North Korea (Superthread)
- Thread starter Scoobie Newbie
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Then we shouldn't have signed on the dotted line.
Just because nobody else is living up to their word then we don't have to live up to ours. Understood.
Trump sounds quite justified if he decides to renege on Obama's Paris signature.
Just because nobody else is living up to their word then we don't have to live up to ours. Understood.
Trump sounds quite justified if he decides to renege on Obama's Paris signature.
the 48th regulator
Army.ca Fixture
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MilEME09 said:
Actually no,
Canada has always been relevent in global situations, ya the whole Peacekeeping schtick and all..
That has been right up until our current Government. I won't let you caste away Canada's significance that easily.
dileas
tess
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Good overview of the latest from Reuters wire service, shared under the Fair Use provisions of the Copyright Act ...
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Canada might be in for a very rude awakening.
We have 3 lines of operation going right now (Latvia, Ukraine and Iraq) along with contemplation of a symbolic but resource intensive Blue Beret mission in Africa, with a government determined to keep spending constant or even cut it.
At the same time we have:
Non traditional threats requiring far different enablers growing, even in the areas we are operating in now.
New threats in the Pacific, which don't even seem to be on Ottawa's radar.
A US administration demanding Alliance partners take up their share of defense spending.
A growing threat of disruptive activities to attacks on civilians and infrastructure at home as part of the global terrorist threat.
Of course a mad rush to make up these deficiencies is going to be expensive and counter productive, but without a steady and incremental improvement in various capabilities and investment in new capabilities, we are lacking in options now, unprepared for the future and in grave danger of being outflanked or otherwise rendered irrelevant when things go south. And this can take all kinds of forms, from being frozen out of higher level decision making to discovering trade agreements and economic plans we had taken for granted are suddenly on the bargaining table.
We have 3 lines of operation going right now (Latvia, Ukraine and Iraq) along with contemplation of a symbolic but resource intensive Blue Beret mission in Africa, with a government determined to keep spending constant or even cut it.
At the same time we have:
Non traditional threats requiring far different enablers growing, even in the areas we are operating in now.
New threats in the Pacific, which don't even seem to be on Ottawa's radar.
A US administration demanding Alliance partners take up their share of defense spending.
A growing threat of disruptive activities to attacks on civilians and infrastructure at home as part of the global terrorist threat.
Of course a mad rush to make up these deficiencies is going to be expensive and counter productive, but without a steady and incremental improvement in various capabilities and investment in new capabilities, we are lacking in options now, unprepared for the future and in grave danger of being outflanked or otherwise rendered irrelevant when things go south. And this can take all kinds of forms, from being frozen out of higher level decision making to discovering trade agreements and economic plans we had taken for granted are suddenly on the bargaining table.
https://www.navytimes.com/articles/carried-away-the-inside-story-of-how-the-carl-vinsons-canceled-port-visit-sparked-a-global-crisis
Carried away: The inside story of how the Carl Vinson's canceled port visit sparked a global crisis
By: David B. Larter, April 23, 2017
In early April, officials at U.S. Pacific Command were developing plans to respond to a sharp rise in tensions with North Korea. Defense Secretary James Mattis ordered PACOM Commander Adm. Harry Harris to come up with “robust and sustainable” options for North Korea if President Trump ordered a strike on the rogue regime, according to four defense officials who spoke on background.
Harris was traveling in Washington away from his Hawaii base of operations, something that he dislikes because, in his view, something always seems to happen when he’s not in his office. At one point that week, top PACOM officials called Harris to recommend that Vinson cancel its upcoming trip to Australia and make its way back to the waters near North Korea where the carrier had just been in March, thus serving as one of the responses to Mattis’s directive that they explore military options for the Trump administration.
The plan was to truncate a secretive exercise with the Australians near Indonesia, to cancel Vinson’s visit to Perth and then head the direction of the Korean Peninsula — meaning Vinson would be off North Korea by the end of the month.
Changing an aircraft carrier’s schedule is not a small muscle movement. Host nations expecting a visit from the mighty U.S. big decks have to do a fair amount of leg work to prepare for the visit. Furthermore, a good number of sailors had family flying out to Australia to meet their sailors. An Australia port visit is the holy grail for sailors on a Western Pacific deployment.
The easiest thing to do, PACOM officials decided, would be send out a press release announcing the canceled port visit — making it easier for families to get their money back from airlines and letting all parties know why the Vinson wouldn’t be visiting the Land Down Under.
And it would have another effect: it would put North Korea on notice by announcing the plans in a press release, which included language that not-so-subtly dropped that Harris had “directed the Carl Vinson Strike Group to sail north and report on station in the western Pacific Ocean after departing Singapore April, 8,” roughly the direction North Korea lies from Singapore. A press release, PACOM officials thought, was the perfect solution to wrap up all the loose ends from the carrier’s schedule change.
Sending the release with the thinly veiled language would be a message to North Korea and nervous allies alike: The Navy’s big guns were on the way so behave accordingly.
“A press release was really the only option,” one official said.
But that’s when things went haywire.
Over the course of 10 days, a series of gaffes and missteps throughout the entire national security structure to its highest levels would raise the specter of a nuclear showdown, send the U.S. and Chinese governments into crisis mode, and expose alarming communication deficiencies within the American military at large. The breakdown fueled a war frenzy at major newspapers and networks, running with the narrative that Trump was diverting the carrier personally to send a message, outlandish claims made without checking for facts until the crisis rhetoric had spun out of control.
This behind-the-scenes account is based on interviews with nearly a dozen defense officials in Washington, and in the Pacific, all of whom spoke to Navy Times on the condition of anonymity to relay in candid terms how the carrier's movement blew up from a routine Navy operation to a full-on crisis.
The war drums began beating on April 8, the day a press release came out from U.S. 3rd Fleet announcing the carrier’s move. U.S. 3rd Fleet has operational control of Vinson during its tour of the Pacific. But two hours before the 3rd Fleet's press statement hit the streets, Reuters news agency published a story that said the Vinson Strike Group, which was visiting Singapore at the time, would proceed from there to the waters off North Korea to send a message to the rogue Korean regime, which is poised to detonate the country’s sixth nuclear bomb test.
The Reuters story, followed by the unusual move from the Navy of discussing ship movements, created an initial flurry of press reports and speculation. Coming just two days after Trump’s surprising and widely praised decision to strike the Assad regime in Syria for its chemical attack on Syrian civilians, speculation swirled that the president was feeling emboldened. Maybe Korean leader Kim Jong Un would be the next recipient of a Trump-ordered barrage of cruise missiles.
Meanwhile, the Vinson and its escorts were not heading north. They were moving in the opposite direction, belying the conjecture that a strike on North Korea was imminent.
Nevertheless, by April 9, breathless news reports were proliferating through the press, including Navy Times. CNN and the other networks were beginning to get on a war footing. The New York Times claimed that “Rerouting the naval armada is President Trump’s latest escalation in force against a potential adversary,” although Trump doesn’t appear to have had anything to do with the order at all.
“The media just went nuts,” one source with close knowledge of the situation said.
When asked about the Vinson’s movement during an appearance on Fox News, Army Gen. H. R. McMaster, President Trump’s national security advisor, said the step was “prudent” and went on to state the commitment by the U.S. to getting nuclear weapons off the Korean Peninsula.
McMaster seemed to be saying that Harris’s move was a logical one under the broader guidance from Mattis and Trump's team on the National Security Council to draw up military options for North Korea. But the interview was the first in a string of missed opportunities for senior defense officials to correct the record on what Vinson was doing. Instead, everyone from McMaster and Mattis to the president himself inaccurately stated what Vinson's intentions were.
It was at this early phase when things could have been corrected with an additional release from PACOM, according to defense officials who spoke to Navy Times, an assessment many experts agreed with.
It would have been a quick and easy fix if the military had simply sent out a press release detailing Vinson’s plans and clarifying the initial release, said Bryan Clark, retired Navy officer who was a senior aide to former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Greenert and analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. A flawed narrative might have been stopped in its tracks and prevented rattling a region on the brink of conflict, he said.
“It’s really shocking that they let this go for nearly two weeks without trying to correct the record,” he said.
Carried away: The inside story of how the Carl Vinson's canceled port visit sparked a global crisis
By: David B. Larter, April 23, 2017
In early April, officials at U.S. Pacific Command were developing plans to respond to a sharp rise in tensions with North Korea. Defense Secretary James Mattis ordered PACOM Commander Adm. Harry Harris to come up with “robust and sustainable” options for North Korea if President Trump ordered a strike on the rogue regime, according to four defense officials who spoke on background.
Harris was traveling in Washington away from his Hawaii base of operations, something that he dislikes because, in his view, something always seems to happen when he’s not in his office. At one point that week, top PACOM officials called Harris to recommend that Vinson cancel its upcoming trip to Australia and make its way back to the waters near North Korea where the carrier had just been in March, thus serving as one of the responses to Mattis’s directive that they explore military options for the Trump administration.
The plan was to truncate a secretive exercise with the Australians near Indonesia, to cancel Vinson’s visit to Perth and then head the direction of the Korean Peninsula — meaning Vinson would be off North Korea by the end of the month.
Changing an aircraft carrier’s schedule is not a small muscle movement. Host nations expecting a visit from the mighty U.S. big decks have to do a fair amount of leg work to prepare for the visit. Furthermore, a good number of sailors had family flying out to Australia to meet their sailors. An Australia port visit is the holy grail for sailors on a Western Pacific deployment.
The easiest thing to do, PACOM officials decided, would be send out a press release announcing the canceled port visit — making it easier for families to get their money back from airlines and letting all parties know why the Vinson wouldn’t be visiting the Land Down Under.
And it would have another effect: it would put North Korea on notice by announcing the plans in a press release, which included language that not-so-subtly dropped that Harris had “directed the Carl Vinson Strike Group to sail north and report on station in the western Pacific Ocean after departing Singapore April, 8,” roughly the direction North Korea lies from Singapore. A press release, PACOM officials thought, was the perfect solution to wrap up all the loose ends from the carrier’s schedule change.
Sending the release with the thinly veiled language would be a message to North Korea and nervous allies alike: The Navy’s big guns were on the way so behave accordingly.
“A press release was really the only option,” one official said.
But that’s when things went haywire.
Over the course of 10 days, a series of gaffes and missteps throughout the entire national security structure to its highest levels would raise the specter of a nuclear showdown, send the U.S. and Chinese governments into crisis mode, and expose alarming communication deficiencies within the American military at large. The breakdown fueled a war frenzy at major newspapers and networks, running with the narrative that Trump was diverting the carrier personally to send a message, outlandish claims made without checking for facts until the crisis rhetoric had spun out of control.
This behind-the-scenes account is based on interviews with nearly a dozen defense officials in Washington, and in the Pacific, all of whom spoke to Navy Times on the condition of anonymity to relay in candid terms how the carrier's movement blew up from a routine Navy operation to a full-on crisis.
The war drums began beating on April 8, the day a press release came out from U.S. 3rd Fleet announcing the carrier’s move. U.S. 3rd Fleet has operational control of Vinson during its tour of the Pacific. But two hours before the 3rd Fleet's press statement hit the streets, Reuters news agency published a story that said the Vinson Strike Group, which was visiting Singapore at the time, would proceed from there to the waters off North Korea to send a message to the rogue Korean regime, which is poised to detonate the country’s sixth nuclear bomb test.
The Reuters story, followed by the unusual move from the Navy of discussing ship movements, created an initial flurry of press reports and speculation. Coming just two days after Trump’s surprising and widely praised decision to strike the Assad regime in Syria for its chemical attack on Syrian civilians, speculation swirled that the president was feeling emboldened. Maybe Korean leader Kim Jong Un would be the next recipient of a Trump-ordered barrage of cruise missiles.
Meanwhile, the Vinson and its escorts were not heading north. They were moving in the opposite direction, belying the conjecture that a strike on North Korea was imminent.
Nevertheless, by April 9, breathless news reports were proliferating through the press, including Navy Times. CNN and the other networks were beginning to get on a war footing. The New York Times claimed that “Rerouting the naval armada is President Trump’s latest escalation in force against a potential adversary,” although Trump doesn’t appear to have had anything to do with the order at all.
“The media just went nuts,” one source with close knowledge of the situation said.
When asked about the Vinson’s movement during an appearance on Fox News, Army Gen. H. R. McMaster, President Trump’s national security advisor, said the step was “prudent” and went on to state the commitment by the U.S. to getting nuclear weapons off the Korean Peninsula.
McMaster seemed to be saying that Harris’s move was a logical one under the broader guidance from Mattis and Trump's team on the National Security Council to draw up military options for North Korea. But the interview was the first in a string of missed opportunities for senior defense officials to correct the record on what Vinson was doing. Instead, everyone from McMaster and Mattis to the president himself inaccurately stated what Vinson's intentions were.
It was at this early phase when things could have been corrected with an additional release from PACOM, according to defense officials who spoke to Navy Times, an assessment many experts agreed with.
It would have been a quick and easy fix if the military had simply sent out a press release detailing Vinson’s plans and clarifying the initial release, said Bryan Clark, retired Navy officer who was a senior aide to former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Greenert and analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. A flawed narrative might have been stopped in its tracks and prevented rattling a region on the brink of conflict, he said.
“It’s really shocking that they let this go for nearly two weeks without trying to correct the record,” he said.
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Several news items of which the subject of the meetings may also include NK:
Fox News report the meeting is being held under tight security, snipers (NZ SAS?) in a remote area. Note also UN Security Council meeting at the WH today and lunch with the President during the briefings.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/329345/pm-confirms-'five-eyes'-conference-in-queenstown 24 Apr 17
Prime Minister Bill English has confirmed a meeting of the 'Five Eyes' intelligence group is being held in New Zealand this week.
Bill EnglishPM Bill English Photo: RNZ
The meeting of intelligence leaders from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand is being held in Arrowtown.
There has been increased security in Queenstown and a private jet that has been linked to the American CIA landed at Wellington Airport on Friday.
Among those understood to be attending are the FBI director James Comey and the CIA director Mike Pompeo.
Mr English told Morning Report that Chris Finlayson, the Minister responsible for the SIS and the GCSB, was attending the conference.
"One of the regular conferences that they have, we work with the other four countries, combating terrorism, protecting our citizens around the world. So it's an arrangement that works well for New Zealand."
Mr English will attend a dinner at the conference.
He declined to say what specific issues were on the agenda.
Watch Bill English on Morning Report at link.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/04/24/entire-senate-being-called-to-white-house-for-north-korea-briefing.html
Entire Senate being called to White House for North Korea briefing Published April 24, 2017
The entire U.S. Senate has been invited to the White House for a briefing Wednesday on the North Korea situation, amid escalating tensions over the country’s missile tests and bellicose rhetoric.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer confirmed the upcoming briefing, for all 100 senators, on Monday.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats plan to provide the update to lawmakers.
It is rare for the entire Senate to be invited to such a briefing.
Spicer clarified that while the event will take place on the White House campus, it is technically a Senate briefing and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is the one who convened it.
The briefing, first reported by Reuters, was confirmed after President Trump earlier spoke to the leaders of both China and Japan.
Trump spoke by phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Xi told Trump that China strongly opposed North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and hoped “all parties will exercise restraint and avoid aggravating the situation,” according to Chinese broadcaster CCTV. Trump hopes China could increase pressure on its isolated ally instead of using military options or trying to overthrow Kim Jong Un’s regime.
Trump and Abe agreed to urge North Korea to refrain from provocative actions.
Meanwhile, U.S. commercial satellite images indicated increased activity around North Korea’s nuclear test site, while Kim has said that the country’s preparation for an ICBM launch is in its “final stage.”
South Korea’s Defense Ministry has said the North appears ready to conduct such "strategic provocations" at any time. South Korean Acting Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn has instructed his military to strengthen its "immediate response posture" in case North Korea does something significant on the April 25 anniversary of its military. North Korea often marks significant dates by displaying military capability.
On Monday, Trump also had lunch with ambassadors of countries on the U.N. Security Council. Ahead of the meeting, Trump called for “big reforms” at the U.N. and criticizing its handling of recent events in Syria and North Korea – but said it has “tremendous potential.”
"You just don't see the United Nations, like, solving conflicts. I think that's going to start happening now," he said.
Fox News’ Mike Emanuel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Fox News report the meeting is being held under tight security, snipers (NZ SAS?) in a remote area. Note also UN Security Council meeting at the WH today and lunch with the President during the briefings.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/329345/pm-confirms-'five-eyes'-conference-in-queenstown 24 Apr 17
Prime Minister Bill English has confirmed a meeting of the 'Five Eyes' intelligence group is being held in New Zealand this week.
Bill EnglishPM Bill English Photo: RNZ
The meeting of intelligence leaders from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand is being held in Arrowtown.
There has been increased security in Queenstown and a private jet that has been linked to the American CIA landed at Wellington Airport on Friday.
Among those understood to be attending are the FBI director James Comey and the CIA director Mike Pompeo.
Mr English told Morning Report that Chris Finlayson, the Minister responsible for the SIS and the GCSB, was attending the conference.
"One of the regular conferences that they have, we work with the other four countries, combating terrorism, protecting our citizens around the world. So it's an arrangement that works well for New Zealand."
Mr English will attend a dinner at the conference.
He declined to say what specific issues were on the agenda.
Watch Bill English on Morning Report at link.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/04/24/entire-senate-being-called-to-white-house-for-north-korea-briefing.html
Entire Senate being called to White House for North Korea briefing Published April 24, 2017
The entire U.S. Senate has been invited to the White House for a briefing Wednesday on the North Korea situation, amid escalating tensions over the country’s missile tests and bellicose rhetoric.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer confirmed the upcoming briefing, for all 100 senators, on Monday.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats plan to provide the update to lawmakers.
It is rare for the entire Senate to be invited to such a briefing.
Spicer clarified that while the event will take place on the White House campus, it is technically a Senate briefing and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is the one who convened it.
The briefing, first reported by Reuters, was confirmed after President Trump earlier spoke to the leaders of both China and Japan.
Trump spoke by phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Xi told Trump that China strongly opposed North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and hoped “all parties will exercise restraint and avoid aggravating the situation,” according to Chinese broadcaster CCTV. Trump hopes China could increase pressure on its isolated ally instead of using military options or trying to overthrow Kim Jong Un’s regime.
Trump and Abe agreed to urge North Korea to refrain from provocative actions.
Meanwhile, U.S. commercial satellite images indicated increased activity around North Korea’s nuclear test site, while Kim has said that the country’s preparation for an ICBM launch is in its “final stage.”
South Korea’s Defense Ministry has said the North appears ready to conduct such "strategic provocations" at any time. South Korean Acting Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn has instructed his military to strengthen its "immediate response posture" in case North Korea does something significant on the April 25 anniversary of its military. North Korea often marks significant dates by displaying military capability.
On Monday, Trump also had lunch with ambassadors of countries on the U.N. Security Council. Ahead of the meeting, Trump called for “big reforms” at the U.N. and criticizing its handling of recent events in Syria and North Korea – but said it has “tremendous potential.”
"You just don't see the United Nations, like, solving conflicts. I think that's going to start happening now," he said.
Fox News’ Mike Emanuel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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And in the same vein:
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/24/president-trump-to-host-unusual-meeting-with-un-security-council.html
So, we have the following extraordinary meetings:
UNSC with members of Congress (under the auspices of the White House) Monday
UNSC with POTUS at the White House Monday
UNSC meeting scheduled at the UN on Tuesday
US Senate being briefed at White House on Wednesday by Sec State, Sec Def, CJCS and DNI
ABCANZUS Intelligence being briefed by Dir FBI and Dir CIA in Australia on Friday.
Fascinating.
All the more fascinating for how "collegial" the approach seems to be. Hardly authoritarian at all. Just very different.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/24/president-trump-to-host-unusual-meeting-with-un-security-council.html
So, we have the following extraordinary meetings:
UNSC with members of Congress (under the auspices of the White House) Monday
UNSC with POTUS at the White House Monday
UNSC meeting scheduled at the UN on Tuesday
US Senate being briefed at White House on Wednesday by Sec State, Sec Def, CJCS and DNI
ABCANZUS Intelligence being briefed by Dir FBI and Dir CIA in Australia on Friday.
Fascinating.
All the more fascinating for how "collegial" the approach seems to be. Hardly authoritarian at all. Just very different.
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http://www.euronews.com/2017/04/21/russia-north-korea-border-troop-movements-our-business
Move along folks. Nothing to see here.
Concurrently, reports of Chinese troop movements (exercises) in the North Korean border area
http://www.smh.com.au/world/north-korea-tensions-reports-of-chinese-troops-on-border-20170411-gviljw.html
Europe has a refugee crisis.
What would be the effect of a refugee crisis on Russia and China? And how might one organize such a thing?
Move along folks. Nothing to see here.
Concurrently, reports of Chinese troop movements (exercises) in the North Korean border area
http://www.smh.com.au/world/north-korea-tensions-reports-of-chinese-troops-on-border-20170411-gviljw.html
Europe has a refugee crisis.
What would be the effect of a refugee crisis on Russia and China? And how might one organize such a thing?
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... dutifully denied by Beijing week before last (and again this past weekend) -- BUT with a (CHN Communist Party organ) Global Times editorial calling for a bit of ... give by North Korea:Chris Pook said:
J
jollyjacktar
Guest
I keep thinking, the more of these pointless live fire demos they give, the better. Depletes their stock and wears their tubes. Carry on, idiots. And of course there's always the chance they might take out a gun and crew or two with a mishap.
daftandbarmy
Army.ca Dinosaur
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Chris Pook said:Target.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/26/north-korea-releases-dramatic-images-largest-ever-live-fire/
Can't help but wonder how many bleeding eardrums there are. Impact on command and control?
It's nice of them to put all that hardware within the impact area of a regimental fire mission.
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Would that be a Freudian typo?milnews.ca said:
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