A truly rogue state again thumbs its nose
Once again, North Koreans led by Kim Jong-il have defied the rest of the world and, as they have for much of the past 40 years, will evidently get away with it as the US, Japan, and South Korea have done little but talk and shake their fingers at 'Dear Leader'.
Last weekend, as is widely known now, the North Koreans fired a missile over Japan into the Pacific Ocean. For a nation that cannot feed itself, whose archaic industry is limping, whose trade is anaemic except for imports from China, whose people suffer from endemic diseases, and which goes dark for lack of electricity when the sun goes down, this was a spectacular achievement.
Kim Jong-il went to the launch site to watch the liftoff, then had himself re-elected leader by acclamation. The official Korean Central News Agency said 100,000 people jammed a plaza in Pyongyang to celebrate. KCNA crowed: 'The [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] succeeded in launching the satellite despite the enemies' unprecedented political and military pressure.'
Before the missile launch, US President Barack Obama and leaders of other powerful nations warned North Korea not to do it. Afterwards, the US president's assertion that North Korea 'must be punished' was echoed in Tokyo, Seoul, western Europe and the United Nations. By the weekend, however, little but nattering was seeping out of the UN, the White House and foreign offices around the globe.
The Obama administration, through the Pentagon, imposed a news blackout despite having erected an elaborate system of missile-tracking radars, computers and communications in Japan, the Aleutians, Alaska, Hawaii and California, aboard US and Japanese warships, and satellites over the Pacific Ocean. That cost the taxpayers US$56 billion over the past seven years.
The Pentagon's Northern Command, which is responsible for the defence of the US homeland, published a terse press release with few details, concluding: 'This is all of the information that will be provided ... pertaining to the launch.'
In contrast, after a US missile defence test in December, Lieutenant General Patrick O'Reilly, director of the Missile Defence Agency, opened a press briefing by stating: 'What I would like to do is go over exactly what happened this afternoon.' The army general proceeded to do just that.
In the North Korean case, rather than inform the citizens the Pentagon is paid to defend, it withheld information, evidently for one or both of two reasons.
First, political: the Obama administration, having decided there would be no response or retaliation for the defiant missile shot, calculated that it would be best to divert public attention by ignoring it.
Second, technical: something went wrong in tracking the North Korean missile in this first realistic test of missile defence; other tests have been staged. Rather than admit failure, the Pentagon ducked.
The firing of the North Korean missile is the latest act of a rogue state. In 1968, it seized the US intelligence ship Pueblo in international waters; 36 hours later, North Korean commandos attempted to assassinate South Korean president Park Chung-hee. The following year, North Korea shot down a US EC-121 electronic surveillance plane over the Sea of Japan, killing 31 crew.
The North Koreans have since mounted assassinations, abductions, bombings, and illicit-drug operations, all without drawing effective response from the US, Japan or South Korea. In the 1980s, Pyongyang began developing nuclear arms; that led to the six-party talks in 2003. The US, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia have failed to halt Mr Kim's nuclear ventures.
In 2006, North Korea detonated a nuclear device. The six-party talks are stalled, and Mr Kim's missile shot suggests they will recede further towards the horizon.
Richard Halloran is a former New York Times foreign correspondent in Asia and military correspondent in Washington
