International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation

Bulletin 19 - Missile Defense and North-East Asia

Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

NMD and Bush's Policy toward North Korea

Randall Caroline Forsberg

US-North Korean talks to end North Korea's development and export of missiles have been suspended since the November 2000 US presidential election. An agreement could ensure that North Korea does not develop Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs); and by ending North Korean exports of missiles and related technology to Iran (and perhaps in future Iraq), it could delay the development of ICBMs in those countries beyond the currently estimated earliest acquisition date of 2015.^[1] Apart from India and Pakistan - which do not pose a missile threat to the United States - North Korea, Iran, and Iraq are the only developing countries that have programs to develop long-range missiles.^[2] Thus, President Bush's failure to pursue a missile ban in North Korea will keep alive all of the 'rogue state' missile threats that could emerge in the next 10-15 years.

Many people in the United States and in Northeast Asia believe that the Bush administration is reluctant to conclude an agreement with North Korea because this would eliminate the rationale for rapid development of a National Missile Defense (NMD). In the words of Spurgeon Keeny, former director and president of the Arms Control Association, the Bush policy will "preserve the North Korean missile threat" instead of seizing the opportunity to end it and then dealing with the consequences for NMD.^[3]

This paper begins by reviewing negotiations under President Clinton to end North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. Next it analyzes President Bush's approach to North Korea and concludes that the key difference between the two lies in the area of verification. The paper argues that national means of inspection can ensure that North Korea does not develop an ICBM or even an intermediaterange ballistic missile (IRBM), and that on-site inspection, though required for bans on previously tested missiles, is not needed for this purpose. The paper then considers North Korea's perspective on verification issues, and the broader implications of Bush's policy toward North Korea.

US policy toward North Korea under President Clinton^[4]

When President Clinton took office, North Korea's potential development of nuclear weapons had become a focus on international concern. With Soviet assistance, North Korea had built two research reactors and it was building two nuclear power reactors. It had also joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty; but in the early 1990s, when the research reactors might have produced 12 kilograms of plutonium (enough to make one or two 'first-generation' nuclear bombs),^[5] North Korea refused to permit inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to survey its entire nuclear facility at Yongbyon.^[6]

In 1994, Clinton envoy Robert Gallucci resolved this crisis by negotiating an "Agreed Framework" in which North Korea agreed to stop building its own power reactors and to accept a limited program of inspections. In return, the United States agreed to build two LightWater Reactors which would facilitate IAEA inspections and to defer some of the agreed inspections until the non-nuclear components of these reactors had been installed.^[7] The installation of the reactors was originally expected to be completed by 2003, but has now been delayed several times. One recent report suggested that the reactors may not be complete until "at least 2007 and possibly not until 2010."^[8] Installation of the non-nuclear components can be expected to be completed a year or two before reactor construction is finished.

During the 1990s, North Korea continued to develop and test missiles that could be used to carry nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction. Starting with copies of Russian Scuds called Hwasongs, with ranges of 186-310 miles (300-500 km),^[9] North Korea developed a scaled up version called the Nodong; the NoDong 2, now in service, has a range close to 800 miles. It then produced the TaepoDong 1, a two-stage missile with a Nodong first stage and a Hwasong on top. The estimated maximum range of TaepoDong 1 is 1240 miles. In 1998, North Korea used a three-stage version of the TaepoDong 1 in an attempted satellite launch that failed when the third stage exploded. Around the same time North Korea started preparing to test the TaepoDong 2, a two-stage missile with three Nodong engines powering the first stage and a Nodong for the second stage. US analysts have attributed a range of 2500-3700 miles to this missile; but since it has never been tested, the actual range is not known.

Following the failed 1998 TaepoDong 1 satellite launch, which flew directly over Japan, President Clinton sent former Secretary of Defense William Perry to talk with the North Korean government about ending its program to develop long-range missiles. North Korea then announced a moratorium on any further missile tests to facilitate talks with the United States on a missile ban.^[10] In June 2000, North Korea hosted a historic summit meeting with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung; and in early October 2000, it sent Vice Marshal Cho Myong Rok, head of the North Korean military, to Washington to discuss an agreement to end its missile program and to invite President Clinton to visit Pyongyang and sign the agreement there.^[11]

This series of positive steps led to intensive talks between the Clinton Administration and North Korea throughout the remainder of October 2000. The two sides worked out most parts of an agreement. By late October, their positions were as follows:^[12]

North Korea had offered to "halt all missile exports, including missile components, technical advice and brokering services" and to end the further development and testing of its own missiles with a range over 300 miles - that is, all Nodong and TaepoDong missiles. In exchange, it asked for $1 billion worth of food aid and other aid in kind (in part to replace earnings from sales of missiles and related technology to Iran, Pakistan, and other countries), plus several satellite launches to be conducted by the United States, and a visit by President Clinton to North Korea to sign the agreement.

The United States had agreed to provide several hundred million dollars worth of food aid and other aid, to conduct the satellite launches, and to carry out the visit by President Clinton. In addition, however, the United States wanted the North Koreans to:

Stop developing, testing, and producing all missiles above the limits of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), that is a missile capable of delivering an 1,100 lb. (500 kg) warhead 187 miles (300 km);

Reveal the numbers and types of missiles in its arsenal over the MTCR limit; and

Destroy any missiles over the MTCR limit.

The US negotiators also wanted on-site inspection in North Korea to ensure that all missiles over the MTCR limit were destroyed and that new missiles over that limit were not being produced; but they were prepared to leave negotiation of on-site verified non-production and destruction to future negotiations.

By late October 2000, the differences between the United States and North Korea came down to three points:

the exact amount of US aid to be provided;

the upper bound on the size and range of North Korean missiles that would be permitted under the agreement, 187 miles/300 km (only Hwasong 5s could be retained) or 310 miles/500 km (permitting retention of Hwasong 6s as well); and

North Korea's unwillingness to provide information about, destroy, or permit on-site inspection of its existing stock of Short- and Medium-Range Ballistic Missiles (the Hwasong and NoDong SRBMs and TaepoDong 1 MRBM).

At the time, it seemed likely that the gap on these issues could be closed in a reasonable way. For example, a compromise could be reached on the level of US aid and, perhaps, on the retention of the Hwasong 6s. The remaining issues - an accounting of North Korea's existing stock of Nodongs and TaepoDongs and on-site verified destruction and non-production of such missiles - would be left to a future round of negotiations. It was expected that an agreement along these lines would be reached by early November and followed by a Clinton visit to Pyongyang to sign the agreement in late November or in December.

The path to agreement was blocked, however, in early November when the outcome of the US election was thrown into doubt.

US policy toward North Korea under President Bush

While Clinton was still in office, National Security Advisor candidate Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State nominee Colin Powell refused to support the Clinton-negotiated missile ban. In mid-December, when State Department negotiator Wendy Sherman and White House Asia expert Jack Pritchard briefed Powell and Rice, "the Bush team made it clear that it would not ... endorse a deal."^[13] Clinton ultimately decided not to complete the agreement in part due to concern that "the new administration would not support or even complete a deal hammered out then."^[14]

Once in office, President Bush put talks with North Korea on hold until June, pending a policy review. In comments during that first six months, administration officials repeatedly indicated that they were in no hurry to complete a deal with North Korea; and in a March 2001 meeting with South Korean President Kim, Bush emphasized his reservations about negotiating with North Korea, saying that he had serious doubts that North Korea had adhered or would adhere to any agreement it made with the United States.^[15]

On 7 June, announcing the results of the policy review, President Bush said that US talks with North Korea should cover a broad agenda including "improved implementation of the Agreed Framework relating to North Korea's nuclear activities; verifiable constraints on North Korea's missile programs and a ban on its missile exports; and a less threatening conventional military posture."^[16] Though previously sources of concern, all three points were new topics in what the administration called a comprehensive agenda for US negotiations with North Korea, replacing the narrow focus on a long-range missile ban that was the topic for talks under Clinton.

In a New York Times background article published on 3 July,^[17] chief arms control correspondent Michael Gordon spelled out some of the details lying behind the brief 7 June statement. Regarding the 1994 Agreed Framework, Gordon says: "The Bush administration wants North Korea to start cooperating now with the [IAEA] to resolve discrepancies over its past plutonium production," even though the Agreed Framework calls for North Korea to open its nuclear facilities to full IAEA inspection only after all the non-nuclear components of the two new Light-Water Reactors (LWRs) being built by a US-led consortium have been installed. On North Korea's conventional forces, where the United States previously had not required any arms control or confidence-building measures, the new Bush demand undercut the long-standing South Korean position that conventional arms issues would be the subject of North-South, not US-North Korean talks, which would focus on weapons of mass destruction and missiles. Regarding the terms of a missile agreement, the Bush position was that on-site inspection would be required from the outset.

While posing new demands for a change in the terms of 1994 Agreed Framework, an agreement on conventional arms, and on-site inspection of a missile ban, the Bush team simultaneously downgraded the incentives previously offered to the North in return for a missile ban alone. As noted earlier, these included political recognition and the lifting of economic sanctions, signaled by a Presidential visit; US launching of two or three satellites for North Korea; and up to $1 billion worth of food aid and other material aid. According to Gordon, the Bush administration is prepared to take political steps, "a phrase that is generally taken to mean normalizing relations, organizing assistance by international financial institutions like the Asian Development Bank, and providing some aid," but it has been "vague about how much it is prepared to do and noncommittal about the satellite launches offered by the Clinton administration... 'I would say that we are definitely not willing to do that much for that little,' the official said. 'We are certainly not going to do a presidential trip.'"^[18]

In response to the South Korean government's repeatedly expressed concern about the suspension of US-North Korea talks on a missile ban - and the resulting suspension of North-South talks by the North - the Bush team did moderate its demands on both nuclear and conventional issues, in comparison with its initial position. At an 8 June meeting in Washington DC, US Secretary of State Powell assured South Korea Foreign Minister Han "that the Bush administration has backed down from its previous efforts to replace two nuclear reactors, currently under construction in North Korea, with thermal power plants."^[19] This idea had been supported earlier by State Department Assistant Secretary for Nonproliferation Robert Einhorn,^[20] among others; and it was raised by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in meetings in Seoul as late as May 2000.^[21] By 7 June, however, the Bush position on "improvements" in the Agreed Framework was limited to strengthening "its endeavor to push the Pyongyang regime into opening its suspected nuclear facilities for early inspections."^[22] This point is not really new; it has been raised repeatedly with North Korea by the Clinton administration and by other nations who have joined the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) and support the Agreed Framework.^[23]

Similarly, on 20 June it was reported that South Korean Defense Minister Kim Dong-shin, meeting with US defense officials in Washington, had persuaded them to let South Korea "take the lead in removing the North's conventional arms threat, in line with the 1992 inter-Korean Basic Agreement."^[24] After this time, US demands for changes in North Korea's conventional force posture were expressed as a desire not for major conventional arms reductions by the North but for "modest confidence-building measures, like giving notice of military exercises."^[25] This, too, is not new, having been accepted in the 1992 inter-Korean Basic Agreement that was signed but never implemented.

Thus, the key difference between the Clinton plan and the new Bush agenda concerns verification of a missile ban. Despite retreats on the nuclear and conventional issues back to long-standing US positions, Bush has held firm on the centerpiece of his approach to North Korea, the requirement for intrusive on-site inspection for a missile agreement. Moreover, Bush is demanding that any US-North Korea missile agreement begin with the most intrusive form of on-site inspection, "challenge inspections, in which American officials would have access to a range of sites in North Korea at short notice."^[26]

The bogus verification issue

Members of the Bush administration have suggested that their requirement for onsite inspection of agreements with North Korea stems entirely from lack of confidence that North Korea will abide by arms control agreements. But this is not the whole story. Whether or not national means can reliably verify a ban on North Korea's development of longer-range missiles is a function of both, the state of the North Korean missile program and the precise goals of the ban.

The Clinton negotiators were prepared to conclude an initial agreement verified solely by national means of inspection because their top priority was not destruction and non-production of North Korea's SRBMs and MRBMs over the MTCR limit. The Clinton team's top priority was to prevent the further development and testing of the TaepoDong 2 and, even more, to prevent the development and testing of a new ICBM with a range of at least 5,400 miles, which could reach the US west coast.

A study published in September 2001 by the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies^[27] shows that even if it conducted a successful test of the TaepoDong 2 missile, North Korea would not be able to quickly produce and deploy a three-stage version of the missile that would be powerful enough to deliver a 'first-generation' nuclear warhead to the US mainland. The reason is that extending the range of the TaepoDong 2 from 3,700 miles to 5,400 miles (required to hit San Francisco) would decrease the missile payload well below what would be required to carry even the lightest firstgeneration nuclear warhead (about 1000 lbs.).^[28] In order to field an ICBM that would threaten the continental United States, North Korea would have to develop and test an entirely new missile. And three decades of US experience verifying strategic arms agreements with Russia and the former Soviet Union entirely by US national means of inspection show that North Korea's testing of the TaepoDong 2 or a new ICBM can be reliably detected by US national means of inspection.

For an accurate accounting and destruction of North Korean SRBMs and MRBMs with ranges over the MTCR limit and for ending production of such missiles (the NoDong 1 and 2, the TaepoDong 1, and possibly the Hwasong 6), on-site inspection would be required; and for high confidence verification, challenge inspections would be desirable. But whether or not North Korea reveals, destroys, and ceases to produce these shorter-range missiles has no bearing on the US program to build a National Missile Defense system designed to intercept ICBMs. And there is no apparent advantage to be gained in giving up an IRBM and ICBM ban verified by national means just because it is impossible to move forward at this time with an on-site verified ban on the possession and production of the shorter-range missiles.

The view from North Korea

Why has North Korea been adamant about refusing on-site inspection if it is not planning an effort to surreptitiously circumvent nuclear and missile bans? If we put ourselves in the place of North Korea, several possible reasons emerge. First, from the North's viewpoint, its SRBMs and MRBMs are part and parcel of the conventional armed forces with which the North deters an attack by the United States, or the United States and South Korea combined, launched with the goal of overthrowing the North Korea government.^[29] Since outdated technology makes North Korea vulnerable to such an attack, particularly from the air where the combined US and South Korean forces have an exceptional advantage, North Korea's military strategy appears to follow the old dictum 'the best defense is a good offense.' At the outset of any armed conflict, North Korea would probably seek to destroy US and South Korea military targets such as air bases using its SRBMs and MRBMs while rushing in with its very large ground forces to seize Seoul. Then holding Seoul hostage, it would negotiate a political settlement with the United States.

If this were North Korea's strategy for national defense, then North Korean leaders would probably treat the issue of eliminating missiles with ranges between 200 and 1,240 miles a topic suitable for talks between North and South Korea (plus the United States) on ways to reduce perceived threats of conventional war on both sides. Such talks, which could begin within the next year, would focus on cuts or operational restraints in the conventional forces on each side with the greatest potential for cross-border attack and other confidence-building measures. The initiation of confidence-building measures such as observation of military exercises or exchange of information on armed forces would create an environment conducive to North Korea's giving an account of existing missile inventories and considering plans reducing those inventories.

Second, even if North Korea were prepared to eliminate all of its SRBMs and MRBMs with a range over 187 miles (permitting retention of the Hwasong 5 only) or 310 miles (permitting retention of the Hwasong 6 as well), US challenge on-site inspections of North Korean military facilities to ensure compliance with the ban could open up virtually all actual or potential military sites in North Korea to intrusive surveillance by the United States. This would reveal not only information on the destruction and non-production of its missiles, but also many other military secrets, which would make the North more vulnerable to a pre-emptive, disarming attack by the United States. This is another reason to believe that onsite verification of missile agreements is likely to be contingent on and linked to future North-South talks on conventional arms reduction and confidence-building measures and unacceptable to North Korea outside that context.

Third, suspicious of US intentions, North Korea has long insisted on symmetrical quid pro quos in its dealings with the United States. Regarding IAEA onsite inspections to verify non-production of nuclear weapons, North Korea has insisted on sticking to the letter of the 1994 Agreed Framework, which provides that full IAEA inspections will take place only when the promised Light-Water Reactors are nearly finished. North Korea has argued that full inspection must wait until the agreed conditions have been fulfilled because it cannot rely on the United States to implement its part of the Agreed Framework. This argument has found some support in the very long delay in construction of the LWRs, in the unhelpful schedule for US delivery of fuel oil promised to provide an energy source until the LWRs are on line, and, most recently, in the Bush administration's raising the possibility of abandoning the central features of the initial agreement altogether and building thermal power plants instead of nuclear power plants. North Korea's view of a fair quid pro quo for ending its long-range missile program was financial resources (or aid in kind) to replace the income it will lose from clients such as Iran and Pakistan, plus satellite launches which it might otherwise hope to conduct itself, plus the symbolic Presidential visit confirming that North Korea will no longer be treated as a 'rogue state.' A comparable (generous) quid pro quo for elimination of North Korea's SRBMs and MRBMs would probably involve some reduction in the conventional threat perceived by the North from US forces stationed in the South.

For all these reasons, even if North Korea agreed to stop producing missiles over the MTCR limit, it would be unlikely to accept on-site inspection of this component of the ban or destruction of its existing stocks of such missiles except in the context of a broader agreement with the United States and South Korea on additional measures to reduce what it perceives as a potential threat of attack from them.

Implications of the Bush approach

By insisting on challenge inspections to verify non-production and destruction of existing stocks of SRBMs and MRBMs - a clear non-starter for North Korea - the Bush administration is throwing away the opportunity to achieve a nationally verified ban on North Korean ICBMs, as well as the opportunity to secure a nationally verified ban on North Korean exports of missile technology and missiles over the MTCR limit to Iran, Pakistan, and other countries. The Bush team has been able to sustain this approach to talks with the North in part because North Korea, still hoping for an agreement with the United States, has repeatedly said that it will maintain its self-imposed moratorium on long-range missile tests, initiated in 1999 following the opening of talks on a missile ban with former US Secretary of Defense William Perry. During a May 2001 meeting in Pyongyang with Swedish Prime Minister and [then] European Union President Göran Persson, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il announced that the missile test moratorium would be extended until 2003. This means that the Bush administration is getting the benefit of non-testing on the part of North Korea without having to provide any quid pro quo; and it means that the Bush team can wait until 2003 before failure to secure an agreement with the North will begin to have consequences that are very painful for the United States.

Blasting Bush's approach, Spurgeon Keeny wrote in an Arms Control Today editorial:

"In deciding not to continue the Clinton administration's efforts to curb the North Korean ballistic missile program, President George W. Bush has gratuitously rejected a promising opportunity to improve U.S. security. In fact, the decision is so irrationally contrary to U.S. security interests that it is widely perceived internationally as intended to preserve, and even enhance, the North Korean ballistic missile threat so that it can serve as the rationale for early deployment of a national missile defense (NMD). This devastating assessment of U.S. motivation will only be refuted if the Bush administration's promised review of its North Korea policy leads to a prompt resumption of the deferred negotiations...."^[30]

The NMD system proposed by the Bush administration for construction to begin soon involves putting radars and ground-based interceptors in Alaska, where the system could not intercept potential future ICBMs launched from Iran or Iraq and where the limited number of interceptors could easily be overwhelmed by Russia's MIRVed ICBMs. Thus, the Alaska-based system would be limited to intercepting ICBMs fired from China or North Korea. If North Korean testing of long-range missiles were to end permanently, the only country whose ICBMs would be candidates for interception within the next 15 years is China; and without numerous decoys (which may not be deployed today, but are likely to be added to China's future nuclear force), China's 18 ICBMs could potentially all be intercepted by the planned US Alaska-based force of 100-interceptors.

An agreement to end North Korea's long-range missile program would change the case for the near-term NMD program to being able to defend against some or all of China's strategic missiles. That would radically alter the US debate on the subject; and because it would imply US responsibility for a new nuclear arms race with China, it would jeopardize Senate support for Bush's expanded NMD program and for early US withdrawal from or amendment of the ABM Treaty.

The Bush Administration's decision not to follow through on the deal nearly sealed under Clinton - to prevent North Korea's development of IRBMs and ICBMs and to end its exports of missiles and missile technology over the MTCR limit - is problematic not only because it opens a Pandora's box of arms racing with China and, later, India and Pakistan, but also because it is obstructing progress in talks between North and South Korea. These talks, begun at the historic June 2000 summit, would have been under way, but North Korea ended official contact with the South in March 2001 when Bush told South Korean President Kim Dae Jung that US-North Korean talks would not be moving forward. This situation has been increasingly difficult for the South Korean government, which is keen to resume serious talks with the North on a wide range of matters, including crossborder visits between the 10 million separated families, the building of a North-South rail link which will extend the reach of the trans-Siberian railway from Europe to the Pacific, and conventional arms reductions. Ironically, the intractable Bush demand for on-site verified destruction and non-production of North Korea's SRBMs and MRBMs is actually standing in the way of North-South conventional arms talks in which such measures could be taken up with some hope of success. Sadly, the powerful national interest of South Korea in moving toward reconciliation with the North and slowly but surely eliminating the threat of a major war on the peninsula is being sacrificed to perpetuate an NMD program whose real purpose is unclear.

This paper has first been published as IDDS Working Paper 4 in September 2001 and was minimally abridged for re-print here..

Randall Caroline Forsberg is the founder and director of the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies (IDDS). IDDS, 675 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA, tel. +1-617-354 43 37; forsberg@idds.org; www.idds.org.