1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036
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North Korea launched a Taepodong-2 missile over the weekend. While North Korea claims the launch was aimed at putting a satellite in space, Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul speculate that Pyongyang's true intent was to test its long-range ballistic missile technology. North Korea has threatened that any attempt to intercept its
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rocket would be casus belli and grounds to leave the six-party talks. As North Korea's provocations test the resolve of the new U.S. administration and raise the stakes in six-party negotiations, the future stability of the region remains at stake. What is in store for U.S.-North Korean relations over the next four years? How will U.S. alliance relations with Japan and South Korea weather this current crisis? Can the six-party talks be saved? Are the talks worth saving? At this event, panelists will discuss these and other questions.
| 8:45 a.m. |
Registration | |
| 9:00 | Panelists: | Bruce E. Bechtol Jr., U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College |
| Nicholas Eberstadt, AEI | ||
| Scott Snyder, Asia Foundation | ||
| Moderator: | Michael Auslin, AEI | |
| 10:30 | Adjournment | |
WASHINGTON, APRIL 9, 2009--North Korea's long-range missile test on April 5 was not as successful as North Korea hoped it would be, but compared to a similar test in 2006, it was a success, Bruce E. Bechtol Jr. of the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College said at an AEI conference on April 8. While the rocket ultimately failed in launching a "satellite" into space, it revealed North Korea's evolving capabilities and illustrated the need for a more effective policy in dealing with provocations from Pyongyang.
Bechtol dismissed internal and political motives behind the launch as "ancillary." Rather, he argued, "North Korea launched the missile because it was ready." Pyongyang has an unyielding determination to proliferate nuclear technology and will undoubtedly test another missile or nuclear weapon within years and maybe months, Bechtol warned. The real danger lies in Pyongyang's close relationship with Tehran, which has sold Kim Jong Il billions of dollars worth of arms and is its oldest and most important ally in developing missile and nuclear technology. Bechtol said that South Korea should join the Proliferation Security Initiative and enhance its cooperation with the United States on ballistic missile defense, that Japan should continue on its current course of building its defensive system, and that the United States should work on gaining China's cooperation in deterring a nuclear-ambitious North Korea.
Scott Snyder, a senior associate at the Asia Foundation, described four political targets that Kim hit with this week's missile launch: rallying popular sentiment behind Kim, highlighting the fissure in the United Nations Security Council in which China and Russia declined to go along with actions proposed by other Security Council members, setting the tone of interaction with the Obama administration, and further tightening Pyongyang's "grip" on Beijing. Obama had words of condemnation for Pyongyang, but he "must put his money where his mouth is," Snyder said. "Otherwise, U.S. credibility will be damaged and a strong signal will be sent to Pyongyang on what it can get away with under the new administration." Snyder agreed that Beijing must be a focal point of action and that the United States should make getting China on board a higher priority.
"By saying we are eager to get back to discussions with North Korea, we are sending the wrong signal to Pyongyang," AEI's Nicholas Eberstadt argued. The United States has had a weak and ineffective policy toward North Korea. Pyongyang has maintained a decades-old strategy of gaining concessions from the international community while defiantly developing its nuclear program. Eberstadt also agreed that Chinese cooperation is essential: "We need a clear and transparent explanation from the Chinese government on the extent and reasoning behind its subsidies to North Korea." The United States must show North Korea that there are penalties for its actions, work on contingency planning with South Korea and Japan, and illustrate to China that its interest does not lie in subsidizing a nuclear North Korea, Eberstadt concluded.
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Michael Auslin, AEI's director of Japan studies, specializes in U.S.-East Asian relations, Asian maritime security, and Japanese foreign and security policy. Prior to joining AEI, Mr. Auslin was an associate professor of history and a senior research fellow at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University. He has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, a Marshall Memorial Fellow by the German Marshall Fund, and a Fulbright and Japan Foundation Scholar. His writings on Japan and Japanese diplomacy include the books Negotiating with Imperialism: The Unequal Treaties and the Culture of Japanese Diplomacy and Japan Society: Celebrating a Century, 1907–2007, and the report Securing Freedom: The U.S.-Japanese Alliance in a New Era.
Bruce E. Bechtol Jr. has been a professor of international relations at the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College since 2005 and was an assistant professor of national security studies at the Air Command and Staff College from 2003 to 2005. He was an adjunct visiting professor at the Korea University Graduate School of International Studies from 2006 to 2007. Mr. Bechtol was an intelligence officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency from 1997 until 2003. He also served as the senior analyst for Northeast Asia in the Intelligence Directorate (J2) of the Joint Staff in the Pentagon. He served in active duty for twenty years in the U.S. Marine Corps. His books include Red Rogue: The Persistent Challenge of North Korea (Potomac Books, 2007) and The Quest for a Unified Korea: Strategies for the Cultural and Interagency Process (Marine Corps University Foundation, 2007). Mr. Bechtol writes widely on Korean security issues, contributing chapters to a number of edited volumes and contributing articles to the International Journal of Korean Studies, Pacific Focus, Comparative Strategy, the Korea Observer, East Asian Review, the Air and Space Power Journal, the International Journal of Korean Unification Studies, Korean Quarterly, and other journals. Formerly the editor of the Defense Intelligence Journal, he currently sits on the editorial review board of the East Asian Review. Mr. Bechtol is on the boards of the International Council on Korean Studies and the Council on U.S.-Korean Security Studies.
Nicholas Eberstadt holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at AEI and is also a senior adviser to the National Bureau of Asian Research in Seattle. He serves on the advisory board of the Korea Economic Institute of America and is a founding member of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. Mr. Eberstadt is currently, inter alia, a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics and the Visiting Committee for the Harvard School of Public Health. Mr. Eberstadt is regularly consulted by governmental and international organizations, including the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the World Bank. Mr. Eberstadt has published over three hundred studies and articles in scholarly and popular journals, mainly on topics in demography, international development, and East Asian security. His dozen-plus books and monographs include The Poverty of Communism (Transaction, 1988); The Tyranny of Numbers (AEI Press, 1995); The End of North Korea (AEI Press, 1999); Korea’s Future and the Great Powers (University of Washington Press, 2001); The North Korean Economy: Between Crisis and Catastrophe (Transaction, 2007); Europe’s Coming Demographic Challenge: Unlocking the Value of Health (AEI Press, 2007); and, most recently, The Poverty of ‘The Poverty Rate’: Measure and Mismeasure of Want in Modern America (AEI Press, 2008).
Scott Snyder is the director of the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy and senior associate of Washington programs in the international relations program of the Asia Foundation. Mr. Synder’s expertise covers politics and foreign policy of South Korea and North Korea, U.S.-Korean relations, and Northeast Asian security and U.S.-Asian relations. He joined the Asia Foundation as country representative for Korea in January 2000 and moved to the Washington office in April 2004. Mr. Snyder is also a senior associate at Pacific Forum CSIS and was recently named adjunct senior fellow for Korea studies by the Council on Foreign Relations. Prior to joining the Asia Foundation, Mr. Snyder was an Asia specialist in the research and studies program at the U.S. Institute of Peace and served as acting director of Asia Society’s contemporary affairs program. He was the recipient of a Pantech Visiting Fellowship at Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center during 2005-2006 and received an Abe Fellowship, administered by the Social Sciences Research Council, in 1998-99.
