Posted on 08/06/2004 3:06:28 PM PDT by MadIvan
THE DAY that North Korea sends ships or submarines equipped with ballistic missiles into the Pacific, the United States will come within range of nuclear attack by a militaristic dictatorship headed by a ruthless and paranoid near-recluse. That moment, according to research published this week in Jane’s Defence Weekly, is imminent.
Both contenders for the White House must hope that it does not happen before the first Tuesday in November, because neither has a particularly reassuring strategy for dealing with a dramatically altered threat from this singularly awkward quarter. Ever since North Korea was first caught trying to build bombs in 1994, successive Democrat and Republican administrations have been trying to bribe North Korea into relinquishing its nuclear ambitions. They have tried differing methods, with similar lack of success. The Bush Administration has just seen its most serious, detailed aid-for-disarmament proposal to date dismissed by Pyongyang as “a sham”. John Kerry, who believes that a “more sincere” attitude would have North Korea eating out of America’s hand, brings the haplessly credulous Jimmy Carter to mind.
North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is limited — it probably has between one and eight bombs — but its missile technology is impressive. In addition to the Scuds that it sells to nasty customers from the Khyber Pass to the Mediterranean, North Korea has the 1,250-mile Taepodong 1 (flown over Japan in 1998). It could soon test the 5,000-mile Taepodong 2, which could theoretically reach the western United States. It is this missile capacity that makes its nuclear programmes so dangerous.
The two new systems it is reported to have developed resemble, with good reason, the ballistic missiles carried on Cold War-vintage Soviet R27 submarines. A land-based version with a range of 2,500 miles could reach all of East Asia and US military bases in the Pacific; the seaborne model’s range is 1,500 miles. Scant comfort though it is to nearby non-nuclear Japan, missiles launched from land are relatively easy to detect. But sea-launched missiles are another matter; in the vastness of the Pacific, they are the maritime equivalent of stealth weapons.
North Korea has several times gone through the motions of trading in its nuclear weapons programmes for substantial bribes, while clandestinely accelerating their development. Confronted with US evidence in October 2002, the regime admitted to working on uranium enrichment. That activity began in 1997, at a time when North Korea had promised the Clinton Administration to dismantle its plutonium-based programme in return for two free civilian nuclear reactors, quantities of free oil and massive economic aid.
The Bush Administration then tried “more for more”; bigger incentives, modelled on the offers made to post-nuclear Libya, but no upfront payments without a verifiable start on nuclear disarmament. It has also tried hard to unite North Korea’s neighbours, involving China, Russia and Japan, along with South Korea, in six-nation talks. Yet, embarrassingly, if North Korea succeeds in threatening the US directly with these new missile systems, it will be courtesy of technology from Russia and a middleman in Japan.
Russia’s lax supervision of surplus Soviet hardware has long been a headache. It figures prominently in the International Atomic Energy Agency register of black market traffic in nuclear and radioactive material. Pyongyang’s active quest for submarine-based missiles can be traced back to 1992, when the Russians detained scientists from Chelyabinsk, the developers of the R27, as they stepped on a plane to Pyongyang. Some of their colleagues, Jane’s reports, made the journey later.
But it was a military fire sale in 1993 that gave Pyongyang its big break. That was when Russia sold 12 R27 submarines, ostensibly as “scrap metal”, to a Japanese dealer — who then flogged them to the North Korean Navy. Some of them had been equipped to fire ballistic missiles. The missiles and firing systems had been removed, but the vessels retained their launch tubes and stabilisation systems — enough for the production of copycat seagoing ballistic missile systems.
The threat, the Pentagon insists, remains theoretical, because North Korea has no submarines capable of carrying missiles within range of the US. Yet who knows to what uses those Russian “scrap” vessels might have been put? The bottom line for most Western analysts is that, since it would be patently suicidal for North Korea to attack US forces, let alone US territory, it will not happen. Crazy this failed state may be, the logic runs, but not so crazy as to court annihilation.
Yet Pyongyang’s policy is still to “liberate” the South by force, and it has enough missiles trained on Seoul to flatten most of the South Korean capital in minutes. Kim Jong Il may believe that the US would not intervene at the risk of nuclear attack on its territory. This militarised dictatorship, presiding over a horribly malfunctioning state, could take the risk.
Kim Jong Il is an unknown quantity; so is the extent of the authority he wields. Cults of personality can deceive. The Dear Leader has the military always at his shoulder, if not wrapped round his throat. They want the money that nuclear blackmail buys; but even more, they are out to defend the warped “military first” culture that sustains their privileges.
North Korea gets away with nuclear blackmail because the alternative is “too difficult” to contemplate, and because, at bottom, it is thought to be weak enough to be bribed. The outside world’s best strategists have no other strategy for dealing with this threat except the still unthinkable: direct military attack to overwhelm the regime. Perhaps, however, not before it had loosed nuclear missiles on Japan, if not the US itself. It is irrational to rule out the irrational. This regime can survive only in the permafrost of isolation. If its elite came to fear penetration, rationality cannot be assumed.
I agree that everything about N.K. seems mostly like a really "nutty" religious cult of "personality" - doesn't make me comfortable.
Are we really sure that China isn't aleady a major Nuc player?
I do not have any inside knowledge, but I do not belive China and North Korea are really friends. I believe China encourages North Korea to the extend it gives us problems, but they would have to think long and hard about a Nuclear Exchange along their border. Radiation knows no borders.
So the Chinese must wonder if the North Koreans could take us out. Not likely. Could they hurt us so bad we would not fight back. Not likely. Could they hurt to the point the American people would demand the total destruction of North Korea and anyone we think may have helped them, bingo, we have a winner.
The Chinese are not our friends, but they seem to understand that for the moment we need to get along. North Korea in the hands of a madman is as much of a problem for them as it is to us.
I would not be surprised is we wake up some morning to find that the Chinese had invaded North Korea (but it would be reasons of their own, not necessarily to help us).
ping
My son's on one of those subs, and I can assure you, we're in good hands.
In some future history book: "The day before the DPRK showed its hand, a new Axis, which some warned about for years prior, but were snubbed by the Fukuyaman orthodoxy, was announced. The Axis encompassed a majority of the world's land area, population, and nuclear weapons. Coming on the heels of the economic crisis which was started by the suitcase nuke detonations in the USA, and the geopolitical crisis caused by Iran's invasion of Iraq, the PRC's missile barrage against Taiwan, and Russia's incursion into Lithuania, all the while, Venezuela's massing of troops at the Columbian border, the Communist coup d'etat in South Africa and subsequent closing off of the country, and the massing of the PLA in the Golden Triangle area, as implied threats, all happening simultaneously, the USA, which was no longer structured militarily to fight two, let alone four, wars simultaneously, was a bit stunned by the situation."
Thank you. That's basically what I thought.
I hope so!!!
I have no reason at all to turn on the news channels lately!!!
This would give me some incentive...Unless South Park or Simpsons is on!!!
Um....I have a question. Do you...think it could reach....Hollywood, for instance?
I'd have to agree with your assessment. The wildcard is how desperate is the government in Pyongyang? It's already a given that Kim Jong-Il is more than likely nuts, and lunatics with nukes make for a scary combination. We already know that people north of the 38th Parallel are eating grass to survive. What happens when it becomes too much for the average N. Korean? Does the government fall peacefully like the Warsaw Pact nations? Or do they lash out in panic?
My mother wants me to go teach English in South Korea. She's been on my case about it since before 9/11 went down.
In a fit of pique lately, I told her, fine, I'd go - under one condition. That she and dad bought me a broadcast-quality steadycam.
That way, if Armageddon occurs while I'm in the country, I'll have pictures (and commentary) to go with it. (Naturally assuming I'm not charred wreckage myself at this point.)
(My mother told me to stop being so facetious, which I take it was a "no".)
Heck, I didn't train as a broadcast journo for nothing... and I doubt anyone will care all that much about my political bent when all hell starts to break loose.
(I would not be surprised is we wake up some morning to find that the Chinese had invaded North Korea )
I almost wish they would.Think about it Kim would never expect an invasion from that direction and I doubt he would risk a nuclear conflict with China.Then again the chineese may decide they like Korea and not stop at the DMZ.
The leader of NK is quite crazy enough, but his generals are not. If he makes a move, they will drill him.
Is North Korea crazy enough to court annihilation?well no, probably not North Korea, but... unfortunatly their Dear Leader is, so, samey - same
But upon further reflection, why invade when it would be easier to replace the leader in North Korea.
Many Koreans have fled to China over the years, how hard would it be to send a agent back into North Korea? These are subjects for spy novels.
The only thing for certain is that North Korea can not be ignored forever, something will be done,either by US, China or someone else.
Here are 2 newsreports on the tradeoff between a "frontline
ally" of the US,Pakistan & North Korea-Pakistan would get North Korean missile tech,while their nuke tech would go to North Korea.One North Korean freighter bound for Karachi was intercepted by the Indian Coastguard in 1999 & not allowed to continue-it's a match made in heaven,solemnised ofcourse by their surrogate momma,China.
http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/jan/23pak.htm
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30329
It will take more than 1 or 10 good *** kicking-North Korea is not Iraq-it's got a small nuke arsenal-plenty of missiles(far better than the toothpicks Iraq threw at the US in 2003)-a certain bio/chemical warfare programme-a huge standing army with about 100,000 special forces(the world's largest)-a good number of whom are already in Japan & South Korea.Any war will North Korea will be really messy-far more than any other war,esp if China chooses to get involved ,even if it's passively.The only places where 1 good *** kicking finishes off an enemy the size of North Korea or China are in Tom Clancy's & Dale Brown's 3rd rate thrillers-not real life.IF all it required was 1 good *** kicking,Bush would have given it long ago.
"I almost wish they would.Think about it Kim would never expect an invasion from that direction and I doubt he would risk a nuclear conflict with China.Then again the chineese may decide they like Korea and not stop at the DMZ."
Err,would a mom try to kill the child who protects her.The real levers of power in Pyongyang are in Beijing-if China didnt back them,The North Korean regime would have collapsed long back due to internal or American backed dissent.North Korea is the buffer that helps to keep Japan(& to a lesser extent,the US & S.Korea),tied down in the region.They've been doing it for years in the subcontinent by arming Pakistan to keep India tied up.Japan & India are regarded by China as it's most potent rivals for Pan-Asian supremacy.Would seem bizzare why they would invade their own buffer,only to see Japan come out strong & play a more a pro-active role(which it does'nt now)-this scenario seems good only for a c-grade military novel.
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