It Makes a Difference to the Sheep

MORE: "DON'T BELIEVE WHAT THOSE SILLY NORTH KOREANS SAY" FROM SEOUL

Reuters (Paul Eckert, "S.KOREA PLAYS DOWN NORTH'S LATEST NUCLEAR REMARKS," Seoul, 11/07/03) reported that the DPRK's envoy in Britain said Pyongyang had a nuclear deterrent ready to use, but the ROK played down the assertion Friday and said there was no sign the DPRK would walk away from international talks. The DPRK's envoy in Britain, Ri Yong Ho, told Reuters in London Thursday Pyongyang had a nuclear deterrent that was not only ready but powerful enough to deter any US attack. Asked about Ri's remarks, ROK Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun told reporters: "It's hard to see any consistency in various DPRK remarks, and it's more important to consider the overall trend than any one particular outburst." He did not elaborate on what he meant by an overall trend, but said he believed recent statements by Pyongyang were part of its negotiating posture before six-country nuclear talks on a year-old crisis over the DPRK's nuclear arms ambitions.

As I've noted before, this is not a new tactic for the ROK. Others have noted the ironic contrast with Iraq: in the case of Iraq everyone knew that Iraq had WMDs and, therefore, dismissed Iraq's protestations to the contrary. In the case of North Korea, the DPRK has made claims to possessing a nuclear capability but Seoul (and at least some in Washington) downplay the claims. I used to be fairly convinced that the DPRK had crossed the Rubicon some time in the past year or two and had determined to actually acquire nuclear weapons for reasons of security and status rather than threaten to acquire nuclear weapons as a ploy to extract more concessions. Now, I'm not so sure. It seemed to me that the U.S. invasion of Iraq offered the DPRK the perfect time to test a bomb or in some other way clearly demonstrate that it does indeed have a nuclear weapons capability (as opposed to merely possessing nuclear fuel). However, the DPRK didn't do this and still hasn't. Did the powers that be in P'yongyang look at Bush's determination to invade Iraq despite opposition from the rest of the world and conclude that demonstrating a nuclear capability might actually provoke Bush into launching another preemptive attack before P'yongyang could make more weapons? Does the DPRK still want nukes but hasn't quite worked all the technical details out yet? Or is the talk of nukes merely talk, albeit frightening talk designed to extort concessions from Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington? I suppose Jeong Se-hyun would lean more toward the last of these possibilities. I'm still not sure.