북한화생방무기 위협의 억제와 대응체계 개발

Abstract

The threat of North Korean chemical and biological capabilities has been major concern for the Republic of Korea and the United States. But it remains as the forgotten issue because the intensive focus had been always on the issues of North Korea's alleged nuclear weapons programme and proliferation of its Taepo-Dong long-range missile. Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary, Department of Defense has recently stated before the Senate Hearings that a proper protection against the North Korea's potential use of chemical and biological weapons is not available in Korea. This raises the question of the strategic implications of North Korean CBT and options available to the ROK and the U.S. in terms of constraining or eliminating the threat. This paper consists of four chapters. After introduction, it deals with priority setting of the policy between the Bush Administration and Kim Dae-jung Government in dealing with threat of CBT. Third, it attempts to assess North Korea's CBT capabilities. Finally, it will deal with options countering the North Korean CBT Warfare threat. Kim Dae-jung Government welcomed the recent decision of president George W. Bush to resume talks with North Korea. During the past several months, North-South dialogue has been suspended since President Bush expressed his deep skepticism over the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il at the R.O.K-U.S. summit meeting on March 8th, 2001. Seoul has worked hard to turn this atmosphere around and to prove its people and the world that a breakthrough at the inter-Korean summit meeting was not the thing of the past. But South Korean government was somewhat puzzled to see the conventional security issue was brought up as a new agenda by the United states when it decided to reopen the talks with Pyongyang. It has Seoul's position that the conventional security issues will better be dealt with by Seoul at the North-South talks while issues of weapons of mass destruction(WMD) will continuously be led by the U.S. President Kim Dae-jung made it clear that this kind of "division of labor" would be needed during his visit to Washington, D.C last March. At the recent TCOG meeting held in Honolulu in May, Seoul expressed again its strong wishes to the U.S. that if Kim Jong-il makes return visit to seoul, it will strongly urge Chairman Kim to commit himself in implementing the Basic Agreement signed in 1992. Therefore, the question is why the U.S. suddenly brought up the issue of conventional forces as a new agenda while putting the imminent threat of chemical, biological and toxin warfares aside. The U.S. should have expected the fact that North Korea will strongly oppose the idea and will definitely come up with the withdrawal of USFK as its major argument. This paper will provide several policy recommendations: 1. Seoul needs to discuss with the U.S. whether this issue can be on the table when the U.S. resumes talks with Pyongyang. Seoul needs to demand that New Strategic Plan of the United States must include a biological or chemical warfare capability for U.S.-RO.K alliance. 2. Seoul needs to demand Pyongyang to give up CBT options in terms of building confidence for promoting the chances of better relations with Korea, the U.S. and Japan. 3. Seoul needs to do its utmost to publicize the issue so that the world realize the nature and level of threat represented by North Korea. It may be good idea to cooperate with local NGOs and environmental groups at the global level to deter or inhibit the practice of producing toxic weapons. 4. Seoul made it clear that it is against humanitarian values and definitely detrimental for environment and eco-system not only for Korea but also for the whole world. Seoul will fully take advantage of the chair position of the UN General Assembly for year 2002-2003 and bring the issue of non-proliferation of inhumane weapons as CBT at the UN. 5. Seoul needs to find ways to strengthen the CWC regime by proposing to establish anti-coalition group against po