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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
On 16 March 2012, North Korea announced that it would launch an earth observation satellite named Kwangmyongsong (Lodestar) 3, aboard an Unha carrier rocket sometime between the hours of 7 am and noon on a day between 12 and 16 April, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of its state founder, Kim Il Sung, and the attainment of “strong and prosperous” status by the country. The launch from a base in the north of the country close to the border with China would be pointed south, dropping off its first phase rocket into the Yellow Sea about 160 kms to the southwest of South Korea's Byeonsan peninsula and the second into the ocean about 140 kilometres east of Luzon in the Philippines. Due notice of the impending launch was issued to the appropriate international maritime, aviation and telecommunication bodies (IMO, ICAO and ITU) and, to mark the occasion, North Korea announced that it would welcome scientific observers and journalists. The 15 April date, in the 100th year according to the calendar of North Korea, has long been declared a landmark in the history of the state, and the launch seems designed to be its climactic event.
1 Peter Hartcher, “North Korea directs missiles towards Australia,” Sydney Morning Herald, 24 March 2012.
2 Kyoko Yamaguchi, “DPRK ‘told US about plan on Dec 15’,” Daily Yomiuri Online, 25 March 2012.
3 US Department of State, Statement by Victoria Nuland, spokesperson, “State Department on US-North Korea Bilateral Talks,” February 29, 2012.
4 For details, see my “North Korea and the Birth Pangs of a New Northeast Asian Order,” in Sonia Ryang, ed., North Korea: Towards a Better Understanding, Lexington Books, Rowman and Littlefield, 2009, pp. 23-40 (also, slightly earlier version, at Japan Focus, 24 October 2007, found here).
5 “Joint Statement of the Fourth Round of the Six Party Talks,” Beijing, 19 September 2005.
6 Following discussion draws upon my 2009 essay, “Security Council Condemnation of North Korean “UFO” Deepens Korean Crisis,” Kyunghyang shinmoon (in Korean), 13 April 2009, and in English at Japan Focus, 15 April 2009, found here.
7 Peter Hartcher, North Korea doing what it pleases - with a twist,” Sydney Morning Herald, 27 March 2012.
8 See my Target North Korea: Pushing North Korea to the Brink of Nuclear Catastrophe, New York, Nation Books, 2004.
9 Leon Sigal, “What Obama should offer North Korea,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 2009.
10 I have written at some length on the nature of the regime in chapters 3 and 4 of Target North Korea.
11 Operation Key Resolve, 27 February to 9 March, and Operation Foal Eagle, 1 March to 30 April.
12 “North Korea and the Birth Pangs”, op. cit.
13 Gavan McCormack, “Criminal States: Soprano vs. baritone — North Korea and the United States,” Korea Observer, Seoul, The Institute of Korean Studies, Vol. 37, No. 3, Autumn 2006, pp. 487-511, and (in Korean) as chapter 1 of Beomjoegukga: Bukhan Geurigo Miguk, Seoul, Icarus, 2006, p. 15-40.
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