North Korea Goes Nuclear

[Neo]

A nuclear tantrum ​

By Shim Jae Hoon

Kim believes that getting admitted to the nuclear club is the only guarantee to keep his economically crumbling regime from being taken over by the vastly more powerful South Korea

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is no stranger to brinkmanship but his latest series of actions is qualitatively different. With North Korea’s second underground nuclear test conducted on May 25, and simultaneous test-firing of a series of short-range missiles in the direction of Japan over the following two days, Kim seems to be betting all his chips to get direct dialogue with the US.

His failing health and uncertain succession may have added urgency to his drive to get US recognition as a nuclear power and to leave a stable legacy. He may soon discover that he has seriously miscalculated; instead of frightening the US and its South Korean and Japanese allies into a new round of talks, his gamble has pushed them into an even stronger resolve against the North’s proliferation drive.

Kim is fighting for a place in the nuclear club, and by doing so, will have the power to demand the withdrawal of American troops from the South. North Korea has not given up the ambition of reunifying the peninsula under its dominance, just as Vietnam was reunified under Hanoi’s control. Through repeated nuclear tests, the North seeks to make its nuclear weapons programme a fait accompli. Kim believes that getting admitted to the nuclear club is the only guarantee to keep his economically crumbling regime from being taken over by the vastly more powerful South Korea. A nuclear weapon, to him, is a ticket to survival.

While analysts speculate as to the reason for the second test, there seems to be no doubt that this time the blast was far more powerful in strength than the last one conducted in 2006. According to South Korean seismologists, the nuclear blast inside the Kilju mountains produced an earthquake scale of 4.5. But a Russian defence ministry official was quoted as saying the blast’s explosive power was between 10 to 20 kilotons, or ten or 20 times more powerful than the 1 kiloton strength of the first test three years ago.

As the UN Security Council once again began discussing a new resolution against the North, the Obama administration began mulling the possibility of reinstating North Korea on the list of nations sponsoring terrorism. Pyongyang was dropped last year in exchange for the promise of dismantling its nuclear facilities.

Shortly after the nuclear test, the South Korean government announced it was now fully participating in the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). This participation would require South Korean anti-terrorist forces to board North Korean vessels suspected of carrying missile or other weapons of mass destruction if such vessels were sailing along South Korea’s coastal sea. The North has declared that this would amount to a declaration of war and if attempts were made to board North Korean ships on a “peaceful mission” North Korea would strike against the South.

Kim’s nuclear brinkmanship comes against the backdrop of the collapse of South Korea’s “sunshine” policy of accommodation under the new administration of conservative President Lee Myung Bak. Lee came to office 15 months ago on a promise to review the past ten years of engagement with the Pyongyang regime with plenty of cash and food aid.

In reversal of a decade of liberal policy under former presidents Kim Dae Jung and the late Roh Moo Hyun, President Lee placed denuclearisation above reconciliation. That implies using economic aid not only to dismantle the nuclear programme, but also Lee’s openly stated desire to trigger economic and political reform in the North.

The Kim regime is adamantly set against this policy change. But Kim also faces internal challenges in the form of his ailing health and uncertainty surrounding his succession. As the military and party officials jockey for position, the army establishment is said to have ascended in power. According to a recent report circulating in Seoul, the military faction ordered the execution of a party official in charge of negotiations with the South. This official was reportedly blamed for causing the situation in which the North now finds itself dependent on the South for economic survival.

In light of the latest military escalation, earlier moves by North Korea can now be seen as first steps leading up to an all round challenge to the world. It perhaps explains why the North disrupted the normal operation of the Kaesong Industrial Park just above the military demarcation line separating North and South Korea.

The Kaesong Industrial Park combines South Korean investment and skills with low-cost North Korean labour. But while a boon for hunger-stricken North Koreans, it is also seen as a political liability. Some one hundred South Korean companies inside Kaesong complex today hire a staggering 39,000 North Korean workers, a steep climb from a few thousand workers five years ago. This very success may have endangered those officials who worked to make it happen and now stand accused of making North Korea far removed from its vaunted principle of Juche — self reliance.

The move on Kaesong formed a link in the overall chain of events encompassing the April 5 rocket launch in defiance of international protests. The North’s foreign ministry declared that the UN condemnation was unjust, and North Korea was just in leaving the six-nation nuclear disarmament talks in Beijing.

Growing increasingly wary of the North’s bellicosity, Seoul has quietly hardened its position. Now the nuclear weapon and missile tests have pushed Lee to embrace the PSI aimed at stopping North Korea’s nuclear business.

Outside the peninsula, Kim’s latest provocations have also left his erstwhile allies China and Russia embarrassed. Russia indicates it will cooperate with the US in adopting a new UN resolution, calling for stronger sanction on the North. But the recent tensions have heightened China’s policy dilemma regarding Pyongyang. China’s past position of asking “all concerned parties” to “calm down” now looks quixotic in the face of North Korea’s one-sided provocations.

While policy change seems unlikely, any sign of China seriously reconsidering its policy of all-out protection of the Kim regime would have a crucial bearing on the future of the North Korean government.

All this makes Kim’s chances of emerging from this crisis richly rewarded, as has been the case so far, looking positively small. His gamble to get recognition as a nuclear power and be invited to the table by throwing a nuclear tantrum may have brought the peninsula to an unprecedented crisis. How he will resolve the crisis may have far reaching effects for the region and the world. —YaleGlobal

Shim Jae Hoon is a Seoul-based columnist

 

[AirforcePilot]

A nuclear tantrum ​

Shortly after the nuclear test, the South Korean government announced it was now fully participating in the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). This participation would require South Korean anti-terrorist forces to board North Korean vessels suspected of carrying missile or other weapons of mass destruction if such vessels were sailing along South Korea’s coastal sea. The North has declared that this would amount to a declaration of war and if attempts were made to board North Korean ships on a “peaceful mission” North Korea would strike against the South.

Experts say a new war between North and South Korea would probably begin with artillery and missiles capable of hitting Seoul with little or no warning, followed by an attempt to invade the capital before the South could respond.

Civilian and military destruction would be great, with many casualties, even if the North did not use nuclear weapons, although the consensus U.S. view is that the South would prevail.

North and South Korea technically remain at war because they signed a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953. North Korea disputes the U.N.-drawn maritime border off their west coast and has positioned artillery guns along the coast on its side of the border, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said.

From the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, about a dozen Chinese ships could be seen Friday pulling out of a North Korean port and heading elsewhere, possibly to avoid any skirmishes.

Yonhap reported that more than 280 Chinese fishing vessels were in the area earlier this week, but the number is now about 140. It was not clear if the Chinese vessels, in the area for the crabbing season, were told by the North to leave or if they did so on their own.

South Korean and U.S. troops facing North Korea raised their surveillance Thursday to its highest level since 2006, when the North first tested a nuclear device.

A squadron of F-22 stealth fighters was due to arrive today on the southern Japan island of Okinawa, and the launching of a surface-to-air missile Friday may have been the North's attempt to show it can shoot them down, or at least make incursion into its airspace risky.

Its other launches this week were of land-to-sea missiles, a warning that it can strike warships that come too close.

In Washington, the Army's top officer, Gen. George Casey, expressed confidence that the U.S. could fight a conventional war against North Korea if necessary.









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Doubts are surfacing very fast over the 2nd Nuclear Test that North Korea claims to have conducted.

The Korea Times

South Korean authorities have failed to confirm the authenticity of North Korea's May 25 nuclear test as no radioactive material has been found over the East Sea, officials said Thursday.

Normally, radioactive materials such as krypton-85 and xenon-135 are released after a nuclear test ― krypton-85 remains in the air for several decades as clear evidence of a test.

In October 2006, a U.S. WC-135 reconnaissance plane detected radioactive materials over the East Sea a couple of days after Pyongyang conducted its first nuclear test.

In that context, some experts question if the North really did conduct a test.

Other military officials and experts say radioactive materials may have spread rapidly and been dispersed after the test due to strong winds.

There is also the hypothesis that North Korea might have revamped its underground test facility to prevent radioactive leaks.

``It is expected to take more time to confirm the nuclear test,'' a military source said, asking not to be named. ``But unless krypton-85 is detected, it will be difficult for the international community to confirm the alleged test.''

South Korea has been checking air samples for radioactive material at a military facility in Dongducheon, north of Seoul.

The latest nuclear test by the North, the second of its kind in two-and-a-half years, has sparked debate on the Stalinist state's nuclear capability. Estimates of the size of the explosion vary from 1 to 2 kilotons, to as high as 10 to 20 kilotons.

The higher estimate would match the power of the bombs America dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945 to end World War II.