Making and marketing ballistic missiles leads the global arms race. In the nuclear arsenals, developing, testing and deploying accurate missiles has tor many years been more important in increasing lethality and decreasing crisis stability than warhead development. In conventional military forces, missiles have played important roles in recent wars-especially the 1991 Gulf War-and are prestige-laden weapons sought by most militaries. An increasing number of developing countries are missile-capable due to their independent development of a space booster rocket capability. Many others have a long-run missile option in train as a result of their burgeoning modernization and industrialization. The diffusion of rocket technology is unstoppable in this regard and the world will be forced to turn to combinations of incentives and sanctions to ensure that plowshares are not beaten into swords. Divided Korea is a unique example of this set of issues. The situation in Korea (including Korean missile activities) are peculiarly influenced by the continuing division of the Korean nation. No other current or likely missile-making or -exporting state exhibits the same degree of political-military volatility or lethal competition. Conversely, the cultural similarities, common history, and geopolitical contiguity of the two Koreas highlight domestic political-economic and institutional factors that help to explain why the two Korea's missile strategies have diverged.
