North Korea nuclear threat

THE UN Security Council vote to impose sanctions against North Korea in response to its boasted nuclear test last week merits applause. But it should be neither long nor loud. The UN has imposed weapons and financial sanctions against North Korea's nuclear program. They include a call for countries to enforce the sanctions by inspecting cargo being shipped to and from North Korea. But there is no talk of military action to enforce the new rule and China has said it will not examine North Korean cargo. That this pusillanimous policy is seen as a sign that the UN is determined to get tough with North Korea demonstrates how little the world has come to expect from the Security Council. For, in facing the affront to the world community that is North Korea, the UN has been anything but. Of the countries in the six-nation talks over North Korean arms, three have taken the line of least resistance in dealing with Pyongyang. China does not want the North Korean regime to collapse lest it send millions of refugees fleeing across its frontier. The South Koreans, working on the understandable assumption that the North may be mad enough to unleash armageddon and attack them, are never keen on confrontation. And Russia is happy to leave it to the Americans to take the heat, while sniping from the sidelines to ensure no easy achievements for the US. In terms of trying to stop North Korea building a bomb, and a missile to carry it, the job has been mainly left to the US.

How to deal with a nuclear-armed North Korean rogue state, mad and bad both, is not easily addressed. The US understandably does not want to go it alone with a military option, given the way members of the Security Council played politics over the need to remove Saddam Hussein and are ducking and diving on how to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions. But diplomacy does not work with the North Koreans. Certainly, the long- established strategy of bribing Pyongyang with food and fuel has worked to the extent that the rogue state has not unleashed the doomsday option and attacked South Korea. To do so would mean military defeat for the North, but not before its forces flattened those large parts of the South's capital, Seoul, that are in easy artillery range from its front line. However, the North Koreans have continued to up the ante, taking all the aid on offer while continuing to try to build a bomb, and a missile to deliver it.

There is no doubting that the diplomacy of containment has failed. But rather than blame the Americans - imagine the outcry if the US went it alone in blockading North Korea's coasts or bombed its nuclear facilities - it is time to hold the Security Council to account. The very existence of the North Korean regime is an affront to everything the UN is supposed to stand for. Millions are thought to have died in the last famine and malnutrition is a way of life. The country is ruled by hereditary dictator Kim Jong-il, one part buffoon to many parts Big Brother. And its export income depends on running drugs and counterfeit currency and selling weapons. It is time for the permanent members of the Security Council to stop pussyfooting. Warships serving under UN auspices should now stop and search North Korean ships, and seize contraband. The whole world is watching for a sign that the UN can do more than talk. Especially Tehran, where another rogue regime with ambitions to build a bomb wants to learn what it can get away with.
[The Australian - October 16, 2006]


(...) a good option does exist that would terminate the Pyongyang regime without Washington laying a finger on it. The starting point should be not the problem of North Korea's nukes, but the challenge of Korea's reunification. Restoring the unity of a split country raises transforming possibilities; it can be regime change of an attractive kind.

Pyongyang, lost without nukes, has no reason to bargain away its one morsel of strength. Nor could any agreement be verified. (Unlike Libya, North Korea has 8,000 underground tunnels and caves). In the remote chance that a Pyongyang abandonment of nuclear stockpiles could be verified, North Korea would still have missiles that can deliver chemical and biological weapons to Los Angeles. Do we trust it not to do so?

There is no way to address North Korea's security concerns when Pyongyang simply wants the United States out of the way so it can grab South Korea. If all Pyongyang desires is to be secure in its Stalinist bed it would not have attacked South Korea in 1950.

Talks must switch from Pyongyang's intentions and weapons to the shape of a reunified Korea. The basis would be Pyongyang's longstanding suggestion of a Democratic Confederal Republic of Koryo and Seoul's similar idea of a Korean National Community.
[Ross Terrill - The Boston Globe - October 13, 2006]


For the time being, the United States has ruled out the military option, probably due in part to the American military's engagement in other trouble spots like Iraq and Afghanistan.
But unfortunately, the other, more acceptable option — economic sanctions — appears to have lost its efficacy. Sometimes sanctions actually strengthen the regime against which they are imposed, as their impact is felt directly by the people and leaves rulers untouched. The adversity faced by the people forces them to rally around the regime which the sanctions are supposed to weaken. Even where the sanctions are successful they take a long time to work. If the international community is seriously interested in restraining North Korea, sooner or later it will have to think of some tough measures, or else the DPRK regime could go out of control.
[Anand Kumar - The Washington Times - October 13, 2006]



The UN cannot and will not deal effectively with North Korea just like it could not and did not deal with Saddam and cannot and will not deal with Iran. China, Russia and France make that certain. If the president remains stuck in the UN, he will fail in disarming the North Korean nuclear arsenal.
By going to the UN Mr. Bush shelves his ability to use the diplomatic and military tools that are independent of it. The most effective combination of such tools is the Proliferation Security Initiative. The PSI now has nineteen member nations agreed to interdict shipments of missiles and weapons of mass destruction between and among rogues and terrorists. By Italy's cooperation, the PSI was directly responsible for Libya's surrender of its nuclear weapons program to us. Mr. Bush could call upon the Proliferation Security Initiative nations to act directly, and have the solution to the problem well begun before November 7th. Were he to do so, North Korean ships and aircraft would be searched anywhere they are found and Kim Jong-il's principal goal - to produce and sell missiles and nuclear weapons - could be thwarted.

The second tool Mr. Bush should use quickly is his most senior representative, Vice President Cheney. Mr. Cheney should be dispatched to Tokyo, Beijing and Seoul (in that order). Sending Cheney instead of Condoleeza Rice sends a much-needed message of firmness. Japan is one of the PSI members and should be embraced for taking the initiative against North Korea. The new Shinzo Abe government has announced it will ban entry of all North Korean citizens and goods into Japan as well as bar North Korean ships from its ports as sanctions for the nuclear test. (Failing to invoke the PSI and relying on the UN to specify sanctions undercuts Japan's action dramatically). Mr. Cheney should openly praise the Abe government's policies and call upon others to follow them. In Beijing, Mr. Cheney could warn China that world opinion will hold it responsible for failing to control North Korea. As one of our top China hands told me in an interview last year, China is highly sensitive to such criticism, and American representatives can have very frank - even blunt - talks with them without offending. Speaking firmly behind closed doors, Mr. Cheney can move the Chinese. And, in Seoul, Mr. Cheney should warn the South Korean government to follow Japan's example or risk losing the protection of American troops based there.
[Jed Babbin - Real Clear Politics - October 12, 2006]



Two years ago, Washington accused Pyongyang of running a secret nuclear weapons program. But how much evidence was there to back up the charge? A review of the facts shows that the Bush administration misrepresented and distorted the data--while ignoring the one real threat North Korea actually poses.
Selig S. Harrison is Director of the Asia Program and Chairman of the Task Force on U.S. Korea Policy at the Center for International Policy. He is also a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the author of Korean Endgame.
On October 4, 2002, the United States suddenly confronted North Korea with a damning accusation: that it was secretly developing a program to enrich uranium to weapons grade, in violation of the 1994 agreement that Pyongyang had signed with Washington to freeze its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Since North Korea had cheated, the Bush administration declared, the United States was no longer bound by its side of the deal. Accordingly, on November 14, 2002, the United States and its allies suspended the oil shipments they had been providing North Korea under the 1994 agreement. Pyongyang retaliated by expelling international inspectors and resuming the reprocessing of plutonium, which it had stopped under the 1994 accord (known as the Agreed Framework). The confrontation between North Korea and the United States once more reached a crisis level
Much has been written about the North Korean nuclear danger, but one crucial issue has been ignored: just how much credible evidence is there to back up Washington's uranium accusation? Although it is now widely recognized that the Bush administration misrepresented and distorted the intelligence data it used to justify the invasion of Iraq, most observers have accepted at face value the assessments the administration has used to reverse the previously established U.S. policy toward North Korea.
But what if those assessments were exaggerated and blurred the important distinction between weapons-grade uranium enrichment (which would clearly violate the 1994 Agreed Framework) and lower levels of enrichment (which were technically forbidden by the 1994 accord but are permitted by the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty [NPT] and do not produce uranium suitable for nuclear weapons)?
A review of the available evidence suggests that this is just what happened. Relying on sketchy data, the Bush administration presented a worst-case scenario as an incontrovertible truth and distorted its intelligence on North Korea (much as it did on Iraq), seriously exaggerating the danger that Pyongyang is secretly making uranium-based nuclear weapons. This failure to distinguish between civilian and military uranium-enrichment capabilities has greatly complicated what would, in any case, have been difficult negotiations to end all existing North Korean nuclear weapons programs and to prevent any future efforts through rigorous inspection. On June 24, 2004, the United States proposed a new, detailed denuclearization agreement with North Korea at six-party negotiations (including the United States, China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and North Korea) in Beijing. Before discussions could even start, however, the Bush administration insisted that North Korea first admit to the existence of the alleged uranium-enrichment facilities and specify where they are located. Pyongyang has so far refused to confirm or deny whether it has such facilities; predictably, the U.S. precondition has precluded any new talks.
[Foreign Affairs - January/February, 2005]



One unpleasant truth:

“We are present at the unraveling.” David Broder nicely summarizes Graham Allison’s argument that the non-proliferation system that kept the number of nuclear weapons states down and kept us safe for more than 40 years is mortally wounded. Progressives have –understandably – wanted to talk about saving the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty for the past few years. But now I’m afraid it’s time for bigger thinking about how the regime could be re-invented for a new century, and new balance of power, and a new set of threats.

Discussion question:

Jon Wolfsthal, an accomplished non-proliferation expert and a good buddy of mine, puts together the above factors and concludes that “The time for negotiations is over. Now it’s about containment and deterrence.” He proposes that we worry less about proliferation to terrorists and more about making sure Pyongyang understands how declared nuclear powers must behave to avoid miscalculation, etc. He makes the interesting suggestion that Washington send an envoy to Pyongyang, not to negotiate anything, but to say ok, you’re in the club now, here are the rules.

I’m not sure this is entirely right – especially if the test was a failure, it seems to me that it’s still worth seeing what it would take to freeze or roll back the program. But I give Jon credit for coming up with a first step that would communicate to Pyongyang the respect they so desperately seem to want from us and to the rest of the world the toughness that the threat of nuclear proliferation deserves.
[Heather Hurlburt- democracyarsenal.org - October 11, 2006]




Dropping sanctions, of course, is the last thing anyone has in mind right now. Japan has already implemented some new ones of its own, cutting all imports from North Korea (mushrooms, coal and shellfish) and prohibiting North Korean vessels from docking at its ports. Although the U.S. has no trade or similar ties with North Korea, it could also use its dominant role in the international banking system to tighten the squeeze on North Korean funds imposed by the financial sanctions adopted a year ago. But the appetite of others to follow suit appears to be limited.
The U.S. may also be struggling to get its way at the Security Council because of doubts over the wisdom with which the Bush Administration has handled North Korea until now. Its refusal to talk directly with the North Korean regime over the past six years is seen in Beijing and Seoul as partly responsible for the failure of the existing diplomatic process to prevent North Korea testing a nuclear weapon, and pressure for the U.S. to reverse its refusal to talk directly to Pyongyang continues. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on Wednesday reiterated the call for direct talks. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's rejection of such talks on the grounds that the U.S. alone lacks leverage with North Korea is unlikely to impress those who see offering Pyongyang security guarantees as the key to achieving its disarmament. The U.S., after all, and not China or South Korea, is the country that North Korea most views as a mortal threat.
So, while the Security Council this week will certainly punish North Korea for its nuclear provocation, the likelihood is that such punishment will be measured with a view to restarting the six-party process. The end game, as ever, remains persuading North Korea to disarm in exchange for a package of political, economic and security incentives.
[Tony Karon - TIME - October 11, 2006]



The odds that we will wake up one morning to discover that Chicago, or New York, or London have disappeared overnight have shortened considerably. We would do well to concentrate our minds on how it came to this.
Monday's apparently successful nuclear test by the North Korean regime of Kim Jong-Il does not, as claimed, mark the dawn of a new age of nuclear proliferation. The North Koreans had already boasted of having developed a nuclear weapon, and no one has ever doubted, whatever the truth of these claims, that they would in time. North Korean scientists have already been sharing their technological secrets with their Iranian counterparts, as earlier Pakistan had helped them. Nuclear proliferation is already here, and will accelerate. The current crisis is only a signpost along the road to inevitability.
Its worst effect, rather, will be to confirm what might until now not have been apparent: that we -- the world, the West, the United States -- are simply unable to come to terms with the threat that now confronts us.
The world's worst dictators, it is now clear, may acquire the world's most destructive weapons with impunity -- even as a new breed of macro-terrorists advertise themselves as potential after-market customers. Either we do not recognize this for the existential threat that it is, or we cannot summon the nerve, collectively or individually, to take the steps required to save ourselves.
[Andrew Coyne - National Post, Canada - October 11, 2006]


While newspapers around the world remain fiercely critical of North Korea over its claims that it has conducted a nuclear test, commentators are now starting to examine the options open to the international community.
One Japanese paper hints that Tokyo may have to consider developing its own nuclear deterrent in response to Pyongyang's "reckless gamble".
Overall, there is little sign of consensus, with some dailies calling for sanctions and others urging renewed diplomatic efforts.

JAPAN'S YOMIURI SHIMBUN

We must let North Korea know clearly that the nuclear test is a reckless gamble and there is no way that the international community will let it pass... Japan should not endanger its existence by failing to take a realistic response because of its emotional nuclear allergy.

JAPAN'S MAINICHI SHIMBUN

The unity of the international community is necessary to make North Korea realise that the only way left is to return to the six-party talks... What should be done swiftly is to communicate the international community's strong intention not to allow North Korea to possess nuclear weapons... We urge China and Russia to take action commensurate with their positions as permanent UN Security Council members.

JAPAN'S ASAHI SHIMBUN

What protects the safety of Japan and South Korea is their respective relationships and alliance with the United States, and based on this, they will cope with the situation diplomatically. They should cement this principle. In easing tensions, they should tread carefully so that North Korea does not make any rash moves on the strength of its nuclear weapons.

SOUTH KOREA'S DONG A-ILBO

To minimise the repercussions of the North's nuclear test on South Korea, the US must first faithfully carry out the commitments it has made for the security of Korea. South Korea also has no choice but to rely on the nuclear umbrella of the US, as it can stand up to the North armed only with conventional weapons... The time has come for the Korea-US alliance, deemed the most successful one in the past half-century, to now prove its worth.

SINGAPORE'S BERITA HARIAN

Apart from asking North Korea to return to the negotiating table, the UN needs to do something to soften the country's stance. But military action must be avoided completely. This would be seen by the regime as provocation and would probably lead to an incredibly tragic response. China and Russia need to continue to urge Kim's regime to change and open up the country.

INDONESIA'S SUARA MERDEKA

The determination of Pyongyang over the nuclear issue has stemmed from the unresolved conflict in the Korean peninsula... Now North Korea has challenged the United States to go on to have bilateral negotiations... If the US cares about Asia's security and realises that North Korea's bargaining position is now stronger, the superpower ought to be more serious in seeking a solution to the Korea conflict.

INDONESIA'S SINAR HARAPAN

It looks as though North Korea wants to make an unpleasant "gift" to many parties, particularly its neighbouring countries in East Asia... We urge the UN Security Council and the international community to take resolute measures against the regime in Pyongyang to discontinue its nuclear ambition.

GERMANY'S FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG

The huge empire [China], which has been humiliated by its small neighbour, has little choice but to take part in disciplining the North Korean dictator.

FRANCE'S LE MONDE

In a very classic way, the countries in charge of the issue have practised the policy of the "stick and the carrot". Each time the great powers issue threats, without moving into action, and North Korea pursues its quest for the bomb... The path of negotiation is blocked: the use of force impracticable. The Non-Proliferation Treaty is in its death throes.

ISRAEL'S JERUSALEM POST

UN Security Council members are considering imposing sanctions on North Korea. Though such a course should have been taken long ago to dissuade Pyongyang from developing a bomb in the first place, it is critical to take this step now to deter further belligerent actions by both remaining "axis of evil" regimes.

SAHAR BA'ASIRI IN LEBANON'S AL-NAHAR

North Korea's ally and neighbour, China, is the key to the solution. Suffice it so say that China can threaten to cut food and fuel to North Korea so that Kim Jong-il's regime stops its nuclear programme.

PAKISTAN'S ISLAM

North Korea's nuclear test is a slap in the face of the dual policies adopted by the international powers. Now the world should do away with the supremacy of a few nations in order to ensure global peace and stability.
[BBC Monitoring - 11 October 2006]


In the face of U.S. failures to stop North Korea from developing and testing a nuclear weapon, a number of Asia experts say the United States has little choice but to accept the North as a nuclear state, while continuing to pursue both negotiations and pressure on the government through U.N. sanctions.
In other words, the experts said, U.S. policymakers have to focus on containment of the North Korean threat, and they have to be prepared to sit down at the negotiating table with an enemy that has proved unreliable and mercurial, no matter how uncomfortable that might be.
For its part, the Bush administration stood its ground Tuesday, suggesting that it would not change course. President Bush had insisted that the United States would not tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a CNN interview that U.S. policy remains the same: dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear program.
But several experts said that goal now seems obsolete. They said a new approach is called for, including containment of North Korea rather than a halt to the weapons effort, or regime change.

(...)

"The idea that we won't talk to them is a truly bizarre idea," said Michael Armacost, the former U.S. ambassador to Japan in the first Bush administration and now a fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Armacost added that, while some conservatives have harshly criticized past talks with North Korea for producing no major changes in the North's behavior, the reality is that talks have at the least bought time previously, a valuable commodity in dealing with Pyongyang.
"There was no evidence that engagement failed even if it didn't get us everything we wanted," said Armacost.
Armacost stressed, like the others, the need to work closely with China, applying some economic pressure to contain the North. While Republicans and Democrats are now pointing fingers at each other for the failure of U.S. policy -- Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on Tuesday blasted the Clinton administration for its more open policy toward the North -- many experts agree that the North quite likely never had any intention of giving up its nuclear program, no matter how flexible or deft U.S. policy was.
"It now seems quite possible that this test by the North was the culmination of a long-term effort that wasn't going to be deterred by outsiders at all," said Armacost.
[James Sterngold - SFGate.com - October 11, 2006]