North Korea: A Waiting Game That Won't Work
By Matt Martin and Steve LaMontagne
In recent weeks, North Korea has fired three short-range missiles into nearby waters. At a time of rising tensions on the Korean peninsula and throughout the East Asian region, these provocative missile tests are an indication of North Korea’s continuing brinksmanship. And of course, this is playing out at a time when the United States is largely focused on the war in Iraq.
On March 28, in the midst of the North Korean tests, Japan launched a spy satellite to observe its neighbor to the north. The launch put additional pressure on regional tensions because North Korea believes it violates the spirit of the September 2002 Pyongyang Declaration. Under the Declaration, a significant step toward normalizing relations between the two countries, the Pyongyang government pledged to “maintain the moratorium on missile launching in and after 2003.” The Declaration does not explicitly obligate Japan to observe a parallel missile launch moratorium, but North Korea clearly construes the Declaration to affect both countries. In a statement prior to the Japanese satellite launch, a North Korean spokesperson said the declaration “remains valid only when it is respected by both sides.”
North Korea’s missile launches come in the midst of a growing nuclear crisis, with North Korea threatening to restart its nuclear reactors—a move that could lead to the production of nuclear material for additional nuclear warheads. President Kim Jong Il has already announced that the country will withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty and expelled inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. The mounting crisis has no end in sight and the United States has so far refused to meet with North Korea in a bilateral forum, leaving the situation to fester.
Recent policy documents from the Bush administration make explicit that the deployment of interceptor missiles in Alaska and California next year is designed to counter a missile threat from North Korea. However, the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) deployment will lack many crucial components at least until 2005, and quite possibly for years to come and will have only limited effectiveness for the foreseeable future. The North Korean strategic crisis is unfolding now. Delaying negotiations heightens the unrealistic hopes for an effective missile defenses, when real options and opportunities to defuse the situation now exist.
The reality is that, after decades of research and over $100 billion spent on technology and engineering development, it remains doubtful whether missile defenses will ever work well enough to provide any real protection against long-range ballistic missiles.
Rather than swallow its pride, the Bush administration is doing nothing. Its hope is that South Korea and China will cooperate with the United States in isolating Pyongyang, and possibly pressuring Kim Jong Il’s regime to collapse.
However, doing nothing is tantamount to accepting the reality of a nuclear-armed North Korea, one that could sell nuclear weapons, materials, or technology to terrorists or other rogue states. Doing nothing sends a message to other proliferators that they can develop nuclear weapons if U.S. attention is focused elsewhere.
In dealing with North Korea, it is not enough to hide behind missile defenses that do not exist and to hope for a regime change that may never occur. The Bush administration should put pride and politics aside and begin direct negotiations with Pyongyang. It should demand a freeze on all North Korean nuclear and missile activities during the course of negotiations, and offer to suspend all threatening military maneuvers in return. Once direct negotiations begin, China, Japan, South Korea, and Russia can be brought into the process. If negotiations fail, the U.S. will be in a better position to coordinate other multilateral responses to North Korea’s nuclear brinkmanship.
From ‘No Chance’ To 90% In 2 1/2 Years?
By Matt Martin
As recently as last June, General Ronald Kadish, director of the Missile Defense Agency, testified that the probability of the United States shooting down an incoming long-range ballistic missile was 0% (House Armed Services Committee hearing, 6/27/02). Several weeks ago, Pete Aldridge, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, testified that by the end of 2004, the chance of shooting down a North Korean missile using a few interceptors in Alaska and California had soared to around 90% (Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, 3/18/03).
This announcement startled ranking member Senator Carl Levin, who countered, “I am surprised that you even answer this in an unclassified setting. But, number two, I am surprised at your answer, because I know the classified number. I’ll leave it at that…I just think you better go back and check the classified numbers to the probability of success of this ‘04 system, and I think you ought to correct the record after — I think you’ll want to correct the record after you read the classified numbers.”
Aside from Undersecretary Aldridge, no one in the Missile Defense Agency, the Department of Defense, or the Bush Administration has made any public claim that the first stage of missile defense deployment, currently in the early stages of construction, will have anything but a very limited capability by 2004, and more likely, for some years into the future. Tens of billions of dollars and years of work, beginning in the Clinton administration, have been put into the system. Highly artificial and scripted tests up to this point have only achieved a 63% intercept success rate. By the end of 2004, critical pieces, including a new sea-based X-band radar and a new constellation of satellites (STSS, the Space Tracking and Surveillance System, formerly called SBIRS-Low) will not be ready. Other components, such as the interceptor booster rocket and the EKV (Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle) continue to struggle to overcome technical and engineering difficulties.
It remains to be seen whether Undersecretary Aldridge will correct the record as suggested by Senator Levin. Indeed, he is soon leaving office. However, the historical record begs the question, how can a system be 90% effective, when 90% of the system doesn’t even exist?