Vol. 73/No. 23      June 15, 2009

Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said June 1 that the UN Security Council was “making progress” in coming up with a new resolution that may involve new sanctions on North Korea. A partial draft of the resolution obtained by the Associated Press May 29 calls on all governments “immediately to enforce” all sanctions currently in place, referring to restrictions on banking and trade that were imposed after North Korea tested a nuclear weapon in 2006.

U.S. defense secretary Robert Gates attended an Asia Security conference in Singapore May 30, where he said that Washington would not “stand idly by as North Korea builds the capability to wreak destruction on any target in Asia.” He said the progress that North Korea has made on developing nuclear weapons is a “harbinger of a dark future.”

The U.S. government controls a nuclear arsenal of some 10,000 warheads and is capable of striking any target on the planet. It is the only power to have unleashed nuclear weapons on human beings, when it annihilated nearly a quarter of a million Japanese in the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War.

Washington maintains some 28,000 troops on the Korean peninsula as part of a joint U.S.-South Korean military force. In March the force conducted exercises involving 26,000 U.S. troops, 30,000 South Korean troops, and a U.S. aircraft carrier.

The UN Security Council is made up of five permanent members with the largest nuclear arsenals. They are the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia. It also includes 10 rotating members, currently Libya, Mexico, Japan, Vietnam, Austria, Turkey, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, and Croatia.

Washington has met virtually no resistance within the Security Council on its drive to levy additional sanctions against North Korea. U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton said May 27 that she was “very pleased that we have a unified international community, including China and Russia,” working on a “firm resolution.”

The U.S. government says its spy satellites have documented what may be preparations for an upcoming long-range missile test by North Korea. Washington and Tokyo threatened Pyongyang following what they said was a missile test in early April, with the Japanese government imposing harsher sanctions.

Following the conference in Singapore, Gates made a visit to Alaska where he toured an 800-acre missile defense complex at Fort Greely. “If there were a launch from a rogue state such as North Korea, I have good confidence that we would be able to deal with it,” Gates said after the tour.

The current proposal from the Defense Department would have 30 missile interceptors installed at Fort Greely and at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The proposal includes $750 million to further develop the ground-based interceptors and an additional $200 million to sustain the two sites.
 
 
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