Unclear and Incoherent

Who's Afraid of Impoverished Rogue State ― Really?

Isolated, reclusive North Korea has long been called ― rightly ― one of the most unpredictable and incomprehensible countries in the world.

Watching regional powers, particularly South Korea and the United States, fluster themselves in the wake of Pyongyang's long-foreseen rocket launch Sunday, however, the communist country might have felt like returning these modifiers to its adversaries.

Although the new U.S. administration reportedly has yet to finalize its North Korea policy, its response is more than just puzzling. President Barack Obama handled what he termed the test-fire of a long-range missile like an emergency, stressing ``violations must be punished." Obama's point man on North Korea, Stephen W. Bosworth, however, had already declared that ``pressure is not the most productive line of approach."

Likewise, while American congressional leaders dubbed the launch ``alarming" and called for ``strong and concerted action," a top U.S. military commander scoffed at Pyongyang, asking, ``Who would like to buy North Korean missiles that have failed three times?" It's hard to know whether the United States is staging a highly diversionary operation or simply thinks incoherence can sometimes be a good tactic.

South Korea is no better. President Lee Myung-bak said last week Seoul is willing to send a special envoy if the North is ready. Before not even a day had passed, his unification minister squarely denied his boss's remarks, saying, ``The government has not examined the envoy option."

After all, the chairman of the governing Grand National Party played golf on both Saturday and Sunday, the two most probable D-days, while ``remaining all ears to what's going on throughout the 36 holes," if we paraphrase what he said later. On Monday, GNP lawmakers called for the sternest of countermeasures, including the restoration of ``missile sovereignty," at the National Assembly.

Most long-time Pyongyang watchers agree the aftermath of the latest missile fiasco would proceed toward another largely perfunctory U.N. resolution or a chairman's statement, a cooling period of two to three months and the resumption of the six-party talks, in which the participants would discuss not just denuclearization but long-range missile issues. And it should turn out that way ― going back to where all this started. North Korea's recent escalation of tension was sparked by what it saw as a refusal to provide heavy fuel oil as agreed in the six-nation conference by the hard-line Lee administration. Seoul, along with Washington and Tokyo, demanded a written guarantee that Pyongyang would permit the allies' verification of the denuclearization process, something the North maintains was to be negotiated at a later stage of the six-way process.

The communist country's behavior is beyond excuse and defense under any circumstances, but a moment of calm thinking also makes it all too apparent who was actually hurt by the latest rocket launch ― the North Korean people, except for its leadership, following brief euphoria on military power ― for it will still be many years before Pyongyang is of any serious threat to the United States or proliferates its missile technology. South Korea and Japan have long been within the range of the North's older missiles.

True, the Korean Peninsula ― particularly its Demilitarized Zone ― is the most fortified area in the world. Most first-time visitors, however, wouldn't feel this on the streets of Seoul. This is also a country where 100,000 military officers were found to have played golf on weekdays over the past decade.

Hard-line leaders on both sides of the military demarcation line must ask themselves whether they are exploiting the tension at the expense of their people, particularly the Northerners. Stock markets in Seoul and Tokyo have remained calm, or even soared, the past few days.