MD Plan and the Korean Peninsula

The whole world is paying tensive attention to the NMD plan which President George W. Bush declared. President Bush explained by telephone the pursuit of the NMD plan and discussed it with President Kim Dae-jung.

Building of MD, presented in his election campaign, is a very crucial issue to enable to change fundamentally the situation of world security.

For the NMD plan, developing land-based, sea-based and air-based capabilities to intercept missiles in mid-course before it reach at the domestic atmosphere, can drop down decisively the efficiency of mass-killing weapons like missiles.

The U.S. emphasizes the necessity of defense from ``rogue nations`` possessing mass-killing weapons after the Cold War as a cause of the development of MD. But Russia and China have been repulsive for this plan could be the U.S.`s means of remaining as only a superpower in 21st century.

This issue now became ours, because President Bush presented a slightly changed position that includes security of its allies as well as the established notion of National Missile Defense. Above all, the MD plan may cause sever turbulences in circumstances around the Korean peninsula because the execution of this plan is directly related to China, designated as a `competitor` and North Korea, designated as a `terrorist nation`.

The MD plan may be a detonator to cause large-scale arms races in North East Asia, having regarded as the most unstable region, and may be a hurdle to the normalization of the relationship between North Korea and the U. S.. For recently North Korea revealed strong reactions that ``the U.S. tries to squeeze to death.``

In that sense, the current diplomatic task that our government faces should be one that maintains the firm alliance with the U.S. and simultaneously keeps close relationships with Russia, China and North Korea.

Although the U.S. declared the pursuit of the MD plan, it is still far from its actual deployment. It is obvious that there will be considerable debates over its efficiency within the U.S, the budget problem, and the technological tasks such as revealed in two-times failures of experiment last year.

Above all, the U.S. has to negotiate with Russia over abrogation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Our government will have to make a provision for a wise and well-elaborated policy.