On May 20, North Korea’s Defense Commission claimed that the nation had built nuclear weapons small enough to be delivered by missiles. A statement carried by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said that the North’s nuclear capabilities had entered the stage of producing smaller warheads and diversifying them.
Two weeks earlier, KCNA also announced that the North had successfully tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile. However, a US military official in Washington questioned whether the North had acquired a nuclear weapon small enough to be put on a missile or had the ability to deliver a nuclear warhead on a long-range ballistic missile or from a submarine.
US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Vice Chairman Admiral James Winnefeld Jr told an academic conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that North Korea is “many years away from developing this capability.” Nonetheless, Pyongyang is waging psychological warfare to pressure the US and its allies to make concessions.
The North Koreans have learned from Sun Tzu (孫子) the grand master of stratagem in ancient China, who put great emphasis on deception in his classic The Art of War, saying that to deceive and mislead enemies: “When able, feign inability; when active, manifest inactivity; when near, manifest as far; when far, manifest as near.”
North Korea’s leaders are creative and reverse Sun Tzu’s deception strategy in their attempts to mislead their enemies into believing that the North is deploying nuclear arms, even though they do not yet possess such capability.
True, it is only a matter of time before the North eventually masters the technology to produce smaller nuclear warheads and develop long-range missiles.
The rogue state has already demonstrated a rocket capability needed for a long-range missile by placing a satellite into orbit in December 2012, and conducted its third underground nuclear test with “a smaller and light A-bomb” in early 2013. Pyongyang’s development of nuclear arms could have been averted and forestalled if the US were decisive and bold enough to make the right moves at the critical movements.
In 1993 and 1994, the administration of then-US president Bill Clinton seriously debated pre-emptive strikes against the North’s nuclear assets, but the US abandoned the military option in the wake of former US president Jimmy Carter’s willful intervention. He took the initiative to visit Pyongyang in April 1994 and received a vague promise from former North Korean leader Kim Il-sung that Pyongyang hence forth would suspend research and development on its nuclear project.
However, Pyongyang was determined then, as it is now, to acquire nuclear arms. Its military leaders consider nuclear weapons indispensable to its security and survival. After Kim Il-sung died in July 1994, his son Kim Jong-il initiated the “military first” policy to solicit support of the military to consolidate his power. He continued to pursue the unfinished task with greater efforts in utmost secrecy, much to the apprehension of the US, South Korea and Japan.
In the belief that Beijing does not desire a nuclear-armed North Korea, a recalcitrant ally and neighbor, former US president George W. Bush tried on several occasions to secure former Chinese president Jiang Zemin’s (江澤民) help to rein in Pyongyang, but to no avail. In February 2003, a frustrated Bush told Jiang flatly, “I would have to consider a military strike against North Korea.”
Jiang apparently took Bush’s warning seriously and went to work on North Korea quickly. Beijing and Pyongyang seemed to think that Bush was not bluffing and for good reason.
In March 2003, the US took military action against Iraq and there was widespread international speculation that North Korea, a member of Bush’s “axis of evil,” could be the next target. Even the South Korean government was alarmed and dispatched its foreign minister to Washington to plead against the use of force on the Korean Peninsula.
To forestall a possible US military attack on North Korea, Beijing intervened directly. It hosted the “six-party talks” (involving North and South Korea, the US, Japan, Russia and China) to deal with Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. The multilateral forum began in August 2003 and after rounds of informal consultation and formal negotiation, produced in September 2005 a broad consensus: “The Joint Statement on the Principles of Denuclearization in Korean Peninsula,” thereby the North consented to the suspension of research and development, and eventual denuclearization in exchange for security assurance, diplomatic recognition and economic aid from the US, South Korea and Japan. Both Beijing and Pyongyang were big winners in their skillful game of deception.
“The six-party talks” removed the danger of a US military attack and provided the cover and time that the North needed to undertake the research and development of its nuclear arms and long-range missile programs.
As soon as the scientists in the North were ready to resume tests in 2008, Pyongyang tore up the agreement publicized earlier and walked away from the diplomatic charade.
US officials would never admit it in public, but they know in their hearts that they were hoodwinked by the Chinese and North Koreans. A serious question remains: Can the US ever learn from its mistakes?
Specifically, will US President Barack Obama sign a bad deal with Iran that would facilitate Iran’s acquisition of nuclear arms in the years to come?
Obama’s Republican critics in the US Senate and in the media have pointed out the major shortcomings and the dangers in the nuclear deal he intends to sign with Iran at the end of this month.
The question is why the Obama administration would allow Iran to retain thousands of centrifuges, which would leave Iran as a nuclear threshold state?
If the US swiftly lifts sanctions, as the deal calls for, Iran would be provided with billions of dollars of sanctions relief to fuel its export of terrorism and advance its regional expansionism.
Why is Obama so desperate to sign the deal with Iran? Is it because he cares so much about his presidential legacy?
French Minister of Foreign Affairs Laurent Fabius reportedly told the French parliament that: “France will not accept a deal if it is not clear that inspections can be done at all Iran’s installations, including military sites. Yes to an agreement, but not an agreement that will enable Iran to have the atomic bomb.”
It would be a mistake for the US to make massive concessions to Iran. It would be wrong to believe any deal is better than no deal.
Parris Chang is professor emeritus of political science at the Pennsylvania State University and president of the Taiwan Institute for Political, Economic and Strategic Studies.
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