Pyongyang attention seeking with missile moves
Updated
Reports of the North Korean missile launch preparations come in the same week that Pyongyang vowed to keep its nuclear weapons, until it no longer felt threatened by the United States.
North Korea has also adopted an increasingly brittle attitude towards the South, following the inauguration last year of conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Scott Bruce is director of US operations at the Nautilus Institute
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BRUCE: Well North Korea has conducted three missiles test in the last 11 years. To put that in perspective it took the United States 40 tests to perfect the targeting of its ICBM system. So if we're assuming that North Korean missiles are as effective of those of the United States, which is a pretty big assumption, a test at this point would be North Korea is right on schedule to perfect its missile program some time in the next 125 years or so. So, if the aim of these moves is to develop its missile system, North Korea are doing a pretty bloody poor mob. However, if the aim is to draw attention to itself and get the attention of the new administration in Washington, then this missile test has excellent timing. Barak Obama has inherited many urgent problems that are all vying for his attention at this point. So a deliberately provocative move like a missile test, or perhaps just the implication of a possible future missile test would be an effective calculated move to ensure that negotiations with North Korea becomes a very high priority item on the President's to-do list.
LAM: So even though we might not be too unduly concerned by reports of an impending missile test by North Korea, what do you make of some reports that say that this might lay the way open for some kind of misunderstanding, some kind of incident between the two Koreas?
BRUCE: Well relations between the two Koreas have been deteriorating for some time. You might see some skirmishes but we're not going to see an all-out war or a great threat. North Korea's military infrastructure is only slightly less decrepit than the rest of its infrastructure. The country has attempted to balance the South's technological advances with sheer numbers. It has an army of quantity over an army of quality. So it's not an even match. Furthermore, an attack on South Korea or Japan would be met with a response from the United States as well, it would create something that would be likely to wipe the North off the map. So while you might see some border skirmishes, a war would be an absolute last ditch nothing left to lose on the part of the North action. And this move timed very clearly to coincide with the new administration in Washington does not appear to be a move such as that.
LAM: Nonetheless though announcements or at least the leakage of North Korea preparing to test launch some kind of missile, isn't that further indication or doesn't that not auger well for forthcoming six nation talks on its nuclear ambitions?
BRUCE: Well the issue is to make sure that the Obama administration is paying attention to the North. I mean given the decrepit nature of the state being ignored means that North Korea can either face the ongoing deterioration of its country and would remain subject to significant influence by China. So North Korea has an urgent need to not disappear from the headlines and thus North Korea has a nice habitat of doing this sort of thing when it wants to move into negotiations and it wants to not be ignored, rather than to just throw a wet blanket over the whole affair. I think the correct reaction here is not to build a shelter; it's not to fire up the air raid sirens. The goal should be for the Obama administration and the other parties to look at the realistic negotiable options that it needs to resolve the security issues on the Korean peninsula, both nuclear and conventional.
LAM: And just briefly domestically in North Korea do you think such antics might be also for to domestic considerations given that there's a succession issue now in Pyongyang?
BRUCE: Well doing a satellite launch with this maybe or at least testing the missile is something very good domestically, politically for Kim Jong Il's regime. It says to his people look, I am delivering these high value technologies that the outside world doesn't want us to have. Now that said I don't think that this is directly related to the succession issue. While no one knows exactly who's commanding what in the North, most intelligence reports agree that while he did have a stroke last year, Kim Jong Il remains fairly firmly in control of the North. So a move like this calculated as it seems to be to influence a nuclear negotiation it seems to be much more aimed at the Obama administration rather than something to steer forward the internal succession talk.
