Why Asia is becoming dangerous

Over the past years we have come to see Asia largely in terms of economic growth: from the aspiring tigers to the roaring China. This is undoubtedly true, but the fact is that Asia has also become the most dangerous continent in the world. From the wider Palestine-Israel conflict on its westernmost side, through the various tensions of unstable regimes and the open hostilities of post-invasion Iraq and Afghanistan, to a sequence of declared nuclear states: India, Pakistan and finally China on the easternmost side. Then there is Israel, a probable nuclear state, Iran, an aspiring one and there is North Korea - the surprise declarer of the week.

There is no real surprise in the declaration, for two main reasons: North Korea’s profile and George W. Bush’s Axis of Evil.

North Korea has always been deemed an unpredictable and increasingly an irrational player. Willing for many years to starve its population in the face of drought rather than take international aid and willing then to put in jeopardy what aid it had agreed to accept by embarking on a nuclear programme a decade ago. The fact that the aid, from international organisations and a number of states, in particular China, continued flowing even while the programme continued, merely suggested to North Korea that the two were either not connected in the eyes of the international community, or that the fate of the population mattered more to the international community than the nuclear programme.

Both assumptions are probably true when viewed through the awful reality that the North Korean regime has already shown its willingness to decimate its population. And in detonating a nuclear explosion it has undoubtedly knowingly left the international community with the option of doing likewise, in other words abandon the population to starvation and its leaders, or else accept the nuclear reality and continue the flow of aid. Unless, of course, a military option is chosen - which is highly dangerous not only for that same population, but also for the region and the globe.

This is an awful set of choices, which those who agree with the theory of North Korea as irrational player tend to promote as inevitable. This may be true, but inevitability was encouraged by the Bush Doctrine of the Axis of Evil. For it cannot be by chance that in the four and a half years since he defined the axis as composed of Iraq, Iran and North Korea, international relations with all three have totally deteriorated. Iraq has become a wasteland verging on civil war; as a result Iran, largely due to the liberated Shia population in Iraq, has ascended within the Arab world - a world that has become increasingly hostile to the west as a result of the US invasion, and; now North Korea has declared itself nuclear.

Ironically, there is every chance that the Bush administration will suggest that these facts reflect the truth of the axis, rather than see itself as a possible catalyst in creating it. But irony aside, the awful set of choices remains. Should the international community continue in its efforts to engage North Korea in the hope of containing its professed "great leap forward"? Or should it simply cut it off, allow the population to starve and hope to put pressure on the leadership in this way (which is doubtful)? Or else should it - can it - risk a military option?

The latter is not realistic, unless the ability completely to dismantle or at least severely decimate a nuclear capability is apparent - entailing the risk of possible retaliation against neighbouring or regional populations, including the many tens of thousands of US soldiers still stationed in South Korea and Japan.

But it should no longer be possible to simply dismiss the military option either - and this should be a lesson to the EU, which mostly logically abstains from any threat of military force. As the nuclear stand-off continues with Iran, the option of force should be included alongside, not instead of, all the other carrots and sticks. It could make them more effective - if only by presenting them in a more effective light.

• Ilana Bet-El is an academic, author and policy adviser based in Brussels.

Over the past years we have come to see Asia largely in terms of economic growth: from the aspiring tigers to the roaring China. This is undoubtedly true, but the fact is that Asia has also become the most dangerous continent in the world. From the wider Palestine-Israel conflict on its westernmost side, through the various tensions of unstable regimes and the open hostilities of post-invasion Iraq and Afghanistan, to a sequence of declared nuclear states: India, Pakistan and finally China on the easternmost side. Then there is Israel, a probable nuclear state, Iran, an aspiring one and there is North Korea - the surprise declarer of the week.