			Foreign Correspondent

		      Inside Track On World News
	    By International Syndicated Columnist & Broadcaster
		 Eric Margolis <emargolis@lglobal.com>

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North Korea's Nuclear Shakedown
by Eric Margolis

This week, more than one million soldiers on both sides of
Korea's Demilitarized Zone went onto combat alert after 
North Korea renounced the armistice ending the 1950-53
Korean War, an agreement that has maintained a shaky peace
on the Korean Peninsula for 43 years.    

The eccentric Stalinist regime in Pyongyang sent troops into
the DMZ, directly challenging the United States and South
Korea. North Korea trumpeted that a major war to `liberate'
South Korea was `inevitable.'  

Pyongyang regularly makes such threats. Now, however, they
are even more serious than usual.  US intelligence sources
report North Korea has at least two nuclear weapons.  Its
secret nuclear plants are believed  producing stockpiles of
fissionable material.  

North Korean regular armed forces number 1.2 million tough,
well-trained troops, including 120,000 commandos, the
world's largest, most formidable special operations force. 
The bulk of North Korea's troops are deployed within
striking range of South Korea's capitol, Seoul - a mere  35
miles south of the DMZ, and within range of North Korean
long-ranged 170mm guns.

Last month, Gen. Gary Luck,  US commander in South Korea, 
gave Congress a secret briefing on Korea.  Gen. Luck warned 
North Korea's economy and regime were  headed for collapse,
an implosion that could produce 25 million starving
refugees. Deciding they had nothing to loose, North Korea's
generals might opt to invade South Korea, predicted Gen.
Luck.  This column has made the same evaluation for the past
three years.

Even so, what the mysterious regime in Pyongyang seems to be
doing right now is not so much preparing for war as trying
to extort enough  money from President Bill Clinton to keep
it alive and kicking.

In 1994, after news of North Korea's  extensive nuclear
weapons program became public, President Clinton demanded
the north halt the program, threatening  military action.
North Korea  called Clinton's bluff, and threatened to
invade South Korea, where there are 37,000 US troops.  

Clinton quickly backed down.  In exchange for Pyongyang's
vague promises to halt nuclear weapons production and allow
limited inspection at some future date, Clinton agreed to
supply North Korea with two light-water nuclear reactors and
large amounts of oil.  

The US pressured a reluctant Japan and South Korea into
joining this unsavory deal.  Clinton was relieved, believing
he had averted trouble in Korea until after the 1996
elections. The North, however, was the big winner:  it 
faced done the US,  and made major progress in alleviating
its most urgent problem: the need for oil and power. 


Pyongyang watched  as another communist regime, that of
Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic, also outwitted and shook down
the Clinton Administration. Knowing that Clinton, after
loosing control of domestic policy to Republicans, 
desperately needed a foreign policy `triumph' in Bosnia to
boost his image as a statesman, the wily Milosevic agreed to
a temporary deal ending the fighting in Bosnia.  In
exchange, the US lifted punishing sanctions on Serbia, and
agreed not to prosecute Milosevic for war crimes.  Clinton
gave Serbs their main war goal: creation of a de facto Serb
state in Bosnia that would eventually join Greater Serbia.

Russia's embattled president, Boris Yeltsin, also got into
this game. Yeltsin warned Clinton that without huge amounts
of US aid, his `democratic' regime would be ousted by
resurgent communists or fascists in June elections.  Deeply
fearful  of Russia returning to communism just before US
elections, Clinton rushed a huge, US $10,2 billion IMF loan
to Moscow.  Much of the money is currently being dispensed 
to government and industrial workers to pay back wages and
buy votes for Yeltsin.  

North Korea's leaders took note of Yeltsin's bonanza and
apparently decided the best way to save themselves from
impending economic collapse was to once again shake down the
wobbly Clinton Administration. 

The northerners chose their time well.  South Korea's
President, Kim Yong-sam,. has just purged large numbers of
the armed force's most experienced senior officers. The last
thing Clinton needs in an election year is the threat of a
major war in Korea.  The Pentagon estimates a full-scale war
there would require US military mobilization, and would 
cost heavy casualties.  US bases in Japan, Okinawa -and even
the US West Coast- could come under attack by North Korean
commandos in a full-scale conflict. 

Knowing Clinton can't risk a second Korean War  - or even a
serious North Korean attack on US forces near the DMZ -
North Korea is gambling it will succeed in squeezing yet
more aid from the US.  Pyongyang's also has another key
goal: driving a wedge between the US and South Korea by
intimidating Washington into opening full diplomatic
relations.  The north's long-term strategic goal remains
getting US troops out of South Korea and ending America's
security commitment to Seoul.


Pyongyang is playing a very dangerous game of brinkmanship.
True, its faceless communist oligarchs seem to have nothing
to loose, and everything to gain. Bluffing a weak, posturing
American president who seeks, above all, to avoid trouble in
an election year, is tempting. 

But as America's quick, decisive response to China's threats
against Taiwan clearly showed, the Pentagon should not be
trifled with.  The US Navy, Air Force and Army  still mount
the guard in the North Pacific. 

Copyright E.Margolis March 1996

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