Page 1 of
2 Kim Jong-il's military-first
policy By Kim
Myong-chol (The author is often called an
"unofficial" spokesman of Kim Jong-il and North
Korea.)
Speaking Freely is an Asia
Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
The delayed closure
of the Yongbyon nuclear site in the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea is soon to take effect.
It will mark the first step in the long,
complicated process of the
denuclearization of the most
heavily armed region of the world.
The Kim
Jong-il administration of North Korea has only to
close and disable a small, outdated facility that
has churned out plutonium like hotcakes, but the
tiny Asian country retains all the assembled
nuclear weapons and their long-range means of
delivery targeted at the metropolitan US mainland.
It is time to have a proper insight into
what underlies the nuclear-weapons program of Kim
Jong-il, supreme leader of North Korea. That is
his firm commitment to tamul (the Koguryo
word for valuing the pride of being descendants of
Jumong Koguryo and Dankun Korea, developing newer,
more powerful weapons to regain lost territory and
settling moral scores with the foreign powers) and
to a negotiated reunification of the divided
Korean Peninsula, a long-elusive shared desire of
its people.
A peaceful reintegration of
Korea is possible only if it stays out of a new,
devastating war at all costs. Kim Jong-il is
determined to see that a new shooting war and
nuclear exchange are never fought on the old
battleground but instead in a new theater, namely
the continental US, because its author would be
American. A strong likelihood is that resumed
hostilities in Korea would most likely make it
unfit for human habitation and could render the
reunification of the divided land senseless.
This requires having the US choose between
two options. One is engaging a nuclear-armed North
Korea in a new war and the other is ending what
Kim Jong-il perceives as the long-standing policy
of animosity once and for all in favor of a
peaceful co-existence and a peace treaty. The
latter will involve replacing the armistice and
abandoning the state of belligerence between the
two.
The latter option having been
rejected by the United States, Kim Jong-il came up
with the last resort, a two-tier military-first
policy, after a deep study of the US involvement
in Korea from various angles, including the origin
of the tragic division of Korea. The 1945 atomic
bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki induced the
Soviet Union to agree to the US plan to divide
Korea in two along the 38th Parallel, instead of
dividing the defeated aggressor Japan in two. Kim
also paid particular attention to the unique
nature of his people. They have lived under the
shadow of nuclear threat, isolation, and sanctions
for more than 50 years, longer than any other
nation blacklisted by the US.
The first
stage called for making North Korea capable of
withstanding any preemptive war, saturation
bombing, and nuclear strike. In the absence of a
national defense system, it would be extremely
difficult to move on to the second tier that
involved a crash program to develop nuclear
weapons and intercontinental missiles domestically
that can carry the US-initiated war back to the
metropolitan US. There was every risk that the US
would try to threaten to launch a war to destroy
the ongoing nuclear program.
An
impregnable national fortress armed with
conventional arms could easily defend itself from
repeated US onslaughts but could not deter the US
from launching them nor cause the Americans to
halt their hostile policy and adopt a policy of
peaceful co-existence. They could easily stay away
from the defense range of North Korea, relying on
a standoff launch of a preemptive strike.
It was of critical importance for the
North Korean leader to serve up a bone-chilling
reminder to the Americans that they can no longer
fire and run away, devastating Korean soil, to
return home safe. The trick would be accomplished,
he concluded, when the North Korean military
acquired ultimate weapons - nuclear arms and their
intercontinental means of delivery.
The
adamant refusal of Washington to heed the calls
from Pyongyang for an early end to the US policy
of antagonizing North Korea forced Kim Jong-il to
order his administration and people to build a
working nuclear deterrent by all means and at all
costs against a possible US preemptive nuclear
strike and consequently keep North Korea free from
risks of resumption of hostilities.
A
successful conduct of the military-first policy,
which has been paid for with all available funds
and involved the best and brightest of the nation,
has produced its desired results. The whole land
of
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
