Friday, May 29, 2009
http://chinaconfidential.blogspot.com/North Korea Believes it Has Built a Nuclear Shield
North Korea believes it has built a nuclear shield, behind which, it can launch conventional military attacks against South Korea and threaten Japanese cities with destruction.
That is the view of China Confidential analysts, who correctly predicted both North Korean nuclear tests--including the exact test dates.
The North is likely to test U.S. resolve in the coming days, convinced that Washington will respond in measured and tentative ways to Pyongyang's provocations and acts of aggression.
U.S. troops in South Korea, numbering nearly 30,000, are sitting ducks in North Korean eyes.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration has basically responded to North Korea's missile and nuclear tests by getting tough with .... Israel ... to the delight of North Korea's nuclear-arming ally, Iran, which assists and helps to finance North Korea's nuclear/missile programs while vowing to incinerate Israel (ahead of wiping out America). President Obama's obsession with pressuring Israel to withdraw to indefensible borders seems to become more pronounced as the North Korean/Iranian threat grows more menacing.
The Jerusalem Post's Carolyn Glick reports on Israel's view of the axis of nuclear evil:North Korea is half a world away from Israel. Yet the nuclear test it conducted on Monday has the Israeli defense establishment up in arms and its Iranian nemesis smiling like the Cheshire Cat. Understanding why this is the case is key to understanding the danger posed by what someone once impolitely referred to as the Axis of Evil.
Less than two years ago, on September 6, 2007, the IAF destroyed a North Korean-built plutonium production facility at Kibar, Syria. The destroyed installation was a virtual clone of North Korea's Yongbyon plutonium production facility.
This past March the Swiss daily Neue Zuercher Zeitung reported that Iranian defector Ali Reza Asghari, who before his March 2007 defection to the US served as a general in Iran's Revolutionary Guards and as deputy defense minister, divulged that Iran paid for the North Korean facility. Teheran viewed the installation in Syria as an extension of its own nuclear program. According to Israeli estimates, Teheran spent between $1 billion and $2b. for the project.
It can be assumed that Iranian personnel were present in North Korea during Monday's test. Over the past several years, Iranian nuclear officials have been on hand for all of North Korea's major tests including its first nuclear test and its intercontinental ballistic missile test in 2006.
Moreover, it wouldn't be far-fetched to think that North Korea conducted some level of coordination with Iran regarding the timing of its nuclear bomb and ballistic missile tests this week. It is hard to imagine that it is mere coincidence that North Korea's actions came just a week after Iran tested its solid fuel Sejil-2 missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers.
Continue here.Thursday, May 28, 2009
Analysts Assess North Korea Nuclear Threat Options
By Kate Woodsome
North Korea's second nuclear test and recent missile tests have renewed debate on how best to respond to a country that refuses to cooperate with the international community.
The North's tests and threats of military action against South Korea have drawn condemnation from Washington. But Tom Scheber, vice president of the Virginia-based National Institute for Public Policy, says the North's actions are putting pressure on Washington to prove it is not bluffing.
"Our allies are watching to see how we respond. Iran is watching to see how we respond to North Korea. And similarly, anything that Iran does, North Korea is watching to see is this just U.S. talking tough but doing nothing, and we can get away with this, or are there really consequences for these aggressive actions," Scheber says.
The U.S. Defense Department regularly conducts war games that simulate a response to attacks on the United States and its allies. Top national security officials plot the defensive strategies, while soldiers practice them in the field, as they did in March with South Korean forces.
Bio-Chemical Weapons
North Korea has more than a million troops and is believed to have huge stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. Defense Department experts have estimated that an actual war on the Korean peninsula would cause hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Scheber says military action is not necessary, but a strong missile defense system is a critical deterrent. The Obama administration recently announced plans to cut the missile defense budget. Scheber says the president should reconsider.
"Failure to do so could unleash this cascade of proliferation and act against the very forces of controlling proliferation that we seek to keep under control," he says.
Retired Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney, the former assistant vice chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, also warns of the spread of nuclear weapons. He says President Obama should be considering a regime change in North Korea to prevent this.
"In North Korea, it would have to be through covert, through other ways of opening up. I'm not prepared right now to discuss the how. But the fact is, if we don't, it means that Japan, South Korea are going to have to go nuclear to deter this threat," McInerney says.
Tough Action Needed
The U.S. is working with the United Nations Security Council to develop a diplomatic response to North Korea's nuclear test. Pyongyang has ignored past U.N. resolutions demanding it stop testing nuclear weapons; and some U.N. member states have not even enforced punitive sanctions targeting North Korean businesses.
Peter Huessy, of the national security consulting firm, Geo-Strategic Analysis, says Washington needs to take more aggressive action.
"One of the things we could do is divestment. Meaning, if you do business with the United States economically, you do not do business with North Korea and Iran, or its entities, or its cut-out groups and so forth, and its businesses. We don't do that," he says.
Huessy also recommends that the Obama administration cut off North Korea from the international banking system.
"That is the one leverage you have over them, which we ought to exercise as soon as possible because it's the only thing they understand," he says.
The U.S. successfully employed this tactic in 2005, when it froze about $25 million of allegedly laundered money North Korea had deposited in a Macau bank. Pyongyang only returned to international nuclear talks after the money was released.
Scheber says no matter what the U.S. does, it will need the help of Russia and China.
"There is a view that I subscribe to that we only have leverage to the extent that the rest of the international community is willing to work with us and not undermine that leverage," he said.
China and Russia in the past have refused to support stronger U.N. sanctions on North Korea. Their reaction to Pyongyang's latest actions could be a key factor in determining Washington's next step.
Friday 29 May 2009
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