Experts: Regime plays a risky game

Many experts say North Korea is not ready for a real standoff.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
BEIJING AND WASHINGTON -- Playing the role of "rogue state" has been one of North Korea's greatest skills, leaving neighboring states never knowing how much is bluff -- and how much is real.
Now, by saying it will immediately start up a long-dormant nuclear reactor because of an electricity shortage, the regime of Kim Jong Il is playing one of its most dangerous cards and appears to be moving slowly toward brinkmanship with the United States.
Thursday's move comes three days after North Korean-made Scuds were found on an unmarked Cambodian ship, and it seems designed to put maximum pressure on the Bush administration to deal with Pyongyang at an inconvenient time, analysts say.
Confrontation possible?
Kim is not ready for a genuine standoff, say many experts, though how Kim will back down from Thursday's open threat is not clear. A confrontation is possible, some analysts say, but others suggest that a crisis is what Kim needs to make a deal. "One thing is clear, this has nothing to do with electricity," says Paik Jin-hyun, professor at Seoul National University. "That reactor has always been an experimental reactor which has never been an energy source. Saying they need it for energy is nonsense. This is an effort to prod Bush."
Ten years ago a Soviet-designed reactor at the Yongbyon facility in the North caused a nuclear crisis on the peninsula when inspectors found it was being used to develop weapons-grade plutonium. The outcome was a 1994 treaty to shut down the program in exchange for two light-water reactors and fuel oil shipments.
That treaty held until this fall, when North Korea admitted to having a second, secret nuclear program to enrich uranium. Some experts feel Kim is now simply shopping for a more lucrative treaty arrangement. The White House, which considers the North part of an "axis of evil," has resolutely refused to deal with Kim until he agrees to scuttle his illegal uranium program.
That position, along with the vote of a consortium of U.S.-led nations two weeks ago in New York to stop fuel oil shipments to the needy North, has contributed to the slowly developing crisis, and to some fears that Bush and Kim are moving in opposite directions. "We are not going to pay North Korea more to do what it is already supposed to do," a senior U.S. official in Seoul says. "They have to comply with their agreements."
Analyst's view
Analysts like Paul Kerr, a Korean Peninsula specialist at the Arms Control Association in Washington, say that by its announcement Thursday, North Korea is turning the U.S. stance on its head. North Korea is effectively saying, "But we have a trump card -- we already have facilities and fuel. Without talks and an end to pressure on our neighbors not to send us economic assistance, we have no choice but to use our card."
But Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, says the explanation may be other than the "conventional" -- and he adds, that, in any case, the United States has to be more proactive on the North Korean challenge, no matter what motivates the North.
The North's move comes on the eve of South Korean elections next week, and is a further blow to the once-promising Sunshine policy of outgoing President Kim Dae Jung.
It may simply be another example of the North's military acting to show "that it can't be pushed around," Sokolski says. But in any case Sokolski says the United States -- which he suspects is lying low on the Korean issue until after the elections - has to start taking some of the "bolder" action it is threatening.