BTW, do you recall what the two criteria are for the US being ready to take out NK and let it do whatever it wants to SK before going down? The pull-out of American hostages in SK plus deployment of ABM defenses in Japan? The former hit the headlines the week after I said that. Here's something on the latter.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=574&u=/nm/20030217/wl_nm/arms_japan_missile_dc_1&printer=1
Japan, US to Hold Missile-Intercept Tests
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan has decided to start joint experiments with the United States next year on shooting down ballistic missiles, a response to rising tensions over North Korea (news - web sites)'s suspected nuclear weapons program, a Japanese newspaper reported on Monday.
The Nihon Keizai Shimbun said Tokyo and Washington planned to carry out the experiments from the financial year starting in April 2004, as Pyongyang appeared likely to resume missile tests amid the crisis on the Korean Peninsula.
Japan and the United States have been jointly studying a theater missile defense (TMD) system aimed at shielding U.S. troops in Asia and its allies, but they have not yet conducted tests aimed at intercepting incoming ballistic missiles.
Tokyo began studying the technology for such a system with Washington after North Korea launched a ballistic missile that passed over Japan in August 1998, but has stopped short of moving the project to the development stage for fear of angering China. Beijing is opposed to a U.S.-led regional missile defense system out of concerns that it would be extended to include Taiwan, which it views as a renegade province.
A Japanese Defense Ministry official declined to comment on the report.
The paper said Tokyo and Washington will decide whether to move to full-scale development of the system after completing the joint experiments, to be held in Hawaii for two years.
In an interview with Reuters last week, Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Japan ought to develop a missile defense system with the United States, since it lacks the capability to defend itself from missile attacks from North Korea.
He said an unspecified number of Rodong missiles with ranges of 750 miles were already deployed in North Korea.
In 1993, North Korea upset Japan by test-firing a medium-range Rodong-1 missile into the Sea of Japan.
And in August 1998, North Korea launched a three-stage Taepodong-1 missile over Japan, demonstrating that major population areas including Tokyo were within the estimated 600 mile range of the missile.
U.S. officials said last week that Pyongyang had a three-stage Taepodong-2 missile that could reach the West Coast of the United States, but that the missile had not been tested.
A standoff over North Korea's suspected nuclear program has been simmering since October, when Washington said Pyongyang had admitted pursuing a program to enrich uranium in violation of major international treaty commitments.
Since then, North Korea has expelled U.N. nuclear inspectors, withdrawn from a treaty which aims to curb the spread of nuclear weapons and said it is ready to restart a mothballed reactor capable of producing plutonium for bombs.
I am not sure if the withdrawal of troops and the deployment of fully operational ABM can be both done in two years. I think that the current crisis won't drag that long.