By Donald Kirk

WASHINGTON – United States military leaders love to talk about “asymmetric warfare” in which their forces wield enormous firepower against seemingly far weaker enemies skilled in hit-and-run attacks and brutal acts of terrorism.

No contest in which the United States is engaged would appear more asymmetrical than that between it and North Korea next week in which some of the world’s most advanced navy vessels and fighter planes go through the motions of training for anti-submarine warfare for four days beginning on Sunday off the coast of South Korea.

The publicity will be hard to ignore – jets taking off from the deck of the 98,000-ton aircraft carrier USS George Washington will make for great TV images. They’ll be looking for the tiniest of targets, notably replicas of the midget submarine that fired the torpedo that sank a South Korean navy vessel in March, and they’ll also be on the lookout for any sign of North Korean “provocations” that could turn the show into more than just a publicity game.

Anyone thinking such a show of force is likely to frighten North Korea, however, may be disappointed. In fact, the war games may have quite a different effect. If intimidation is the name of the game, the history of the Korea Peninsula since the Korean War broke out 60 years ago has shown North Korea is as skilled as any other power in knowing how to play.

And whatever happens, the North can count on a reservoir of support from China, whose “volunteers” came to the rescue in the Korean War, while holding out the threat of nuclear war, or at least an attack by missiles zeroed in on targets in South Korea and even Japan.

In the struggle for supremacy over the Korean Peninsula, footage of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates reassuring their South Korean opposite numbers in Seoul of the enduring nature of the US alliance was less than daunting. American officials have been saying that sort of thing for decades.

As for Clinton’s announcement of “additional sanctions” in retaliation for the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan, they struck many observers as meaningless. After all, the UnitedNations Security Council had imposed sanctions after North Korea’s second nuclear test in May 2008. They have done little to stop the North from conspiring with China and others to export nuclear expertise, along with missiles, to clients from the Middle East to Myanmar.

Nor have the UN sanctions managed to block luxury goods from reaching the sliver of the elite that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il coddles at the foundation of the structure that enables him to stay in power despite a stroke, diabetes and other ailments.

Kim has good reason to feel confident, to sense that he can still outfox the Americans while clearly not being quite his old self. He could not have asked for a better result from a UN Security Council debate that ended with in a statement condemning the attack but not North Korea for having carried it out.

That statement, as far as North Korea is concerned, was far from meaningless. In fact, it’s fast becoming the standard by which diplomats from other countries, not wishing to appear involved in the debate, are citing as the last word on the Cheonan episode. In that spirit, foreign ministers at this week’s regional forum of ASEAN, the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, issued a statement of “deep concern” about the sinking of theCheonan, in which 46 sailors died, along with support for the UN statement.

Clinton could say all she wanted about the horrors of North Korean deeds and policies, but her words had about as little real impact as did US and South Korean appeals to China to approve condemnation of North Korea for the attack before it became clear that China had no notion of blaming the North.

So pleased is North Korean leader Kim Jong-il with UN statement that he could even afford to suggest renewing six-party talks, hosted by China, on his nuclear program.

There was just one catch, as a spokesman intimated at the ASEAN gabfest in Hanoi, and that was that the UN had to rescind its sanctions for the talks to proceed “on an equal footing”. Only then could the six, including the two Koreas, the US, Japan and Russia as well as China, conduct meaningful negotiations.

Then there was the question of “denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula. That’s a goal that North Korea has previously said should cover the entire Pacific – clearly impossible to achieve since the US has nuclear-powered vessels, laden with nuclear warheads, that it’s not going to abandon for the sake of calling Kim Jong-il’s bluff.

But what does Kim Jong-il really want and why? Aware that not even all the praise routinely heaped on him for his amazing golf scores and other achievements can guarantee he will live forever, he’s been busy promoting the succession of his youngest son, Kim Jong-eun, still in his 20s.

About all that’s known about Kim Jong-eun is that he studied in Switzerland and was a fan of NBA basketball. He’s not believed to have been photographed publicly, unless you count an unverified photo that ran in a Japanese newspaper showing him with his father on an inspection tour, and he never been introduced publicly in writing or in broadcasts.

Still, reports from some of the South Korean non-governmental organizations with contacts inside North Korea have it that aides of Kim Jong-il are spreading the word that Kim Jong-eun himself encouraged and possibly ordered the attack on the Cheonan.

The purpose, they say, is to show his toughness before a cast of doughty generals, some of whom served in the Korean War. Such a theory would seem logical considering that at least some of these generals may view the young man as an upstart, an interloper. Kim Jong-il, whose power still resides in his chairmanship of the National Defense Commission, is said to have given the youngest son managerial posts with both the commission and the Workers’ Party after having passed over his two older brothers, one of them living the life of a playboy in Macau, the other said to be too “effeminate” for leadership.

Much more may emerge about the power structure when the top echelons of the Workers’ Party meet in September at what’s said to be a “conference” to resolve leadership issues. The conference is more important than a party congress or a gathering of the rubber-stamp Supreme People’s Assembly. It’s the first such conference, as far as anyone knows, in 40 years, and it’s possible Kim Jong-eun at this elite meeting will rise to a senior position.

Equally important, Kim Jong-il’s brother-in-law, Jang Song-thaek, married to Kim’s younger sister, Kim Kyong-hui, may get a top party post too. Jang, elevated in May as vice chairmen of the defense commission, already holds the title of director of the administrative department of the party. He’s not going to take over from Kim Jong-il as the party’s general secretary, but the conference may reward him with another title as a reward for his faithful service.

As long as Kim Jong-il lives, Jang is seen as the country’s second most powerful leader. Kim needs Jang to buttress defenses against the ambitions of military people, not all of whom are likely to take kindly to the rise of the neophyte Kim Jong-eun.

Through all this maneuvering, one deadline seems increasingly portentous. That’s April 15, 2012, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung. A tremendous construction campaign is going on in Pyongyang to show off the capital as a great global city. The Egyptian firm Orascom Telecom, which introduced a mobile phone network for the North Korean elite two years ago, is charged with completing a triangular-shaped hotel that looms more than 1,000 feet above ground.

Construction stopped nearly 20 years ago after the structure had soared to 105 stories, but the North Koreans are hoping Orascom Telecom and its sister, Orascom Construction, can finish the job in time for the big birthday bash. The question is whether Kim Jong-il will live long enough to host the ceremony – or at least to make a public appearance.

Donald Kirk, a long-time journalist in Asia, is author of the newly published Korea Betrayed: Kim Dae Jung and Sunshine.

Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd