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US-DPRK tangle: Prospective disaster

BRIG GEN M. SAKHAWAT HUSSAIN ndc psc (retd)
FOR more then a decade the Korean peninsula has been in a flux. The tension in the region took a new dimension after President George W. Bush termed North Korea, the last outpost of the iron Curtain, a member of 'Axis of Evil.' The Us, for the first time since the end of the Korean War in 1953, adopted a confrontational posture in the peninsula, blaming Pyongyang for nuclear proliferation. Bush tightened the decade-old sanction imposed on North Korea for flouting the Non-Proliferation Treaty, (NPT) and accused it of trying secretly to build nuclear weapons and delivery system.
North Korea is also accused of supplying missile technology to many anti-West Middle East countries including iraq under saddam Hussain. Pyongyang is charged with supplying similar technology to Pakistan in exchange for advance nuclear know how. Tension further accentuated since UsA's unilateral military action against iraq almost under similar accusation.
North Korea has always felt threatened from the time when the Us concentrated her Far Eastern military strength within the striking distance of Pyongyang. The Us presence did not make Moscow or Beijing comfortable either.
Tension between North Korea and UsA grew since the death of Kim iL sung. Washington thought, like the Berlin wall crash and the soviet collapse, North Korea, with its nuclear capability, would crumble within, and the reunification would then be automatic. That did not happen, though the collapse of the soviet Union precipitated an acute crisis in North Korea. Kim realized that he had lost the soviet patronage with the end of the Cold War.
Pyongyang has already pulled out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and expelled the international weapons inspectors. in 1996 North Korea accused Washington of military belligerency and of amassing theater nuclear weapons (TNW) too close to the border and of conducting provocative naval exercises close to her coast.
Apart from Washington, Pyongyang accuses Japan of developing its nuclear capability and launching spy satellite,
allegedly for surveillance over North Korean nuclear and military facilities.
Many analysts suggest that the Us security overtures, perceived Japanese belligerence, isolation in post Cold War period, and south Korean bid to push reunification, might have pushed North Korea to adopt the nuclear path. The iAEA also suspects Pyongyang's nuclear ambition though North Korea is yet to carryout any ground test of weapons.
Whether North Korean periodical admission of possession of nuclear weapons is a hoax or not is difficult to judge, but Pyongyang's rhetoric has not ceased. Many experts opine that it
could simply be a bid to blackmail to extract the maximum from the Us. Many suggest that the dramatic end of the much heralded six-Nation talk in Beijing last year could not initiate any road map because of Pyongyang's demand of the UsA to guarantee 'no aggression'. Us termed that a bid to blackmail.
Prior to the first six Nation talk, Time magazine quoting U.s. intelligence sources, revealed that 'North Korea had activated a coal-fired steam plan. in a statement before House intelligence committee the out going CiA director, George Tenet stated that North Korea had a missile, untested as yet, but
designed to reach the U.s. West Coast.
Japan's reaction and Pyongyang's admission turned the region into a tinderbox. For the first time Japan found reason to enhance its defence. According to the Time magazine report in its February 2003 issue, "Constitutionally passive Japan drew a shocking line in the sand: Defense Agency director shigeru ishiba told a news agency that if Tokyo were to receive intelligence that North Korea was preparing a missile attack, Japan would have the legal right to launch a strike in selfdefense".
The security situation deteriorated after Bush decided to tighten the noose
around North Korea concurrently with the invasion of iraq. The Korean peninsula in particular and the region in general seemed to have moved much closer to everyone's worst-case scenario: war in south East Asia. But that would be a total nuclear/chemical shoot out with allegedly nuclear-armed North Korea on one side and Japan and the U.s on the other, and south Korea perilously trapped in the middle. such a scenario, however, do not preclude China and Russia from the tangle.
Defence analysts however think that Pentagon was capable of a double pronged attack but for the iraqi debacle that made the Us tone down for a
negotiated settlement. North Korea wants guarantee of non-aggression and removal of nuclear weapons from the region, as minimum guarantee to lower its guard, but Washington does not seem to be in a reconciliatory mood as yet.
Kim Jong iL is well aware that it is not only the iraqi quagmire that forced Us to tone down its rhetoric but the possibility of a wider strategic ramification that tied the hand's of UsA. Both in Japan and south Korea public opinion against Us presence on their soil is mounting as days pass by, especially after the iraq invasion and their governments' support of the Us war in iraq.
For the past few years Japan has been enhancing its defence budget and perhaps looking for energizing its missile programme for producing nuclear warheads. Experts believe Japan is capable of producing nuclear weapons within weeks and delivery system is at hand. Japan's posture has astonished many who took Tokyo to be a pacifist state. it is interesting to note Japan's strategic shift from purely economic concern to military. its participation in iraq indicates Japan's desire to play a bigger role in the strategic affairs, however narrow that base may be.
The country most concerned at these developments is south Korea, both in terms of military and economy. south Korea, a Washington ally, condemns the idea of a nuclear North but has not abandoned the path of peaceful reunification. south Koreans, the younger generation more so, believe that unless provoked, North Korea would not attack the south. What these new-generation analysts perceive is that the Us is not helping the bid for peaceful reunification, rather it is creating hurdles to the transition. south Koreans are suspicious of the growing Japan-Us military axis in the region that brings back the bitter memory of Japanese occupation that ended only six decades back.
China is the major regional country that has more at stake in the tangle. Beijing, more than once, reminded Washington of the consequences the region might face if Taiwan moves to declare independence. China would also not like to see North Korea collapse. That would induce multiple problems for the region especially for China - a tide of refugees, a powerful, unified neighbor, and the possibility of U.s. troops marching back toward the Yalu River. Moreover, China is fearful of the aftermath in case a peaceful unification is not achieved and Us forces do not leave the peninsula. But it also shudders at the possibility of a nuclear North, which has triggered an arms race in Beijing's backyard, especially the future contending power, Japan.
The situation in south East Asia had never been as complex as it is now. At the strategic plain, the region has become a boiling pot with impetus added by rhetoric emanating from Washington.
Washington has realized the potentially dangerous situation it may create in the light of the Middle East quagmire it is in. it also realises that Asia Pacific is no longer its exclusive backyard and is in need of help from North Korea's neighbors, especially China and south Korea, to settle the tangle amicably, so as to have the option of being bailed out from a crisis that could well be too complex to handle.
The author is a defence analyst.