FLASH — KIM IL SUNG DOESN’T APPROVE OF PATRIOTS: DO WE NEED MORE TO BUY GLOBAL MISSILE DEFENSES?

(Washington, D.C.): In recent days,
North Korea has served notice that it
vehemently opposes the idea of U.S.
deployment of Patriot anti-missile
batteries to defend South Korea. Such a
deployment has been formally requested by
the American commander in South Korea,
Gen. Gary Luck, and the Clinton
Administration is reportedly giving the
request favorable consideration.⁽¹⁾

Wake-Up Call

The contention by the despotic
communist regime of Kim Il Sung that
deployment of 256 Patriot interceptors
would “increase the danger of
war” on the Korean peninsula should
concentrate the minds of U.S.
policy-makers on three points:

• Don’t take two to three
  months to redeploy Patriots to
  South Korea. Clearly, no
  good will come of the sort of
  delay which was signalled last
  week by unnamed Clinton
  Administration officials anxious
  simultaneously to let it be known
  that the President is “very
  favorable disposed” to Gen.
  Luck’s request and that it
  will not be honored until March
  or April.

Coming as it does on the heels
of other examples of the
Administration’s gross
incompetence in this area,⁽²⁾
this protracted interval will
have predictable results: It will
simply invite Kim Il Sung to turn
up the heat on Seoul and
Washington in the hope of
intimidating one or the other, or
both, to perpetuate South Korea’s
absolute vulnerability to missile
attack.

To be sure, given the
Patriots’ built-in limitations,
these batteries will only be able
to defend small parts of South
Korea. Still, as the Gulf War
proved, some defense is
unquestionably better than none. Inevitably,
American resolve and reliability
will be calibrated, by
adversaries and friends alike, by
the length of time it takes to
redeploy the Patriots to South
Korea — the steadiness of
purpose the U.S. exhibits along
the way.

• Don’t stop with the
  Patriots. Gen. Luck has
  reportedly asked for the urgent
  upgrading of his capabilities to
  defend the 36,000 U.S. troops in
  South Korea and the peninsula
  they are there to protect. Not
  surprisingly, this Administration
  appears most comfortable with the
  request to deploy anti-missile
  systems that have, as a practical
  matter, no offensive potential.
  Still, it would be irresponsible
  to deny the local commander
  whatever additional firepower he
  needs to maintain effective
  deterrence and to fight
  decisively if need be.

Should the Administration,
nonetheless, decline to do so — and
prove in due course to have been
as wrong in this instance as it
was concerning last year’s
refused request for more armor
from its commander in Somalia —
the consequences of that
miscalculation will be grave,
indeed. The political
bloodletting accompanying that
earlier debacle could well seem
like a church social by
comparison.

• Take immediate steps to
  avoid any repeat of this
  strategic fiasco in the future. There
  is no reason why the United
  States should remain in a
  position where a nation like
  North Korea can try to prevent
  the deployment of effective
  missile defenses. With a modest,
  albeit sustained and high
  priority effort, space-based
  sensors and interceptors coupled
  with sea-based radars and
  anti-missile missiles could be
  swiftly deployed that would give
  America essentially global
  protection against ballistic
  missile strikes.

It is time to stop investing
— as the Clinton Administration
is intent on doing — exclusively
in defensive technologies like
Patriot (i.e., short-range,
land-based anti-missile systems)
that require either immense
investment, improbable prescience
or an adversary’s de facto
permission to deploy where they
might be needed. The
United States should instead
proceed immediately to acquire a
truly global defense against
missile attack.

If the U.S. does so swiftly,
moreover, it may even be able to
secure financial underwriting
from allied nations who
increasingly recognize the need
for such effective defenses. At
the very least, America stands a
chance of dissuading nations from
going down the road to deployment
of offensive ballistic missile
forces and perhaps offering an
attractive alternative to
procuring their own nuclear
deterrents. Effective
global defenses could, in short,
do more to help curb the spread
of such threatening offensive
weapons than all the Clinton
Administration’s other
non-proliferation initiatives
combined.

The Bottom Line

In light of Kim Il Sung’s latest
threats, the Center for Security Policy
reiterates its call for an
urgent, wholesale redirection of the
Clinton Administration’s approach to
ballistic missile defense. The
confrontation with North Korea is fair
warning: If the United States wishes to
be able to provide effective deterrence
to its adversaries and credible
protection for its own interests and
those of its friends, it will have to
have a ready capacity to neutralize
missile threats virtually anytime and
anywhere around the world.

– 30 –

1. For more on
Gen. Luck’s request and its strategic
implications, see the href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=94-D_11at”>attached
column by Center for Security Policy
director Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. published
in last Friday’s Washington Times.

2. These missteps
are elegantly chronicled in an article in
today’s Wall Street Journal
which prominently features Albert
Wohlstetter, a recipient of the Center
for Security Policy’s “Freedom
Flame” award. Dr. Wohlstetter
ridicules the Administration’s notions of
negotiating IAEA inspections of
suspicious North Korean nuclear sites as
“a joke.”