EXCERPTS OF REMARKS BY FRANK J. GAFFNEY, JR. AT A CATO INSTITUTE FORUM ON NORTH KOREA

WHAT TO DO ABOUT NORTH KOREA’S NUCLEAR THREAT: HOLD THE ‘CARROTS,’ APPLY THE ‘STICK’

I believe that — if power remains in the hands of the communist totalitarian Kim Il Sung and his son and anointed successor, Kim Jong Il — it is just a matter of time before North Korea acquires fully operational nuclear weapons. For all we know, they may well have them today.

We are already seeing the sort of political, economic and/or strategic advantage the Kims will try to make of this nuclear weapons capability — or even an incipient one. Unfortunately, the signals currently being sent by the United States and its allies appear likely, at best, to encourage uncertainty about the West’s determination to thwart Pyongyang’s ambitions. Lest we forget, the last time such confusion existed about America’s commitment to its ally on the peninsula, Kim Il Sung launched a costly war of aggression. Three factors cause much higher stakes to be associated with North Korea’s designs and the U.S. response this time around, however:

• First, if Pyongyang is allowed to acquire nuclear arms — as well as the capacity to deliver them over long distances with ballistic missiles — South Korea will no longer be the only nation at risk from a devastating, short-notice North Korean attack. As a result, the strategic situation in Northeastern Asia will become vastly more volatile, practically overnight.

 

• Second, if as now seems likely, the United States is perceived as having abdicated its decades-long commitment to defend its friends and allies in the region — or as having lost the capability to do so — it is predictable that Japan, South Korea and probably Taiwan and perhaps other Asian Rim states will "go nuclear." Such a development would have lasting, and possibly highly deleterious, implications for U.S. security interests. And

 

• Third, North Korea’s established propensity to sell its weaponry to anyone with the hard currency to pay for it, virtually assures that ballistic missiles and nuclear front ends will be made available to a host of bad actors in the Middle East and perhaps elsewhere. Likely recipients include Iran, Syria and Libya all of whom would be, as a result, substantially more capable of threatening devastating, no-warning attacks against Israel and pro-Western Arab states.

With so much at stake, the United States cannot afford to ignore or otherwise accommodate North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. As with Iraq, there are risks associated with taking forceful action — but they pale by comparison with those sure to arise if Pyongyang can wield "The Bomb."

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[The United States must] prepare to prevent North Korea from achieving the credible capacity to threaten the use of nuclear weapons. At the very least, selected military strikes designed to neutralize those facilities associated with Pyongyang’s covert nuclear weapons program must be prepared. Israel’s brilliant preemptive strike against the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak should serve as a model for this form of "assertive arms control."