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Contributors
Gordon
Cucullu- Contributor
Former Green
Beret lieutenant colonel, Gordon Cucullu is now an editorialist,
author and a popular speaker. Born into a military
family, he lived and served for more than thirteen years in East
Asia, including eight years in Korea. For his Special Forces
service in Vietnam he was awarded a Bronze Star, Vietnamese Cross
of Gallantry, and the Presidential Unit Commendation. After separation
from the Army, he worked on Korea and East Asian affairs at both
the Pentagon and Department of State as well as an executive
for General Electric in Korea. His first major non-fiction work,
Separated
at Birth: How North Korea became the Evil Twin, is
based in large part on his extensive experience in
Korea and East Asia as a governmental insider and businessman.
[website]
[go to Cucullu index]
 Chinese
Checkers
North Korea and nukes...
[Gordon Cucullu] 7/21/04
By now it ought to
be no secret that North Korea is a serious contender to join
the exclusive international nuclear club. It
has huffed and puffed and threatened to blow the house down for
years, repeating such cheerful thoughts as consuming Seoul’s
12 million citizens in ‘a sea of fire.’ We know that
this has been going on for a long time. Decades ago the first
North Korean dictator, Kim Il Sung had been dabbling in nuclear
research and development, nagging first Stalin and the Soviet
Union then Mao and the Peoples Republic of China for assistance.
Kim was uniformly
turned down and discouraged from pursuit of a nuclear weapon
by both of his communist allies. The Soviets
had no wish for a surrogate to be able to match them in quality
of firepower if not quantity. Maybe Kim could not have threatened
Moscow but he certainly could have damaged Vladivostok and other
Soviet Pacific port cities. Not that he necessarily would have
ever been so overtly hostile to his mentor but in military planning
capability always outweighs intent. The presence of nuclear weapons
in Kim’s hands was an uncomfortable contingency that Stalin
and his successors did not want to confront.
Similarly the Chinese
were adamant about a non-nuclear North Korea. Equally with
the Soviets the idea of an uncontrollable
dictator like Kim Il Sung – and more recently his son and
successor Kim Jong Il – having nuclear weapons was extremely
uncomfortable for them. China looks down its nose at North Korea
anyway, seeing its existence historically as a necessary but
noisome player in the delicate balance of power in Northeast
Asia.
Additionally the Chinese
have been concerned about a resurgent Japan. For decades they
have protested the gradual rearmament
of Japan, and have grudgingly accepted the inevitable. But unlike
Americans, Chinese have long memories. They recall not only WW
II but the 1895 Sino-Japanese War and previous centuries of invasion
and destruction at the hands of the ‘Eastern Pirates,’ one
of the few printable terms of reference Chinese use for Japanese.
The ultimate Chinese nightmare would be to be surrounded by hostile
nuclear states. They already have the Indian nuclear bomb on
their southern borders and the Russian arsenal to the north and
west. A nuclear Japan would be a severe potential blow to their
plans for peaceful expansion of influence in Asia.
Why would Japan go nuclear? And could it? Japan is one of the
most technologically advanced countries in the world. It lives
on the cutting edge of research and development and is always
quick to purchase any foreign technologies that it thinks could
have an immediate application. Japan is also one of the most
far-thinking countries in that its industry will purchase technologies
that it has no immediate use for but would prefer to own it and
keep it out of the hands of possible competitors.
Given this mind set
of proclivity for and acquisition of advanced technologies
along with a strong desire to checkmate the competition
it follows logically that Japan would not sit still in regard
to nuclear technology. Does Japan currently possess an atomic
weapon? Unlikely. Does Japan currently have the technology to
construct a nuclear weapon, and perhaps have the separate components
already build and stored away for contingency purposes? Highly
likely. Recall that in Japan form trumps substance culturally.
So that if all the component parts to build an automobile are
stored in a garage unassembled the owner can truthfully tell
friends ‘I don’t have a car.’
What China fears,
with good reason, is that the threat generated by a thoughtless
expansion of North Korea’s nuclear program
will force Japan to build a device and adopt a public stance
admitting possession of nuclear weapons. After all, from Japan’s
point of view, how long can it be expected to stand still for
such unchecked arrogance from Kim Jong Il? Outrageous threats
combined with missile ‘testing’ with Japan in the
downrange fan would try the patience of a country far less proud
than Japan.
At some point – and that point is growing closer by the
minute – North Korea will cross a line that will force
Japan into the open with nuclear weapons. That move will be a
cataclysmic diplomatic and military tsunami that will engulf
East Asia as well as most of the world. A conventionally rearmed
Japan fits well into self-defense and the free world strategic
lineup. An openly nuclear Japan is suddenly a serious military
competitor and poses a ‘capability’ threat.
A nuclear Japan means
that almost immediately South Korea and Taiwan would accelerate
and announce their own R&D programs
if not their own weapons. After all, these things are frighteningly
simple to manufacture and all of these countries possess extensive
nuclear power generating facilities, high tech laboratories and
advanced military systems capable of delivering a nuclear device.
The prospect is so chilling and discouraging that most of us
would rather not deal with it. But we must.
So what is the line
in the sand that the North Koreans had better not cross? So
far the bluff and bluster have been generally accepted
in a ‘sticks and stones’ manner by North Korean’s
neighbors. The flagrant missile testing designed to intimidate
raised hackles in Japan and irritated the Chinese. Sales of missile
components to rogue countries such as Iraq, Syria and Iran are
straining the tolerance of many who fear indiscriminate proliferation
of these weapons into irresponsible hands. But what act might
be the break point for the Chinese?
In a recent seminar at the Asia Society in New York City, former
Ambassador to both the Peoples Republic of China and South Korea
James Lilley addressed this issue in response to an audience
question. Outwardly, he said, China will continue to support
North Korea. But internally the Chinese leadership is chafing
impatiently at continued North Korean intransigence.
The Chinese recognize
that the utility of North Korea as a counterweight to US presence
in the region has just about lost its value. America
does not pose the same threat to the Chinese that they perceived
thirty years ago. Economic ties are so extensive with America
and with Japan and South Korea that China now takes a jaundiced
view of North Korean misbehavior and disharmony. ‘Late
in the evening over drinks,’ Lilley recounts, ‘tough,
old Chinese generals say that the North Koreas are pushing the
limits.’ If the North Koreans test a nuclear device, Lilley
says, the Chinese generals say that they would ‘take appropriate
action.’
We may have seen the
suggestion of such an action two months ago when a still unexplained
explosion devastated a North Korean
village near the Chinese border. Kim Jong Il’s private
train had passed through the junction just hours previously.
And reports that later emerged from the scene recounted soldiers
and workers in full bio-chemical protective garb removing bodies
reported to be Syrians from the wreckage. When international
workers arrived the immediate area had been sterilized. [See
Deadly Connections]
It would not require
much imagination to think of this as a Chinese warning shot
across North Korea’s bows. This week
North Korean Peoples Armed Forces Minister Kim Il Chol takes
a delegation to China to confer with his counterpart minister.
This follows on the heels of a Condoleezza Rice visit to Beijing
last week. While the North Korean trip is ostensibly to celebrate
the 43rd anniversary of a mutual treaty of friendship, the timing
could be right for an unfriendly message to the North Koreans:
cease and desist with your WMD program or risk the consequences.
[Further information see Endgame, by Paul Vallely and Thomas
McInerney and the soon to be published Separated
at Birth: How North Korea became the Evil Twin, by Gordon Cucullu] CRO
copyright
Gordon Cucullu 2004
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