Several recent events in North Korea re-emphasize the dangerous situation there. First there was a massive explosion in a rural area near the border with China, a few hours after a train bearing the dictator, Kim Jong II, passed through. On 9 September, which happened to be the 55th anniversary of the founding of the state, another massive explosion in the area, with a force estimated at about 1,000 tons of TNT, created a cloud more than two miles across. Initially, there was speculation that it was a nuclear test. About the same time, rumors circulated that North Korea would stage an "October Surprise," a nuclear test. The North Koreans made much of a South Korean admission that, as the first stage in a covert nuclear program, South Korea had enriched a small quantity of uranium in the 1970s; that the program was abandoned long before it could have come to fruition was not mentioned in the North. Later in the month there were apparently intelligence indicators that the North Koreans were about to test-fire their Rodong or No Dong (Western name) intermediate-range ballistic missile. Meanwhile the North Koreans reiterated that they would never give up their nuclear deterrent (which has not yet been demonstrated, at least openly). There was also a report that the North Koreans developed another, more sophisticated, intermediate-range missile based on the old Soviet R-27 (SS-N-6), and there was speculation that they had obtained crucial launcher know-how by scrapping ex-Soviet Golf II-class diesel missile submarines. Among the immediate reactions to the warning of the missile test was the deployment by the Japanese Navy of an Aegis destroyer and a covering destroyer to the sea area off North Korea to monitor the test. Such monitoring would provide signature information which would be valuable for later development of an anti-missile system to counter the Korean weapon.
The first explosion was interpreted initially as a terrible accident, and later, by some, as a botched attempt to assassinate Kim long II. As it is, Kim long II is a rarity in the Communist or ex-Communist world, a son who succeeded his father. There was some expectation that Kim would name a successor in September, but that ended when it was announced that his wife had died-in a hospital in Paris-a few months earlier. Probably its main significance to what follows is a sense that Kim has real enemies within North Korea.
The second explosion was far more impressive than the first, and, at least initially, more difficult to explain. It occurred in a remote wooded area, which might have been considered suitable to a nuclear test. Apparently some U.S. intelligence suggests that such a test is imminent. A South Korean source has claimed that the North Koreans have made, for example, 70 tests of the explosive elements of a bomb. Soon after the explosion, a Chinese official source claimed that it was non-nuclear: a massive explosion set off as part of a dam-building project. That would make sense; the Koreans have long used water from the Yalu River for hydroelectric power.
The reaction, however, was interesting. All parties rushed to deny that the immense explosion was nuclear. Several pointed out that the North Koreans never would have hidden a nuclear test; they see nuclear weapons as their guarantee against a re-run of the Korean War, the theory being that the Americans never can dare to attack them if they can threaten nuclear retaliation (or, perhaps, that the Americans would hesitate to back the South Koreans-or others-under North Korean attack in that case).
There is the credible story of the planned "October Surprise" and the projected No Dong test. Those expecting the surprise see it as a challenge to President George Bush, although it is not clear what Bush is doing (or could do) that such a test would change. It is by no means clear that an event intended to embarass the President during the election campaign would do so, but it is also hardly clear that any other administration in Washington would behave much better toward North Korea. Conversely, it might be argued that by testing during the waning days of the campaign, the North Koreans can guarantee that the U.S. government will not immediately attack them.
The key to the North Korean position has been that it is difficult to guarantee decisive results in any quick Iraq-style attack, simply because so much of the country is buried in thousands of tunnels, to protect it against the sort of air attacks used by the United States during the Korean War. If the North Koreans were to attack South Korea, they might well lose the army that keeps their regime in power.
Kim probably could launch missiles without fearing a preemptive strike against his country. That leaves neighbors such as Japan with two options. One is to invest in anti-missile technology, which now seems to be the case. Two is to seek a deterrent, which probably would have to be nuclear (no conventional weapon would guarantee enough damage to give Kim pause). In the past, the U.S. position was that friendly states should avoid buying or developing nuclear weapons because the United States would provide a defensive umbrella. This argument lost much of its force in the 1970s when the United States abandoned Vietnam. As Charles de Gaulle had said in rejecting just such a promise, would the Americans allow Los Angeles to be destroyed to keep Paris safe? For countries like North Korea and Iran, the point of buying long-range missiles is to raise that sort of question, but about Seoul or Tokyo or Tel Aviv. For the United States, the value of anti-missile systems is to make it far too expensive for the missile-builder to raise the question, because the potential aggressor may be unable to buy enough weapons or decoys to neutralize the U.S. defensive system.
This is not abstract strategy. The U.S. Navy exists largely to exert U.S. power abroad, so that problems stay there and do not come to the United States. Anything which deters the United States from exerting that power raises the level of danger we face-and dangers come from aggression in the Middle and Far East as much as from terrorists. Thus what looks like a purely defensive missile system is also a prerequisite for continuing to have a forward foreign policy, of a kind which has served the United States very well in the past.
What happens if that connection is severed? The Japanese are buying the national missile defense elements of Aegis. They are reading reams of criticism which suggest that neither Aegis nor any other current missile offers complete security. Americans may argue that such systems are effective anyway. The attacker cannot be sure that the defensive system will fail; it may well succeed. The attacker also knows that the United States maintains a powerful nuclear deterrent. He cannot know for sure that, if his gamble succeeds and he destroys (say) Los Angeles, the U.S. President will not instantly order the attaker's own country vaporized. What probably devalues a North Korean weapon is the combination of uncertainties: the missile might not work at all, and the Americans may be much less decadant then imagined.
Now consider this issue from a Japanese perspective. They lack a deterrent. It now appears that the origin of the Japanese "nuclear allergy" was a conscious governmental decision in 1945 that surrender could be made tolerable by the excuse that the circumstances were extraordinary: Japan had in effect been attacked by a supernaturally horrible and evil weapon. For years deterrence was an academic issue, because the U.S. defensive umbrella seemed effective against the only two likely nuclear enemies, the Soviet Union and China. Now, however, the circumstances are different. U.S. attention is focussed on the Middle East and its terrorists. Without a Cold War context, the U.S. presence in the Far East may be perceived as a distraction from the key war we are fighting; at the least, the Japanese must wonder how deep the U.S. commitment is. The Japanese are aware that the Koreans harbor deep resentment of the way the Japanese treated them between 1910, when they gained control, and 1945, when they were ejected. There is a fair chance that the North Korean bomb and missile programs are aimed, not at South Korea, but at Japan-indeed, that peaceful Korean unification might be based on a joint decision to strike at Japan.
In this context it might seem significant that Japan has a massive nuclear power industry, and, moreover, that some of the plutonium recovered from its reactors (and processed in Europe) was shipped back for storage in Japan (to power a future breeder reactor). The Japanese even built a special ship, Shikishima, to escort such shipments. Although reactor-grade plutonium is not the best material to make into a bomb, it is suitable. The Japanese also have a sophisticated ballistic rocket industry which builds space boosters-which could function as ballistic missiles.
Thus Japan has the potential to produce a nuclear deterrent force in short order. Whether there is the will to do so is a different question. Circumstances suggest that a North Korean "October Surprise" coupled with one or more long-range missile tests might well trigger the Japanese to create a nuclear deterrant. The Japanese might be more impressed by a North Korean missile capable of reaching the United States (thus disabling U.S. deterrence) than by a shorter-range one capable of hitting Japan.
Why should Americans care? The core problem is that, unlike Germany, Japan never came to terms with responsibility for World War II. In China, for example, the Japanese may have killed as many as 15 million people. Much the same problem largely poisons Japanese-Korean relations.
Japan already outspends every other country in the region on defense. If armed seriously, given its vast resources, Japan quickly would build a powerful force. If the motivation were the Korean problem, that force would have to be nuclear, and simply announcing such a capability would generate profound regional shock waves. China almost certainly would announce that, as the regional superpower, it would protect the other regional states from the new Japanese threat. That might suffice to establish the hegemony China seeks.
The only way for the United States to retain much regional power would be to extend guarantees against Japan, in which case the current U.S.-Japanese alliance would collapse. Kim, moreover, may be calculating that the bomb is the only dowry which would make a wedding with South Korea acceptable. If that wedding takes place, probably among the first acts of a unified government would be to eject all foreign troops-which would mean all U.S. forces.