Pyongyang Ping Pong

Taepodong-2 Missile

General Douglas MacArthur

I sometimes think General MacArthur was correct about using nuclear weapons during the Korean War and that President Truman was wrong to prosecute a “limited” war. The “limited” war on the Korean peninsula in the early 1950s was in some respects a total failure. The Red Chinese badly miscalculated and had horrendous losses in Korea, losing most of their veteran combat soldiers. China could not supply their forces in Korea from their bases in Manchuria.

For 69 years we have lived with the problem the “limited” war in Korea produced. Sometimes I think it would have been better if the entire peninsula went communist or capitalistic democratic as later happened in Vietnam. Despite mistakes, South Korea has become a capitalistic juggernaut, a steady ally and democratic Christian nation. Our effort with the South Koreans has been immensely successful.

The failure of the U.S. and its allies on the Korean peninsula has produced a rogue state that now threatens Japan, the Pacific nations and the western boundaries of U.S. territories. Furthermore, the North Koreans threaten the entire world by proliferating their illegal missile and nuclear technology.

The “limited” war philosophy also infected U.S. foreign policy thinking and led to our disaster in South Vietnam. The “limited” war philosophy also caused needless casualties in Korea and Vietnam. The facts below confirm the errors of 69 years of foreign policy yackety yack.

According to my sources in Israel on September 23, 2007 Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it. The attack was launched with American approval after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related. Nuclear samples taken from Syria for testing had been identified as North Korean. North Koreans were also at the site.

The South Koreans believe the North's 1.2 million-strong military an "immediate and grave threat." North Korea has recently bolstered its naval forces, reinforcing submarines and developing new torpedoes, in addition to increasing its special forces training. Tension between Pyongyang and Seoul has increased steadily. North Korea threatened to scrap peace agreements with the South and has threatened to start another war.

North Korea has been involved in six-party talks with the United States, Japan, Russia, South Korea and China but North Korea is not seriously engaged in the talks.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called North Korea's nuclear program "the most acute challenge to stability in northeast Asia." In February 2009 Clinton warned North Korea against any "provocative action and unhelpful rhetoric" amid signs the Stalinist nation was preparing to test fire a missile capable of reaching the western United States. Clinton said North Korea needs to live up to commitments to dismantle its nuclear programs, saying Washington is willing to normalize ties with it in return for nuclear disarmament. "The North Koreans have already agreed to dismantling," she said. "We expect them to fulfill the obligations that they entered into." Clinton fails to realize we cannot make agreements with the leadership of a nation that has no ethical or moral values.

She also criticized the Bush administration for abandoning the so-called 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea, reached during President Bill Clinton's first term in the White House, which called for the North to give up its plutonium-based weapons program. Again Clinton fails to realize that we have been talking off and on with the North Koreans since 1950 and except for an armistice these talks have achieved almost nothing including a permanent peace treaty.

Clinton said the framework collapsed when the Bush team accused Pyongyang of maintaining a separate highly enriched uranium program. As a result, she said, the North had restarted and accelerated its plutonium program, allowing it to build a nuclear device that it had detonated in 2006. I am sure the Bush administration had good reason to accuse the North Koreans.

Recently the North Koreans fired another missile and the UN failed to agree on a response to North Korea's long-range rocket launch despite pressure from Washington and its allies for action, while regional powers weighed the extent of the new security threat. The UN is not going to do a damn thing because the UN is splintered.

The launch of the rocket, which flew over Japan during its 2,000-mile flight, was effectively a test of a ballistic missile designed to carry a warhead as far as the U.S. state of Alaska.

An emboldened North Korea would use the first successful launch of its Taepodong-2 missile to extract concessions for showing up at any future round of six-party talks on ending its nuclear program. North Korea will probably seek to water down obligations it signed onto under previous negotiations.

Kim Tae-woo, a nuclear and weapons expert at the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis, said "With this capability, North Korea is equipped with the infrastructure to play the nuclear game and raise the stakes in the six-way talks," "As a result, more will have to be given to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear program."

The long-running talks among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States have failed.

Japan called for the emergency U.N. Security Council meeting but the 15 members agreed only to discuss the matter.

The U.S., Japan and South Korea say the launch violated Security Council resolutions banning the firing of ballistic missiles by Pyongyang, imposed after a nuclear test and other missile exercises in 2006.

Of course, China and Russia were not convinced the launch of a North Korea satellite was a violation of U.N. rules. Three other countries supported their view. In the end it was 10 nations against 5 nations.

U.S. military and South Korea officials said no part of the Taepodong-2 rocket entered orbit. The rocket flew 2,000 miles, which was double the range of an earlier version, called the Taepodong-1, fired over Japan in 1998. In the only previous test flight of the Taepodong-2, in July 2006, the rocket blew apart 40 seconds after launch. The rocket is designed to fly an estimated 4,200 miles.

The missile launch has implications for security in North Asia, which accounts for one-sixth of the global economy and it forces Seoul to review its military, which has been focused on a possible conventional war with North Korea.

There is now debate in Japan as to whether Japan should have the means to pre-emptively destroy North Korea's missile facilities.

The rocket launch bolsters the authority of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il after he suffered a suspected stroke in August.

The implications for the U.S. are huge. A successful satellite launch would have put half the continental United States in North Korean rocket range.

North Korea is believed to have enough fissile material for several nuclear bombs but many proliferation experts believe the North does not have the technology to miniaturize a nuclear device for a warhead yet.

Japan said it would keep pushing for punishment of Pyongyang through a new U.N. resolution.

China and Russia have called on all sides for restraint. Both nations made it clear before the launch that they would use their veto power to block any resolution imposing new sanctions on Pyongyang.

Washington and Tokyo want a resolution demanding stricter enforcement, and possibly expansion, of an existing arms embargo and financial sanctions

President Obama said,” North Korea broke the rules, once again, by testing a rocket that could be used for long-range missiles. This provocation underscores the need for action, not just ... in the U.N. Security Council, but in our determination to prevent the spread of these weapons."
Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. said that the U.S. was calling for a Security Council resolution that would be binding under international law, so North Korea's leaders understand "they can't act with impunity."

North Korea’s friends China, Russia, Libya and Vietnam used the cover story that they were concerned about further alienating and destabilizing North Korea." I am afraid to envision what this rogue state would look like "destabilized." Our position is that all countries concerned should show restraint and refrain from taking actions that might lead to increased tensions," Chinese Ambassador Zhang Yesui said.

Surprise, surprise some analysts say sanctions imposed after the North's underground nuclear test in 2006 have had little effect because some countries showed no will to impose them. Those sanctions bar the North from ballistic missile activity. Pyongyang claims it was exercising its right to peaceful space development.

One nation directly threatened by North Korea, Japan said it plans to extend its economic sanctions on the North for another year. The measures prohibit Japanese companies from buying North Korean exports.

Daniel Pinkston, a Seoul-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, said that while the rocket's first stage successfully broke away, it appears the second and third stages failed to separate or had difficulty doing so. "So it has to call into question the dependability and reliability of the system," he said. "They're still a long ways off" from being able to successfully target and strike the United States, he said. Daniel did not say what he considers “a long ways off”.

John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. said the launch didn't constitute an outright failure. "In the beginning of the U.S. missile program, when Vanguards and Jupiters were blowing up on the launching pad, American scientists declared those to be 90 percent successful, and the reason was you learn by your failures." Bolton said, "This is far from a failure. Japan is now clearly in range, and unless you're willing to kiss Japan goodbye, you have to be worried by this test."

North Korea is playing a game of trying to blackmail the U.S. by getting it within range, which is the so-called pressure card.

North Korea, one of the world's poorest countries, is in desperate need of outside aid, particularly since the help that flowed in unconditionally from neighboring South Korea for a decade has dried up since Lee took office in Seoul in 2008.

North Korea also violates non-proliferation missile agreements by peddling missile parts and technology as the situation in Syria demonstrated.