Tweet
ANALYSIS: North Korea as a Nuclear Power
Everyone:
I came across this rather interesting article while perusing the raw news wires at work the other night. Per my occasional custom, it's posted below for your reading pleasure. Check it out and contribute to this thread as you see fit afterwards.
The situation in North Korea has already altered one of my views. I have gone from being against a U.S.-based missile defense system to supporting such a "shield."
My only problem with it right now is that I think the technology is unreliable, as it's still in its infancy, and, therefore, a "shield" should only be one part of an overall defense strategy. We need to also focus on strengthening our borders, do a better job of securing airports, harbors and examining shipments coming into the United States. Yep. It's going to cost money. I guess that's life, huh?
Also, while I was aware of the ramifications involving South Korea and Japan, I was surprised to see that even Taiwan would be affected by a nuclear North Korea. Everyone knows that Taiwan is a potential flashpoint between China and the United States, and I hate to even imagine what might happen if Taiwan resumed its nuclear weapons program in response to North Korea.
As to who's responsible for this situation, I think it's mostly with North Korea. They violated the 1994 Framework Agreement. They've shunned most of the help that the outside world has offered them to offset the ravages of the drought and poor economic conditions. And what help they have accepted seems to go mostly to the elite and military.
I'd be happy to drop the whole matter if North Korea goes back to the 1994 Framework Agreement, lets in more inspectors, and accepts the help the rest of the planet has offered. But it seems they want more now than what they had then. That's blackmail, pure and simple, and caving in to them now means we — as in the planet, not just the United States — will get reamed up our arses again in a few years, when North Korea deems it to be in its best interest.
With that in mind, I frankly don't know what to do. I fear that war is inevitable, and this won't be like anything in Afghanistan or Iraq. This would be a bloody nightmare, one that would likely devastate the Koreas and Japan and maybe even bloody the Pacific seaboard of the continental United States.
Gatekeeper
I came across this rather interesting article while perusing the raw news wires at work the other night. Per my occasional custom, it's posted below for your reading pleasure. Check it out and contribute to this thread as you see fit afterwards.
By Michael Dorgan
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BEIJING — The prospect that North Korea soon may acquire an arsenal of nuclear weapons is scaring security experts around the globe.
‘‘This is a scenario nobody wants to think about,’’ said Paik Jin-hyun, a North Korea expert at Seoul National University in South Korea. ‘‘It would have far-reaching effects on regional stability.’’
Without exploding a single bomb, North Korea could destroy the delicate balance of power in Northeast Asia — where the interests of the United States, China, Japan and Russia collide — by triggering an arms race that would leave the region bristling with nuclear warheads, said Zhu Feng, a North Korea expert at Peking University in China’s capital.
‘‘The security architecture of the region would collapse overnight,’’ he warned, if a nuclear North Korea became an accepted fact.
That hasn’t yet happened, but since North Korea withdrew late last year from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and reactivated its nuclear facilities, it has moved closer each month to becoming a full-blown nuclear power.
The Bush administration insists that won’t happen. President Bush says he seeks a diplomatic solution to the mounting crisis but that all options are on the table, a clear reference to possible military action.
Experts aren’t optimistic about a new round of talks expected to take place in Beijing in coming weeks, noting that neither side seems willing to compromise. And military options are limited, because crucial targets are well hidden in tunnels under North Korea’s mountains and because strikes could provoke a massive retaliation against South Korea.
Nuclear North Korea
Gloomily, security experts throughout Northeast Asia and in Washington have begun to seriously consider the consequences of North Korea, which is believed to have one or two nuclear bombs already, formally joining the club of nuclear-armed nations. Their conclusions are bleak.
Beyond the region, a nuclear North Korea would provide nuclear wanna-bes or terrorists with inspiration — and possibly actual materials in exchange for cash — to make the whole planet a more dangerous place, according to Anthony Cordesman, a security strategist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based research center.
‘‘Every time a country formally proliferates, the example spreads around the world,’’ he said.
The epicenter of impact, however, would be Northeast Asia. Precisely how the balance of power might unravel is difficult to predict because so many nations and variables would be involved.
Japan’s options
One fear is that Japan would ‘‘quietly re-examine its nuclear option,’’ said Cordesman, which probably would provoke China into beefing up its nuclear arsenal.
Japan, which brutally occupied the Korean peninsula from 1910 until the end of World War II, is deeply resented by the regime of Kim Jong Il, the second-generation dictator of North Korea, whose father rose to power as a guerrilla fighter against the Japanese.
Japan also hosts U.S. military bases, which would make it a target in any conflict between North Korea and the United States.
South Korea’s options
South Korea, which by some accounts nearly completed development of a nuclear bomb in the 1970s, also would come under pressure to go nuclear, according to Paik.
North Korea and South Korea, separated by the world’s most heavily fortified border, technically remain at war, even though the 50th anniversary of the armistice that ended fighting in the Korean War will be celebrated Sunday. South Korea never signed the agreement.
So far, South Korea’s government has played down the nuclear threat that has grown since North Korea admitted last October that it had a uranium-enrichment program to develop bombs, in violation of a 1994 agreement with the United States.
South Korean officials generally were dismissive of North Korea’s announcement earlier this month that it had completed reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods, which experts say would provide enough plutonium for five or six bombs. They also shrugged off a recent New York Times report that said North Korea might have a second nuclear-reprocessing plant at a secret location.
South Korea’s government still hopes that its so-called sunshine policy of reconciliation with its surly neighbor will pay off eventually with a decision in Pyongyang to halt the nuclear program.
But Paik said his country’s government would have to shift its policy if efforts to shut down North Korea’s weapons programs failed and it became a bona fide nuclear power.
‘‘North Korea having nuclear weapons would change the military balance between North and South Korea and would force South Korea to respond,’’ he said.
Taiwan’s options
Taiwan also would come under pressure to go nuclear, according to Andrew Yang, the secretary general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies, a security research center in Taipei.
Yang noted that Taiwan had a secret program to develop nuclear weapons from the mid-1970s until 1988, when it was terminated under strong pressure from the United States. Pressure already is quietly mounting for tiny Taiwan to go nuclear because it can’t afford its conventional arms race with an ever-richer and more powerful China much longer, Yang said.
China regards independently governed Taiwan as a renegade province and has threatened to take the island by force if it indefinitely delays negotiations toward reunification. Any attempt by Taiwan to develop nuclear weapons could provoke an attack from China as well as a showdown between China and the United States, which might intervene to defend Taiwan from a forceful takeover.
Ripples hit United States, China, and Russia
The United States and China, both of which already have nuclear arsenals, also would feel pressured to respond to a nuclear North Korea.
The United States probably would accelerate its development of a robust missile-defense system, which could provoke a further nuclear buildup not only by China but also by Russia.
‘‘Strategic effects are never predictable,’’ Cordesman said. ‘‘This would not play out over days or months but would shape the strategic character of Asia for years.’’
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BEIJING — The prospect that North Korea soon may acquire an arsenal of nuclear weapons is scaring security experts around the globe.
‘‘This is a scenario nobody wants to think about,’’ said Paik Jin-hyun, a North Korea expert at Seoul National University in South Korea. ‘‘It would have far-reaching effects on regional stability.’’
Without exploding a single bomb, North Korea could destroy the delicate balance of power in Northeast Asia — where the interests of the United States, China, Japan and Russia collide — by triggering an arms race that would leave the region bristling with nuclear warheads, said Zhu Feng, a North Korea expert at Peking University in China’s capital.
‘‘The security architecture of the region would collapse overnight,’’ he warned, if a nuclear North Korea became an accepted fact.
That hasn’t yet happened, but since North Korea withdrew late last year from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and reactivated its nuclear facilities, it has moved closer each month to becoming a full-blown nuclear power.
The Bush administration insists that won’t happen. President Bush says he seeks a diplomatic solution to the mounting crisis but that all options are on the table, a clear reference to possible military action.
Experts aren’t optimistic about a new round of talks expected to take place in Beijing in coming weeks, noting that neither side seems willing to compromise. And military options are limited, because crucial targets are well hidden in tunnels under North Korea’s mountains and because strikes could provoke a massive retaliation against South Korea.
Nuclear North Korea
Gloomily, security experts throughout Northeast Asia and in Washington have begun to seriously consider the consequences of North Korea, which is believed to have one or two nuclear bombs already, formally joining the club of nuclear-armed nations. Their conclusions are bleak.
Beyond the region, a nuclear North Korea would provide nuclear wanna-bes or terrorists with inspiration — and possibly actual materials in exchange for cash — to make the whole planet a more dangerous place, according to Anthony Cordesman, a security strategist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based research center.
‘‘Every time a country formally proliferates, the example spreads around the world,’’ he said.
The epicenter of impact, however, would be Northeast Asia. Precisely how the balance of power might unravel is difficult to predict because so many nations and variables would be involved.
Japan’s options
One fear is that Japan would ‘‘quietly re-examine its nuclear option,’’ said Cordesman, which probably would provoke China into beefing up its nuclear arsenal.
Japan, which brutally occupied the Korean peninsula from 1910 until the end of World War II, is deeply resented by the regime of Kim Jong Il, the second-generation dictator of North Korea, whose father rose to power as a guerrilla fighter against the Japanese.
Japan also hosts U.S. military bases, which would make it a target in any conflict between North Korea and the United States.
South Korea’s options
South Korea, which by some accounts nearly completed development of a nuclear bomb in the 1970s, also would come under pressure to go nuclear, according to Paik.
North Korea and South Korea, separated by the world’s most heavily fortified border, technically remain at war, even though the 50th anniversary of the armistice that ended fighting in the Korean War will be celebrated Sunday. South Korea never signed the agreement.
So far, South Korea’s government has played down the nuclear threat that has grown since North Korea admitted last October that it had a uranium-enrichment program to develop bombs, in violation of a 1994 agreement with the United States.
South Korean officials generally were dismissive of North Korea’s announcement earlier this month that it had completed reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods, which experts say would provide enough plutonium for five or six bombs. They also shrugged off a recent New York Times report that said North Korea might have a second nuclear-reprocessing plant at a secret location.
South Korea’s government still hopes that its so-called sunshine policy of reconciliation with its surly neighbor will pay off eventually with a decision in Pyongyang to halt the nuclear program.
But Paik said his country’s government would have to shift its policy if efforts to shut down North Korea’s weapons programs failed and it became a bona fide nuclear power.
‘‘North Korea having nuclear weapons would change the military balance between North and South Korea and would force South Korea to respond,’’ he said.
Taiwan’s options
Taiwan also would come under pressure to go nuclear, according to Andrew Yang, the secretary general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies, a security research center in Taipei.
Yang noted that Taiwan had a secret program to develop nuclear weapons from the mid-1970s until 1988, when it was terminated under strong pressure from the United States. Pressure already is quietly mounting for tiny Taiwan to go nuclear because it can’t afford its conventional arms race with an ever-richer and more powerful China much longer, Yang said.
China regards independently governed Taiwan as a renegade province and has threatened to take the island by force if it indefinitely delays negotiations toward reunification. Any attempt by Taiwan to develop nuclear weapons could provoke an attack from China as well as a showdown between China and the United States, which might intervene to defend Taiwan from a forceful takeover.
Ripples hit United States, China, and Russia
The United States and China, both of which already have nuclear arsenals, also would feel pressured to respond to a nuclear North Korea.
The United States probably would accelerate its development of a robust missile-defense system, which could provoke a further nuclear buildup not only by China but also by Russia.
‘‘Strategic effects are never predictable,’’ Cordesman said. ‘‘This would not play out over days or months but would shape the strategic character of Asia for years.’’
My only problem with it right now is that I think the technology is unreliable, as it's still in its infancy, and, therefore, a "shield" should only be one part of an overall defense strategy. We need to also focus on strengthening our borders, do a better job of securing airports, harbors and examining shipments coming into the United States. Yep. It's going to cost money. I guess that's life, huh?
Also, while I was aware of the ramifications involving South Korea and Japan, I was surprised to see that even Taiwan would be affected by a nuclear North Korea. Everyone knows that Taiwan is a potential flashpoint between China and the United States, and I hate to even imagine what might happen if Taiwan resumed its nuclear weapons program in response to North Korea.
As to who's responsible for this situation, I think it's mostly with North Korea. They violated the 1994 Framework Agreement. They've shunned most of the help that the outside world has offered them to offset the ravages of the drought and poor economic conditions. And what help they have accepted seems to go mostly to the elite and military.
I'd be happy to drop the whole matter if North Korea goes back to the 1994 Framework Agreement, lets in more inspectors, and accepts the help the rest of the planet has offered. But it seems they want more now than what they had then. That's blackmail, pure and simple, and caving in to them now means we — as in the planet, not just the United States — will get reamed up our arses again in a few years, when North Korea deems it to be in its best interest.
With that in mind, I frankly don't know what to do. I fear that war is inevitable, and this won't be like anything in Afghanistan or Iraq. This would be a bloody nightmare, one that would likely devastate the Koreas and Japan and maybe even bloody the Pacific seaboard of the continental United States.
Gatekeeper
Comment