Fire and Fury E-Book

T. J. Coles

• Herausgeber: Clairview Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 149

Beschreibung

President Trump threatens North Korea with 'Fire and Fury like the world has never seen', whilst fellow Republican John McCain warns that the country risks 'extinction'. But what does the regime in North Korea actually want? Is Kim Jong-un truly the mad cartoon villain that the media love to portray? Without being an apologist for the oppressive North Korean government, T. J. Coles exposes the propaganda war waged against it, revealing the truth behind the simplistic news headlines. North Korea has made multiple offers to the international community to end its nuclear programme in exchange for assurances that it won't be attacked by the US. It has even committed to a no-first-use policy for nuclear weapons – something the US itself will not do. Far from being a state in self-imposed hermitage, North Korea has diplomatic relations with over one hundred countries. It is the US, argues Coles, that deliberately seeks to isolate the regime as part of its wider geostrategic goals in the Asia Pacific. The US's real target, and ultimately its biggest challenge, is China. Coles debunks myths regarding North Korea's military and demonstrates that in actual fact it has limited capabilities. In building up its own armed forces in the region (the so-called Asia Pivot), the US is playing a dangerous game of nuclear brinkmanship. Fire and Fury provides a sharp, succinct briefing for anyone seeking a broader, less distorted and more balanced understanding of current events, whilst offering solutions for ordinary citizens who wish to further the cause of peace.

Leseprobe

T. J. COLES was awarded a PhD for work on the aesthetic experiences of blind and visually impaired people. His thesis, The Knotweed Factor, draws on the philosophy underpinning cognitive psychology and neurological approaches to blindness. (It can be read online.) A columnist with Axis of Logic, Coles has written a number of political books, including Britain's Secret Wars, The Great Brexit Swindle and President Trump, Inc. and edited the anthology Voices for Peace. He was shortlisted for the Martha Gellhorn Prize (2013) for a series of articles about Libya.

FIRE AND FURY

HOW THE US ISOLATES NORTH KOREA, ENCIRCLES CHINA AND RISKS NUCLEAR WAR IN ASIA

T. J. COLES

Clairview Books Ltd.,

Russet, Sandy Lane,

West Hoathly,

W. Sussex RH19 4QQ

www.clairviewbooks.com

Published in Great Britain in 2017 by Clairview Books

©T.J. Coles 2017

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Inquiries should be addressed to the Publishers

The right of Tim Coles to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Print book ISBN 978 1 905570 93 5

Ebook ISBN 978 1 905570 94 2

Cover by Morgan Creative. Statue of Liberty portrait © Pineapples

Typeset by DP Photosetting, Neath, West Glamorgan

‘U.S. war-gaming consistently predicts at least one million casualties on both sides...’

Cato Institute (in reference to a North Korea-South Korea/US war)

Contents

Acronyms

Introduction

1. The US and China

‘Full-spectrum dominance’ and the importance of oil

The Asia Pivot: ‘Shape the region's rules and norms’

Japan and the Peace Constitution: ‘The Japanese people still don’t understand’

US-China relations: ‘Challenges to the US-dominated order’

China-North Korea relations: ‘Emphasizing economic development’

The US-China-NK axis: ‘China's greatest concern is reserved for the US military presence’

2. The US and North Korea

Genocidal rhetoric: North Korea's ‘extinction’

Korea: historical background: ‘Anti-colonial struggle’

North-South: partition and war: ‘We burned down every town in North Korea’

North Korea: the Cold War and after: ‘Stiffening quills, retreating into its shell’

3. Nordi Korea and the Rest of the World

North Korea-South Korea: ‘The Vietnam war caused NK to act when it did’

NK-Japanese relations: ‘North Korea cannot survive without food and oil’

Russia-North Korea: ‘Economic relations expanded alarmingly’

North Korea's economy: Moving towards ‘free markets’?

Pipeline politics: ‘Peace pipelines’

4. Fantasy vs. Facts

Nuclear weapons, missiles and posture: ‘War could erupt from a simple miscalculation’

The threat: Image and reality: ‘Deterring foreign enemies’

North Korea's diplomacy: ‘Axis of evil’

Sanctions: ‘Food aid has fallen due to sanctions’

Provocations: ‘We have no authority to seize cargo’

Conclusion: What can we do?

Notes

Acronyms

4D

Detect, disrupt, destroy and defend

ABM

Antiballistic Missile

BMD

Ballistic Missile ‘Defense’

CFR

Council on Foreign Relations

CIA

Central Intelligence Agency

DMZ

Demilitarized Zone

DoD

Department of Defense

DPRK

Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)

FAO

Food and Agricultural Organization

GDP

Gross Domestic Product

GSOMIA

General security of military information agreement

IAEA

International Atomic Energy Agency

ICBM

Intercontinental Ballistic Missile

KIC

Kaesong Industrial Complex

LNG

Liquefied Natural Gas

MoD

Ministry of Defence

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NGO

Nongovernmental organization

NK

North Korea

NLL

Northern Limit Line

NPT

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

OECD

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

OPLAN

Operations Plan

PNAC

Project for the New American Century

ROK

Republic of Korea (South Korea)

SDN

Special Designated Nationals

SIPRI

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

SK

South Korea

SPARK

Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea

THAAD

Theater High Altitude Area Defense

UN

United Nations

UNC

United Nations Command-South Korea

UNICEF

United Nations Children's Fund

UNSCR

UN Security Council Resolution

USSR

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

WFP

World Food Programme

Introduction

This book is about US military hegemony in Asia. Crucially, it is about the response of Asian countries, particularly North Korea, to this threat. The mainstream and to a large extent alternative media in the West omit America's regional provocations and only report North Korea's retaliations and responses. To Western audiences, North Korea seems like a genuine threat and a regime out of control. But US military threat assessments and strategic analysts paint quite a different picture.

Despite what some readers will claim, this book is not apologia for the North Korean regime. People who make baseless allegations that a person is an apologist for foreign regimes are usually themselves apologists for Western imperialism because they believe in violence as the primary method of resolving global issues and in the mythology perpetuated by their state about its own supposed greatness. The NK regime is despicable and if North Koreans want it reformed or dismantled, we should use peaceful means to help them; as long as the consequences are not worse for ordinary North Koreans. The signs are already there that the regime is reforming. It is introducing a market economy (for better or worse) and trying to extend diplomatic relations with China and Russia. The US is seeking to isolate it.

If we are concerned with helping people living under oppression, we might start with ending ties to close allies who are as bad if not worse than the North Korean regime: the Saudi establishment, for instance. Next, we might put pressure on our own Western governments not to keep North Korea isolated. Western media have inverted this and claim that North Korea lives in self-imposed isolation.

The points laid out in this Introduction are backed-up throughout the book in endnotes, most of which come from establishment sources, such as the US Congressional Research Service and even the Pentagon. It is striking to compare the governmental and military record to the mainstream and even alternative media's version of events concerning North Korea and China. The policy of America's strategic elite is extremely dangerous. Several strategic analysts quoted later warn that nuclear weapons could be fired in error. This could lead to the end of life as we know it, and possibly put an end to all life.

Taking an evidence-based approach, this book proves that what we are taught about North Korea in Western media is largely false. In reality:

1) North Korea is not globally isolated. It has diplomatic relations with over 100 countries, but more needs to be done to assist its integration.

2) It has not sought self-imposed isolation or hermitage. Rather, the United States has sought to isolate it for political reasons, which will be explained.

3) North Korea is not a global threat because its global strike capacity is not only limited but highly exaggerated by the regime.

4) North Korea has repeatedly made efforts and offers to negotiate with the USA and regional powers and has been rejected or undermined on each occasion.

5) America's North Korea policy is ambiguous: as far as elite US planners are concerned, there are pros and cons to keeping the regime alive.

A much bigger long-term interest for the USA is China. This book argues that the overarching regional goal of US military planners and transnational corporations is to contain China. In order to contain something, the given thing has to be expanding. So, where is China expanding? China is building regional military bases on disputed islands and is building a single military base in Djibouti, Africa. That's it. The real ‘containment’ of China is an ideological one: to make sure than China continues to act as an assembly plant for US products, keeps its markets open to US corporations and most importantly does not interfere economically or geo-politically with US strategic interests.

The USA, on the other hand, is engaged in seven open wars, an unknown number of covert operations, has over 600 military bases around the world and is committed to a military doctrine called Full Spectrum Dominance. Its war planners and policymakers are driven by the usual ideology: that America is uniquely great and that so-called free-market capitalism is the best economic system to impose upon the world in order to ensure prosperity and even security. (In the real world, this is the best system to ensure that wealth is accrued by the few and that fewer than 200 US corporations control 40% of global trade and investment.) As we shall see in this book, recent US military assessments confirm that China has no aspirations of becoming a global or even regional superpower, and that even if China wanted to, it lacks the military capacity.

In the region sits a nuclear-armed Russia, which, like China, retains some state controls over its economy, hence the constant demonization of Russia in Western media. The US is putting pressure on its regional allies, the non-nuclear-armed Japan and South Korea, in order to continue threatening China.

In the middle of this potentially explosive situation sits North Korea.

As this book examines, US policy toward North Korea is complicated. On the one hand, the US wants the regime to collapse so that a client regime can take its place. A client regime in North Korea would be hostile to neighbouring China and Russia. In this respect, a replacement client regime would act as a US proxy.

This would block the long-proposed Russia-South Korea pipeline, which is planned to run through North Korea and provide South Korea with Russian energy and a port to export energy across the high seas. The US and Britain have already partially blocked Russia's energy route to Europe by sponsoring coups and a civil war in Ukraine. A similar scenario could play out in Korea. By expanding military ties with India and continuing its occupation of Afghanistan, the US has already made indirect threats against China. With a client regime in North Korea, the threat could be even more real.

On the other hand, the US does not want the North Korean regime to collapse. It wants it to survive; the reason being that as soon as the North Korean regime collapses, the pretexts for basing tens of thousands of US forces in South Korea vanishes. The US has a significant presence in South Korea, which is only marginally designed to repel an invasion from North Korea. A second reason for the US wanting the regime to survive is the fear that a progressive government could come to power. Such a government could use the country's resources, such as its uranium mines and rare-earth metals, to benefit its people. Such a government would also forge alliances with left-wing elements in the South and even Japan. The US could rapidly lose political control.

For the USA, the best of both worlds is a regime that keeps up the dangerous rhetoric but is a secret ally with the US and its regional partners. This way, US military systems can continue to be aimed at China under the pretext of countering North Korea, while the North opens ‘free markets’ and accepts US economic penetration.

1

The US and China

‘Full-spectrum dominance’ and the importance of oil

In 1997, the US Space Command announced its intention to rule the world by force via a doctrine called Full Spectrum Dominance, which involves securing land, sea, air, space and information, ‘to protect US national interests and investment’. Rebecca Johnson of the UN Disarmament Commission commented: ‘[n]otions of full spectrum dominance ... are perceived as a security threat by countries that have no political desire or intention to threaten the United States, but which would be expected by their own citizens and militaries to develop countermeasures to deter the United States nevertheless’.1

At the time, the only rival superpower, the Soviet Union, had collapsed leaving the US free to dominate regions that it could not have in the presence of the nuclear-armed USSR. The Middle East, where most of the world's oil is, became the prime target for direct occupation. In the 1960s, America's Central Intelligence Agency was concerned that the USSR could control 7% of the international oil market. ‘This will enable the Soviet Union to upset markets in various individual consuming countries and even displace Western companies in smaller markets.’ Soviet petrodollars could ‘make the USSR a force to be reckoned with in the international petroleum field’. The CIA worried that an ‘influx of Soviet oil is likely ... to spur further price cuts with a consequent disrupting influence on relations between the Middle Eastern governments and the Western companies’.2

Unlike Russia, China is not self-sufficient in energy. The US has targeted China's potential energy assets in various theatres. The following information does not infer that hegemony over China was the sole policy issue for the US, but nevertheless it was certainly a key consequence.

Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the Middle East. By sanctioning Iraq for 13 years (and killing a million Iraqis, mostly children, in the process) Britain and the US kept China from affordable Iraqi oil. The US and Britain invaded Iraq in 2003 and built permanent military bases. When international corporations were permitted to bid to steal Iraq's oil, Iraqi auctioneers set too high a price, forcing China to reject the price offers. By helping to create a permanent state of war in Iraq (most recently with the growth of Daesh), Iraq's oil is too unstable for international corporations to purchase at a decent and predictable price.3

Iran has the third largest oil reserves in the Middle East after Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Iran could build pipelines to carry oil and gas to China through their neighbour Afghanistan. Iran could also carry oil and gas to India through their neighbour Pakistan. By occupying Afghanistan on a permanent basis, the US and Britain not only encircle both Iran and China with military bases, they prevent the possibility of an Iran-China-friendly government from forming in Afghanistan. Crucially, they prevent pipelines from being built.4

Libya has the largest oil reserves in Africa. By training and arming Islamic extremists to overthrow the stable regime of Muammar Gaddafi, the US, Britain and France pushed out the thousands of Chinese oil, gas and engineering contractors working in the country. After NATO smashed up Libya, killing 50,000 people (according to the puppet regime installed by the US, Britain and France), Libya's oil economy under factions of Islamic extremists has become almost as unpredictable as Iraq's under Daesh.5

Sudan also had some of the largest oil deposits in Africa. Under the Bashir regime, China had lucrative contracts. In the early 2000s, the US led the agenda to bring Western media attention to Darfur, where Sudanese government-linked militia were committing atrocities against civilians. The US-led sanctions on Sudan hurt China's oil interests. The US also helped engineer the split in Sudan, roughly along Christian-Muslim lines. This created the new country of South Sudan, which happens to have most of the former country's oil reserves. In sum, China ended up allied to an oil-poor North and the US allied with an oil-rich South.6

In Somalia, the US and Britain trained and organized the terrorist government (the Transitional Federal Government, TFG) to overthrow what the US State Department describes as the non-extremist, socialistic Islamic Courts Union. This led to what journalist Aidan Hartley described as a ‘manmade’ famine, which killed tens of thousands of people. It also led to a refugee crisis between 2007 and 2009, in which millions of Somalis fled to Yemen, Kenya and other parts of Somalia to avoid the TFG. The decimation of Somalia had the effect of terminating Russian and Chinese oil contracts in the country.7

Finally, in Zimbabwe the US and Britain turned against their former ally Robert Mugabe (whose forces the UK had once trained), suddenly realizing that he is a dictator. The sanctions imposed on the fragile Zimbabwean economy helped send the currency into a spiral of unprecedented inflation. This had predictable effects, also seen in Sudan and Somalia: lowered life expectancy, increased infant mortality and general misery and hopelessness. Chinese oil contractors were compelled to abandon many of their operations.8

In 2008, the New York Times expressed euphoria that this policy of ‘containment’ seemed to work:

Beijing has been quietly overhauling its policies toward pariah states. It strongly denounced North Korea's nuclear test in October 2006 and took the lead, with the United States, in drafting a sweeping United Nations sanctions resolution against Pyongyang. Over the past year, it has voted to impose and then tighten sanctions on Iran, it has supported the deployment of a United Nations-African Union (UN-AU) force in Darfur, and it has condemned a brutal government crackdown in Burma (which the ruling junta renamed Myanmar in 1989). China is now willing to condition its diplomatic protection of pariah countries, forcing them to become more acceptable to the international community.9

‘International community’ means the USA and its allies.

In addition to choking China's access to oil and gas, the US has devised a long-range strategy for intensifying military operations in the Asia Pacific. A report by the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies states:

Rising volumes of crude purchases represent a heavy financial toll on state coffers, while the risk of a supply cutoff, mainly by China's strategic rival, the US, has been a growing preoccupation. Chinese officials have been worried about the US's naval supremacy and its de facto dominance of key strategic trade points, especially the Straits of Malacca – through which around 85% of China's own commodity imports transit.10

The so-called Asia Pivot (documented in the next section) has historical roots.