N. Korea: What Surprise? (The Nuclear Core of North Korea's Strategy)

Washington Post ^ | 03/01/05 | Nicholas Eberstadt

[TigerLikesRooster]

What Surprise?

The Nuclear Core of North Korea's Strategy

By Nicholas Eberstadt

Tuesday, March 1, 2005; Page A15

North Korea's declaration that it possesses nuclear weapons and intends to hold on to its nuclear arsenal "under any circumstances" was greeted with shock and astonishment in much of the world. In fact, the most astonishing part of this momentous development was the fact that North Korea's bold move has come as a surprise, both in Washington and abroad.

The North Korean government did not suddenly claim to join the world's nuclear weapons club on a bizarre and inexplicable whim. The announcement represented the entirely predictable culmination of decades of careful, painstaking, costly efforts and calculations. Until we appreciate the thinking that animates North Korea's quest for weapons of mass destruction, we are going to face the prospect of ever more unpleasant and expensive surprises from Pyongyang.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is a state unlike any other -- a political construct especially and particularly built for three entwined purposes: to conduct a war, to settle a historical grievance and to fulfill a grand ideological vision.

The vision is reunification of the Korean Peninsula under the "independent, socialist" rule of the DPRK -- i.e., unconditional annexation of present-day South Korea and liquidation of the Republic of Korea government.

The grievance is the failure of the famous June 1950 surprise attack on South Korea -- an assault that might well have unified Korea on Pyongyang's terms but for America's military intervention. In Pyongyang's telling, it is only America's continuing imperialistic support that has kept a rotten and unviable South Korean government alive since 1950.

[TigerLikesRooster]

No matter how large and reassuring the payoff package, the achievement of "complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization" would consign North Korea to a world measured by the metrics of peaceful international competition -- and thus to a role more in consonance with the size of its gross domestic product. No current North Korean leader is likely to regard such a proposal as a bargain.

This is really an important point to be emphasized. Many do not realize the significance to N. Koreans of vastly increased international clout they can afford with their nuclear program. It is more than just for bargaining chip. It is also for their national prestige and power equalizer, just as 10,000 ICBM's were for Soviet's.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[Carry_Okie]

Anyone who thinks Iran is any different is smoking something.

[denydenydeny]

The North Korean government did not suddenly claim to join the world's nuclear weapons club on a bizarre and inexplicable whim. The announcement represented the entirely predictable culmination of decades of careful, painstaking, costly efforts and calculations.

The Post, however, never printed anything even remotely resembling this point of view during the salad days of the Clinton administration, when Bubba and Madeleine Albright were going around taking bows for having stopped NK from going nuclear.

Only now, when the Bush administration can be obliquely blamed, are we permitted to read statements like this.

[SevenofNine]

I hoping that possibity Freedom train get to North Korea I been thinking what going on with Lebanon right now Tiger I wonder if next Freedom train make freedom stop in North KOrea if that happen
Little Kim be roany

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #4

I agree. They may say, "Stupid Bush, so far behind.":)

[Eoin]

North Korea, and more specifically, Kim Jong Il would lose any war, nuclear or conventional, with South Korea, with or without US intervention.

[Drammach]

A very insightful and straightforward article...
N. Korea is still "at war".. and intends to win..

For those unwilling to register;... here's the article on Google...

N.Korea: What Surprise?