Exclusive: U.S. prepares high-seas crackdown on North Korea sanctions evaders - sources

Reuters ^ | February 24, 2018 | Matt Spetalnick, Phil Stewart, David Brunnstrom

[TigerLikesRooster]

Exclusive: U.S. prepares high-seas crackdown on North Korea sanctions evaders - sources

Matt Spetalnick, Phil Stewart, David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration and key Asian allies are preparing to expand interceptions of ships suspected of violating sanctions on North Korea, a plan that could include deploying U.S. Coast Guard forces to stop and search vessels in Asia-Pacific waters, senior U.S. officials said.

Washington has been talking to regional partners, including Japan, South Korea, Australia and Singapore, about coordinating a stepped-up crackdown that would go further than ever before in an attempt to squeeze Pyongyang’s use of seagoing trade to feed its nuclear missile program, several officials told Reuters.

While suspect ships have been intercepted before, the emerging strategy would expand the scope of such operations but stop short of imposing a naval blockade on North Korea. Pyongyang has warned it would consider a blockade an act of war.

[TigerLikesRooster]

P!

[fatima]

Thanks TigerLikesRooster.

[DIRTYSECRET]

Turning up the heat, No one dies unlike the Work provocations. Trump wants to end this after 60+ years.

[DIRTYSECRET]

That’s Nork provocations.

[UCANSEE2]

Gee.... this sounds like the intelligent, adult, and right thing to do. Where did we ever get this President ?

[bitt]

p

[Mariner]

Steady escalation.

One step at a time, hoping war is not necessary.

But it is.

Norklandia will never voluntarily give up it’s nukes, nor missile development.

Never.

[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

You mean that sending a STRONGLY WORDED LETTER ALL IN CAPITALS, like the previous occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue might have done, is not the adult thing to do? </sarc>

[Bigg Red]

Maybe Trump should just take a selfie while holding a poster with a hashtag on it. He could ask Moochelle for pointers.

[HighSierra5]

This should of been done a long time ago.

[TigerLikesRooster]

This measure can be augmented with covert sabotage of their key installations. Especially those close to NK-China border. They could include more than military installations. Such as their oil refineries. They do have oil refineries close to their border. Not sure they also have one inland. They can smuggle in oil all they want, but without oil refineries they have little use. Who knows? Maybe something like this is already in progress.

[miele man]

Thanks for posting this.

I do not understand using the US Coast Guard to interdict bad actors in Asia-Pacific waters.These are not heavily armed ships and seems to be a real stretch to define such actions as defending the US coast. Has the USCG mission changed recently?

[TigerLikesRooster]

What I heard is that they do not want U.S. military to be directly involved at this stage. Military probably steps in at the next stage. I don't know the legality or precedent of this action, though.

[TigerLikesRooster]

On February 22 2018, Sen. Jim Risch made extremely alarming remarks on Sunday at the Munich Security Conference.

From Intercept ( https://theintercept.com/2018/02/21/gop-senator-says-trump-is-ready-to-start-war-with-north-korea-that-would-be-one-of-the-worst-catastrophic-events-in-history/ )

/snip

Turning to North Korea, the answer I’m going to give is really quite easy to give, although the message is pretty dire. And that is that this is a really dangerous situation that we’re facing right now on the Korea peninsula. I would argue that there is no, from a mass casualty standpoint, that there is no more dangerous place on the earth than the Korean peninsula right now.

This is all in the hands and the minds of a single person. And that of course is Kim Jong-un. What he does, what he decides to do, is going to be decisive of how this matter resolves. And it is not going to resolve well if he continues on the course that he is continuing on.

The president of the United States has said, and he is committed to, seeing that Kim Jong-un is not able to marry together a delivery system with a nuclear weapon that he can deliver to the United States. He has said that very clearly. That is, our president has said that very clearly. And anyone who doubts the president’s commitment to see that that doesn’t happen does so really at their own peril.

The consequences of that are breathtaking when you think about how this could happen. There is no “bloody nose” policy. Senator Shaheen and I drilled down with the administration on that, and nobody knows where that came from. It appeared in the national media, the administration says they’ve never used the term, they’ve never considered the strategy, there is no such thing.

And if you think about it, it absolutely makes sense. If this thing starts, it’s going to be probably one of the one of the worst catastrophic events in the history of our civilization. It is going to be very, very brief. The end of it is going to see mass casualties the likes of which the planet has never seen. It will be of biblical proportions.

Anyone who doubts that this president isn’t committed to that, I would suggest that they step back, take a breath, listen to what he has said, review the facts on the ground. This president has at his fingertips the ability to dispense what he has said he’s going to dispense, if the North Korean regime, if Kim Jong-un, that he is, uh, the president can do this quickly, and as I said, it is at his fingertips.

I respect any opinion that any of you may have regarding what’s happened, what should happen, where it’s going to go, but please, please, don’t ignore the facts that are there.

/snip

[TigerLikesRooster]

The date of the senator's comments is incorrect. The correct date is February 18, 2018.

[Ikemeister]

Entirely approriate. This is from the Coast Guard mission statement:

Defense Operations

Coast Guard forces possess the authorities, capabilities and capacity to carry out homeland security and defense operations, either under Coast Guard control or under the control of a Department of Defense Combatant Commander. The Service provides trained, equipped and mission-matched forces in support of Combatant Commanders’ initiatives as outlined in the 2008 DoD-DHS Memorandum of Agreement. Coast Guard Defense Operations include: Maritime Interception and Interdiction Operations; Military Environmental Response; Port Operations Security and Defense (including maintaining a Title 10 Reserve force and providing Aids to Navigation support for battle-space preparation); Theater Security Cooperation; Coastal Sea Control Operations (including providing DoD the only assured access in ice-covered and ice diminished waters); Rotary Wing Air Intercept Operations; Combating Terrorism Operations; and Maritime Operational Threat Response Support.

[Ikemeister]

Might mention also that the Coast Guard has 6 or 7 heavily-armed National Security Cutters (NSC). There armament isn’t much different from that of some classes of Navy DD’s. Perfect for interdiction missions.

You can also bet that there will also be ample Naval support in the area.

[Rembrandt]

Trump may have a second goal: Find out whether China breaks with the embargo or honors it. My guess is that China will supply everything that the Norks need so long as they aren’t discovered. If they are?

That’s the dilemma that Trump will have to wrestle with.

[TigerLikesRooster]

He could go back to his pet issue which he has been championing for a long time: unfair trade practices. Some trade retaliations have enough rationale in their own right. They are being held back for now, in my opinion. So if he suspects China is still uncooperative, he can go ahead with the measures.

He needs to make it clear to Xi Jingping that he can single-handedly scuttle Xi's much publicized vision of “China Dream.” The price should be kept “very high.” Again, the trick is to show that he really means what he says.