Hundreds and Hundreds of Centrifuges

We’ve been here before – dire enemies with nuclear strike capacity. This time, it’s Iran and North Korea, the latter having already detonated nuclear test weapons. And we are deeply concerned that the estimated 70-100 nukes under Pakistani control are vulnerable to an Islamist takeover of that unstable nation, which in turn could serve as a feeder to radical Islam seeking to destroy Israel and the Western world. After all, it was Pakistan’s Dr. A.Q. Khan who leaked essential plans for building nuclear enrichment facilities to both North Korea and Iran almost a decade and a half ago.

We faced an arms race with the Soviet Union for decades, both nations building on the vestiges of Nazi scientists purloined after World War II, but the United States is the only nation on earth ever to have deployed such weapons – in the closing days of World War II over the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The stalemate with the Soviets – the “Cold War” – was simply referred to as MADD (mutually assured destruction), and the mutual threat seemed to work.

But today, there is a fear that ripples down policy-makers’ spines: either that religious zeal – where death in a military exploit against non-believers creates life eternal through martyrdom dampens the underlying protective value of MADD – or sheet arrogance of mentally unbalanced leaders – will undermine our national safety in a rather huge way. Indeed, the realignment of nuclear treaties based on these new fears has shifted significantly of late; old enemies have found common ground. The November 20^th Washington Post reports: “Russia agreed [November 20^th] to cooperate with NATO on building a U.S.-planned anti-missile network in Europe as part of what was described as a new era in security relations between the former Cold War enemies.

“The accord, announced at a NATO summit in Lisbon, symbolized a conclusion by the United States and its main European allies that Russia is not a threat to be protected from but a potential ally in girding the continent against possible ballistic missile attacks from Iran or elsewhere… ‘We see Russia as a partner, not an adversary,’ President Obama said, hailing the NATO-Russian accord. President Dmitri Medvedev warned, however, that Russia's cooperation must be ‘a full-fledged strategic partnership between Russia and NATO’ and not just a nod in Moscow's direction to spare Russian feelings while Europe tends to its own defenses in tandem with the United States.”

To make matter worse, a report from a scientist visiting North Korea surfaced recently with more bad news: the North has built another uranium enrichment facility. The November 20^th New York Times: “The scientist, Siegfried S. Hecker, a Stanford professor who previously directed the Los Alamos National Laboratory, said in an interview that he had been ‘stunned’ by the sophistication of the new plant, where he saw ‘hundreds and hundreds’ of centrifuges that had just been installed in a recently gutted building that had housed an aging fuel fabrication center, and that were operated from what he called ‘an ultra-modern control room.’ The North Koreans claimed 2,000 centrifuges were already installed and running, he said.” The plant didn’t exist in 2009, the last time international inspectors were allowed in the North.

Sources in the Obama administration speculate why the Koreans rushed this plant into production: “The most obvious is to create a new bargaining chip to try to force Mr. Obama to pay off the country. ‘It’s typical of North Korea, to see if we will reward them’ for suspending operations or dismantling the facility, said one senior administration official… But there are other possible explanations. Just as the North used the sinking of a South Korean warship this year to build the credentials of its leader-in-waiting, Kim Jong-un, the son of the current leader and grandson of the country’s founder, this effort could be designed to show that the North must be accepted as a nuclear state along with the major nuclear powers and Pakistan, India and Israel.” NY Times.

Disarmament discussions with the North – the “six party talks” – have collapsed, and tensions between North and South are exceptionally high (see below for descriptions of recent military conflicts). North Korea could even be on her way to building bigger bombs, perhaps even a hydrogen device with vastly greater destructive power. The United Nations inspectors are long gone. And in the midst of the lowest level of American prestige in modern memory, the question is whether it will be the United States that even has the power to wrangle concessions from these rogue nations, whether in this impaired economy anyone really can, or whether these nationalistic ego trips are to remain dangerously unchecked or perhaps even provoke “take out” strikes from affected nations resulting in unknown global consequences.

And if you think this is all meaningless bluster, on Tuesday, November 23^rd, North Koreans, claiming the South was planning an “invasion” of the North, opened fire on a populated South Korean island with an artillery barrage that immediately killed two S. Korean marines and injured nineteen, including civilians. The island is not far from where the South had been practicing naval maneuvers. The Los Angeles Times (Nov. 23^rd) reports the immediate S. Korean response: “South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called an emergency session of his national security-related ministers in an underground bunker at the presidential residence late Tuesday to devise a response to the attack, which occurred near the disputed western border between North and South… The Seoul government later called North Korea's artillery attack a ‘clear military provocation’ and warned that the secretive regime would face ‘stern retaliation’ should it launch further attacks.”

South Koreans returned fire, mustered their air force and went on high alert. This strike followed a North Korean strike against a S. Korean patrol boat in March of this year that killed forty-six people. 1,300 island residents were evacuated to the South Korean mainland. While the U.S. immediately condemned the attack and asked for Chinese intervention, it is unlikely that China will take any meaningful steps; there are no signs that the growing tensions between North and South have any chance of abating anytime soon. AOL News.com (November 23^rd) noted how the revered (and soon to be succeed by son Kin Jong Un) and ailing Kim Jong Il is portrayed in the local press: “He commands a cult of personality in North Korea, where state media have at various times reported that the ‘Dear Leader’ can control the weather with his mind, that his birth was foretold by a double rainbow and that he regularly shoots three or four holes-in-one per round of golf.” All this and nuclear weapons too. Il is definitely ill. Wonder if Un is a golfer too?

I’m Peter Dekom, and it is indeed an understatement to say that we live in perilous times.