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Sun, August 19, 2018 | 09:51

Opinion > Columnists > Donald Kirk >

To strike or not to strike

POHANG - An array of heavy-duty, sophisticated gear spread over the beaches here shows the incredible military might of the U.S. and South Korea. Far offshore, way beyond the horizon, the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson leads a “strike force” of warships. Watching the display of U.S. strength on the beach in a wargame called Pacific Reach, one realizes how easy it would be to decimate the North Koreans.

Donald Kirk | 2017-04-13 17:17

THAAD's return on cost

From the outset, the idea of implanting a Star Wars weapon capable of zapping an enemy missile 150 kilometers above the earth’s surface had to be controversial. The real problem from the South Korean viewpoint initially was, what for - what we really need are short and mid-range missiles for not only countering whatever North Korea is throwing at us but also delivering body blows to targets on North Korea soil. South Koreans hemmed and hawed with visiting American potentates, from cabinet-level personages to military officers to corporate types and engineers, and even a physicist or two, all...

Donald Kirk | 2017-04-06 17:19

Sad legacy of presidential corruption

The prospect of Park Geun-hye going to jail in the most sweeping political scandal in modern Korean history inspires invidious comparisons. Who, actually, was the most corrupt president since promulgation of the “democracy constitution” in 1987 at the height of demonstrations as massive as those we have witnessed in central Seoul since October? None in this cast of characters managed to escape charges that blackened their names after their years of power and glory in the Blue House. In assessing their legacies, amazingly Park seems by no means the guiltiest. In fact despite the 13 charges ag...

Donald Kirk | 2017-03-30 17:26

Waving all those flags

The sight of the American Stars and Stripes among the Taegukgi held high by loyalists to Park Geun-hye is a reminder of the historical depth of ties among mostly aging Koreans to the country that rescued the South from annihilation by North Korea and China in the Korean War. Some Americans, seeing their country’s flag held high by Koreans, respond with bemusement. Many of them, scholars, teachers, researchers, would not dream of flying an American flag at home. To them, the notion of waving the national flag and singing patriotic songs is antithetical to their liberal creed - identification,...

Donald Kirk | 2017-03-23 16:59

Alliance under assault

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, dispensing pledges like a jolly Santa Claus pulling Christmas presents from his sled, arrives today (Friday) in Seoul from Tokyo and flies tomorrow to Beijing. After vowing undying U.S. support to Korea and Japan, he’ll assure China that THAAD presents no threat and beg the Chinese to get their North Korean friends to abandon their nuclear program. Tillerson may mean well, but his mission arouses skepticism for reasons that have nothing to do with his undoubted sincerity. Fact is, Tillerson does not have much influence over President Donald Trump’s fore...

Donald Kirk | 2017-03-16 17:15

Escalating dangers for Korea

Suddenly the outlook for keeping the peace on the Korean peninsula has taken an alarming turn for the worse. We’ve long been accustomed to the threat of Korean War II, but now it’s looking like more than a scary mirage. China is up in arms over the arrival of the first elements of the dreaded THAAD counter-missile system in South Korea. North Korean missile test-shots are getting more sophisticated while Pyongyang plays tough and mean with a minor Southeast Asian country with which it had had shockingly good relations. And South Korea is roiled by a political crisis that’s dividing the popul...

Donald Kirk | 2017-03-09 17:49

For accurate story in NK, wait until reunification

To the rest of the world North Korea is an enigma. No one knows what’s happening among the elite who govern the country. There’s no telling what people are really thinking and saying on the streets of Pyongyang and other cities in the country, much less in remote regions. All we get as journalists writing about North Korea are clues. We see reports via Pyongyang’s Korea Central News Agency. We get snippets of cellphone conversations via two or three websites purporting to cover North Korea. We hear accounts of harrowing experiences from defectors. We occasionally go to North Korea on careful...

Donald Kirk | 2017-03-06 15:43

[ROUNDTABLE] Trump to force N. Korea to choose: nukes or survival

North Korea's biochemical menace

The poisoning of the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un should make everyone painfully aware of a category of “weapons of mass destruction” that’s overlooked in the controversy over nuclear devices.

Donald Kirk | 2017-03-02 17:55

Fake news and false flags

The assassination of Kim Jong-nam promises to go down as one of those weird acts of terrorism that North Korea, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, will forever deny having perpetrated. The prevarication and obfuscation in this case would appear a little more ornate than North Korea’s unending denials of having anything to do with anything. Forget about the sinking of the Cheonan in the Yellow Sea nearly seven years ago that killed 46 sailors, or the explosion over the Indian Ocean in 1987 of a Korean Air flight that sent 115 aboard to their deaths, or the bombing in the Burmese cap...

Donald Kirk | 2017-02-23 16:23

Brotherly love lost

Kim Jong-nam showed the warm and human face of North Korea’s dynastic family. You had to like the guy, judging from sightings in the gambling enclave of Macao, across the Pearl River estuary from Hong Kong off China’s southeastern coast. One time he was spotted in a Macao bus. Another time he was seen at a doorway with a funny little smile on his face. Then, for a while, he dropped out of the news. Speculation was he’d been told to keep his mouth shut and stay out of sight after making disparaging comments about his younger half-brother, “Respected Leader” Kim Jong-un. He had had the nerve t...

Donald Kirk | 2017-02-16 18:42

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