North Korea Fires Off

North Korea Fires Off

July 6, 2006

As the United States celebrated its Independence Day with grand displays of fireworks, North Korea attempted its own fireworks and test-fired at least seven missiles, including the medium-range Taepodong-2, long credited as theoretically able to reach Alaska. Although the Taepodong-2 test technically failed, politically it succeeded in drawing attention to the threat that North Korea still poses not only to the United States, but to its Asian neighbors (PDF) who unsuccessfully tried to stop the North's test. The exercises also highlighted the Bush administration's consistent failure to end North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. Lt. General Robert Gard (USA, Ret.), Senior Military Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, notes, "Rather than ramp up an ineffective and consistently unproven national missile defense program, the Administration should focus its energy on pressuring North Korea diplomatically and ensuring that North Korea dismantles its nuclear weapons program."

• North Korea’s missile launch was the latest in a series of events designed to grab the attention of the international community. The Taepodong-2 missile failed 40 seconds after its launch, falling into the Sea of Japan. The North Koreans may have intentionally used the drama provided by shooting six previously tested Scuds to hedge against a failure of the main test of a missile American Progress Senior Vice President Joe Cirincione dubbed the “Taepo-Dud.” And by testing in the middle of the night, with no international notification, North Korea sent a provocative message to the rest of the world. "A good guess is that these missile tests were primarily aimed at improving North Korea's bargaining position in these [six-party] negotiations, both to re-engage in the negotiations and to increase the price that Kim Jong Il would ask to end these programs," said Cirincione.
  
  

• The international response to North Korea’s antics has not been united. While no one in the international community has condoned the North's tests, the members of the six-party talks have not spoken with a united voice on how to go forward with North Korea. Japan yesterday took unilateral action and "imposed limited economic sanctions on the North, including a measure prohibiting its officials, ship crews and chartered flights from entering Japan." The United States and Britain also joined Japan in pressing for U.N. Security Council sanctions against the North's weapons program, but China and Russia have not yet offered their support. International condemnation, political pressure and further economic sanctions can help modify North Korean behavior, but they are not a substitute for a more realistic U.S. approach that must include serious two-party engagement within the existing six-party process.
  
  

• The North Korean threat worsened under President Bush. The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton yesterday tried to spin North Korea's launch as a success of President Bush's diplomacy. But what the missile tests clearly demonstrated was the wrong course the Bush administration has been on for the last six years. Jonathan D. Pollack, a professor of Asian and Pacific studies at the United States Naval War College, said, “it's becoming clear that Mr. Bush may leave office with the North Korean problem much worse.” In the four years since Bush labeled North Korea a member of the infamous "axis of evil," North Korea has resumed missile testing, pulled out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, increased its nuclear arsenal, and may have enough plutonium to produce nine nuclear weapons (PDF).