Photo Fwd: [SPARK] One-man protest to denounce the 27th SPI

* Image source: Solidarity for Peace And Reunification of Korea

One-man protest to denounce the 27th SPI (Security Proliferation Initiative)
:Stop the SPI talk that infringes peace and national interest
11am, Dec. 13, 2010, In front of Ministry of National Defense

* Image source: Solidarity for Peace And Reunification of Korea

The sign reads:
One-man protest to denounce the 27th SPI (Security Proliferation Initiative):
No offensive and local warfare-readiness plan!
No ‘Extended Deterrence Committee’ that heightens the nuclear war danger!
Abolish the ‘strategic alliance 2015’ that makes [ROK into]permanent military subordination!
No ROK’s whole burden of the relocation cost for the USFK(United States Forces of Korea)!

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Related blog

Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Text Fwd: S. Korea, U.S. launch joint committee to deter N. Korea's nuclear threats

Text Fwd: S. Korea, U.S. launch joint committee to deter N. Korea's nuclear threats

* Image & caption: same as the link
'Deputy Defense Minister Chang Kwang-il (R) shakes hands with Michael Schiffer, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asia and Pacific affairs, before starting the SPI talks in Seoul on Dec. 13. (Yonhap)'


Yonhap News
S. Korea, U.S. launch joint committee to deter N. Korea's nuclear threats
2010/12/13

SEOUL, Dec. 13 (Yonhap) -- South Korea and the United States have formed a joint committee to make decisions about the alliance's nuclear policy, stepping up their commitment to deterring threats from North Korea's nuclear programs and other weapons of mass destruction, officials here said Monday.

The Extended Deterrence Policy Committee was officially set up at a meeting of the Security Policy Initiative (SPI) forum in Seoul earlier in the day between senior defense officials from the two nations, the South's defense ministry said in a statement.

"The Extended Deterrence Policy Committee was launched as the two sides signed terms of reference to systemize it," said a senior ministry official.

"Institutionalizing the committee is meaningful for the alliance because it paves the way for the two governments to draw up countermeasures against North Korea's nuclear threats and weapons of mass destruction," the official said on the condition of anonymity.

South Korea and the U.S. agreed to hold the first meeting of the committee in February or March of next year in Washington, headed by Deputy Defense Minister Chang Kwang-il and his U.S. counterpart, Michael Schiffer, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asia and Pacific security affairs.

South Korea and the U.S. agreed to form the committee at their annual defense ministers' meeting in October.

Extended deterrence means the U.S. can provide tactical and strategic nuclear weapons, conventional strike and missile defense capabilities to defend South Korea in case of an attack from North Korea. It is the first time for the U.S. to create such a committee with a non-NATO ally.

During the SPI talks, the allies also reaffirmed their commitment to respond firmly should North Korea strike the South again, after its Nov. 23 artillery on the South's border island of Yeonpyeong.

The SPI talks, the 27th of their kind, come as tensions run high on the Korean Peninsula following the North's island attack that killed four people.

The bombardment also injured 18 people and destroyed dozens of homes, marking the first attack by the North on a civilian area on the South's soil since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

South Korea and the U.S. have held SPI talks regularly since 2005 to discuss a wide range of military and defense issues. The U.S. has about 28,500 troops in South Korea to help defend its ally against North Korea.
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Related articles

Korea Times
12-13-2010
Allies set up body on extended deterrence

The Kyunghyang Sinmun
President Lee's Perception of North Korea is Highly Dangerous
Posted on : 2010-12-13

Hankyoreh
S. Korea - U.S. to organize a joint committee for extending nuclear deterrence
The committee will provide U.S. nuclear umbrella against “North Korean provocation”
Oct. 9, 2010

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Related blogs

Sunday, October 31, 2010
Text Fwd: Translation: [Cheong Wooksik] Would South Korea fall down into a ‘swamp of MD’?[on Oct. 25, 2010]
[영문 번역] MB 정부, 결국 ‘MD의 늪’으로 빠져드나?

Sunday, October 31, 2010
Text Fwd: Translation: Korean civic organizations’ joint press Interview against ROK’s joining of MD [on Oct. 25, 2010]
[영문 번역] 한국의 미사일 방어망 참여 반대, 한국 단체 공동 성명

Text Fwd: Prompt Global Strike: Pentagon Plans Series Of 5-10 Year Wars

* Text informed by StopNATO and Bruce Gagnon on June 6, 2009

Prompt Global Strike: Pentagon Plans Series Of 5-10 Year Wars

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4123641&c=AME&s=LAN
Defense News, June 4, 2009

Cartwright: U.S. Force-Sizing, Basing Strategy Need Overhaul
By JOHN T. BENNETT

-The Marine Corps general said he has concluded conventionally armed bombers are "too slow and too intrusive" for many "global strike missions."
Cartwright for several years has advocated for a "prompt global strike" weapon, which would be ultra-fast and fitted with a conventional warhead.
Congress, due largely to worries that other nations, like Russia, would be unable to quickly determine whether an in-flight warhead was nuclear, has refused to fund the program.
-The military might need a "hypersonic" weapon that would travel in the exoatmosphere to take out a limited number of fleeting targets....


Over the next few years, the U.S. military is likely to become engaged in a number of hot and cold conflicts, each spanning five to 10 years, meaning the Pentagon must "adjust" its decades-old force sizing and basing constructs, says Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

But the world has changed in major ways, meaning the two conventional war-based approach is no longer a good fit, according to defense officials. Those changes are the reason senior Pentagon officials are examining whether the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) should include a new force-planning construct, as well as a new plan for how American bases, troops and combat equipment are located around the globe.

"It is clear we are going to have conflicts whose character will not be the same" as the ones on which the Pentagon has for decades based its force planning and global basing postures, Cartwright said. "It's clear [U.S. forces] will be engaged in operations that [each] last five or 10 years - and that is fundamentally different that in the past."

Such conflicts are the "most likely" ones the U.S. military will fight in coming years, he said during an appearance at a Center for Strategic and International Studies forum. Senior Pentagon officials are mulling whether these conflicts - not conventional ones against peer militaries - should garner the majority of the military's planning focus.

Plus, he said, officials have concluded that "the level of lethality" potential U.S. foes bring to the fight is no longer tilted so excessively toward conventional threats.

For those reasons, Cartwright said, "it is my opinion … that we have to adjust the balance" between focusing resources and effort on the "most likely" and "most deadly" threats as part of the QDR process.

The QDR will examine what future threats the U.S. military will have to combat, "and how we must be postured to do those things."

Altering the force-sizing construct will affect which weapons the services buy and how the U.S. military is positioned around the world.

Cartwright said QDR study participants must look at the benefits and drawbacks of how American forces and gear are based, including: permanent, prepositioned and rotational basing.

Acquisition "Crossroads"

The vice chairman also said the U.S. military must shift from developing new and expensive weapons aimed at taking out a specific threat to focusing on how platforms fit into "the IT world."

On defense acquisition, "we're at a crossroads" that incorporates all of American society. The nation is fundamentally "an industrial society," but must adjust to a global change that "the competitive advantage is on the IT side."

The same is true for DoD, he said.

"When [the services] build a plane, you build it for a threat," Cartwright said. "You can only update it every four or five years....So the utility of that plane is limited in an IT world."

The model for where the military must go in terms of new weapon systems lies in how it has come to use unmanned aircraft.

Like with UAVs in Iraq and Afghanistan, the most important feature of future U.S. weapon systems will be their "ability to gather information to help solve problems," the vice chairman said. He also touted the ability of UAVs to take on multiple missions, depending on a commander's needs like ISR gathering today and targeting tomorrow.

Prompt Global Strike

Additionally, Cartwright said he continues to press for development of a new weapon that would allow Washington to take out a fleeting target in a manner of minutes.

The Marine Corps general said he has concluded conventionally armed bombers are "too slow and too intrusive" for many "global strike missions."

Cartwright for several years has advocated for a "prompt global strike" weapon, which would be ultra-fast and fitted with a conventional warhead.

Congress, due largely to worries that other nations, like Russia, would be unable to quickly determine whether an in-flight warhead was nuclear, has refused to fund the program.

Cartwright said even congressional skeptics of the idea realize there is a "military requirement" for such a fast weapon to take out fleeting targets.

The requirements for such a weapon are "starting to emerge," he said.

"At the low end," a PGS weapon would probably need to be launched and hit a target within "one hour," Cartwright said. "At the high end," the time frame could be as short as "300 milliseconds."

The military might need a "hypersonic" weapon that would travel in the exoatmosphere to take out a limited number of fleeting targets, he said.

Finally, Cartwright told the audience the Pentagon is examining a new concept, called "extended deterrence," something "we're trying to force into the QDR."

The idea would be to field a weapon so effective that it would dissuade enemies from carrying out a specific activity, while also "not starting a nuclear arms race" and "giving allies comfort."

The options for an "extended deterrence" capability, he said, are not limited to nuclear-armed weapons.
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