Posted on 05/09/2005 10:00:40 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Who Scares the Rest? (See Bottom Left)
By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: May 8, 2005
MAYBE North Korea really is preparing to make the ground shake, to prove that its 50-year quest to acquire a nuclear arsenal has succeeded.
Or maybe Kim Jong Il, son of the country's founder, is just playing with the rest of the world's heads.
Truths of the Second Nuclear AgeEither way, North Korea demonstrates a truth of the second nuclear age: The political power of atomic weapons no longer rests on the size of your stockpile, which was the measure during the cold war. Instead, it is linked to your ability to convince the world that you might just be crazy enough to use, or sell, whatever you've got.
For those purposes, a half-dozen weapons are as good as 5,200, the current (if shrinking) size of America's operational arsenal.
That is why, although the United States and Russia still have roughly 95 percent of the world's nuclear weapons, Washington and the world seem consumed these days by the remaining 5 percent. Though there is plenty of reason to worry that loose nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union could end up with Al Qaeda or Chechen separatists, the immensity of the cold war arsenals seems almost quaintly irrelevant today.
Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, alluded to that paradox in a suggestion he made in New York Monday at the opening of a review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. If Washington and Moscow wanted to encourage the rest of the world to disarm, he said, they should meet their own obligations under the treaty and commit "to further cuts in their arsenals, so that warheads number in the hundreds, not the thousands."
The Bush administration, which is contemplating new bunker-busting nuclear weapons, did not embrace the invitation. Nor did Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, who recently described the collapse of the Soviet Union as a geopolitical disaster.
Still, the nightmare that most worries experts these days is of nukes in the hands of those who did not learn nuclear discipline in the cold war days. Three years ago, the fear was that Pakistan and India might let their rivalry in Kashmir ignite a nuclear exchange. They have since backed down, and kept their most recent face-off to the cricket fields.
But North Korea doesn't play cricket. It negotiates by threats and escalation. So while heightened activities detected last week at a test site in the mountainous northeast may be a ruse, they may also be signs of North Korea's effort to gain more bargaining power by demonstrating that it really can set off a nuclear bomb.
A test would instantly vaporize 15 percent or so of North Korea's suspected arsenal, of course. But it might still make sense to Mr. Kim, for the increase in the political value of the weapons left in storage.
"I think it is easy to underestimate what the political effect of one weapon going off in Northeast Asia might be," said former Senator Sam Nunn, who spends much of his time trying to stem proliferation. "It would set in motion long-term concerns about other countries that want to develop nuclear weapons. It would create the impression - right or wrong - that the Koreans might be willing to use one or sell one."
These days, he said, "there is no shortage of willing buyers."
Ping!
Jimmy Carter gave Korea it's nuclear technology, but listing to the Democrats talk about this issue, you'd never know it was them that started it all.
Now, we have to find a way to clean up after them - again.
Thanks, again.
There can be no negotiation here, as you and I know. Some partisan politicians might get some short-term political gain from preaching negotiating, confidence buiding measures, etc, in the "effort of peace." But Kim is a loose cannon; and he has also butchered a large portion of his own people, amongst numerous others (largely South Korean).
While the US has heavy commitments in other places now, still we cannot allow NK to cross this line. Amongst practical, NK-focused concerns, it sets a bad precedent. The ROK better get on board quick, or get left behind.
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