U.S. Missile Defense Is Required As North Korea Pursues Threatening Missile, Nuclear Capabilities
While President Obama is preparing to resume negotiations with North Korea after it test-launched a Taepo Dong-2 missile to flout United Nations resolutions, some analysts say it is pointless to negotiate with the North because it repeatedly violates norms.
Instead, the only response to a rising nuclear and missile threat from Pyongyang is to develop and enhance a more robust U.S. missile defense system, analysts said.
Some U.S. administration and Pentagon leaders have attempted to downplay the North Korean test of the Taepo Dong-2 missile, noting that it flew only 1,200 or so miles instead of the full 4,000-mile estimated range that could strike American targets. They also say the missile may have failed after its first stage burnout, meaning both the second and third stages malfunctioned.
But that 1,200-mile distance is far greater than the launch-pad destruct of a Taepo Dong-2 in 2006, meaning that the North has made great strides in missile technology, analysts noted.
Further, in the test flight this month, the second stage of the Taepo Dong-2 did work.
“It flew in the second stage for a long time,” said Bruce E. Bechtol Jr., professor of international relations at the Marine Corps Command & Staff College. He spoke for himself in an interview with Space & Missile Defense Report.
“The North Koreans already know how to do a two-stage” rocket, he said, including development of a Taepo Dong-X.
Bechtol also spoke before a forum of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a Washington think tank, that examined the illicit North Korean missile launch.
In the face of this rapidly advancing missile technology, it is only rational for the United States to advance its missile defense system, Bechtol said.
“The North Koreans are advancing their capabilities, and we need to defend against that,” he said.
He was responding to a question as to how the North Korean missile launch might affect a proposal by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to slash $1.4 billion from the roughly $10 billion yearly U.S. missile defense effort, with those $1.4 billion in cuts focused in some selected programs within that overall total. (Please see Space & Missile Defense Report, Monday, April 6, 2009.)
Negotiating with the North — which typically ends with the United States and others providing food, fuel or money to Pyongyang — repeatedly had meant the North could continue its obstinately outlaw ways, including illicit nuclear and missile development programs, Bechtol observed.
And the ultimate results this time will be no different, if negotiations continue, he said.
“No matter how much we paid the North Koreans, they would take our money and keep on proliferating,” he said, explaining that that “is their modus operandi.”
Not only does the North pose a threat to the United States and its allies, but Pyongyang also proliferates lethal technologies to other rogue states, including Iran, Bechtol said.
Scott Snyder, with the Asia Foundation, a San Francisco think tank with offices in many cities, voiced a similar view as a panelist in the AEI event.
The North Korean regime leaders “really just want to hold onto what they have,” he said, wishing to gain normalization of trade and diplomatic relations without having to surrender their nuclear arms or missiles.
What the North really wants, according to Nicholas Eberstadt of AEI, is to have Washington guarantee the security of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — except that the regime leaders see that guarantee as involving a unified Korea with Pyongyang as the capital.
They want U.S. financial support, Eberstadt said, without strings attached.
In the Taepo Dong-2 test, if the missile had headed for Alaska or Hawaii, with a likelihood of hitting it, U.S. forces would have used missile defense systems to annihilate it, Bechtol said.
As it was, however, even though the missile arced over Japan, a U.S. ally, neither Japanese defense forces nor U.S. missile defense forces attempted to kill the North Korean missile.
If the missile had been poised to hit, rather than to overfly, Japan, then the Japanese sea-based Aegis-Standard Missile forces would have obliterated the missile, said Michael Auslin of AEI, who moderated the event.
Separately, another key analyst in Washington noted that North Korea doesn’t honor conventions or play by the rules, despite endless talks, because it usually suffers no true punishment for its transgressions.
The Taepo Dong-2 development and test launch was proof of that, violating the 2006 United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1695 and 1718, according to Brett D. Schaefer of the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank, writing in a Heritage paper.
“These resolutions forbid North Korea from nuclear testing or ballistic missile launches and imposes arms and financial sanctions on North Korea,” Schaefer wrote.
But chances are slim that the United Nations will back up its resolutions with action, thanks to China and Russia blocking any get-tough moves, Schaefer predicted.
“Despite international condemnation of North Korea’s violation of U.N. resolutions, China and Russia have so far prevented the U.N. Security Council from taking effective action,” he noted, predicting that “negotiations are unlikely to yield a strong statement or additional sanctions.”
Still, there may be a way to use the United Nations to make North Korea suffer some pain for its violations, Schaefer observed. There are “other U.N. organizations, such [as] the U.N. Development Program, involved in North Korea despite its intransigence. The U.S. should seek to suspend these [UNDP] activities as a clear signal of international displeasure with Pyongyang.”
It is troubling that some backdoor means of disciplining the rogue regime must be devised, Schaefer noted.
“The failure of the Security Council to enforce its own resolutions is both a travesty and a testament that there are often drawbacks to relying on multilateral bodies to be the primary enforcer of efforts to prohibit or sanction undesirable activities,” he wrote.
While that is a sad commentary, that is the way things are on the East River, he continued.
“Considering the dim chances of strong action by the Security Council, the U.S. should seek to use other levers to pressure North Korea. Unfortunately, aside from Security Council actions and financial sanctions like those applied by the U.S. and allied countries to good effect in the past, such levers are few and far between.”
Even food aid provided by other nations isn’t a lever that will affect the insular regime, Schaefer recalled.
“North Korea has shown little hesitation in letting its citizens starve to make political points,” he stated.
But there still may be a way to bring Pyongyang to terms, Schaefer continued.
“One possible lever … is to reverse the January 2009 decision of the U.N. Development Program … to return to North Korea,” he noted.
“UNDP originally suspended its North Korean activities after information provided by whistleblowers to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations led the U.S. to question the organization about its practices and activities,” he wrote. The United States unearthed evidence of “sloppy personnel practices that gave North Korean officials access to sensitive information; poor oversight of funds, including some diverted to Pyongyang’s pockets; and illegal transfers of dual-use technology.” So the UNDP withdrew from North Korea in March 2007, and didn’t return until this year, with assurances that now it won’t be forking over more cash payoffs to the Pyongyang government.
“To the extent that the [UNDP] executive board enforces these changes, they are welcome. In the past, however, vigilance has not been the board’s strong suit.” Rather, the Kim Jong Il regime has used the UNDP to acquire dual-use items helpful to its nuclear and military programs, for laundering funds and for circulating counterfeit U.S. $100 bills.
Since the UNDP — now chaired by Iran — only this year resumed operations in North Korea, shutting it down again wouldn’t likely harm ordinary citizens of the North, Schaefer observed.
“Suspending the recently renewed UNDP program in North Korea would signal displeasure from the international community and is a step that could likely be made with few programmatic consequences, since UNDP activities have only just resumed,” he wrote.