Guam rejoices!

"North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reviewed his military's plans to rain "an enveloping fire" around the U.S. territory of Guam — but opted not to fire missiles at this time, according to state media. Despite the stand-down, some Guamanians were alarmed after two radio stations aired an erroneous emergency alert Tuesday.

Kim visited the Korean People's Army as the self-imposed mid-August deadline for a missile demonstration approached, the Korean Central News Agency reports. But after hearing the plan and considering it, Kim opted not to give the order to launch missiles, but instead "would watch a little more the foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees," the report says."  NPR

---------------

It was not an IO.  It was real and Trump/Mattis won.  The fat kid blinked.  pl

 

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/15/543603140/north-korea-says-it-wont-fire-missiles-at-guam-after-all

 

Comments

[BillWade]

I never thought Kim's Ace in the Hole was his nukes but more his DMZ forces/artillery.
Perhaps one of his generals told him it would be wise to keep it around for more than 72 hours.

[b]

I vehemently disagree with you.

The announcement of the possible plan to launch towards Guam was conditional. It demanded that the U.S. stop B1-B flights out of Guam over South Korea near the North Korean border.

Since the announcement was made no B1-B flights near NoKo took place. Thus the temporary suspension of the plan. This suspension includes the explicit warning that it can or will be changed into action should the U.S. return to such action.

/quote/
He said that the U.S. imperialists caught the noose around their necks due to their reckless military confrontation racket, adding that he would watch a little more the foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees spending a hard time of every minute of their miserable lot.
...
In order to defuse the tensions and prevent the dangerous military conflict on the Korean peninsula, it is necessary for the U.S. to make a proper option first and show it through action, as it committed provocations after introducing huge nuclear strategic equipment into the vicinity of the peninsula, he said, adding that the U.S. should stop at once arrogant provocations against the DPRK and unilateral demands and not provoke it any longer./endquote/
https://kcnawatch.co/newstream/1502749950-753062439/kim-jong-un-inspects-kpa-strategic-force-command/

[Fredw]

Hallelujah! The reality was no doubt much more complicated than that, but the overall effect is that the fat kid blinked.

[John Minnerath]

He might have blinked and pinched out the fuse, but now it's shorter and the fat kid has lots of matches to play with.
We're still faced with a lot of totally out of touch people in the DPRK who could get to the point where they think they can get away with the unthinkable.

[turcopolier]

fredw

you should not think that complex situations are necessarily complex in fact. Often they are merely matters of personality. pl

[turcopolier]

b

(irony alert) I know, I know, evil America against the world. pl

[Red Cloud]

Trump threatened "fire and fury" if North Korea continued with threats. NK promptly threatened to incinerate Guam.

What was Trump's response? "Uh..... what I meant was......"

Trump blinked first. Fact

[turcopolier]

Red Cloud

Oh BS. North Korea threatened the US and has decided to think about it. pl

[Norbert M Salamon]

With great respect Colonel:

The USA has threatened North Korea for years, and caused untold economic damage via sanctions.

The war of words increased, and then decreased, NOBODY BLINKED, all players decided that hey do not want to get China upset by being the first idiot to act in a war like manner.

[BillWade]

Laughing here. how many minutes away do you think our tactical air forces at Kunsan and Osan are away from doing enough damage to NoKor to make them think twice and think hard?

[Bsox327]

Red cloud i agree with you and below is a quote by Pat Buchanan showing that the U.S does not seem too interested in dealing with the very real consequences of attacking N.K.

'assuming this crisis is resolved, what does the future of U.S.-North Korean relations look like?

consider the past.

In 1968, North Korea hijacked the USS Pueblo on the high seas and interned its crew. LBJ did nothing. In April 1969, North Korea shot down an EC-121, 100 miles of its coast, killing the crew. Nixon did nothing.

Under Jimmy Carter, North Koreans axe-murdered U.S. soldiers at Panmunjom. We defiantly cut down a nearby tree.

Among the atrocities the North has perpetrated are plots to assassinate President Park Chung-hee in the 1960s and ’70s, the Rangoon bombing that wiped out much of the cabinet of Chun Doo-hwan in 1983, and the bombing of Korean Air Flight 858, killing all on board in 1987.

And Kim Jong Un has murdered his uncle and brother.

If the past is prologue, and it has proven to be, the future holds this. A renewal of ICBM tests until a missile is perfected. Occasional atrocities creating crises between the U.S. and North Korea. America being repeatedly dragged to the brink of a war we do not want'

The North Koreans are at the very least as intransigent and possibly way more as Fidel Castro was in his confrontations with the U.S

[Red Cloud]

NK threatened Guam right after they were told "you better not make any more threats OR ELSE"

That's not backing down. That's more like telling Trump to pound sand

[FourthAndLong]

Colonel,

The article at the link below, titled "The Secret of North Korea's ICBM success", is a worthy read IMO. OUtlines many pitfalls and unknowns, including unforeseen perils of sanction regimes. Suitable for a lay audience:

http://www.iiss.org/en/iiss%20voices/blogsections/iiss-voices-2017-adeb/august-2b48/north-korea-icbm-success-3abb

More readily accessible, however mildly inflammatory, is this piece from The NY Times which links to the iss piece:

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/world/asia/north-korea-missiles-ukraine-factory.html?

FWIW, the Yuzhmash company has posted on its website emphatic disagreement with some of the latter articles' inferences.

My own takeaway is that it all underlines the monumental stupidity of our post 1991 Russia policy. George Keenan and more recently Jack Matlock have gone on record very strenuously in this regard.

The author of the iss piece, Michael Elleman, concludes that room for diplomacy remains but is diminishing rapidly.

[aleksandar]

I wonder if koreans play Kabuki.
Or maybe Go ?
Kim has the willingness to attack Guam ?
Or just spoke about it ?
Dunno.
The fat boy ( educated in switzerland )blinked ?
Maybe but so what ?
Nothing has change.

[DJK]

Maybe the fat boy blinked and Trump/Mattis won or maybe there was hidden deal, or the hint of a deal. I'm reminded of the events of 1962 when it was said that Kruschev blinked and Kennedy/Rusk won. The fact that there was a deal to remove US missiles from Turkey didn't emerge for several years.

[bluetonga]

Well maybe some expert arbitration might be needed to determine once and for all who blinked first.

Yet ain't it a wee bit creepy that possibly, the general issue of extinction of species, and more generally life on Earth, might be settled through a stare contest beween Fat Kid and Yuge Ego?

[b]

@Pat - this does not have to do with good or bad America. It has to do with negotiations and with under standing the signaling of the opponents side.

Take the bluster away from the North Korean statements and read what is left as conditions and consequences.

Here Cheryl Rofer took the original announcement of the Guam test apart.
https://nucleardiner.wordpress.com/2017/08/11/north-korea-reaches-out/
/quote/
I contend that the North Korean statement issued in response to Donald Trump’s “fire and fury” threat contains an invitation to negotiations. As is often the case, that invitation is not stated as such. Diplomacy guards such invitations so that nobody loses face when they don’t work.
...(textual analysis)...
In simpler words, stop threatening us with bombers from Guam and we won’t attack Guam.

Quid pro quo.

It reeks of blackmail, but that is how North Korea negotiates. If we want negotiations, rather than war, it would be smart to respond to the offer to negotiate. That doesn’t necessarily mean ending the B1B overflights, although my adventurous side says, hey, why not?
/endquote/
Since August 9 six B1-B are at Guam but have not flown towards North Korea.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/six-b--bombers-arrive-from-south-dakota/article_c12e3f5e-7cda-11e7-ad48-737a61ecfb7d.html
Thus the suspension of the North Korean "test".

To see this as a NoKo capitulation to Trump's bluster is the wrong take. It will likely prevent you to correctly judge the next steps in the negotiation process.

[zk]

If NoKo's goal was to incinerate Guam and invite the US retaliation, they have indeed blinked.
Somehow, however, that goal makes no sense to me. After all, one would expect that the plans for attack on Guam have been made a long time ago, and not necessarily by North Korea.
I believe, while everyone is focusing on Guam, NK's true goals are still unaffected. This conflict has no military solution IMO.

[turcopolier]

ZK

Invade Guam? Guam. was ceded to the US by Spain 120 years ago. What are you talking about? pl

[turcopolier]

b

Our air flights over S Korea did not threaten anyone unless North Korea wished to force us to give up our alliance with South Korea. We have not given up anything. The fat boy has given up his threat to try to hit Guam. Where is a statement that the US and South Korea will not hold Combined exercises this month? pl

[turcopolier]

richardstevenhack

Guam is not just a US "Base." The inhabitants of the island are US citizens and the island is sovereign US territory as much as a state is. pl

[turcopolier]

b and all who think NOKO won the confrontation,
I will believe that is true when the US and South Korea call off their big exercise without conditions. On the other hand if negotiations begin for re-unifications of Korea without pre-conditions then everyone won. pl

[Fredw]

Or maybe not. The message North Korea sent to the world seems pretty clear, but there seems to be some notion that they may be too delusional to realize that. Sure enough. Personalities matter.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/15/north-korea-guam-strike-pause-donald-trump-negotiations

Many longstanding observers of the North Korean regime expressed concern that the US could misinterpret the message that it sent on Monday when Kim said he would “watch a little more” how the US acted in the region before deciding whether to go ahead with a plan to launch missiles over Japan aimed at the seas around the US territory of Guam.

In some of the US media, that statement was portrayed as a withdrawal of the Guam plan in the face of threats of overwhelming retaliatory force from Donald Trump and US defence secretary James Mattis.

That would be the wrong way to read the signs, said Vipin Narang, an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology specialising in nuclear strategy.

“I think people are not reading the statement,” Narang said. “This is literally restating the threat and leaving space for some quid pro quo and space for negotiation.

“But the threat remains. It’s not like he took the threat off the table. If the US does anything that he sees as provocative, he has reviewed the plan and now stands poised to execute it,” Narang added.

[turcopolier]

fredw

IMO if NoKo fires into the sea around Guam NoKo will cease to exist. The Russians and Chinese would not lift a finger to save NoKo. pl

[kao_hsien_chih]

Fredw,

I don't think anything ever actually "ends" for good until and unless one of the parties to the "negotiations" disappears completely, and even then, it may not actually end.

The immediate crisis does seem to have ended, though. There is a limit to which even NoKo's can ratchet up the pressure. Once you get to the Pearl Harbor stage, which dropping missiles around Guam would have been, there is no more "negotiations." NoKo's still have much by means of threatening assets and they will try to use them, no doubt, but now everyone knows where the limit is, and that is a good thing. I don't oppose giving them some concessions, for the right price, but not carte blanche to demand more whenever they feel like it and threaten to throw a crazy tantrum if they don't get their way.