led invasion succeed in relatively short order, Kim suspects that Washington’s cross hairs will quickly train on him.
Like any hunted man, Kim won’t simply wait to be trapped. His regime, which last week declared itself Washington’s “next target of attack,” is likely to respond preemptively with a little “shock and awe” of its own. His most provocative option: declare North Korea a nuclear power, a move that would both destabilize Northeast Asia and raise the specter of fissile material being trafficked to America’s worst enemies. If that happens, the United States “would have only two choices: bomb North Korean nuclear installations… or deal with [the North] as a nuclear-weapons state,” argues Larry Niksch, an Asia specialist at the U.S. Congressional Research Service.
History suggests that Washington needs to respond now and to do so by telling Pyongyang exactly what will happen if it begins manufacturing A-bombs. The scariest aspect of today’s Korea crisis is that Kim Jong Il–despite his cable-news fixation–may, like many analysts, fail to discern Bush administration policy. “What is the U.S. aim [in North Korea]?” asks Derek Mitchell, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Are we open to a comprehensive agreement or committed to regime change? I don’t know.”
President Harry Truman suffered from a similar lack of clarity in 1950. Preoccupied with Europe’s reconstruction and Chairman Mao’s planned campaign to “liberate” Taiwan, he ignored events on the Korean Peninsula. That January his administration put the South outside its declared “defense perimeter” in Asia, a blunder that led Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to give his North Korean protege, Kim Il Sung, the green light to unleash his armies on June 25, 1950. Perhaps the cold war’s biggest “what if” is the notion that, had Truman telegraphed his intention to defend South Korea, Stalin might never have approved the attack.
Parallel events are unfolding today. North Korean technicians at a radiological lab in Yongbyon are pushing hard to get the mothballed facility up and running. When they succeed–and that might happen at any moment–the plant could begin reprocessing some 8,000 spent fuel rods already stored at the site into enough plutonium for half a dozen nukes. That would confront the United States and its allies with their starkest choice since 1950: permit Pyongyang’s nuclear breakout, or make war to stop it.
Like Truman, Bush’s mind is elsewhere and his signals are mixed. The president says he “loathes” Kim Jong Il, yet members of his administration have floated everything from dialogue to “benign neglect” to “tailored containment” as policy options. Secretary of State Colin Powell has even hinted that the United States might tolerate nukes in Pyongyang’s armory.
In Seoul, America watchers deride Bush’s Asia policy as ABC–Anything But Clinton. Indeed, the Bush team’s portrayal of President Clinton as a dupe who succumbed to Pyongyang’s nuclear blackmail makes it difficult for them to see that he responded decisively during the 1994 nuclear standoff–a record they’d be well served to emulate. Their critique centers on what they believe was a flawed deal. But they ignore how, throughout the crisis, Clinton was clear on his “red line” and consistently conveyed to Pyongyang his resolve to destroy its nuclear facilities should it start its plutonium production. That threat, plus some nail-biting diplomacy, ultimately persuaded Pyongyang to stand down.
Today the stakes are far higher. Virulent anti-Americanism is straining the U.S.-South Korea security alliance like never before. Years of privation have rendered Pyongyang more desperate than ever. Since 1994 the North has developed ballistic missiles capable of hitting targets in Japan and Alaska, weapons that could take any future conflict far beyond the Korean Peninsula. Lastly, September 11 has amplified the North’s potential role as a proliferator with a motive to sell fissile material to enemies of the United States.
All of which heightens the need for clarity today. Washington must assume that the North is moving as fast as possible toward developing a nuclear capability, and it should craft a policy meant to dissuade Pyongyang from following through. If the United States plans to keep its options open until Kim Jong Il watches Saddam Hussein’s regime crumble live on CNN, it may be too late.
