AMU Homeland Security Intelligence Terrorism

North Korea Speeds Up Satellite Launch

By William Tucker
Contributor, In Homeland Security

North Korea has notified the international community that it intends to use a rocket to place a satellite in orbit, maybe even as soon as Sunday.

Satellite photography has shown an increase in activity at North Korea’s primary rocket launch site following the fourth testing of a nuclear device, and this recent notification removes all doubt as to Pyongyang’s intentions.

Regional players Japan and South Korea, along with the U.S., have condemned the nuclear test as well as the upcoming satellite launch. Successive UN resolutions strictly ban these nuclear tests and launch, but have yet to have any dissuasive effect on North Korean activities.

Pyongyang’s behavior typically runs in contravention to international demands for many reasons, but when it comes to these types of missile launches we should consider two things.

One, North Korea often carries out these tests in pairs and often in conjunction with important national events. These events are important for a government that follows the juche, or self-reliance, ideology of its founder Kim Il-Sung and uses these events to demonstrate its indigenous abilities to the general population.

Second, North Korea heavily depends on international sales of missile and defense technology to regimes that have been blocked from access to the legitimate international military armaments trade. Nations such as Iran and Syria are the most notable, but Myanmar and several smaller African states likewise benefit from the North Korean trade.

North Korea: Neighbors Nervous

These tests, and other seemingly irrational behavior, always make North Korea’s neighbors nervous and understandably so. South Korea often bears the brunt of these demonstrations, not so much from the tests, but more so from attempts at infiltration or something more disastrous like the sinking of the South Korean corvette Chon-an. Japan has already deployed anti-missile batteries in the event the North Korean missile breaks apart over Japanese territory that could place their citizens at risk.

The real story here isn’t just about nuclear tests or satellite-bearing rocket launches, rather it’s more about North Korea’s continued ability to bring global powers like the U.S., China, Russia, and Japan to the negotiating table. Bear in mind that North Korea is a third world country that can barely feed its population in the best of times, but it manages to exaggerate its importance and occasionally walk away from negotiations with foreign aid without giving anything up.

North Korea plays the crazy card quite often and they do it rather well. They’ve been saddled with sanctions regime after sanctions regime, yet they rarely change their behavior. Essentially, a new approach is needed, but the arresting factor isn’t just the seemingly irrational behavior. The nations that often do the negotiating with North Korea simply don’t agree on how to handle the situation; something that North Korea understands reasonably well. As such, the nuclear tests and rocket launches will continue and the condemnations will follow, but any change in the situation, at least in the near term, is simply unlikely.

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