by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright April 4, 2009
All Rights Reserved.

       Threatening the launch a satellite into orbit, reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il keeps the West on its toes, defying U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718, condemning North Korea’s 1996 nuclear test.  U.S. North Korea representative Stephen Bosworth hoped the long-range missile test wouldn’t take place, prompting a series of defensive countermeasures by the U.S. and South Korea.  Despite the demilitarized zone above the 38th parallel that marked the end to the Korean War [June 25, 1950 to July 27, 1953], over 36,000 U.S. soldiers lost their lives battling North Korean and Chinese forces. Neither side claimed victory, with the North Koreans emboldened by the formidable military standoff.  Kim Jong-Il’s father Kim Il-Sung battled and eventually evicted the Japanese from the Korean Peninsula with help from Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin.

            When Kim Jong-Il defied the West, fired up his Yongbyon heavy water nuclear reactor, enriched weapons grade plutonium, built a crude atomic bomb and detonated the device Oct. 9, 1996, the world was dumbfounded.  South Koreans quaked in the their boots, worried that its fiery neighbor would attack industrious South Korea, ranked as the world’s 14th largest economy, just behind Mexico and Australia.  Kim’s North Korea ranks 89th, close behind Yemen and Uzbekistan. Despite intense diplomacy to get Kim to stop his nuclear program, he views atomic weapons as a means of blackmailing the West, certainly South Korea.  North Korea has already sold Iran long-range missile technology.  If Kim acquires atomic bombs, there’s no limit to whom he’d make them available.  Bosworth hoped North Korea’s latest threat would reopen six-party talks involving Russia and China.

            Despite suffering fuel and food shortages, North Korea boasts the world’s 4th ranked military, attesting to Kim’s priorities.  While the demilitarized zone with 30,000 U.S. troops has kept the peace for 56 years, Kim threatens military action against the South.  Multinational six-party talks have attempted to reason with Kim, knowing the consequences of war.  “We would hope, and believe strongly, that everyone has a long-term interest—regardless his short-term problem, in getting back to the negotiations in the six-party process as expeditiously as possible. . . “ said Bosworth, hoping to discourage Kim from a new missile launch.  Former Bush administration U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said the U.S. should weight military action if North Korea’s missile hits Japan.  Bolton, now a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, is a well-known hawk.

            Whether or not North Korea fires a missile, regardless of where it lands, the U.S. has no business contemplating military action.  Only an unprovoked attack on South Korea should warrant any discussion of a U.S. response.  Mired in Iraq in Afghanistan, the U.S. can ill-afford another military adventure.  “But if there is a real possibility of landing in Japan or in any populated area, the we would have to look at it very carefully,” Bolton told the AFP news service.  Bolton strongly supported former President George W. Bush’s Iraq War, believing the U.N. was a toothless organization with little clout around the globe.  Bush’s Iraq War cost over 4,200 U.S. lives and nearly $1 trillion to the U.S. treasury.  Opening up another front, especially in Asia, would almost certainly stretch the U.S. armed services to the breaking point.  Japan must deal with its own threats to national security.

            Rumors of Kim’s ill-health could cause North Korea to press ahead with another rocket test to keep the West at bay.  When Bush named Iraq, Iran and North Korea the Axis of Evil Feb. 1, 2002, he gave justification for the Iraq war, a little over a year later.  Over six years into the Iraq War, President Barack Obama finally announced an exit strategy.  Opening up a new front in North Korea would be blatantly unwise.  “I don’t expect much out of this administration.  It doesn’t seem to have any plans beyond going to the U.N. Security Council,” noted Bolton, proud of Bush’s stand taken in Iraq.  Bolton and other Bush White House officials dismissed out of hand the reports of U.N. Chief Weapons Inspector Dr. Hans Blix that Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction and presented no threat to the U.S.  Bolton calls any U.N. involvement surrendering U.S. national security. 

            Obama just finished his first summit at the G-20 in London, emphasizing his multilateral approach to diplomacy.  Since Sept. 11, Bush never trusted U.N. diplomacy preferring to go it alone in what became known as “cowboy diplomacy,” once known a “gunboat diplomacy.”  Shooting first and asking questions later doesn’t work for a wounded superpower, hobbled by a trillion-dollar Iraq war and an unending battle in Afghanistan.  Whether or not Kim fires his new missile, the U.S. can’t afford more military adventurism at a time of record deficits and military fatigue.  Forming a bond with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao, Obama paved the way for more effective multilateralism.  Both men welcomed the end to a unilateral U.S. foreign policy.  Multilateral diplomacy is the only viable approach left to manage North Korea.

 About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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