Nuclear-Armed North Korea: West On The Defensive

The Western nations seem confused and do not know how best to react to North Korea’s nuclear challenge. This is best summed up by The Independent when it says: ” The leading world powers huddled in an emergency session at the United Nations yesterday to forge agreement on measures to punish North Korea…

“But with the regime in Pyongyang still showing unrepentant defiance, it remained hard to say whether measures to further isolate the country from the rest of the world would do much good.

“Nothing can now reverse the events of Monday, when North Korea staged its nuclear breakout. Even settling on sanctions will be hard. Last night China, backed by Russia, said it opposed plans to pass a resolution under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which implies it could be enforced militarily, saying reference to a single article within it would suffice. It also argued for a narrower scope for the sanctions.

“Pyongyang, meanwhile, is far from remorseful. Rather, the regime said it was for the US to resolve the crisis or face the consequences of the unleashing of warheads. ‘We hope the situation will be resolved before an unfortunate incident of us firing a nuclear missile comes,’ the South Korean news agency, Yonhap, quoted an unidentified North Korean official as saying. ‘That depends on how the US will act’.

The US administration seems to be on the defensive.

“In an attempt to reassure Pyongyang, the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, said it should not fear US military action. ‘The USA doesn’t have any intention to attack North Korea or to invade North Korea,’ she said.”