ON THE VERGE OF WAR

The spectre of war is again stalking the Korean Peninsula. Pyongyang and Seoul are not simply trying to show each other who's strongest and most viable, as they have already done several times in the more than 50-year existence of the two Koreas, the socialist to the north and the capitalist to the south. Some observers worry that things could go as far as the use of nuclear weapons, so the whole world is following what is happening in this part of Asia. 

Milky Way and Key Resolve

On 8 March the Democratic People's Republic (North Korea) announced the full combat-readiness of their armed forces and cut the only direct line of communication with the military command of the Republic of Korea (South Korea). Pyongyang said their actions were a response to the decision of Seoul and Washington to hold joint military exercises under the codename Key Resolve from 9 to 20 March in the south of the peninsula. These exercises are held every year but this year they are on a massive scale, with 26,000 servicemen, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the John Stennis, US naval support ships with Aegis anti-missile systems and the latest F-22A Raptor fighter aircraft taking part on the American side. 

Such a powerful American representation gave the North Koreans grounds to think that "the new US administration is preparing to encroach upon the sovereignty of the DPRK with the help of their South Korean puppets." In response for the first time in the entire Korean conflict Pyongyang threatened their opponent's civilian aircraft: "During the military exercises we will not be able to guarantee the air security of South Korea's civilian aircraft crossing our air space and its environs, especially in the area of the Eastern Sea (of Japan)."

But even this threat is not the main bit of manoeuvring. In February Pyongyang announced its intention to launch an Unha-2 (Milky Way) rocket carrying an "experimental communications satellite". On the third day of the American-South Korean exercises the DPRK announced that the satellite would be launched between 4 and 8 April 2009. Meanwhile, South Korea, Japan and the United States saw in Pyongyang's plans a direct threat to their own security. According to them, the North Korean satellite is none other than an improved version of the Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile which is even capable of reaching US territory. Even if it really is a satellite whose launch pursues purely peaceful purposes, which is what the DPRK is saying, the plan to launch the Unha-2 violates UN Security Council Resolution 1718, which bans Pyongyang from developing ballistic rockets. South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan and the US president's special representative for the DPRK, Stephen Bosworth, reminded the North Koreans about this, while Japanese Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada warned that the North Korean rocket might be intercepted and destroyed if it threatened his country's security.

Reacting to these statements, Pyongyang said it was ready "to respond with a powerful counter-strike using the greatest military means to all attempts by the USA, South Korea and Japan to bring down the North Korean satellite". This made the threat of a new Korean war more realistic.

In the absence of a peace treaty 

The international community is already resigned to the idea that sooner or later the Korean powder keg will explode (unless, of course, the two Koreas themselves and interested foreign forces take fundamental action to direct events into a purely peaceful course which has not been possible to this day).

Even though the war ended on the Korean Peninsula in 1953, the USA and DPRK remain in a formal state of war, as a peace treaty between them has not yet been signed. North Korea has always made it clear that all that stops it swallowing up the south is Seoul's military alliance with Washington, which can be seen in the presence of an American military contingent in South Korea. The DPRK still maintains that its borders should be much further south than what's known as the northern dividing line, the introduction of which was influenced by the American generals that dominated the UN forces at the end of the war. That's why there are periodic clashes in this zone.

For example, in 1968 the North Koreans seized the American ship the Pueblo off their coast and their special forces launched an assault on the Blue House in Seoul, the centre of South Korea's political life. The start of war was only just avoided then and it was no easy job. In 1999 and 2002 North and South Korea fought real sea battles which resulted in Seoul defending its right to the current border of the Republic of Korea.

Meanwhile, the Korean conflict, which initially fed on ideological disagreements, is now becoming more technological. A turning point came in 2006 when it emerged that the communist regime of North Korea had nuclear technology. True, Pyongyang's nuclear weapons' test took place during a really tough economic crisis in the country: in the past few years several hundred thousand DPRK citizens have died of hunger. Since January inter-Korean tension has escalated to a new, "ballistic" phase. Pyongyang accused Seoul of preparing for aggression on the basis of the reinforcement of American forces in the south of the Korean Peninsula. The DPRK has torn up all recent accords with the "South Korean puppets", including border agreements. Seoul announced that in so doing Pyongyang is destroying all the positive advances in relations between the two countries and creating a direct threat of war.

The current exacerbation of the situation, caused by the American-South Korean exercises and the preparations to launch a North Korean satellite, could well be the culmination of the inter-Korean "peaceful" conflict, which has not stopped for a moment since the end of the war in 1953.

Options of a "powerful state"

Though the difficulty and unpredictability of the Korean situation should be realized, it should not be exaggerated. It is quite possible that North Korea's current aggressiveness in carrying out its nuclear programme is again linked with the DPRK's most basic, vital needs. More than once Pyongyang has flexed its muscles in order to receive from the West and its well-fed South Korean brethren supplies of food and fuel in return for its agreement to give up the idea of owning nuclear weapons. This worked well until conservative Lee Myung-bak came to power who links aid to Pyongyang (the DPRK can feed its population thanks to South Korean rice) with the complete and irreversible denuclearization of North Korea. 

It is also clear that Pyongyang is trying in any way possible to attract the attention of the new American administration. The North Korean leadership remembers only too well how in 1994 it managed to reach agreement with Democratic President Bill Clinton and put off the country's descent into famine for several years by temporarily freezing its nuclear programme. Then Republican George Bush moved into the White House. He reviewed the deal with Pyongyang and decided to exhaust it through economic isolation. Even the previous White House regime had to humour North Korea's whims and sometimes soften its own stance by agreeing to give aid to the DPRK as long as Kim Jong-il stopped playing his nuclear games. By sabre rattling today, Pyongyang is openly trying to attract Barack Obama's attention which is mainly concentrated now on tackling the global crisis and resolving the problems of the Middle East, Iran and Afghanistan. However, it cannot be ruled out that if it does not succeed in influencing Obama and Lee Myung-bak, the DPRK could ratchet up its blackmail and offer to help Iran develop nuclear technology.

There is a domestic North Korean reason for Pyongyang's anger. Officially, the DPRK puts its "rocket and satellite" activity down to the need to continue the space programme begun in the 1980s, aimed at turning itself into a "powerful state" by 2012. The date has not been plucked out of a hat - in three years' time it will be the 100th anniversary of the birth of the DPRK's former leader, Kim Il-sung, father of North Korea's current leader, Kim Jong-il. The planned launch of the rocket is also aimed at strengthening the North Korean people's image of the strength and sustainability of their country against the backdrop of recent rumours of Kim Jong-il's illness.

There's more. The North Korean regime cannot fail to understand its vulnerability and that provoking a war with its economically powerful neighbours and the superpower that is the USA could have fatal consequences. Yes, the DPRK has around 850,000 in its armed forces and Pyongyang can call up four million reserves, but it has hardly any modern weapons systems (hardware, ships, aircraft and anti-missile defences). It has only light weapons and not even the DPRK government, for all its ideological and political rigidity, thinks a war can be won by infantry alone, armed with Kalashnikovs. If war does begin, North Korea will face a disastrous shortage of fuel for its military hardware.

It is also important that Pyongyang's actions have not received approval from Russia and China, which continue to maintain their traditional good relations with the DPRK. Moscow and Beijing have called on all interested parties to "show restraint and desist from any actions that could undermine security and stability in the region". 

So although Pyongyang will beat the drums of war it will not dare to reject proposals to sit at the negotiating table. It looks from the restrained (and not openly harsh) reaction of the United States that Barack Obama's administration has nothing in principle against a diplomatic solution to the problem. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that Washington has a "range of options" if Pyongyang does carry out the launch, including going to the UN Security Council. She expressed her disappointment that the USA's special representative did not receive an invitation to Pyongyang to discuss the situation while he was in the region.