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South Korea Vows Military Reply if North Provokes It
U.S. Sees Only Words in Threats From North Korea
(about 7 hours later)
SEOUL, South Korea — President Park Geun-hye of South Korea ordered the country’s military on Monday to deliver a strong and immediate response to any North Korean provocation, the latest turn in a war of words that has become a test of resolve for the relatively unproven leaders in both the North and South.
WASHINGTON — Despite a drumbeat of increasingly bellicose threats from North Korea, the White House said Monday that there was no evidence that the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, was mobilizing troops or other military forces for any imminent attack.
“I consider the current North Korean threats very serious,” Ms. Park told the South’s generals. “If the North attempts any provocation against our people and country, you must respond strongly at the first contact with them without any political consideration.
Though American officials said they remained concerned about the invective flowing from North Korea — and South Korea’s president ordered military commanders to carry out a swift and strong response to any provocations — the Obama administration took pains to emphasize the “disconnect” between Mr. Kim’s “rhetoric and action.”
“As top commander of the military, I trust your judgment in the face of North Korea’s unexpected surprise provocation,” she added.
The White House’s strategy, officials said, was calculated to ease tensions after a fraught few days in which Mr. Kim threatened to rain missiles on the American mainland and the United States responded by flying nuclear-capable bombers over the Korean Peninsula.
Since Kim Jong-un took power after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, in late 2011, the North has taken a series of provocative steps and amplified threats against Washington and Seoul to much louder and more menacing levels. The North has launched a three-stage rocket, tested a nuclear device and threatened to hit major American cities with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. And Mr. Kim has declared that the Korean Peninsula has reverted to a “state of war.”
“We are not seeing changes to the North Korean military posture such as large-scale mobilizations or positioning of forces,” said Jay Carney, the White House press secretary. “What that disconnect between rhetoric and action means, I’ll leave to the analysts to judge.”
At the same time, there are signs that he is interested in turning his attention to the economy, including the promotion of an economic technocrat, Pak Pong-ju,to a key post.
Even as the White House tried to tamp down the tensions, the Pentagon said it had moved a Navy missile-defense ship from its home port in Japan to waters closer to the Korean Peninsula, in what was described as a carefully calibrated response, given the North’s warnings about putting its rockets on a higher stage of alert.
Ms. Park’s blunt comments stand in contrast to the usually dismissive tone that South Korean leaders take toward the North’s threats, and reflect the criticism aimed at her predecessor and fellow conservative, Lee Myung-bak, when the South was seen as not retaliating decisively after North Korea aimed an artillery barrage at a South Korean island in 2010, killing four people.
The deployment came after the United States publicized a rare training flight by two B-2 bombers over South Korea, where they carried out a mock bombing run, and pledged to spend $1 billion to expand ballistic missile-defense systems along the Pacific Coast.
Analysts have been weighing whether the North’s intensifying threats — most judged to be hollow, given the limits of the North’s arsenal — simply continue the North’s longstanding practice of bolstering domestic support and trying to badger other nations into supplying aid.
Having taken these unusually public steps to demonstrate its commitment to defend itself and protect South Korea and Japan, the Obama administration appeared to be trying to defuse a situation that many analysts say has gone beyond previous cycles of provocation by North Korea, and raised genuine fears of war.
“Kim Jong-un certainly is more aggressive than his father, and behind his aggressiveness is a confidence following the North's successful launching of a long-range rocket and its nuclear test," said Cheong Seong-chang, senior fellow at the Sejong Institute, a private research institute in South Korea. "What is clear is that compared with his father, who had absolute control on power, the young leader will cling harder to nuclear weapons as a tool of consolidating his power.”
“It is a calculated response to say, ‘We don’t want anyone to think the situation is getting out of control, that the ladder of escalation is going to end in a full-scale conflict,’ ” said Jeffrey A. Bader, who worked on North Korea policy for the Obama administration from 2009 to 2011.
“By raising these nuclear threats, he is ensuring that his country has regained the military balance it had lost to prosperous South Korea before shifting his attention more to the economy,” Mr. Cheong said. “He is more calculating than all these threats make outsiders believe.”
For all the uncertainty surrounding the young ruler of North Korea, Mr. Bader said, the latest round of warlike statements from the North recalled the theatrical belligerence shown by Mr. Kim ’s father, Kim Jong-il. Those episodes often led to hostile acts, but never a wholesale military attack on South Korea.
Mr. Kim’s decision to launch the rocket in December and detonate a nuclear device last month followed the North’s growing frustration, analysts said, that its strategy of using threats and provocations against Washington and Seoul seemed less effective in recent years. Instead, the allies spearheaded more United Nations sanctions.
Still, on Monday, South Korea’s new president, Park Geun-hye, ordered her country’s military to deliver a strong and immediate response to any North Korean provocation.
The sanctions coincided with the allies’ joint military drills, during which Washington demonstrated its political resolve to defend South Korea by taking unusual steps of publicizing the training missions of nuclear-capable B-52 and B-2 bombers as well as F-22 stealth fighter jets.
“I consider the current North Korean threats very serious,” Ms. Park told the South’s generals. “If the North attempts any provocation against our people and country, you must respond strongly at the first contact with them without any political consideration.”
For her part, Ms. Park must stand up to the North’s growing nuclear threat while seeking to defuse tensions. Her election campaign last year focused on a promise not to be blackmailed by the North, a popular conservative stance in the last few years. Since the North’s 2010 attack on Yeonpyeong Island, the South has amended its military’s rules of engagement to allow front-line units to respond more quickly, not wasting precious minutes waiting for permission from Seoul.
Ms. Park’s blunt comments contrasted with the usually dismissive tone that South Korean leaders take toward the North’s threats, and reflected the criticism directed at her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, when the South was seen as not retaliating after North Korea aimed an artillery barrage at a South Korean island in 2010, killing four people. Ms. Park’s election campaign last year focused on a promise not to be blackmailed by the North.
Under Ms. Park, the South’s military has declared that if provoked its retaliation would a “thousandfold, 10 thousandfold.”
Since Kim Jong-un took power in late 2011, the North has launched a three-stage rocket, tested a nuclear device and threatened to hit major American cities with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. The Korean Peninsula, Mr. Kim declared, has reverted to a “state of war.”
Amid fears that possible military skirmishes between the two Koreas could blow out of control, Washington last week concluded three years of negotiations with Seoul and signed an agreement to respond jointly to North Korean provocations. The move was designed to bolster deterrence against the North and to prevent unnecessary escalation.
His actions, analysts say, reflect the North’s growing frustration that its strategy of using threats and provocations against the United States and South Korea seemed less effective in recent years. Instead, the allies spearheaded another round of United Nations sanctions.
In the North, Pak Pong-ju, an economic technocrat, was made a full member of the Politburo on Sunday and was given more power on Monday when the rubber-stamp parliament, the Supreme People’s Assembly, made him premier, a post in charge of the economy. The best-known top military leaders under Mr. Kim were given lesser promotions. The two men — Hyon Yong-chol, the chief of the general staff of the Korean People’s Army, and Kim Kyok-sik, minister of the People’s Armed Forces — were made only alternative members of the Politburo.
The imposition of the sanctions coincided with the allies’ joint military drills, during which Washington publicized the training missions of B-52 and B-2 bombers, as well as F-22 stealth fighter jets. Washington also concluded three years of negotiations with Seoul and signed an agreement last week to respond jointly to North Korean provocations. The move was intended to bolster deterrence against the North and to prevent unnecessary escalation.
Adding to the sense that the leadership wants to address its economic troubles, it has not followed through on threats to close the industrial park in the town of Kaesong, which it operates jointly with the South. The complex is a source of much-needed hard currency.
The American vessel recently deployed to waters off the Korean Peninsula, an Aegis cruiser, will remain there “for the foreseeable future,” said a Defense Department official. Two ballistic-missile ships, which carry powerful tracking radars and interceptor missiles, had been in the area for a recent joint exercise with the South Korean military, but they had returned to Japan after that exercise ended.
North Korea has been alternating between tentative experiments with reform and crackdowns on market activities. Mr. Pak served as premier from 2003 and 2007, pushing for some autonomy in factories and farms and easing state price controls on daily goods, as well as sharply increasing government spending on agricultural. But he was fired when the growth in market activities threatened the old guard.
While analysts generally praise the administration’s handling of the latest tensions, Joel S. Wit, a former State Department official who worked on North Korea, said, “It’s starting to feel like we send a new airplane to South Korea every day to prove our resolve.”
The North’s attempt to reinforce state control on the economy peaked in late 2009 when it replaced its bank notes with a new currency, shut down markets and ordered people to buy goods from state-run stores only. But those moves led to runaway inflation and sporadic protests. The leadership responded by executing Pak Nam-gi, its top finance official, and reinstating some market activities.
Mr. Wit said that Washington needed to explore diplomatic channels to North Korea as well, not least because President Park had signaled her intent to pursue diplomacy with the North — perhaps even without insisting that Pyongyang renounce its nuclear weapons as a precondition for talks. There is a risk that the United States could find itself out of sync with its ally, Mr. Wit said.
Pak Pong-ju returned as a key economic policy maker in 2010. He may be able to push his reforms more aggressively because he is now supported by Jang Song-thaek, Mr. Kim’s uncle, and his wife, Kim Kyong-hee, whose influence expanded under Mr. Kim, said Mr. Cheong, the Sejong analyst.
But Michael J. Green, a North Korea policy adviser in President George W. Bush’s administration, said that given the lack of success in curbing North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, the White House had little choice but to pursue a strategy that resembled containment, even if no official would ever use that phrase.
During the party meeting on Sunday and the parliamentary gathering on Monday “the key point was on the economy,” said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea specialist at Dongguk University in Seoul. “Behind all these nuclear threats is Kim Jong-un’s intention to cement North Korea’s status as a nuclear power so he can focus on the economy.”
“The focus for the near future has to be on deterring North Korea,” Mr. Green said, “punishing them for violations, and constraining their ability to move their nuclear program forward or proliferate.”
“Unlike his father, who liked to make decisions in secret, Kim Jong-un has been remarkably open,” Mr. Koh said, “calling various state and party meetings and having his decisions announced in their names. In a way, he is spreading responsibility for a possible failure of policy.”
Mark
Landler reported from Washington, and Choe Sang-hun from Seoul, South Korea. Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington.
The central committee of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party announced a “new strategic line” on Sunday, saying that it was determined to rebuild its economy in the face of international sanctions while simultaneously expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal. It said a growing nuclear deterrent could allow it to limit military spending and put more resources into agriculture and light industries to improve people’s lives.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
That stance defied American and South Korean officials, who have warned the North that if it does not give up nuclear weapons, it will face more sanctions and deeper isolation.
Correction: April 1, 2013
An earlier version of this article misstated the American military’s designation for the stealth fighter jets that are taking part in joint training missions with South Korea. It is F-22, not B-22.
