Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — The looming 70th anniversary of the Japanese surrender and Korea’s ”liberation” reminds us of the dangers of new wars in a region where peace may be a fleeting phenomenon. North Korea, writhing under the humiliation of the failure of “Great Leader” Kim Il-Sung’s invasion of the […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com The temptation to slash defense spending is overwhelming. Why worry about huge standing forces overseas when they’re not deployed much except on military exercises and war games that are repetitious and boring? Easy to say, but the U.S. had only 500 advisers in South Korea when the North […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com MANILA ― War clouds hang over the South China Sea. The question is whether they’ll burst into a storm or simply cast a menacing shadow and eventually blow away. The outlook for clear weather does not appear bright while the Philippines works on reopening Subic Bay for defense […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — Cyber espionage is the cutting edge of modern warfare. Think of all the great stuff intelligence agents learn from monitoring the conversations of just about everyone. The only problem is how to separate the meaningless, which means almost everything, from the inside clues that really count. […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com The Greeks made a deal to reform their free-spending ways and stay in the European Union, while the Iranians agreed to restrain their nuclear ambitions and crawl out from under onerous sanctions. Can anyone imagine two such crucial agreements in the space of two days? After all those […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com Fights between reporters and editors are classic. Reporters don’t trust editors, and editors don’t trust reporters. That little observation is by way of commenting on what has to be about the worst reporter-editor rift in the history of journalism. That’s the betrayal of the Canadian correspondent who parachuted […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com For several hours on June 29, 2002, images of warships in the West or Yellow Sea filled television screens in Korea. I was in Seoul watching avidly as reports of a raging battle dominated the news even as South Korea’s beloved Red Devils were about to play Turkey […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com It’s a time for anniversaries and memories of the tragedies that have afflicted Northeast Asia over the past century. On Tuesday, the Japanese remembered the horror of the single worst battle in Asian history, the three-month struggle for Okinawa. The battle ended with the final defeat of the […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com You have to wonder what Kim Jong-Un is eating these days. Every time his picture appears visiting a military unit or a factory or an agricultural cooperative, he seems to have gained a kilogram or two. What’s he feasting on? What’s his favorite late-night snack? Is he a […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com AIDS, SARS, MERS ― the four-letter acronyms leap from the headlines like killers in a horror movie each time the latest deadly disease spreads shock and awe among people to whom the inability to find cures seems unimaginable. It was just a century or so ago when the […]