Pyongyang's atomic `security blanket'

In the view of South Korean and Western military officials and analysts, if there were a conventional war on the Korean Peninsula the best North Korea could hope for would be to fight to a bloody stalemate.

Although other diplomats and analysts argue that Kim Jong Il's goal is diplomatic leverage with the United States and Japan over sanctions and trade -- or even its status in the world -- these analysts said it was instead a sense of deep insecurity that influenced Kim's decision to defy international warnings this week and declare that the North had tested a nuclear weapon.

``I think North Korea wants an effective deterrent against the US in case of war on the Korean Peninsula," Park Yong Ok, a former lieutenant general in the South Korean Army who served as vice minister for defense in the late 1990s, said yesterday. ``Kim Jong Il wants a nuclear weapon at hand. It's not a bargaining chip."

The reported nuclear test at an underground site on Monday dramatically changes the military balance on the Korean Peninsula. Although the North has an active army of more than 1 million, its poor and outdated equipment and difficulties in maintaining combat readiness mean it is outgunned by the smaller forces of South Korea and the United States.

Until now, North Korean deterrence has been largely based on an arsenal of about 8,000 artillery pieces and 2,000 tanks positioned close to the demilitarized zone. Many of the long-range guns are capable of reaching Seoul, a city of 10.3 million people, possibly with chemical weapons.

But military officials and analysts said in interviews yesterday that Pyongyang had closely watched conflicts elsewhere in the world, particularly the invasions of Iraq in 1991 and 2003, with growing nervousness and wanted to acquire a trump card in the security standoff on the peninsula. They said that its pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability was methodical and longstanding.

``It's a large army, but the equipment is old," said a Western military attaché based in Seoul, who did not want to be quoted by name because he was not authorized to speak for his government on the matter. ``I think the caliber of the army is not that great anymore. Kim has to look at other means for protection."

He added: ``When he secures that capability, he might talk, but not to hand over that capability. It's his security blanket."

To many outsiders, the actions of Kim appear irrational. Far from enhancing North Korea's security, a common argument goes, attainment of nuclear weapons, in defiance of global opinion, further isolates the country and potentially increases pressure on the regime.

But Michael Breen, author of a 2004 book, ``Kim Jong-Il: North Korea's Dear Leader," criticized the perception that Kim's effort to obtain nuclear weapons was a bargaining ploy dreamed up by an erratic and eccentric mind.

He said Kim was a clever man who had carefully pursued the goal of nuclear weapons based on an analysis of North Korea's relative decline and the dangers posed to his own regime by South Korea and the United States, with which his country remains technically at war.

However, a nuclear test, which some analysts believe might be followed by others, is only one step on the path to achieving a battlefield nuclear deterrent. The North faces the technical challenge of miniaturizing nuclear warheads to place them in missiles, aircraft, or artillery shells.

North Korea has a variety of short- and medium-range missiles on which it could mount warheads. These missiles are capable of threatening the immediate region, including Japan, but they are not yet capable of reliably creating a threat at long distances. In July, the test-firing of a long-range Taepodong-2 missile failed. In theory, the Taepodong-2 can travel up to 9,320 miles, far enough to reach the West Coast of the United States.

The consensus among analysts is that North Korea has yet to succeed in producing a nuclear warhead capable of being mounted on a launching missile.

``They need to reduce the size of the nuclear weapon," Park, the former South Korean vice minister for defense, said in a telephone interview from Seoul. ``But I think it is only a matter of time before they have the technological capacity to enable a nuclear warhead to be put on a missile."