundations for such a framework. In remarks aimed at underlining their political ties and mutual trust, Mr Xi stressed the growing co-operation with Moscow on the global stage.
Looking ahead to the G20 summit later this week, he said Russia and China would “increase our co-ordination” in that grouping. Russia’s state-run Channel 1 also said it would create a new television network in China to promote Russia. The channel, named Katyusha after a Russian military ballad that is widely popular in China, will entice Chinese viewers with game shows and documentaries about famous Russians.
https://www.ft.com/content/323f8254-60d2-11e7-8814-0ac7eb84e5f1?mhq5j=e1
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Low-Cost Digital Container Seal Developed
Jul 4, 2017 | The Maritime Executive
A new low-cost, digital seal has been developed for the CORE (Consistently Optimized Resilient Secure Global Supply-Chains) European Research Project by Dutch software company Itude Mobile.
Babbler requires no installation in the fabric of a truck or container and enables the integrity of the shipment to be monitored online via a smartphone app. The seal is broken if Babbler’s sensors detect light. Both the seal status and the temperature of the cargo can be inspected wirelessly via Bluetooth or a long-range radio option, LoRa. The LoRa network for Internet of Things applications is now widely available across Europe and enables customs authorities to access the Babbler log some hours before a vessel berths.
Babbler was initially tested for CORE by FloraHolland, a giant flower auction cooperative seeking to help Kenyan growers to reduce their logistics costs and simplify the import/export process.
Roel Huiden, supply chain consultant at FloraHolland comments: “Flowers must be kept at 0.5ºC to maintain quality, but when a container is opened, the temperature inside rises. Avoiding unnecessary inspections preserves freshness, as well as speeding up delivery. But the price of protection is critical in this market. Costly security devices available to shippers of high-value cargoes are simply not an option. For low-value goods, especially those that spoil easily, Babbler offers protection at an affordable price.”
Named after a vocal song bird, Babbler recently exposed a diesel theft during one test in Kenya. Huiden said: “A refrigerated container of flowers was sealed in Nairobi before making the long road journey to Mombasa, during which thieves disconnected the generator for half an hour so they could safely syphon off fuel. But Babbler sang: it recorded the unexpected spike in temperature, revealing the time of the theft and helping pinpoint those responsible.”
The system has now been adopted by CORE partner Seacon Logistics in a bid to establish trusted trade lanes around the world. “That is, trade lanes where inspections are less likely because customs can rely on our data pipeline for smart data sharing and the Babbler logs to reveal if a container has been opened in transit,” said Joris Tenhagen, CORE-Project Manager at Seacon.
Seacon is working closely with Dutch authorities, and after six months of testing, is about to expand the use of Babbler into other trade lanes including the U.S.
https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/low-cost-digital-container-seal-developed
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