Gears of War: Rising tensions between North and South Korea

Predictably, last week’s increase in tensions was met with defiance in North Korea where the decision to close the industrial facility was described as “a dangerous declaration of war” while South Korea managers were expelled from the site. The South Korean response was that the decision had been taken more in sorrow than in anger because President Park Geun-hye has been a supporter of greater rapprochement between the two countries since she came to power three years ago.

It was always her intention to adopt a measured approach to dealing with her northern neighbour and the facility at Kaesong was regarded as a means of showing the superiority of South Korea’s working methods and the strength of a free-market economy. With the closure of the factories and with the forthcoming introduction of the THAAD anti-missile system Park has returned to a hard-line approach and this might suit her opposite number President Kim Jong Un who has made confrontation with South Korea an article of faith in his domestic and foreign policies.

Despite his country’s poverty he has not stinted on defence expenditure and South Korean intelligence sources claimed that profits from the Kaesong factories were being diverted to fund the North Korean nuclear programme. This would certainly have suited Kim who has been belligerent in his approach and shows no sign of throttling back on his policy of confrontation with South Korea. In his mind at least the Korean War of 1950-1953 never ended and the ceasefire line between the two countries is only a temporary state of affairs which can be changed by a show of resolution.

“People forget that longer history, which is often driving North Korean motivation, that memory of the possibility that nuclear weapons might have been used against them,” says Professor Andre Schmid, a South-East Asia expert at the University of Toronto.

“If you think of it in terms of scientific advancement, it’s something that they can celebrate inside their country. In a time of so many difficulties, it comes across as sort of this nationalistic accomplishment.”

Unfortunately Kim’s thinking does not take place in isolation and North Korea’s decision to escalate the regional arms race has alarmed his neighbours South Korea and Japan which are both within easy range of North Korean firepower – in addition to nuclear weapons North Korea has a huge array of conventional artillery sited along the border. It has also set alarm bells ringing in China and Russia which, traditionally, have been regarded as allies and financial supporters. But there is a subtle difference. While Beijing was annoyed by Kim’s choice to flout international law by test-firing the long-range missile it has been equally infuriated by President Park’s decision to close down the Kaesong facility and to enter into talks with the US to introduce a THAAD system into South Korea.

Despite US assurances that the weapons will only be used to protect South Korean air space Beijing fears that the presence of the system will upset the regional balance of power by giving Washington an unfair advantage in its dealings with their country. Russia is also concerned that the deployment could have an impact in other parts of the world where Russian and American interests clash. According to a Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, “this step can increase the destructive influence of the US global missile defence system on international security and stability.”

In attempt to offset those fears a spokesperson for the joint US-South Korea working group which meets this week claimed that the main battery of the new system would be deployed in the south-eastern province of Gyeongsang which is relatively far from China.

NUCLEAR BACKGROUND

For a small and impoverished country North Korea has a relatively sophisticated and advanced nuclear programme on which much time and finance has been lavished. It began in the 1970s during the Cold War and in recent times the country has detonated four nuclear devices in 2006, 2009, 2013 and the latest earlier this year. Because North Korea is not part of any international agreement to curb or regulate the development of weapons of mass destruction – it withdrew from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 2003 – it is difficult to monitor the progress of the country’s nuclear programme but the little that is known is worrying, especially to its closest neighbours South Korea and Japan. In a significant development in Washington last week North Korea replaced Iran as the leading nuclear threat to world peace when James R. Clapper US National Intelligence Director gave his annual worldwide threat assessment to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

According to US satellite reconnaissance the important North Korean nuclear reactor and facility at Yongbyon is not only active but is now capable of producing 6 kg of weapons grade plutonium a year. President Kim Jong Un has also claimed that his scientists have developed thermonuclear facilities at Pyongchon but as with so much information that comes out of North Korea this has been met with scepticism amongst western scientists. There are still doubts about the size and potency of the underground test of a nuclear weapon on January 6 and claims that it was a hydrogen bomb have still to be confirmed and the seismic recording for the event shows a relatively modest reading.

Of equal concern has been North Korea’s relentless development of a delivery system for its nuclear warheads. Again, this has been in progress since the 1970s when the country tested an elementary Scud-B missile, itself a development of the German V2 missile from the Second World War. While this was a short range tactical weapon with a primitive guidance system it was a start and has been followed by the development of other tactical weapons with longer ranges. This culminated in the production of the solid-fuelled KN-02 missile which was not new technology but a development of the Soviet era SS-21 “Scarab” missile with a slightly longer range.

In 1993 there was a breakthrough when North Korea flight-tested its first Nodong intermediate missile with a range of 1,500 km and there has been a steady escalation ever since. Four years ago North Korea launched a multi-staged Unha-3 missile and succeeded in putting a small satellite into space and although this allowed their scientists to claim that the western seaboard of the US was within range there were doubts about the capacity of a warhead to reach its target with any accuracy. Last weekend’s test firing of a further long-range missile shows that the country has not given up its ambitions to become a major nuclear power. The relentless development of intercontinental ballistic missile technology continues apace at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station which has been consistently monitored and reveals a steady increase in gantry towers and fuel storage facilities – all signs of enhanced missile development.

However, given that North Korea has withdrawn from the Missile Technology Control Regime precise facts about its missile holdings are difficult to verify. Last year claims that North Korea had developed a Polaris-type submarine-launched ballistic missile were quashed when subsequent intelligence showed that the images from the test had been falsified and that the firing had been made from a submerged barge. The much-heralded presence at the test of Kim Jong Un has only strengthened the impression that the test was rigged for his benefit.

PRESDIENT KIM

If any event summarised the ramshackle nature of the regime in North Korea it was last week’s announcement that President Kim Yong Un had sanctioned the execution of General Ri Yong Gil, chief of the general staff and a hitherto trusted confidant. His crime was purported to be treason exacerbated by abuse of power but the real reason was probably an attempt by Kim to bolster his hold on his presidency. In response US presidential hopeful Donald Trump celebrated his triumph in the New Hampshire primary election by calling Kim a “bad dude” and that his first act as president would be “to get China to make that guy disappear, in one form or another, very quickly.”

Executions are not uncommon in North Korea and there is usually neither rhyme nor reason for their occurrence. Recently Kim has also authorised the executions of Armed Forces Minister Hyon Yong Chol for disloyalty in 2015 and his powerful and previously much admired uncle Jang Song Thaek for alleged treason in 2013. Intelligence sources in neighbouring South Korea claim that since Kim came to power in 2011 over 70 senior military and intelligence commanders have been executed without trial.

Given the secretive nature of North Korean society none of this will come as any surprise to North Korea watchers in the west. Indeed, so closed is the country that very little is known about Kim other than he was the chosen heir-apparent of his father and predecessor President Kim Jong Il. Young Kim was born in 1983 or 1984 and was educated in Switzerland and later at the North Korean military academy in the capital Pyongyang where he developed an abiding interest in military matters.

On coming to power he announced the formation of a “military first” policy and claimed that the time was over when his country could be threatened with impunity by its rivals. Of particular interest to him was the development of missile technology and he has been the driving force behind North Korea’s ambitions to develop nuclear weapons. Despite loathing western culture and “imperialist” influence Kim showed himself to be alive to technological advances, especially in computing. He also revealed a media-genic side and recently has made much of his wife Comrade Ri Sol Ju, a singer who frequently appears by his side wearing stylish clothes and sporting a chic hairstyle. Kim also struck up an unlikely friendship with the US basketball star Dennis Rodman who until recently was a frequent visitor to the country.