Meet The Team Building North Korea"s Nuclear Missiles

In recent years, North Korea has frustrated the US intelligence community, which has struggled to determine exactly how Kim Jong Un and his regime have managed to make so much progress, so quickly in their quest to develop a nuclear weapon capable of striking the Continental US.

The international community has authorized one round of sanctions after another, and yet they appear to have little impact on the country’s economy. If anything, these efforts have only served to strengthen the Kim’s grip on power by feeding the narrative - taught to every North Korean child - that the US is an evil, imperialist antagonist bent on subjugating the North.

While the exact means by which the North has managed to survive such immense international pressure remain a mystery, the New York Times has a theory: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has cultivated an aura of reverence and celebrity around the country’s nuclear scientists.

These celebrity scientists are known by nicknames like the “nuclear duo” and the “missile quartet”.

They also occupy a unique place in the North Korea power structure: While Kim, 33, has executed scores of senior officials - including his own uncle - he has turned the scientists into public heros. So far, not one nuclear scientist has been punished by the regime.

“We have never heard of him killing scientists,” said Choi Hyun-kyoo, a senior researcher in South Korea who runs NK Tech, a database of North Korean scientific publications. “He is someone who understands that trial and error are part of doing science."

As a result of this, each of the six nuclear tests conducted since 2006 has been more powerful than the last, an incredible feat of engineering, considering the restraints.

Kim has elevated science as an ideal in the regime’s propaganda and put his fondness for scientists and engineers on prominent display across North Korea.

One of the carrots Kim has offered his prized scientists is a street called “Future Scientists Street”. Opened four years after Kim assumed power in 2011, the street is reportedly filled with gleaming towers for scientists, engineers and their families.

Kim also opened a sprawling complex shaped like an atom that showcases the nation’s achievements in nuclear science, and where decadent galas are held to celebrate the nuclear program’s progress.

There is little doubt what is behind Mr. Kim’s passion for science. In ubiquitous propaganda posters, North Korean rockets soar into space and crash into the United States Capitol.

After successful tests, scientists and engineers are honored with huge outdoor rallies.

While international sanctions prohibit the teaching of science with potential military applications to North Korean students, the regime has hit upon several clever strategies to import nuclear research from the outside world.

Also, the country still manages to send talented students abroad to study science in places like China, India and even Germany.

Kim wasn’t the first North Korean leader to adopt these special privileges for scientists. Indeed, his grandfather, Kim Il-sung, embraced science as he struggled to rebuild North Korea from the ruins of the Korean War. He embraced those trained in Japan when Korea was a Japanese colony and later sent hundreds of students to the Soviet Union, East Germany and other socialist states.

One of them was So Sang-guk, a nuclear scientist who emerged as a key figure in the nation’s nuclear program but seems to have retired.

However, since taking power, Kim Jong-un appears to have overseen a generational shift at the top of the weapons program, elevating a group of scientists and officials about whom little is known.

But now, analysts have identified six figures who have repeatedly appeared alongside Mr. Kim at key moments - four tied to missile development and two associated with nuclear tests.

Two members of the “missile quartet” are scientists, according to state media. Jang Chang-ha is 53 and president of the Academy of National Defense Science, and Jon Il-ho, 61, is commonly described as an “official in the field of scientific research.”

Ri Pyong-chol appears to be the quartet’s highest-ranking member. A former air force commander, he serves as first deputy director of the ruling Workers’ Party’s munitions industry department.

Kim Jong-sik, 49, first began appearing with Kim Jong-un in February 2016 and has an engineering background. His rise has coincided with an acceleration of test launches, but he and Ri did not attend last month’s launch.

Ri Hong-sop is the director of North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Institute. He appears to be a key figure in the nuclear program.  

Hong Sung-mu, the other member of the “nuclear duo,” is a former chief engineer at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, the birthplace of the North’s nuclear weapons program.

But in perhaps one of the most significant trappings of the scientists’ status in North Korean society is the picture below, where several scientists can be seen sharing a cigarette with Kim - a major privilege considering Kim is revered like a God in North Korea.

After successful tests, sometimes Kim will even embrace his scientists, some of whom can be seen weeping. In another stunning image, Kim can be seen carrying one of the scientists on his back - a play on an old Korean tradition.

North Korea carried out its most powerful nuclear test yet back in September when it detonated what was estimated to be a 300 kiloton bomb. Despite indications that the North’s longtime test site at Punggye-ri is suffering from “tired mountain syndrome”, satellite imaging recently showed the North’s military is hard at work on a new tunnel located in a remote area of the test site...

...Suggesting that the North is already preparing to carry out what would be its seventh nuclear test.
 

From "Dotard" To "Old, Insane, B***h": Here's A List Of North Korea's Most Memorable Insults

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un unwittingly set the internet on fire Thursday night when he proclaimed that US President and purported Kim BFF Donald Trump was a “mentally deranged dotard” and a “rogue and a gangster.”

Kim’s usage of the arcane vocab word prompted hundreds of thousands of people ask Google what exactly is a dotard? (for the record, it’s a pejorative term for a senile old man).

As the Sun newspaper points out, Kim’s latest viral proclamation follows a pattern of North Korean media serving up memorable – if sometimes nonsensical – soundbites in their attacks on American politicians.

And in a list dating back to the Bush Administration - when Kim Jong Un"s father Kim Jong Il was still running the country - the Sun recounts some of North Korea"s most memorable missives to their American “imperialist” adversaries.

Cory Gardner:

When Senator Corey Gardner called Kim a “whack job” in May, the dictator was less than pleased. State media quickly responded, saying that Gardner was “human dirt”.

A statement said: "It is a serious provocation that Gardner, like a psychopath, dare to bear the evil that dares our highest dignity.

"It is America’s misfortune that a man mixed in with human dirt like Gardner, who has lost basic judgement and body hair, could only spell misfortune for the United States."

Obama:

In 2014, North Korea branded then-US President Barack Obama a "juvenile delinquent", a "clown" and a "dirty fellow.” The North’s remarks verged on outright racism when they said Obama "still has the figure of monkey while the human race has evolved through millions of years."

KCNA added that Obama "does not even have the basic appearances of a human being" and, in a particularly vile statement, called him: "a wicked black monkey".

John Kerry:

Also in 2014, an unidentified North Korean spokesperson poetically described then-Secretary of State John Kerry a "wolf donning the mask of sheep" who had a "hideous lantern jaw.”

Hillary Clinton:

Kerry’s predecessor, Hillary Clinton, was described in 2009 as "by no means intelligent" and a "funny lady".

"Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping," an unnamed North Korean source said.

Park Geun-Hye:

The reclusive regime has also made former South Korean President Park Geun-hye a popular target, alternately naming her as a "senile granny", a "tailless, old, insane bitch", and "a traitor for all times".

George W Bush:

North Korea famously labeled Bush a “hooligan” who “looked like a chicken soaked in rain.”

Dick Cheney:

The former vice president was accused of being “a most cruel monster and bloody-thirsty beast.” Yet no jokes about his aim.

Donald Rumsfeld

The North blasted Rummy, labeling him a “political dwarf” and “human scum.”

If there’s an upside to the US’s reluctance to foment regime change in the North, it’s that North Korea’s leader, and its ministry of propaganda, will probably keep churning out these colorful little nuggets.
 

Pictures Of Pyongyang: WSJ Unveils Never-Before-Seen Images From North Korea's Showcase Capital

For the first time since 2008, a team of Wall Street Journal journalists has been allowed to visit and document the North Korean capital city of Pyongyang just as tensions between the US and its longtime geopolitical foe are reaching a boiling point.

The team of reporters was taken on a guided tour of the showcase capital, reporting that the country’s nuclear ambitions appear to be etched into the city’s landscape. Giant sculptures of atoms sit on top of new apartment towers built for the country’s nuclear scientists.

The atomic aesthetics, WSJ said, only reinforced the idea that the country would never voluntarily part with its nuclear program.

“During a recent visit, the first by The Wall Street Journal since 2008, the city’s atomic aesthetics reinforced the message government officials conveyed repeatedly to the Journal reporters: North Korea won’t part with its nuclear weapons under any circumstances and is resolved to suffer economic sanctions and risk war with the U.S. to keep them.”

One North Korean official told the WSJ that the country has ”grown up” and that it isn’t “interested in dialogue that would undermine our newly built strategic status.”

WSJ noted that North Korea launched a ballistic missile over Japan on the second day of the trip. And hours after the group departed, US President Donald Trump vowed to “totally destroy North Korea” if the US is required to defend itself or allies, saying leader Kim Jong Un, whom he called “Rocket Man”, was on a “suicide path for himself and his regime.”

However, the two English-speaking diplomats in dark suits who chaperoned WSJ’s reporters during their trip took a “more measured tone.”

Over the next few days, they monitored several official interviews, visits to city landmarks and brief encounters with a handful of Pyongyang residents, which appeared to signal a rare outreach campaign by the government for outside news organizations to convey what it sees as the logic of its nuclear-weapons program. The US and North Korea don’t have diplomatic relations, and even indirect contact is limited.

North Korea only allows outside media to visit with the explicit sanction of the state, and visitors are kept under close watch. Authorities granted WSJ requests to visit factories and stores, which were chosen by the government.

Here is a collection of photos the reporters took during their visit to Pyongyang:

An atomic sculpture outside a newly constructed residential building for the country"s nuclear scientists.

Children play with plastic weapons at an orphanage in Pyongyang.

The Dear Leader...

The entrance hall at Pyongyang’s new science library, crowned by a painting of former leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il...

A replica of a North Korean rocket stands in the center of the science library...

In another telling detail, WSJ spoke with Ri Song Ho, who directs the Golden Cup Trading Co. factory, which produces some 700 different snacks, sodas, breads and sweets. Among its brands is a cake featuring an image of a North Korean rocket ready for launch.

“Their Bodies Were Blown To Bits And Totally Destroyed” North Korean Defector Details Horrific Government Murders And Sex Slavery Under Kim Jong-Un

An apparent North Korean defector is revealing details about her privileged life in the totalitarian nation. Not using her real name, the woman describes brutal government murders and how Kim Jong-Un has a harem of kidnapped young sex slaves.

“What I saw that day made me sick in my stomach. Despite our privilege, we were scared. I saw terrible things in Pyongyang,” said Hee Yeon – whose real name has not been revealed to protect her identity.  Hee Yeon fled North Korea with her mother and younger brother to South Korea after the death of her father Wui Yeon Lim, who died of alcohol problems.  “I have never felt so happy as I felt when I got out,” she said.

Hee Yeon Lim was the daughter of an army colonel and lived what she called a “privileged life” in North Korean capital Pyongyang.  Because her family was close to Kim, they avoided the poverty and starvation brought upon the average citizen. Her father’s aide drove her to and from school every day in a state-provided vehicle, and the family enjoyed Japanese-style meals made possible by the money her father earned from bribes, she said. But according to the 26-year-old, many in North Korea, were not as lucky. Describing one such occasion of Kim Jong-Un’s brutality, she said she saw 11 musicians brutally executed for making a pornographic video. The defector told The Mirror:

 “We were ordered to leave our classes by security men and made to travel to ­Pyongyang. There is a sports ground there, a kind of stadium. The musicians were brought out, tied up, hooded and apparently gagged, so they could not make a noise, not beg for mercy or scream. They were lashed to the end of anti-aircraft guns.  There were around 10,000 people ordered to watch that day and I was standing 200 feet from these victims. A gun was fired, the noise was ­deafening, absolutely terrifying and the guns were fired one after the other. The musicians just disappeared each time the guns were fired into them. Their bodies were blown to bits, totally destroyed, blood and bits flying everywhere.  And then after that military tanks moved in and they ran over the bits on the ground where the remains lay. The tracks were run over the remains and blood repeatedly, over and over again and made to grind the remains, to smash them into the ground until there was nothing left. I felt desperately ill from witnessing this. It was so horrible and I could not eat for three days as it made my stomach churn.” –Yahoo News

Hee Yeon also alleged that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Un would choose teenage classmates to become his sex slaves. When discussing the sex slavery, Hee Yeon said, “Yes, they have to sleep with him and they cannot make a mistake or object because they could very easily simply disappear.”

From an early age, Hee Yeon was taught to never publicly question the regime of then-leader Kim Jong-Il. The message delivered his son and heir Kim Jong Un was clear; he was supposed to be perfect, Hee Yeon said.  “I was brought up told he was like a god – that he was, as a young boy, an expert sailor, marksman before the age of seven, godlike,” she said. “Then I met him at big events I found him terrifying, really scary, nothing godlike about him.”

Kim’s palate was also more refined, Hee Yeon said. While his subjects are forced to eat bark and grass to survive, the North Korean leader dines on Bird’s Nest Soup. It’s a Chinese delicacy made from the saliva of swiftlet birds. A kilogram of the bird’s nests, which are built using the birds’ saliva, can cost up to $12,000 and the soup is supposedly meant to prolong life if it’s consumed every day. Kim is served this soup and other delicacies such as caviar and champagne by his teenage sex slaves, Hee Yeon said.

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Author: Mac Slavo
Views: Read by 821 people
Date: September 21st, 2017
Website: www.SHTFplan.com

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North Korean Defector Claims Kim Jong-Un's Days Are Numbered

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

CNN allegedly found a North Korean defector through University researchers working in conjunction with the South Korean government.

The news outlet interviewed the alleged defector, who claims Kim Jong-Un’s days as “supreme leader” are numbered.

CNN says that the defector had worked among the elites in Pyongyang. In order to protect the man’s anonymity, the descriptions and his name were omitted from the interview.

He is said to fear being hunted down by North Korea and his family harmed should his identity be known. He is by far, however, the most recent defector CNN has ever interviewed; he’s only been free from North Korea for one year. But, he had a few predictions about the North’s borderline psychopathic dictator…

In 2011, Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il, died. Kim Jong Un took over and “tried his best,” says the defector. He gave gifts, and in a public appearance, allowed his voice to be broadcast on North Korean state run television. The perception among the people was that life was about to improve inside North Korea. “It was a false image,” he says.

In December 2013, the regime announced the second most powerful man in North Korea, Jang Song Thaek, was being expelled from the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea. Jang was accused of a litany of crimes, from obstructing the nation’s economic affairs to anti-party acts. The allegations stunned for several reasons, primarily for who the regime fingered — Jang is Kim’s uncle.

“Kim Jong Un revealed his true side,” says the defector. Jang’s arrest was broadcast on state television, followed by a statement calling him “despicable human scum, worse than a dog.” State media then announced he was executed.

The defector that CNN interviewed expressed confidence in his opinion that the elites’ loyalty to Kim Jong-Un has deteriorated and will continue to do so. He says that conviction is how he was able to leave his family behind because he believes he will reunite with them one day.

“I can tell you for sure, the North Korean regime will collapse within 10 years,” he says without hesitation.

“Kim Jong Un is mistaken that he can control his people and maintain his regime by executing his enemies. There’s fear among high officials that at any time, they can be targets. The general public will continue to lose their trust in him as a leader by witnessing him being willing to kill his own uncle.”

Yet Kim Jong-Un has all the power in North Korea.  

Meaning those who lose trust in the “supreme leader” may face their ultimate and untimely demise. It’s no secret why this defector is keeping his identity well hidden.

North Korean Defector Claims Kim Jong-Un’s Days Are Numbered

CNN allegedly found a North Korean defector through University researchers working in conjunction with the South Korean government. The news outlet interviewed the alleged defector, who claims Kim Jong-Un’s days as “supreme leader” are numbered.

CNN says that the defector had worked among the elites in Pyongyang. In order to protect the man’s anonymity, the descriptions and his name were omitted from the interview. He is said to fear being hunted down by North Korea and his family harmed should his identity be known. He is by far, however, the most recent defector CNN has ever interviewed; he’s only been free from North Korea for one year. But, he had a few predictions about the North’s borderline psychopathic dictator…

In 2011, Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il, died. Kim Jong Un took over and “tried his best,” says the defector. He gave gifts, and in a public appearance, allowed his voice to be broadcast on North Korean state run television. The perception among the people was that life was about to improve inside North Korea. “It was a false image,” he says.

In December 2013, the regime announced the second most powerful man in North Korea, Jang Song Thaek, was being expelled from the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea. Jang was accused of a litany of crimes, from obstructing the nation’s economic affairs to anti-party acts. The allegations stunned for several reasons, primarily for who the regime fingered — Jang is Kim’s uncle.

“Kim Jong Un revealed his true side,” says the defector. Jang’s arrest was broadcast on state television, followed by a statement calling him “despicable human scum, worse than a dog.” State media then announced he was executed.

The defector that CNN interviewed expressed confidence in his opinion that the elites’ loyalty to Kim Jong-Un has deteriorated and will continue to do so. He says that conviction is how he was able to leave his family behind because he believes he will reunite with them one day.

“I can tell you for sure, the North Korean regime will collapse within 10 years,” he says without hesitation. “Kim Jong Un is mistaken that he can control his people and maintain his regime by executing his enemies. There’s fear among high officials that at any time, they can be targets. The general public will continue to lose their trust in him as a leader by witnessing him being willing to kill his own uncle.”

Yet Kim Jong-Un has all the power in North Korea.  Meaning those who lose trust in the “supreme leader” may face their ultimate and untimely demise. It’s no secret why this defector is keeping his identity well hidden.

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Please Spread The Word And Share This Post

Author: Mac Slavo
Views: Read by 42 people
Date: September 7th, 2017
Website: www.SHTFplan.com

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Undercover In North Korea: "All Paths Lead To Catastrophe"

Authored by Jon Schwartz via The Intercept,

The most alarming aspect of North Korea’s latest nuclear test, and the larger standoff with the U.S., is how little is known about how North Korea truly functions. For 70 years it’s been sealed off from the rest of the world to a degree hard to comprehend, especially at a time when people in Buenos Aires need just one click to share cat videos shot in Kuala Lumpur. Few outsiders have had intimate contact with North Korean society, and even fewer are in a position to talk about it.

One of the extremely rare exceptions is novelist and journalist Suki Kim. Kim, who was born in South Korea and moved to the U.S. at age 13, spent much of 2011 teaching English to children of North Korea’s elite at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.

Kim had visited North Korea several times before and had written about her experiences for Harper’s Magazine and the New York Review of Books. Incredibly, however, neither Kim’s North Korean minders nor the Christian missionaries who founded and run PUST realized that she was there undercover to engage in some of history’s riskiest investigative journalism.

Although all of PUST’s staff was kept under constant surveillance, Kim kept notes and documents on hidden USB sticks and her camera’s SIM card. If her notes had been discovered, she almost certainly would have been accused of espionage and faced imprisonment in the country’s terrifying labor camps. In fact, of the three Americans currently detained in North Korea, two were teachers at PUST. Moreover, the Pentagon has in fact used a Christian NGO as a front for genuine spying on North Korea.

But Kim was never caught, and she returned to the U.S. to write her extraordinary 2014 book, “Without You, There Is No Us.” The title comes from the lyrics of an old North Korean song; the “you” is Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un’s father.

Kim’s book is particularly important for anyone who wants to understand what happens next with North Korea. Her experience made her extremely pessimistic about every aspect of the country, including the regime’s willingness to renounce its nuclear weapons program. North Korea functions, she believes, as a true cult, with all of the country’s pre-cult existence now passed out of human memory.

Most ominously, her students, all young men in their late teens or early 20s, were firmly embedded in the cult. With the Kim family autocracy now on its third generation, you’d expect the people who actually run North Korea to have abandoned whatever ideology they started with and degenerated into standard human corruption. But PUST’s enrollees, their children, did not go skiing in Gstaad on school breaks; they didn’t even appear to be able to travel anywhere within North Korea. Instead they studied the North Korea ideology of “juche,” or worked on collective farms.

Unsurprisingly, then, Kim’s students were shockingly ignorant of the outside world. They didn’t recognize pictures of the Taj Mahal or Egyptian pyramids. One had heard that everyone on earth spoke Korean because it was recognized as the world’s most superior language. Another believed that the Korean dish naengmyeon was seen as the best food on earth. And all of Kim’s pupils were soaked in a culture of lying, telling her preposterous falsehoods so often that she writes, “I could not help but think that they – my beloved students – were insane.” Nonetheless, they were still recognizably human and charmingly innocent and for their part, came to adore their teachers.

Overall, “Without You, There Is No Us” is simply excruciatingly sad. All of Korea has been the plaything of Japan, the U.S., the Soviet Union, and China, and like most Korean families, Kim has close relatives who ended up in North Korea when the country was separated and have never been seen again.

Korea is now, Kim says, irrevocably ruptured:

It occurred to me that it was all futile, the fantasy of Korean unity, the five thousand years of Korean identity, because the unified nation was broken, irreparably, in 1945 when a group of politicians drew a random line across the map, separating families who would die without ever meeting again, with all their sorrow and anger and regret unrequited, their bodies turning to earth, becoming part of this land … behind the children of the elite who were now my children for a brief time, these lovely, lying children, I saw very clearly that there was no redemption here.

The Intercept spoke recently to Kim about her time in North Korea and the insight it gives her on the current crisis.

Suki Kim’s North Korean visa.

Photo: Suki Kim

JON SCHWARZ: I found your book just overwhelmingly sorrowful. As an American, I can’t imagine being somewhere that’s been brutalized by not just one powerful country, but two or three or four. Then the government of North Korea and, to a lesser degree, the government of South Korea used that suffering to consolidate their own power. And then maybe saddest of all was to see these young men, your students, who were clearly still people, but inside a terrible system and on a path to doing terrible things to everybody else in North Korea.

SUKI KIM: Right, because there’s no other way of being in that country. We don’t have any other country like that. People so easily compare North Korea to Cuba or East Germany or even China. But none of them have been like North Korea – this amount of isolation, this amount of control. It encompasses every aspect of dictatorship-slash-cult.

What I was thinking about when I was living there is it’s almost too late to undo this. The young men I was living with had never known any other way.

The whole thing begins with the division of Korea in 1945. People think it began with the Korean War, but the Korean War only happened because of the 1945 division [of Korea by the U.S. and Soviet Union at the end of World War II]. What we’re seeing is Korea stuck in between.

JS: Essentially no Americans know what happened between 1945 and the start of the Korean War. And few Americans know what happened during the war. [Syngman Rhee, the U.S.-installed ultra right-wing South Korean dictator, massacred tens of thousands of South Koreans before North Korea invaded in 1950. Rhee’s government executed another 100,000 South Koreans in the war’s early months. Then the barbaric U.S. air war against North Korea killed perhaps one-fifth of its population.]

SK: This “mystery of North Korea” that people talk about all the time – people should be asking why Korea is divided and why there are American soldiers in South Korea. These questions are not being asked at all. Once you look at how this whole thing began, it makes some sense why North Korea uses this hatred of the United States as a tool to justify and uphold the Great Leader myth. Great Leader has always been the savior and the rescuer who was protecting them from the imperialist American attack. That story is why North Korea has built their whole foundation not only on the juche philosophy but hatred of the United States.

North Korean girls outside Kumsusan Palace where Kim il-sung is embalmed.

Photo: Suki Kim

JS: Based on your experience, how do you perceive the nuclear issue with North Korea?

SK: Nothing will change because it’s an unworkable problem. It’s very dishonest to think this can be solved. North Korea will never give up its nuclear weapons. Never.

The only way North Korea can be dealt with is if this regime is not the way it is. No agreements are ever honored because North Korea just doesn’t do that. It’s a land of lies. So why keep making agreements with someone who’s never going to honor those agreements?

And ultimately what all the countries surrounding North Korea want is a regime change. What they’re doing is pretending to have an agreement saying they do not want a regime change, but pursuing regime change anyway.

Despite it all you have to constantly do engagement efforts, throwing information in there. That’s the only option. There’s no other way North Korea will change. Nothing will ever change without the outside pouring some resources in there.

JS: What is the motivation of the people who actually call the shots in North Korea to hold onto the nuclear weapons?

SK: They don’t have anything else. There’s literally nothing else they can rely on. The fact they’re a nuclear power is the only reason anyone would be negotiating with them at this point. It’s their survival.

Regime change is what they fear. That’s what the whole country is built on.

JS: Even with a different kind of regime, it’s hard to argue that it would be rational for them to give up their nuclear weapons, after seeing what happened to Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi.

SK: This is a very simple equation. There is no reason for them to give up nuclear weapons. Nothing will make them give them up.

JS: I’ve always believed that North Korea would never engage in a nuclear first strike just out of self-preservation. But your description of your students did honestly give me pause. It made me think the risk of miscalculation on their part is higher than I realized.

SK: It was paradoxical. They could be very smart, yet could be completely deluded about everything. I don’t see why that would be different in the people who run the country. The ones that foreigners get to meet, like diplomats, are sophisticated and can talk to you on your level. But at the same time they also have this other side where they have really been raised to think differently, their reality is skewed. North Korea is the center of the universe, the rest of the world kind of doesn’t exist. They’ve been living this way for 70 years, in a complete cult.

My students did not know what the internet was, in 2011. Computer majors, from the best schools in Pyongyang. The system really is that brutal, for everyone.

JS: Even their powerful parents seemed to have very little ability to make any decisions involving their children. They couldn’t have their children come home, they couldn’t come out and visit.

SK: You would expect that exceptions were always being made [for children of elites], but that just wasn’t true. They couldn’t call home. There was no way of communicating with their parents at all. There are literally no exceptions made. There is no power or agency.

I also found it shocking that they had not been anywhere within their own country. You would think that of all these elite kids, at least some would have seen the famous mountains [of North Korea]. None of them had.

That absoluteness is why North Korea is the way it is.

JS: What would you recommend if you could create the North Korea policy for the U.S. and other countries?

SK: It’s a problem that no one has been able to solve.

It’s not a system that they can moderate. The Great Leader can’t be moderated. You can’t be a little bit less god. The Great Leader system has to break.

But it’s impossible to imagine. I find it to be a completely bleak problem. People have been deprived of any tools that they need, education, information, intellectual volition to think for themselves.

[Military] intervention is not going to work because it’s a nuclear power. I guess it has to happen in pouring information into North Korea in whatever capacity.

But then the population are abused victims of a cult ideology. Even if the Great Leader is gone, another form of dictatorship will take its place.

Every path is a catastrophe. This is why even defectors, when they flee, usually turn into devout fundamentalist Christians. I’d love to offer up solutions, but everything leads to a dead end.

One thing that gave me a small bit of hope is the fact that Kim Jong-un is more reckless than the previous leader [his father Kim Jong-il]. To get your uncle and brother killed within a few years of rising to power, that doesn’t really bode well for a guy who’s only there because of his family name. His own bloodline is the only thing keeping him in that position. You shouldn’t be killing your own family members, that’s self-sabotage.

JS: Looking at history, it seems to me that normally what you’d expect is that eventually the royal family will get too nuts, the grandson will be too crazy, and the military and whatever economic powers there are going to decide, well, we don’t need this guy anymore. So we’re going to get rid of this guy and then the military will run things. But that’s seems impossible in North Korea: You must have this family in charge, the military couldn’t say, oh by the way, the country’s now being run by some general.

SK: They already built the brand, Great Leader is the most powerful brand. That’s why the assassination of [Kim Jong-un’s older half-brother and the original heir to the Kim dynasty] Kim Jong-nam was really a stupid thing to do. Basically that assassination proved that this royal bloodline can be murdered. And that leaves room open for that possibility. Because there are other bloodline figures for them to put in his place. He’s not the only one. So to kill [Jong-nam] set the precedent that this can happen.

A North Korean woman holds a sign that reads “The Sun of the 21st Century” in honor of Kim Jong-il’s 60th birthday at Pyongyang’s Sunan International Airport.

Photo: Suki Kim

JS: One small thing I found particularly appalling was the buddy system with your students, where everyone had a buddy and spent all their time with their buddy and seemed like the closest of friends – and then your buddy was switched and you never spent time with your old buddy again.

SK: The buddy system is just to keep up the system of surveillance. It doesn’t matter that these are 19-year-old boys making friends. That’s how much humanity is not acknowledged or valued. There’s a North Korean song which compares each citizen to a bullet in this great weapon for the Great Leader. And that’s the way they live.

JS: I was also struck by your description of the degeneration of language in North Korea. [Kim writes that “Each time I visited the DPRK, I was shocked anew by their bastardization of the Korean language. Curses had taken root not only in their conversation and speeches but in their written language. They were everywhere – in poems, newspapers, in official Workers’ Party speeches, even in the lyrics of songs. … It was like finding the words fuck and shit in a presidential speech or on the front page of the New York Times.”]

SK: Yes, I think the language does reflect the society. Of course, the whole system is built around the risk of an impending war. So that violence has changed the Korean language. Plus these guys are thugs, Kim Jong-un and all the rest of them, that’s their taste and it’s become the taste of the country.

JS: Authoritarians universally seem to have terrible taste.

SK: It’s interesting to be analyzing North Korea in this period of time in America because there are a lot of similarities. Look at Trump’s nonstop tweeting about “fake news” and how great he is. That’s very familiar, that’s what North Korea does. It’s just endless propaganda. All these buildings with all these slogans shouting at you all the time, constantly talking about how the enemies are lying all the time.

Those catchy one-liners, how many words are there in a tweet? It’s very similar to those [North Korean] slogans.

This country right now, where you’re no longer able to tell what’s true or what’s a lie, starting from the top, that’s North Korea’s biggest problem. America should really look at that, there’s a lesson.

JS: Well, I felt bad after I read your book and I feel even worse now.

SK: To be honest, I wonder if tragedies have a time limit – not to fix them, but to make them less horrifying. And I feel like it’s just too late. If you wipe out humanity to this level, and have three generations of it … when you see the humanity of North Koreans is when the horror becomes that much greater. You see how humanity can be so distorted and manipulated and violated. You face the devastation of what’s truly at stake.

North Korea Claims It Has Developed Advanced Hydrogen Bomb, EMP

A day after Russian President Vladimir warned that the US and North Korea are “balancing on the verge of a large-scale conflict," North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is doing everything in his power to validate Putin’s words.

To wit, in a segment broadcasted Saturday by the Korean Central Broadcasting Network, the North’s state-run television-news network, the regime claimed that it has “succeeded in making a more developed” hydrogen bomb. In the broadcast, Kim can be seen looking on as a purported thermonuclear warhead is loaded onto an intercontinental ballistic missile, which KCNA described as having “great destructive powers." KCNA added that all hydrogen bomb components are homemade, so the North can "produce as many as it wants." The report also claimed that the North have developed a powerful electromagnetic pulse weapon.

According to the Wall Street Journal, experts fear an attack with this type of weapon could wipe out electrical networks in the U.S.

Here are more details from Dow Jones Newswires:

• North Korea Says It Has ‘Succeeded in Making a More Developed’ Nuclear Weapon


• Kim Jong Un Witnesses Hydrogen Bomb Being Loaded onto a ‘New ICBM’ —North Korea State Media


• New Hydrogen Bomb’s Explosive Power Goes Up to Hundreds of Kilotons —North Korea State Media


• North Korea Threatens ‘Super-Powerful’ EMP, or Electromagnetic Pulse, Attack


• North Korea Claims All Hydrogen Bomb Components Are ‘Homemade,’ Can Produce ‘As Many As It Wants’

Reuters explains that the hydrogen bomb"s power is adjustable to hundreds of kilotons and can be detonated at high altitudes. Kim Jong Un "set forth tasks to be fulfilled in the research into nukes," KCNA said, but it made no mention of plans for a sixth nuclear test.

As a reminder, in July, the North launched two ICBMs capable of reaching the US mainland, and after a monthlong break, Kim resumed his provocative missile tests last Friday by launching three short-range missiles into the Sea of Japan – and then on Monday, in another unprecedented provocation, the North fired an intermediate-range missile over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.

Of course, there is no way of knowing whether the warhead is authentic, though we’re sure the intelligence community’s army of analysts will promptly opine one way or the other. Here’s Reuters with a more detailed account of the broadcast…

“Kim visited the country’s Nuclear Weapons Institute and “watched an H-bomb to be loaded into new ICBM,” KCNA said. “All components of the H-bomb were homemade and all the processes ... were put on the Juche basis, thus enabling the country to produce powerful nuclear weapons as many as it wants, he said.”

Juche is North Korea’s homegrown ruling go-it-alone ideology that is a mix of Marxism and extreme nationalism preached by state founder Kim Il Sung, the current leader’s grandfather.

Kim Jong Un “set forth tasks to be fulfilled in the research into nukes,” KCNA said, but it made no mention of plans for a sixth nuclear test.”

Whether or not the claim of having an H-bomb is a fabrication, professional observers of the Kim regime warn that the report is a signal that the North Korean leader is preparing to carry out what would be the country"s sixth nuclear test. North Korea last year conducted its fourth and fifth nuclear tests, claiming that the fourth in January 2016 was a successful hydrogen bomb test, though outside observers raised doubts about this claim. The North conducted a fifth nuclear test in September 2016, which was measured to be possibly North Korea’s biggest detonation ever, but the earthquake it caused was still not believed to be big enough to demonstrate a thermonuclear test, according to Reuters.

And at least one observer who weighed in on Twitter said that the bomb appears to be authentic, which would confirm that the North is preparing for its most provocative action yet: its sixth nuclear test, which would force Trump to respond, having vowed never to allow North Korea to become a nuclear power with offensive capabilities.

Ok, hot takes on #DPRK photos of purported thermonuclear weapon. 1/ pic.twitter.com/ACG9vHuw8H

— Melissa Hanham (@mhanham) September 2, 2017

First, as with the fission weapon they showed us in March 2016, we can"t prove it"s real without an expert or a test. 2/

— Melissa Hanham (@mhanham) September 2, 2017

3D models by @nateisgood @grace_c_liu, @ArmsControlWonk thought seismic signature revealed larger explosion https://t.co/yppOlTpOVZ 4/

— Melissa Hanham (@mhanham) September 2, 2017

But maybe more like boosted than thermo nuclear... we"ve been expecting a 6 nuclear test, possibly thermonuclear for some time 5/

— Melissa Hanham (@mhanham) September 2, 2017

They"ve even dug out a whole new tunnel at Punggye-ri... 6/

— Melissa Hanham (@mhanham) September 2, 2017

Back to the photos, again, we don"t know if this thing is full of styrofoam, but yes, it is shaped like it has two devices. 7/ pic.twitter.com/Rzr7Di3qrM

— Melissa Hanham (@mhanham) September 2, 2017

It doesn"t NEED to be shaped like that on the outside, but they threw in a diagram, just so we would get the message. 8/ pic.twitter.com/z06zdeZDAB

— Melissa Hanham (@mhanham) September 2, 2017

They also showed off the physics package for good measure. 9: pic.twitter.com/iAX5X0pAbW

— Melissa Hanham (@mhanham) September 2, 2017

They also showed a nosecone, looks like HS-12 paint job, but I"ll need to look for more photos. 10/ pic.twitter.com/4E5iZegwOT

— Melissa Hanham (@mhanham) September 2, 2017

This WILL help @DaveSchmerler and me measure though. 11/

— Melissa Hanham (@mhanham) September 2, 2017

The bottom line is that they probably are going to do a thermonuclear test in the future, we won"t know if it"s this object though. /12

— Melissa Hanham (@mhanham) September 2, 2017

Meanwhile, China and Russia have repeatedly urged the US and North Korea to engage in talks – even going so far as to offer a “roadmap” to de-escalation that would ask the North to halt progress on its missile program while the US and South Korea end military exercises.  As always, we await a response from President Donald Trump, who spent Saturday visiting disaster victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. As WSJ noted, the State Department has yet to comment.

Guam Governor Calls For North Korean "Bully" To Be "Punched In The Nose"

After suddenly being thrust into the crosshairs of an international standoff between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un last week, Guam"s governor, Eddie Calvo, doesn"t seem to be all that worried.  Using a seemingly Trumpian vernacular, Calvo compared Kim Jong-Un to a playground bully who needs a simple "punch in the nose."  Per AFP:

Guam"s leader said Monday that "sometimes a bully can only be stopped with a punch in the nose", in a spirited defence of President Donald Trump"s rhetoric against North Korea which has the island in its crosshairs.

While Trump"s critics accuse him of inflaming tensions with Pyongyang, Guam governor Eddie Calvo said he was grateful the US leader was taking a strong stance against North Korean threats to his Pacific homeland.

"Everyone who grew up in the schoolyard in elementary school, we understand a bully," Calvo told AFP.

"(North Korean leader) Kim Jong-Un is a bully with some very strong weapons... a bully has to be countered very strongly."

Calvo, a Republican, said Trump was being unfairly criticized over his handling of the North Korea crisis, which escalated when Pyongyang announced plans to launch a "simultaneous strike" on Guam by mid-August.  While noting Trump"s penchant for dramatic language, Calvo pointed out that his underlying message is not that dissimilar from Obama"s. 

Trump has responded by threatening "fire and fury", warning last week that the US military was "locked and loaded" to respond to any aggression.

"President Trump is not your conventional elected leader, what he says and how he says it is a lot different from what was said by previous presidents," Calvo said.

But he pointed out previous presidents had also used strong words to warn off Pyongyang, including Barack Obama who said last year that "we could, obviously, destroy North Korea with our arsenals".

"One president (Obama) said it one way, cool and calmly with a period... the other said fire and fury with an exclamation point, but it still leads to the same message," Calvo said.

Meanwhile, Calvo rejected the mainstream media"s attempt to compare Trump to the often unpredictable North Korean dictator.

"Well there"s only one guy that has vaporised into a red mist his uncle or a general because he fell asleep in a meeting with an anti-aircraft gun, that"s Kim Jong-Un," he said.

"There"s only one guy that"s killed his brother with one of the most toxic nerve agents ever created, that"s Kim Jong-Un."

Of course, he may have point...the "punch in the nose" diplomacy worked out pretty well for Ralphie...

North Korea Issues "Emergency Standby Orders" To Civil Defense Units: Report

With markets about to close for the next 2 days, the question on every trader"s mind is: "should i carry risk over the weekend, or should I dump it all in case North Korea fires another test, or non-test, ICBM launch which may be just the provocation Trump needs to give the green light to a squadron of B-1 bombers to begin a bombing campaign." After all, Trump himself tweeted this morning that "military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!" 

While we don"t know if Kim will "find another path", late on Friday KBS World Radio, the official international broadcasting station of South Korea (which is owned by the Korean Broadcasting System), reports that according to Radio Free Asia (RFA), in a potential warning that Pyongyang may be preparing yet another imminent escalation, "North Korean authorities have dispatched emergency standby orders to the leaders of the ruling Workers’ Party committees and civil defense units."

More details:

Friday"s RFA report quotes a source in Yanggang Province as saying that the Central Military Commission of the party delivered the orders via e-mail.

The e-mail apparently arrived even before the North publicly threatened to retaliate against the U.S. “hundreds of thousands of times” over newly approved U.N. sanctions.

A separate source in the North has reportedly told RFA that the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper carrying the North’s statement was distributed by military helicopters in Jagang Province on Tuesday. The source said it was the first time military helicopters have been used to deliver the newspaper except when the paper carried new year"s messages by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

And while the report has yet to be confirmed by other news outlets, traders are furiously hitting refresh on the website of 38North.org for the daily satellite image update of North Korea"s missile launch preparedness, which has yet to hit and which could mean the difference between another sleepy, boring open on Monday and a VIX surging above 20, 30 or more depending on what "path" Kim Jong-Un picks over the next 48 hours.

Two-Thirds Of Americans Say North Korea Poses "Very Serious" Threat

It appears the mainstream media propaganda machine is working...

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s assurances this morning may have been in vain: A new poll shows that most Americans believe North Korea poses a serious threat to the US, and an even larger number fear the restive state could pull off a successful nuclear strike.  

According to a CNN poll, almost two-thirds of Americans - 62% -  say Kim Jong Un"s isolated dictatorship poses a "very serious" threat to the US, the most since CNN launched the poll back in 2000. The figure increased from 48% in March. Furthermore, 77% say they think North Korea can launch a missile that would be able to hit the US.

And those numbers may already be outdated. The poll was finished on Monday, before Trump promised to retaliate with “fire and fury and…power” – an implicit threat of a nuclear strike – if North Korean leader Kim Jong Un kept threatening the US. Kim responded by threatening to nuke the US territory of Guam. Fears intensified following reports that US intelligence agencies now believe the North possesses a nuclear warhead small enough to fit inside one of its ICBMs, echoing an assessment by the Japanese government. These newfound capabilities would enable the North to reach the US mainland, one of the Kim regime’s long-term goals.

The polling data showed that only 37% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the North Korea situation.

“Trump merited more negative than positive reviews for his handling of the situation with North Korea. Half (50%) say they disapprove of Donald Trump"s handling of it, 37% say they approve and another 13% say they aren"t sure about his handling of the issue.”

Yet in a sign that his aggressive rhetoric is resonating with the public, 50% of Americans say the US should take “military action” against the North.

“The public is split on whether the US should take military action in response to the country"s recent weapons testing and development, and partisan divisions emerge on questions about how the US should respond. Overall, 50% say they favor taking military action in response to testing of weapons that could reach the US, 43% oppose it. Three-quarters of Republicans favor a military response (74%) but that dips to 47% among independents and 34% among Democrats.”

Americans now believe the North poses a bigger threat than Iran or China.   

“With six in 10 people polled calling North Korea a very serious threat, the country is now viewed as a more serious threat than Iran (33%) or China (20%), and is about on par with the perceived threat posed by ISIS (64%). Fewer, however, said they saw the country"s military and weapons capabilities as a crisis for the United States (32% saw it that way).”

Most Americans believe that after decades of coddling the Kim regime, China should play a leading role in restraining in neighbor and beneficiary.

“Trump has frequently said that China should take a lead role in dealing with North Korea, and Americans generally agree, with 70% saying that China should take a major role in responding to the weapons testing. But just about as many, 68%, say that the US should take a major role.”

While Tillerson’s reassurances and North Korea’s decision to release a Canadian prisoner seemed the signal détente, at least for now, Trump has reveled in playing bad cop, taunting the North by taking credit for a decision to “renovate and modernize” the US’s nuclear arsenal.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports that Germany foreign ministry has warned against a “military solution” to the escalating crisis, while Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged Russia and China to intervene to stave off a nuclear confrontation.

“In comments aimed as much at Mr. Trump as Mr. Kim, the Berlin foreign ministry said that “a military solution” cannot be “the answer in the quest for a nuclear weapon-free east Asia.”

The latest series of hostilities involving the US and the North began after Kim Jong Un launched a series of ICBMS, including a test on the July 4 holiday that prompted the UN to pass new sanctions. Markets have certainly been shaken by the drama, though US stocks remain near record highs. Which begs the question: Will Americans" worries about nuclear annihilation stop them from buying the f**king dip?

 

McMaster: U.S. Preparing For "Preventive War" With North Korea

The United States is preparing for all options to counter the growing threat from North Korea, including launching a “preventive war,” national security adviser H.R. McMaster said in an interview that aired Saturday on MSNBC. The comments come after North Korea carried out two tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles in the past month and after the president said he has been clear he will not tolerate North Korea"s threats to attack the U.S. with nuclear weapons.

The key excerpts (full transcript):

H.H.: Let me switch if I can to North Korea, which is really pressing. And– and remind our audience, at the Aspen Institute ten days ago, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Joe Dunford, said, “There’s always a military– option. It would be horrific.” Lindsey Graham on Today Show earlier this week said– “We need to destroy the regime and their deterrent.” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Tuesday, I believe, to North Korea, “You are leaving us no choice but to protect ourselves.” And then the Chairman of the Chief of Staff of the Army said, “Just because every choice is a bad choice doesn’t mean you don’t have to choose.” Are we looking at a preemptive strike? Are you trying to prepare us, you being collectively, the administration and people like Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton for a first strike North Korea?

H.R.M. Well, we really, what you’re asking is– is are we preparing plans for a preventive war, right? A war that would prevent North Korea from threatening the United States with a nuclear weapon. And the president’s been very clear about it. He said, “He’s not gonna tolerate North Korea being able to threaten the United States” if they have nuclear weapons that can threaten the United States; It’s intolerable from the president’s perspective. So of course, we have to provide all options to do that. And that includes a military option.

Now, would we like to resolve it short of what would be a very costly war, in terms of– in terms of the suffering of mainly the South Korean people? The– the ability of– of that North– North Korean regime to hold the South hostage to conventional fire’s capabilities, artillery and so forth, Seoul being so close. We’re cognizant of all of that. And so what we have to do is– is everything we can to– to pressure this regime, to pressure Kim Jong-un and those around him such that they conclude, it is in their interest to denuclearize. And there are really I think three critical things, came out of the president’s very successful summit with– President Xi of China that were different– that were different from past efforts to work with China, which has always been, you know, the– the desire, right, to work with China– on the– on the North Korean problem.

How many casualties will there be:

HH: In 1994, when the first North Korean deal with signed, the people who executed it, Gallucci, Dan Poneman, Joe Wit wrote a book. And they quoted a general saying, “If there is a conflict,” called Going Critical, “there will be a million casualties.” A million casualties. Is that still a good estimate of what happens if– preemptive strike unfolds in North Korea, General?

HRM: You know, one thing about war. It’s impossible oftentimes to predict. It’s always impossible to predict the future course of events. Because war is a continuous interaction of opposites, a continuous interaction between your forces and those of the enemy. It involves not just the capability to use force, but also intentions and things that are just unknowable at the outset. And so I think it’s important to– to look at– range of estimates of what could happen, because it’s clear that at war, it’s unpredictable. And so you always have to ask the question, “What happens next? What are the risks? How do you mitigate those risks?” And– and obviously, you know, war is– is– is the most serious decision any leader has to make. And so what can we do to make sure we exhaust our possibilities and exhaust our other opportunities to accomplish this very clear objective of denuclearization of the peninsula short of war?

Should Americans be concerned:

HH: How concerned should the American people be that we are actually on the brink of a war with North Korea?

HRM: Well, I think it’s impossible to overstate the danger associated with this. Right, the, so I think it’s impossible to overstate the danger associated with a rogue, brutal regime, I mean, who murdered his own brother with nerve agent in an airport. "I mean, think about what he’s done in terms of his own brutal repression of not only members of his regime but his own family," McMaster added.

On Tuesday,  Sen. Lindsey Graham said that the president told him there would be a war with North Korea if the regime continues to try to hit America with an ICBM. Appearing on the Today Show, the South Carolina Republican Senator said that President Trump has indicated to him that the administration is prepared to strike North Korea to prevent an attack against the U.S.  Pushed on by Matt Lauer on whether a viable military option exists in the region, Graham responded: "They"re wrong.  There is a military option to destroy North Korea"s program and North Korea itself."

The Hwasong-14 ICBM seen during its test in this undated photo released by
North Korea"s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang, July 5 2017.

As reported last Friday, North Korea claimed that its latest missiles can now strike anywhere in the United States, delivering nuclear warheads. Experts have said that the country’s missile program has greatly accelerated in recent months putting it far ahead of previous predictions about when it could launch reliable long-range missiles. Speaking to Newsweek in recent days, several experts said that an attack would be the deadliest the U.S. has ever received and potentially kill more than 100,000 people if it struck in large population centers like New York City or Los Angeles.

“I’m not going to confirm [whether the latest ICBM could reach anywhere in the U.S.] but whether it could reach San Francisco or Pittsburgh or Washington, I mean how much does that matter? It’s a grave threat,” McMaster said.

He added: “It’s impossible to overstate the danger associated with a rogue, brutal regime."

McMaster cautioned that he was aware of the fact that any strike against North Korea could bring about a “very costly war” that would cause immense “suffering of mainly the South Korean people.”

Last month, CIA Director Mike Pompeo floated another option for dealing with the North Korea threat, saying that he was “hopeful we will find a way to separate that regime from this system.” North Korea responded by threatening swift and brutal consequences for any attempt to topple Kim.

“Should the U.S. dare to show even the slightest sign of an attempt to remove our supreme leadership, we will strike a merciless blow at the heart of the U.S. with our powerful nuclear hammer, honed and hardened over time,” a foreign ministry spokesman said.

Still, McMaster did not rule out such an attempt when asked whether it could be a legitimate tool. “I think it depends on the legal justifications for that. And this goes back to just war theory. And what is the nature of the risk? And does that risk justify acting in defense of your people and your vital interests?”

Last week, the local press reported that South Korea"s military is preparing a "surgical strike" scenario that could wipe out NOrth Korean command and missile and nuclear facilities following an order by S.Korea"s president Moon Jae-In.

Japanese Are Going "Hog Wild" Buying $19,000 Doomsday Shelters

North Korea’s latest ICBM test demonstrated once again that all of Japan is within striking range of the Kim Jong Un’s missiles, as it has been for a long time.

But it appears the North’s intensifying campaign of missile tests, which have increased dramatically in frequency since the beginning of the year, has convinced many wealthy Japanese that a nuclear confrontation could be imminent.

At least that’s what a surge in sales at one US-based builder of custom bunkers seems to suggest. The company, Atlas Survival Shelters, says the escalating tensions between President Donald Trump and North Korea have sparked a boom in sales, but not in the markets one might expect, according to Bloomberg.

“Business has never been better at Atlas Survival Shelters, which ships bunkers to customers around the world from its U.S. factories. Among the best sellers: the BombNado, with a starting price of $18,999.

The popularity of the company’s doomsday fortifications is no surprise, considering the state of the world in general and, specifically, Kim Jong-Un’s pursuit of a missile that can hit the continental U.S. Curiously, though, the most furious surge of interest isn’t in America but Japan, a country that’s long been within North Korea’s striking distance.

“Japan’s going hog wild right now,” said Ron Hubbard, owner of Atlas Survival. The Montebello, California-based company makes about a dozen different underground refuge models intended to be inhabitable for six months to a year, some outfitted with escape tunnels, decontamination rooms and bulletproof hatches.

While the Japanese have viewed North Korea as a menace for decades, the rogue regime’s July 4 launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile raised the level of alarm among preppers, as some people serious about emergency preparedness call themselves. Japan has its own small bunker-making sector, but the U.S., unique in its abundance of survivalist networks, is ground zero for get-ready-for-Armageddon businesses.”

Atlas isn’t the only one: Emergency shelter sales have soared since the beginning of the summer. One company, Rising S Co. of Murchison, Texas, said sales of its steel-clad products have doubled in the past three weeks, with Japanese buyers accounting for 80 percent of this demand.

“The company website lays out the many options — a decontamination area, a fitness center, a swimming pool, a gun range, a game room with pool tables, a garage for your Porsche. The Aristocrat, big enough to sleep more than 50 and delivered with a bowling alley, is listed at $8.35 million.

North Korea is behind the fresh interest, [General Manager Gary] Lynch said. ‘It’s really not a new threat, it’s just something the media and people are paying attention to.’”
Given that recent improvements in North Korea’s missile capabilities have potentially put several coastal US cities within striking distance, it’s surprising that US citizens with the means to afford it aren’t scrambling to buy shelters.

One reason for the discrepancy highlighted by Bloomberg is the tone of government rhetoric surrounding North Korea. President Donald Trump has never publicly spoken about precautions that Americans should take in the event of a strike (though this could change once the reality sinks in that NK could very well land a ballistic missile in US territory. Meanwhile, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government takes the possibility of a strike very seriously.

“The government of Shinzo Abe takes it all seriously, regularly updating its civil-protection website with tips (stay inside, keep away from windows) and airing public-interest ads on TV about what to do in event a ballistic missile is en route and the country’s early warning system successfully sounds the alert. Children are given instructions at school — basically, get under your desks.”

The announcements have bred what one resident describes as a “culture of fear.”

“’People are genuinely afraid,’ said Seiichiro Nishimoto, president of Shelter Co., an Osaka-based installer of air-conditioned nuclear shelters imported from Israel. ‘That’s why we’re getting so many calls.’”

In recent years, the market for emergency shelters has evolved to include an ultra-high-end segment that would allow buyers to comfortably ride out the apocalypse – or at least create the illusion that doing so would be possible.

Robert Vicino, founder and chief executive officer of Vivos, in Del Mar, California, described features of one of his company’s luxury shelters, which is equipped with nuclear-biological-chemical air-filtration systems, space to store enough food and toilet paper for a year, a diesel generator and an emergency exit shaft. It also has the ability to take a 500,000-pound blast without crumpling.

Vivos also sells individual and communal apocalypse “retreats” with amenities like movie theaters and “members only” restaurants and bars, which begs the question: where will they source their employees?

“Vivos (“alive” in Spanish) sells models for individual and communal use, and has built subterranean survival communities in the U.S. and Europe. The latest is xPoint, on 9,000 acres in South Dakota, with 575 off-grid dugouts and planned amenities including a community theater, hydr oponic gardens, shooting ranges and a members-only restaurant and bar. The upfront cost to lease one is $25,000. Vicino, the CEO, said about 50 have been leased or reserved so far.”

The end times is big business.