PSI Under Pressure
There are more missiles on the launch pad in North Korea, and Iran inches closer toward an A-bomb. Has the Proliferation Security Initiative done what it was supposed to do?
“Wait, the what?” you may ask, and I’m glad you did. Here’s my take, with a couple of links, on the most amazing Bush-administration diplomatic initiative you’ve never heard of. It shows up rarely in the MSM. I myself learned about it from blogs—actually, from Bryan on this blog. Basically, it’s a huge network of cooperation and information sharing designed to track WMD and missile trafficking to-and-from “nations of concern”. And it involves all kinds of countries that wouldn’t be caught dead helping the USA—who arehelping the USA.
That link takes you to a great success story about the PSI—but is it enough? It has succeeded in delaying some awful regimes from getting awful weapons, but is that worthwhile?
The problem with these secretive programs is that they’re difficult to evaluate. We don’t know how much time and money we invest in this one and we don’t know how much we expose our intelligence methods to our partner nations. Most of the successes are secret as well. I wish the Bush administration were more forthcoming about these successes, but I’ve given up being surprised at their poor PR skills. (Besides, if they did elaborate on the program’s success, I think it would be a matter of weeks before the NYT destroyed it by publishing the entire list of cooperating nations.)
Well, at Hot Air, Bryan has an in-depth post about the North Korean crisis y’all ought to read. Toward the end he notes a quote he says refers to the PSI:A naval cordon of North Korea to prevent exports of mass destruction weapons would hit the regime’s vital interests if it includes ballistic missiles. The $US600 million ($A895 million) earned annually from missile sales is Pyongyang’s main source of hard currency. Analysts in Beijing are taking seriously Pyongyang’s warnings that would it consider interceptions of its ships and aircraft an act of war.
I actually think that refers to the results of a proposed cordon, not the existing PSI efforts. But it suggests that we ought to redouble those efforts and begin a blockade that actually starves the regime instead of the North Korean people.
Because what we do know about North Korea is that they are bluffing when they say they will go to war over PSI interceptions. PSI-related intercepts have been going on since 2003. Two intercepts that made the news (I suspect there have been more) are the Pong Su—Kim’s drug boat in Australia—and a missile shipment to Yemen. Both of these were intercepted and searched (and the Yemeni shipment allowed to proceed.) Nobody went to war over them.
As far as I can tell, little has changed within the DPRK to alter their calculus. We should stop them from enriching themselves and arming our enemies. Especially Iran—matching up the undeterrable lunatic mullah’s nukes with Nork ICBM technology would be like the union of the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper in Ghostbusters—about which Harold Ramis said, “I think that would be a very bad idea.”