NORTH KOREA PLAYS NUCLEAR POKER

North Korea has once again resorted to its preferred game of nuclear blackmail, telling the United States and its allies that it plans to resume development of missiles for carrying nuclear warheads.
The threat comes at a time when the N. Korean leader, Kim Jong-Il is reported to have suffered a stroke, leaving the rest of the world to wonder who is now running a nation that relies as much on deception and secrecy as it does on lies and threats. In its latest power play, North Korea told the U.S. that it was restarting the production of enriched uranium at its Yongbyon plant, which had had been shut down this past year following international talks in which the Koreans were promised monetary aid and much needed fuel for their ailing power plants and declining industrial base.
Observers now reckon the shutdown of Yongbyon was yet another example of North Korea’s tendency to deceive because recent reports have confirmed that even while the facility was closed work went ahead on building a new missile engine capable of delivering a warhead into the continental United States. Tests on the engine were carried out in secrecy at a site on Korea’s western coast. That has concerned not only the U.S. but particularly N. Korea’s neighbors, South Korea and Japan, who are aware that when the North declared itself a nuclear state in 2005 it possessed enough plutonium for five nuclear warheads. At that time, however, the Pentagon felt N. Korea lacked the delivery systems for nukes and the real danger it posed was that it might share its stocks of plutonium with terrorist supporting states such as Iran.
As a consequence, the Bush Administration felt it had to make every effort to engage with North Korea diplomatically to persuade it to abandon its nuclear program in return for an economic embrace from the West. The thinking in Washington was that Kim Jong-Il needed to end his country’s isolationism if it was to survive economically. Since 2005, there has been a diplomatic dance between the U.S. and North Korea, with the latter constantly using threats to get what it wants and from time to time acting so erratically it has been difficult to determine exactly what motivates Kim and his inner circle.
The latest reversal of policy by Pyongyang was announced with the justification that Washington had not acted in a timely fashion to remove it from its terrorism blacklist. In Washington, Tokyo and Seoul there was astonishment at that statement yet many observers pointed out that the unpredictable character of the North’s regime should not have surprised anyone. Still, it left many Pentagon experts wondering what exactly the North Koreans hoped to achieve from their latest turn around.
In truth, it may be yet another power play by Pyongyang based on the belief that real bargaining power in a nuclear blackmail game requires having pieces that translate into real threats. For example, without the ability to show that it can target the U.S. with missiles carrying nuclear warheads, the regime’s hand in a dangerous nuclear poker game is a weak one. The ace card is missile technology, which would make North Korea not just a country with a stock of enriched uranium but a nation that was truly part of the nuclear club, capable of striking targets thousands of miles from its own shores. That would suggest North Korea has no intention of relinquishing its nuclear ambitions and it going to up the ante in negotiations with Washington and its allies. If that is the reality, the West is going to have to find some other way to deal with the regime. There is an argument that the more the West accedes to threats and rewards N. Korea economically for its lies, the more it enables Kim Jong-Il and his henchmen to thrive while they continue to build a nuclear arsenal.
The Japanese have made it clear to Washington that they have the most to fear and will not stand idly by if North Korea acquires nuclear missiles. In order to silence a growing clamor from the Japanese to get into the nuclear weapons business Washington has boosted Japan’s air defenses though that may not be enough in the long run to keep Japan from considering the nuclear option.
While the nuclear threat from N. Korea is one that keeps people awake in the Pentagon at night there is also the constant risk of a conventional conflict on the Korean peninsula. If that occurred, the North would have a decided edge. While many North Koreans have lived with starvation, the country’s military has always been well cared for, especially its Special Forces. It has the world’s largest Special Operations Forces, said to number close to 100,000 operatives, and most military analysts agree that they are highly trained. They are divided into 22 brigades, some of which are trained for chemical and biological weapons’ dispersal. There are also brigades that have trained snipers, explosives experts and infiltration teams. At least two brigades of agents are ready for insertion into South Korea to pose as South Korean military or civilians once a war begins. In keeping with the kind of terrain Special Forces will be aside to fight in, there are four sniper brigades assisted by seven independent reconnaissance battalions.
While the North does not possess the most advanced radar, it has a multi-layered system that could prove difficult to penetrate. It also possesses enough small to medium range missiles to target South Korean cities and the 28,000 US military personnel stationed along the DMZ between the two parts of the country.
Dating from 1993, Kim Jong-Il has been his country’s sole leader in charge of a military totaling 1.3 million people under arms. That does not include a paramilitary force of 115,000 under the control of the Ministry of Public Security and an internal security force of 145,000. While Kim Jong-Il, also known as “dear leader” has absolute control of the armed forces, there is a National Defense Committee of senior party members and it may now be running the country if Kim has been impaired by a stroke.
The Defense Committee is part of what is known as the ruling elite, an inner circle that surrounds Kim and keeps him informed about events inside and outside the country. It is composed of approximately fifty trusted Party members, most of them in their late 60s. They are from the same generation and share similar social connections. The majority of them are from the capital, leaving much of the country underrepresented at the decision making level. Overall, it is estimated that no more than 100 people have a role in formulating policy. Little is known about many of those figures, making it difficult for outside intelligence agencies to determine what might happen in the event of Kim’s death or his inability to function after a serious illness. Like so much about North Korea, the less that is known about only it serves to make it a more dangerous adversary.