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Web Log - April, 2019

Summary

29-Apr-19 World View -- South Korea's weapons industry boosted by end of North's 'Charm Offensive'

South Korea's network of anti-missile defenses

by John J. Xenakis

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

South Korea's weapons industry boosted by end of North's 'Charm Offensive'
History of South Korea's indigenous weapons industry
Chinese fury and revenge over THAAD
South Korea's network of anti-missile defenses

Note: This article was originally published by Baillie-Gifford investment management firm on March 9. Updates since them: North Korea has tested a low-altitude cruise missile, and Kim Jong-un has met with Vladimir Putin.

South Korea's weapons industry boosted by end of North's 'Charm Offensive'

Sohae Launch Facility in North Korea, March 2, 2019

Sohae Launch Facility in North Korea, March 2, 2019

New satellite imagery shows that North Korea has begun a rapid rebuilding of the Sohae Launch Facility, used for testing long-range ballistic missiles.

The Sohae facility has been inactive since August 2018, when North Korea committed to dismantle it in order to "prove" that it was denuclearizing. North Korea demanded a reduction in sanctions in exchange, which was refused. The US agreed to temporarily end large military drills with South Korea, and has recently extended that to a permanent ban, after the Hanoi summit ended in failure. At the same time, the US demanded from North Korea a list of all nuclear and missile development sites, and a timeline to dismantle all of them, which North Korea has refused.

It's not clear if this is play-acting by the North Koreans, or whether it represents a plan to return to open testing of long-range ballistic missiles. At the very least, it appears to signal a final end to the "charm offensive" between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump, and their mutual declarations of love and devotion to one another, and a return to fear that there will be a military confrontation with North Korea.

Based on history, this fear should give a boost to the South Korean weapons industry. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), South Korea has previously responded to the belligerence of North Korea by developing weapons systems, for both domestic use for sales overseas, with the intention of becoming a major exporter.

History of South Korea's indigenous weapons industry

After being devastated by the Korean War in the 1950s, South Korea was one of the world’s largest importers of military equipment and technology for decades - mostly from the US. But slowly, starting the 1960s, South Korea has progressively developed a sophisticated indigenous arms industry, first for its own armed forces and, increasingly, for export. South Korean exports have steadily increased since the early 2000s, and now cover a range of high-technology weapons systems delivered to customers around the world.

The buildup has been rapid. South Korean arms-producing companies’ combined sales totalled US$8.4 billion in 2016, with a 20.6% rise in sales compared to 2015. According to budget plans announced in January, South Korea plans to spend over $84 billion on new military capabilities over five years.

South Korean weapons company LIG Nex1 is aggressively pursuing international weapons sales, and participated last month in the International Defence Exhibition (IDEX) 2019 opening in Abu Dhabi with a slew of its precision-guided munitions. The company's exhibit included the medium-range surface-to-air missile KM-SAM Cheongung, the short-range anti-air guided missile Shingung, the lightweight torpedo Cheongsangeo (Blue Shark), the anti-tank guided weapon Hyungung and the counter-battery radar II.

Chinese fury and revenge over THAAD

The KM-SAM Cheongung is playing a significant role in South Korea's defenses to a North Korean missile attack. North Korea has for decades been exposed to North Korea’s large and diverse arsenal of tactical and intermediate-range ballistic missiles.

The most controversial component of South Korea's growing missile defense system is the Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD), supplied by the United States military. THAAD is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles on their terminal trajectory as they plunge down to their targets.

The US has for years asked South Korea's government to permit deployment of THAAD systems in South Korea. South Korea demurred, mainly because of opposition from China, though agreed in 2014 to allow it in principle. Then, because of North Korea's aggressive schedule of nuclear and missile tests, South Korea agreed to a surprise deployment of two THAAD launchers starting in March, 2017, approved by the conservative president, Park Geun-bye. When liberal president Moon Jae-in took office in May, 2017, he rejected any further THAAD deployment. But then North Korea tested a powerful new long-range ballistic missile on July 29, 2017, and Moon had a change of heart, and approved further THAAD deployments, four more launchers in addition to the two already deployed.

Chinese officials were infuriated and became almost hysterical. Why would the Chinese object to the deployment in South Korea of an anti-missile system that would protect South Korea from North Korean missiles? Chinese media provided the answer:

"The X-band radar can snoop on Chinese and Russian territories as it can spot at least 2,000 km. Seoul claims that it will adopt the radar with a detectable range of 600-800 km, but the mode change can be made at any time in accordance with the needs of the U.S military that will operate the THAAD battery in South Korea."

In other words, the Chinese were furious because the THAAD system includes "over the horizon" radar that would provide early warning to the American military of a missile attack from China.

China expressed its fury with South Korea in more than mere words. China banned tour groups from visiting China, removed popular South Korean TV dramas from the internet. China also forced the closure of 75 South Korean Lotte stores in China, resulting in $179 million in losses to the company.

China particularly ordered the Chinese living in China and in South Korea to boycott Lotte deparment stores, owned by Lotte Group, a South Korean multinational conglomerate. China decided on this punishment because it emerged that Lotte had agreed to a land swap that would allow THAAD to be deployed on a piece of land previously owned by the company. The enraged Chinese imposed harsh economic sanctions, particularly targeting Lotte Department Stores in China and South Korea with a boycott.

A correspondent living in Seoul has wrote to me in April 2017 to describe the devastating impact of the actions by China:

"China's economic boycott of Korea over THAAD has hit the country like a ton of bricks. I went to the flagship Lotte department store today, and it was practically empty. I have friends who own their own businesses, and they tell me they are facing bankruptcy because of the loss of Chinese customers. The thing is, Koreans, by and large, hate the Chinese. This embargo is only heightening the hatred. I think this embargo has finally woken people up to the fact that China is an existential threat to Korea. ...
I can't believe how much the mood here has flipped. The word 'changed' would be inappropriate. Things are different now. I feel sick."

By November 2017, relations between China and South Korea had deteriorated substantially, and it was clear that the THAAD systems would not be removed. So China backed down. In a surprise announcement, China agreed to remove the harsh economic sanctions that it had imposed on South Korea. However, it imposed conditions, and suggested that the economic sanctions and boycotts would be reimposed if the conditions are not met.

South Korea's network of anti-missile defenses

China had one more objection to THAAD: China said that THAAD is useless because it is not designed to intercept North Korean missiles, which travel at too low an altitude for THAAD.

That's an interesting argument because it's partially true. When North Korea attacks the capital city Seoul, which is in the northern part of South Korea, it will use low-altitude missiles for that attack. However, THAAD is used as protection from ballistic missiles that North Korea will use to attack the southern part of South Korea. So what will protect Seoul?

This brings us back to the the KM-SAM Cheongung medium-range surface-to-air missile system and its new PIP missile interceptor, manufactured by LIG Nex1 and other South Korean firms.

THAAD and KM-SAM work together to create an anti-missile defense network. While THAAD defends against high-altitude ballistic missiles, KM-SAM can defend against low-altitude aircraft and missile attacks. The American-made Patriot anti-missile systems also provide a tactical layer of defense.

Late last year, LIG Nex1 signed a 499 billion won ($450 million) mass production contract with the South Korean government to produce KM-SAM systems. Other companies, including Hanhwa System, Hanhwa Defense, Hyundai and Kia, will participate in the mass production. According to LIG Nex1, KM-SAM is attracting high interest in overseas market due to its excellent operational performance, and it is expected to be exported on a large scale in the future.

However, the KM-SAM has plenty of competition. Last month, the Colombian Air Force selected Israel's Barak-8 system over South Korea's KM-SAM and other similar systems from Canada, Spain, the United States and France. Yonhap (15-Feb-2019) and NK News (11-Jan-2019) and National Interest (24-Feb-2019) and Army Recognition (13-Sep-2018) and AFP (20-Jul-2018) and Jerusalem Post (20-Feb-2019)

Related Articles:

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 29-Apr-19 World View -- South Korea's weapons industry boosted by end of North's 'Charm Offensive' thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (29-Apr-2019) Permanent Link
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25-Apr-19 World View -- ISIS claims credit for Sri Lanka Easter Sunday bombing

Sri Lankans fear a return to the civil war

by John J. Xenakis

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Sri Lanka bombing said to be worst since 9/11
ISIS claims credit for Sri Lanka Easter Sunday bombing
Chaos in the Sri Lanka government
Sri Lankans fear a return to the civil war
Sri Lanka's Generational Recover Era

Sri Lanka bombing said to be worst since 9/11

One of the blasts tore through St. Sebastian's Church in Negombo, north of Colombo, Sri Lanka. (Getty)

One of the blasts tore through St. Sebastian's Church in Negombo, north of Colombo, Sri Lanka. (Getty)

The death toll has risen above 350, and over 500 injured, in the Easter Sunday bombing of churches and hotels in Colombo, the capital city, and other cities in Sri Lanka. The church bombings took place in the middle of Easter Sunday services, to maximize carnage. Some analysts are saying that this is the worst terror attack since the attack on 9/11/2001.

So far, police have arrested 30 people in conjunction with the attacks.

The investigation has concluded that the perpetrators were National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ), a little-known jihadist terror group operating in South Asia. NJT has not claimed credit for the attack. In fact, no one claimed responsibility for the attack until ISIS did so through its public relations agency Amaq. NJT has been in existence since 2014, but hasn't previously done much more than vandalize Buddhist statues.

According to the police, the suicide bombers are well-educated, from middle or upper-middle class well-to-do families, and hold college degrees from the United Kingdom and Australia.

That's why this is so puzzling to analysts. It's a huge leap to go from vandalizing Buddhist statues to Sunday's extremely sophisticated attack, six coordinated suicide attacks in cities across the country, with multiple attacks, multiple attack sites, multiple cities, multiple churches, two hotels and a banquet facility, all coordinated, using bombs that are fairly sophisticated.

A claim by ISIS is always suspect, since they've often taken credit for terror attacks they had nothing to do with. However in this case, the complexity of the attack combined with Christian and tourist targets that are more ISIS-like targets supports the view that ISIS was involved before the attack. Speculation now is that ISIS sent out some operatives to recruit and train NTJ, perhaps in the role of terrorist consultants.

Another questions is the massive number of weapons that were involved, including caches of more weapons that were discovered by the police after the attack. The question of how so many weapons could be smuggled into the country was answered by one analyst who pointed out that the country is still awash with weapons from the Sri Lanka civil war that ended in 2009.

Sri Lanka is a mainly Buddhist and Hindu country, but there is a small minority of Muslims. Muslims make up 9.7% of the population, Roman Catholics make up 6.1%, Hindu 12.6%, and Buddhists make up 70.2%. The NTJ is thought to have grown out of that small group of Muslims, and were recruited by ISIS to plan Sunday's attack.

ISIS claims credit for Sri Lanka Easter Sunday bombing

ISIS has suffered major setbacks in Syria and Iraq, and has lost its caliphate and all the land that it controlled. However, ISIS is not eliminated, just like al-Qaeda. Both ISIS and al-Qaeda are like terrorist fundamentalist religion sects; just because you kill some of them, there are more to take its place. ISIS is the "younger" of the two terrorist groups, so they appeal to different generations, depending on the country.

So ISIS has to adopt a different game plan, and that game plan is to launch terror attacks in other countries. Thus, we can expect to see more attacks like the one in Sri Lanka.

Why was Sri Lanka chosen? It has a small Muslim community, about 10% of the population, with no history of terror attacks, so it might have been easy for ISIS operatives to find a couple of dozen disaffected young people who could be radicalized and trained to carry out this attack.

One surprising aspect is that no Buddhist targets were chosen for the terror attack. These undoubtedly would have been the choice of an indigenous terror group like NTJ, but once they had pledged allegiance to ISIS, they would have been committed to the ISIS objectives. ISIS would not be interested in a Buddhist target, since they want to attack Western targets, and that leads to the selection of hotels and Catholic Churches.

There has been speculation that the attack on Catholic churches may have been in retaliation for a recent high profile attack on a Muslim mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. The motivation for making this connection appears to be a purely political attempt to blame the Sri Lankan bombing on so-called "white supremacists." However, the planning for the Sri Lanka attack must have begun months earlier. So the most influence that the New Zealand attack could have had is, perhaps, a last minute decision to attack an extra church.

Chaos in the Sri Lanka government

A major scandal is brewing because US and Indian intelligence agencies had warned Sri Lanka intelligence agencies on April 4 that there was reason to believe that a terror attack would occur around Easter. The information was distributed on April 9 to some ministries, but apparently not any farther.

So after the attack on April 21, the prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe complained loudly on Monday that he had never received the warning, and if he had, the attacks could have been prevented. Wickremesinghe blamed the president for keeping it from him.

The president, Maithripala Sirisena, did not immediately respond, but finally on Tuesday said that he hadn't received the warning either. However, many people believe that Sirisena did received the warning but took no action.

In October of last year, Sirisena, who is pro-China, tried to fire Wickremesinghe, who is pro-India, over a dispute over whether China or India should be awarded a port infrastructure project.

Sirisena had wanted to replace the fired prime minister with a prime minister of his choice, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is also pro-Chinese.

Rajapaksa was the president of Sri Lanka before Sirisena. When Rajapaksa was president, he signed the agreement with China to build the Hambantota seaport. This was China's first major "debt trap" deal, putting Sri Lanka into so much debt that it had to hand control of the seaport over to China. Today, Sri Lanka is still in so much debt that it will never be paid back. Furthermore, China not only has control of the Hambantota seaport, but it also has control of a large enclave of Chinese workers and their families who are employees of the seaport. The seaport project has been a disaster for Sri Lanka, and it's not hard to see why Rajapaksa is unpopular.

Now that the Easter Sunday attack has occurred, Sri Lanka is returning to a full-scale chaotic constitutional crisis. On Wednesday, Sirisena on Wednesday fired the chief of police and defense secretary. However, the general public are furious that government officials received intelligence information from India and the US weeks ago, and didn't act on it. Many are blaming it on the bitter dispute between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe.

Sri Lankans fear a return to the civil war

Sri Lankans had hoped and assumed that this level of violence was over, once and for all, once the Sri Lankan civil war ended in May, 2009. As a result, people became complacent, and security was lax.

For 30 years, from the 1970s to May 2009, Sri Lanka's entire society has been dominated by the Sri Lankan civil war between the ethnic majority (Buddhist) Sinhalese and a separatist faction, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or Tamil Tigers, consisting of an army of thousands from the ethnic minority (Hindu) Tamils.

It's worthwhile reviewing how it ended, because that's highly relevant today. As I was developing generational theory, I followed the Sri Lanka civil war closely, and wrote a number of articles about it, since it was one of only two generational crisis wars going on at the time (the other being in Darfur).

There had been low-level violence between the Tamils and Sinhalese since the 1970s, with periods of violence separated by numerous peace agreements and ceasefires. In 2006, the tempo of violence increased sharply, and it seemed clear that there would be no more peace treaties, although there was officially a moribund ceasefire in effect that had been negotiated by the Norwegians in 2002.

In January 2008, a series of terror attacks by the LTTE caused the Sri Lankan army to issue a statement saying that the ceasefire agreement would be thrown out completely, and that the army would destroy the LTTE by the end of the year. From the point of view of generational theory, this was a signal that the war was taking a major turn. Patience was running out, the value of a human life was diminishing, and nothing mattered any more except winning. This was the point where the civil war turned into a generational crisis war.

During the next year, both sides committed acts that have been described as war crimes. In brief, the Tamil Tiger terrorists embedded themselves into civilian neighborhoods so that any bombs targeting Tamil Tigers would also kill civilians, and the Sinhalese army bombed the Tamil Tiger locations, even though it meant bombing civilians. This is a classic example of the moral degeneracy that occurs on both side of a generational crisis war as it approaches its climax, and the need to win takes precedence over everything else, particularly the lives of civilians.

In the spring of 2009, it was clear that Sri Lanka was approaching the climax of the generational crisis war. And this is where all the reporters, politicians and analysts got their analyses completely wrong. Everyone that I read was saying that one battle was nearing an end, but that it had been going on since the 1970s, and would continue far into the future. I even wrote a message to Stratfor and told them that their analysis was wrong, and that the war would end completely. Of course they ignored it. Stratfor charges big bucks for their newsletter, but like other analysts they were completely wrong, and just followed the herd and wrote what everyone else was writing, and got it wrong like all the others did.

When a generational crisis war ends, it does not then go on afterwards in another battle. When Berlin was captured, the Nazis didn't continue the war in some other country. When Japan was bombed, the Japanese didn't continue the war on another Pacific island.

A crisis war ends with what I can an "explosive climax," referring to the genocidal acts and atrocities that both sides commit out of desperation to end the war. Once the war concludes, each side is exhausted and traumatized -- not just because of the atrocities the other side had committed, but because of their own atrocities.

And that's what happened in Sri Lanka. The BBC, Stratfor, the AP were all predicting that war would continue, and they were all wrong. The war ended and there was no more fighting as the Generational Dynamics analysis correctly predicted.

Sri Lanka's Generational Recover Era

A similar error is being made today by analysts and journalists analyzing Sri Lanka's society today. They all assume that Sri Lanka society is like the society in India, in America, in Europe, or someplace similar.

To understand the mood of Sri Lanka's society today, you have to compare it to, for example, America in the 1950s, in a generational Recovery era following WW II. That was the time when the Silent Generation were taking charge. They had been so traumatized by the Great Depression and WW II, that Time Magazine called them the Silent Generation because they just did their job and never complained.

Sri Lanka's society today is like that, in a generational Recovery era following the crisis civil war. Everyone -- the Sinhalese, the Tamils, the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Muslims -- everyone is still in a state of shock, traumatized by the atrocities that had been committed during the civil war, just doing their jobs, not complaining.

There are small groups of exceptions. There's Bodu Bala Sena (BBS - Forces of Buddhist Power), a terror group led by Buddhist monk Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara, formed in 2012 to purify Sri Lanka for the Buddhists by exterminating the Christians, Hindus and Muslims. Gnanasara was jailed last year for terrorist acts.

Another group is the one in focus today: The National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ, National Monotheism Organisation), a formerly obscure Islamist group formed in 2014, with a reputation for vandalizing Buddhist statues. The Muslims were perhaps a little less traumatized than the Buddhists and Hindus who committed all the atrocities during the civil war, but they were still deeply affected.

The main difference for NTJ, apparently, is that a disaffected group vandalizing Buddhist statues were radicalized by ISIS operatives to accept training, and to turn their targets away from Buddhists towards Christians and western tourists.

Generational theory provides a description of Sri Lanka's society in the years to come, and unfortunately the news is not good. When the war ended in May 2009, the Sinhalese, Tamils, Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and Muslims were all traumatized, and became like the "Silent Generation," just doing their jobs without complaining. But as a new generation of kids grows up after the war, they do not share those traumatized attitudes, and they're going to be looking for revenge for real or imagined atrocities. That means that the frequency of terror attacks by Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims is going to increase, as the new generational cycle proceeds. Sydney Morning Herald and News First (Sri Lanka) and Sunday Times (Sri Lanka) and AP and Sky News (Australia) and Al-Jazeera

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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 25-Apr-19 World View -- ISIS claims credit for Sri Lanka Easter Sunday bombing thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (25-Apr-2019) Permanent Link
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