International Outlook
Edited by Rose Brady
North Korea: How High Will Washington Crank Up the Heat?
To most diplomats and political analysts, it's considered wildly dangerous -- the military option for dealing with North Korea. If the U.S. were to bomb Pyongyang's nuclear facility in Yongbyon, the thinking goes, North Korea might retaliate by attacking Seoul, or even Tokyo, with horrific consequences. "A mere suggestion of war...could inflict a great loss upon us," South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun declared just days before his inauguration on Feb. 25.
Yet the Bush Administration, which declared late last year it had no intention of attacking North Korea, seems to be reexamining the military option. "We're not taking anything off the table," declared a senior Administration official. Why? Prospects for multilateral diplomacy to pressure Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program, as Washington has demanded, look dim. Moscow, Beijing, and Seoul do not seem willing or able to push North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to close down the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, eliminate spent fuel rods, and dismantle its highly enriched uranium program. And North Korea has been escalating tensions. Recently, Pyongyang has tested two rockets near Japan and locked radar on a U.S. spy plane -- typically the last step before an attack. That has raised concern that North Korea might take advantage of Washington's preoccupation with Iraq by revving up its nuclear weapons program.
So the Administration has its eye on two "red lines" that it does not want Pyongyang to cross. The first would be any sign that the Yongbyon nuclear facility has begun to reprocess spent fuel rods -- a necessary step in the production of a nuclear bomb. The second would be evidence that North Korea has begun to export nuclear materials. Although the Bush Administration still hopes diplomacy will work with the North Koreans, if either of these lines is crossed Washington might consider military action. A surgical strike on Yongbyon could be handled by B-1 or B-52 bombers based in Guam, or by fighters on the carrier USS Carl Vinson -- the flattop moored off Busan to support U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises. The bombers, which carry as much as 40,000 pounds of munitions and could easily take out the site, would be accompanied by escorts to jam North Korean radar.
There's a sense of déjà vu to this scenario: President Clinton mulled such a strike against Yongbyon before a diplomatic solution emerged for the last standoff in 1994. U.S. officials then believed they could knock out North Korea's nuclear capability and entomb the plutonium, avoiding a Chernobyl-like debacle. What makes it harder now is that hitting Yongbyon won't guarantee that North Korea's nuclear program is destroyed. The U.S. fears Pyongyang already has two bombs and may have relocated fuel rods. And the U.S. doesn't know the location of Pyongyang's enriched uranium program.
If North Korea starts churning out a nuke a month and if a bombing run turns out to be impractical, the focus may turn to preventing Pyongyang from exporting weapons. A naval picket line would be needed to stop any shipments. The North has said such a move would be an act of war, so a blockade might be called a quarantine, as the 1962 Cuban blockade was.
Would the U.S. ever pull the trigger? An attack carries enormous risks. But even Clinton-era officials don't dismiss the notion. Washington should make clear that it is "prepared to take all measures of coercion to prevent this threat," says Ashton B. Carter, a former Pentagon official who is now at Harvard University's Kennedy School. The U.S. hopes that the threat of force could yet revive diplomacy. The North Koreans "are not suicidal," says an Administration source. But those two red lines are cause for concern.
By Stan Crock in Washington, with Moon Ihlwan in Seoul, and bureau reports
GLOBAL WRAPUP
Serbia's New Leader
Zoran Zivkovic, 42, is about to take on one of Europe's toughest jobs. The newly appointed Prime Minister of Serbia -- formerly part of the now-disbanded federation of Yugoslavia -- was one of the closest deputies to late Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. Djindjic, 50, was gunned down on Mar. 12, allegedly by local mafia hit men.
Zivkovic won't just be trying to pursue Djindjic's policy of economic and political reform for the country that suffered heavily under the 13-year rule of the authoritarian Slobodan Milosevic, who is facing war crimes charges at a U.N. tribunal in the Hague. The new Prime Minister faces a fight for the very credibility of the state. Under Milosevic, Serbia's power structure became entangled with mobsters. They helped prop up Milosevic in exchange for a free hand in building their businesses. Although Djindjic was largely responsible for handing Milosevic over to the Hague, his efforts to crack down on organized crime fell short. Members of a key criminal mob are suspects in his shooting.
Zivkovic's first job will be to demonstrate that the government -- not the gangs -- are in charge in Serbia. Already, more than 700 suspects have been arrested in a state of emergency imposed after Djindjic's assassination that will probably stay in effect into April. The new Prime Minister is expected to push for economic reforms, including privatization of state-owned companies and a new bankruptcy law. But Zivkovic may have a difficult time convincing foreign investors that Serbia is a stable place to invest.
By Christopher Condon in Budapest
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Copyright 2003, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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