Phantom menace.

How the "son of Star Wars" jeopardizes peace in Korea.

BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS LIKE SOUTH Korea's Catholic president Kim Dae Jung because they share their blessings with a world that is less scary and dangerous because of their efforts. Kim has devoted his life to courageous risk taking on behalf of peace and human rights. Breaking through decades of suspicion and fear, he stepped across physical and psychological barriers last year when he became the first president of South Korea to visit North Korea. He has been recognized for his efforts with the Nobel Peace Prize.

Events had moved so quickly and promisingly in Korea because of Kim's work that in February there was actually talk of a peace treaty to formally end decades of hostility, discussions about including North Korea in the South's electric power grid, and planning for a summer summit meeting in Seoul. Kim's "sunshine policy" was clearly leading to greater contacts between Korean politicians and families, perhaps even moving toward talks on reunification.

What a sad spectacle for proponents of peaceful resolution to international conflict then was Kim's treatment at the hands of the Bush White House. A visit to Washington in March has apparently thwarted his three-year campaign for peace in Korea. His interest in maintaining the peace momentum was discouraged by an administration that seems more interested in replaying Cold War models of antagonism and suspicion than embracing a kinder and gentler foreign policy that relies more on diplomacy than military muscle.

It's hard not to wonder if President Bush's colder eye toward North Korea is not somehow related to his well-publicized interest in the National Missile Defense initiative, an expensive new military expansion that holds out the hope of the promise of eventually someday perhaps being able to maybe knock three or four, maybe less, nuclear warheads out of the sky. They think.

Bush's NMD, dubbed "son of Star Wars" by skeptical allies, is a $65 billion technological Maginot Line against missiles fired at the U.S. by "rogue nations." The rogue nation most often mentioned in relation to the NMD program is North Korea. If history is a guide, massive new outlays for military spending require a suitably nefarious enemy. The paranoid regime that runs the benighted North Korea makes a suitable foil for NMD proponents.

But trading a realistic promise of peace in Korea for the dubious promise of a nuclear shield in North America is a diplomatic tragedy of historic proportions. North and South Korea appear on the verge of a breakthrough that could lead to reunification and bring real peace to this beleaguered peninsula for the first time since the end of World War II. NMD, on the other hand, is a full-featured diplomatic flop. It not only antagonizes allies, it also shoots down three decades of nuclear arms control. Analysts warn that NMD is likely to begin a new arms race with Russia and China.

Worse, from a technological standpoint there is little doubt that NMD will not work as advertised. Countermeasures could easily evade its hunt-and-destroy capabilities. The program couples all the disadvantages that bad technology and Pentagon paranoia can offer and misses a more realistic threat to Americans: low-cost, high-casualty terrorist acts that could be as simple as smuggling a nuclear or biological weapon into any U.S. port using standard freighting. We don't have to scan for terror in the skies. A more likely threat will be located in a suitcase at JFK.

Jesus never got around to mentioning it, but if peacemakers like Kim are blessed, one has to wonder where that leaves warmongers. It's dangerous to take risks for peace as President Kim is doing. But it's at least as dangerous to take diplomatic risks for war.

The 21st century requires more of the last superpower than to hunker down in fortress America behind walls of suspicion and technology while a world of need struggles to talk to somebody inside. It is not time for us to withdraw from the difficult political problems of our times like Korea, Northern Ireland, the Middle East, and Africa; it is time for us to become more meaningfully engaged in them. Yes, as President Bush says, let's be an America that listens more. But to listen more you have to first be there.

How much more blessed are those willing to risk peace than build a foundation for war.

KEVIN CLARKE, managing editor of online products at Claretian Publications in Chicago.