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Strategic Comments 2009

 

Strategic Comments 2008

 

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Strategic Comments  – Volume 15, Issue 5 – June 2009

North Korea's dangerous game

Nuclear test and missile launches go beyond usual brinkmanship 

 
 

In May, the United States Secretary of Defense called it ‘a harbinger of a dark future’. North Korea’s apparent progress on nuclear weapons and long-range missiles did not pose a direct military threat to the US, Robert Gates said at the eighth IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. However, the rogue state’s recent actions in testing its second nuclear bomb and firing off a volley of missiles did ‘give urgency’ to efforts to persuade it to change its direction.

 

Since April, the international community’s alarm and condemnation of North Korea’s actions have grown. Having fired a missile 3,200km over the Sea of Japan and into the Pacific Ocean, conducted a second nuclear test explosion, quit the Six-Party Talks on its nuclear programme, restarted its plutonium- production programme, expelled UN nuclear inspectors and repudiated the 56-year-old truce that ended the Korean War (see timeline, overleaf), the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was talking menacingly in early June of its ‘nuclear deterrent’ being available for a ‘merciless offensive’.

 

NK Missile launch - graphic
Unha-2 missile launch, 5 April

North Korea said the Unha-2 was a space launch to put a communications satellite into orbit, not a warhead. The re-entry vehicle requirements are very different, but the basic missile technology is the same. Since North Korea’s last long-range test of a Taepo-dong-2 in July 2006 failed after 40 seconds, this was doubtless a missile test to prove its capabilities. The third stage failed to ignite, but the Unha-2 flew 3,200km, showing significant progress towards an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

 

Such actions herald a dangerous new phase in tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Past provocations have been viewed as attempts to gain attention and concessions from the outside world. Now, as it demands to be recognised as a nuclear-armed state and simultaneously concentrates on leadership succession, North Korea is no longer suggesting it would trade its nuclear programme for the right economic and political sweeteners.

 

Show of power

While it is impossible to know North Korea’s true intentions, an assertion of power seems to be a key motivator of its recent actions. Giving little warning of the nuclear test and ignoring the Obama Administration’s offers of engagement, North Korea did not appear to be bargaining for security and economic advantages. While testing the new US president or seeking his attention may have figured in the equation, it may also be that Pyongyang pre-emptively decided it had little to gain from Obama.

 

American scholars visiting North Korea this spring heard a consistent message that North Korea was no longer interested in normalising US relations unless on the basis of recognition as a nuclear-armed state.

 

The North Koreans may have believed that the best way to gain this was demonstrating that their nuclear devices and long-range missiles really work (see boxes above and below). The great fear is that they could miniaturise nuclear warheads to mount on missiles and then deliver such a weapon, but it is unlikely that they can currently achieve this (see box, next page).

 

A need to show strength is driven by external and internal vulnerabilities. Since 2008, North Korea has faced a firmer foe in conservative South Korean President Lee Myung Bak. Lee ended the ‘sunshine policies’ of his two predecessors and reduced the aid pledged in their summits with the North. His insistence on reciprocity has apparently prompted Pyongyang to do the opposite, lest it appear weak. North Korea broke off most communications and trade with the South, and threatened to close the Kaesong joint  industrial complex, just north of the DMZ (demilitarised zone) between the Koreas, unless wage payments were quadrupled. On 30 March, North Korea arrested a South Korean manager at the plant, shortly after seizing two American journalists near the Chinese border.

 

Succession politics are also surely in play. After the stroke suffered by Kim Jong Il in August 2008, the regime

needed to demonstrate externally and

internally that it remained strong. Photos and video footage since showed Kim to be gaunt and limping. In early June, South Korean media outlets reported that North Korea has asked the country’s institutions and overseas missions to pledge loyalty to Kim’s third and youngest son, 25-year-old Kim Jong Woon.

 

These were later given some credence when eldest son and former heir apparent Kim Jong Nam told Japanese TV that he thought his younger brother would succeed to the position. It is also widely assessed that Chang Sung Taek, Kim Jong Il’s brother-in-law and a National Defence Commission member, will wield power as a regent if formal authority passes to the youngest son. Given the key role generals would play in any succession scenario, Kim Jong Il had good reason to accede to military demands for a second nuclear test.

 

Unanimous condemnation

NK nuclear test - graphic
Underground nuclear test, 25 May

Calculated at about 4 kilotonnes, North Korea’s second nuclear test is the size it promised its first in October 2006 would be, but ten times greater than that device actually delivered. As this is still comparatively small, many analysts believe the device probably failed to detonate properly. But it is also possible this was a higher-tech device designed for a small yield to fit a missile warhead. The use of tritium, which North Korea probably can produce, would allow a smaller critical mass of plutonium.

In provoking a forceful Chinese condemnation, a Japanese assessment of new defence measures, and a realpolitik reaction from the Obama administration, North Korea may have overplayed its hand. The US, South Korea and Japan all emphasised that they would not accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state. This does not signal an intention to take military action to compel the North to give up its nuclear arsenal. Rather, it represents an American show of solidarity with Asian allies who fear that the US will exclusively pursue a containment strategy to at least keep North Korea from exporting nuclear weapons or materials.

 

 

 

  

 

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North Korea's dangerous game
North Korea's dangerous game - [905 KB] Downloadable PDF of the article
Timeline of events 

 

17 March
Two US journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, are seized by North Korean agents on the Chinese border and charged with illegally entering the DPRK with ‘hostile intent’.

 

30 March
Arrest of a South Korean manager at Kaesong.

 

5 April
North Korea tests a Unha-2 rocket, a three-stage long-range missile based on its Taepo-dong-2 model.

 

13 April
The United Nations Security Council unanimously condemns the launch.

 

14 April
North Korea expels international inspectors and resumes activity at the Yongbyon nuclear facility, whose cooling tower was demolished last July during the Six-Party Talks. The country vows never to return to the Six-Party Talks or ‘be bound to any agreement’.

 

29 April
North Korea threatens that unless the Security Council apologises, it will test a nuclear weapon and an ICBM, and build a light-water reactor.

 

25 May 
North Korea’s second nuclear test measures 4.5–5 on the Richter scale, suggesting a yield of about 4kt. The UN Security Council, including China, condemns the test and says it will work on a new resolution to address it. 

 

26 May 
South Korea says it will join US-led Proliferation Security Initiative to intercept shipments suspected of carrying nuclear weapons.

 

27 May
North Korea renounces the truce that ended the Korean War in 1953 and threatens to strike any ships trying to intercept its vessels.

 

29 May 
The sixth short-range missile test in a week.

 

2 June
Reports that Kim Jong Il has officially declared his youngest son, Kim Jon Woon, 25, his successor. Little is known about this son, other than he may have attended a Swiss school.

 

8 June
US journalists Lee and Ling are sentenced to 12 years’ hard labour. North Korea bans ships from about 160 miles off its east coast.

 

9 June
North Korea threatens ‘merciless’ nuclear offensive if provoked.

 

12 June
UN Security Council passes biting sanctions resolution.

 

13 June

North Korea announces plans to weaponise remaining plutonium and to enrich uranium for additional weapons.