Missile Defense and the Two Koreas
Cheong Wooksik
The initiative of the U.S. (the country with the most powerful and greatest number of offensive weapons) to deploy missile defense is nothing more than a desire to secure hegemonic monopoly by enhancing preemptive strike capabilities and dominating space. As a response, China and Russia have declared that they will build up their nuclear and missile capabilities, and if this situation continues, the world will face a new arms race and an unstable world order.
In particular, the U.S. is justifying this project by fabricating or overstating a North Korean threat. This is also creating new security tensions in the Korean peninsula. Moreover, the U.S. is forcibly demanding that South Korea should support missile defense and participate in it. The U.S. is pressurizing South Korea to buy American- made weapons for astronomical sums of money. This Cold War attitude of the U.S. is causing a new arms race and new tensions in the region, at a time when the two Koreas are trying to create a new era of peaceful settlement and cooperation.
The U.S. missile defense plans cannot exist together with peace in and the re-unification of Korea. The U.S. is attempting to create a Cold War in Northeast Asia by compelling South Korea to participate in the project and also by considering North Korea and potentially China as an enemy. It is making military confrontation on the peninsula more likely.
The North Korean Missile Problem
The so-called “North Korean missile threat” has prevailed in the U.S. and Japan since the Taepo Dong-1 missile was test-fired in August 1998. Since then, the North Korean missile threat has been the biggest rationale for missile defense.
In 1999 North Korea agreed to suspend tests of long-range missiles, and Pyongyang has extended that moratorium through 2004. In late 2000, the Clinton administration proposed an agreement under which North Korea would halt the production and testing of medium- and longrange missiles as well as the export of missile technology. The U.S. also accepted a North Korean proposal to provide two or three launches for North Korean satellites annually. But when the new Bush administration came into office in 2001, it stepped out of this general framework because of fears that the biggest justification for missile defense would be lost. It is claimed that North Korea has about 500 Scud missiles and 100 Nodong missiles and is developing a long-range missile that can hit the U.S. homeland. Moreover, North Korea has allegedly shipped hundreds of Scud and Nodong missiles to the Middle East since the 1980s. North Korean missiles are perceived even more threatening when coupled with the country’s nuclear, biological, and chemical weapon programs.
Whether this is true or not, the U.S. government regards the missile problem as one of the most important issues to be settled. In this regard, it should be noted that North Korea has repeatedly announced that they are willing to stop missile technology exports if an appropriate economic compensation is provided. From their viewpoint, missile technology is a highly competitive export. There is no legal mechanism with which to stop North Korea’s missile exports because it does not belong to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). This is a matter of North Korean sovereignty and it is not unreasonable therefore to expect compensation from the U.S. for the limitation of sovereignty and the economic loss of missile exports if it wishes for them to stop for the sake of U.S. and world security.
The issue of compensation is of crucial importance to the North Korea-U.S. missile talks. It could revitalize the peace process on the peninsular, and help to allay the suspicions of the U.S. government that the exported missiles would be used in terrorist attacks. North Korea have changed their position on compensation – during the Clinton administration they asked for money, however, now, during the Bush administration, they have announced that they are willing to accept compensation in the form of food or energy.
North Korea has also declared that experimental missile launches would be suspended, and they have kept their promise to do so up to now. This promise has been repeatedly confirmed in talks between the two parties – during the Berlin agreement in 1999, the meeting between General Cho Myong-rok and Secretary Albright in Washington, the visit of European delegates to Pyongyang in 2001, and the first summit meeting between North Korea and Japan. North Korea has also stated that it would give up midand long-distance missile development if the Bush administration steps back from its hostile policy. However, they will continue to take every measure, including missile development for self-defense, if the U.S. government continues to pursue its missile defense program and refuses to negotiate.
Missile Defense and North Korea
George W. Bush said in his first State of the Union Address on January 29, 2002, that United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.” In particular, he named North Korea, Iraq, and Iran “an Axis of Evil,” pointing out that these countries have been developing weapons of mass destruction.
North Korea is regarded as the worst proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and is said to have hundreds of short-and medium-range ballistic missiles, to export missile technology, and to be striving hard to develop an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) that could reach the U.S. homeland. Estimates of the number of nuclear weapons that North Korea has ranges from zero to eight. What is known for certain, however, is that North Korea has not carried out any nuclear test explosions. Moreover, it is not certain that North Korea reprocessed its 8.000 spent fuel rods or manufactured nuclear devices. Regardless of the “real capabilities” for weapons of mass destruction of North Korea, the Bush administration has refused to negotiate with them and has exaggerated and misused the North Korean threat.
A fundamental question concerning Bush’s North Korean policy is: Does Mr. Bush really want to remove threats of weapons of mass destruction from North Korea or is it just possible that he needs the so-called threat from North Korea in order to continue his new military strategy, including the ambitious missile defense plan? This may sound like a conspiracy theory, but we must seek the right answer to this question in order to understand the real intention of President Bush’s policy on North Korea.
There has been a fundamental tension between the peaceful settlement of the question of weapons of mass destruction in North Korea and the new military strategies of the Bush administration. It is well known that the Bush administration is connected with the military-industrial complex and has a variety of military projects ranging from missile defense to new nuclear weapons development. These projects guarantee the profits of the defense industries which are the biggest sponsors of the Bush administration, and pave the road to military dominance of the planet and space. Needless to say, these military projects need an exorbitant budget. To persuade the American taxpayers to tolerate the burden of a huge military budget, it is necessary to demonstrate a constant external threat, something like the North Korean threat
In fact, the Bush administration stopped the missile talks with North Korea almost as soon as they were started and announced the deployment of missile defense, even though Colin Powell, the U.S. Secretary of State said that “there are some promising factors” in dealing with North Korea. The Bush administration feared that it would lose the biggest rationale for missile defense if the North Korean missile issue were resolved peacefully.
Since the confrontation in October 2002 between North Korea and the U.S. concerning an allegation that North Korea had developed a covert nuclear weapon program by enriching uranium, the Bush administration has been reluctant to negotiate with North Korea. Why? Let us investigate the reasons by comparison with Bush’s policy toward Japan.
The aim of the Bush administration’s policy toward Japan is to make it “the U.K. of Asia.” This means that the U.S. intends to use Japan like it does the U.K. in order to strengthen its hegemony in Northeast Asia. By making Japan into a tool of U.S. military hegemony, the Bush administration will, “if necessary”, attack North Korea with Japanese help (just as the U.K. played a role in the invasion of Iraq), prevent China from becoming a rival of the U.S., and encourage a Japanese military role in U.S. led wars (as demonstrated by the Iraq invasion).
In order to realize this goal, the Bush administration needs a “threat.” If the Japanese do not feel threatened by North Korea, it is difficult to pass contingency laws, increase military power, reform the peace constitution, and decide to deploy missile defense as soon as possible. This is a major reason why the Bush administration has preserved and exaggerated the “North Korean threat” while refusing to negotiate with them.
Missile Defense and South Korea
On May 5, 1999, the former South Korean President Kim Dae Jung made an announcement to CNN that “We do not have a plan to join the Theater Missile Defense system.” At that moment, the U.S. Department of Defense asked South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan to participate in the Asia-Pacific missile defense construction plan. President Kim’s statement was striking enough to be highlighted inside and outside of South Korea. According to the political trend of the South Korean government to emphasize its relationship with the U.S., it embodied the message that Korea’s government was no longer to be involved in missile defense. Then, why did Mr. Kim speak of disagreement on missile defense in spite of an expected uncomfortable relationship with the U.S.?
First of all, missile defense does not help South Korea’s security at all. The threat from North Korea comes mainly from long-range artillery with a range of approximately 40-70 km – not from missiles. Also, it is very hard to detect, pursue, and intercept a missile with a flight time of 3-5 minutes from North Korea through a small battlefield and across mountainous regions. There is no reason for South Korea to risk an arms race with North Korea, China, and Russia.
Secondly, an astronomical amount of money is needed to join in with missile defense. In the case of South Korea, buying three Aegis weapons systems and 48 PAC-3 missiles costs about US$ 5 billion, and if the costs of operation and management of the systems are to be counted, then the direct and indirect costs will be billions of dollars more.
Thirdly, South Korea has to consider its relationships with China and Russia as well as North Korea. The framework of the Republic of Korea’s Sunshine Policy toward North Korea aims to end the Cold War stand-off on the Korean peninsula through positive reconciliation and cooperation. Since the idea of missile defense is to basically neutralize North Korean missiles, which they consider as their deterrence against a U.S. led military attack, South Korea’s relationship with North Korea will be harmed if it should join in with missile defense.
The stance of South Korea has oscillated during the period of the Bush administration. During the summit meeting between South Korea and Russia, before President Kim visited the U.S., both countries adopted a joint communiqué about preserving and strengthening the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty early in March 2001. The position of Mr. Kim concerning the ABM Treaty was strongly opposed to that of President Bush, who saw the ABM Treaty as a barrier to missile defense. Since then the situation has become more serious than South Korea expected, and President Kim’s government made apologies several times during the visit to the U.S. by saying “South Korea is not against missile defense.”
Before Mr. Kim arrived in Washington D.C., the Bush administration pushed for President Kim’s government’s approval of and participation in missile defense. On March 8, 2001, a senior Security Advisor to the U.S. stated plainly that the mood of the Korea-U.S. summit meeting would take a turn for the better if South Korea supported missile defense. The arrogance of the Bush administration was further demonstrated in a letter calling for a public statement about the South Korean government’s position on missile defense. The Bush administration pressed Mr. Kim through the letter to announce in a speech that South Korea needed to deploy an effective missile defense for its national defense but Mr. Kim rejected the U.S. demand. President Bush in turn ignored President Kim’s request to support the Sunshine Policy, including the improvement of relationships between the U.S. and North Korea, and showed a consistently negative attitude towards North Korea. This could be because the South Korean government rejected missile defense, but also because the U.S. may have problems justifying missile defense if relations between the U.S. and North Korea improve.
The Roh Moo Hyeon’s government, a successor to the Sunshine Policy that came to power in December 2002, also says that it is not considering participation in missile defense. But regardless of what South Korea wants, the Bush administration has pushed for making South Korea the forward operational base for missile defense. In spite of their unwillingness to cooperate, the Bush administration has taken steps to involve South Korea in missile defense by deploying related weapons and radar systems. The U.S. has already deployed Patriot missiles including PAC-3 and a Joint Tactical Ground Station, which is a mobile early warning radar, in South Korea last August, and is also deploying two more batteries in the Western part of South Korea and some Aegis destroyers on the East Sea (Sea of Japan) this fall.
Why Is Missile Defense Dangerous to Korea?
The deployment of missile defense on the Korean peninsula should be viewed in the context of the transformation of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK). While reducing one third of its 37,000 troops in South Korea, the United States has decided to beef up its military capabilities in and around the Korean peninsula. Improving the military capability of USFK is accomplished by bringing to bear such systems as Patriot PAC-3 missiles, the army’s new Stryker brigade, Aegis destroyers, the navy’s High-Speed Vessel, advanced C4I (command, control, computer, and intelligence) systems, JDAM (Joint Direct-Attack Munition), the “stealth bomber” F-117A aircraft, and new conventional bunker-buster weapons such as BLU-118B and ATACM-P. These capabilities would be backed up by the forward-deployment of additional air and naval assets to Hawaii, Guam, and Japan.
At the same time, the U.S. is relocating the 2nd division of the USFK from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) as well as moving the forces in Yongsan, Seoul to Osan Air Base, Pyeongtaek, and the central part of Korea. The U.S. officials refer to these changes as a “transformation of USFK.”
There are four objectives that the U.S. wants to achieve through the transformation of USFK. The first is the permanent presence of U.S. forces in Korea through the consolidation and re-arrangement of USFK bases. The second is building a capability for pre-emptive actions by relocating the USFK beyond the range of North Korea’s artillery and establishing a missile defense system. The third is the containment and siege of China, a nation viewed as a significant threat by U.S. hawks. The final objective is to increase military mobility so that its troops in Korea can be more quickly deployed to other areas around the globe while passing the burden of defense against North Korea to the South Korean army.
Here is the problem. The U.S. military build-up in and around Korea to avoid a “security vacuum” caused by reducing the numbers of USFK can create and heighten uncertainty. In other words, the U.S. has adopted an “if necessary” pre-emptive strike doctrine against “rogue states” such as North Korea, and if there is no progress in U.S.-North Korea relations then the proposed changes in military power could generate a backlash from North Korea.
North Korea has condemned the transformation of the USFK as a preliminary step to a U.S. invasion of North Korea. In North Korean eyes, the U.S. military base relocation and the expansion of offensive, defensive, and intelligence capabilities are seen as a threat to its security. North Korea believes that relocating U.S. military bases out of their longrange artillery reach, while strengthening its offensive and defensive capabilities, will undermine North Korea’s deterrence.
The biggest obstacle to a U.S. preemptive strike against North Korea is the unimaginable damage to U.S. forces. For example, according to a 1994 USFK war simulation, a second Korean War could result in the deaths of 50,000-100,000 U.S. soldiers in the first three months. Since then, the military situation and balance has changed. The forward deployment of U.S. troops who are within the range of North Korean artilleries is to be cut, with some moving to Osan-Pyeongtaek. Also, the U.S. will have missile defense systems stationed in South Korea, Japan, and the U.S. homeland to intercept North Korean missiles.
If the U.S. had appropriate shields, it could use its powerful spears without fear of counter-damage. The U.S. has adapted its preemptive strike strategy against “rogue states” like North Korea who seek weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, the U.S. is building up its offensive weapons and C4I in around Korea. That is why North Korea fears missile defense and why many South Koreans oppose it.
However, the fundamental danger of missile defense to Korea does not end there. The direction of America’s core foreign policy in the 21st century seems to include the siege of China, which is seen as a major emerging power. As part of this strategy, the U.S. is strengthening its military alliances with South Korea and Japan. More specifically, the U.S. is taking steps to make Japan the hub of its power projection and re-organize South Korea as its forward deployed base.
The U.S. is relocating its bases in Korea, gathering its air power and missile defense systems in the southwest of South Korea, and making new military support facilities in the southeast. So, what does it all mean? Some Koreans believe that the transformation of USFK targets is aimed at China, though the South Korean government denies it.
The U.S. is also trying to expand the role and mission of the USFK beyond the Korean peninsula, against the wishes of South Korea. This is a dilemma to the South Korean government who want to keep a military alliance with the U.S. They therefore accept some U.S. demands, such as the sending of South Korean troop to Iraq, even though the majority of Koreans opposes it. Now, however, the demands of the U.S. have become unacceptable. The U.S. considers Korea to be of some geopolitical importance and presses it to accept missile defense and a regional alliance that could be targeted at China. Responding to these unjust and dangerous pressures, many Korean people and non-governmental organizations protest against the U.S. and press the South Korean government not to give in to bullying from the U.S.
This paper was written for the conference "The Challenge of Hiroshima. Alternatives to Nuclear Weapons, Missiles, Missile Defenses, and Space Weaponization in a Northeast Asian Context" organized by INESAP and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation on October 8-11, 2004, in Hiroshima, Japan.
