North Korea Watch: North Korea States Conditions for Return to Talks

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  john Carey

  July 11, 2006 at 10:30 pm

  Let’s Be Honest about Missile Defense, North Korea, China and Russia
  By John E. Carey
  The Examiner
  Wednesday, July 12, 2006

  We have to be completely honest with ourselves and with each other on the subjects of Missile Defense, North Korea, China and Russia.

  When North Korea elected to launch several medium and long range ballistic missiles on America’s Independence Day, that Communist nation defied the international community and sent a shock wave through other nations, especially South Korea and Japan.

  On the other side of the globe, Missile Defense advocates broke into a lather of anticipation, vindication and justification; some believing we could have easily brought down a North Korean Taepo Dong-2 headed toward the U.S.

  President Bush added a note of reason, saying, “Our anti-ballistic systems are modest, they are new.”

  Those opposed to missile defense became mute: perhaps doubting their long-held beliefs or maybe just thinking this was not the time to speak out against any potential game-saving defensive system.

  Some, even before the missiles were launched, including former Defense Secretary William Perry, advocated a military strike on North Korea’s launch sites.

  The situation posed by North Korea, our limited missile defense capabilities, and the recalcitrance of China and Russia, makes diplomacy and delay the only measured response for the United States at this critical juncture for several reasons.

  First, the U.S. Missile Defense system is tenuous at best. Largely untested, there are only 11 silo-housed strategic interceptors spread in California and Alaska. The U.S. Navy compliments this basic, initial capability with handfuls of missiles at sea — but those interceptors were built to handle shorter range threats than the Taepo Dong-2 that North Korea is trying to bring from puberty to adult fruition.

  Completing the U.S. layered, multi-service, multi-sensor and multi-interceptor-type system will still be a monumental task both in terms of time and money.

  The Patriot PAC-3 missiles promised to Japan and others overseas will be woefully inadequate in trying to intercept a longer-range ballistic missile: it just comes down to earth so fast there is no shot. PAC-3, less capable than the Navy systems for ballistic missile defense, was also designed to counter the shorter-range ballistic missiles; not a bird with the long-range capability of the Taepo Dong-2.

  North Korea’s Taepo Dong-2 is so fearsome because of its dramatic range (it can theoretically reach much of the continental United States). After traveling thousands of kilometers from North Korea, the re-entry vehicle, which could carry a nuclear weapon, will be traveling at unbelievable velocities. Intercepting that kind of vehicle fired at that range is, well, “difficult” would be the nicest word. And a missed intercept in this scenario could mean a vast expanse of destruction and death: here in the homeland of the United States.

  So the stakes are high. Not just for the United States but also for Japan and South Korea, with their populations living under the shadow of potentially thousands of shorter-range ballistic missiles (and for South Korea, thousands of artillery pieces zeroed in on Seoul, if war ensues) that would come with almost no warning time; and these nations have very limited missile defenses on land, like PAC-3 or systems with even less capability.

  Secondly, North Korea poses unique challenges to our understanding, our intelligence capabilities and our ability to predict behavior. Nothing can logically be said about the conduct of Kim Jong-il, the head of state (the post of president has been assigned “eternally” to his late father). His July 4 missile shots were a stunt to get attention; or perhaps a failed public display of exportable missile technology.

  Most of the missiles launched were older, SCUD-type missiles based upon Russian technology from the 1950s and 60s. But the three-stage Taepo Dong-2, the longest range missile that posed the biggest potential threat, shows true future promise both as a weapon capable of hitting a lot of Asia and the U.S. but also as a potential export item (to Iran, perhaps).

  Fortunately, the Taepo Dong-2 failed, this time.

  And maybe Kim just felt neglected by all the attention and goodies (including a nuclear reactor) showered on Iran after they last defied the United States.

  North Korea is still developing technology and likely is developing or has nuclear weapons: weapons that could easily disappear into terrorist hands. So, we have to watch North Korea, continue to engage them diplomatically, and continue to develop our own missile defenses.

  Thirdly, the reaction of China and Russia to the North Korean brinksmanship should have been predicted. These nations make policy decision based upon their own self interests. To China and Russia, troubling (to the U.S.) “rouge nations” like North Korea, and before that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, can prove to be a delightfully nettlesome thorn in the side of the only super power: the United States.

  Just as Saddam Hussein had an active and profitable (for all sides) trade relationship with Russia, China and France, before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, today North Korea and Iran keep profitable relationships with these same second tier world powers.

  In fact, any nation willing and prepared to give the U.S. headaches can often receive a welcoming audience in Russia, China and France: our partners at the U.N. Security Council.

  Hopefully nobody, including China, wants to see any air strikes or other hostile military activity in the region. China’s burgeoning economy and its many economic ties to the U.S. would make any military show of force or an exchange of weapons in anger a cause for alarm in world economic markets. The NYSE dive Friday may already have shown the nervousness of investors tying to decipher the likely outcome of this “situation.”China and Russia have an opportunity here to show the solidarity of the world community.

  The conduct of North Korea clearly violated internationally recognized norms. If China and Russia back away from a full condemnation of North Korea, a course they seem to be upon, then they show the U.S. and the rest of the world that they will stand idly by even as South Korea and Japan are terrorized by the saber-rattling of North Korea. That is the saddest part of this story: that China and Russia are going to let us all down for their own nearsighted self interests.

  The difficult diplomatic situation created by North Korea’s July 4th missile launches is another challenge to the Bush White House, already grappling with Iraq, Iran, and the greater war on terror. One can imagine U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice orchestrating nuanced diplomatic discussions and maneuvering, while envoys shuttle from capital to capital and the president works the phone lines. Any misstep now is just what North Korea hoped to achieve. And some leaders in China and Russia, we expect, in the deepest recesses of their government enclaves, may be secretly smirking at the pickle created for the United States by this bold challenge to America’s super power status.

  Now is the time for leadership and diplomatic greatness; not military might.

  John Carey is former president of International Defense Consultants, Inc. He served in the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization during his career in the U.S. Navy.

  http://www.examiner.com/

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