DATE=8/12/1999
TYPE=ON THE LINE
TITLE=ON THE LINE:IS NORTH KOREA A THREAT?
NUMBER=1-00765
EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY - 619-0037
CONTENT=
THEME: UP, HOLD UNDER AND FADE
Anncr: On the Line - a discussion of United States
policy and contemporary issues. This week,
"Is North Korea a Threat?." Here is your host,
Robert Reilly.
Host: Hello and welcome to On the Line. North Korea
is reportedly preparing to test launch a long-
range missile, the Taepodong Two, which could
reach parts of the U.S. A year ago, North
Korea alarmed its neighbors and the United
States by launching a three-stage missile over
Japan and into the Pacific. In June of this
year, North Korea engaged in a series of naval
clashes with South Korea. And earlier this
month, talks between North and South Korea on
ending their formal state of hostilities ended
unsuccessfully. North Korea's behavior has
led to calls for the U.S. and its allies to
reappraise their approach to this isolated,
Communist regime. Some say that a continued
policy of engagement will only encourage
further aggressive behavior from North Korea.
Others claim that such engagement is the best
way to prevent war.
Joining me today to discuss the threat from
North Korea are three experts. Robert Manning
is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations and a former adviser to the U.S.
State Department. Douglas Paal is president
of the Asia-Pacific Policy Center and a former
senior staff member of the White House
National Security Council. And Baker Spring is
a senior defense policy analyst at the
Heritage Foundation. Gentlemen, welcome to
the program.
Robert Manning, what is the threat from North
Korea today?
Manning:They have been developing this missile program
for a number of years. Since 1994 when we
signed the nuclear agreement with them, they
are now in their third generation of new
missiles. And the danger here is that they can
hit not only Alaska and Hawaii, but they can
hit U.S. bases in Okinawa, Guam and elsewhere.
The question really is: why are they doing
this. And there are only two plausible
explanations. The charitable explanation is
that they see it as deterrence against the
single superpower and South Korea that
threaten them. The less charitable
interpretation would be they have a game plan
involving nuclear blackmail because there is
only one thing that makes sense to put at the
end of that relatively inaccurate missile and
that is a nuclear warhead.
Host:So in other words, the launches are a form of
advertising?
Manning:It is an incremental step towards deployment.
Frankly, I think we have gotten a little too
hysterical about a launch because it is not
that important in military terms.
Host:Do you agree, Doug Paal? Have we overreacted?
Paal:I think we have overreacted steadily since
1994 in our policy toward North Korea. And we
have inculcated in them a practice of threat
for accommodation, or what we used to call
appeasement. The notion is that we can get
some kind of limited accommodation of our
concerns, which are concerns they have
created, in exchange for food and other kinds
of assistance.
Host:When you say the United States has
overreacted, do you mean that the size of the
threat is not as large as we presume it to be?
Paal:That's right. The missile threat by itself is
not terribly daunting. They are very much at
the early stage of their program. And the
nuclear program which we bottled up in 1994,
at least we think we did, was also something
that could have been managed through a policy
of deterrence, not active dismantlement of the
program and constant expenditure for food and
oil assistance to North Korea.
Host:Do you agree with that, Baker Spring?
Spring:I agree with the incentives, in terms of the
incentives or the benefits that the United
Stases has provided North Korea in this
process. But I believe the threat is serious
and particularly the missile threat. We are
talking about essentially the first country in
the third world, and one that is implacably
hostile to the United States, really being
able to reach United States territory with a
weapon of mass destruction. That's a
qualitatively different threat from what we
faced in the past, at least vis-a-vis third
world countries.
Host:What would be their objective in doing so, or
even in having the capability in doing so,
because, as any number of writers including
Robert Manning have pointed out, should North
Korea initiate hostilities, it would be
completely destroyed?
Spring:Certainly that would be a logical explanation
in terms of what the United States would be
doing the face of such an attack. The
question is what does the United States do in
regard to its own military preparedness. And
this is where I think the Congress is
particularly interested. And that is in
providing some sort of missile defense, not
only for U.S. territory, but for Guam and for
our allies in Japan and South Korea. My
particular concern and I think the concern of
many in Congress -- and there is a bill that
has been introduced regarding this problem --
is the United States purposely restricts the
development and testing of its ballistic
missile defense systems in a way that, I
think, invites North Korea to continue to
pursue this avenue of threat.
Host:Let's talk about that for a moment, Robert
Manning. What are the reactions in the area
to this behavior by North Korea on the part of
Japan, South Korea and other countries?
Manning:I think that the most hysterical reaction has
been Japan. And I think that it is a very
interesting phenomenon. You just saw the Diet
approve a new flag, a traditional flag and
anthem. And I think there is a growing
security consciousness in Japan that we would
not have seen four or five years ago, a lot of
it thanks to North Korea. The missile test
they did last August was Japan's equivalent of
Sputnik. There was an enormous psychological
reaction. Japanese politicians feel that they
have to do something. They are already
casting about for ways to punish North Korea,
if and when it tests.
Host:In fact the only means they have, that they
have mentioned so far, is to stop remittances
to North Korea from Koreans working in Japan.
Manning:There are a number of options they are
developing including export controls, very
different types of sanctions for foreign
trade. What they would like to do is preserve
the nuclear agreement but basically cut back
on everything else. And even that may be
suspended for a period of time if there is a
test. South Korea is a little more sanguine
about it because they have lived under this
threat. There are eleven thousand artillery
tubes on the other side of the demilitarized
zone that alone could do unacceptable damage
to Seoul. So they see this as another part of
this threat they have been living with. That
is a slight overstatement.
Host:But there are reactions from both of those
countries in terms of the military
capabilities they want to have in the face of
the North Korean threat.
Manning:We have had this, I think crazy, bilateral
agreement with South Korea that restricts them
to missiles of one hundred and twenty
kilometers or less. We have created an
international regime called the Missile
Technology Control Regime that has tried to
establish a norm of three hundred kilometers.
So here they have North Korea building
intercontinental ballistic missiles, and we
are telling our ally, trust us, you can't have
anything. I think the psychological impact of
South Korea, which now wants to build long-
range missiles that can hit most of North
Korea, would be a significant effect on North
Korea. It is one thing when the United States
has something; it is another thing when
something is under the control of South Korea.
Host:Douglas Paal, you are also an expert on China.
Seen within the larger context of the growing
power of China that is putting Japan in an
increasingly difficult strategic situation,
most particularly should Taiwan revert to
China peacefully or otherwise, in the near
future, what is the big picture for Japan as
it reacts to North Korea?
Paal:The last five years have seen Japan really
waking up to new circumstances. Formerly
economically dominant in the region, envied
and feared, the Japanese see themselves as
struggling with their own economy. China has
had the strong growth in this period. China
has the expansive military modernization
program. And they see the rivalry between the
two as becoming disadvantageous to Japan over
the long term. This has led, on the one hand,
to a strengthening of the bilateral U.S.
relationship with Japan. They need that anchor
outside the region for their own security and
stability. It has led to an outsized reaction
to what North Korea did when it fired the
missile. And China in turn interprets Japan's
willingness to join in theater missile defense
research as aimed as much at China as at North
Korea, although the trigger in Japanese
politics to join the theater missile defense
program was, in fact, the North Korean missile
launch.
Manning:And that is one of the great ironies here, in
that the North Koreas have done enormous harm
to Chinese interests and foreign policy across
northeast Asia. Because it is one thing for
China to criticize Japan for missile defense
aimed at China, but when North Korea is firing
missiles over Honshu Island, they can say that
but they have to acknowledge that there is a
real threat.
Host:What about the relationship between China and
North Korea? China is a party to these four-
party talks, which ended unsuccessfully once
again in their sixth session. How much
leverage does China exercise over North Korea
and to what end, Baker Spring?
Spring:I think that that is very difficult to say.
It's difficult from both ends. One is that it
is very hard to understand what is going on in
the internal political dynamics of the North
Korean regime. And it's difficult to ascertain
how dedicated the Chinese are to "reigning in"
the North Koreans on any particular issue,
including missile testing and other military
developments. As a result, I think U.S.
policy is going to have to be made, in a
sense, without a hundred percent assurance
about what the intentions are of any of the
two parties involved, and proceed, in my
judgment, from first principles: protecting
its allies in South Korea and Japan, making
sure that it does not incentivize bad behavior
on the part of North Korea and/or China.
Host:What should the United States, what should
Japan and South Korea do now? North Korea is
making the statement that they are a sovereign
power. They are not members to any treaty that
prevents them from a test launch of a three
stage, long range missile. And as far as that
statement goes, they are right.
Manning:Absolutely correct.
Host:So what do we do?
Manning:When we started, we talked about an
overreaction because, unlike the nuclear issue
where they were a non-proliferation member, we
had a legal hook in the issue to pursue it.
We really do not. This is a question of raw
power. We are big, you are little. We say
this is bad. You better stop doing it. I
think you have to put this in the context of
the last five or six years of diplomacy. We
signed the agreed framework to stop their
nuclear program as an effort to enhance
security on the peninsula. If you asked the
question, are we more secure now than we were
five years ago, I would submit the answer is
probably no. Because, while everybody in the
administration was smiling about how North
Korea was going to collapse, they have
enhanced in certain respects their military
threat by developing these new generations of
missiles. And everybody did not understand
that, like the old Soviet Union, there is a
separate military economy and they keep
pumping the money from export back into this
missile program. So even if their economy is
almost non-existent, and everything else, they
are going great guns on this stuff, even as
their conventional military capability
degrades, which is another reason why these
missiles are important to them. So If you are
asking what should we do, there are limits to
what we can do. I think we need to break the
dynamics of this food-for-meetings. The
administration has portrayed the choice as
essentially blackmail or war. And if we don't
give them some goodies, they will start a war.
I think all their behavior over the last
decade says very strongly that they are
desperate to survive at the lowest cost.
There is no evidence of any suicidal impulses.
My suggestion would be to take a leaf from the
old British technique of what they use to call
"masterly inactivity." Bill Perry, the
President's envoy, has put a comprehensive
deal on the table. They have not given a
definitive response. I think that what we
should do is, sort of more in sorrow than in
anger, essentially say to them, "we wanted to
take this new course, you have made this
choice. We really regret it. The deal is on
the table. We hope you will pursue it at some
point, but we cannot do this anymore. There
is no political support for this policy. Here
is the eight hundred number, toll-free,
twenty-four hours a day, but don't call us,
we'll call you."
Paal:To put it more simply or encapsulate it, each
time they have developed a new capacity to
threaten our interests, they are better off as
a consequence, even though they do not develop
it overtly as far as they might have if they
wanted to. Which means they are getting the
benefit by using just what their weak economy
can produce to initiate a program. We assume
they are going to go all the way with the
program and we pay them off, as if they are
going all they way with it. And they are
better off every time they develop a new
capability against our interests. That's the
wrong cycle. They have to be worse off at the
end of developing these capacities. And that's
what we have not been able to achieve in the
last five years.
Host:But on the other hand, what is the option?
The nuclear accord has purportedly succeeded
in bottling up their program, so you are
arguing against success there, aren't you?
Paal:No sir, I don't think so. In the original
phase of our discussions with the North
Koreans about their nuclear capability, we
formed a pair of false alternatives. Either
give them a payoff for a little bit of
cooperation in the overt areas that we know
about - we can't speak to the covert - or go
on a near combat footing and risk everything.
There is an alternative in the middle, which
is, if you do not want to cooperate, stew in
your own juices. You have got your poverty,
your problems; you have got technology
problems. We are not going to help you. If
you want to come back and talk on our terms,
we would be glad to receive your message. But
until then, we will maintain deterrence. And
if you use these new capacities you are trying
to develop, you can count on massive
retaliation.
Spring:I think you need more than massive
retaliation. My judgment is that the more
offhand approach in the internal dynamic needs
to be supported by what I would call an
external dynamic of reinforcing U.S. alliance
structure, by doing things militarily in terms
of exercises, which we are planning to do.
Host:There is an exercise of seventy thousand South
Korean and U.S. troops at the end of August.
Spring:That's right. I think that is smart. It means
making sure that the U.S. interests, as they
have traditionally been stated even back in
the Cold War in that area of the world, will
continue to be U.S. policy for the foreseeable
future. Those essentially establish the
external dynamics within which the internal
dynamics will play out. As long as the North
Koreans believe, for example, at some point
that this kind of threat will cause the United
States to reassess its position in Asia, or
drive wedges between the United States and
South Korea, or wedges between the Untied
States and Japan, and from the viewpoint of
the Chinese the same, the bad behavior is
going to continue in my judgment.
Host:It does seem to be producing though, in terms
of China's interests, the opposite effect that
they would wish to see, which is a huge
interest in deploying a regional missile
defense program with Japan, the reinforcement
of the U.S.-Japan defense agreements, and a
closer relationship between South Korea and
Japan. All of these things, you would think,
China would be using its influence to
undermine, not encourage.
Paal:There are crosscutting interests here. The
Chinese look at what took place in the war
with Yugoslavia recently and they say, North
Korea would probably be better off if it had a
capacity to strike back that Slobodan
Milosevic did not have when he was being
bombed by NATO. So they have interests in
conflict. On the one hand, they do not want
the North to test and disturb the region, and
they may succeed in pressuring the North not
to do that. But the price of that may be
assistance to the North in various ways to
develop a capability so they can sting the
Americans or the allies in east Asia if there
is a new conflict in the region.
Host:And what was North Korea's reaction to the war
in Kosovo?
Manning:It was the same. In fact, when Bill Perry met
with their top general, the vice-chairman of
their defense commission, he told them very
clearly - and this is a rough quote - "We are
not going to be Yugoslavia." I think that the
North Korean military, which has a
disproportionate influence politically under
Kim Jong Il, much more than it did under his
father, is committed to these weapons systems.
I do not believe that they are going to give
them up. I think that China has a dilemma
because it is costing them in terms of
allowing one of the successes of our policy,
and this is particularly true of Perry's
efforts, to build new levels of coordination
between the U.S., Korea and Japan that were
unimaginable. Last week, the Korean and the
Japanese held their first joint military
exercise. That would have been unimaginable
just three of four years ago. This is another
way it is harming China's interests, but they
are stuck. They are not looking forward to a
unified, democratic Korea, aligned with the
United States, going all the way up to the
Yalu River. So they want to keep North Korea
around, but the cost of doing that is growing
in a whole variety of ways. That's their
dilemma. Getting back to your response, I
think the shock to North Korea if the United
States just kind of laid back and did not do
much, and let Japan and South Korea respond to
a test, would so dramatically shift the
dynamic of this whole cycle of rewarding bad
behavior. Those two things, the fact that the
United States was not running after them to
come to a meeting and that, instead of the
U.S. telling Japan and South Korea what to do,
we were just sitting back and enjoying their
own behavior -- that would change the dynamic.
Host:I'm afraid that's all the time we have this
week and I would like to thank our guests -
Robert Manning from the Council on Foreign
Relations; Douglas Paal from the Asia-Pacific
Policy Center; and Baker Spring from the
Heritage Foundation - for joining me to
discuss the North Korean threat. For On the
Line, this is Robert Reilly.
Anncr:You've been listening to "On the Line" -- a
discussion of United States policies and
contemporary issues. This is --------.
12-Aug-1999 14:06 PM EDT (12-Aug-1999 1806 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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