The National Committee on North Korea

Five Reasons Why Kim Jong-il Launched

Presumably North Korea’s idiosyncratic leader Kim Jong-il ordered the launch of a Taepodong-2 intercontinental missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to strengthen his hand in diplomacy vis-à-vis the region’s powers.  Five factors probably went into his calculus.

The initial impetus probably was a desire to catch up with Iran in the pariah-state proliferators’ bidding war for international favors.  Firing a missile capable of striking U.S. territory by an acknowledged nuclear power with enough plutonium for up to 11 bombs, sends an unambiguous message to the world: North Korea is a bigger threat than Iran.  In this respect, the two separate efforts to avoid global nuclear proliferation are curiously linked.

North Korea sees that Iran has been more dangerously seductive of late.  Tehran has been given steady diplomatic attention since it renewed its uranium enrichment program and thereby abrogated a commitment not to do so.  The United States and the EU-3 of France, Britain and Germany have spared little effort to highlight the severity of Iran’s actions, and they have engaged China and Russia in negotiations over what to offer and what steps to take at the United Nations Security Council should if Tehran proceeds with a process that could bring Iran a nuclear weapon capacity by 2010.

EU Minister for Foreign Affairs Javier Solana recently delivered to Iran a package of inducements that included a face-saving way for Iran to continue enrichment on its own soil, albeit with stringent safeguards.  When Iran’s hard-line President Ahmadinejad was courted at a Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit meeting last week, the slight to Kim Jong-il must have thorough.

If Kim were slighted, it was his own doing.  He boycotted Six-Party Talks with the surrounding powers (South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the United States); when he finally sent his negotiator to a fourth round of discussions last September, he made headlines.  It was at that meeting in Beijing that a ballyhooed breakthrough was reached: at least in principle, North Korea would relinquish its nuclear ambitions in exchange for economic support and a U.S. security guarantee.

This suggests a second factor in deciding to launch the Taepodong-2 missile: Kim felt reasonably secure that there would be no reprisal.  The test suggests that North Korea pocketed America’s pledge not to attack—perhaps interpreting it as a sign of weakness on the part of a diverted, over-stretched superpower.  However, Pyongyang carelessly forgot about its part of the bargain.  In fact, one of the problems with unproductive diplomacy is that North Korea continues to accumulate more plutonium every day, and the unintended consequence of the Six-Party Talks has been to further impel Pyongyang to act up like a petulant bully denied the attention he craves.  After all, North Korea has nukes, Iran only nuclear energy (at least for the moment).  The fiction of a diplomatic process is that it gives Kim the equivalent of a movie theatre in which to should ‘fire.’

The only excitement the pre-test drama could muster was the tame statement by U.S. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, who said launching the missile would be a ‘bad idea.’ Similarly, the warning from U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Thomas Schieffer and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso, who said North Korea must stop its ‘grave and provocative action’, must have seemed no more than an empty threat in Pyongyang.  Thus, feeble warnings could only have encouraged the 65-year-old recluse to proceed with the missile test from the Musudan-ri launching facility in the northeast part of the Peninsula.

Although Kim may have hoped only to bluff a launch, media coverage of test preparations may have shaped a third aspect of his calculus: withdrawing would convey weakness.    The intentions of this ‘outpost of tyranny,’ as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice once called it, are usually hardly shrouded in mystery.  However, unlike the last long-range missile test in August 1998 when Pyongyang jolted the region by firing a Taepodong-1 missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean, this missile’s preparatory steps were watched like a hawk via satellite and broadcasted by the media on nearly a daily basis for a month.

Perhaps it was hoped that mere reports of a potential missile test would satiate the eccentric Chairman of North Korea’s communist party and military.  In fact, pre-launch publicity probably made it mandatory for Kim to follow through with the missile firing, because backing off would have invited incessant speculation as to the limited technological prowess of a bankrupt North Korean regime.  Retreating would hardly have made North Korea look more menacing to the barbarians he was no doubt trying to impress.

A fourth factor in the North’s saber rattling very likely was rooted in the deep insecurity that Kim Jong-il must sense.   Unlike Iran, North Korea is acting more out of weakness than strength.  A concerted financial clampdown on North Korea’s access to millions of dollars has no doubt added to the list of woes of Kim Jong-il, who must govern a country whose standard of living falls further behind that of South Korea every day.  Indeed, it is because of North Korea’s fragility that Seoul’s policy reversed in recent years from one of containment to one of engagement to avert a sudden and dangerous regime collapse.

A final aspect of Kim’s calculus may have been an errant belief that U.S. President Bush was desperate for any agreement.  In 2002, President Bush called Iraq, Iran and North Korea an ‘Axis of Evil.’  He subsequently invaded Iraq and supported sending former Yugoslav President Milosevic to the Hague to be tried for crimes against humanity.  It appears that to the ageing North Korean dictator, the only thing worse than being called a member of the Axis of Evil is not being called anything at all.

Kim may have believed a damaged President Bush was so in need of peace rather than another crisis that he would be prepared to offer Pyongyang anything to return to the bargaining table.  But Kim will find that his latest stunt is no joke.  Instead of the United States throwing him flowers, Kim Jong-il is more likely to hear a chorus of questions raised about whether any deal with this man would be worth the price. 
Dr. Patrick M. Cronin is the Director of Studies of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.