Asia Times: PYONGYANG WATCH : North Korea's missiles: just so convenient


	January 09, 2001	atimes.com

The Koreas

PYONGYANG WATCH
North Korea's missiles: just so convenient
By Aidan Foster-Carter

"Conspiracy theory is the last refuge of a scoundrel." "There are lies, damned lies, and conspiracy theories." In serious academic and analytical circles, we're very sniffy about conspiracy theories.

And with good reason. Most of them are far too fanciful, and simply don't add up. Anyone who ever ran across Lyndon Larouche and his followers, who used to be a nuisance in the US Democratic Party, will know the feeling. Vast baroque edifices of coincidence upon implausibility, all purporting to show that a sinister cabal runs the world. Headed, I seem to recall, by the British royal family - who in the real world are none too good at organizing their own everyday lives, much less global domination.

Trouble is, every now and then a conspiracy turns out to be true. Here's a paranoid idea. Imagine that in the old pre-summit days of inter-Korean enmity, South Korean intelligence chiefs were worried that the conservative ruling party might lose an upcoming election. Wouldn't it be handy if North Korea did something provocative just before polling day, to scare the voters back into the arms of the ruling camp? Perhaps this could even be arranged via Northern agents - for a suitable fee, naturally?

Aw c'mon, says the skeptic. North and South Korean spooks actually getting together, with the latter paying the former to stage a provocation? Pull the other one. Alas, gentle reader, it's all true. In the febrile cloak-and-dagger world of Korean intelligence, anything goes - or went, in the old days.

In April 1996 North Korea sent a 130-strong fully-armed platoon into the Joint Security Area (JSA) at Panmunjom, in flagrant contravention of the 1953 Armistice. After three days of this had rattled all and sundry, the incursions suddenly stopped. The North was appealing for food aid at the time, so it didn't seem to add up. Analysts shrugged and filed it under general Pyongyang bizarre behavior.

But a few days later, South Korea's then ruling party (now the opposition) did a whole lot better than expected in parliamentary elections. Twenty-eight percent of voters said the JSA incident had inspired them to vote for the conservative incumbents - for whom this may have been worth 20-30 seats. Very convenient.

Not that convenience entails conspiracy. But two years on, a new government in Seoul was determined to clean up the Agency for National Security Planning (NSP), formerly the KCIA and now called the National Intelligence Service (NIS). Accusations arose that the JSA provocations were more than coincidence - and the dirty truth came out. The errant agents and their bosses were duly sacked, tried and sentenced.

Why bring all this up now? For two reasons. First, a recent case reveals that, inspired by their success, the spies strove to repeat it. On December 11 a court in Seoul convicted two ex-NSP agents of meeting North Koreans in late 1997, to try to arrange a border skirmish at Panmunjom to help the ruling party. But this time the comrades wouldn't play - and opposition leader Kim Dae-jung won by a whisker.

The other reason is George W Bush's new Defense Secretary-designate, Donald Rumsfeld. Like many US Republicans, Rumsfeld has a thing about missiles. He it was who chaired a commission which in July 1998 produced an influential report, claiming that America stood in imminent danger of being zapped with all kinds of nasties - not by its superpower foes of yesteryear, but by a new menace of rogue states such as Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, all of which were rapidly honing their missile launch capabilities.

This message was manna to techie hawks who a decade before had been fans of Ronald Reagan's Star Wars plans. Since then a National Missile Defense (NMD) bandwagon has begun to roll, and seems as unstoppable as the idea is misplaced. One: the technology doesn't work. Two: the threat is misposed - a 21st century terrorist is likelier to smuggle a phial of anthrax through customs than lob a big visible rocket across the planet. Three: Almost all US allies oppose NMD - not least as it will breach the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, so antagonizing Russia and China. And so on.

So how was the NMD crusade able to take off? Because on August 31, 1998, a month after Rumsfeld reported, North Korea without warning fired a three-stage Taepodong missile bigger than anything it was previously known to possess. This flew over Japan, eventually splashing into the eastern Pacific, allegedly too close to Alaska for comfort. (Pyongyang claimed it had launched a satellite.)

For NMD's advocates, this was perfect. It worked a treat in scaring the Japanese, hitherto dubious at US efforts to enrol them in theater missile defense (TMD, the international counterpart of NMD). The mood in Japan was instantly transformed, sweeping away the old pacifist scruples. The whole security debate in Tokyo has had a much harder edge ever since, and cooperation with the US has proceeded apace.

To say the least, this was deeply convenient. But conversely, like the border incidents two years before, from the viewpoint of North Korea's own interests it somehow didn't add up. Why would Pyongyang want to push Japan yet further into Washington's arms and cement a hostile alliance against it? That prospect also alarmed Beijing, which was privately bemused and furious with its maverick ally.

See where I'm heading? True, I haven't a shred of evidence. What's more, this is all my own idea. As far as I know, this is the first time anyone has ever suggested that maybe someone whom it suited put the North Koreans up to firing their big stupid rocket when they did. By thus dabbling in conspiracy theory, I jeopardize my credibility as an analyst: maybe no one will ever take me seriously again. But ever since the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s, we know that US intelligence can and does consort and conspire with their supposed foes. So is what I'm suggesting implausible? I submit not.

Even if you don't buy the full conspiracy version, there are some odd loose ends about Pyongyang's rockets. Like: why weren't we warned? It takes weeks of preparation, including building a massive gantry, before North Korea can launch a Taepodong. US spy satellites duly watch as each new layer of scaffolding is added. We know this because a year later there were fears of the North firing another rocket, and this time it didn't suit. So throughout the summer we were treated to blow-by-blow leaks of the North's preparations - until in September 1999 Kim Jong-il agreed to a moratorium on further tests.

In 1998 too, someone will have seen that Taepodong coming - but on that occasion decided not to share it with the rest of us. Efforts were allegedly made behind the scenes to dissuade North Korea from going ahead. But once those failed, no one told the Japanese public to brace themselves. In fact it's not even clear if Japan's military intelligence liaised fully with the rest of the government in Tokyo.

So I'm sticking with at least a watered-down conspiracy theory. Even if nobody else put the North Koreans up to their fateful firework display, somebody definitely decided that the chance to scare Japan and others into a greater appreciation of missile defense was too good to miss - and would be spoiled by any advance warning and efforts to calm public opinion. Calm was not what the doctor ordered on this occasion. Panic was a much better wheeze. And panic there duly was.

So in the years ahead, as Rumsfeld and co forge ahead with their boys' toys and generally make the world a less safe place, keep the conspiracy theories handy. You never know when we may need them.

(Special to Asia Times Online)

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