Can senators save Clinton-Kim deal? - nuclear nonproliferation agreement between the US and North Korea - Column
Insight on the News, Nov 21, 1994 by Angelo M. Codevilla
E-mail Print Link
President Clinton's deal with North Korea is straightforward: Up front, the United States pays North Korea $4 billion and provides free oil, technology and diplomatic recognition that the world's nastiest regime could not otherwise obtain. In return, Kim Jong-il permits us to believe that North Korea has given up the acquisition of nuclear weapons.
To prevent a creeping catastrophe in the Pacific as a result of Clinton's deal, the Senate ought to force Clinton to submit it for ratification as a treaty, defeat it and lay out guidelines for a policy of solidarity with our traditional allies in the region.
The stakes are high. North Korea and its Chinese patrons are showing Japan and South Korea that America no longer is a reliable source of security against even the tiniest nuclear power. Hence these countries will seek security elsewhere, and the Pax Americana that has reigned over the Pacific Rim as a result of World War II will end. But because the Clinton-Kim deal is so full of opportunities to fudge and because the administration will have increasing incentives to put the best face on worsening events, the disaster will take some time to unfold.
Under the Clinton-Kim deal, no one will bother North Korea for an unspecified number of years as it does whatever it likes with its 8,000 reactor fuel rods. The United States will not even be able to ask for -- never mind get -- an intrusive inspection of its current nuclear facilities until the North Koreans take delivery of the final components for new ones (at least five years from now). Hence, North Korea's promise to put the rods in cooling ponds is unenforceable, and it can finish extracting the bomb-grade plutonium from the rods at leisure. Afterward, it can turn over the radioactive rods, and the United States will take care of disposing them. The massive amounts of oil and other aid that will flow into North Korea in the meantime will free up cash to allow it to buy the other components for atomic bombs.
The Clinton administration claims that under the agreement, the North will not restart the reactor that probably has produced fuel for a dozen bombs. But surely North Korea would not do so anyway until it had extracted the bomb materials from the latest batch of fuel rods. By the time inspection comes around, the first eight bombs should be ready to be brandished, either secretly or openly, as a livelier threat in the next round of negotiations.
What will the Clinton administration (assuming it is still in office) do then? Will it perform better in the next round of North Korea's patented stall-threaten-negotiate tactics than it did in the last? It will do worse. If, in the future, Clintonites denounce North Korea's treachery and call for military action, they first would have to acknowledge that they had made a big mistake in 1994. Because such a confession would be a devastating self-indictment, chances are, that it never will be made. Instead, the Clinton administration, having become a hostage to its own blunder, will find ways to excuse North Korea again and again. In each subsequent round of talks, Kim and his henchmen will be in a better position to blackmail Clinton into continuing the process under way.
Japan and South Korea, however, are too close to danger to indulge illusions. The Clinton plan saddles them with 80 percent of the ransom to be paid to Pyongyang. Worse, because the Clinton deal now commits the United States to the proposition that North Korea poses no nuclear threat, the Japanese and South Koreans know that they must face that threat without American help.
Japan and South Korea already are negotiating with Russia to buy the SA12B, which is a lot like what our Patriot defense system might have been if our arms controllers had not deliberately dumbed-down its technology. Both countries have approached Chine for protection. They know full well that China is North Korea's patron and that the United States betrayed them in part to avoid trouble with China. Both countries also are exploring security arrangements with Russia. Finally, because Japan and South Korea cannot afford to be the only countries in the region without nuclear protection, both will bolster their military power and build nuclear arsenals.
The northwest Pacific has been so peaceful and productive for so long that we are tempted to imagine that this is its natural state. Not so. Before we won World War II and submerged the locals' fears and ambitions by our military dominance, the region was a nursery of wars involving Japan, China, Russia, Korea and ourselves. In just a few years, it will revert to exporting bloody wars rather than low-cost, high-quality consumer goods -- unless the Senate repudiates Clinton's deal.
Angelo M. Codevilla is senior fellow at the Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.
COPYRIGHT 1994 News World Communications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
Insight on the News, Nov 21, 1994 by Angelo M. Codevilla
E-mail Print Link
President Clinton's deal with North Korea is straightforward: Up front, the United States pays North Korea $4 billion and provides free oil, technology and diplomatic recognition that the world's nastiest regime could not otherwise obtain. In return, Kim Jong-il permits us to believe that North Korea has given up the acquisition of nuclear weapons.
To prevent a creeping catastrophe in the Pacific as a result of Clinton's deal, the Senate ought to force Clinton to submit it for ratification as a treaty, defeat it and lay out guidelines for a policy of solidarity with our traditional allies in the region.
The stakes are high. North Korea and its Chinese patrons are showing Japan and South Korea that America no longer is a reliable source of security against even the tiniest nuclear power. Hence these countries will seek security elsewhere, and the Pax Americana that has reigned over the Pacific Rim as a result of World War II will end. But because the Clinton-Kim deal is so full of opportunities to fudge and because the administration will have increasing incentives to put the best face on worsening events, the disaster will take some time to unfold.
Under the Clinton-Kim deal, no one will bother North Korea for an unspecified number of years as it does whatever it likes with its 8,000 reactor fuel rods. The United States will not even be able to ask for -- never mind get -- an intrusive inspection of its current nuclear facilities until the North Koreans take delivery of the final components for new ones (at least five years from now). Hence, North Korea's promise to put the rods in cooling ponds is unenforceable, and it can finish extracting the bomb-grade plutonium from the rods at leisure. Afterward, it can turn over the radioactive rods, and the United States will take care of disposing them. The massive amounts of oil and other aid that will flow into North Korea in the meantime will free up cash to allow it to buy the other components for atomic bombs.
The Clinton administration claims that under the agreement, the North will not restart the reactor that probably has produced fuel for a dozen bombs. But surely North Korea would not do so anyway until it had extracted the bomb materials from the latest batch of fuel rods. By the time inspection comes around, the first eight bombs should be ready to be brandished, either secretly or openly, as a livelier threat in the next round of negotiations.
What will the Clinton administration (assuming it is still in office) do then? Will it perform better in the next round of North Korea's patented stall-threaten-negotiate tactics than it did in the last? It will do worse. If, in the future, Clintonites denounce North Korea's treachery and call for military action, they first would have to acknowledge that they had made a big mistake in 1994. Because such a confession would be a devastating self-indictment, chances are, that it never will be made. Instead, the Clinton administration, having become a hostage to its own blunder, will find ways to excuse North Korea again and again. In each subsequent round of talks, Kim and his henchmen will be in a better position to blackmail Clinton into continuing the process under way.
Japan and South Korea, however, are too close to danger to indulge illusions. The Clinton plan saddles them with 80 percent of the ransom to be paid to Pyongyang. Worse, because the Clinton deal now commits the United States to the proposition that North Korea poses no nuclear threat, the Japanese and South Koreans know that they must face that threat without American help.
Japan and South Korea already are negotiating with Russia to buy the SA12B, which is a lot like what our Patriot defense system might have been if our arms controllers had not deliberately dumbed-down its technology. Both countries have approached Chine for protection. They know full well that China is North Korea's patron and that the United States betrayed them in part to avoid trouble with China. Both countries also are exploring security arrangements with Russia. Finally, because Japan and South Korea cannot afford to be the only countries in the region without nuclear protection, both will bolster their military power and build nuclear arsenals.
The northwest Pacific has been so peaceful and productive for so long that we are tempted to imagine that this is its natural state. Not so. Before we won World War II and submerged the locals' fears and ambitions by our military dominance, the region was a nursery of wars involving Japan, China, Russia, Korea and ourselves. In just a few years, it will revert to exporting bloody wars rather than low-cost, high-quality consumer goods -- unless the Senate repudiates Clinton's deal.
Angelo M. Codevilla is senior fellow at the Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.
COPYRIGHT 1994 News World Communications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group