UPDATED: Diplomatic manevering around NoKo’s missile test/Clinton Administration exes: “Strike and Destroy”
China is concerned. South Korea doesn’t think the test is imminent..
US reaction to North Korea’s demand for direct negotiations with the US (via China Daily link):
A North Korean diplomat said in reported comments Wednesday that the country wanted to engage in talks with the U.S. on its concerns over a possible missile test.
The U.S. turned down the plea for a direct meeting, and instead called Wednesday on the North to return to six-nation nuclear talks, which also include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea. The North has boycotted those talks since November in anger over a U.S. crackdown on its alleged illicit financial activity.
In Europe (via the AP) the US is shoring up political support for countering Iran and North Korea.
UPDATE: Bill Perry and Ashton Carter (Clinton Admin exes) want to “strike and destroy” North Korea’s nascent strategic capabilities– “if necessary.”
Key graf:
The Bush administration has unwisely ballyhooed the doctrine of “preemption,” which all previous presidents have sustained as an option rather than a dogma. It has applied the doctrine to Iraq, where the intelligence pointed to a threat from weapons of mass destruction that was much smaller than the risk North Korea poses. (The actual threat from Saddam Hussein was, we now know, even smaller than believed at the time of the invasion.) But intervening before mortal threats to U.S. security can develop is surely a prudent policy.
Note they put the knock on Bush’s pre-emption, then come out for pre-emption.
Pre-emption in 1994 or 1998, on their watch, would have been welcome. But perhaps they concluded it wasn’t “necessary.” Still, this is a strong essay and I’m glad they wrote it.
U.S. weighs shootdown of N. Korea missile … The Bush administration is weighing responses to a possible North Korean missile test that include a…
Trackback by Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator — 6/22/2006 @ 7:32 am
If Necessary, Strike and Destroy… Ashton Carter and William Perry, assistant secretary of defense and SECDEF respectively, under President Bill Clinton, are take a surprisingly hawkish line on the North Korean missile test in an op-ed in today’s WaPo. Should the United States all…
Trackback by Outside The Beltway | OTB — 6/22/2006 @ 9:35 am
[…] Update: A couple of points worth noting. First, there’s no indication that I’ve seen that North Korea has miniaturized any nuclear weapon to the point that they can arm their Taeopodong-2 or any other missile with a nuke. The vehicle currently on the pad is a test fire and a threat in that its range is sufficient to hit Hawaii and Alaska. Second, Clinton-era officials have been entirely duplicitous on the Iraq war; many of them were hawks in the 1990s only to become doves once the actual shooting started (including Clinton himself, Gore, Albright, Berger and several others). The two quoted above, William Perry and Ashton Carter, display some of this Democrat duplicitousness in a passage flagged by Austin Bay: The Bush administration has unwisely ballyhooed the doctrine of “preemption,†which all previous presidents have sustained as an option rather than a dogma. It has applied the doctrine to Iraq, where the intelligence pointed to a threat from weapons of mass destruction that was much smaller than the risk North Korea poses. (The actual threat from Saddam Hussein was, we now know, even smaller than believed at the time of the invasion.) But intervening before mortal threats to U.S. security can develop is surely a prudent policy. […]
Pingback by Hot Air » Blog Archive » That North Korean Missile — 6/22/2006 @ 10:03 am
The Carter/Perry approach to the NK problem seems to be that we can fire missiles at their facilities (an act of war under any international legal standard, I believe), and the NK government is not likely to respond with military action on their own part. Why not? If ever there was a way to raly the troops, it would be to point to an attack on their own soil by the invaders. So anyone adopting that approach has to be prepared for an ugly spectacle on the Korean peninsula….and, if anyone thinks that the world will rally around the bullying USA, they are very mistaken! So, the rewards must clearly outwiehg the risks for such an approach to be seriously considered. What are the rewards….blowing up a missile launching facility that can be reconstructed in a relatively short time? Their approach seems like a “no-brainer” to me….
Comment by RAZ — 6/22/2006 @ 11:58 am
Seems to me the Clinton folk had their chance to sort out the NK problem and blew it.
Comment by Max — 6/22/2006 @ 2:42 pm
Unbelievable! These two must believe that Bush is actively considering something like this and wrote the article to warn their North Korean friends.
Comment by Ralph Goodson — 6/22/2006 @ 6:59 pm
Dont I remember when Sec State Mad Albright was dancing with a Kim? What nonsence are these guys talking. It would be nice if the Japanese stopped allowing remittences being sent to these paleo-Stalinists though.
Comment by Rob — 6/22/2006 @ 9:58 pm
A look at the map shows that North Korea is kinda surrounded. They will not want to shoot missiles east over China or Russia. That pretty much leaves over Japan, who occupies most of their front yard. Japan and Alaska are good places for Star Wars anti-missile sites to be placed to interdict missiles coming towards the mainland US. And indeed that seems to be where we are setting these sights up.
Comment by Rob — 6/22/2006 @ 10:33 pm