050302 　「北朝鮮の核保有宣言で驚いていてはいけない」


北朝鮮が核保有宣言をしてから３週間が経過しましたが、その受け止め方をめぐってワシントンでも色々な見方があるようです。この宣言で驚いたという人もいれば、全く驚くに当たらない、むしろ驚いたということ自体が驚きだという人もいます。共和党系の有力シンクタンクAmerican Enterprise InstituteのNicholas Eberstadt
もその一人で、彼によれば、北朝鮮にとっては1950-53年の朝鮮戦争は単に休戦しているだけで戦争は継続していると考えており、米国に対しては現在でも臨戦態勢をとっているので、核兵器開発もその一環であるとみるべきだ、彼等の狙いは米韓同盟関係を打ち砕き、米国を朝鮮半島から追い出すことだ、これに対し、米国と同盟国としては、引き続き北の完全核放棄(complete, verifiable and
irreversible dismantlement=CVID)を求める以外にない、としています。彼はこの趣旨を最近下院の外交委員会でも証言した由（本日のＮＹＴimes）。ご参考まで。
--KK

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What Surprise?
The Nuclear Core of North Korea's Strategy

By Nicholas Eberstadt
Tuesday, March 1, 2005; Page A15

North Korea's declaration that it possesses nuclear weapons and intends to
hold on to its nuclear arsenal "under any circumstances" was greeted with
shock and astonishment in much of the world. In fact, the most astonishing
part of this momentous development was the fact that North Korea's bold move
has come as a surprise, both in Washington and abroad.
The North Korean government did not suddenly claim to join the world's
nuclear weapons club on a bizarre and inexplicable whim. The announcement
represented the entirely predictable culmination of decades of careful,
painstaking, costly efforts and calculations. Until we appreciate the
thinking that animates North Korea's quest for weapons of mass destruction,
we are going to face the prospect of ever more unpleasant and expensive
surprises from Pyongyang.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is a state unlike any
other -- a political construct especially and particularly built for three
entwined purposes: to conduct a war, to settle a historical grievance and to
fulfill a grand ideological vision.
The vision is reunification of the Korean Peninsula under the "independent,
socialist" rule of the DPRK -- i.e., unconditional annexation of present-day
South Korea and liquidation of the Republic of Korea government.

The grievance is the failure of the famous June 1950 surprise attack on
South Korea -- an assault that might well have unified Korea on Pyongyang's
terms but for America's military intervention. In Pyongyang's telling, it is
only America's continuing imperialistic support that has kept a rotten and
unviable South Korean government alive since 1950.
And the war that North Korea has prepared for is not some future theoretical
contingency. In the view of North Korean leaders, their country is at war
today. Although we are sometimes inattentive, the fact is that the Korean
War's battles were halted only through a 1953 cease-fire agreement. The
Korean War is, from the DPRK's standpoint, an ongoing conflict -- and North
Korea's leadership is committed to an unconditional victory, however long it
might take and however much it might cost.

North Korea maintains a vast conventional army with a failing, Soviet-type
economy. Obviously, that force could not prevail over the combined South
Korea-U.S. alliance. Thus the neutralization, and removal, of the United
States from the Korean equation is imperative from Pyongyang's perspective.
But that objective cannot be achieved by the DPRK's conventional
capabilities -- today or in the near future. To achieve this goal, North
Korea must possess nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles capable of
delivering them into the heart of the American enemy. This central strategic
fact explains why North Korea has been assiduously pursuing its nuclear and
missile development programs for more than 30 years -- at terrible expense
to its people and despite all adverse repercussions for its international
relations.

Several important implications flow from North Korea's conception of, and
strategy for, its program to develop weapons of mass destruction.
First, continuing and escalating international tensions are not accidental
and unwelcome side effects of the program -- they are its central purpose.
North Korea has already used the threat of having weapons of mass
destruction to extract de facto international extortion payments from the
United States and its allies, and to force the United States to "engage"
Pyongyang diplomatically, on Pyongyang's terms.
The greatest potential dividends for North Korean nuclear and ballistic
diplomacy, however, still lie in store -- and this brings us to a second
point. For more than half a century, U.S. security policy has been charged
with imposing "deterrence" on Pyongyang. But hasn't Pyongyang also been
thinking about how to "deter" the United States over those same long
decades? Nuclear weapons (especially long-range nuclear missiles) might well
answer the "deterrence question" for the North Korean state.

Faced with the risk of nuclear attack on the U.S. mainland, Washington could
hesitate at a time of crisis on the Korean Peninsula. And if Washington's
security commitment to South Korea were not credible in a crisis, the
military alliance would be dead in all but name. North Korea's nuclear
weapons program, in short, may be its best hope for achieving its dual
objectives of breaking the U.S.-South Korea military alliance and pushing
American troops off the peninsula.
Third, those who hope for a "win-win" solution to the current nuclear
impasse must recognize the plain fact that North Korea does not engage in
"win-win" bargaining and never has. The historical record is clear:
Pyongyang believes in zero-sum solutions, preferring not only victories but
also face-losing setbacks for its opponents. To Pyongyang, "win-win"
solutions are not only impractical but immoral.

Finally, those who believe that a denuclearization of North Korea is still
possible through some future negotiating breakthrough must consider what
such an outcome would look like to Pyongyang today -- from the standpoint of
the real, existing North Korean state, not some imaginary DPRK we'd rather
be talking to. No matter how large and reassuring the payoff package, the
achievement of "complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization" would
consign North Korea to a world measured by the metrics of peaceful
international competition -- and thus to a role more in consonance with the
size of its gross domestic product. No current North Korean leader is likely
to regard such a proposal as a bargain.
Kim Jong Il is doing his best to make the world safe for the DPRK. Our task,
by contrast, is to make the world safe from the DPRK. This will be a
difficult, expensive and dangerous undertaking. For America and its allies,
however, the costs and dangers of failure are higher -- incalculably higher.

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The writer holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American
Enterprise Institute. This article was adapted from testimony before the
House International Relations Committee on Feb. 17.