OPINION/ANALYSIS
The U.N. Security Council has condemned North Korea for its long-range ballistic missile test last week. It was a measure without much bite, but it had serious consequences.
The multistage rocket flew 2,000 miles - twice as far as any previous North Korean ballistic missile. But it failed to put a communications satellite into orbit, and it showed Pyongyang still has a long way to go before it can turn its Taepodong-2 design into a real intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that could carry a nuclear warhead to the North American continent.
The new Security Council measure includes extra sanctions against companies working on North Korea’s nuclear program, and it also seeks enforcement of existing sanctions.
Pyongyang, as it said it would, bristled and pulled out of the six-party talks on its nuclear program being hosted by China in Beijing, claiming they were “useless.” The North Koreans also expelled international inspectors and said they were restarting a nuclear plant that is capable to producing weapons-grade plutonium.
The preparations for the latest Taepodong-2 launch were well-known in advance - in fact, Pyongyang advertised them. Nevertheless, it took the Security Council eight days after the launch to come up with a unified message with Russia and China, looking for a softer tone than was sought by the United States and Japan. The U.N. committee overseeing North Korean sanctions is to report by April 24 on which nuclear-related companies are to be added to the sanctions list.
None of this - from North Korea’s launch, to the U.N. response, to Pyongyang’s response to the response - was unexpected. It certainly seems like a set piece the North Koreans have used before.
But it remains unlikely that the international community or the United States acting unilaterally will take any steps to convince North Korea to surrender its nuclear program.
Russia and China have consistently sought to block any effective U.N. action or more powerful economic sanctions that might put significant pressure on North Korea to scrap its missile and nuclear-development programs. China wants to preserve North Korea as a buffer state to prevent democratic influences from South Korea or Japan entering and destabilizing its own vast population.
On the chessboard of global power, the possible threat from North Korea preoccupies and threatens Japan, forcing it to turn to China as a “stabilizing influence” on Pyongyang. For both Russia and China, the North Korean threat weakens and distracts the United States without generating any exposure or risk for them. Machiavelli would have approved.
There does not appear to be any reason for Pyongyang to moderate its behavior in the foreseeable future. So far, it has consistently succeeded in stringing out the six-party talks, playing for time, while moving at maximum speed regardless with its nuclear and ballistic-missile programs.
A week after the Taepodong-2 test launch, the unofficial consensus of U.S. and South Korean intelligence experts is clear. The April 5 launch failed in its primary goal of putting an ICBM into orbit. Even North Korea isn’t saying the satellite it said it launched into space was actually sending its message of patriotic songs. Western experts are virtually unanimous that it never got there.
But it can only be a matter of time before Pyongyang finally succeeds in its goal. It remains on very close terms with Iran, which did successfully launch a communications satellite into orbit in February.
Nevertheless, the six-party talks framework retains some value, despite the evident determination of the North Korean government to make sure it remains an empty shell.
First, as Winston Churchill famously declared, “To jaw-jaw is better than to war-war.”
The six-party talks provide a potential chain of communication between Pyongyang and the wider world. If real economic, diplomatic or even the threat of military measures could be brought to bear against Pyongyang, then the continuing existence of the six-party framework could become a convenient and even vital forum to launch a future diplomatic dialogue to ease tensions. North Korea is so isolated from the rest of the world that a communications link to it needs to be encouraged and maintained.
One possible route might be for the United States either unilaterally or acting with Japan to impose tough sanctions on companies dealing in banned materials. In the past, the North Koreans really didn’t like it when U.S. governments pressured banks doing business with them.
However, at the end of the day, no U.S. administration in recent times, whether Republican or Democratic, has managed to rein in the North Korean weapons of mass destruction programs - whether they worked through the U.N. like Bill Clinton, or talked tough and refused bilateral engagement as George W. Bush did.
Mr. Bush punted the problem of the North Korean nuclear program to President Obama. And so far the new president hasn’t come up with any magic solution for the problem either.
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