Conventional Weakness Propels North Korean Nuke Ambitions
Travis | Mar 05, 2010 |
0 It doesn’t take much prodding for me to post Team America or topless fishing pics. As fun as that is, foreign leaders’ quirks are not the reason states seek nuclear weapons.
For example, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair shed some light on North Korea’s nuclear motivations during his annual threat assessment testimony last month:
The [Korea People’s Army] capabilities are limited by an aging weapons inventory, low production of military combat systems, deteriorating physical condition of soldiers, reduced training, and increasing diversion of the military to infrastructure support. Inflexible leadership, corruption, low morale, obsolescent weapons, a weak logistical system, and problems with command and control also constrain the KPA capabilities and readiness.
Because the conventional military capabilities gap between North and South Korea has become so overwhelmingly great and prospects for reversal of this gap so remote, Pyongyang relies on its nuclear program to deter external attacks on the state and to its regime. Although there are other reasons for the North to pursue its nuclear program, redressing conventional weaknesses is a major factor and one that Kim and his likely successors will not easily dismiss.
I was told by a friend with a background in Asia intelligence that this language about DPRK conventional capabilities was more detailed than what has typically been revealed in open source forums. If that is true, maybe a small U.S. policy shift is on display in this switching DPRK from an axis of evil designee (i.e. Bush) to more of a legitimate security seeker? After all, the United States ought to deal differently with a North Korea possessing justifiable security concerns versus a North Korea that is irreconcilably provocative and dangerous, right?
This is pure uninformed speculation on my part, so DPRKers should feel free to chin check me.
2009 Arms Controller of the Year - Vote Now!
Travis | Dec 22, 2009 | 0 The Arms Control Association has released the nominees for its third annual Arms Controller of the Year contest. Previous winners include Norway's foreign minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Reps. Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.) and David Hobson (R-Ohio).
President Obama is the obvious frontrunner, but he’s already been on an award tour or two this year, hasn’t he?
German foreign ministers Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Guido Westerwelle and Japanese foreign minister Katsuya Okada might be good choices because of their willingness to remind everyone that the “beneficiaries” of U.S. extended nuclear deterrence not only have a say in the policy, but also possess serious doubts about whether Cold War-style nuclear deployments are still the best way to deal with 21st century security challenges.
Looking ahead, NOH hopes that the 2010 award goes to Vice President Biden after he helps find a non-retrograde solution for modernization, shepherds a treaty or two through the Senate, and begins operationalizing –through both the budget and the global nuclear security summit – the administration’s plan to secure all vulnerable fissile material within four years.
12 months and counting, Veep. Do it to it.
Nukes of a Blog, New START, START, Russia, CTBT, Obama Administration, Japan (all tags)
New START Pushed to 2010
Travis | Dec 21, 2009 | 0 It still looks like signature of New START will have to wait until 2010. The Russians said that the exchange of missile test telemetry continues to be a problem.
In another installment of her great reporting on President Obama’s arms control agenda, Plutonium Page of Daily Kos yesterday wrote about current and future difficulties facing New START. Page talked to Kingston about the challenges presented by mobile missiles, “attribution vs. actual” counting rules, and efforts to trade ratification of New START for new nuclear weapons.
