Author: Howard W. French
Publication: The New York Times
Date: December 24, 2002
URL: http://nytimes.com/2002/12/24/international/asia/24KORE.html?pagewanted=1
North Korea's decision this weekend
to remove international controls from its nuclear reactors and from a large
supply of weapons-grade fuel is as much a political challenge as a military
one, experts on the country's behavior say.
By taking possession of 8,000 spent
fuel rods, the country could conceivably begin producing plutonium-based
bombs in as little as six months, experts say. But as serious as this sounds,
many analysts see another threat in the country's brash actions, and it
could materialize even sooner: a weakening of the half- century-old alliance
between South Korea and the United States.
A new and diplomatically inexperienced
South Korean president is to take office here in February, and he seeks
to pursue closer relations with his neighbor. Behind Pyongyang's latest
actions, analysts detect a desire to take advantage of the new South Korean
eagerness at the expense of the United States, just as America is enduring
a period of intense unpopularity among South Koreans.
The North Korean ruling party's
newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, alluded to this strategy in an editorial today
that called for the two Koreas to work together to cut the United States
out of the peninsula's diplomatic equation. "Now is the time for all Koreans
to frustrate the U.S. imperialists' aggression and antireunification moves,"
the newspaper said.
Although no one here expects South
Korea to oblige, North Korea's behavior clearly aims to deepen the cracks
that have already made this country's relationship with Washington unusually
fragile, and analysts who agree on little else say Pyongyang's timing could
not have been more astute.
The Bush administration, which has
spent two years avoiding serious diplomatic initiatives toward Pyongyang,
insists there can be no dialogue with North Korea as long as it is in violation
of major arms control commitments. Complicating matters yet further, Washington
has been intensely focused on a possible war in Iraq, allowing North Korea
to seize control of its deadly nuclear materials in the knowledge that
the United States can scarcely take on two major conflicts at once.
This has been a season of huge anti-American
demonstrations in South Korea, incited by the deaths in June of two schoolgirls
who were accidentally crushed by an American military vehicle on patrol.
The protests have revealed a deep wellspring of resentment of the large
United States military presence here, and of what many South Koreans feel
is their relegation to the role of barely listened-to junior partner. At
the same time, feelings toward North Korea have softened, with this country's
increasingly affluent and self- confident population looking more in pity
than in fear at their neighbor and yearning to help North Korea rather
than punish it.
Remarkably, after more than two
years of high-profile efforts to engage with Pyongyang, public opinion
surveys here show that South Koreans are as skeptical of their longtime
ally, the United States, as they are of heavily armed North Korea.
The president-elect, Roh Moo Hyun,
who emerged victorious last week in part on the strength of these sentiments,
is an ardent advocate of engagement with North Korea, and has vowed to
be assertive in dealing with the United States, which he has openly called
heavy-handed.
Mr. Roh, who has never been abroad,
has not had time to put together a national security team, and for that
reason will be even more inclined to insist on extra time to develop a
response to the North Korean challenge.
"I don't think the United States
will make any quick judgment," said an official of the Blue House, the
South Korean presidential office. "They will give a little time. Even when
Bush was elected, it took one year to set up a foreign policy team. This
is a very delicate period. I don't think any of the countries involved
will expect any quick response."
North Korea's latest challenge is
eerily similar to a nuclear crisis in 1994, when the Clinton administration
drew up plans for a strike against the country's nuclear plants after Pyongyang
made moves toward reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, ostensibly to make bombs.
Some voices in Washington have already
begun to call for the United States to renew its threat to destroy North
Korea's nuclear power center at Yongbyon.
"North Korea's purpose is to move
the spent fuel rods to sites around the country where they could be weaponized
in order to convince us that there can be no pre-emptive strike," said
Chuck Downs, author of "Over the Line: North Korea's Negotiating Strategy."
"We have to very graphically convey
to the regime that this is unacceptable," he said. "That is something that
the Bush administration doesn't want to do because we are distracted with
Iraq and want to pick our fights, but the North Koreans are giving us no
choice."
Critics of a muscular ultimatum
say that the same constraints that eventually swayed the Clinton administration
against attacking North Korean sites are still in place. Seoul and more
than 30,000 American troops are within easy range of North Korean artillery,
military experts say. Pyongyang could rain 300,000 to 500,000 rounds on
this city in the first hours of a conflict.
What is more, if Washington pushes
ahead with a more confrontational approach now, it risks badly straining
relations with Mr. Roh, who has insisted that South Korea be given a bigger
role in shaping the alliance's North Korea diplomacy.
"That is exactly the trap that is
being set by North Korea," said Scott Snyder, Korea representative for
the Asia Foundation and author of "Negotiating on the Edge: North Korean
Negotiating Behavior." Mr. Snyder said that without South Korean acquiescence,
"military confrontation would come at the cost of our alliance, and could
inflict damage to U.S. interests elsewhere in the region, as well.
"The North Koreans don't deserve
this advantage, but the opportunity to divide the alliance was created
by two years of drift in Korea policy, and their timing is impeccable,"
he said.
While some analysts have emphasized
the potential military threat from North Korea's actions, others say its
behavior, however alarming, is still focused on getting Washington to resume
high-level discussions. The often repeated North Korean wish is for security
guarantees from the United States. In exchange for them, it says, it will
eliminate its weapons of mass destruction.
"These are very serious steps toward
the production of more weapons-grade plutonium, but they are also very
determined attempts to get us to talk," said Donald P. Gregg, a former
C.I.A. Asia expert and former ambassador to South Korea. "I don't think
these guys are crazy. As poker players, they have always had an ability
to play a very poor hand very well, and they are showing that again."