Biden’s Camp David coalition and further rapprochement by China, Russia, Iran and North Korea
After Kim’s sister said when Biden took office that the US should „not make a stink“, the US resumed annual joint maneuvers with South Korea, and the newly elected South Korean president took a hard line against China and North Korea at the same time as reactivating the kill chain doctrine and Japan increased its defense budget, changed the pacifist post-war constitution and now also built up enemy base strike capabilities, with which a war with China would not only be limited to a naval war, but Japan now also hopes to deter China and Nortkroea by the fact that in this case Chinese and North Korean territory will attacked with rockets and cyber weapons. North Korea, in turn, threatens South Korea in light of the latest US maneuvers:
“North Korea’s Kim calls for readiness to smash U.S.-led invasion plot, as U.S. trains with South and Japan
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 29, 2023 at 14:10 JST
SEOUL–North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for his military to be constantly ready for combat to thwart its rivals’ plots to invade his country, state media said Tuesday, as the U.S., South Korea and Japan held a trilateral naval exercise to deal with North Korea’s evolving nuclear threats.
The U.S. and South Korean militaries have been separately holding summer bilateral exercises since last week. North Korea views such U.S.-involved training as an invasion rehearsal, though Washington and its partners maintain their drills are defensive.
Kim said in a speech marking the country’s Navy Day on Monday that the waters off the Korean Peninsula have been made unstable „with the danger of a nuclear war” because of U.S.-led hostilities, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
He cited the U.S. drills with its allies, the deployment of more powerful U.S. weapons assets in the waters near the Korean Peninsula, and a recent U.S.-South Korean-Japanese summit where an agreement to boost defense cooperation was reached to counter North Korea’s nuclear program. Kim called President Joe Biden, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida “the gang bosses” of the three countries.
“The prevailing situation requires our navy to put all its efforts into rounding off the war readiness to maintain the constant combat alertness and get prepared to break the enemy’s will for war in contingency,” Kim said.
Tuesday’s South Korean-U.S.-Japanese drills in international waters off South Korea’s southern Jeju island involved naval destroyers from the three countries. The training was aimed at mastering procedures for detecting, tracking and sharing information about incoming North Korean missiles, South Korea’s navy said in a statement.
The U.S. and South Korean militaries began the 11-day bilateral drills on Aug. 21. The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield training is a computer-simulated command post exercise. But they included field exercises this year.
North Korea typically responds to U.S.-South Korean military drills with its own missile tests. Last Thursday, its second attempt to launch a spy satellite into space failed. The day the drills began, KCNA said Kim had observed the test-firings of strategic cruise missiles.
Since the beginning of 2022, North Korea has carried out more than 100 weapons tests, many of them involving nuclear-capable missiles designed to strike the U.S. and its allies South Korea and Japan. Many experts say North Korea ultimately wants to use its boosted military capabilities to wrest greater concessions from the U.S.
The North’s testing spree has forced the U.S. and South Korea to expand their drills, resume trilateral training involving Japan and enhance “regular visibility” of U.S. strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula. In July, the United States deployed a nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea for the first time in four decades.
Earlier this month, the leaders of the U.S., South Korea and Japan held their first-ever stand-alone trilateral summit at Camp David. During the meeting, they announced they intend to put into operation by year’s end the sharing of real-time missile warning data on North Korea and hold annual trilateral exercises.
Kim has been pushing hard to expand his nuclear arsenal and introduce a slew of sophisticated weapons systems.
During his Navy Day speech, Kim said that military units of each service would be given new weaponry in line with the government’s decision to expand the operation of tactical nuclear weapons. He said the navy would become “a component of the state nuclear deterrence carrying out the strategic duty.”
This suggests North Korea would deploy new nuclear-capable missiles to its navy and other military services.
State media reports and photos showed Kim visiting the navy headquarters with his daughter, reportedly named Ju Ae and aged about 10. It was her first public appearance since mid-May. Kim has brought her to a series of public events since November, sparking speculation about her political status.
South Korean officials say Kim hasn’t anointed her as his heir. They believe Kim likely attempts to use his daughter’s public appearance as a way to show his people that one of his children would one day inherit his power in what would be the country’s third hereditary power transfer.
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14992340
The fact that Kim allegedly already wants to settle a new dynasty succession could still be interpreted in such a way that he is not interested in a war, but in his own life and the continued existence of his successors and dynasty. Somehow it remains a completely muddled situation in Korea. A fundamental change would actually only be possible through a regime change or a war. The first seems very unlikely, and no one really wants the second, because that would probably be a disaster with unpredictable consequences, and could even lead to a direct Sino-American war if China intervened, as it did in the first Korean War. If you don’t do anything, North Korea will continue to arm itself, develop its ICBMs in order to be able to hit the USA as well. With that, Kim probably counts on being able to get any concessions from the USA. But what would that be? Official recognition as a nuclear power and the end of all denuclearization rhetoric, including US economic aid? Or is there a risk that it will then become cocky towards South Korea and Japan? As far as I understood Trump, he wanted a kind of gentlemen (well) agreement that North Korea would no longer carry out any further nuclear bomb tests and ICBM tests, but allowed Kim the occasional more symbolic sinking of a short or medium-range missile in the sea and lured with US – Investment and a thriving tourism country if Kim gives in to his ideas. But Kim didn’t want to go that far and didn’t want to be bought out that easily, especially since North Korea is still on the self-sufficient Mao line including Juche and Songsun (military first) and not the Deng line, which China has been trying to convince him of for a long time without success. Likewise, Trump appeared to have hoped that North Korea and Russia could be brought away from Beijing. Apparently Kim had stuck to te genlemen agreement at the Kim- Trump meeting in Vietnam as far as ICBM and nuclear weapons tests were concerned, but continued and pushed his rearmament. It’s hard to say whether the latest tensions over Biden and Youn’s policies of strength are what North Korea is responding to, or vice versa.
A former German ambassador to South Korea said:
„Yes, completely lost! Shoigu’s visit to Kim has shown which camp NK belongs in, although it has not yet applied for BRICS membership. Trump had an illusion about the idea of being able to buy Kim.”
And after the „historic“ Camp David meeting between the US, South Korea and Japan, the bloc formations now appear irreversible in the long term, unless Trump is re-elected, but if then Biden’s Camp David coalition is blown up or replaced again with a bilateral instead of trilateral net is also uncertain. It also remains to be seen whether North Korea might also apply to become a BRICS member after the latest round of expansion to include Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Ethiopia, Iran, etc. In addition, the question arises as to whether the old nuclear deterrence strategy of the USA will not be readjusted – therefore the following recommended reading: