11/21/2020 News & Commentary - Korea

News and Commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and Published by Riley Murray.

1.  Korea's "Berlin Wall" Must Fall

2. Treasury Sanctions Entities Involved in Exporting Workers from North Korea

3. Analyst: China intervened in U.S.-North Korea relations at turning point

4. UK sourced PPE from factories secretly using North Korean slave labour

5. Rethinking North Korea: How bad would it be to let Kim Jong Un keep his nuclear weapons?

6. She Helped South Korea in Its Time of Need. In the Pandemic, It Repaid Her.

7. [Newsmaker] UNICEF to spend $22.7 million on North Korean aid in 2021

8. Volatility in North Korea's Currency Trading: Does a Rising Won Mean Trouble Ahead, or Progress? 

1. Korea's "Berlin Wall" Must Fall

hrnkinsider.org · by Kim Myong

An important question: "This is why every November I have mixed feelings, thinking of a question that obsesses me: can the democratic revolution in East Europe, sparked by the fall of the Berlin Wall, be replicated in North Korea?'

This is an important essay.  If you only read one thing today, please read this essay. 

To complement this essay here are two videos very much worth watching from another escapee and friend of mine Hyun Seung Lee.

The reason why I defected from North Korea. (How the regime executed its people.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1UbstigiI4&t=321s

Why Aren't There Any Grassroots Movements in North Korea?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSCpH7QSE0M

2. Treasury Sanctions Entities Involved in Exporting Workers from North Korea

home.treasury.gov

Human rights and national security.  This is a good step.

3. Analyst: China intervened in U.S.-North Korea relations at turning point

upi.com

For those who think we can count on Chinese support on north Korea.

4. UK sourced PPE from factories secretly using North Korean slave labour

The Guardian · by Pete Pattisson · November 20, 2020

5. Rethinking North Korea: How bad would it be to let Kim Jong Un keep his nuclear weapons?

Washington Examiner · by Jamie McIntyre · November 20, 2020

Once we lower the goal post, KIm Jong-un will double down on his successful political warfare strategy.  Rather than give up the goal of denuclearization we need to expand our strategy and objectives and cope with, contain, and manage the situation until the "Korean question" can be resolved as that is the only way we will see an end to the nuclear threat and the regime's crimes against humanity.  We must base our strategy on the four pillars of deterrence, defense, denuclearization, and unification (D3U).

6. She Helped South Korea in Its Time of Need. In the Pandemic, It Repaid Her.

The New York Times · by Choe Sang-Hun · November 20, 2020

Korea and the US share interests and share values.  This is an example of our shared values.  And this is another example (in microcosm) of the fact that South Korea is the only nation to go from a major aid recipient to a major donor nation.

7. [Newsmaker] UNICEF to spend $22.7 million on North Korean aid in 2021

koreaherald.com · by Ko Jun-tae · November 20, 2020

8. Volatility in North Korea's Currency Trading: Does a Rising Won Mean Trouble Ahead, or Progress?

https://www.38north.org/2020/11/wbrown112020/ - by William Brown – 20 November 2020

Bill Brown is one of our nation's foremost experts on north Korea's economy.

"Credibility is a condition of persuasion. Before you can make a man do what you say, you must make him believe what you say. A necessary condition for gaining his credence is that you do not permit him to catch you in lies. Hence, the constraint upon all propagandists to accurate reporting of matters which are subject to verification by the audience...Propaganda, to be effective, must be not only factually true, but credible."

- Sykewar, Daniel Lerner, George W. Stewart, NY., 1949.

"PSYOP is the most powerful weapon in the SOF inventory."

- General Carl Stiner, Former CINCSOC, 14 April 1993, speaking at the AUSA Symposium

"War does not belong in the realm of arts and sciences; rather it is part of   man's social existence...Politics, moreover, is the womb in which war develops."

- Carl von Clausewitz