NORTH KOREA’S SWISS CHEESE BLOCKADE

When is a block­ade not a block­ade?
The Bush Administration has finally started tak­ing some rudi­men­tary steps towards keep­ing North Korea’s nuclear weapons from spread­ing. The U.S. is lead­ing a group of eleven coun­tries in a pro­gram to “mon­i­tor and per­haps inter­cept ship­ments of nuclear mate­ri­als and rock­ets” going in an out of North Korea, accord­ing to the New York Times.
Sounds good, at first. But take a look at the 11 coun­tries involved in the effort: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Australia, and the U.S. It’s notable for who’s not on the list. No China, no South Korea. Neither of North Korea’s imme­di­ate neigh­bors is included. And how effec­tive can a block­ade be with­out those two?

June 18th, 2003 | Nukes | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.