[Editorial] Military’s preparedness

Burma is one of the few countries to which Pyongyang exports its arms and military technology. But the Southeast Asian country is most likely to downgrade its military ties with North Korea, though perhaps not sever them outright, to improve relations with the United States.

During her visit to the Southeast Asian nation last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reportedly called on the Burmese leaders to discontinue military cooperation with North Korea, which is suspected of providing Burma with missiles and other weapons. According to a news report, the proposed ban on military cooperation was among the U.S. conditions for improving bilateral ties with Burma.

Should Burma decide to comply, it would be a setback for North Korea’s weapons exports. Burma is likely to do so, as it is seeking to come out of its self-imposed diplomatic isolation and improve relations with the United States.

Burma would be the latest market to close its doors to North Korean military exports. The shipments of North Korean-made weapons to Libya and other Arab countries have come to a halt, with the Arab Spring continuing to spread in the Middle East.

It may be hard to measure the impact of dwindling weapons exports on North Korea’s economy, but it will be painful to Pyongyang, which has few other ways of earning hard currency.

North Korea’s economy is a shambles, and the resulting food shortages are a cause of rising discontent among North Korean residents. Moreover, the communist state is politically unstable, with power being transferred from despotic leader Kim Jong-il to his youngest son, Jong-un.

The South Korean military is taking political instability, economic hardship and discontent among residents in the North seriously. It is warning that the North may choose to launch armed hostilities against the South again, this time in an attempt to divert public attention away from the triple maladies which many expect will worsen next year.

True, North Korea has avoided launching an unprovoked act of hostility against the South so far this year, unlike last year when it sank a South Korean warship in a torpedo attack and shelled a South Korean island off its west coast. But this should give no a false sense of security to South Koreans.

As Minister of National Defense Kim Kwan-jin warned last week, North Korea may launch a surprise military attack on the South if its guard is lowered, as it has often done in the past. The defense minister was right to tell the military to be prepared for a stringent counterattack it will have to initiate in case South Korea is militarily provoked again next year.

Indeed, North Korea has threatened to attack the South on several occasions this year, with the latest intimidation delivered on Nov. 24. In a protest against a military exercise the South was conducting in the West Sea on the first anniversary of the North Korean artillery attack, Pyongyang said it would turn the South Korean presidential palace, Cheong Wa Dae, into a “sea of fire” if just one shell should land on its territory or territorial waters.

The “sea of fire” remark appeared to be an indication that the North had no intention of engaging in dialogue with the South. By making the remark, it was turning down the South Korean unification minister’s repeated overtures for talks.

North Korea has not just turned its back on the proposal for inter-Korean dialogue. It was also boycotting the six-way talks on its nuclear weapons program when it said last week that it was making rapid progress on its uranium enrichment program and construction of an experimental light-water nuclear power plant. South Korea and the United States have demanded that it halt its uranium-enrichment program, freeze missile tests and permit international nuclear inspections before resuming nuclear negotiations.

Given the North’s unmitigated defiance, the defense minister’s call for military preparedness could not have been more appropriate. The military must not permit any weakness to be shown in its defense posture.