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N Korea's treasured nuclear sword
and shield
By Erich Marquardt
On her recent whirlwind trip through
Asia, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
stressed the need to convince North Korea to return to
the six-party talks aimed at defusing
Pyongyang's nuclear-weapons program. The talks - which
comprise the United States, Russia, China, Japan,
South Korea and North Korea - have been through
three rounds, all held in Beijing, the host
country. on February 10, North Korea spurned the
next unscheduled round of talks, openly declaring
that it has "manufactured nuclear weapons" and
would "suspend participation in the six-party
talks for an indefinite period".
Pyongyang
said that it would not return to the talks as long
as a "hostile" US attitude continues, announcing
that US policy has caused the North to take
"serious steps of boosting our nuclear arsenal and
we are also prepared to mobilize all of our
military force against any provocative moves by
the enemy". The North prodded the US, calling its
growing "nuclear deterrent" force a "treasured
sword and shield for defending [the] peace of the
country".
The US, which opposes a
nuclear-armed North Korea, is trying to have North
Korea's neighbors pressure and coax the country to
dismantle and abandon its nuclear weapons program.
While North Korea's neighbors also have as one of
their interests a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula,
not all of them prioritize this interest above
others. This can be explained by understanding the
diverging national interests between the US and
North Korea's neighbors.
US Interests
in North Korea
It is not in Washington's
interests to allow North Korea to develop nuclear
weapons. As a result of this, the administration
of US President George W Bush has aimed at
convincing North Korea to dismantle and abandon
its nuclear weapons program. However, the Bush
administration has limited options at its disposal
in securing this objective. For one, North Korea's
large military makes it a power force to contend
with in East Asia. Any serious conflict with North
Korea would result in massive casualties by all
parties involved in the fighting, especially for
those on the Korean peninsula. North Korea has the
fourth-largest army in the world, with an
estimated 1.2 million armed personnel. The US
State Department warns, "The North has perhaps the
world's second-largest special operations force,
designed for insertion behind the lines in
wartime." Its military spending makes up about 25%
of its gross national product.
More
important, the North's military capabilities
exceed that of the South. Pyongyang can wield
almost twice the amount of armed personnel than
Seoul, and has more tanks, long-range artillery
and armored personnel carriers. While many of the
North's weapons are outdated, it retains the
potential to cause massive casualties to the
South. Because of this, the US has stationed
troops in South Korea dating back to the 1950-53
Korean War to repel a North Korean attack. The
primary purpose of the troops has been to warn
North Korea that any attack upon the South would
bring the US into the conflict; if this were to
occur, according to the chairman of the US Joint
Chiefs of Staff, General Richard B Myers, it "would
be the end of their regime". Nevertheless, the
size of the North's military and its alleged
nuclear arsenal makes any conflict between
Pyongyang and Washington especially concerning.
The US is also heavily engaged in the
Middle East, with more than 140,000 troops working as
a stabilizing force in Iraq. This commitment
has made it difficult for the US to
adequately intimidate North Korea. Pyongyang, and
other parties involved, recognizes that Washington
is preoccupied in Iraq and will not want to open
a new military front. For instance, in South
Korea's most recent government white paper, it
announced that in the event of an attack by the North,
the US would commit 690,000 military personnel,
in addition to about 2,000 warplanes.
This would result in the commitment of 70% of all US
marines, 50% of the US Air Force, 40% of the US
Navy, and thousands of army troops. These numbers
amount to more than four times the current US
presence in Iraq. With needs such as these, it
becomes obvious to Washington policymakers that a
military option is not a desirable one when
dealing with North Korea, especially when the US
military is in a state of overextension.
Therefore, the US is attempting
to use North Korea's neighbors to place
pressure on Pyongyang. But the Bush administration
is running into problems while pursuing this
approach, too. The fact remains that North Korea's
neighbors do not share the same interests or priorities
as the US. While the United States and Japan
are in relative agreement over
Washington's current policy toward North Korea, Russia
has shown limited interest in Washington's demands because
of its historical close ties with North Korea, its
ongoing energy deals with the country, and its
desire to limit Washington's involvement in
Russian affairs. The other two members of the
six-party talks, China and South Korea, have more
complicated interests at stake.
China
Much is made in the press
about China's concern over a nuclear-armed North
Korea. The Bush administration and politicians in
Washington have attempted to coax China to place
pressure on North Korea to disarm. China, which is
North Korea's only significant ally and helps to
prop up the regime of leader Kim Jong-il, retains
the ability to pressure North Korea by limiting
its energy, economic and humanitarian assistance.
North Korea is largely dependent on China for its
survival, especially for its energy needs. For
this reason, the US is pushing China to assist US
policy in pressuring Pyongyang to disarm.
However, while China has as one of
its interests a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, it
also has other interests that take precedence.
For instance, North Korea acts as a buffer
between China and South Korea, which has been a strong
US ally for decades. The US maintains a
large military presence in South Korea, and the
collapse of the North Korean state could result in
the South usurping the North and the US extending
its influence all the way to the Yalu River on
China's border, limiting China's foreign-policy
leverage and jeopardizing its ability to reassert
its sovereignty over Taiwan.
Additionally,
a collapse of North Korea would create a major
humanitarian and economic disaster for China.
Beijing already suffers from North Korean refugees
clamoring over the border, and any collapse of the
poorly functioning social system in North Korea
will result in an undesirable exodus of refugees.
It would also impel China to begin economic
development in the collapsed state to ensure that
the new government, or the unification of the
North and the South, leaves China with significant
influence. Further, a collapse of North Korea
would impede the growing trade relations that
China now enjoys with South Korea, since Seoul
would expend its wealth on rebuilding the North.
Finally, if the US were to invade
North Korea, as it did Iraq, it would provide a
worst-case scenario for China. China would have to
react in such an intervention, and both options -
getting involved on the side of North Korea or
refraining from participation in the conflict -
hold negative ramifications for the Chinese state;
the former would place China against the world's
only superpower, and the latter would portray
China as a weak state, making it more difficult to
adequately prevent Taiwan from declaring
independence, thereby eroding Beijing's ambitions
of supplanting Washington's influence in East
Asia.
Supplanting US
influence in East Asia is a critical long-term
policy goal of Beijing. Last December, China released a
White Paper stating that the "trends toward world
multipolarization and economic globalization are
deepening amid twists and turns". The paper
further argued that "new changes are occurring in
the balance of power among the major international
players, with the process of their realignment and
the redistribution of their interests
accelerated".
China's recognition that
US power in Asia may be on the wane has resulted
in its warm policy toward South Korea, hoping to
pull it closer to China and away from the US and
Japan. It is actively promoting increased
economic relations with many of Asia's states, best
seen through its goal of eliminating trade
barriers with the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN), creating the world's biggest free-trade
zone, spanning more than 2 billion people. The
collapse of North Korea, or the initiation of a
conflict involving that state, could derail these
plans.
The preceding factors explain why
China is most interested in maintaining the
current status quo in North Korea. As US and
international analysts ponder why China is not
doing more to pressure North Korea to end its
nuclear weapons program, it is in China's
interests to have negotiations over this program
continue as long as possible. Take, for instance,
repeated statements by Chinese leaders gratifying
the six-party talks. China's ambassador to South
Korea, Li Bin, told Yonhap News Agency that
"China's basic stance is to maintain the framework
of the six-party talks. All the participants need
to respect the hard-won process." Li also noted
that "South Korea's patience over its economic
cooperation with North Korea will have some result
in the end".
These statements show
that China does not want the US, and the
international community, to reach a result on North
Korea's nuclear-weapons program that is too damaging to
North Korea. Chinese officials continue to hype
the importance of the six-party talks while saying
very little on the lack of tangible results that
have come out of these talks. As Chinese President
Hu Jintao told Rice, China is "unwavering in its
stance" of resolving concerns over North Korea's
nuclear weapons program through the six-party
talks. On February 17, Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokesman Kong Quan argued that "just having talks
is tremendous progress".
In the words of
Selig S Harrison, the director of the Asia program
at the Center for International Policy, speaking
to the US-China Economic and Security Review
Commission on March 10, "the most important
[priority] in Chinese calculations is to forestall
a war by keeping the United States engaged in
six-party negotiations with North Korea of
indefinite duration".
South
Korea
Traditionally, South Korea has been
a major US ally in Asia. The US fought on its
behalf during the 1950-53 Korean War. But with the
fall of the Soviet Union, Seoul's improving ties
with Beijing, and the isolation and weakening of
North Korea, Seoul no longer considers Pyongyang
the threat it once did. Additionally, the collapse
of the Soviet Union has been followed by decreased
US involvement in Asia, a trend that has
accelerated because of Washington's resources pouring into Iraq.
Because of this, Seoul must accommodate itself
with other Asian powers in case the US further
withdraws from East Asia.
For instance,
the Bush administration's decision to withdraw
some of its troops from South Korea and redeploy
them in Iraq demonstrated to the region, whether
intentionally or unintentionally, that the US does
not place the same emphasis on South Korea as it
once did. As part of this plan, Washington will
remove 7,500 of its 32,500 troops from the country
and redeploy them. The bulk of the remaining
forces will stay in the country, but remain south
of North Korea's immediate artillery range.
The Bush administration has explained that
this redeployment reflects Washington's goal of
playing a stronger role in securing trade routes
and protecting against terrorism in the region. To
South Korea, however, this change of policy is
enough to cause worry that the US may eventually
withdraw from South Korea before its conflict with
North Korea is resolved.
Therefore, Seoul
has taken a softer line toward North Korea,
offering economic incentives and hoping to create
the conditions for peaceful unification on the
peninsula. The ongoing conflict with North Korea
is Seoul's biggest security threat; once this
threat is resolved, it will give Seoul more
foreign-policy leverage in the region. If the
Koreas were to unify, a unified Korean state could
become a powerful and influential force in Asia.
At the same time that it is softening up
North Korea, Seoul is building up its military
power in order to secure against an invasion from
the North should the US withdraw from South Korea.
A credible military deterrent would also help its
foreign-policy leverage with other influential
states in the region, mainly China and Japan.
Seoul is also improving its relations with
China, since diminishing US influence in East Asia
would likely be supplanted by Chinese influence.
The two countries formalized diplomatic relations
in 1992 and in 2003 China became South Korea's
largest trade partner, displacing the US.
Of course, these factors do not mean that
South Korea will sour its relations with the US.
On the contrary, Seoul needs Washington to
continue to provide security assistance in order
to stave off any potential North Korean attack.
And while Seoul recognizes China's growing power
and is seeking to improve relations with Beijing,
it does not want to be dominated by China; by
aligning itself with the US, it secures its
independence from its giant to the west.
Nevertheless, South Korea has modified its
foreign-policy strategy and is in the process of
ending its traditional dependence on the US.
Conclusion
The Bush administration has faced difficulty
in persuading North Korea to dismantle and abandon
its nuclear-weapons program because the ongoing
intervention in Iraq has removed much of its military
leverage, and North Korea's neighbors do not
consider Pyongyang's nuclear-weapons program to be an
urgent enough concern to require excessive
pressure on the weak state.
In finding
a way out of the impasse, the Bush
administration has warned that it will not allow the
six-party talks to continue indefinitely and that
"other options" will be explored if tangible results
are not achieved. Other than the use of
military force, Washington's next option will be to
bring the issue of North Korea's nuclear-weapons program
to the United Nations Security Council in an
attempt to place international economic sanctions
on the country. However, such a resolution could
be vetoed by China and Russia, which oppose a
Security Council resolution condemning North
Korea.
There are also multiparty sanctions
that Washington could attempt to place on North
Korea if it loses out in the Security Council. But
it is unlikely that the two most critical states
to North Korea's survival - China and South Korea
- will comply, which would leave North Korea with
its nuclear weapons and Washington without the
necessary allies to force Pyongyang to disarm.
These unpleasant realities for the US mean that it
will face pressure to modify its current
foreign-policy strategy in favor of the softer
approach being pursued by South Korea, a stance
that engages Pyongyang and seeks compromise on its
many political and economic demands.
Published with permission of the Power and Interest News
Report, an analysis-based
publication that seeks to provide insight into
various conflicts, regions and points of interest
around the globe. All comments should be directed
to content@pinr.com |
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