Missile chess preoccupies N. Korea, S. Korea and Japan; But what are these people really thinking?
Friday, March 27, 2009 E-Mail this story Free Headline Alerts
By Donald Kirk
JEJU, South Korea Ñ South Korea's premier warship, the destroyer Sejong, equipped with the latest United States-designed Aegis counter-missile guidance system, is cruising near this island off the southern Korean coast en route to the waters of the East Sea for defense against North Korea's fearsome Taepodong-2 long-range missile.
The deployment of the Sejong from the southern to the eastern side of the Korean Peninsula highlights the alarm with which South Korea views North Korea's determination to show off its prowess in modern weaponry. The North claims it is capable of raining weapons of mass destruction as far as the US west coast Ñ and all over South Korea and Japan.
The presence of the Sejong in the East Sea also shows the high level of cooperation among the military machines of the US, Japan and South Korea as they wait for North Korea to make good on its threat to launch the missile between April 4-8. The US has deployed two destroyers carrying Aegis systems in the area while Japan has one ready to travel if it's not there already.
There is just one problem with this show of military force: it's largely for show.
The chances of any of these ships actually firing a missile capable of knocking out the Taepodong-2 range from minimal to none, and the chances of a counter-missile missile actually hitting the Taepodong-2 in flight are equally low. No doubt about it, a successful strike against the Taepodong-2 would be a sensational story, not just a humiliation for North Korea but a "provocation" that could actually compel the North to engage in more than a rhetorical response.
Right now, it's the US that's talking about a "provocation" Ñ or, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton characterized the launch of Taepodong-2, "a provocative act" that would compel a response. The US, she said, would bring up the matter in the United Nations (UN) Security Council, taking North Korea to task for violation of UN resolutions.
The threat of that type of response left little doubt that the United States, Japan and South Korea are not prepared for military action before, during or after the missile launch. The panoply of military might cruising the waters of the East Sea, aka the Sea of Japan, may be awesome to contemplate, but its potential for doing any real harm under the present circumstances is highly circumscribed.
One reason for this is that the North Korean threat appears rather abstract, despite the North's success in building missiles Ñ and its accumulation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction.
No one seriously questions the view that the reason for launching the Taepodong-2 is to test its effectiveness in warfare Ñ and not to put a satellite in orbit, as North Korea has repeatedly said it will do. Still, North Korea, suffering from problems of hunger and disease, and in the midst of a shadowy power struggle among generals and relatives of the ailing Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, is in no position to consider a strike that would indeed invite more than a rhetorical and diplomatic response from its adversaries.
Another reason is that North Korea's stated determination to put a satellite into orbit, while possibly in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, is actually not against international law. Many countries have launched satellites. North Korea, cooperating with Iran on the technology of satellites as well as missiles and nuclear weapons, would join a growing club of nations with satellites in orbit.
The launch of the Taepodong-2, however, is likely to have repercussions that could well jeopardize peace in the region Ñ not right away, perhaps, but over the next few years.
For one thing, North Korea has said that if the United States raises the issue of the missile/satellite launch in the UN Security Council, then the process of the six-party talks on its nuclear program is dead. North Korea has also said that if the UN takes action, it will return to producing nuclear warheads, as it was doing after the breakdown in 2002 of the 1994 Geneva agreement.
Failure of the talks, like so many other attempts to talk North Korea out of its determination to be a nuclear power, would be an extremely disappointing step backward, considering that North Korea has already begun disabling its nuclear complex at Yongbyon on the basis of agreements reached in 2007.
For North Korea, however, to suggest that a Security Council debate would destroy the process shows its extreme fragility. Obviously, if North Korea can try to intimidate its enemies into silence, or frighten them away from a debate in the UN, then probably the six-party process is already doomed.
Then there is the question of North Korea's relations not only with South Korea but also with Japan.
North Korea's latest rhetorical blast against the South accuses the government of President Lee Myung-bak of betraying the Korean people by allying with the US and Japan in condemning its plans to launch a satellite. North Korea is appealing to Korean national pride Ñ not just that of South Koreans but of all Koreans. North Korea believes Koreans, North and South, should be proud of the ability of Koreans to put a satellite into orbit.
That's an appeal that may strike at the hearts of some Koreans in the South, just as some South Koreans seemed proud that Koreans, North Koreans, were able to detonate a nuclear warhead when North Korea conducted its first and only nuclear test on October 9, 2006. The appeal evokes a disturbing reminder, namely that the North Korean nuclear test was barely three months after the launch of another Taepodong-2 on July 5, 2006. That mission failed when the missile arced into the sea 40 seconds after launch, but this time North Korea seems more certain of getting it right after nearly three years spent perfecting the technology.
Then there is the question of the Japanese response. It's all very well for South Korea, the US and Japan to act in concert against the upcoming launch, but South Koreans will not want to be seen as an ally of Japan in an armed struggle. And the Japanese will certainly not see North Korea's success in missile and satellite technology as a point of pride worthy of applause.
In fact, the Japanese are talking about stern defensive measures against Taepodong-2. Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada has ordered his forces to try to shoot the thing down if it traverses Japanese territory, as a Taepodong-1 did when it was launched on August 31, 1998, also on a mission that the North Koreans said was to put a satellite into orbit.
The Japanese are talking boldly about firing up their ground-based Patriot Advanced Capability 3 Interceptors and sending not one but two destroyers with Aegis guidance systems to the waters between North Korea and Japan.
It would be quite surprising, though, if the Japanese were to take pot shots at the missile when they don't know when the North Koreans will launch it or what course it will follow. The chances of hitting it from land are if anything worse than that of striking it down from one of those destroyers in the East Sea.
The Japanese, though, are filled with more hatred for North Korea than either Americans or South Koreans. Their governments have been pressing the cases of Japanese kidnapped from North Korea, generating anti-Korean sentiments that consciously or subconsciously spring from the centuries of wars between Koreans and Japanese. These climaxed in 35 years of Japanese colonial rule over Korea that did not end until Japan's defeat in World War II.
These complex historical factors crystallize in the missile launch Ñ and in the implications for war and peace in northeast Asia. The region, though, is not on the brink of war Ñ just in the midst of an outpouring of rhetoric, to be followed by debate and possibly more negotiations some time after the North Koreans have had their fun with the launch.
When the display of national pride is done, North Korean strategists will then have to think about how best to extort more money out of governments willing to curb their ambitions as usual by paying them off.