Armas nucleares (Continuación)

InternacionalTerrorismo Internacional

With North Korea testing a nuclear bomb and Iran suspected of heading in that direction, one might be forgiven for thinking there's nothing but bad news these days about the spread of nuclear weapons.

But behind the scenes, one piece of good news has been unfolding: While there's a great deal more to do, much of the world's potential nuclear bomb material, scattered in hundreds of buildings in dozens of countries around the world, is notably more secure than it was before Sept. 11, 2001, which means that it's harder for terrorists to steal. And the critical effort to remove such material entirely from the world's most vulnerable sites is picking up steam.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

By Jim Hoagland (THE WASHINGTON POST, 05/11/06):

It is not the U-turn in foreign policy that Ronald Reagan made with the Soviet Union in his second term. It is more like a skid on an icy road: The Bush administration has lurched from insisting on isolating its enemies abroad to adopting a more sophisticated diplomatic strategy of conditional engagement with North Korea and Iran.

Think about what you have heard, and not heard, in response to North Korea's sudden decision last week to return to the six-party negotiating table in Beijing. What you heard was applause from an administration that in the past insisted on achieving moral clarity in foreign policy by not rewarding adversaries for bad behavior.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsiaInternacionalOrden Mundial,

By Joseph S. Nye Jr., a professor at Harvard, chaired the National Security Council Committee on Non-Proliferation in the Carter administration and was assistant secretary of defense in the Clinton administration (THE WASHINGTON POST, 05/11/06):

North Korea is the first country to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and test a nuclear weapon. It has agreed to return to six-party talks about its nuclear status, but skeptics expect little progress.

Some doomsayers are predicting the collapse of the nonproliferation regime, but that kind of fatalism is mistaken. There are many things we can do to prevent such a future.

We are, in fact, doing better at slowing the spread of the bomb than might be expected.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

Por Joschka Fischer, ex ministro de Relaciones Exteriores y vicecanciller de Alemania, y profesor visitante de la Escuela Woodrow Wilson de la Universidad de Princeton. Traducción de Claudia Martínez (EL PAÍS, 28/10/06):

El 9 de octubre de 2006 se convertirá en un día para recordar. Es probable que ese día Corea del Norte hiciera estallar una bomba nuclear. ¿Fue una prueba que falló? El futuro tal vez ofrezca respuestas, pero las consecuencias políticas son evidentes y el impacto, sustancial.

En primer lugar, la presión internacional, encabezada por Estados Unidos, China, Rusia y Japón, no fue suficiente para impedir que Corea del Norte tomara esa medida desafortunada.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

By Graham Allison, an assistant secretary of defense under President Bill Clinton, is director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and the author of "Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe." (THE WASHINGTON POST, 27/10/06):

In an interview aired last week, George Stephanopoulos put the question to President Bush: What would he do if "North Korea sold nukes to Iran or al-Qaeda?" Bush replied, "They'd be held to account."

Seeking specifics, Stephanopoulos asked: "What does that mean?" The president answered, "I want the leader of North Korea to understand that he'll be held to account.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia, ,

Por Pablo Bustelo, investigador principal de Asia-Pacífico, Real Instituto Elcano (REAL INSTITUTO ELCANO, 24/10/06):

Tema: Este análisis valora si las sanciones adoptadas recientemente contra Corea del Norte por el Consejo de Seguridad de Naciones Unidas son o no suficientes para modificar sustancialmente el comportamiento de Pyongyang y, en última instancia, para que el régimen de Kim Jong Il renuncie a la opción nuclear. Argumenta que es muy posible que no sean suficientes, por lo que se hacen necesarias medidas adicionales, que en cualquier caso no deben en absoluto incluir acciones militares.

Resumen: El análisis expone, en primer lugar, las causas y las consecuencias más probables de la prueba nuclear llevada a cabo por Corea del Norte el pasado 9 de octubre.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalTerrorismo Internacional

Por Shahram Chubin, director de estudios en el Centro para la Política de Seguridad de Ginebra; autor de Iran´s nuclear ambitions (Carnegie Endowment of International Peace, 2006) y Robert Litwak, director de estudios internacionales en el Centro Woodrow Wilson, en Washington; autor de Regime change: U. S. strategy through the prism of 9/ 11 (Johns Hopkins University Press, en curso de publicación). Traducción: Juan Gabriel López Guix (LA VANGUARDIA, 19/10/06):

La reciente prueba nuclear llevada a cabo por Corea del Norte suscita algunas cuestiones importantes. Entre ellas, destaca la necesidad de impedir la actual proliferación por parte de Corea del Norte (o Irán) mediante ventas o transferencias de materiales sensibles a actores no estatales.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia, ,

By Anne Applebaum (THE WASHINGTON POST, 17/10/06):

Conventional wisdom says that if U.N. sanctions don't work, there is nothing to be done about North Korea's nuclear weapons -- short of firebombing Pyongyang, thereby ensuring the obliteration of Seoul. Yet the problem of a nuclear North Korea is not actually insoluble, provided a certain very large superpower wants to solve it. There is one significant country, after all, that has the military, economic and political power not only to pressure North Korea to discard its bomb but also to topple its regime altogether.

That very large superpower is, of course, China. Despite its recent expressions of shock and horror -- the Chinese government claimed last week to be "totally opposed" to the North Korean bomb -- China still has more ways to influence North Korea than any other member of the U.N.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

By Aaron L. Friedberg, a professor at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School and a former deputy assistant for national security affairs to Vice President Cheney (THE WASHINGTON POST, 16/10/06):

Though the hour is late and the odds long, there is still a chance that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il can be persuaded to give up his nuclear arsenal.

Despite what many have suggested, this cannot be achieved simply through face-to-face negotiations or by offering security guarantees and economic aid. Kim is a cynical realist and will not exchange his nuclear capabilities for empty acts of diplomatic deference or what he would doubtless regard as mere scraps of paper.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

Por Jimmy Carter, ex presidente de Estados Unidos, es fundador del Carter Center y ganador del Premio Nobel de la Paz del año 2002 (EL MUNDO, 16/10/06):

En 1994, los norcoreanos expulsaron a los inspectores de la Agencia Internacional de Energía Atómica y amenazaron con convertir combustible nuclear ya utilizado como tal en plutonio, lo que les otorgaría la posibilidad de producir armas nucleares. Ante la posibilidad de una guerra en la península coreana, se registró un consenso en el sentido de que las fuerzas armadas de Corea del Sur y Estados Unidos podrían derrotar de forma aplastante a Corea del Norte.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

Por Mateo Madridejos, periodista e historiador (EL PERIÓDICO, 16/10/06):

Si el XXI está llamado a ser el siglo de Asia, tomando ésta el relevo de EEUU, con el crecimiento económico mundial irradiando desde la cuenca del Pacífico, el gran viraje estratégico que entraña el ingreso de Corea del Norte en el club de las potencias nucleares tendrá repercusiones inmediatas en las relaciones entre las naciones ribereñas, según se desprende de las duras reacciones no sólo de Washington, ya que el régimen norcoreano forma parte del eje del mal, sino también de Rusia y China, que están irritadas por la osadía del más destacado y megalómano estalinista.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

Por Pablo Bustelo, investigador principal (Asia-Pacífico) del Real Instituto Elcano (EL PAÍS, 15/10/06):

El anuncio de Pyongyang de que llevó a cabo, el pasado 9 de octubre, una prueba nuclear ha provocado reacciones de todo tipo. Conviene descartar, de entrada, las menos y las más alarmistas. En el momento de redactar estas líneas, todo parece indicar que se ha tratado en efecto de una detonación nuclear, aunque de una intensidad, parece ser, inusualmente pequeña. Así, Corea del Norte posee ya tanto bombas nucleares como misiles, pero se cree que no domina todavía, afortunadamente, la técnica necesaria para miniaturizar las primeras, convertirlas en cabezas nucleares e instalarlas en los segundos.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalOrden Mundial

Vicente Palacio y Mario Esteban son, respectivamente, subdirector y coordinador de Asia-Pacífico del Observatorio de Política Exterior Española (Opex) de la Fundación Alternativas (EL PAÍS, 15/10/06):

En muchas películas de serie B, los buenos llegan tarde al lugar del crimen. Desafiando a sus enemigos, el inefable Kim Jong Il ha protagonizado un primer ensayo nuclear en el subsuelo de su miserable país, Corea del Norte. El mismo hecho de que el mundo no sepa si se ha tratado realmente de una deflagración ordinaria o atómica, añade un matiz surrealista a la trama. Mohamed El Baradei, director del Organismo Internacional de la Energía Atómica (OIEA), advierte que 40 países disponen de la capacidad tecnológica para desarrollar armamento nuclear en breve.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

By Jon B. Wolfsthal, who monitored North Korea’s nuclear program for the United States, is a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 14/10/06):

I CELEBRATED New Year’s in 1996 by drinking cheap sparkling wine at the Yongbyon nuclear center, where North Korea produced the plutonium for its first nuclear test. Like dozens of dedicated civil servants, I served as an “on-site monitor” under the 1994 United States-North Korean nuclear agreement known as the Agreed Framework.

Those of us who served as monitors are proud of what we accomplished. I am not alone in being concerned that many commentators and government officials are trying to lay the blame for at least some of the current nuclear crisis at the feet of the previous administration’s efforts to end North Korea’s nuclear program.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsiaInternacionalOrden Mundial,

By Simon Tisdall (THE GUARDIAN, 14/10/06):

Twelve months ago it seemed the west's nuclear confrontation with North Korea had reached an unexpectedly happy ending. Then the US treasury department stuck its oar in. In a deal brokered by China on September 19 2005, Kim Jong-il's regime pledged to give up its atomic weapons, abandon existing nuclear programmes and rejoin the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that it had repudiated in 2003.In return the US agreed to recognise North Korea's territorial integrity and eschew all hostile actions. The Bush administration thereby effectively withdrew its earlier threats of forcible regime change levelled against a founder member of President George Bush's "axis of evil".…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

By Charles Krauthammer (THE WASHINGTON POST, 13/10/06):

It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union .

-- President John F. Kennedy,

Oct. 22, 1962

Now that's deterrence.

Kennedy was pledging that if any nuke was launched from Cuba, the United States would not even bother with Cuba but would go directly to the source and bring the apocalypse to Russia with a massive nuclear attack.

The remarkable thing about this kind of threat is that in 1962 it was very credible.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsiaInternacionalOrden Mundial,

By Gerard Baker (THE TIMES, 13/10/06):

THE BIRTH announcement of each new arrival into the nuclear family in the past 50 years has been greeted by existing members with loud condemnations and dark prognostications.

When China successfully detonated an atomic weapon in 1964, the doomsday clock jumped forward several minutes as the world contemplated the threatening triangular possibilities of the clumsy US-Soviet-Chinese ballistic ballet in the middle of the Cold War. Israel’s presumed nuclear status in the 1980s was deemed to have accelerated the efforts of Arab states to win an arms race in the most volatile region in the world.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

By Jim Hoagland (THE WASHINGTON POST, 12/10/06):

North Korea has, in its own inimitable fashion, paid tribute to a little-noticed U.S. push to get the world's bankers to isolate regimes that promote nuclear proliferation and terrorism. Who else would claim to have conducted a nuclear weapons test and then threaten more blasts to get their way in a $24 million banking dispute?

Don't they have any good lawyers in Pyongyang?

North Korea's efforts to blame its crossing of the nuclear-testing threshold on U.S. "economic hostility" would be laughable if the regime weren't led by world-class paranoids and fantasists capable of believing their own odious propaganda.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

By B. R. Myers, an associate professor of North Korean studies at Korea University, is the author of 'Han Sorya and North Korean Literature' (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 12/10/06):

HOURS after Monday’s nuclear test, President Bush issued a stern warning to North Korea — but only against the passing of nuclear technology to other states or non-state entities. The president’s declaration thus reflected a confident consensus in Washington that while Kim Jong-il may try selling his nukes, he would never dream of using them himself. Why not? The explanation was given by a former national security adviser, Donald Gregg, on Monday: “Don’t panic.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

Por Pascal Boniface, director del Instituto de Relaciones Internacionales y Estratégicas de París. Traducción: José María Puig de la Bellacasa (LA VANGUARDIA, 12/10/06):

Corea del Norte realizó una prueba nuclear el pasado 8 de octubre pese a los ruegos unánimes de la comunidad internacional para que renunciara a ella. Desde luego era bien sabido hace tiempo que Corea del Norte disponía de armas nucleares, y el propio país así lo había proclamado en febrero del 2005. Esta última prueba no modifica por tanto de manera radical los parámetros estratégicos en el sentido de alumbrar un nuevo Estado nuclear en el planeta.…  Seguir leyendo »