Real Time Discussion thread - Many things

[Beetle]

I may be wrong, but I think Kim is bluffing. I believe he bluffed Clinton into giving him oil. I think he tried to get Bush to give him oil, but it failed. I may be wrong about that though. Kim may be bluffing Obama. Funny how the Russians and China jumped on Kim quickly. They probably don't like it when their messiah is messed with.

I think the solution is to run a few test of our own.

[Toad]

Normally I would think Kim is just practicing the reckless brinksmanship he is so well known for, but this time it's different. He knows his health has taken a turn for the worse. His Generals know there's going to be a power vacuum to fill and they're jockying to prove who's toughest.

I just get a sense this time it's different. There are a lot of power players in N. Korea right now with nothing to lose and everything to gain. Players willing to kick the line as they cross over it.

[Beetle]

Toad,

You could be right. I just can not see where it would benefit anyone to launch a nuclear attack on us. We should be able to pummel the Nation that does. I see Kim giving nukes to terrorist (like Team America). It would be a direct attack on us and others would be blamed. Maybe, this is what China and Russia are doing with NK. Maybe, they want to fight a proxy war through North Korea. I don't know and I still think the way to solve this problem is to run a few test of our own.

[wallis]

I agree with Rick that the NK will want SK or the US to do something that will provided them with an excuse to blame "the other side" for the resumption of the hot war.

The PRC has reportedly between 50,000 to 150,000 troops already deployed along their border with NK. Ostensibly, this is to seal the border from NK refugees. One opinion could be summed up that there are already too many Koreans in the Heilungjang Province already (which, by the way, was part of the Korygo empire more than 600 years ago).

Hostilities that include bombing of key positions on the peninsula would mean mass migration of refugees northward (for NK). Chinese troops will have their hands full with these refugees to think about "invading" NK soil, either to aid or deter further agression.

IN respect to that, as long as SK or its allied forces do not attempt to move into NK (i.e., boots on the ground) and limit the war to the air and sea, the PRC should see no need to put boots on the ground. With one exception: to stabilize NK as it falls apart.

The Yellow Sea and the East Sea will be a graveyard for a great number of ships and sailors. I expect Japan will field the East Sea operations.

Control of the air will primarily be an American responsibility, but I would not put down any SK capability. They are good, too.

Now, a lot has been written about Seoul's vulnerability. This is very true. However, (having worked with targeteers in Korea, both American and Korean), putting iron on target is an hourly challenge. Our own aircraft are not sitting on the ground waiting for something to happen. We are in the air 24 hours a day: targets are known, the bombs are ready to fall. So, for our distinguished retired Captain who wrote that the NK can shell Seoul indiscriminately for 24 hours before being taken on may have been true thirty/forty years ago, but not so true today.

There will be horrendous damage, yes. But the allies will be able to quickly engage. Logistically, the US will need quite a few smart bombs to take out these positions, as the NK military has studied US tactics and made preparations to minimize smart bomb capability.

Another reason for not going north in a hot war is that the NK will not move south en masse in the first days or weeks of the war. Both sides know that the traditional invasion route into SK (through Munsan, NNE of Seoul) is a natural killing zone. NK can play a waiting game while being pummeled, since perhaps as much as 70% of its equipment is underground. Meanwhile, sleeper agents will have a field day disrupting whatever they can within SK.

I expect that the only airborne assets NK will expend will be rockets and artillery shells. It knows that it cannot compete with its aircraft. Even the SU-25s are no match for the US. They will copy Saddam Hussein and keep their aircraft under wraps for later opportunities.

Will there be a nuclear detonation?

As long as the war is being fought at sea and in the air, with ground battles not intended to occupy large areas; as long as their is no concerted effort on the part of SK and its allies to take Pyongyang and topple the NK government, there will be no need for Pyongyang to start poisoning the land and air in and around the peninsula.

However, once the NK have it in their heads that they are going to be extinguished, then they will go out in a blaze of glory, taking as much of the world as possible.

Who wins in the aftermath of Korean War Part II (or sequel)?

In war, everyone loses something: people, equipment, territory, world opinion, etc. But who really wins?

There has been much said about the PRC and Russia winning something in a conflict with the West, which delimits the fact that SK and Japan are East and economic powerhouses.

I see no "winners." The PRC will have added burdens in trying to keep a status quo in the region. They have enough problems with the West at the moment. Tibet and the Xinjiang Autonomous region are keeping their hands full. Xinjiang is Moslem and filled with ideas and followers to join any future Islamic federation or kingdom.

While we collectively move our military markers, figurines, or playing pieces across the board, we tend to forget one extremely powerful weapon: economics (or the market).

The world at large is connected monetarily. Wholesale destruction of property, to include cities in their entirety, and the annihilation of great numbers of consumers will set back any global recovery.

This one fact should be the number one reason why the Russian bear will not reraise the hammer and sycle to "take over the world" and eliminate the US once and for all. It should also be the number one reason why the PRC has not yet conquered Taiwan or would rush in and meet the US in a head-on military collision.

Great changes have occurred since the Vietnamese conflict ended. The battlefields of old have changed to those of cybernetics, the market, and ideology.

We still have old-styled ways of dealing with small neighbors, such as Russia and Georgia, which the Russians have always felt belonged to them in the first place. The republics that emerged from the break up of Yugoslavia, which was an abomination of its own, a product of WWII, that tried to combine several ethnic minorities and religious competitors under one banner, enjoined in a war that was "between themselves" and not the world.

I feel that while the good ol' game of statesmenship continues among the nation-states, Russia and the PRC have learned their parts very well. They are succeeding in meeting their various goals in some areas and not so well in other areas. But there are no large-scale armies duking it out at the expense of that all-important resource: people.

NK has not learned to respect the game of statesmanship. In part, the entire world is responsible for that. During the Cold War, NK was a small boil on the world's butt, while the major issues of conflict in Germany, Cuba, Vietnam, Argentina, Nicaragua, and the like held the world's focus. Well, now that the world has "settled" down a bit, and the "rules" of the game have been reformed, NK scares the hell out of the rest of the world. At worst, should a shot not be fired in anger, NK threatens to upset the current level of this statesmanship game and send the world back to the 17th Century, when armies were virtually the only political tool utilized. Only, in the 21st Century, we are not talking about chewing up a few thousand soldiers and devastating a plot of land the size of Virginia. We're talking about asking the Earth to kiss its own ass and say bye-bye.

[wallis]

I have a 12-year-old daughter in Korea. Wrote to my good friend who has been in Korea a lot longer than I can claim. He wrote back:


I’ve read that U.S. and South Korean forces are on an increased posture. My take on the situation is that Kim Jong-il is seriously ill and fading fast. The pseudo-crisis is being fomented by competing forces seeking to ensure their side is in control. The other possibility is that Kim Jong-il is suffering mental decline in addition to physical decline and is giving out weird orders.

The big concern here outside the Korean government is that the civilian companies that invested heavily in the Kaesong Industrial Area will lose all the money they invested by being frozen out of NK.

I don’t think there’s much thought given to evacuation, at least not yet, and I don’t foresee it escalating that far. North Korea has been best compared by one writer to a spoiled child throwing a tantrum. Sort of like the pre-teen threatening to run away from home.

[American Patriot]

I also believe that North Korea/Asia is linked to the geopolitical condition of the Middle East. Iran may be moving parallel to DPRK in a two pronged nuclear offensive against our forces. Iraq/Afghanistan and South Korea represent two major focus points of our military resources. Deal us a blow in either or both of these regions and we'd be a hurtin' unit for sure.

This is my thinking. Has been. I'm glad someone else made the observation besides me.

[American Patriot]

I believe he bluffed Clinton into giving him oil. I think he tried to get Bush to give him oil, but it failed.

I have serious doubts there was any "bluffing" going on then. I think Clinton did it as appeasement.. .and knew full well that if he didn't the North Koreans would give his administration grief he didn't want or need.

He allowed the oil and food in an effort to "buy them off long enough for him to finish his term"....

[American Patriot]

Toad,

You could be right. I just can not see where it would benefit anyone to launch a nuclear attack on us. We should be able to pummel the Nation that does. I see Kim giving nukes to terrorist (like Team America). It would be a direct attack on us and others would be blamed. Maybe, this is what China and Russia are doing with NK. Maybe, they want to fight a proxy war through North Korea. I don't know and I still think the way to solve this problem is to run a few test of our own.

As someone else pointed out recently... this was a "visual aid" to Iran.

My opinion of course, but North Korea needs MONEY, food and supplies - since everything they produce goes into maintaining their military. Thus to be able to sell nuclear weapons to Iran would be an ultimate goal.

HITTING us with a nuke is suicidal at best, absolute obliteration at worst for most of us. China WILL not sit it out, and neither will Russia. Russia too has a vested interest in North Korea - they helped BUILD NK from the beginning. Now they and China are "buddies" again - and NK is simply an ally.

If North Korea could precipitate a regional conflict that could blow into something much larger and make the US a little dog again - they could and would do it. They'd WIN because other states would support them.

So that atomic bomb test was a "This is For Sale" sign and Iran isn't going to be doing so openly, but I'm betting they have already made monetary offers to NK.

So there are probably a half dozen scenarios out there, any of which could come to fruition. All of them put us in the sights of bad guys.

Iran doesn't want to fight us directly though - they JUST want to eliminate that pesky Israel... once they do that, they can concentrate on building an alliance to take us out next.

The fact is, China has specifically stated the will have a war with the US - probably by 2012.

Russia has publicly stated they too will eventually fight us for world domination.

Iran (and most other Arab countries) want to take the US over by proxy, as they are doing France and Spain, and now England.

The world is certainly in turmoil and there are a handful of various religions, groups, idealisms being brought into play.

I won't any longer sit here and think "It's NOT going to happen".

Instead I think "It's GOING to happen, probably soon, and without ANY real warning other than what we're seeing daily. So we must HEED the minor warnings and take them as they come".

But, that's just me...

[Beetle]

Could happen, Rick. I hope it don't.

I could see NK selling nukes to terrorist. I can see them working together. I was hoping that our economy had been intertwined with China enough to make them talk rather then see war as an option. I always kinda figured they were at economic war with us (and doing well too). I don't think they have the Navy to throw down with us right now. That could change though.

[American Patriot]

I think we all seem to forget one thing. China wants to be the Big Dog in the Pacific and in Asia. Period.

Doesn't MATTER how intertwined our economies are. They certainly are big, and want to make money - but, they also are constantly and consistently building their military force. You have to remember that more than one General over there has stated they WANT to war with us. They WILL be AT war with us by 2013 or some such thing. The CIA has released papers on this subject.

While they certainly ARE at war with us economically, and are pulling a slight advantage at the moment - we are aware of this.

However, there are way too many "globalists" out there who WANT markets to be intertwined - and perhaps for good reason, as you stated, to prevent just such a thing from happening.

I just do NOT believe China gives a care about an economic situation and would push us over the edge if they could. Would we go to war in our current position with them over economics? No, because the current administration DOESN'T UNDERSTAND the situation well enough to realize, or perhaps care, that the Fall of America might rest on the cash in our pockets or more appropriately the cash in the pockets of Chinese people and government run companies.

If we are suddenly "broke" where do we get money to fight a war? How do we buy more weapons, build more tanks, guns, planes? We BORROW MORE. We would have to go even DEEPER in debt now.

This is PRECISELY what China, Russia, Venezuela, North Korea and the entire Muslim population of Europe and the Middle East are HOPING for right now.

If we can't fight a war, we capitulate. They win, they set the parameters, tell us what do it, shove the Dollar down the toilet and force us into a national depression. Certainly we can pull out of it eventually - but with the market so entwined as you said, we have little hope of extricating ourselves from the bottomless pit for many, many years.

Would China jump in? Yes. History says they will. Russia? Russia had a HUGE hand in building North Korea in it's beginning. They have a vested interested. The Chinese are, after all a "Leninist" country.

[Beetle]

I guess we could hope to get some change from China, but I don't think they are interested in our paper. If they don't loan us more money, our interest rates will go up. I suppose keeping an eye on Geitner and China could tell us what China may be thinking. If they loan us money, then they may be interested in getting a return on their investment. If they don't loan us more money, then China may be interested in seeing interest rates go up and the dollar deflate. I have a feeling that China will tell Geitner to beat it.

You are right that we can have the best military in the world, but it won't go anywhere if we can't put gas in the tank. I am sure there are many in the world who would get a kick out of that.

Would I be going out on a limb if I said we are going to be a third world nation if we don't get a grip on our dollar?

[Beetle]

Also, I would like to add that I don't think Russia, China, or anyone else will want to go toe to toe with us. I see the Russians attacking us from within and without firing a shot and China waring with us economically. Maybe, after our dollar is crushed and our Congress is bought and paid for, then others may see it as an opportunity to go toe to toe with us.

[American Patriot]

Would I be going out on a limb if I said we are going to be a third world nation if we don't get a grip on our dollar?

Yes. I agree and also with your last statement above.


The scenarios can go in any of several directions though.

[vector7]

There are reports that the #2 son, Kim Jong Chol, was be groomed to be heir according to this report: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_205994.html

However, Time just reported Kim Jong Un is Kim Jong Il's favorite for heir: http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...901758,00.html

There are rumors of a regime collapse. Could that be why North Korea is "acting up" and why Russia is warning of the prospect for nuclear war on the Korean peninsula?

Random thoughts on a developing front.

[American Patriot]

Alert....

25 June 1950 - North Korea invaded South Korea.

That's a few days away. They have been acting up a lot - wonder if they are like the Muslims in that respect, that is, date keeping.

Many countries will keep track of dates and do things on those dates as a "reminder" of their power or ability to do something.

Do we think North Korea might do this?

Will we awaken to a new Korean Conflict on 25 June 2009?

[Beetle]

When I was in Basic, they woke us up at 2:am and put our Company in a large room with a map of Korea. The Senior Drill was standing in front of the map. The first thing he said was North Korea just crashed the South Korean border. You men will be going to Korea after your training. I remember thinking that they were full of it, but after some 20 minutes of the Senior Drill detailing how they crashed the border, I fell for it. After the Senior Drill was done convincing us, he told us that the North Koreans did not crash the border. The reason they told us this was to get us to take our training serious because it could happen and it would be our job to do something about it.I gotta say that it is not out of the question that North Korea would do something like crash the border. But I honestly think that everything that is going on with NK has to do with posturing. For instance, the two Gore girls that were found guilty and sentanced to hard labor will be used by NK to get us to stand down on our nuclear stance. So, I see what they are doing as a stunt to get what they want. That may all be wishful thinking. And I must say that I still remember how real the Senior Drill made it sound. And it is really not out of the question that NK could do something stupit.

[American Patriot]

Here's some thinking on the subject of North Korea:

June 2009 —
Regime change in North Korea is inevitable. It is impossible for analysts to know how or when the current leadership will cease to rule the country; a stable and incremental evolution to a more humane regime is hoped for, but we cannot rule out the possibility of a sudden collapse of the North Korean state. Such a scenario is only one of many, and it is probably not even the most likely one, but North Korea’s continued development of nuclear devices makes the cost of mishandling a possible collapse so high that all contingencies must be planned for.
Brookings Northeast Asia Commentary



South Korean soldiers ride a military truck during a military drill near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas.


View Larger
Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon



A concept of operations

The United States must be prepared to play a major and direct role in dealing with the effects of a collapse, should one occur. It may be somewhat natural to believe that North Korea collapse scenarios make the relative South Korean role larger than that of the United States. But this is a dangerous assumption and the U.S. must coordinate carefully – in advance – with South Korea, China, and other players to develop a basic concept of operations which should include three major missions:

• Locating and securing nuclear materials: loose North Korean nuclear materials and/or weapons would be a nightmare for American security, immediately raising the urgency of this mission above that of the current Iraq and Afghanistan efforts. Locating these materials will be extremely difficult, as outsiders (and most insiders) have an imprecise idea of how many, and little to no idea of where nuclear materials and actual devices may be. This mission could be quite distinct in many ways from other aspects of the effort.
• Restoring order and possibly combating remnants of the DPRK military: combined ROK-U.S. forces would need to be able to end a state of anarchy that is likely to exist if the state collapses. They would need to defeat any splinter elements (or even substantial elements) of the DPRK armed forces that were posing local resistance or attacking South Korean territory with long-range strike assets. They would also have to arrest top-level North Korean leadership unless an amnesty had been negotiated.
• Providing basic goods and services: the North Korean people, including large numbers of refugees and internally displaced persons, will require food, medical care, and shelter. It is essential that services be delivered as quickly as possible, both on principle and to help ease possible opposition to the presence of foreign forces.

These challenges will be faced primarily by military personnel, especially at the outset. Nevertheless, the United States government is apparently deemphasizing major military scenarios on the Korean peninsula in the current era, relative to previous periods. There are several explanations for this situation. American strategists are already overtaxed by operations, responsibilities, and worries elsewhere. Policymakers are distracted by ongoing and potential military activities throughout the Central Command theater. Commanders of U.S. ground forces can hardly afford to consider another operation emphasizing U.S. Army and Marine Corps contributions when they are already so overextended elsewhere. And with the anticipated transfer of preeminent command responsibilities from U.S. Forces/Korea to the Republic of Korea’s own military in 2012, the United States may feel less obligated to lead allied efforts to prepare for possible contingencies.



A major role for the United States


Yet this thinking is not based on sound premises. The stakes in nuclear-armed North Korea are enormous for the United States; the notion that somehow we could defer to a single ally of relatively modest means in stabilizing a country holding 8 to 10 nuclear weapons at unknown locations within its territory is illusory and irresponsible. Failing to do proper planning is unacceptable. It might require American forces to enter into North Korean territory at the last minute in an unforeseen manner—risking a tragic repeat of the same kinds of dynamics that led to Chinese involvement in the Korean War in 1950. There are four main challenges associated with scenarios for collapse (or “5029,” in the vernacular of war planners):

• Designing a solid overall concept of operations such as described above, with appropriate emphasis on securing North Korea’s nuclear weapons as fast as possible—and limiting all vehicular movement by land, sea, and air out of the country in the meantime, to provide an added layer of defense against nuclear leakage (biological and chemical weapons could pose a parallel concern)
• Fashioning an allied plan for sharing the burden of this operation, and for adjusting the plan accordingly as circumstances require—based on respect for Seoul’s leadership role in any such campaign but also on Washington’s need to have substantial influence in how the campaign is conducted
• Establishing intensive, ongoing, and high-level coordination with China—both to secure the DPRK/PRC border, and to avoid any mishaps if and when PRC and ROK/US forces come into proximity
• Developing shared principles with Beijing and Seoul for how to handle post-conflict foreign military presence on the peninsula, rather than assuming blithely that the understandings will naturally emerge on their own

The notion that the United States could somehow outsource most of this DPRK stabilization mission to its South Korean ally falls apart the minute one begins to consider the immediate stakes and the long-term strategic nature of some of the challenges listed above—and the possible degree of uncertainty, confusion, and violence that could accompany many collapse scenarios.


If the main task were to simply restore order in North Korea, rather than defeat a combined air-armor offensive by DPRK forces, it might seem logical to defer to Seoul as much as possible. South Korea may have the numerical capacity to handle North Korean stabilization. North Korea is a mid-sized country, slightly smaller than Iraq or Afghanistan demographically. Its population is estimated at just under 25 million. That implies a stabilization force of 500,000. South Korea has that many soldiers in its active Army, and eight million more between its reserves and its paramilitary. Such reassuring arithmetic may help explain DoD’s apparent inclination to view this problem as manageable largely by ROK forces themselves.


A complicated tactical and strategic challenge

The problem is more complex than a peacekeeping mission, however. To begin, some significant fraction of North Korea’s million-strong army may fight against South Korea even in an apparent collapse scenario. Collapse is likely to imply a contest for power among multiple North Korean factions rather than a literal, complete, and immediate dissolution of authority nationwide. Some significant amount of the South Korean army could therefore be in effect on war footing, fighting from village to village and city to city.


A calculation based simply on overall force requirements also ignores the dimension of time. How long would it take South Korea to spread out and establish control of the North Korean territory—and how much time can we afford? In fact, and of course, speed would be of the essence in any mission to find and control DPRK nuclear-related assets.


Demands for American forces could vary greatly with the specific scenario, within an overall 5029 war plan framework. If the problem developed very fast, available American main combat forces would of course be limited in number to those already on the peninsula, and perhaps also to some of the Marines on Okinawa. In this situation, South Korea’s activation of its own reservists could likely happen more quickly than any U.S. effort to respond with forces based back home. But even for this scenario, the role of American special forces in helping search for nuclear weapons could be quite significant (assuming they could be flown across the ocean quite quickly). They might team up with not only ROK forces, but even an element of a North Korean unit that had possession of the materials and was under siege by larger parts of the DPRK army; Seoul and Washington might strike a deal with any such DPRK unit holding nuclear weapons if that was the only viable way to secure the dangerous materials. Locating nuclear materials will require a major effort in intelligence collection and analysis.


A variant on the collapse scenario might involve the more gradual descent of North Korea into internal conflict—in which case the United States might well have the option of deploying forces from the U.S. homeland in appreciable numbers on a meaningful and relevant time scale. Explicitly depicting some of these kinds of alternative scenarios would be important in this effort.


Assuming U.S. forces could be deployed in significant numbers fast, the question would then become—what should they do, and where should they go? And it is here that the most nettlesome questions of all arise. There would be major challenges within the U.S.-ROK alliance and even larger challenges in working with China.


Due to the importance of stopping DPRK vehicles that could be carrying nuclear materials, it would be crucial to coordinate U.S. and ROK forces to avoid friendly fire incidents and other tragedies. Otherwise, in attempts to stop North Koreans from moving about, allied forces could wind up firing frequently on each other. Many troops would also have to be transported fast by air to secure borders. This means that they would be flying when the DPRK air force would likely still be functional, and therefore when an active air war was underway. Matters such as identification friend-or-foe (IFF) and careful coordination of the airspace would be more difficult than they probably were in either major Iraq war (since in the first, a long air war preceded any meaningful movement of allied forces by ground or air, and in the second, the United States handled central, western, and northern Iraq essentially on its own).


Even more crucial would be how to handle coordination with China. If the United States could position some forces in the general theater before the North Korean state truly failed, perhaps on Okinawa, it might be better equipped than the ROK to help secure northern North Korea. With its amphibious and air assault capabilities, the United States might be able to handle such deployments more rapidly than South Korea could. But that possibility immediately raises the question of how Beijing would react to U.S. forces again approaching its borders.



Without the nuclear worry, this issue might not have to be faced; northern North Korea could simply be left for last, as allied forces led by the ROK gradually moved up the peninsula securing cities and towns and military facilities. But in the current situation, borders would have to be sealed as fast as possible all around the country. If American forces were to deploy to the Chinese border, however, several major concerns would have to be addressed. We would have to know that China was not itself moving into northern North Korea to create a buffer zone and handle humanitarian issues there rather than on its own territory—requiring rapid and clear communications with Beijing at a minimum. Or, to avoid that potentiality, we might have to develop a legal basis—and if not, a U.N. Security Council resolution—explaining why American forces had the right to occupy part of North Korea while Chinese forces did not. We might also need to quickly promise that American forces would subsequently withdraw from North Korean territory as soon as practical, even if the peninsula was reunified under a Seoul government that wanted to preserve the U.S.-ROK alliance thereafter. Several other issues would arise and require attention as well. All of these matters must be discussed—before a possible crisis or war, since in the event, it will be too late to ensure smooth handling and safe resolution of the hugely delicate matters the scenario would raise.

[American Patriot]

Merged two threads.

This one and the one I started in the Survival area (The one I had labeled as North Korea conflict in our future).

Decided this is the bigger thread, should be under Misc. stuff and we probably should combine the conversations into this.

Basically they concern things like Russia, NK, China and other places making threats and making the world a miserable place.

So...

Please, continue the discussion here.

Thanks

Rick

[Beetle]

China, Russia Block U.N. North Korea Sanctions

Reuters

UNITED NATIONS—Major world powers edged toward agreement on Tuesday on a U.N. resolutions resolution expanding sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear weapons program but were unable to close the deal, diplomats said. "We continue to engage in intense and productive negotiations," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said. "We're making progress, but we're not done yet."
Several diplomats close to talks among the five permanent Security Council members, Japan and non-council member South Korea dismissed news reports that the seven countries had already reached agreement.
The United States and Japan have pushed for strong sanctions to punish North Korea for its nuclear test in May, but China and Russia have been cautious about provoking Pyongyang by imposing more sanctions.
"We have got the makings of a deal, but one delegation still needs to hear back from its capital," a Western diplomat close to the talks told Reuters.
Two diplomats from among the permanent five Security Council members said they believed the United States and China had agreed on the U.S.-drafted text of a resolution within the last 24 hours, but Russia had raised new concerns.
The seven countries agreed "to continue our consultations on a draft resolution on the DPRK (North Korea)," Japanese Ambassador Yukio Takasu said. "I think it's clear that we need to spend more time, to continue the consultations."
The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a meeting of permanent council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States along with Japan and South Korea ended without resolving Russian concerns.
Other diplomats said Moscow was more concerned about language than specific proposed measures. They hoped the issue would be resolved overnight, enabling the seven nations to circulate a draft resolution Wednesday to the full 15-nation council, which could then vote on it as early as Friday.
Inspecting Cargoes

Several diplomats had said recent versions of the draft called for moderate tightening of previous sanctions.
The initial draft circulated at the end of May among some council members strongly condemned North Korea's nuclear test and urged U.N. members to begin enforcing previously approved sanctions against Pyongyang.
It left blank a section on possible new sanctions, which have been the subject of intense negotiation at the United Nations over the past 10 days. Later drafts included language requiring U.N. member states to inspect suspicious North Korean air and sea cargo, but the Chinese opposed those provisions.
The provisions on forced inspections was likely to be dropped for the time being, Japan's Kyodo news agency quoted an unidentified U.N. diplomatic source source as saying.
But the resolution was set to include new financial sanctions and was likely to anger North Korea, Kyodo reported.
Security Council resolution 1718, passed in October 2006 after Pyongyang's first nuclear test, banned further atomic explosions and long-range missile launches by North Korea and imposed limited financial sanctions and a partial trade and arms embargo on Pyongyang.
The measures have been widely ignored and left unenforced.
Other measures in recent drafts included a call for the addition of more companies to a U.N. blacklist of firms aiding Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs and expanding the arms embargo to ban the sale of all arms by North Korea, not just heavy weapons. It would still be able to import small arms.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/17924/

[Toad]

N. Korea is honestly scaring the hell out of me right now. I mean, N. Korea has always been one of the worst players out there. But Kims's had a health scare, he's lost a shitload of weight, he knows his days are so limited he's appointed an heir. (In a commy country?!?!?) The heir is a young son (27), albeit he's apparently a stone cold sonofabitch, but his youth opens up old school Military disgruntlement and backroom plotting.

The whole situation is just ripe for Kim knowing he's a dead man walking and willing to say F-U on his way out. The young son being brazen but clueless and get into deep shit he's unprepared for. Pissed off Military Generals jockying for coup in a power vacuum. (or transition planned chaos.) South Korea freaked out amidst all this and (rightfully) defending against percieved threat. Japan freaked out (understandably) taking aggressive defense. The US balls deep and straight freakin dead center of everything in the DMZ.

I know the middle east is a poweder keg. But it's N. Korea that scares me.