Gen. Leon J. LaPorte (right) walks with South Korean Defense Minister Cho Young-Kil (left).

North Korea is spending as much as 40 percent of its gross domestic product on its military, including its nuclear-weapons program, to give its 1.2-million-man army key advantages over better-armed U.S. and South Korean forces, said Army Gen. Leon J. LaPorte, the U.S. Forces Korea commander.

North Korea's conventional forces — including the world's largest special operations commando force and 12,000 artillery pieces near the border — pose a continuing "credible military threat," but have some limitations, Gen. LaPorte said.

The four-star general said North Korea, despite its poor economy, continues to invest between 35 percent and 40 percent of its gross domestic product in what Pyongyang calls a "military first" policy — building up military forces at the expense of the civilian sector.

"They are making, primarily, their investments in the asymmetrical arena," he said in an interview with The Washington Times at his headquarters in the Yongsan military garrison.

"They realize that they can never invest enough money in their navy and air force to compete [with U.S. and South Korean forces]. So they are investing in asymmetrical capabilities."

Gen. Leon J. LaPorte

Asymmetrical-warfare weapons are those that provide a military advantage over more advanced militaries, such as that of the United States. In North Korea, that includes nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and missiles to deliver them at both short and long distances. Currently, North Korea can fire missiles throughout South Korea and at bases in Japan.

Gen. LaPorte said one major fear is that North Korea's continuing work on nuclear arms will lead the country to eventually "weaponize their weapons-grade material on missiles."

If that were to occur, "now you have a threat not just to South Korea, you have a threat to the region and the international community," he said.

U.S. officials have said the recent discovery that Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan provided Chinese-language warhead design documents to Libya as part of a nuclear-weapons and missile program has raised new worries that North Korea soon will have nuclear arms small enough to be fitted on missiles.

Six-way nuclear talks with North Korea, aimed at negotiating the dismantling of its weapons program, have produced no breakthroughs despite several rounds of discussions with China, the United States, Japan, South Korea and Russia.

DMZ on North-South Korean border

Pyongyang threw another wrench into the latest round of inter-Korea negotiations, suddenly boycotting Cabinet-level talks with South Korea scheduled to start in Seoul today.

The communist state said it was angry at the mass defection of hundreds of North Koreans to the South last week. The South Korean Unification Ministry said that it deeply regretted Pyongyang's decision and added, "We urge the North side to come to the talks at the earliest possible date."

Gen. LaPorte said the North Koreans are investing heavily in deploying and building missiles, and have an arsenal of more than 800 missiles.

Asked what worries him, Gen. LaPorte said he is concerned about the continuing missile development by the North.

"Their growing missile technology, their continued research and development and testing of missiles, that is a concern to all of us," he said.

U.S. intelligence agencies, in the past, have estimated that North Korea's one or two nuclear devices weigh about 750 kilograms and that fashioning a warhead for a missile would require a much smaller warhead, ranging from 100 to 200 kilograms.

Two N. Korean soldiers take position along the northern side of the military demarcation line at truce village of Panmunjom, inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea. Courtesy AFP

The general also said U.S. military forces will be more efficient and better prepared for war with North Korea after several thousand troops are moved out of the peninsula and thousands more are moved farther south of the capital as part of the first major relocation and consolidation troop plan since the armistice that ended the Korean War.

Gen. LaPorte said he does not anticipate that the new South Korean defense minister, Yoon Kwang-ung, will backtrack on the agreement to pull out about 12,500 troops and move others farther south to Pyongtaek and Pusan. Mr. Yoon took over last week after Defense Minister Cho Young-kil resigned in a political dispute over the military's role in a recent North Korean naval incursion.

"I will give him an opportunity to make his own assessment, but I have no indication that the [South Korean] government does not agree, because the president — President Roh [Moo-hyun] — and President Bush have agreed to in principle with the consolidation of United States forces in Korea," Gen. LaPorte said.

"I think once he's had an opportunity to understand the issue fully and be briefed, that we will continue on the road that we're on in terms of our consultative process."

Gen. LaPorte, who also leads United Nations command and the Republic of Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, said he helped start the talks with South Korea that eventually will lead to the addition of new U.S. weapons systems here, including twice as many Patriot anti-missile systems, because the posture of U.S. forces needed upgrading to meet changed circumstances.

A N. Korean soldier looks at S. Korean and U.S. soldiers at the truce village of Panmunjom in Joint Security Area in DMZ on the North-South Korean border. Courtesy Reuters

The initiative is a two-year effort to re-examine the roles and missions of the 37,000 U.S. troops in the country.

The last American observation post on the demilitarized zone, known as Camp Ouellette, will be turned over to the control of the South Korean military on Oct. 1 as part of the U.S. pullback from the Joint Security Area. All but 50 of the 240 U.S. soldiers in the area will be withdrawn.

Below that area, known as the Joint Security Area, but north of Seoul, is where the 15,000 troops of the 2nd Infantry Division — the unit that would be the first to come in contact with any North Korean military advance — are based. These troops are being deployed to Iraq and moved farther south.

The division currently is deployed in the same areas that it was located in when the 1953 armistice was declared at the end of the Korean War. Any conflict with North Korea would require the division to regroup before fighting, Gen. LaPorte said.

Plans call for the division to consolidate from 17 camps into five to seven bases, before moving to two "hubs" in Pyongtaek and Pusan, well south of Seoul, Gen. LaPorte said.

He said the realignment of forces will have no negative impact on security in the country.

Country Profile: North Korea

For decades North Korea has been one of the world's most secretive societies. It is one of the few remaining countries still under communist rule.
Hopes that its rigid isolation might have been coming to an end have been scotched by an ongoing nuclear crisis.

North Korea emerged in 1948 amid the chaos following the end of World War II. Its history is dominated by its Great Leader, Kim Il-sung, who shaped political affairs for almost half a century.

OVERVIEW

Map of North Korean missile sites

After the Korean War, Kim Il-sung introduced the personal philosophy of Juche, or self-reliance, which became a guiding light for North Korea's development. But decades of this rigid state-controlled system have led to stagnation and a leadership dependent on the cult of personality.

Aid agencies have estimated that up to two million people have died since the mid-1990s as a result of acute food shortages caused by natural disasters and economic mismanagement.

Kim Il-sung's son, Kim Jong-il, is now head of state, but the post of president has been assigned "eternally" to his late father. Pyongyang has accused successive South Korean governments of being US "puppets," but South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's visit in 2000 signalled a thaw in relations. Seoul's "sunshine policy" towards the north aimed to encourage change through dialogue and aid.

In 2002 US President George W Bush named North Korea as part of an "axis of evil"; the country is said to have a handful of nuclear weapons and a uranium-enrichment programme.

A thaw in relations with Seoul and a tentative reaching-out to the world were dealt a blow in late 2002 by Pyongyang's decision to reactivate a nuclear reactor and to expel international inspectors.

HISTORY

Tangun, national founder

The ancient history of the Korean peninsula can be traced to the Neolithic Age, when Turkic-Manchurian-Mongol peoples migrated into the region from China. The first agriculturally based settlements appeared around 6000 B.C. Some of the larger communities of this era were established along the Han-gang River near modern-day Seoul, others near Pyongyang and Pusan. According to ancient lore, Korea's earliest civilization, known as Choson, was founded in 2333 B.C. by Tan-gun.

In the 17th century, Korea became a vassal state of China and was cut off from outside contact until the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895. Following Japan's victory, Korea was granted independence. By 1910, Korea had been annexed by Japan, which developed the country but never won over the Korean nationalists, who continued to agitate for independence.

After Japan's surrender at the conclusion of World War II, the Korean peninsula was partitioned into two occupation zones, divided at the 38th parallel. The USSR controlled the north, with the U.S. taking charge of the south. In 1948, the division was made permanent with the establishment of the separate regimes of North and South Korea. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) was established on May 1, 1948, with Kim Il Sung as president.

Hoping to unify the Koreas under a single Communist government, the North launched a surprise invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950. In the following days, the UN Security Council condemned the attack and demanded an immediate withdrawal.

Korean War (1050-53)

President Harry S. Truman ordered U.S. air and naval units into action to enforce the UN order. The British government followed suit, and soon a UN multinational command was set up to aid the South Koreans.

The North Korean invaders swiftly seized Seoul and surrounded the allied forces in the peninsula's southeast corner near Pusan. In a desperate bid to reverse the military situation, UN Commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur ordered an amphibious landing at Inchon on Sept. 15 and routed the North Korean army. MacArthur's forces pushed north across the 38th parallel, approaching the Yalu River.

Prompted by this successful counteroffensive, Communist China entered the war, forcing the UN troops into a headlong retreat. Seoul was lost again, then regained. Ultimately, the war stabilized near the 38th parallel, but dragged on for two years while negotiations took place. An armistice was agreed to on July 27, 1953.

General MacArthur and staff viewing the Inchon landings, September 1950

By early 1994, tensions had mounted over international inspection of North Korea's nuclear sites. Kim Il Sung's death on July 8, 1994, introduced a period of uncertainty, as his son, Kim Jong Il, assumed the leadership mantle. Negotiations over the country's suspected atomic weapons dragged on, but an agreement was reached in June 1995 that included a provision for providing the North with a South Korean nuclear reactor.

The nuclear crises that characterized the mid-1990s were overshadowed when famine struck the nation's 24 million inhabitants in 1998 and 1999. Two years of floods were followed by severe droughts in 1997 and 1998, causing devastating crop failures. Because of lack of fuel and machinery parts, and weather conditions that have encouraged parasites, only 10% of North Korea's rice fields could be worked. Despite the staggering food crisis that necessitated foreign aid, North Korea remains one of the world's few remaining hermetic hard-line Communist regimes.

In Sept. 1998, North Korea launched a test missile over Japan, claiming it was simply a scientific satellite. This launch alarmed Japan, and much of the rest of the world, about North Korea's intentions regarding reentry into the nuclear arms race.

In 1999, North Korea agreed to allow the United States to conduct ongoing inspections of a suspected nuclear development site, Kumchangri, which North Korea admitted had been devised for "a sensitive military purpose." In exchange, the U.S. would increase food aid and initiate a program for bringing potato production to the country.

Antagonism between North and South Korea erupted into open aggression twice within six months in late 1998 and 1999, with South Korea hitting one North Korean vessel and sinking two others that were discovered trespassing in South Korean waters.

In the fall of 1999, North Korea's four years of severe famine, which claimed an estimated 2 million to 3 million lives between 1995 and 1998, had begun to wane.

Kim Jong-Il (left) greets Kim Dae-Jung, who visited Pyongyang for the historic South-North Summit.

Tension with South Korea eased dramatically in June 2000, when South Korea's president, Kim Dae Jung, met with North Korea's President Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang. The summit marked the first ever meeting of the two countries' leaders. But efforts toward reconciliation fizzled thereafter, and various minor military skirmishes followed over the next years.

In Jan. 2002, President Bush described North Korea as part of an "axis of evil." Such open hostility marked a dramatic shift in U.S. policy toward North Korea from the Clinton administration's policy of engagement.

In July 2002, North Korea began a series of radical economic initiatives aimed at reforming the devastated economy and introducing free-market policies. The country devalued its currency, raised food prices by as much as 50%, and increased wages.

The reclusive and secretive North Korea stunned the world in late 2002 with two shocking admissions. In September, the government unexpectedly acknowledged that it had kidnapped about a dozen Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s for the purposes of training North Korean spies. In October, confronted with U.S. intelligence, North Korea admitted that it had violated a 1994 agreement freezing its nuclear-weapons program and had in fact been developing nuclear bombs.

In late December, North Korea expelled UN weapons inspectors from the country and announced it could no longer agree to the terms of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), officially withdrawing from it in January 2003. Kim continued to provoke the international community into the spring, reactivating a plant at Yongbyon that converts nuclear waste into weapons-grade plutonium, test-launching missiles, and taunting the U.S. by intercepting an air force spy plane.

During talks with China and the U.S. in April, North Korea announced that it had already produced nuclear weapons and threatened to test or export them. In July North Korean officials reported that the country had reprocessed enough plutonium to build six nuclear bombs. Kim's motives for this bellicose stance have mystified much of the world, but in the past Kim has regularly confused diplomacy with extortion, using threats and hostile acts to wring aid and food from the international community for his starving, impoverished country. It was difficult to decipher how Kim expected to accomplish his aims — economic aid and a safeguard against U.S. attack — through such reckless brinkmanship.

Satellite photos of Yongbyon nuclear site

Refusing to bow to North Korea's mercurial demands, the United States informed the nation's diplomats that it would not begin to negotiate until North Korea first dismantled its nuclear program. China took on the role of mediator between North Korea and the U.S., urging less inflexibility on both sides. A modest breakthrough occurred when officials from the U.S., North Korea, China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan met in August in Beijing, although nothing substantive resulted. Another round of six-nation negotiations in Feb. 2004 were also inconclusive.

The International Atomic Energy Agency announced in May 2004 that is has strong evidence that North Korea supplied Libya with about two tons of uranium. If the allegation is true, it would indicate that North Korea has moved beyond selling missiles and missile technology.

A massive explosion rocked Ryongchon, a city northwest of the capital, Pyongyang, in April 2004. Initial reports indicated the explosion was caused by the collision of two trains carrying fuel, but officials later said the blast was set off when a train car carrying explosives touched a live power cable. Hundreds were feared dead. The normally insular North Korean government asked the United Nations for help in dealing with the aftermath of the tragedy.

At the third round of negotiations on North Korea's nuclear weapons program in June 2004, the U.S. offered North Korea the delivery of heavy fuel oil and a "provisional security guarantee" if it agrees to disclose details of its weapons program, allow inspections, and begin to dismantle its nuclear program within three months. North Korea did not respond to the offer. Instead, the country's negotiator threatened to test one of its nuclear weapons.

FACTS