N Korea's Ace Threatens US-Seoul Alliance-A Times

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1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Jul 7, 2006

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/HG07Dg01.html



N KOREA’S ACE THREATENS US-SEOUL ALLIANCE

By Donald Kirk

(Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of forces in northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.)

LONDON -- The volley of missiles fired by North Korea confronts Washington with a challenge that no amount of yakking in the United Nations or tut-tutting in Washington is likely to answer. The maestro of North Korean strategy, Kim Jong-il, believes President George W Bush has no cards to play, as one South Korean analyst put it, and North Korea can do whatever it pleases to grab attention.

SNIP

Understandably, the Japanese are more outraged than anyone else by the North Korean display. The Japanese response may have an impact that Kim may not have anticipated. Pressure is building inside Japan to do away with article nine of Japans’ post-war "peace constitution" forbidding Japanese forces from going to war against foreign enemies for anything other than the defense of the Japanese islands. Japan already has mounted SAM3 missiles on Aegis-class destroyers and is installing American Patriot missiles, all to ward off any real threat from North Korea and, in case of some future conflagration, possibly China as well.

The pressure for a shift in Japanese policy is sure to increase, especially since Japan in recent years has become increasingly conservative. One result of this pressure is that the US-Japan alliance, strained during periods when the Japanese perceived no real need for American military support, has tightened. Japan and the US appear likely to grow still closer militarily as they build up defenses at sea and on land.

The renaissance of Japanese military strength will increase tensions throughout the region, notably between China and Japan and between South Korea and Japan - not to mention China and South Korea versus the United States.

In fact, Kim's greatest success may have been to deepen the divisions that raise serious questions about the future of the US-South Korean alliance.

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