NightWatch

For the Night of 28 May 2009

North Korea: News services reported no new provocations or sensational behavior today.

Essay: The North’s actions operate on many levels. Two that came to mind today are the trajectory from the past and the legacy of Kim Chong-il.

As to the trajectory from the past, the North conveyed clearly and openly to the Clinton administration that its agreement to participate in the Agreed Framework was based on an expectation that it was a path to a more prosperous future. The context of the set of agreements associated with the Agreed Framework was Kim Il-sung suspended the seven-year national plan in December 1993 because it failed. He adjusted national priorities to put production of food, consumer goods and export goods ahead of production for the armed forces. Only the father of the country could order such a change.

Thus the search for a path to greater prosperity consumed the founder of the country until he died. His feckless son lacked the personality, charisma and credentials of his father as a national leader. Thus he reverted to the military-first national policy. That was for his personal safety because he barely survived an assassination attempt in the first month after the death of Kim IL sung, according to multiple accounts.

The Agreed Framework provided a path that might achieve Kim Il-sung’s legacy that the North should become prosperous, including the idea of national strength. Prosperity and national strength did not result over 8 years. North Korea had zero population growth and was barely able to arrest the decline in GDP from the level of 1988. The North experienced and survived a significantly greater and longer economic catastrophe than the United States during the Great Depression. Instead of prosperity it encountered a hard-line US administration.

Eventually it agreed to the Six Party Talks. That arrangement represented itself as a second path to prosperity, also backed by wealthy outside powers, like the Agreed Framework. It also failed, even worse than the Agreed Framework.

Around 2006 the North attempted a strategic breakout with the missile launch and the nuclear test. The science was so imperfect that it undermined the political decisions. The North returned to the Six Party Talks.

Sometime after Kim Chong-il’s stroke in August the North seems to have made several strategic decisions, reasoning backwards from its behavior. It decided to try the science again but only after it had a chance to assess a new administration.

One conclusion from the April missile test and the nuclear test this week is that the North has concluded that the new US administration offers no more promise than the old one. The second conclusion is that the North’s leaders have decided to take matters in their own hands and try things the Korean way, with intimidation and sensation because two US-backed paths have failed to lead to a stronger North Korea or a more prosperous state.

Thus, the North has acted to change the context of future engagement with its enemies. The goals remain, as stated in North Korean media, achievement of a more prosperous and stronger North Korea. The Western proposals are dead as non-productive in this analysis. That means the North Korean way ahead is unfamiliar -- new tactics to achieve international recognition and acceptance, as well as prosperity, on North Korean terms.

NightWatch has mentioned the influence of the legacy several times this week. In Oriental Despotism, Wittfogel explains the drive of the son to outdo his father in the Far East . Needham and others discuss the same impulses in ancient Egypt. The new thought is in the form of a question. What would make a rather retiring, risk averse, taciturn national leader with a high squeaky voice begin to take risks and pretend he is multiple places almost simultaneously everyday. One answer is that he has become mindful of his own mortality and wants to set his legacy while he remains compos mentis. In other words, one answer is that Kim and his family knows he has a terminal illness.

Thus the bluster and sensation would serve to camouflage the internal arrangements for succession, which will be complex, and to set the legacy of a dying man. The message to the outside world is to not trifle with the country while it sorts out leadership issues. The internal message is that the son has surpassed the father. Expect more sensational events to support both accounts – more missile launches and more explosions.

South Korea: "Watchcon II took effect as of 0715 [2215 GMT]," said defense ministry spokesman Won Tae-Jae.

"Surveillance over the North will be stepped up, with more aircraft and personnel mobilized," he said.

Readers should know there are two systems of graduated alerts in South Korea that are almost completely unrelated to each other. Years ago the US originated the systems and the South Koreans adopted them as a faithful ally.

NightWatch participated as an observer/adviser from the National Warning Staff in the formation of the US Defense Department’s Watch Condition system. This system has nothing to do directly with combat readiness or alert. It is a closed intelligence alert system.

Watch Con II is the condition in which intelligence collection assets are surged as described by the South Korean spokesman. In addition the analytical corps devoted to an intelligence problem is supposed to be surged and operating 24x7. More sensors are devoted to a problem and more people stand watch. This system is still used actively and usefully in commands and some allied countries, not necessarily by important Pentagon agencies.

The Defense Condition system – DEFCON system -- increases the readiness of combat forces, such as by recalling personnel to combat duty, calling up reservists and surging logistics preparations among many other tasks. The DEFCON for US forces in Korea and South Korean forces, according to Yonhap, remains at the constant peacetime DEFCON level four.

The South Koreans have increased their intelligence watchfulness to the second highest level. Watch Con I signifies a wartime level of intelligence effort. The South Koreans quietly have increased the vigilance status of its combat forces, but without changing DEFCON because DEFCON changes degrade all civilian economic and social activity. DEFCON changes are high cost and high risk and thus are invariably later than intelligence vigilance changes.

Watch Con increases are intended to improve the timeliness and accuracy of warning provided to decision makers to inform and empower their decision to raise DEFCON, if credible intelligence evidence proves such steps to be prudent precautions.

China: A South Korean defense source said today that Chinese fishing vessels are leaving the Yellow Sea, northwest of Seoul, because of increased tension between the two Koreas that could lead to a military clash. "Chinese fishing ships operating near the Northern Limit Line (NLL) began withdrawing yesterday," the source said, adding the military authorities are trying to find out whether North Korea asked them to do so. More than 280 Chinese vessels were fishing near the NLL for crab earlier this week but the number has reduced to about 140, according to the source.

This is the strongest indicator in open source media that a naval clash is pending near the Off Shore Islands.

Note for analysts: The post-mortem of the suicide bombing of the Marine Barracks in 1983 in Beirut, Lebanon, showed that all the street people left the streets of Beirut hours before the suicide attack that killed 220 Marines plus 21 other servicemen.

This behavior is part of the phenomenology of this kind of event. The little people almost always get a heads up and hide. It happens all over the world when state actors are planning provocations and often in advance of terrorist attacks by non-state actors, but not always. That change in daily behavior pattern is a diagnostic tactical indicator of an attack. It provides at least a few hours of warning if detected and if the detectors and analysts understand its significance.

The Chinese fishing boats, whether warned by North Korea or reacting to the tension of the times, have sent the best signal that South Korea and the US should expect a violent event. The ship captains are sufficiently concerned about the security conditions that they have acted to take themselves out of harm’s way. Their prudence is a lesson to the Allies. Conversely, their continued presence would have been an unambiguous indicator that North Korea is bluffing.

India-Pakistan: For the record. Pakistan has about 60 nuclear warheads in its arsenal, and is continuing to produce fissile material, according to a U.S. Congressional report, Press Trust of India reported 28 May. The report said Pakistan currently has most of the weapons targeted on India, and is also continuing production of delivery vehicles and fissile production facilities.

Readers frequently want to know a ballpark unclassified figure for the nuclear threat in South Asia. The number 60 means that Pakistan can deliver two nuclear warheads on each of the 30 largest cities in India. That pretty much covers all the largest cities in India. A nuclear war in South Asia would pale all the deaths of World War II.

Pakistan: At least 10 people have been killed in Peshawar. Six were killed and about 70 injured when two bombs exploded at a busy market, police said. Shortly after, a suicide bomber attacked a military checkpoint on the city outskirts, killing four soldiers.

The attacks came hours after Pakistani Taliban warned of further violence following a gun and bomb attack in Lahore which killed at least 24 people. Hakimullah Mehsud, a spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud, claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack in Lahore that killed 27 people and injured another 326. He also warned of more violence in response to the military operation in Swat and surrounding areas.

Reuters and the Daily Times reported the Taliban commander said “I appeal to the people of Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Multan to vacate their cities as there will be more such massive attacks, more dangerous than this and we will target government buildings and places”.

The attacks signify that the Pakistan Army, Air Force and Frontier Corps have run out of time for suppressing the militants. They benefited from a wave of popular support that put the militants on the defensive and on the run. The grace period is over; the militants have recovered and popular support for the operations will wane as bombings increase. The Army will be blamed for provoking the militants.

The NightWatch estimate is that Chief of Army Staff General Kayani had a month to achieve credible results. The Pakistan Army moved too slowly and relied too much on the paramilitary Frontier Corps. From now on, calls for an end to operations will increase.

Air Affairs. For the record. In response to news reports that the Indian Air Force acquired its first AWACs aircraft this week, the Chief of Air Staff said during the 2001-02 Indo-Pak standoff, the Pakistan Air Force had shot down an Indian drone, which had infringed upon Pakistani territory. To another question, the air chief said the PAF had the capability to absorb any modern technology to defend the territorial jurisdiction of the country.

The air chief said acquisition of spying satellite and AWACS by India had created an “imbalance in the power” in the region, in response to which, Pakistan would get an Air Warning and Control System (AWACS) by October.

Iraq: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said there will be no goodwill gestures towards Saudi Arabia, because they are interpreted as a sign of weakness by Saudi leaders, Agence France-Presse reported 28 May. Al-Maliki said Saudi Arabia is not doing enough to stop Sunni extremists from crossing its border into Iraq to join the insurgency.

This appears to be the first or one of the first verbal attacks by the Arab Shiite government of Iraq against the Arab Sunni Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The context is not clear in the open source domain, but blaming the Saudis for Iraqi internal security problems would seem to risk significant blow back, unless al Maliki has outside backing for such statements, as from Iran. Slowly, the Arab Shiites in Baghdad seem to be heading into another round of serious civil violence.

End of NightWatch for 28 May.