North Korea launched a rocket on April 13 to loft a satellite into spaceÂpart of the countryÂs civilian space program. The rocket, based on ballistic missile technology, broke up only minutes after launch.
Western state officials and media rebuked Pyongyang for directing part of its strained budget to a rocket launch when it depends on outside food aid. Along with other countries, India Âvoiced deep concern. [1]
Six days later, India launched Agni-V, a ballistic missile capable of delivering a 1.5 ton nuclear warhead to any point in China. IndiaÂwhich the American Federation of Scientists estimates has an arsenal of 80 to 100 nuclear weaponsÂboasted that the launch represented Âanother milestone in its Âquest to add to the credibility of its Âsecurity and preparedness. [2]
Both launches violated UN Security Council resolutions. Security Council Resolution 1172 (1998) calls upon India Âto cease development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. [3] Security Council Resolutions 1718 (2006) [4] and 1874 (2009) [5] direct North Korea to do the same.
On April 16, North Korea was censured by the Security Council for violating resolutions 1718 and 1874. [6] India has not been censured for violating resolution 1172. Indeed, that a Security Council resolution exists which prohibits IndiaÂs ballistic missile program has been almost completely ignored.
WhatÂs more, while North Korea was savagely attacked in the Western media for its satellite launch, the same media treated IndiaÂs long-range ballistic missile test with either indifference or approval. IndiaÂs massive poverty was not juxtaposed against its decision to allocate resources to building nuclear warheads and the missiles to carry them.
North KoreaÂs nuclear weapons
The United States was the first country to introduce nuclear weapons to the Korean peninsula, in the form of tactical battlefield weapons. Later, when the USSR dissolved, Lee Butler, the head of the US Strategic Command, announced that the United States would retarget some of its strategic ballistic nuclear missiles from the former Soviet Union to North Korea. One month later, Pyongyang withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. [7]
A cardinal principle of nuclear nonproliferation is that countries with nuclear weapons should not target countries without them. Doing so provides the targeted country with a reason to develop its own nuclear weapons as a deterrent.
After North KoreaÂs first underground nuclear test, on October 9, 2006, the UN Security Council met to impose sanctions. At the meeting, North Korean ambassador Pak Gil Yon explained that North Korea initiated its nuclear weapons program because it felt compelled to protect itself from the danger of war from the United States.
This was hardly paranoid. WashingtonÂs desire to see the collapse of North Korea is undoubted. An ideological competitor vis-Ã -vis the United States whose zeal for economic and political independence is second to none, North Korea remains one of the few remaining challenges to the US-led neo-liberal world economic order. In an attempt to crush the fiercely independent state, Washington has made North Korea the most heavily sanctioned country on earthÂand hasnÂt relieved the pressure in six decades.
This, on top of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons threats, nearly 30,000 US troops on the Korean peninsula, the incessant visits of nuclear weapons-equipped US warships and warplanes to South Korean ports and airbases, and the PentagonÂs de facto control of the South Korean military in peacetime and de jure control in wartime, constitutes a significant existential threat to North Korea.
In 2003, the Bush administration ratcheted up the threat by naming North Korea as part of an Âaxis of evil. It then invaded the first country on its list, Iraq, and warned the other two to Âdraw the appropriate lesson. [8] In light of this, PakÂs explanation that North Korea conducted the nuclear test to Âbolster its self-defense and that it ÂwouldnÂt need nuclear weapons if the US dropped its hostile policies rings true. [9]
Since then, the United States has delivered an additional reason for Pyongyang to draw the appropriate lessonÂthough not the one it hoped. NatoÂs intervention in Libya on behalf of al-Qaeda-connected rebels likely wouldnÂt have happened had the countryÂs leader, Muammar Gaddafi, not given up his chemical and nuclear weapons programs in exchange for reversal of sanctions and Western investment.
Hypocrisy
Washington says that it believes China sold North Korea the chassis for a missile-transport vehicle displayed in a North Korean military parade shortly after the failed satellite launch and would use Âthe episode to tighten pressure to better enforce United Nations sanctions forbidding the sale of weapons or technology to North Korea that would aid its ballistic missile and technology program. [10]
Security Council resolution 1718 directs member states not to supply North Korea with battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, artillery, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, missiles or missile systems. A truck chassis hardly fits the list, and is clearly not a nuclear weapon or technology.
But why does a resolutionÂwhich concerns a nuclear testÂban sales to North Korea of conventional military equipment? Resolution 1172, dealing with IndiaÂs and PakistanÂs nuclear tests, imposed no similar sanctions on these countries. The likely explanation is that the resolution aims to deny Pyongyang an effective means of self-defense, both nuclear and conventional. In other words, the Security Council used North KoreaÂs efforts to tighten its security as a pretext to block its access to the equipment, technology and materials it needs for self-defense. By contrast, since the United States dropped its sanctions on India last decade, the latter has been permitted to add to the credibility of its security and preparedness without impediment.
Moreover, why was North Korea sanctioned at all? Having withdrawn from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty under the threat posed by US strategic missiles, Pyongyang was bound by no international covenant prohibiting it from developing nuclear weapons. The Security Council justified the sanctions on the grounds that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is a threat to international peace and security. Invoking authority to prevent possible outbreaks of war between nations, however, has become a convenient way for the Security Council to legitimize arbitrary actions. It simply describes some incident as a threat to peace between nationsÂwhether it is or notÂand thereby hands itself authority to act.
Have North KoreaÂs nuclear tests truly represented a threat to international peace and security, or only a threat to the ability of certain permanent Security Council members to target North Korea with nuclear weapons free from the risk of nuclear retaliation? The United States, Britain and other countries that have nuclear weapons emphasize the deterrent nature of their nuclear arsenals. Rather than threatening international peace and security, these countries maintain that their WMDs preserve it. Why, then, should WMDs in the hands of countries threatened with nuclear annihilation constitute threats, while in the hands of the countries that pose the threat, nuclear weapons are considered a buttress to international peace and security? It seems more likely that peace and security between nations would be strengthened were the United States to cease targeting North Korea with nuclear weapons or were it deterred by PyongyangÂs possible nuclear retaliation.
Obviously (though not so obviously to Washington) a truck chassis is not a nuclear weapon or technology, but it is not unknown for Washington to broaden the definition of banned items to turn ostensibly narrow sanctions into broad-based ones. [11] UN Security Resolutions 1718 and 1874 do the same. While they appear to be limited to prohibiting North Korea from developing ballistic missile technology for military use, they have been interpreted by the Security Council to prohibit civilian use, as well. Hence, in censuring Pyongyang for its satellite launch, the president of the Security Council noted that any rocket launch that uses ballistic missile technology, even for civilian use, is a violation of the UN Security Council resolutions. [12] This means that as far as the Security Council is concerned, North Korea cannot have a civilian space program.
The United States criticism of China for selling North Korea a truck chassis, on grounds that the sale is a violation of a Security Council resolution, is not only baseless, itÂs hypocritical. Washington has agreed to sell India spent nuclear fuel and nuclear technology, not only to Âbring tens of billions in business to the United States but to also cement Âa new partnership between the two nations to counter ChinaÂs rise. [13] Yet Security Council resolution 1172 directs Âall States to prevent the export of equipment, materials or technology that could in any way assist programs in India or Pakistan for nuclear weapons. Hence, while the United States accuses China of violating a Security Council resolution by selling the North Koreans truck parts, Washington itself has cleared the way to export equipment, material and technology to India to assist its nuclear program in violation of a Security Council resolution. Canada, too, which is selling uranium to India, is violating the same Security Council resolution. [14]
There are, then, four sets of double-standards that mark the WestÂs reaction to North KoreaÂs satellite launch.
 North Korea was censured by the Security Council for launching a satellite as part of a civilian space program, but India escaped censure for launching a ballistic missile whose purpose would be to destroy Chinese cities. Both launches violated Security Council resolutions, but the Security Council and Western media ignore the resolution prohibiting IndiaÂs ballistic missile program.
 North KoreaÂs attempt to loft a satellite into space was reviled by Western media and presented as a threat, while IndiaÂs launch of a long-range missile capable of carrying a payload to wipe Chinese cities off the map merited few critical remarks.
 North Korea was rebuked for what was widely described as an extravagant expenditure on a rocket launch at a time Pyongyang is dependent on outside help to feed its people [15], while IndiaÂs widespread and profound poverty hardly seemed a consideration to a Western media that could find little critical to say about IndiaÂs expensive nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program.
 China has been criticized by the United States for selling truck parts to North Korea, presumably in violation of a Security Council resolution prohibiting sales of conventional military equipment to Pyongyang, while it has approved the sale of spent nuclear fuel and nuclear technology to India in violation of Security Council Resolution 1172.
IndiaÂs efforts to add to the credibility of its security and preparedness are accepted as legitimate by Western governments and media because theyÂre directed at China. PyongyangÂs efforts to add to the credibility of its security and preparedness are reviled and censured because theyÂre aimed at bolstering North KoreaÂs defense against hegemonic threats. IndiaÂs actionsÂinsofar as they contribute to the United States new military strategic focus of containing the challenge of ChinaÂs riseÂis in Wall StreetÂs interests. North KoreaÂs actionsÂin challenging the United States ability to forcibly integrate the country into the US-led neo-liberal world economic orderÂis against Wall StreetÂs interests.
Accordingly, one rocket launch is condoned, the other condemned.
Endnotes
1. ÂIndiaÂs role in Asia-Pacific enormously important: USÂ, The Economic Times, April 17, 2012.
2. Simon Denyer, ÂIndia tests missile capable of reaching BeijingÂ, The Washington Post, April 19, 2012.
3. http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N98/158/60/PDF/N9815860.pdf?OpenElement
4. http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N06/572/07/PDF/N0657207.pdf?OpenElement
5. http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N09/368/49/PDF/N0936849.pdf?OpenElement
6. http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N12/295/91/PDF/N1229591.pdf?OpenElement
7. Bruce Cumings, KoreaÂs Place in the Sun: A Modern History, W.W. Norton & Company, 2005. 488-489.
8. The warning was issued by US Undersecretary of State John Bolton. The other country on the list was Iran, now subjected to economic warfare, assassinations, sabotage, incursions by US reconnaissance drones, attacks by proxy terrorist armies, destabilization and threats of military intervention by the United States, its invariable cobelligerent Britain, and Israel.
9. http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N06/572/07/PDF/N0657207.pdf?OpenElement
10. Mark Landler, ÂSuspected sale by China stirs concern at White HouseÂ, The New York Times, April 20, 2012.
11. Similarly, Nato bombing campaigns notoriously broaden the definition of legitimate military targets to cover civilian infrastructure, including roads, bridges, TV and radio broadcasting facilities, factories and even farms.
12. The combined implication of the resolutions is that:
 North Korea cannot lawfully defend itself against the threat of nuclear attack;
 It cannot lawfully be sold conventional military equipment for self-defense;
 It cannot lawfully have a civilian space program.
13. Simon Denyer and Pama Lakshmi, ÂU.S.-India nuclear deal drifts dangerouslyÂ, The Washington Post, July 15, 2011.
14. Bill Curry, ÂCanada signs nuclear deal with IndiaÂ, The Globe and Mail (Toronto), June 27, 2010.
15. Sanctions contribute heavily to North KoreaÂs food security problems.
