Steven Den Beste has put up a very interesting and, as usual, insightful article on the Korean situation, the latest in a series.
However, some of the article belies on an incomplete understanding of nuclear weapons and their effects.
Thus the following:
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North Korea has apparently agreed to six-way talks, a result the US has been trying for months to achieve.
Now comes the fun…
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The Washington Times reports that the U.S. may enter into a non-aggression pact with North Korea.
This could be a good thing, under just the right circumstances, if it ends this extremely dangerous crisis.
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A former UN weapons inspector doubts the North Korean claim to have reprocessed all of its fuel rods. The claim, if true, would mean that the North Koreans would have enough Plutonium for 5 or 6 more nuclear weapons.
However, the inspector also said:
“It could be done [ALREADY] if [the North Koreans] used shortcuts and wanted to risk [nuclear] contamination.”
Thus his doubts are based on the North Korean’s desire to avoid contamination. This is hardly reassuring! This is the government which just starved millions of its peasants, mostly because it felt it didn’t need them! They are not likely to be worried about nuclear contamination, and maybe hazards to their workers.
His confidence would appear to be misplaced.
Yikes!
Former Clinton defense secretary William Perry warned today that the nuclear program in North Korea “poses an iminent danger of nuclear weapons being in American cities.” Perry is considered an expert on Korean military issues.
And Perry is certainly right. The North Koreans could fabricate nukes and sell them to terrorists, who could relatively easily smuggle them into US cities and detonate them.
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Pity the North Koreans. They just keep making horrible threats which are routinely ignored. Today they threatened to withdraw from the 1953 armistice, or put another way, to restart the Korean War.
Yawn.
Oh, and they warned that they will take “merciless retaliatory measures” in response to any economic blockade.
Yawn.
They don’t seem to realize that they have already taken the only action short of war that will bring a response: restarting their nuclear program. By comparison, their gum flapping is irrelevant.
Surely by now they know that military action on their part will result in the total destruction of their vicious regime, but the psychosis of the government may be too deep to properly appreciate this fact.
Their only hope is to achieve a credible nuclear threat before they are stopped. Then they can put teeth into their blackmail threats, scaring at least the fickle South into paying tribute, but probably causing Japan to immediately go nuclear and invest in antimissile systems (guess who has a huge stockpile of plutonium, and a reprocessing plant… hint… they speak Japanese).
For the NorKs to achieve a credible threat, they need deliverable weapons, meaning ones which can be placed on missile warheads. So far, there is no reason to believe they have them, although they have started testing the explosive assemblies needed to make them. Furthermore, to deter the United States they have to be able to threaten US cities with them, which also requires longer range missiles than they have demonstrated.
The world needs to stop this most rogue of all rogue regimes before it achieves any more progress. Right now, we hold the deterrent: if the NorKs misbehave as a result of actions we take to denuclearize them, they will be destroyed.
Bombing their reactor would stop their creation of plutonium. Bombing the plutonium reprocessing sites would make much more difficult their current harvesting of already existing plutonium… except that they may have hidden one or more of those facilities underground.
Over the Clinton decade the Norks built a number of very large underground facilities - and we apparently don’t know whether there are reprocessing sites in them, although its a good bet. After all, its unlikely they are hiding huge stocks of food there! This just means that we have to destroy all entrances to those facilities while we are at it… perhaps a few hours after hitting the reactors, giving the leaders time to get underground first!
In accordance with the old Chinese proverb, we are living in “interesting times.”
Today, George Bush issued the following warning to North Korea and specifically Kim Jong-Il:
“Right Now I am speaking directly to Kim Jong Il and his regime.
We are not going to respond to your threats, but you should now listen very closely to ours.
You will no longer be allowed to make, own or sell nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, or biological weapons. You will not be allowed to make, own or sell ballistic missiles. You will not be allowed to trade with terrorists.
You will immediately dismantle your weapons of mass destruction programs. You will vow to never develop these weapons again. You will immediately open your entire country to US and coalition inspectors and their military escorts.
If you do not immedately comply with these demands, we will destroy your weapons capability, and totally blockade your country. We will insert troops in the northern part of your country to enforce the blockade on your land borders.
Do not resist!
If you attack any country, including South Korea or Japan, or provide any weapons to terrorists, we will destroy you and your regime. We will kill you, Kim Jong-il, and your cronies, and there will be no escape. We will erase you from history. We will use whatever weapons are appropriate. Pyong-yang will cease to exist, and all traces of it will be eliminated. All statues, monuments and paintings related to the regime will be destroyed. We will ban the teaching of Juche and remove the concept from history.
We will tolerate no resistance and take no prisoners.
We will not ask permission from the UN. We will not delay. We will not hesitate.
We are not doing this to free your brutally oppressed people, although that may be the result. We are not doing this for world peace, although peace will be improved. We are not doing this to spread democracy, although democracy may flower. We are not doing this to re-unite Korea, although it may be re-united. We are not doing this for money. We are not doing this to gain territory.
We do this for one reason: Never Again!”
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Okay… George Bush hasn’t said this. I hope he does! North Korea represents an enormous threat to the United States, and is setting the example for other rogue regimes like Iran. It must be defanged.
After the battle of Iraq, the Norks should understand that our president makes good on his threats. North Korea will only give up its dangerous path if the leadership fully understands that terrible and unacceptable consequences will attend any misbehavior on its part. Even that may not be enough, but it would be immoral for us not to disarm or replace that psychotic regime.
The critics who disingenuously argued for the US to ignore Iraq in favor of other threats like North Korea should have anticipated (as did the Administration) the impact of success in Iraq: ripple effects through rogue nations. It has already started.
The Chinese have finally begun to pressure North Korea. They have turned off the oil pipeline for three days recently. The Chinese are acting on their concerns that a nuclear armed North Korea could “destabilize” the region (meaning South Korea, Japan and possibly Taiwan becoming nuclear powers). They are also realizing, based on US determination and military power shown in Iraq, that if the US attacks North Korea, China will soon have a tiger on its border.
From this article:
Chinese officials may now be looking hopefully at the Iraq war - despite their official calls for it to end - to buttress their case with Pyongyang.
“When the administration started this war in Iraq, they sent a message to countries who have or have had conflicts with the U.S., a clear message: The U.S. is not a paper tiger, it’s a real tiger. And also that as a major power, the U.S.’s voice and principles should be listened to closely,” said Zhang Liankui, a Central Party School professor. “If the U.S. quickly finishes this war successfully, the North Koreans will be more cautious in the future.”
If the war goes smoothly, analysts say, North Korea may show greater willingness to talk with the United States alongside other countries, as Washington wants. But if the war goes badly, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il may feel he has the upper hand with the Bush administration, since waging a war on the peninsula would be far more difficult for the United States than a conflict in Iraq.
“The North Koreans are highly interested in how this war is going to end,” Zhang said.
The interception of the US RC-135 electronic surveillance plane last week was an attempt to force the plane down and capture the aircrew. This means that four armed fighters intercepted the aircraft and ordered the pilot to land.
The brave pilot and crew, an the face of those interceptors, chose instead to call their bluff and depart the area. They could easily have been shot down and they knew it. The North Koreans have previously shot down US electronic surveillance aircraft, killing the crew.
This crew’s bravery saved the US from a major crisis just as we were going to war in a different theater. They are the first heroes of the new Korean War.
Charles Krauthammer agrees with my assertion that North Korea may take advantage of the Battle of Iraq to attack the South.
He is calling for temporary appeasement until we free up our forces, which may not be a bad idea if it works.
However, I have two areas of doubt regarding his reasoning:
Notice that while the focus has been on Iraq, the US has moved a significant force of heavy bombers to Guam, only three hours flight time from North Korea. There are also embarked Marines and the Nimitz battle group that recently left San Diego. These forces may very well stage near Korea rather than proceeding to the Persian Gulf. Finally, South Korea has substantial well equipped and well trained forces of their own.
If the North truly understands the military balance, they may choose blackmail rather than direct invasion. They have weapons in place that could kill most of the 20 million civilians just south of the DMZ. They might launch a demonstration use of them, followed by non-negotiable demands with a very short deadline. They might also target Japan with a demonstration strike, to encourage Japan to forbid our forces from using Japanese bases.
On the other hand, they may make different calculations and simply invade the South, with their huge infantry and artillery forces, their missiles, their obsolete air force, their obsolete armour, and their large numbers of commandos.
Whatever happens, the Kim Jong Il regime must be destroyed, and after such an attack it would be.
But if we wait much longer, that regime will be able to deter the United States, or at least inflict massive damage, through ICBM launched nuclear weapons!
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