Geopolitical Diary: Tuesday, May 3, 2005
May 03, 2005 03 27 GMT
North Korea and the United States are continuing to fire blanks at each
other over the nuclear issue. The North Koreans launched a Silkworm
cruise missile on May 1 in an incident that the international media
insisted on referring to as a missile test. And on Monday, the United
States leaked through the Kyodo News Service in Tokyo a Defense
Department white paper stating that regional commanders would be given
the right to request that the president permit the use of nuclear
weapons -- and that U.S. submarines in Japanese ports potentially could
be loaded with nuclear missiles.
It all seems ominous until you stop to consider what actually has
happened. The Silkworm is an old Chinese air-breathing missile. It has
very limited range and payload. The North Koreans have fired these on
several occasions; they have no relationship whatsoever with the
missiles Pyongyang is said to be developing for regional strikes or
strikes against the United States. The only thing the "test" proved is
that North Korea's Silkworms can still be fired.
Regional commanders -- or what used to be called CINCs and still should
be -- have always had the authority to ask for whatever they wanted.
They report to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who reports
to the president. Now, if they asked for the release of nuclear
weapons, they might be relieved of command for idiocy, but Monday's
official leak does not protect them from that. It simply says that if
the commander formerly known as CINCPAC felt he needed nukes, he could
ask for them. He could always ask for them.
Similarly, the warning that nuclear submarines that had been armed with
nuclear weapons for decades could still be armed with nuclear weapons
is interesting, only because it implies that the weapons are based in
Japan. But since the United States never denied that they were based in
Japan, that's not so interesting either. Nor was Condoleezza Rice's
claim that the United States had all the deterrent power needed to
manage North Korea -- that also seems a rather obvious point.
So, the North Koreans have fired an obsolete missile, and the United
States has stated the obvious.
The issue for us is not the posturing, nor the vapidity of it all. It
is why the posturing is intensifying at this time. The dance has been
going on for quite a while. Both sides are making the situation appear
as grave as possible, without actually taking any significant steps. It
is quite strange. Even the fear that North Korea might detonate a
nuclear device underground is strange. If we assume that Pyongyang has
nuclear capabilities, then a test does nothing more than confirm it.
The United States can then nuke North Korea's facilities or not, as
they wish. There is a crisis only if we assume that the North Koreans
can deliver a nuclear device effectively without their launch platforms
being destroyed on the ground -- and that they would wish to do so.
That isn't the case. The North Koreans do not want to be engaged in a
nuclear exchange, and U.S. forces can take out above-ground launch
facilities or air bases at will. It appears to be a self-containing
crisis, yet it continues to intensify. There must be another reason.
We continue to look with interest at China's role in all of this.
Beijing has positioned itself to serve as mediator and stabilizer on
the Korean Peninsula. The Chinese will extract other concessions from
the United States in return for playing this role. But in order for
them to play that role, they will need a crisis. No crisis, no savior.
No savior, no horse-trading on Taiwan or the yuan. Therefore, the one
country to benefit from this crisis is China.
That could explain why everyone is firing blanks. The North Koreans
like Chinese patronage but fear the price. The Americans are pretty
sure the Chinese will bail them out without a nuclear exchange, but
also don't want to pay the price. We wonder if that is the reason each
side is hurling the equivalent of an old, broken-down cruise missile at
the other. It allows them to avoid backing down, without playing into
the Chinese trap.
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