Perry: U.S. might use force on DPRK(unless China & SK behave)

Yomiuri Shimbun ^ | 11/05/06

[TigerLikesRooster]

Perry: U.S. might use force on DPRK

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry warned Saturday that the United States might be forced to take military action against North Korea if China and South Korea do not agree to apply "coercive action" in urging North Korea to scrap its nuclear ambitions.

At an emergency international symposium, titled "North Korean Nuclear Test and Security in East Asia," hosted by The Yomiuri Shimbun with moderator Hajime Izumi, a professor at the University of Shizuoka, Perry and three other panelists from Japan, China and South Korea expressed pessimistic views on the outcome of six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programs, which are expected to resume later this year.

Perry said if China and South Korea "did not the provide the coercion" by threatening to cut off their supply of food and oil to North Korea in the event it completed a large nuclear reactor, the United States "might take the only meaningful coercive action available to it--destroying the reactor before it could come on line."

Zhang Liangui, a professor at the Chinese Communist Party Central Party School, said the six-party talks should stick to their original purpose of achieving a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula without giving tacit consent to North Korea being a nuclear state. Zhang also said that if China stops food and oil supplies to North Korea, Pyongyang would be seriously shaken, a scenario that China does not want to see.

Former South Korean Foreign Minister Han Sung Joo said the United States should show "patience" and resolve the issue with "a balanced use of the carrot-and-stick approach."

Referring to a view that Japan should have a certain level of offense capabilities to work with the United States, former Defense Agency chief Fukushiro Nukaga said the nation "could take up for discussion plans to establish more advanced joint operation systems with the United States, including the Self-Defense Forces' possession of offense capabilities such as Tomahawk missiles."

He indicated he favored the nation exercising its right to collective self-defense. "I wonder if it is permissible that the United States would intercept a [North Korean] Rodong missile heading to Japan with an Aegis-equipped cruiser, but Japan would do nothing and not use its Aegis ships to intercept a Taepodong-2 missile launched toward the United States," he said.

(Nov. 5, 2006)

[TigerLikesRooster]

Why is Perry playing a bad cop for current U.S. admin? He worked, after all, for Clintons.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[kinoxi]

Former South Korean Foreign Minister Han Sung Joo said the United States should show "patience" and resolve the issue with "a balanced use of the carrot-and-stick approach."

That's exactly the type of 'approach' that allowed this situation to evolve in the first place.

[Uriah_lost]

More stick, less carrot this time please!

[kinoxi]

I say no carrots. Blockade them until the regime collapses if the chicoms and S Korea won't take care of what should be their responsibility.

[LibertarianInExile]

"We should pull our troops out overnight and leave the SK army in charge of their own defense. If NK starts shooting, we clobber them with nukes or whatever it takes to bring them to their knees. No sense wasting our boys over there as cannon fodder."

Concurred. It's not as if the South Koreans want to help us...unless we threaten to leave, then they're all about how we need to provide that tripwire to save their Kimmy-appeasing butts. At some point, the 386ers will get theirs for putting in this sunshine policy crap.

[snowsislander]

Referring to a view that Japan should have a certain level of offense capabilities to work with the United States, former Defense Agency chief Fukushiro Nukaga said the nation "could take up for discussion plans to establish more advanced joint operation systems with the United States, including the Self-Defense Forces' possession of offense capabilities such as Tomahawk missiles."

I hope that we are hearing the knell for Article 9.

[CutePuppy]

Carrots have been sitting on the table all this time. China is starting to see a big stick that may be used to jam these carrots where the sun doesn't shine and there is no electricity (see Rumsfeld's satellite nighttime photo of Korean Peninsula.)

[lentulusgracchus]

Why is Perry playing a bad cop for current U.S. admin? He worked, after all, for Clintons.

He was a longtime congressional Republican before that.

I can see him cooperating with the Administration to help spell things out for the North Koreans "unofficially" -- since they have been away from the six-power talks for a year.

[Smedley]

Why attack? Just put nukes in Japan and Taiwan, the two countries China least wants to have them.

[gogogodzilla]

I agree.

Clinton used the carrot approach...

...which is why we're in a this situation.

All the prior adminstrations before him relied solely on the stick. And we really didn't have a problem with North Korea prior to Clinton's carrot policy, did we?

[SevenofNine]

Who is idiot Perry?????

[monkeywrench]

All they want is to run down the clock until President Bush is gone. If lil kim wasn't such a loose cannon, they probably could.

[Enchante]

Cliton's Secretary of Defense (1994-97) after Aspin and before Cohen. He was in office during the 1994 Korea crisis and the failed "shared framework" that Jimmy Peanut helped to force upon the USA (that's right, Carter made sure that the US and UN accepted what was the optimal agreement for North Korea, with no real safeguards). Don't know what Perry said or did in 1994 about North Korea, but I recall a speech he gave in 2004 in which he sharply criticized the Bush WH for not rushing to coddle Kim Jong-Ill.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Perry

[SevenofNine]

That THE William Perry I SEE

Well sorry Billy growups are in charge at this WH

[hinckley buzzard]

The "balanced carrot and stick approach" might work but only after hitting them between the eyes with a 2 X 4 to get their attention.

[Magnum44]

My understanding was that the US HQ in SK was already being pulled out of Seoul and moved south, and that US troop deployments would also be 'repositioned' farther south to clear them from the NK artillery field of fire and short range missiles. This was to achieve a less political and militarily more advantages force posture in SK. Sec Def announced such about a year ago. I dont know how this is proceeding though.

[Magnum44]

Follow up to previous reply -

This reposition south opens up our options of unilateral action against NK with less risk to our forces in theatre, however, we still need to consider consequences to SK if we are compelled into such action. SK is after all an allie, and they would bear the brunt of a NK counter strike.