Victor Cha recommends pre-emptive strike

The Quiet Warmonger: Here's what Victor Cha of @CSISKoreaChair called for before the Senate this week. The adoption of a pre-emptive clause by the trilateral US-Korea-Japan alliance would be exceedingly dangerous. Plus he wants ROK arms sent to Ukraine. https://t.co/rSAVCxMxPB pic.twitter.com/NYV1htgWSx

— Tim Shorrock (@TimothyS) October 6, 2023

CSIS Korea chair Victor Cha's prepared testimony is at this link, FWIW.

https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/6d1240b7-bfd7-859b-3fc5-ecd6d083540a/100423_Cha_Testimony.pdf

Tim cited Cha's proposed military interception of North Korean missile tests. This is a bad idea, that I had been waiting for some high profile "expert" to recommend. Declaring that the US will attack North Korean ICBM testing pre-emptively is a bluff that will be called. It will have no deterrent effect on North Korea. There are always zingers in these very biased assessments pushed by CSIS for their arms manufacturer and state sponsors. They've been cranking this stuff out on youtube. Two more Cha quotes that I just can't take seriously:

It is noteworthy that the administration has stated its interest in reengaging in dialogue with DPRK with no preconditions as to the results of such talks. This is a subtle but significant change that suggests greater flexibility.

The Biden administrations professed willingness to engage in "dialogue without preconditions" is meaningless boilerplate. The Biden administration has nothing substantial to offer in the way of diplomacy. But they're willing to listen to Kim surrender without preconditions. I'm not big on Cha's "saving face" argument either. This is in the same category as the establishment disapproval of Trump's leader to leader overtures with Kim, which according to the neocon critics, unfairly and unduly "rewarded Kim Jong-un" by elevating his status by having the president meet with him. This always was meaningless drivel.

To me this is the kind of argument people make when they don't want to address the substantive issues. When your negotiating approach fails, namely the US "all or nothing" humiliating approach delivered to Kim, by John Bolton at Hanoi, necessarily he's going to look elsewhere for support. His covid lockdown basically put DPRK foreign policy in deep freeze. That's over now. Before "fire and fury" the US had already bypassed China and Russia and thereafter pursued a new cold war policy of block politics. Where else would Kim go?

Cha's praise for Yoon's foreign policy is absurd. Yoon has no domestic support to speak of. He's a lame duck. Frankly he's a corrupt simple minded psychopath. Anyone who criticizes him is "an anti-state actor." His policy is turning South Korea into a security/surveillance/police state. He's got nothing else to offer. A military crisis is probably something he feels he could use to bolster his foundering administration.

There are some who argue that this new development in DPRK-Russia cooperation is a response to the Camp David summit. I do not believe this to be the case. Russia’s need for ammunition alone would have made this cooperation inevitable regardless of U.S.-Japan-Korea trilateral cooperation

This is ridiculous.

I think any sort of attempt to destroy an upcoming ballistic missile test launch, either on the launch pad, or in flight by the US or South Korea, will result in military retaliation by North Korea. After which, it will be difficult to restrain Yoon, or the US from further escalation and the possible outbreak of war.

I've read that a satellite launch effort might be made by North Korea before Oct 26. Further ICBM testing could be expected in the future as well.

This US official apparently has some common sense.

Bonnie Jenkins, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, made the remarks, a day after Victor Cha, senior vice president for Asia and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies made the proposal at a congressional hearing.

Cha noted the need to consider a "declaratory" policy to signal the capability of destroying a North Korean missile headed towards Japan, Hawaii or the U.S. West Coast when it is on the launch pad or in other flight phases.

"I think I would just say that we have a very close relationship, strong discussions on the way in which we want to address North Korean threats and their intercontinental ballistic missiles and all the tests that they're doing," she said at a forum hosted by the Stimson Center.

Jenkins said she would not say a preemptive strike is "the way to go."

Senior U.S. official stresses 'strong' ties with S. Korea, Japan over N. Korean threats