Professor James Cotton
Consultant, Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Group
31 August 1999
Contents
Introduction
Managing North Korea's Nuclear Program
North Korea's Missile Program
International Reactions and Responses
Significance for Regional Stability
Principles for Managing the North Korean
Situation
Conclusions
Bibliographical Notes
Endnote
Source: United States Central Intelligence Agency, Map no.
802191(R00141)7-98
Note: This Current Issues Brief is a supplement
to an earlier paper by the author-'The Koreas in 1999: Between
Confrontation and Engagement' (Research Paper No. 14, 1998-99,
March 1999)-which provides a detailed background to the issues
discussed here.
North Korea's announced intention to test launch
a multi-stage missile has prompted the most serious crisis on the
Korean peninsula since the nuclear confrontation of 1993. If the
test is conducted, the US, Japan and South Korea have threatened
unspecified sanctions. If these include a freeze on funding to the
Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation, the future of the
'Agreed Framework' which resolved the 1993 nuclear crisis will be
at risk. In both Japan and the US an intense debate is raging on
whether to continue to offer Pyongyang further inducements in the
hope that its behaviour will improve, or whether the time has come
to punish a regime that shows no inclination to alter its policy in
the light of the concerns of its neighbours.
The three powers have agreed on the outlines of
a 'package deal', prepared by former Defense Secretary and Korean
policy coordinator William Perry. Even though Perry himself has
discussed the package with the North Korean authorities, the
details have yet to be made public. The United States and South
Korea were waiting for the conclusion of the August round of the
'Four Party Talks' (involving the two Koreas, the US, and China)
which recently concluded. It is reported that North Korea will be
offered new and broader incentives, possibly even including
diplomatic relations, in exchange for security reassurances and
restraint in the development of offensive technologies. But the
Perry package may not be offered if North Korea continues with its
missile program. This paper argues that if a quarantine is placed
on North Korea, any chance to change the North Korean system-which
would be the only step that would defuse the Korean issue
permanently-would be lost.
Since October 1994 North Korea's nuclear program
has been constrained by the conditions of the 'Agreed Framework'.
Up to that time and in breach of its multi-lateral Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations, North Korea was
developing a clandestine weapons capability. This is now frozen
under an agreement that has required the United States to establish
a multi-lateral agency-Korean Peninsula Energy Development
Organisation (KEDO)-to construct two reactors of an international
standard inside North Korea. The European Union (EU) and other
countries have donated funds towards the operating costs of KEDO;
so far, Australia, in the interests of encouraging regional
non-proliferation, has contributed A$11 million. Aside from their
much greater safety characteristics, the reactors to be constructed
are regarded as less weapons applicable because they will depend
upon imported fuel and thus upon an external fuel cycle which can
be interdicted if required.
This agreement defused the 1993 crisis but is
less than ideal. North Korea, so far, has evaded the obligation of
transparency that it owes to all other NPT signatories. Indeed,
North Korea will only be required to comply with full International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections no earlier than 2003 when
the reactors are completed. The deal, however, was thought to be
worth the cost at the time, heading off a possible war on the
peninsula and helping to create the conditions that allowed the NPT
to be extended.
The operations of KEDO have been dogged by a
series of disputes-from nomenclature of the reactor type to
difficulties in raising the US$4.6 billion required under current
estimates-but at present an international team, the bulk of whom
are from South Korea, are in residence in the North constructing
the reactors. This in itself is an important confidence building
initiative. In August South Korea approved a contribution of US$3.4
billion to the final KEDO budget. Meanwhile, activity at the
indigenous North Korean nuclear facility has been halted, and
nuclear fuel there is under international supervision. United
States suspicions that an underground construction site might be a
new clandestine reactor were assuaged earlier this year as a result
of an on-site inspection.
North Korea's missile program is under no
comparable restraints. North Korea acquired 'SCUD B' technology
through collaboration with China and Iran, as well as Egypt (which
supplied missile prototypes) in the early 1980s. With the help of
financing from Iran, North Korea extended the payload and range of
the type, producing a very much enhanced model powered by multiple
engines-designated the No-dong-which was test flown in May 1993.
This missile, which has an estimated range of 1350 kms (bringing
all of Japan and much of North and East China within its range) may
now be deployed. North Korea possesses mobile launchers for these
missiles, and may be adapting 'GOLF' class submarines, acquired
from Russia in 1994, as an alternative launch platform.
The two missile variants were then used as the
basis for a multi-stage rocket-designated the Taep'o-dong-which was
used, according to the North Koreans, to launch a satellite in
August 1998. The second stage of the vehicle overflew Japan,
splashing down about 1500 kms from the launchsite. At the time, US
specialists could find no trace of the alleged satellite; later
some reports claimed that a third (and solid fuelled) stage, though
unsuccessful if its payload was a satellite, nevertheless traversed
much of the Pacific before crashing into waters off Alaska. US
specialists maintain that North Korea is developing a longer range
Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) version of the
Taep'o-dong which could strike targets in the continental US and
much of Asia by around 2003. This missile appears to be a further
development of SCUD technology using multiple engines. According to
some sources, certain of its features may also be copied from the
CSS-2 missile type developed by China.
North Korea's missile program also has an export
dimension. It has been claimed that North Korea has exported as
many as 400 SCUD type missiles to Iran and Syria. Iranian testing
and production of SCUD type missiles was the result of the transfer
of technology and components from North Korea. The 'war of the
cities' waged between Iran and Iraq during their eight-year
conflict was largely fuelled by North Korean missiles and
technology. And North Korean expertise seems to have played a part
in more recent destabilising missile proliferation in West Asia. In
1998 both Pakistan and Iran tested missiles that would seem to have
been derived, at least in part, from No-Dong technology. In the
past three years North Korea has participated in talks on joining
the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). However, Pyongyang
has claimed that it would lose a significant export market by so
doing, and has sought US$500 million as compensation.
What is the connection between the nuclear and
missile issues, apart from providing some substance to the claim
that North Korea is a 'rogue state'? At present North Korea's
nuclear program is on hold; its missile production and exports
though they labour under various export control restrictions are
under no such constraint. For the time being, while North Korea has
the capacity and materials to build a nuclear weapon, it is
generally regarded as not yet possessing the expertise to overcome
the considerable guidance and payload factors that obstruct the
marrying of the two technologies.
Despite the technological limitations of North
Korea's nuclear and missile programs so far, the United
States, Japan and South Korea regard these missile developments as
a profound challenge to their security and to their alliances.
Japan is threatening to withdraw its more than US$1 billion support
for KEDO if North Korea tests further missiles. South Korean
domestic opinion is undermining President Kim Dae-jung's 'sunshine
policy' of engagement with the North, and Seoul is considering
cutting off relief aid, tourism, and reconstruction funds. And the
mood in the US Congress and in some leading American think tanks is
becoming hostile to what is described as the repeated rewarding by
the Clinton administration of Pyongyang's 'bad behaviour'.
According to the findings of the Rumsfeld Commission (on future
strategic threats to the United States), North Korean weapons and
proliferation are 'a major threat to the US and to US
interests'.
Japan may develop its own satellite surveillance
technology to counter the North Korean threat, this development
being related also to a more nationalistic mood which is emerging
in the shadow of this and other regional challenges. Already South
Korea has indicated it may experiment with missiles of its own that
exceed the limitations imposed by its alliance with the US. But if
these countries go so far as to undermine the Agreed Framework,
then the North Koreans may reasonably claim that it was the United
States that failed to observe its multilateral undertakings, and
that indeed all the regional powers are conspiring to repress it.
Without this agreement, North Korea may resume its frozen
indigenous nuclear program. As a further counter-measure, the US
may continue to pursue the introduction of Theatre Missile Defence
(TMD) in Northeast Asia. Already funds have been designated to
establish a joint US-Japan study into the feasibility of TMD. Such
a system is regarded by China as destabilising, yet China's
cooperation in relation to North Korea is required given its
influence in Pyongyang, and its continuing role in the 'Four Party
Talks'.
At the present time the administrations in Tokyo
and Washington have indicated that they intend to 'quarantine' the
funding for the Agreed Framework and KEDO from possible sanctions
against North Korea. But in this regard, the US is dependent upon
Congressional approval, which may well be withheld. Even before the
missile crisis Congress was most reluctant to grant monies to
finance Washington's responsibilities, which include the delivery
of heavy fuel oil to North Korea. These funds, though delayed, were
eventually approved, but President Clinton was obliged to certify
North Korea's continued observance of its side of the agreement
before they could be expended. Similarly, opinion in Japan's Diet
is hard to predict, especially in the light of repeated North
Korean statements to the effect that Japan is regarded as a hostile
state.
It is the intention of Washington to pressure or
to induce Pyongyang to join the MTCR. But the MTCR is basically a
supply-side anti-proliferation regime. It is unlike the NPT, the
Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and other regimes where restraint
on the part of the members in developing weapons technologies is
required. In particular, it is a weapons regime that places no
limits on the domestic activities of those who possess the weapons
technology. The North Koreans are thus accurate when they point out
its partiality. Nor has it been an especially successful regime,
even where impartially applied. In other theatres its existence has
slowed but not stopped missile proliferation.
Against these developments, and even given that
it can be argued that the regime in Pyongyang must rate as among
the world's most recalcitrant, four points need to be kept
in mind.
First, North Korea's nuclear program
cannot be compared with those of Israel, India or Pakistan. All
three, and particularly the first two, have benefited from United
States assistance, training, supplies and prototypes. North Korean
existing reactors are 1950s technology. If North Korea does possess
fissile material, it is a very small amount, enough perhaps to make
two or three nuclear devices as compared to perhaps two hundred in
the case of Israel. At the moment, the biggest threat posed by
North Korea's nuclear activities relates to poor safety standards
and lack of technologies to deal with spills and other
accidents.
Second, North Korea's missile
technology is similarly extremely dated. This is presently
technology that is thirty years old. Information sharing with other
states may improve North Korea's missiles further, but the
capabilities of the SCUD type that North Korea has extended and
improved have just about reached their limit. The one real
innovation in the 1998 Taep'o-dong launching was the fact that the
final stage was solid fuelled, but this apparently did not
function. Moreover, the reliability of the whole of North Korea's
missile effort is evidently not good. Around half of the missile
tests conducted from 1984 have failed; some reports have claimed
that as many as eight of the SCUD missiles exported to Iran for use
against Iraq exploded on launch.
Third, even if it succeeds in
assembling a nuclear weapon, North Korea could never employ such a
weapon for offensive purposes. So long as the US remains engaged in
Korea, its actual use would result in the abandonment of any
restraint on the part of Washington, and the swift demise of the
North Korean state. North Korean nuclear weapons are therefore for
deterrent purposes. They may also be a bargaining chip: if the
indigenous program really has been frozen as is required by the
Agreed Framework, then it is a chip that has already been
cashed.
Fourth, North Korea does not need
missiles to attack South Korea or Japan, or US installations in the
region. North Korea possesses aircraft that are more effective and
accurate means of delivering a larger payload. Missiles of this
type are principally psychological and political weapons. Even if
North Korea were to develop an ICBM, any use of it would spell the
immediate end of the regime.
If North Korea is to be punished and quarantined
for these activities, the partiality of such action would be
patent. The moral would be drawn that proliferators (providing they
are not US allies) must actually assemble and test their weapons in
order to be taken seriously. And if the 'Agreed Framework' were to
be scuttled in the process, the North Koreans could reasonably
claim that it was the United States that failed to honour its
commitments. Further, if North Korea cannot be induced to join the
MTCR, the deficiencies in that regime must be held partly to blame.
Nor should any action be taken without securing China's
acquiescence.
These issues are therefore of very serious
regional concern. Possible action by the US and its allies may also
impact upon international weapons control regimes.
With these points in view, the author suggests
that two principles should guide policy towards North
Korea.
First, although many in the region and in the US
have come to expect the demise of the North Korean state (and its
unification with South Korea), it continues to exist as a sovereign
entity despite its tribulations. A more formal recognition of its
sovereign status would generate no more costs to the international
community than are borne at present, and may bring potential
benefits. The clearest consequence of treating it as a pariah is to
feed the undoubted paranoia of its leadership. Neither Japan nor
the US has diplomatic relations with North Korea. Since 1990 Japan
has conducted talks with North Korea with the intention of
negotiating full diplomatic relations, but these have never been
realised. The United States maintains a wide range of sanctions
against North Korea and its government, including trade and aid
restrictions. The US Executive Directors of the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) are also directed to refrain from
approving loans or financial assistance to North Korea. Under the
'Agreed Framework' the US is pledged to improve relations, but
talks to open reciprocal diplomatic offices in each country have
not made much progress. A more pragmatic approach to North Korea
might contribute to easing the sense of isolation felt in
Pyongyang, and would undoubtedly improve communications.
Second, policy towards North Korea should be
framed in order to encourage internal change. The present regime
will probably never willingly change its fundamentals. Therefore,
engaging the social and economic dynamics of the country may
present the only prospects for improving the behaviour of the
country in the longer term. As the result of famine and the decay
of the former socialist economy, sizeable tracts of the country are
being left to their own devices. The proto-market relations that
are developing there should be encouraged by aid programs provided
in the name of multi-lateral agencies and the United Nations. North
Korea will depend for some time to come on international relief and
food supplies. At the very least, these should be delivered in such
a way as to foster local civil society and individual enterprise.
An international quarantine, apart from imposing extraordinary
suffering on the ordinary people, would obstruct the exercise of
such leverage.
North Korea's nuclear and missile programs
remain one of the most serious sources of tension in the
Asia-Pacific region. As has been argued, North Korea does not have
technologically sophisticated nuclear or missile capacities and
their use would be likely to lead very quickly to the end of the
North Korean regime and to widespread destruction of the country.
Nonetheless, the isolationist and bellicose stance of the North
Korean regime and its continuing confrontation of South Korea are a
continuing source of suspicion both among its immediate neighbours
and internationally. Because of this, opinion in the US and Japan,
and especially in the US Congress, is not likely to lead those
countries to resile from some form of sanctions against North
Korea, if the North Koreans persist in their missile program.
-
- For reports on the GOLF class submarines see the entries for 18
January 1994 in Greg J. Gerardi and James A. Plotts, 'An Annotated
Chronology of DPRK Missile Trade and Developments', http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/gerplo21.htm
On the future of North Korea:
Byung-joon Ahn, 'The Man who would be Kim',
Foreign Affairs 73(1994), no. 6, 94-108.
Stephen W. Linton, 'North Korea under the son',
The Washington Quarterly 19(1996), no. 2, 3-17.
Marcus Noland, 'Why North Korea will muddle
through', Foreign Affairs 76(1997), no. 4, 105-18.
Young Whan Kihl, 'Why the Cold War Persists in
Korea: Inter-Korean and Foreign Relations', in David R. McCann,
ed., Korea Briefing: Toward Reunification, (Armonk: M.E.
Sharpe, 1997), 49-69.
Kongdan Oh and Ralph Hassig, 'North Korea
Between Collapse and Reform', Asian Survey 39(1999), no 2,
287-309.
On proliferation issues:
William E. Barrows and Robert Windrem,
Critical Mass. The dangerous race for superweapons in a
fragmenting world (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994).
On the North Korean missile
program:
James Oberg, 'Missiles for All: more missiles
flood the world and reach farther than ever', IEE
Spectrum, March 1999, 20-28.
Federation of American Scientists, http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/dprk.missile
Greg J Gerardi and James A. Plotts, 'An
Annotated Chronology of DPRK Missile Trade and Developments',
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/gerplo21.htm