Memo on North Korean Nuclear Crisis

NUCLEAR WEAPONS CAMPAIGNER,
FRIENDS OF THE EARTH AUSTRALIA
02-9567-7533 H02-9810-2598,   fax 9567-7166 nonukes@foesyd.org.au

TO:
SENATOR BOB BROWN/BEN OQUIST
03-6234-1577 6277-3185

SENATOR KERRY NETTLE 6277-5716 9241-6680
SENATOR LYN ALISON 03-941701690 6277-3087
SENATOR ANDREW BARTLETT/DALE HEALEY/JO PRIDE 6277-3235, 07-3252-8957
KEVIN RUDD/ASHLEY WELLS 6277-8508, 07-3899-5755
CARMEN LAWRENCE 6277-8501, 08-9336-1059
HARRY QUICK 6277-8588, 03-6263-5050

Dear Parliamentarian,

North Korea has been in the US list of potential 'targets', essentially since its inclusion in the 'axis of evil' speech by Bush in January this year.

There has been/is now considerable speculation as to whether North Korea might be 'next in line' for a military strike by the US , based both on the almost visceral antipathy by the US itself to the worlds last 'stalinist' regime, and on the probable possession by North Korea of nuclear weapons.

I shall attempt to show here that military action against North Korea is indescribably dangerous, and could possibly provoke the use of nuclear weapons by North Korea, IN EXTREMIS, against either Seoul, Tokyo, or possibly against west coast US cities. Even the discussion and circulation and leaking of memos on military options is in this context extremely destabilising and dangerous.

North Korea itself has made it quite clear that it believes it is in the US 'cross-hairs', and has drawn from the Iraq war precisely the opposite lesson to that which our Prime Minister suggested prior to that war, that it should.

Remember that Prime Minister Howard asked rhetorically prior to the war against Iraq, what lessons North Korea would draw if we did not go to war with Iraq.

The lesson that North Korea has drawn from the war with Iraq, outlined in a number of statements by the KCNA, is that Iraq had NO weapons of mass destruction - and was therefore successfully attacked by the US.   North Korea it is said, will avoid this by possessing a 'physical deterrent'.

North Korea has been the subject of hostility from the US ever since the Korean War of 1950-53, when (with Russian and Chinese assistance) North Korea managed to fight the forces of the US to a complete standstill.

Nuclear weapons have been contemplated for use AGAINST North Korea at a time when the DPRK was nowhere near their possession, both in the Korean War itself, and at numerous later times.   100 US tactical nuclear weapons were not removed from the Korean Peninsula until 1991, prior to the agreement on a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. That agreement now appears to be void.

More recently, the Pentagon has circulated various memos for North Korean 'regime change' and for military action, blockades, and sanctions.   While a North Korean response to these provocations by obtaining nuclear weapons is certainly highly undesirable and dangerous and should be reversed if only because of its impact on other regional powers, the DPRK's desire for a nuclear deterrent must be seen within the context of the threat it undoubtedly feels, now more than ever, from the US.

NORTH KOREAN NUCLEAR PROGRAM

North Korea has had a nuclear program since the provision of a Soviet IRT2M research reactor in 1965, and a number of extremely capable North Korean scientists have studied at the Dubna nuclear facility in the then USSR and in Czechoslovakia.

However, a significant North Korean nuclear program did not get going until the construction in 1985 of a 5Mwe magnox - style (Calder Hall design) reactor at Yongbyon. It made sense for the DPRK to opt for the Magnox design as it is available in the declassified literature, it is optimised for plutonium production due to its online refuelling capability, and it requires graphite - which the DPRK has - but does not require large quantities of enriched fuel, which the DPRK would have found it more difficult to provide.

Significant reprocessing facilities are said to exist at Yongbyon, but there is considerable speculation also that other facilities may exist in underground locations.   The FAS website and the website of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace carry satellite photos of the Yongbyon site.

Construction commenced on a 50 Mwe Magnox reactor in the late 80's, and this was well over 50% complete when construction was frozen in the 1994 'Framework Agreement' under which North Korea agreed to halt operation of the 5Mwe Yongbyon reactor, to halt construction of the 50Mwe reactor, and to halt reprocessing of spent fuel at Yongbyon.   The DPRK also seems to have carried out high explosive detonation tests, essential for nuclear weapons design, at this time. (FAS paper on DPRK)

In return for a freeze on these things, under the 1994 'frame work agreement' negotiated by Jimmy Carter between the US and North and South Korea, North Korea was to receive 'state of the art' LWR technology in the form of two south Korean designed LWRs, and a supply of fuel oil to bridge the gap until these reactors were fully constructed. However, construction of these two reactors did not get very far, and it was partly lack of progress on this front that led North Korea to admit last October that it had in fact proceeded with a parallel track of nuclear weapons development based on enriched uranium technology.

The Agreed Framework signed by the United States and North Korea on October
21, 1994 in Geneva agreed that:

   * North Korea would freeze its existing nuclear program and agree to
     enhanced International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards
   * Both sides would cooperate to replace the DPRK's graphite-moderated
     reactors for related facilities with light-water (LWR) power plants.
   * Both countries would move toward full normalisation of political and
     economic relations.
   * Both sides will work together for peace and security on a nuclear-free
     Korean peninsula.
   * And that both sides would work to strengthen the international nuclear
     non-proliferation regime.

A vital part of the 1994 framework agreement was an agreement between the US and the DPRK that the two countries had 'no hostile intent' toward each other, an agreement that the incoming Bush administration refused to affirm, and that was contradicted by statements such as the 'axis of evil' speech and the leaked Rumsfeld memo urging regime change. The 1994 agreement also included a commitment to DPRK/ROK dialogue.

DPRK NUCLEAR WARHEAD ESTIMATES

A number of estimates exist of the number of nuclear warheads that North Korea might have, and of the delivery mechanisms that it may have.

There have been reports of DPRK nuclear warheads dating back to 1990, and there seems to be a body of opinion that suggests that the DPRK may have made its first warheads as long ago as 1988. (Lee Wha Rhang) Other estimates suggest that the DPRK may have made them the following year.

The CIA estimates that the DPRK has 'one or two' nuclear warheads. However, other intelligence services - the Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean - suggest that the number of warheads is significantly in excess of this figure, in the region of 5-7-10. The International Peace Research Centre in Sweden has estimated that North Korea has 4-5 bombs.

Lower warhead estimates assume that a limited quantity of plutonium (about 12Kg) has been extracted from the 5Mwe Yongbyon reactor. They assume no enriched uranium warheads and no other source of plutonium.

Higher warhead estimates assume that a greater quantity of plutonium has been processed, (24-50Kg) that external sources of Plutonium have been used. (Das Stern magazine of Germany wrote that North Korea secretly acquired 56 kg of plutonium from Russia in 1992.) They also assume that warheads of the Hiroshima gun-type design, also used by Pakistan with whom the DPRK is collaborating closely, have been manufactured. This would be consistent with the close Pakistan/DPRK nuclear relationship and with the DPRK assertion that it has operated an enrichment-based program.

Analyst Lee Wha Rhang asserts that both more than 12 Kg of plutonium have been produced by Yongbyon and that plutonium has been acquired from external sources. He says that the DPRK has at least 10 x 50Kiloton warheads (Hiroshima was 14Kt), mounted on medium range (Nodong) and long range (Taepo-Dong) Missiles. Others have also strenuously argued that CIA estimates of 1-2 warheads are too low, and that the CIA has deliberately downplayed DPRK nuclear capabilities. According to Hahn Ho Suk, director of the Centre for Korean Affairs: "ŠUS intelligence orgs have misled the public about North Korea's nuclear capability."
And:
"The press orgs and the experts were fed false intelligence on North Korea's nukes by the US intelligence services, which have not doubt obtained accurate information on North Korean nukes. I myself was mislead by the misinformation spread by the 'experts'. Thus in my March 1998 article (Nuclear Crisis and Financial Crisis: Two Major Issues Facing Korea), I wrote that North Korea was only in the Plutonium extraction stage and lacked technical expertise to build nuclear explosives. However, after researching the issue for a year, I realised that I was wrong."

Given the above, it would seem reasonable and prudent to plan on the basis that the CIA estimate of 1-2 warheads is unrealistically low, and that the DPRK has somewhere between 7 and 10 or 12 warheads, of which at least some are deliverable long-range.

The DPRK has two main missile types. These are the Nodong, a short/medium range missile, and the Taepo-Dong.

The Nodong has been manufactured in very large number, and has in addition been used by the Pakistanis, who have extensively tested their variant, the Ghauri, essentially a Nodong clone designed for nuclear strikes on Delhi and other Indian targets.

The Taepo-Dong is available in three types, the I, II, and III. Of these the III is completely untested but is said to be able to reach the Midwest of the US. Only the Taepo-Dong I is fully tested, though preparations have been made at the test site for a test of the II.

A Taepo-Dong was fired right OVER Japan, landing in the middle of the Pacific, in 1998. This seems to have been an attempt to place a satellite in orbit. While the DPRK failed to put its satellite into orbit, the test did demonstrate a much greater capability from the Taepo Dong missile than previously known by western intelligence.

It is reasonably certain that the DPRK could hit Seoul and Tokyo with nuclear weapons. Its ability to hit the West Coast of the US is less certain, but DPRK threats made during the Iraq war suggested that it might believe it had that ability.

Generally, the US approach has been to downplay, rather than to hype, the DPRK nuclear capability. While it first sight this may seem reassuring, in fact it is not.

Those doing the downplaying are generally those who advocate a military, 'regime-change' based approach. They understand well that public opinion, and indeed plain commonsense, would dictate that a military approach to a DPRK with a significant nuclear capability was risky beyond the bounds of reason. Their approach therefore has been simply to deny that the problem exists, hoping, presumably, to disarm any DPRK nuclear facilities before a DPRK nuclear strike is possible.

To assume that this can be done without the DPRK firing a nuclear - tipped Taepo-Dong at, say, LA or Tokyo with the absolute certainty required to ensure that the lives of millions are not held at risk is irresponsible beyond belief.

THE NPT

The DPRK first acceded to the NPT, unwillingly, after international pressure on it as a result of its construction of the Yongbyon plant, in 1985. However, at the time, it refused to sign a safeguards agreement with the IAEA, and did not sign one until 1992, after it had already signed nonaggression and cooperation agreements with the ROK.

On 12 March 1993, the DPRK announced after a series of disagreements over implementation of the safeguards agreement, that it was withdrawing from the NPT. It agreed to 'suspend' that withdrawal in June 1993, after pressure from the US. In 1994 it unloaded fuel from the 5Mwe Magnox reactor at Yongbyon, leading the US to call for sanctions. Subsequent negotiations led to the creation of the 1994 'agreed framework'.

When the DPRK on 11 Jan 2003, withdrew again from the NPT, in effect re-activating its 'suspended' withdrawal of 1993, it caused doubt over the entire future of the NPT.

The effect of a nuclear - armed DPRK with a credible means of delivery on the eastern Asian region , something, which either exists right now or is something that nearly exists, - will be profound.

Already, US rightwing think-tanks such as the CATO Institute are suggesting that as the DPRK will not willingly 'give up' nuclear weapons, either military action should be taken, or, if as it seems, military action is deemed 'impractical', then the Japanese, the South Koreans, and the Taiwanese, should be 'encouraged' to themselves acquire nuclear weapons.

The effect of the acquisition of nuclear weapons by the DPRK alone, while it certainly weakens the NPT, is not fatal. The effect of the acquisition of nuclear weapons by the DPRK followed in quick succession by Japan, South Korea and Taiwan would probably deal a fatal blow to the NPT. In conjunction with the continued refusal of the US, Russia, China, France, and the UK, to honour their Article VI obligations, and in conjunction with a possible US resumption in nuclear testing, this could be fatal to the NPT. Already some Japanese politicians have made tentative suggestions that Japan should not only take advantage of the US Missile defence system in response to a DPRK nuclear capability, but that Japan should 'get over' its 'nuclear allergy' and proceed with its own nuclear weapons program.

Most recently, the DPRK has characterised a nuclear - free Korean Peninsula as 'an impossible dream' unless the US modifies its 'hostile policy'.

The effects of DPRK and US actions on both the NPT regime and on the possibility of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula are a moving target, in which developments change the perspective from day to day, as well as a matter of strong interest for Australia.

OPTIONS

The military option is not an option. The nature of the nuclear standoff between the US and the DPRK suggests that if the DPRK has an ability to hit a US city with an albeit wobbly and maybe not very reliable Taepo-Dong missile it would have to take action early in the piece if it were to be in any way effective. Taking action after US military action had destroyed its launch facilities would not be possible.

In other words, the DPRK would have to pre-empt a US pre-emptive strike.

It would also have to THREATEN very loudly to do so in the hope of deterring the US before it did it - after all the whole point of the exercise is to prevent the US from excercising a military option.

The DPRK has made precisely such threats and at a time when it has clearly felt most threatened, stating specifically that pre-emptive strikes are not the sole prerogative of the US.

All this suggests that the military option - and discussion of the military option, and the circulating of memos suggesting military action and/or sanctions or other options aimed at encouraging 'regime change' - is emphatically not the way to go.

What is equally clear is that the North Korean regime wants things that are not unreasonable, whatever we may think about the 'stalinist' nature of that regime.

North Korea seeks security and stability, and it seeks economic aid and economic opportunities.

The way forward is to provide it with security and economic opportunities of a kind that do not threaten others and of a kind that allow for movement toward an overall settlement on the Korean Peninsula and that allow for a loosening in the nature of the regime itself.

For some time, the South Koreans pursued such a policy, and it is arguable that had it not been effectively sabotaged by the incoming Bush administration, it would have led in the short term to improved North-south links and in the long term toward a loosening improvement of relationships that would lead either to reunification or to a state of relatively comfortable coexistence.

Those who argue that this is 'wishful thinking' must understand clearly that no other rational option exists.

What is vital in the short term is simply that the current situation between the US and the DPRK whereby the DPRK responds to the undoubted threat to its existence that it feels from the US, by making its own threats - is changed. The first thing that is necessary is to remove the atmosphere of threats on the one hand of military action, sanctions, and regime change - and on the other hand, of nuking, say, LA, Tokyo or Seoul.

The initiative in this matter lies primarily not with the DPRK but with the US.

AUSTRALIAS ROLE

Australia is almost the only country that has diplomatic relations with both DPRK and ROK, and until the incident with the heroin ship off our coast, Australia can be said to have enjoyed a good relationship with both, as well as with the US, China, Japan and Russia, the other concerned parties.

Accordingly we are - or were - in an excellent position to act as intermediaries in counselling restraint and common sense to all parties.

The timing of the incident with the heroin ship could not be worse, as it compromises- or could be allowed to compromise - our ability to act in that vitally important role.

Australia should not allow itself to be placed in the position in which we cannot act to promote good sense and compromise to all concerned parties. Australia must above all make clear to our great and powerful ally the US, that military action, regime change and sanctions are courses so highly dangerous that they must be immediately and visibly taken off the table.

The below suggested motion is meant to provide an illustration of what might be a helpful initiative from the Australian Senate. Other legislatures may also wish to take advantage of this form of wording.

SUGGESTED SENATE MOTION ON NORTH KOREA

That the Senate:

a) Notes that Australia has diplomatic relations with both North and South Korea, with the US, China, and Russia, and that few other countries are in this position.

b) Notes that a number of different estimates exist for current North Korean nuclear capabilities, ranging from CIA estimates of 1-2 weapons, to higher estimates from Chinese and Russian intelligence organisations.

c) Notes recent statements by North Korea to the effect that if subjected to military threat, threat of 'regime change', or sanctions, they may use their nuclear weapons.

c) Notes the catastrophic effect that an exchange of nuclear weapons would have on the region and Australia's interests in it.

d) Notes that the use of, or canvassing of, military options with respect to North Korea may therefore have catastrophic consequences.

e) Notes the effect that a North Korean nuclear arsenal may have on regional government's compliance with the NPT.

f) Urges the Australian government to press for this possibility to be taken with the utmost seriousness by the governments concerned.

g) Urges the Australian government to spare no effort to ensure that diplomatic means only are used to arrive at a peaceful solution.

h) Urges the Australian government to make clear to all parties that it will not support military options of any kind with reference to North Korea.

i) Urges the Australian government to press the US government to take options involving 'regime change' and use of military force off the table and out of consideration

i) Urges the Australian government to use its influence with all parties to strive for a solution based on the previous 'sunshine policy' and on movement toward an overall settlement in the Korean Peninsula.