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)
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Source: Voice of America
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