North Korea: 2012-2016

[Bill Moore]

First I saw this, and thought this certainly isn't deterrence and it doesn't look like something CSIS would propose as a viable sole action to deter North Korea from conducting cyber attacks.

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/nort...000200315.html

Outside information questioning Kim's legitimacy can be response to N.K. cyber attacks: CSIS report

Penetrating outside information into North Korea questioning the legitimacy of leader Kim Jong-un should be considered as a key means to retaliate against and curb the communist nation's cyber attacks, a U.S. think tank said.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) made the suggestion in a report on policy suggestions on how to counter the North's cyber operations, saying responding to cyber attacks with cyber attacks won't be effective because the North isn't as dependent on networks as South Korea and the U.S. are.

"Therefore, responses should be tailored to leverage North Korea's specific weaknesses and sensitivities," said the report released this week. "North Korea has unique asymmetric vulnerabilities as well, especially to outside information that attacks the legitimacy of the regime."

Then I found and read the report (executive version), and the recommendations are fortunately more comprehensive than simply pushing more information to the North.

http://csis.org/files/publication/15...dout_final.pdf

NORTH KOREA’S CYBER OPERATIONS: STRATEGY AND RESPONSES

It identifies four policy objectives:

a. Prepare a graduated series of direct responses targeting North Korea’s cyber organizations.
b. Curb North Korea’s operational freedom in cyberspace.
c. Identify and leverage North Korea’s vulnerabilities to
maintain strategic balance.
d. Adopt damage mitigation and resiliency measures to ensure that critical systems and networks maintain operational continuity despite suffering an attack.

Provides four recommendations for the U.S., and then provides seven recommendations (culturally insensitive) for the U.S.-ROK Alliance, one of which was Consider

exploiting North Korea’s vulnerability to outside information

.

By all means keep pumping information into North Korea, in fact governments can't stop it, because if they stop non-state actors are engaged in their own information campaign against the backwards and incredibly cruel KJU regime. North Korea a festering wound from the 20th Century that continues to threaten regional and increasingly global stability, not to mention the human rights atrocities.

However, I don't think the use of information is an effective deterrent if we're truly talking deterrence. For one, this implies we would only push information north in response to a provocative act (cyber attack, nuclear weapons test, long range missile test, a kinetic engagement). While the ROK PSYOP unit may only blare it loud speakers near the border in response to a provocative attack, others are pushing information via balloons and items smuggled across the border such as DVDs. The Kim family façade is slowly cracking, we should never stop pushing the truth forward, and using it as a deterrence implies we would do just that if North Korea ceased the undesired behavior. Second, if anything, the information is provocative and North Korea is hardly deterred by it. They continue to conduct cyber activities, test long range missiles, and recently conducted another nuclear weapons test.

A recent article in the strategist indicates some of the information warfare activities ongoing.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/inf...ean-peninsula/

At the same time, however, US–ROK forces have also engaged in a war through information—particularly focusing on psychological operations. Following the sinking of the Cheonan warship and subsequent shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in 2010, the South Korean military established a new psyops unit to diffuse news and information into North Korea—whether through radio transmissions, balloon leaflets, DVDs, and possibly USB memory sticks. Since then, it has sent thousands of leaflets and transmitted broadcast into North Korea using mobile broadcast vehicles and six relay stations. While its effects on North Korean society are difficult to ascertain, North Korea has previously threatened to fire across the heavily fortified border to stop such campaigns.

With changing strategic realities on the Korean Peninsula, information warfare has important ramifications for the US–ROK defence strategy.

Another recent article of interest.

https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/ht.../20151110.aspx

Information Warfare: North Korea Surrenders To The Future

Despite the high price of these North Korea smart phones (about $500) there are over 300,000 users, many of them members of the new “trader class” who have made a lot of money operating legal markets. There are believed to be over a million illegal cell phones, which can access the international Internet if near the Chinese border or a foreign wi-fi hotspot within North Korea. These hotspots are available in the North Korean capital. There, many embassies have taken to installing powerful wi-fi systems that can be easily used by nearby North Koreans.

North Koreans have noticed the abundance of Korean language Internet content down south. Those who can connect to get to these South Korean can use “grabber” apps (many of them available free) to download all the content on a website. This can then be passed around inside North Korea via a USB memory stick. The North Korean government does not like this sort of thing but so far has preferred to avoid international condemnation for cracking down on embassy Internet use.

It appears that even North Korea can't resist the ever growing integration of globalization. That will hopefully be a good thing.

[max161]

See Joshua Stanton's recent blog post here:
CSIS: Deter North Korea with subversive information
Posted on January 29, 2016 by Joshua Stanton
http://freekorea.us/2016/01/29/csis-...e-information/

I concur with Joshua here (and I forwarded a copy of the report to him and you can download it at this link: https://csis.org/files/publication/1...ations_Web.pdf per my email last week I sent out to everyone on my national security listserve)

“The deliberate introduction of additional media and information into North Korea’s networks and population may serve as a potent means of responding to cyber attacks without resorting to use of force, armed attacks or countermeasures,” it said. [Yonhap]

Joshua Stanton: "Well, isn’t that what I’ve been saying since 2010? The times have finally caught up with me. By the way, if you can lay your hands on a copy of the original report, I’d be most grateful."


I provide an outline of some of the information and influence activities in my 2004 research paper on a long term strategy for the Korean peninsula beyond the nuclear crisis at this link (pages 97-102) http://bit.ly/1CWA5vm

[max161]

A lot of this is being done by defector organizations. The amount of Korean news and Korean television dramas (on DVDs, thumb drives, and the Chinese video players) which are loved by the Korean people living in the north is growing significantly (I use those word very deliberately - I no longer use 'north Koreans' except in relation to the Kim Family Regime and the elite - the rank and file population should be referred to as Koreans who live in the north under the most oppressive regime in the 20th and 21st centuries). the north has shown how afraid it is of information coming from the South in August and most recently as the ROKs restarted their propaganda broadcast which are really only symbolic. The real information effort is being done electronically. Follow the Daily NK news site as the Korean defectors from the north

I have been talking to my Korean counterparts about a program to work with the Korean entertainment industry to produce Korean dramas that are based on unification. My recommendation is that they design dramas that take people through conflict and regime collapse and then show how ROK policies if implemented and followed by the Korean people living in the north will result in President's Park's Bonanza for Unification (the Dresden Initiative) They can show various scenarios such as how HA operations will be conducted, how people will transition to land ownership, how the integrated political system will function - e.g., local governance by free elections, what happens to second tier leaders when they do not attack the South and cooperate with the ROK military, how they can benefit from providing information about WMD and ensuring it is not proliferated off the peninsula (and what happens to those who do try) and much more. This could really help to prepare the population psychologically. I would of course also like to show them how resistance can work and what the Korean people living in the north could do to resist the regime.

There is so much we can do if we put our minds to it.

[flagg]

First I saw this, and thought this certainly isn't deterrence and it doesn't look like something CSIS would propose as a viable sole action to deter North Korea from conducting cyber attacks.

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/nort...000200315.html

Outside information questioning Kim's legitimacy can be response to N.K. cyber attacks: CSIS report



Then I found and read the report (executive version), and the recommendations are fortunately more comprehensive than simply pushing more information to the North.

http://csis.org/files/publication/15...dout_final.pdf

NORTH KOREA’S CYBER OPERATIONS: STRATEGY AND RESPONSES

It identifies four policy objectives:



Provides four recommendations for the U.S., and then provides seven recommendations (culturally insensitive) for the U.S.-ROK Alliance, one of which was Consider .

By all means keep pumping information into North Korea, in fact governments can't stop it, because if they stop non-state actors are engaged in their own information campaign against the backwards and incredibly cruel KJU regime. North Korea a festering wound from the 20th Century that continues to threaten regional and increasingly global stability, not to mention the human rights atrocities.

However, I don't think the use of information is an effective deterrent if we're truly talking deterrence. For one, this implies we would only push information north in response to a provocative act (cyber attack, nuclear weapons test, long range missile test, a kinetic engagement). While the ROK PSYOP unit may only blare it loud speakers near the border in response to a provocative attack, others are pushing information via balloons and items smuggled across the border such as DVDs. The Kim family façade is slowly cracking, we should never stop pushing the truth forward, and using it as a deterrence implies we would do just that if North Korea ceased the undesired behavior. Second, if anything, the information is provocative and North Korea is hardly deterred by it. They continue to conduct cyber activities, test long range missiles, and recently conducted another nuclear weapons test.

A recent article in the strategist indicates some of the information warfare activities ongoing.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/inf...ean-peninsula/



Another recent article of interest.

https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/ht.../20151110.aspx

Information Warfare: North Korea Surrenders To The Future





It appears that even North Korea can't resist the ever growing integration of globalization. That will hopefully be a good thing.

It's hard finding detailed information on non kinetic UW operations to foment civil resistance in the former Warsw Pact.

But I wonder if there are lessons to be learned in comparing known/suspected efforts against the Warsaw Pact(70's-80's) with known/suspected efforts against North Korea today.

Im reminded of Bob's World's post from 2011 that I think is highly relevant:

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...5&postcount=16

Did Rome's roads matter in the rise of the Barbarians?

Did the invention of the printing press matter in the rise of the people of Europe against the Holy Roman Empire?

Did Britain's global telegraph network matter in the rise of her colonial populaces?

Did the internet matter in Tunisia and Egypt.

Answer to all: Yes.

When a state relies upon overt controls of a populace to maintain stability, the speed and availability of information is their greatest threat. As information and transportation technology continue to emerge, control-based systems of governance will continue to become less and less viable.

To this I would add the following questions questions:

Exactly how effective was external support for non kinetic UW/civil resistance in Facilitating and/or accelerating the implosion of the Warsaw Pact?

How applicable is the Warsaw Pact civil resistance experience with likely North Korean scenarios tactically and operationally(and accounting for wireless internet as an additional catalyst/tool)?

How does the strategic political environment amongst key external stakeholders both align and differ comparing the Warsaw Pact experience and North Korea?

[Bill Moore]

As long as KJU maintains control of his security forces there is no potential for a non violent revolution to be successful. The ideology tied to juche has created a high degree of distrust, even within families. More so than what we saw in the former communist eastern Europe.

While information won't deter provocative acts like cyber attacks, the decreased confidence it creates between the government and its people may prevent KJU from launching a full scale war, where the people in the north could welcome the south. On the other hand it could trigger a full out war, because it could be perceived as an existential threat.

But what if we see a North Korean Arab Spring like event? How do you think the U.S., ROK, PRC, and other countries would respond? I suspect much like the Arab Spring we would cheer it on, but provide no support due to the high level of uncertainty. It is a tragic situation, maybe one global citizens will impact more than states.

[Bill Moore]

External support in eastern Europe came in the form of information, money, advice, both from states and the church.

[flagg]

External support in eastern Europe came in the form of information, money, advice, both from states and the church.

As I understand it(rightly or wrongly), the Catholic Church under Polish Pope John Paul II had a partnership or at least closely aligned interests with Reagan Administration led NATO during the 80's with Poland/Solidarity being one of the key points of focus.

As I understand it, there are private groups in South Korea that may be acting unilaterally with efforts of quite questionable effectiveness like balloon flights laden with western media.

On the surface it seems similar, but I suspect a key difference is that private non kinetic efforts against the Warsaw Pact were aligned(or not contrary to) with government policy, while private efforts against North Korea may be an embarrassing disconnect with South Korean/allied strategic and diplomatic policy.

As indicated here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/internati...drives/283106/

Is that a crucial and key difference?

Could the behaviour of some key partners/allies(US, Japan perhaps) be akin to perpetually refinancing the "North Korean mortgage" and pushing out the "balloon payments" when NK falls?

[Bill Moore]

As I understand it(rightly or wrongly), the Catholic Church under Polish Pope John Paul II had a partnership or at least closely aligned interests with Reagan Administration led NATO during the 80's with Poland/Solidarity being one of the key points of focus.

As I understand it, there are private groups in South Korea that may be acting unilaterally with efforts of quite questionable effectiveness like balloon flights laden with western media.

On the surface it seems similar, but I suspect a key difference is that private non kinetic efforts against the Warsaw Pact were aligned(or not contrary to) with government policy, while private efforts against North Korea may be an embarrassing disconnect with South Korean/allied strategic and diplomatic policy.

As indicated here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/internati...drives/283106/

Is that a crucial and key difference?

Could the behaviour of some key partners/allies(US, Japan perhaps) be akin to perpetually refinancing the "North Korean mortgage" and pushing out the "balloon payments" when NK falls?

That was an informative article in The Atlantic, thanks for sharing the link. I'm hypothesizing of course, but I do think private groups so far are less effective than governments in waging information shaping. However, combined efforts working towards similar goals can be quite powerful. I'm not sure the private groups are ineffective though, they certainly prompted KJU regime to respond.

As for

If non violent civil resistance is not a likely outcome.

Would North Korea's increasing permeability to information/truth make it far more likely to transition to something akin to late term Saddam Era Iraq?

Resilient Totalitarianism with Truth accessibility?

Heavily sanctioned with degrading quality of life and standard of living for the masses, but propped up by nuclear blackmail and oil for food corruption respectively?

Would North Korea be a prime candidate for a realpolitik negotiated transition of power and immunity from prosecution for core leadership?

Or would a possibly likely outcome for potential success for North Korea look more like a planned and coordinated rise of a North Korean Deng Xioaping?

If NK does try to copy Deng, could it have missed the boat waiting so long changing course and now sailing INTO the winds of unskilled labour being increasingly and globally automated combined with fast increasing global recession risk?

Who knows? I think this quote from for SEC Gates is relevant (it is also a topic that Kissinger discussed in his book "World Order"):

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/T...id=O9-ltc5cBTM

"The administration got caught up in the Arab Spring. They misread it pretty badly. There were no institutions to support the kind of reform efforts that the street demonstrators were calling for in the overthrow of these authoritarian governments." Worse, it sent a message to friendly regimes facing potential instability: "If you have demonstrations in your capital, the U.S. will throw you under the bus. So it disconcerted the Saudis and all our Arab allies."

The highlights are mine. I think we still have this End of History view that democracy and free markets will magically emerge if dictators are suddenly removed. A view that hundreds of years of history disputes. If KJU is removed through force of a peaceful revolution, then what? What type of follow on government is the realm of the possible? What would China allow? What would the ROKs try to impose? Maybe a year or a little longer, the magazine, The American Interest, published an article or opinion piece that argued instead of trying to impose democracy, we should take a longer term view and approach and set the conditions for democracy. What does that entail? Is that even possible in North Korea?

[AdamG]

SEOUL — North Korea claimed Sunday that it could wipe out Manhattan by sending a hydrogen bomb on a ballistic missile to the heart of New York, the latest in a string of brazen threats.

Although there are many reasons to believe that Kim Jong Un’s regime is exaggerating its technical capabilities, the near-daily drumbeat of boasts and warnings from Pyongyang underlines the regime’s anger at efforts to thwart its ambitions.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/...omb/ar-AAgIXYy

Golly, how will they deliver it?

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/dprk/nd-b2.htm

[flagg]

As long as KJU maintains control of his security forces there is no potential for a non violent revolution to be successful. The ideology tied to juche has created a high degree of distrust, even within families. More so than what we saw in the former communist eastern Europe.

While information won't deter provocative acts like cyber attacks, the decreased confidence it creates between the government and its people may prevent KJU from launching a full scale war, where the people in the north could welcome the south. On the other hand it could trigger a full out war, because it could be perceived as an existential threat.

But what if we see a North Korean Arab Spring like event? How do you think the U.S., ROK, PRC, and other countries would respond? I suspect much like the Arab Spring we would cheer it on, but provide no support due to the high level of uncertainty. It is a tragic situation, maybe one global citizens will impact more than states.

If non violent civil resistance is not a likely outcome.

Would North Korea's increasing permeability to information/truth make it far more likely to transition to something akin to late term Saddam Era Iraq?

Resilient Totalitarianism with Truth accessibility?

Heavily sanctioned with degrading quality of life and standard of living for the masses, but propped up by nuclear blackmail and oil for food corruption respectively?

Would North Korea be a prime candidate for a realpolitik negotiated transition of power and immunity from prosecution for core leadership?

Or would a possibly likely outcome for potential success for North Korea look more like a planned and coordinated rise of a North Korean Deng Xioaping?

If NK does try to copy Deng, could it have missed the boat waiting so long changing course and now sailing INTO the winds of unskilled labour being increasingly and globally automated combined with fast increasing global recession risk?