North Korea's nuclear game under scrutiny.

• Author: Shuja, Sharif
• Position: 168619626
• Pages: 57(5)

North Korea is a rogue state which abandoned a 1994 agreement with the US Clinton Administration to dismantle its nuclear programme, expelled inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in December 2002, and withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It has, in Kim Jong-il, a leader who is both totalitarian and unpredictable. He is a dictator who has seen two million of his compatriots die of starvation and has imprisoned at least 200,000 others. If he gets usable nuclear weapons, he might pose a significant threat to the United States or supply nuclear weapons to terrorists. He must, therefore, be prevented from acquiring such weapons.

North Korea is a small and backward country with extremely limited military capabilities and an economy that has disintegrated in the past decade or more. It could, therefore, be strategically contained, even though it is now nuclear armed (however minimally). Australian strategic analyst Paul Monk makes the following interesting observation:(1)

"The problem is not limited, however, to whether a nuclear-armed North Korea could be strategically contained. While it could, in all probability, be deterred from attacking either the US or its allies, its blatant breakout from the NPT sets a dangerous precedent that could lead to the complete breakdown of that treaty. Japan and South Korea, it is feared, might go nuclear. Iran might feel it could violate or renounce the NPT with impunity. There could be an arms race in East Asia, for which North Korea was merely the catalyst."

The solidarity between the United States and the Republic of Korea (ROK), however, has been steadily weakening, and this has constrained Washington's policy options regarding North Korea's nuclear programme.

The United States looks at North Korea and thinks in terms of non- proliferation; South Korea looks at North Korea and thinks in terms of preventing a war. It is not so much that ROKUS military relations are divergent. The divergence between the two countries, ultimately, is geo-strategic.

The administration of ROK President Roh Moo-hyun has been reluctant to consider any hard-line tactics, at times even working to deflect US pressure. As a result, policy coordination with Japan is increasingly important for the United States, and the course of the Japan-North Korea relationship will influence near-term US strategy and tactics.

If the six-party process remains unproductive, the United States will eventually...