WASHINGTON - The United States appears to have no real game plan for dealing
with North Korea's increasingly bold threats, other than attempting to lead the
rest of the world towards a meaningless "condemnation" of the North's
underground nuclear test and launching of several short-range missiles.
The White House, like the Blue House, the center of presidential power in
Seoul, has accused North Korea of "saber-rattling" while keeping a score card
of countries scolding North Korea for its defiance. However, there is no
certainty on what the US will do if the North goes a significant step beyond
its nuclear test on Monday and stages an actual incident against South Korean
or
American forces, the two most likely targets.
Behind the posturing at the White House and the State Department, however, the
United States does not want to risk armed conflict in Northeast Asia while
bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates hopes to find support among America's
friends in Asia as he travels to Singapore and Manila for meetings into the
weekend with foreign and defense ministers, but it's not likely they will offer
much more than vague promises of US access to their bases and ports in the
event of a showdown with North Korea.
More significantly, the United States cannot count for much other than verbal
condemnation of North Korea from China, North Korea's only real ally and source
of food, fuel and fertilizer, and Russia, which has played probably the least
visible role among major powers close to North Korea.
There is an element of wishful thinking in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's
praise for China's condemnation. It's questionable, however, whether China will
want to go along with US demands for strengthening sanctions already put in
place by the UN Security Council after North Korea's first nuclear test on
October 9, 2006. Clinton seemed almost plaintive as she warned "there are
consequences to such actions" and "discussions are going on" in the United
Nations "to add to the consequences that North Korea will face coming out of
the latest behavior".
The question now is whether the United States can get China and Russia to
observe the sanctions and stop dealing with North Korean trading companies that
are on the UN blacklist.
US officials are upset that the Treasury Department had to lift constraints
imposed on dealing with North Korea after it was discovered to be using an
obscure bank in Macau - Banco Delta Asia - as a conduit for counterfeit US$100
bills printed in Pyongyang. The US did so as part of the deal to bring North
Korea back to talks that led to agreements in 2007 under which Pyongyang
promised to disable and dismantle its nuclear program in return for a vast
infusion of aid. That elaborately contrived effort fell apart when the North
balked at US demands for serious "verification" of what it was doing.
Beyond sanctions, the US shows no signs of taking serious action that could
risk an armed response from North Korea. US and South Korean forces have gone
on "high alert", as they did after the first nuclear test in 2006, but that
sensational term means little unless North Korea initiates armed action.
Neither the US nor South Korea are seriously going to challenge North Korea by
blockading and boarding North Korean vessels under the rubric of the
Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), the multilateral attempt to inhibit
the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them to
distant targets.
South Korea's decision on Tuesday to join PSI led North Korea to threaten to go
to war after having declared the Korean War armistice signed in July 1953 no
longer valid. But South Korean defense officials are more concerned about the
danger of a North Korean attack in the West or Yellow Sea. It was there that
North Korea staged bloody attacks in June 1999 and June 2002 after North Korean
vessels ventured south of the Northern Limit Line, which was declared after the
Korean War and never recognized by the North.
Analysts say it's up to the United States - and the strategy of the Barack
Obama administration - to decide on how or whether to use PSI to inhibit the
flow of weapons of mass destruction among rogue nations as well as terrorist
organizations that could well become their clients.
"PSI really depends on what the US puts behind it," said Dan Blumenthal,
resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. "Its mission is to
interdict ships on the high seas. It's a question of whether we're going to be
very tough on the North Koreans or not."
Blumenthal cautioned against reading too much into PSI despite its almost
grandiose intentions. "If you blow a lot into it, it means a lot," he said.
"Right now, it probably does not mean a lot."
There is no doubt, however, that South Korea's membership in PSI may be viewed
as acknowledgement of the end of efforts at reconciliation with the North after
the failure of six-party talks to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear
weapons program.
One fear is that nuclear materiel and technology may be in danger of reaching
al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan's Swat Valley, in
view of Pakistan's emergence as a nuclear power under the direction of
physicist A Q Khan, the "father" of Pakistan's atomic bomb. He sold expertise
and components to other nations, notably North Korea.
Khan wound up under house arrest on his opulent estate, but there's no telling
what some of his disciples may do with their accumulated knowledge, either for
money or for ideological sustenance. It is not difficult to imagine al-Qaeda or
the Taliban coming up with weapons of mass destruction - nuclear, biological or
chemical - on the basis of skills shared by their friends in Iran, North Korea
and elsewhere.
In view of the horrifying prospect of terrorist organizations more determined
and less inhibited by the niceties of international diplomacy than North Korea
getting hold of nuclear weapons, Obama and other world leaders may have to move
quite soon beyond lip service and state what PSI is all about: the blockading
of shipments of nuclear weapons.
The fact that the US has emphasized PSI highlights the irony of the
similarities in the policies of the George W Bush and Obama presidencies. PSI
was the brainchild of the arch-conservative hawk John Bolton when he was
undersecretary of state for arms control.
Now, Obama personally is embracing PSI and talking by telephone to South
Korea's conservative president, Lee Myung-bak, whom he will meet personally
when Lee gets to Washington in mid-June.
The White House and the State Department seem ecstatic that South Korea should
join in the far-reaching de facto PSI "alliance", which includes 15 "core"
members and scores of "observers". The problem is no one knows where to take it
from there.
Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of
forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
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
