South Korea’s Defense White Paper, Part I

Well, well–look what Kim Jong Il has been buying, and you can bet it isn’t food:

North Korea has . . . increased its field artillery by about 1,000 pieces over the last four years. With systems growing obsolete, the North has reduced the number of fighter jets and submarines, but its reserve strength has increased by 220,000 men from 7.48 million four years ago to 7.70 million.

The white paper also estimates that Pyongyang has built one or two nuclear weapons after extracting about 10-14kg of plutonium before IAEA inspections began in 1992.

It’s not entirely clear from this text whether the North Koreans built the bombs or extracted the plutonium before 1992; I assume the latter. It’s also not clear whether this was the unenriched plutonium at Yongbyon or an undeclared stockpile. More disturbingly, it’s not clear that retaining this plutonium would have even violated the Agreed Framework, which we signed in 1994, and which is absolutely the most atrociously vague and masochistically unfavorable international agreement ever.

The South Koreans, who desperately want another grand bargain like the Agreed Framework, have essentially admitted that the last deal was a failure at accomplishing the goal of disarming North Korea. How obvious could it be that they don’t care what Pyongyang does or who it threatens? Now, the various South Korean constituencies all have their own reasons for wanting a deal. Some just want the money. Some want the photo-ops. Some are just plain scared. And more than a few are ideological supporters of North Korea. What almost none of them are is considerate of the fact that the United States has a security interest of its own here.

South Korea is telling us to drop dead. I can only hope that G.W. Bush won’t seek a permission slip from Roh Moo Hyun to protect us from North Korea’s loose nuke factory.

This would also be a good time to remind ourselves of the explanation Kim Jong Il’s sychophant and apologist in chief, Christine Ahn, offers for the starvation of two million North Koreans in the last decade. Perhaps you’ve already guessed who she blames:

The first major blow to North Korean food production was the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the socialist trading bloc, which eliminated North Korea’s major trading partners. The end of subsidized oil from the former Soviet Union and China literally halted the tractors of North Korean farmers. The second blow-major droughts and floods that were the worst of the century-destroyed much of the harvest and forced Pyongyang to seek Western and Japanese aid.

The persistence of famine, however, is due to economic sanctions led by the U.S. and its refusal to end the 50-year Korean War. What is scarcely known about North Korea is that up until the 1980s, North Korea’s agricultural and economic growth far outpaced South Korea.

Hey, Christine, are you sure it doesn’t have something to do with the Dear Leader’s budget priorities? But of course, not all of North Korea’s spending is for defense; this leader is “dear” is more ways than one. Don’t kid yourself, Christine. There was enough money to feed all of those people. At best, their deaths were a matter of no consequence; at worst, they were written into the five-year plan.

UPDATE: They can’t afford fertilizer, but they can afford 1,000 new artillery tubes to aim at the people who give them fertilizer. I think I get it now.