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History of US-Korea Relations on Nuclear Issues

Comment by Larry Ross, November 6, 2006

The following article by Robert Parry is especially valuable as it traces the history of North Korea and its nuclear weapons, and US policy. People forget, or never knew, that Bush cancelled the almost-successful US diplomacy with North Korea  under the Clinton Administration, and substituted threats of military force against North Korea. The US threats, and the example of Bush's war against Iraq, which had given up all WMD and allowed UN inspections, and Bush's 'Axis of Evil' speech naming North Korea, the US Nuclear Posture Review naming North Korea as a potential nuclear target, and Bush's refusal to give North Korea negative security guarantees, persuaded North Korea that it's only hope of security lay in acquiring nuclear weapons.  This may prove to be in vain, and may not prevent a U.S. nuclear strike which destroys North Korea's few nuclear weapons. But it is important to understand the chronology of events leading up to the North Korean decision.  

Bush and his neoconservatives chose to reject Clinton 's successful and promising diplomatic approach in favour of force and threats.

No one knows why, but the indications are in Bush's foreign policy, his record of wars with flimsy or no justification, and future war plans against Iran, neoconservative war papers which guide the Bush Administration, and Bush's new nuclear doctrines allowing for the US to wage pre-emptive nuclear war and introduce nuclear weapons use into conventional military conflict.   All these actions, decisions and policies guide the thinking, policies and decisions of foreign governments including North Korea.  

Today North Korea is presented by the media and official US and allied statements, as a great threat to global security. The media don't mention the US policies which threatened North Korea , North Korea 's previous attempts to make a secure peace which were rejected by the US , all or which finally caused it to go nuclear.   The majority of Americans support Bush's classifications and definitions of North Korea as a nuclear threat.  Because the US media are basically performing a war propaganda role for the Bush Administration, rather than the truth of the situation, the US public has been prepared and conditioned for war. The majority accepts and supports possible US military action against North Korea . To a lesser degree this also applies to the media and publics in US-allied nations.

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Bush's Tough-Talkin' Korean Bungle

By Robert Parry, Consortium News, November 5, 2006

Months before 9/11 and the "global war on terror" -- and two years before the Iraq War -- George W. Bush tested out his tough-talkin' diplomacy on communist North Korea. Bush combined harsh rhetoric and intimidating tactics to demonstrate to Pyongyang that there was a swaggering new sheriff in town.

In his first weeks in office, Bush cast aside the Clinton administration's delicate negotiations that had hemmed in North Korea's nuclear ambitions. The new president then brushed aside worries of Secretary of State Colin Powell and South Korean President Kim Dae Jung about dangerous consequences from a confrontation.

At a March 2001 summit, Bush rejected Kim Dae Jung's détente strategy for dealing with North Korea, a humiliation for both Kim, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Powell, who wanted to continue pursuing the negotiation track. Instead, Bush cut off nuclear talks with North Korea and stepped up spending on a "Star Wars" missile shield.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Bush got tougher still, vowing to "rid the world of evil" and listing North Korea as part of the "axis of evil."

More substantively, Bush sent to Congress a "nuclear posture review," which laid out future U.S. strategy for deploying nuclear weapons. Leaked in 2002, the so-called NPR put North Korea on a list of potential targets for U.S. nuclear weapons.

The Bush administration also discussed lowering the threshold for the use of U.S. nuclear weapons by making low-yield tactical nukes available for some battlefield situations.

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