NIGEL CHAMBERLAIN:NORTH KOREA'S THREAT

By Nigel Chamberlain
LONDON — The eleventh hour is past. North Korea now poses the greatest challenge to the 33-year history of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Having served the obligatory 90-day notice, Pyongyang believes it is no longer bound by the NPT, which is designed to curb the spread of nuclear weapons and to eliminate, over time, those in existence.
All but three (Israel, Pakistan and India) of the world’s 191 countries are NPT members. At the NPT Review Conference in Geneva April 28 to May 9, delegates will discuss a range of pressing issues, especially how to respond to this first-ever withdrawal from a treaty that has made the world a far less dangerous place for nearly four decades.
At the International Atomic Energy Agency meeting last year in Vienna, North Korea was declared to be in material breach of its IAEA and NPT obligations as a non-nuclear weapon state signatory of both documents. The IAEA referred the case to the U.N. Security Council, which was, understandably, focused elsewhere at the time. It hardly mattered. North Korea had made it perfectly clear it already considered its NPT membership terminated; any U.N. debate would be seen as an act of war.
But it would have been seen as negligent for the Security Council to do nothing during the 90 days between the withdrawal announcement and the NPT Review Conference in Geneva. Faced with Pyongyang’s grave actions, the Security Council permanent members gathered in New York recently, and, in a half-hearted gesture, managed to cobble together a joint statement which — to no one’s surprise — contained no censure motion and instead expressed indications of concern about Pyongyang’s standoff with Washington. So unless a major breakthrough comes during the hastily assembled trilateral talks in Beijing involving the United States, North Korea and China, Pyongyang’s seat in Geneva will be vacant on April 28.
Some may say North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is being paranoid, but North Korea’s fear of pre-emptive military intervention is hardly unfounded.
With the election of the Bush administration, those who for two decades had advocated aggressive military intervention took control of the defense establishment of the most powerful military state in history. The terrible events of Sept. 11 provided "pre-emptive deterrence doctrine" advocates with justification to fully implement that doctrine. This included "dealing" with North Korea — one of three "axis-of-evil" states, and on whose limited missile capability hung the added rationale for a U.S. National Missile Defence program. But as the buildup for the impending war with Iraqi began, it underscored for North Korean leaders the need to have their own nuclear deterrent.
The fall-out from six months of nuclear and rhetorical standoff between Pyongyang and Washington threatens South Korea, Japan and the rest of Northeast Asia.
Newly elected South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun has been more restrained in his response than Japanese Prime Minister [FIND] Koizumi and Defense Minister [FIND] Ishiba. Mr. Roh has avoided aggressive words or challenging behavior, continuing his predecessor’s policy of constructive engagement — but clearly indicating in his inaugural address that there are limits to his patience. He is telling Washington that Pyongyang would very likely renounce its nuclear ambitions in return for a written U.S. security guarantee and aid from its neighbors.
Earlier South Korean calls for the withdrawal of the 37,000 U.S. troops stationed there have apparently been reformulated; forward-deployed U.S. forces near the Demilitarized Zone will be pulled back to Seoul and elsewhere. While this could be seen as a significant confidence-building measure, some military analysts say it could also give the U.S. military more freedom to attack North Korea’s nuclear installations because U.S. troops would be out of harms way.
Japan’s already tenuous relationship with North Korea has taken a turn for the worse recently. Both sides have launched "test" missiles, partly as a warning and partly to deploy satellite surveillance cameras to watch each other’s activities more closely.
Alarmingly, growing tensions sparked by North Korea’s nuclear ambitions are being used to justify proposals to amend Japan’s "Peace Constitution" so its Self-Defense Forces can be sent overseas. Tokyo has also been moving ahead with plans for its own missile defense systems and is now talking about acquiring cruise missiles.
Historically, spiralling arms races occur because a state sees its rival in a buildup that changes the perceived balance of power. While Washington-Pyongyang remain painted in their rhetorical corners, the clock is ticking far past 11, toward the midnight hour of irreversible new nuclear weapons programs in Northeast Asia.