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On Watch: North Korea

The Gathering Storm, April 2, 2009

Rick Santorum

April 2, 2009

Two days at the least, four at the most. That is how long we have until a Taepodong-2 missile is launched from North Korea's Musudan-ri missile test site. According to the North Korean government, the rocket carries a communications satellite and is nothing more than the latest development in its space program which, in turn, is part of its economic development program. Although this claim is supported by a recent statement from U.S. defense officials, there are others who are still skeptical. One such individual is Paul Brannan, a senior analyst at the Institute for Science and International Society, who said, "They probably are launching a satellite. But the issue is that the steps they're going through to do that run parallel to them being able to have other capabilities." These "other capabilities," some worry, involve nuclear weapons or dirty bombs. North Korea's behavior of late increasingly resembles that of Iran, which launched a "communications satellite"of its own in February. Moreover, these actions lend increased weight to concerns that stem from the long historyof collaboration between Iran and North Korea in the development and sale of missile technology.

All of this comes amidst calls from the White House to scale back the deployment of President Bush's hoped-for missile defense system and talk of abandoning plans for missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. While the current economic crisis certainly presents an appropriate time to reconsider defense expenditures, the President may want to postpone that discussion until a time when we don't have two countries - one a "messianic, apocalyptic cult"(read Iran), the other led by an erratic dictator (read North Korea) - riding roughshod over international agreements to develop missile technology, of any kind.