In addition to starting up its plutonium reactor and threatening to renew its missile tests, North Korea recently announced that it was going to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (which the major nuclear powers have always breached by not, as Article VI insists, working seriously toward their own nuclear disarmament). Our media has focused narrowly on North Korea’s actions, all unpalatable, and what to make of them. It’s as if, because the “Dear Leader’s” regime is indeed a heinous one, it’s behavior — breaking treaties, threatening to build nuclear weapons — represented something strange and aberrant in our present world. It’s been a kind of: we’re shocked, shocked, round-up-the-usual-suspects reaction. North Korea, you might say, focused our brains — just not necessarily in the right place.
Consider several recent developments: Little attention has gone to the startling statement of Roberto Amaral, Brazil’s newly appointed minister of science and technology, that Brazil should acquire the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon; or reported mutterings in Taiwan that, if North Korea gets nuclear weapons, Taiwan should too (come again?); or similar, and far more serious suggestions in Japan about changing its Peace Constitution and building nuclear weapons.
If one took one’s eyes off North Korean actions for a moment, it might be clearer that something larger is going on, that a principle has, in fact, been loosed upon the world by our government and it goes something like this: Proliferate away — and if we don’t like you, we’ll choose to shut you down by force. After all, what other power has withdrawn from a nuclear treaty in order to build its own missile system and moved actively to beef up its nuclear forces: us, of course. We withdrew from the ABM treaty with Russia; we’re planning and building new generations of nuclear weaponry with renewed zeal, we’ve openly threatened to use nuclear weapons against “rogue” states, and specifically against Iraq, and we’re reportedly planning to take up nuclear testing again. We have been, in a sense, a role model for the North Koreans. In a piece for the BBC (picked up off the commondreams.org website), Dan Plesch lays out the way in which the United States has managed to offer nuclear weapons a renewed life as the currency of national power.
I’ve added as well a piece from the Japan Times, passed on to me by East Asian historian Gavan McCormack, which offers perhaps the most compelling version I’ve seen of North Korean nuclear “sanity.” Put it in the following context. Danny Schecter, “the news dissector,” who runs the Mediachannel website, sent out the following account of how North Korea joined the Axis of Evil, picked up from the New Yorker magazine:
“Now get this: The New Yorker‘s Hendrik Hertzberg says no one could tell them
why North Korea became such a bug a boo in the first place. Why were they
included in the Axis of Evil? Answer: Perhaps because it sounded good.“The New Yorker references a new book by David Frum, a Canadian by birth, who
wrote that A of E speech for his Excellency in Chief: ‘when drafting duties for last year’s State of the Union Message
were being doled out, his assignment was “to provide a justification for a
war,” specifically a war with Iraq. After much cogitation, he hit upon the
idea of likening what the United States has been up against since September
11, 2001, to the villains of the Second World War. The phrase he came up
with was “axis of hatred.” Higher-ups changed this to “axis of evil,” to
make it sound more “theological.” Although Frum initially intended his
“strong language” to apply only to Iraq, Iran was quickly added. (You can’t
have a single-pointed axis.)“North Korea was an afterthought. It got stuck in at the last minute, but
Frum doesn’t quite explain how or why Most likely, it
was simply oratorical affirmative action, bused in to lend diversity to what
would otherwise have been an all-Muslim list. “
“The New Yorker references a new book by David Frum, a Canadian by birth, who
wrote that A of E speech for his Excellency in Chief: ‘when drafting duties for last year’s State of the Union Message
were being doled out, his assignment was “to provide a justification for a
war,” specifically a war with Iraq. After much cogitation, he hit upon the
idea of likening what the United States has been up against since September
11, 2001, to the villains of the Second World War. The phrase he came up
with was “axis of hatred.” Higher-ups changed this to “axis of evil,” to
make it sound more “theological.” Although Frum initially intended his
“strong language” to apply only to Iraq, Iran was quickly added. (You can’t
have a single-pointed axis.)
“North Korea was an afterthought. It got stuck in at the last minute, but
Frum doesn’t quite explain how or why Most likely, it
was simply oratorical affirmative action, bused in to lend diversity to what
would otherwise have been an all-Muslim list. “
For a visit to Schecter’s “News Dissector Weblog” click here
It’s a mad, MAD (as in that old acronym for “mutually assured destruction”) world out there, folks. Tom
North Korea Follows Bush’s Lead
By Daniel Plesch
BBC
January 10, 2003North Korea has decided to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, invoking its legal right to do so.
The move increases international tension and the risk of Japan reconsidering its position on nuclear weapons.
But it is in line with the new approach to global security adopted by the Bush administration.
President George W Bush has either withdrawn from or expressed his opposition to implementing a number of key global arms control agreements.
These include:
* the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty;
* the Biological Weapons Convention;
* the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty;
* and the process of strategic arms reductions with Russia.
The treaty signed with Russia – the Sort Treaty – is a treaty without content and has no operative provisions.
To read more Plesch click here
Pyongyang is the real victim
By Gregory Clark
The Japan Times
January 10, 2003Western and Japanese reactions to North Korea’s recent nuclear activities and warnings have been strange.
Pyongyang makes it clear that its main aim is to get a nonaggression treaty with the United States and to revive the dialogue for normalization of relations that was promised in 1994. In that year Pyongyang agreed to mothball its plans for a plutonium-based nuclear-power facility, in exchange for the dialogue and for U.S. cooperation in providing a light-water reactor-based nuclear-power facility.
U.S. foot-dragging on both issues, especially since the arrival of the Bush administration, would normally mean a return to the pre-1994 situation. Pyongyang’s gradual escalation of its nuclear announcements would normally be seen as steps to put pressure on the U.S. to go back to the 1994 promises.But the reaction in the West and Japan has not been normal.
Gregory Clark is the head of Research Japan Office, and a former president of Tama University. He can be accessed at www.gregoryclark.net.