North Korea aquires thousands of military vehicles the past month

[Toad]

http://the-diplomat.com/china-power/2011/08/24/north-korea-gets-military-trucks/

North Korea Gets Military Trucks

By Jason Miks


August 24, 2011

North Korea purchased thousands of military vehicles from China that have been transported into the country over the course of the past month, according to the Chosun Ilbo.

The South Korean paper says that between 3,000 and 4,000 Chinese-made military trucks and jeeps entered North Korea last month, at a rate of about 100 a day, according to video clips obtained by the paper.

‘Analysis of the footage suggests the trucks were 6-ton trucks made by FAW Car Limited Company. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il visited the headquarters of this firm in Changchun, Jilin, during his visit to China in May,’ it reported. ‘The military jeeps were manufactured by Beijing Automobile Works with engine capacity of 2,200 cc and 100 horsepower.’
The news is something of a blow to those hoping to see Beijing tighten the screws on Pyongyang. China is still widely seen as the only country with any real leverage over the Hermit Kingdom, a point underscored by Kim’s recent rare foreign visits to China.

Writing for The Diplomat earlier this year, Korea watcher L. Gordon Flake likened China’s support for Kim’s regime to enabling a drug addict.
‘A caring parent motivated by love may continue to provide housing, money and transportation to a wayward child,’ he said. ‘China’s decision to ignore the evidence on the sinking of the Cheonan, to host Kim Jong-il not once but twice in the wake of that tragedy, and more recently to not only refuse to call North Korea to task for shelling civilians, but to actually block action by the UN Security Council to condemn disturbing developments in North Korea’s nuclear programme, may have been motivated by a concern for internal stability in North Korea. In both cases, however, the effect is equally counterproductive.’

The news on the military trucks comes at an interesting time, coinciding with a trip by Kim to Russia. The visit is looking increasingly like part of a North Korean effort to pave the way for a return to the stalled Six-Party Talks on the country’s denuclearization.

According to reports, North Korea is dangling the prospect of a nuclear moratorium (with more hand-outs presumably expected in return), a move seen as making a return to the negotiating table possible.

Talk of a moratorium came during a meeting between Kim and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev held at a Siberian military base, marking the first such meeting between the two ex-Cold War allies for almost a decade.

According to The Telegraph, a spokeswoman for Medvedev said Kim was ready to resume talks that have been stalled since 2009, without preconditions. ‘The spokesman stated that “in the course of the talks North Korea will be ready to resolve the question of imposing a moratorium on tests and production of nuclear missile weapons.”’

A moratorium would clearly be welcomed by the United States. Then-Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in January during a trip to Beijing that a moratorium on both nuclear and missile tests was a necessary step if the Six-Party Talks are to be restarted.

‘With the North Koreans’ continuing development of nuclear weapons and their development of intercontinental ballistic missiles, North Korea is becoming a direct threat to the United States, and we have to take that into account,’ Gates said then.

All this comes at a time when North Korea faces the prospect of renewed famine after a series of floods left some provinces devastated. VOA News reports that the organization yesterday launched an emergency appeal for $4.5 million following assessments carried out by the Red Cross in the country that found that in some areas of South Hwanghae Province, 50 percent of homes had been destroyed and 90 percent had been damaged.
But the Korea Times suggests in an editorial that there’s another reason for the trip to Russia – to try to reduce dependence on China.

‘North Korean officials apparently feel the need to move toward Russia as part of efforts to reduce the North’s ever-rising dependence on China for its survival,’ it says.‘If that is the case, the North’s move could be reminiscent of its past equidistance diplomacy involving China and the Soviet Union.’

[American Patriot]

"Thousands"?

Hmmmm

Something is about to happen.

[American Patriot]

I would bet...the Chinese will hit Taiwan, at the same time the Norks hit South Korea.

China will pull us into something and Russia will nuke us.

This will all happen about a week after China sells our debt off.

Just before elections next year.

[BRVoice]

I was worried about the travel of Kim to talks with Medvedev. Now I know the motive.

Something very BAD is about to happen.

[BRVoice]

http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/2729


Meeting with Chairman of the National Defence Committee of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Kim Jong iI

August 24, 2011, 09:40 Ulan-Ude
Tags: foreign policy, North Korea


Photo: the Presidential Press and Information OfficeFull caption


Dmitry Medvedev held talks with Chairman of the National Defence Committee of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Kim Jong iI.

The subjects on the summit’s agenda included advancing political dialogue, expanding humanitarian and interregional cooperation, trade and economic ties, and resuming the six-nation talks on settling the nuclear issues on the Korean Peninsula.

[American Patriot]

the subjects on the summit’s agenda included advancing political dialogue, expanding humanitarian and interregional cooperation, trade and economic ties, and resuming the six-nation talks on settling the nuclear issues on the korean peninsula.

rigggggggggggggggght!

[Phil Fiord]

Trucks travel easily over land and what land is most accessible to NK? SK.

[Toad]

To move 10's (100's?) of thousands of trucks, tanks, artillery, 100's of thousands, several million(?), of troops from N. Korea to Europe though would be taxing upon the logistics of China and Russia itself, who you'ld have to assume are already maxing their logistics with moving millions of their own troops. And then on top of that China and/or Russia would just have to assume that they would be 100% responsible for the supply chain. And communications.

The headaches of moving, supplying, and effectively utilizing N. Korean troops all the way over in a European front would be staggering I think. The cost vs payoff I suspect would be barely break even. The supply chain would be everything, even more critical than normal.(which is obviously critical.)

[American Patriot]

Vehicles would be moved on trains guys. Not moved individually and driven individually. That's how WE do it anyway.

[American Patriot]

Military vehicles are routinely retired and placed out of service, and new ones will replace those.

That there are SO MANY moving is interesting to me.

We move units on trains, tanks, fuel trucks, humvees, etc. I've seen dozens of vehicles at any given time on trains going and coming back.

10s of thousands is a different story - but to move them would require massive amounts of fuel, something North Korea probably doesn't have.

that means trains or some other shipping device (chinese cargo ships anyone?)

Why so many? Debatable.

Are they planning to use them in a ground war? Possibly.

Are the Chinese and/or Russians pre-positioning things themselves for some reason (war perhaps? to avoid the possibility of destruction if a war happens?)

Edit:

Specifically Michael, no you're not so much "out of the box" as thinking like the North Koreans.

Yes, they would nuke US and ROK troops and then walk through using vehicles. They HAVE to have a method to get into South Korea to "reunify" the place, don't they?

If they nuke most areas that will resist them, it won't be difficult to have an easy shooting war on the ground...

[American Patriot]

But why nuke what you want to possess, as part of a united Communist Korea?

The US would never allow a united communist Korea, therefore the goal must be to destroy the US without destroying themselves...

That story in the Russian media about North Korean Commandoes taking out the BP oil rig in the gulf is looking not so nuts to me now.

If the US ceased to exist or was somehow too indisposed to help S. Korea, S. Korea would likely capitulate to North Korea if faced with war.

There's more than one way to skin a cat... all of them are kinda message, Michael, but all of them involve sticking a knife in, gutting and then removing the hide.

In general a scorched Earth Policy most likely exists with those folks. They may want to occupy South Korea, but they don't really want anything there except the land, some slaves the technology in South Korea.

Using nukes to take out the resistance (military forces) would most likely be the "right thing" in their minds.

The trucks and vehicles aren't going to defeat the USA.

In fact, they certainly aren't going to drive over here with them

On the other hand for North Korea to have a defeat against the US, would require more men than they have and a more powerful military. There is only one place - two, techincally - they can get those forces. Russia and China.

Those two countries have ALWAYS been complicit with The Kims and with the Communist forces in North Korea.

IF the two nuclear powers decided in their madness to attack the US - there would be a battle the world has never seen, and will never see again. There won't be much left.

But, they can, together beat us. They KNOW this and we know this - at least our intelligent military men know it. Most deny it will happen.

But based on recent events, on going now for about 3-4 years, China and Russia have both been beefing up their respective military. Both have increase their actual military population, and both have been upgrading quickly tanks, vehicles, fighters, bombers and missiles.

The world is on a downward spiral at the moment financially, and everyone is suffering including those countries. North Korea isn't seeing anything different from normal for them.... but that's beside the point.

No - if the DPRK decides to jump, then the South will be doing the frog giggin' and China and Russia will HAVE to step in to stop it, and either yank on the North's chain or release the hounds, in which case they will intimately involve themselves in the war.

[Toad]

Vehicles would be moved on trains guys. Not moved individually and driven individually. That's how WE do it anyway.

That is my assumption and I still don't see it happening.

[American Patriot]

I've been going back through this article now, and I see the word "Thousands" and reading carefully, it says

The South Korean paper says that between 3,000 and 4,000 Chinese-made military trucks and jeeps entered North Korea last month, at a rate of about 100 a day, according to video clips obtained by the paper.

So, it's not thousands or 10s of thousands... not sure where we all seemed to have gotten that impression unless it was the title itself. It looks like they got 4000 tops, and they entered the country at 100 a day which CERTAINLY lends itself to bringing them in on trains. In fact, I have no DOUBT they came in that way. In fact, I'd bet cash money on it.

More careful reading indicates these are chinese made vehicles, mostly "jeeps".

‘The military jeeps were manufactured by Beijing Automobile Works with engine capacity of 2,200 cc and 100 horsepower.’

And of course, the best part is the last paragraph...

‘North Korean officials apparently feel the need to move toward Russia as part of efforts to reduce the North’s ever-rising dependence on China for its survival,’ it says.‘If that is the case, the North’s move could be reminiscent of its past equidistance diplomacy involving China and the Soviet Union.’

North Korean never really moved AWAY from Russia!

[BRVoice]

Although it is not directly related to the subject of this thread I think this article is interesting


http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...home_multiline


Suspected North Korean cyberattack on a bank raises fears for S. Korea, allies
By Chico Harlan and Ellen Nakashima, Published: August 29

SEOUL — After nearly half of the servers for a South Korean bank crashed one day in April, investigators here found evidence indicating that they were dealing with a new kind of attack from an old rival: North Korea.

South Korean officials said that 30 million customers of the Nonghyup agricultural bank were unable to use ATMs or online services for several days and that key data were destroyed, making it the most serious of a series of incidents in recent months. But even more troubling was the prospect that a belligerent neighbor had acquired the tools to disrupt one of the world’s most heavily wired nations — and that even more damaging attacks could be in store.

“This was an unprecedented act of cyberterror involving North Korea,” said Kim Young-dae, a senior South Korean prosecutor in charge of the investigation.

Conclusively identifying who ordered a cyberattack is notoriously difficult. But Western analysts who studied the incident agreed that the aggressor was probably North Korea and described it as the first publicly reported case of computer sabotage by one nation against a financial institution in another country.

Cyberwarfare offers high potential for asymmetric threats, providing poor nations with easy opportunities to inflict damage on a richer, more developed rival. Such an attack is relatively cheap to launch, but playing defense is costly: After the incident, the South Korean bank pledged to spend $476 million by 2015 on network security.

“They are doing massive damage with simple means,” said Georg Wicherski, a researcher with U.S.-based McAfee Labs, who analyzed the attack. “This is Cyber*warfare 101.”

Ninety-five percent of South Koreans have high-speed Internet access — the highest rate on the planet. They bank, shop and store medical records online. And South Korea is spending billions of dollars to secure its extensive networks.

North Korea, by contrast, is an isolated, impoverished state in which only a select few have access to the Internet because leader Kim Jong Il, fearing its power to spread dissent, restricts its use. With little vulnerability to computer attacks, North Korea is free to focus on offense, which has relatively low costs and a potentially high impact.

Although North Korea has only rudimentary cyberattack skills, its growing expertise means it could someday target the South’s military networks, potentially endangering the secrets of close allies, including the United States, U.S. officials and experts say.

South Korean investigators said they determined that 10 servers used in the bank incident were the same ones used in previous cyberattack operations against South Korea, including one in 2009 and another in March, that they blamed on the North. Investigators say they determined, for instance, that a “command and control” server used in the 2009 operation was registered to a North Korean government agency operating in China.

Investigators say the April bank attack occurred when a contractor inadvertently downloaded a malicious program onto a laptop computer, giving hackers the ability to control the computer remotely. Then, over a period of weeks or months, the hackers placed malicious code throughout the bank’s network, which allowed them — with the equivalent of a squeeze on a cyber-trigger — to make hundreds of servers crash at once.

North Korea has denied any role in the attack, saying in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency that the South was “clinging to confrontation with its compatriots through crudely fabricated schemes.”

South Korean officials fear that North Korea has the intent — if not the capability, yet — to inflict more serious damage on critical networks. They point to the arrest last year of an alleged North Korean spy accused of trying to obtain confidential records of the Seoul railway system, which uses the same industrial software that was targeted by Stuxnet, a computer virus. Stuxnet damaged centri*fuges in an Iranian nuclear plant in 2009 and 2010.

A North Korean cyberwarfare unit in 2009 penetrated a military network in Seoul, stole a computer password and used it to obtain sensitive data about the location of toxic-chemical manufacturers, said Lim Jong-in, dean of the Center for Information Security Technologies at Korea University, which trains the military in cyberdefense. He said the South has since hardened its military computer networks, but the North’s capabilities also are improving.

Cyberwarfare is the latest example of North Korea’s growing asymmetric capabilities, said Gordon Flake, executive director of the Mansfield Foundation, a think tank. He said that North Korea, “by most counts a failed state, is able to demand the attention of its much more successful neighbor to the south as well as other regions in the world” by developing programs in nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

North Korea has trained at least 3,000 hackers in five years, said former North Korean computer science professor Kim Heung-kwang. Experts say the nation uses methods learned from the Chinese, who in their operations infiltrate as many systems as possible, in what is sometimes called the “thousand grains of sand” approach.

Kim, who taught hacking skills before defecting to South Korea, said North Korea identifies top math students in elementary school to allow for years of training, including classes on the finer points of code-breaking at one of four universities. Kim, whose account could not be independently verified, said that system produces about 50 recruits each year for the elite cyberwarfare Unit 121. They are then sent to China or Russia for additional training, he said.

Richard A. Clarke, a former White House cybersecurity and counterterrorism official who co-authored the 2010 book “Cyber War,” said North Korea, though much less sophisticated in its cyberwarfare ability than China and some other nations, could someday target the United States. “While a cyberattack on the United States seems like an irrational act for any nation state, North Korea regularly does things that seem like irrational acts,” he said.

South Korea blamed agents from the North for a “denial of service” operation July 4, 2009, that blocked access to at least 35 South Korean and U.S. government Web sites. In the incident, an army of zombie computers repeatedly accessed the sites, overwhelming servers to the point that they crashed. Commercial Web sites, including The Washington Post’s, also were affected.

In March, 29 South Korean government and corporate Web sites — including ones for the president and the Defense Ministry — crashed in another denial-of-service assault. Again, South Korea blamed North Korea.

The incident lasted 10 days, and it involved more than 100,000 zombie computers whose users had unknowingly downloaded malicious software. The software in the zombie computers was programmed to self-destruct on the final day, crippling the operating systems of hundreds of computers.

Dmitri Alperovitch, vice president of threat research for McAfee Labs, which examined the incident, said North Korea may have been trying to probe South Korea’s ability to respond to such an assault.

South Korean prosecutors said the April bank attack — which was more sophisticated than the denial-of-service operations because it required penetration of secure systems and deletion of data to disable servers — was staged from China, a common tactic because it allows North Korean hackers to avoid leaving a digital trail back to their nation.

“The bank attack was like shelling an island to create terror without attacking a high-value military target,” said McAfee’s Wicherski, in a reference to North Korea’s artillery attack on South Korea’s Yeonpyeong island in November.

Philip Kim, the chief executive and president of AhnLab, South Korea’s largest cybersecurity firm, said, “These days, the big pieces of South Korean society are all connected, and it’s very difficult to know which boundaries you have to protect. It’s an open war.”


Special correspondent Yoonjung Seo contributed to this report.

[BRVoice]

http://updatednews.ca/2011/09/12/nor...e-drill-media/


North Korea, Russia to hold joint defence drill – Media



TOKYO – North Korea and Russia are set to hold their first joint defence drill as early as this year in an attempt to balance the United States, South Korea and Japan’s influence on the Korean peninsula, the Asahi newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Members of the two neighbours’ navies and air forces will take part in a joint rescue exercise at sea, following an agreement reached last month by impoverished North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-il and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Japan’s Asahi said, citing a source close to the North.

It is rare for the North to conduct defence drills with other militaries. Japan and South Korea are likely to keep an eye on the exercise, though it not expected to involve the use of weapons, the Asahi reported.

Isolated Pyongyang, which in 2009 walked out of talks aimed at providing it with economic and energy aid as an incentive to give up its atomic weapons programme, has been making conciliatory moves in recent months.

Those have raised hopes that six-party talks, which would bring together North and South Korea, China, Russia, Japan and the United States, could resume, with Moscow and Beijing supporting such a move.

But Seoul, Washington and Tokyo are wary and have called for a restart only when the North takes concrete steps to disable its atomic programme such as allowing foreign nuclear inspectors into the country.

The United States and South Korea last year held large-scale joint military exercises to which Japan sent its naval officers as observers.

Moscow was the North’s main ally for decades, giving military and economic support before the Soviet Union collapsed.

Kim promised Medvedev when they met in Siberia last month that he would consider suspending nuclear arms tests and production if the six-party talks resumed.

[wallis]

I suppose one should look at the wording of this article.

First, we have the inflammatory headline using the word "defence," a British spelling of the "proper" word "defense." (ha-ha)

Second, we have the "true" story in the second paragraph: a joint "rescue" exercise.

Lastly, the writer, having made up his mind to completely bias or color his report in the negative, retains the word "defence" in the rest of the article.

Thus, we are left with the false impression of NK's warlike stance against humanity with the resurrection of those godless fiends from hell, namely Russian Communists, along with the NK's desire to introduce some kind of Armageddon.

Yes, it can be argued that any kind of exercise is associated to things military. Rescue operations for downed pilots or sailors drowning in open seas can be used for both civilian and military situations.

Yes, it can be argued that NK in the face of impotence in stopping joint military exercises in the South chose this "opportune" time to brag that it has signed onto holding joing "rescue" operations with a previously sworn enemy of the United States.

But, please! Let's keep our carrots out of our peas. I enjoy eating a mixture of corn, carrots, and peas, but not when I am reading about events and history presented as such. This kind of journalism plays to a small number of people and reinforces their personal views of a world going to hell in a handbasket. But in a world of intelligence, it gives little sustenance or substance to what is really going on.

[wallis]

Thank you, Michael, for that unwarranted attack--as off-base as it was.

Typical of a Christian, me-thinks.

Just wished I could understand which universe you come from, based on this last post.

"Non-absolutist"? Never used that word. Not in my dictionary.

If I were a "Christian" like you, I would love to recommend that you get your head out of your ass. But I couldn't, because I am not a "Christian."

I have spent forty years analyzing bullshit posing as intelligence. If you don't like my analysis and want to believe bias posing as newsworthy stories--hey, it's your life. Not mine.

Just take the log out of your own eye before trying to extract the splinter in mine.

[American Patriot]

Wallis has never actually EVER had a real "opinion" of anything. His job is to wander through forums and troll, and he's doing his usual bang-up job. Wallis always has been and always will be a troll.

Mostly, though, Wallis is upset that Anomalies died because of people like himself. He uses his anger to blame me and others (but especially me and my "Nazi attitude" as several of his buddies called it) - when in reality people like Wallis who try very hard to appear intelligent and "learned" really are shallow, obnoxious assholes who don't get their way with lying about things like "global warming" and whining about "Why can't American JUST GET ALONG with everyone else".

Really... why do some of you people fucking bother to come to this site at ALL anyway? Obviously you can't deal with different opinions and the Utopia world you all so desire is only a few steps away - but some of us are monkey wrenches in your plans and we intend to remain so, to prevent that "utopia".

So, Wallis... get over it.

[American Patriot]

Well, persons like Wallis who gave up living in America because they hate it so badly really have no opinion that is worth listening to, or even hearing. When you blind yourself to a threat, the threat can and will kill you eventually.

That's what folks like Wallis want, America blinded. All these people who say "The Russians and Chinese are our friends", "America is the true enemy" and similar things are the true danger to the United States.

And we have thousands of them living right here, among us. And we have people like Wallis.