Tag Archive for: Nuclear Weapons

Agenda for Change 2016: Strategic choices for the next government

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The defence of Australia’s interests is a core business of federal governments. Regardless of who wins the election on July 2, the incoming government will have to grapple with a wide range of security issues. This report provides a range of perspectives on selected defence and national security issues, as well as a number of policy recommendations.

Contributors include Kim Beazley, Peter Jennings, Graeme Dobell, Shiro Armstrong, Andrew Davies, Tobias Feakin, Malcolm Davis, Rod Lyon, Mark Thomson, Jacinta Carroll, Paul Barnes, John Coyne, David Connery, Anthony Bergin, Lisa Sharland, Christopher Cowan, James Mugg, Simon Norton, Cesar Alvarez, Jessica Woodall, Zoe Hawkins, Liam Nevill, Dione Hodgson, David Lang, Amelia Long and Lachlan Wilson.

ASPI produced a similar brief before the 2013 election. There are some enduring challenges, such as cybersecurity, terrorism and an uncertain global economic outlook. Natural disasters are a constant feature of life on the Pacific and Indian Ocean rim.

But there are also challenges that didn’t seem so acute only three years ago such as recent events in the South China Sea, North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, and ISIS as a military threat and an exporter of global terrorism.

The incumbent for the next term of government will have to deal with these issues.

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A delicate issue: Asia’s nuclear future

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The world stands on the cusp of a new era in nuclear relations—one in which Asia is likely to become the dominant influence on global nuclear arrangements. The old, bilateral nuclear symmetry of the Cold War is giving way to new multiplayer, asymmetric nuclear relationships. And it is doing so at a time when power balances are shifting across Asia, when pressures for proliferation are returning to the regional agenda, and when non-state actors are an increasingly worrying part of the Asian nuclear equation.

The paper, authored by Rod Lyon, argues that Australia’s own policy options will be profoundly shaped by how Asia’s nuclear future unfolds. It looks at how Australia can assist with redesigning nuclear order in a cooperative Asia but notes a darker, more competitive Asian nuclear future would confront Australian policymakers with difficult choices, of hedging rather than ordering.

The report concludes that Australian strategic policy should retain the flexibility to accommodate a range of possible Asian nuclear futures, striking a balance between its ordering and hedging strategies during a possible turbulent era in regional security.

Tag Archive for: Nuclear Weapons

Australia’s role in evolving nuclear arms control landscape

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It has been seven years since the drafting of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which has now been ratified or acceded to by 70 nations. While its recognition is extraordinary, including a Nobel Peace Prize awarded to its organizing body, the International Coalition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the situation feels like a movie script that may not have a feel-good ending. While advocates of the treaty argue that it bolsters non-proliferation and disarmament, some nuclear weapons states (NWS) are retreating further and further from existing arms control protocols and agreements, such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Although it is unlikely that NWS will join the TPNW, there is also the alarming failure of some of these states to engage in meaningful arms control measures to avoid exacerbating an already-volatile security environment. For example, China has recently reiterated its refusal to engage in arms control talks after suspending them in protest of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. Additionally, Russian leaders have decided not to engage in the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which is set to expire in two years. So, can anything be done to rewrite this script? Can states with strong non-proliferation credentials, who also rely on NWS for extended nuclear deterrence, play a role in strengthening the nuclear regime if arms control talks fail to resume?

Australia holds a strong position in the nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime, which includes monitoring and regulating the military and civilian use of nuclear material. Australia’s past and present commitment to the nuclear non-proliferation regime should be held in high regard. Of course, this has come under scrutiny in the wake of AUKUS. However, to address concerns over the proliferation risk associated with acquiring nuclear-powered submarines, Australia is negotiating a comprehensive safeguards regime with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) alongside its AUKUS partners.

In fact, Australia has long used its position in the nuclear regime to ensure that member states and signatories to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) adhere to strict nuclear safeguards and promote nuclear disarmament. There is no evidence to suggest that Australia is pivoting from this position. However, in the wake of waning arms control negotiations, Russia and China’s rejection of the United Nations Security Council Resolution on a weapons-free outer space and Russia’s nuclear threats, Australia can be proactive in promoting stability and security in three keys ways:

—Strengthening diplomatic efforts through multilateral diplomacy and bilateral relationships. Actively engaging in international forums to advocate for the resumption of talks, while using bilateral channels, can encourage dialogue between major powers. Australia has also shown that small groups of countries, including some under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, can make progress though initiatives that complement the NPT. This includes the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative (NPDI) that Australia co-chairs with Japan, which South Korea should consider joining.

—Persisting with support for existing norms and treaties, with an emphasis on reinforcing Australia’s continued commitment to upholding the principles of non-proliferation and maintaining support for the NPT (which has strong verification and enforcement mechanisms; the TPNW has none) and Nuclear Weapons Free Zones (NWFZ). Indeed, Australia’s position as a uranium supplier—currently fourth globally—comes with strict guidelines requiring recipients of its uranium to be covered by IAEA safeguards, including the Additional Protocol. No third party can gain access to Australian uranium without Australia’s prior consent, and nuclear-weapon states cannot use Australian obligated nuclear material (AONM) for anything other than peaceful purposes.

—Strengthening non-proliferation by supporting U.S. extended deterrence. Australia, South Korea, Japan and the NATO allies can be more vocal about the stabilizing function of the U.S. nuclear umbrella, both to dissuade proliferation and deter aggression. This cannot only be achieved behind closed doors among U.S. allies through formats like the Australian-U.S. Strategic Policy Dialogue and evolving of mini-laterals. It should also be part of the messaging around regional diplomatic and military engagements, like the biennial Talisman Sabre military exercise held in 2023 with 13 other nations. This would hopefully build confidence and understanding among regional partners who are not U.S. treaty allies, perhaps encouraging broader talks about the stabilizing function of U.S. power projection. Candid communication about the positive nexus between U.S. extended deterrence and non-proliferation is essential to rebut Moscow and Beijing’s self-serving claims that the two are opposed.

So, while the distance between all critical nations joining the TPNW seems to be growing, and stalled arms control negotiations herald a time for deep reflection on the state of our regional and global security environment, there is still much non-nuclear weapons states like Australia can achieve. Holding strong to our commitment to a world without nuclear proliferation will hopefully mean that this current script can be rewritten.

 

The future legacy of Hiroshima

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On 6 August—75 years ago today—the first nuclear weapon used in anger was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. One more was used against Nagasaki on 9 August, and since then, no nuclear weapons have been used in anger.

The physical impact of those two attacks transformed how the world thought about war and imposed a terrible human cost that has generated pressures against further nuclear weapon use. Although there’s debate over death toll figures, estimates range from 70,000 to 140,000 dead at Hiroshima and 40,000 to 70,000 at Nagasaki. This doesn’t take into account the long-term medical and psychological effects of the use of just two nuclear weapons.

Seventy-five years later, nuclear weapons continue to cast a shadow over the international security environment. Efforts towards total nuclear disarmament were never really credible, but arms control—a more practical immediate step—now looks set to falter as well. With major-power competition rising, and prospects for international cooperation on reducing the number and efficacy of nuclear weapons receding, the odds of avoiding the next use of nuclear weapons in anger are declining.

Certainly, a key factor in preventing further use of nuclear weapons has been credible deterrent strategies and the maintenance of survivable nuclear deterrent capabilities. But a degree of luck, too, has contributed to establishing a norm of non-use of nuclear weapons. It also helps that the major powers have all been rational actors—mutual self-interest in avoiding mutual self-annihilation has been a powerful motivation against using nuclear weapons. That’s generated a taboo against use of nuclear weapons, which, as Nina Tannenwald argued, ‘has stigmatised nuclear weapons as unacceptable—“weapons of mass destruction”’.

In considering the prospect of a more dangerous and contested future, the key questions are whether our luck will hold, whether deterrence will continue to work or remain relevant, and whether that taboo is real enough to enable us to avoid nuclear-weapon use in the future.

First, in terms of luck, although the Cold War had its share of crises and nuclear ‘near misses’, there was at least a degree of broad stability in the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, with both sides largely sticking to undeclared rules on crisis management, especially after the near-miss of October 1962. That in turn made arms control possible, enabled by confidence-building and verification measures and regular high-level dialogue.

Staying lucky may be a passing trend.

The end of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019, and now the likely prospect that the 2010 New START agreement on strategic nuclear forces won’t be extended by the February 2021 deadline, increase the risk that the undeclared rules for major-power behaviour will fray. The lapse of New START would essentially see the end of meaningful arms control between the US and Russia.

This is occurring at the same time as both Russia and China are modernising their nuclear forces, with the US is set to follow suit in updating its increasingly ageing nuclear capabilities and infrastructure. The absence of arms control and the strategic dialogue that went with it would take US–Russia relations back to the tense times of the 1950s and potentially see rapidly escalating numbers of warheads and delivery systems being acquired in an action–reaction cycle driven by rising security dilemmas.

That sounds bad enough, but in the 21st century it’s a far more complex strategic picture, and that complexity could erode the efficacy of nuclear deterrence overall. Although the People’s Republic of China has had nuclear weapons since 1964, the central strategic deterrence dynamic that shaped stability and arms control engagement through the Cold War was always between Moscow and Washington. In 2020 and beyond, the US must contend not only with Russia deploying new types of nuclear capabilities (including nuclear-powered strategic cruise missiles and the Poseidon nuclear unmanned underwater vehicle, as well as hypersonic weapons) but also China modernising its nuclear delivery systems.

Added to this are the complex secondary deterrence relationships which are now emerging. These include the risk of nuclear action–reaction arms racing between India and China and between India and Pakistan, and the risk of a highly unstable deterrence triangle between all three powers against the context of active border disputes along the India–Pakistan and India–China borders. There are also challenges from an unpredictable nuclear-armed North Korea, as well as a risk that Iran will once and for all break out of the now-dead Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which would have constrained its nuclear options at least until the mid-2030s. Things are looking much more messy and less controllable.

So, the clean deterrence theory of mutually assured destruction that characterised US–Soviet decision-making in the Cold War will be weakened by growing complexity and strategic uncertainty implicit in a multi-faceted nuclear order. That makes staying lucky much harder to guarantee in the next major nuclear crisis.

But what about the nuclear taboo? It’s impossible to really know whether the likes of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, or military decision-makers in Pakistan, see nuclear weapons as non-usable in a crisis. The issue of Russia’s integration of non-nuclear and non-strategic nuclear weapons and the debate over ‘escalate to de-escalate’ in Russian nuclear doctrine have generated uncertainty over whether Russia would use nuclear weapons pre-emptively in a local crisis. China maintains a ‘no first use’ posture, but concerns are growing that it could seek to race to nuclear parity, which could see that commitment erode.

The US, UK and French nuclear arsenals remain configured for traditional deterrence roles, but the US arms control community has raised concerns that new W76-2 low-yield warheads for the US Trident D-5 missile and a nuclear-armed submarine-launched cruise missile could lower the US nuclear threshold. New technologies such as hypersonics and advanced autonomous systems add to a more uncertain and complex future for the stability of nuclear deterrence and the efficacy of a nuclear taboo, and it would be a brave assumption to suggest that nuclear weapons will never be used again.

Will the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty survive the 2020s?

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This year marks the 50th anniversary of the entry into force of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The treaty has three separate but inter-related objectives: preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and nuclear-weapon technologies to more countries; promoting cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy; and pressing the existing nuclear-weapon states to disarm.

With 191 states parties, it enjoys almost universal membership. Today, only India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea and South Sudan remain outside it. (North Korea did join, in December 1985, but never came into compliance and left in January 2003.) Of course, the first four of those countries have all built nuclear weapons, which severely constrains their options for future membership: the treaty contains no provision under which they could be admitted as nuclear-weapon states, entitled to the same status and privileges as the five officially recognised nuclear powers (the US, Russia, China, France and the UK).

Treaty members will vent about a range of issues during the upcoming five-yearly review conference, scheduled to take place in New York from 27 April to 22 May. North Korean nuclear and missile developments, the trials of the Iranian nuclear deal, the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and the continuing modernisation programs of the five recognised nuclear weapon states—instead of disarmament—provide plenty of new grist for the mill.

Still, every review conference seems to precipitate a sense of unease over the future of the treaty. This year’s no different. Yet the NPT will survive this conference, too, because most treaty members continue to believe that an uncontrolled spread of nuclear weapons would make for a more dangerous international security environment than the one we already have. Moreover, few states would want the NPT to collapse and leave the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (which still hasn’t been ratified by enough states to enter into force) in sole possession of the field.

Harder to calculate, and more worrying, is the shifting relationship between the NPT and geopolitics. Let’s see the treaty for what it is—an attempt to freeze the world in the nuclear status quo of 1968, when the treaty was first opened for signature. As such, the NPT represents an attempt to disconnect nuclear weapons from the geopolitical power shifts that have occurred since then.

True, the freeze wasn’t perfectly solid. The treaty gave some wriggle room. Once the treaty entered into force, there were only two ways that a country not previously protected by nuclear weapons could acquire such protection: it could leave the treaty under the ‘supreme national interest’ clause (or never join in the first place) and build its own nuclear arsenal in the teeth of international disapproval; or it could enter into an alliance relationship with one of the recognised nuclear-weapon states and gain the protection of extended nuclear deterrence.

India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea took the first course. The ‘new NATO’ states took the second. NATO was an alliance of 15 countries in 1968; today it’s an alliance of 29. US extended nuclear deterrence, which covered perhaps 20 countries worldwide in 1968, now covers almost double that number.

Of course, the attraction of the second course turns heavily upon a set of judgements about the credibility and resilience of extended nuclear assurances. For such assurances to be a substitute for a national indigenous program, they have to be more than superficially plausible—and the benchmark tends to climb steeply as the sense of imminent threat grows.

And here we come to the central quandary. Looked at in the broadest sense, the NPT has led something of a sheltered geopolitical existence. Born into a bipolar strategic world, where the bulk of nuclear weapons were in the hands of two risk-averse superpowers, both of which knew well the terrible costs of great-power war, the treaty added an ordering layer to a geopolitical environment in which caution, and recognised spheres of influence, already prevailed.

The treaty was originally intended to last for 25 years, which meant it expired, and was indefinitely extended, in the year 1995—probably the single best year in the last 50 ideally suited to achieving that outcome. The world of 1995, remember, was a unipolar one, where US dominance and the ‘end of history’ thesis suggested global geopolitical convergence.

No such favourable geopolitical environment now exists. Neither bipolarity nor unipolarity has prepared us for the emerging security challenges that now confront us. An NPT which held back proliferation incentives during those earlier, less strategically demanding eras might find it harder to contain such pressures in an age of multipolarity and risk-tolerant actors. And, given the weight it’s now carrying, a US less willing to run nuclear risks on behalf of its allies could throw a serious spanner into the works.

Nuclear proliferation is rare. And it’s always treated on a case-by-case basis. But the four successful non-NPT proliferators have proven that the world has no strategy—save another Desert Storm—to halt proliferation by a determined proliferator.

Nor does it have a strategy for managing proliferation pressures if US extended nuclear deterrence were to falter. The steady expansion of US nuclear commitments in the post–Cold War era suggests a world where the demand for nuclear protection could outrun the supply. Indeed, there are growing concerns that the supply itself might be contracting as US engagement declines—which may explain some of the teasing hints in French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent speech on nuclear doctrine, holding out the possibility of closer nuclear links between France and its neighbours.

Can we reinvent the NPT for the world of 2020? Frankly, I don’t see how we do that—not without reopening the whole question of nuclear identity. The NPT forced states to choose their nuclear identity in the geopolitical world of 1968, when only five countries—the Permanent Five of the UN Security Council—had conducted nuclear tests. Repeating the exercise now would open a veritable Pandora’s box. Even Australia, a country patently unenthusiastic about a more densely proliferated world, would probably find a decision now more difficult than the one it took five decades ago.

When Australian nuclear weapons could make sense

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What a way to start a year! The debate initiated by three former Australian deputy secretaries of defence—Hugh White, Paul Dibb and Richard Brabin-Smith—about the possibility of Australia acquiring nuclear weapons is certainly being noticed by many Americans. ‘Is this serious?’ is a common question from security analysts here in Washington DC.

My response is ‘Yes and no’. No, Australia isn’t about to start pouring concrete for reactors, or dusting off plans and drawings from its old centrifuge program of the 1970s and 1980s. Yes, we’ll be in dire straits if the rise of China continues and the US can’t regain the stable governance and international focus that helped it win the Cold War. The question then becomes ‘Will Australia go nuclear in the future?’, and the answer has to be ‘That depends.’

Australia would consider nuclear weapons only if there were a direct, existential threat to the country. The move would almost certainly be signalled by a massive and rapid increase in our defence budget and capabilities, which currently grow at a glacial pace. We would have to have lost confidence in US extended nuclear deterrence, which is a benefit of the alliance that Canberra—thanks to our lucky geography—has never had to pay as much attention to as US allies in the northern hemisphere. Before that happens, we’d conduct a massive political and official push to engage the US on the practicalities of its nuclear guarantees.

We’d also probably want a green light from the US: nuclear weapons are no panacea, and they’d take a long time to build. Even if the US were to abrogate its formal treaty responsibilities, continued access to US intelligence, technology and weapons systems would become even more important to us than it is now. If the choice were between maximising the advantages of our geographic position for a conventional defence based on US technology, or going it alone for the uncertain benefits of what would be for decades a small and short-range nuclear arsenal, there’d be no real choice.

Indonesia’s reaction would also be a crucial consideration. We benefit hugely from the absence of nuclear weapons east of India and south of China. An Indonesian nuclear weapons program in response to an Australian one would lead to a massive deterioration in our strategic circumstances. If an Australian nuclear program in response to a third-party threat led to an Indonesian nuclear weapon, the cure may be worse than the disease.

What kind of plausible strategic problems might fulfil these criteria and be mitigated by Australian nuclear weapons? An Indonesian nuclear program that threatened Australia is one. But if the main concern is that US strategic nuclear forces might not deter, say, North Korea, an Australian arsenal would hardly make a difference.

Could China coerce Australia with its nuclear weapons? Everything in China’s history points to its strong belief that the main value of its own small nuclear force is in countering nuclear coercion. A larger arsenal might give it more nuclear strike options against the US, but China’s conventional and economic power in Asia is already such that it doesn’t need to threaten the use of nuclear weapons to impose its new order on the region.

Hence, the use of overwhelming conventional forces to invade Australia, or to otherwise coerce us into submission, is left as the second problem that might be solved by Australian nukes. In practice, that would require Chinese control of bases in Indonesia.

Even then, given China’s clear confidence in the viability of its conventional war options, and in the deterrent value of its limited nuclear forces against even the US nuclear arsenal, Australian countervalue targeting of the Chinese homeland probably wouldn’t be a wise strategic posture.

It might be less technically challenging and strategically more promising to use nuclear weapons to create the tactical dilemmas that the US and NATO sought to impose on the Soviet Union during the Cold War: concentrate forces to overcome conventional defences and be destroyed by nuclear attack, or disperse and invite piecemeal destruction by conventional forces.

However, whether that idea would apply to the maritime defence of Australia in the 21st century is as uncertain as the motivations that would push an adversary to make that effort against us in the first place. A serious study of the political and operational aspects of such a scenario would be the key to assessing whether nuclear weapons could really be a solution to our prospective security problems, rather than a distraction from them.

Exporting North Korea’s nukes

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The United States has announced that it’s reserving the option of military force to prevent North Korea acquiring the means to deliver a nuclear warhead using a long range ballistic missile. It’s time to check our thinking about what North Korea’s counterattack response might be. Not all of the DPRK’s potential responses, nor their potential impacts, are being discussed.

Current assessments of North Korea’s ability to attack the US are based on the assumption that delivery of a nuclear weapon is dependent on missile technology. But North Korea already has a system capable of delivering nuclear weapons anywhere—it’s just not rocket powered.

Globalisation’s been driven in part by the development of technology. One of the most significant developments was the invention of shipping containers. Designed for peaceful and lawful purposes, they’ve been used—and continue to be used—as instruments of crime, to move narcotics, weapons, stolen property, and humans around the world. They could also be used to deliver nuclear weapons. They’re the perfect intercontinental mobile ballistic ‘missile’ system. A nuclear weapon placed inside a container could be delivered to any country and to any city, including those far from sea ports, using trains or trucks. And they cannot be destroyed by anti-ballistic missile systems being deployed by the US.

Many military strategists assume that North Korea’s hidden its nuclear weapons deep underground to protect them from an attack by the US. Hiding the weapons deep underground would make sense if the North Korean strategy were to protect them from destruction, and if the American objective was merely to destroy them and North Korea’s capacity to produce more. But if the US intended to remove the regime, then hiding nuclear weapons would make no sense from the perspective of the North Korean leadership. Its senior leaders, especially the paranoid President, will assume that any attack by the US will have removal of the government as one of its objectives. Even if regime change wasn’t the US objective, the leadership would still feel threatened. With nothing to lose, it makes sound strategic sense for the North Koreans to respond to any attack in a way that not only cripples the US but the world economy as well.

Nuclear weapons could be smuggled out of North Korea via China, or by fishing vessel or diesel electric submarine, and then be placed into containers on a cargo ship for transport to a port anywhere in the world. Concealing the weapons would be easy with 3,000 free trade zones around the world, many in countries with high levels of corruption, where goods can be rebadged and re-invoiced, with little or no scrutiny from a competent authority. North Korea’s knowledge of world trade systems, with help from countries friendly to it, has enabled it to evade the full impact of sanctions for years, allowing it to develop missile systems and for the regime to remain in power.

If the Pong Su, a North Korean freighter could drop a large quantity of narcotics off the Australian coast near a major city, a fanatical regime facing extinction at the hands of a deeply hated enemy wouldn’t think twice about sending a container bearing a nuclear device into the US or an allied country and detonating it. Alternatively, similar to the use of Japanese midget submarines to attack Sydney harbour during World War 2, North Korea could sail a nuclear bomb laden diesel electric submarine into an American or Australian port and explode the weapon.

North Korea understands that the US and the world economy would be crippled by a nuclear counterattack. And it further appreciates that just the threat of shipping containers bearing nuclear weapons sitting in locations around the world awaiting detonation by its agents would cause the US to think twice about attacking it. Such an action would result in the US and its allies diverting resources to search for and find the weapons, or taking pains to confirm their non-existence.

With over 17 million shipping containers in circulation, weaponised containers would be hard to detect. The large number means that thousands could be deployed as decoys, increasing the chances that the few carrying nuclear weapons are successfully delivered and exploded.

It’s imperative that the US treads carefully and does not plan any attack on North Korea on the assumption that it’s going to respond like a text book enemy. The North Korean leadership has shown that, while it appears irrational, it’s smart and ruthless. And it’ll respond accordingly when attacked. A failure in imagination in any assessment of North Korea’s options to respond to a US attack could have a devastating impact not only on the United States of America but the entire world, involving a significant loss of life and global economic ruin.

No appeasement for North Korea

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Earlier this month, North Korea carried out its fifth nuclear test—its second this year. Judging by the tremor detected, it was the North’s most powerful nuclear device ever. The question now is how the international community should respond.

That question has become all the more acute because, though North Korean reports aren’t exactly reliable, the propaganda that accompanied the latest test hinted that the North was testing a weapon design, not just an explosive device. And, as South Korean officials have suggested, it may not be the last test of this year. In other words, North Korea may begin to stockpile weapons of mass destruction.

Not only have the North’s recent nuclear tests been more powerful than those of previous years; they’ve also been conducted alongside an equally robust series of tests of ballistic missiles, including submarine launches and multi-stage rocket launches, with much more powerful engines. This means that North Korea may be close to perfecting a delivery system for whatever weapons it’s developing.

No one can say for sure whether a deliverable weapon will come from North Korea in the next two years, four years, or later. But there is little doubt that the North Koreans are not just seeking attention; they are seeking a powerful bomb and the means to use it.

As expected, the international community has unvaryingly condemned the tests. But not everyone agrees on what else to do. Some observers, including New York Times contributor Joel S. Wit and former intelligence officer Scott Ritter, declare that now would be an appropriate time to initiate talks with the North Koreans.

The logic behind such suggestions seems to come down to, ‘What have we got to lose?’ The answer is simple: plenty.

Such talks—‘dialogue’ as the Chinese often call it—would most likely bring with it a general acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear-weapons state. Moreover, the North would be unlikely to engage in any such talks, much less impose a moratorium on weapons tests, unless some of their longstanding demands—such as the suspension of joint military exercises by the United States and South Korea—were met.

This Realpolitik approach, some seem to believe, will somehow diminish whatever power the North Koreans wield, essentially disarming them. But the truth is that the North has done nothing to earn such appeasement. And, in fact, if the international community were to make any such conciliatory gestures, the result would be a bolder North Korea.

But there’s a good reason why the international community—and the United States, in particular—has refused to agree to North Korea’s terms, particularly the suspension of US–South Korea military exercises. Joint military exercises are an essential part of any alliance. If two countries agree to mutual defence, they need to ensure that their cooperation is practiced and perfected. That is precisely why North Korea, which knows a thing or two about the need for tests and exercises, has made the issue a top propaganda priority.

Instead of giving into such demands, the US has long held that it will engage in talks with North Korea only if they are based on previous agreements, including the September 2005 joint statement, which obliged the North to abandon all nuclear programs. This is a sensible position. After all, launching new talks that ignored past obligations would cast doubt on the viability of any new accord.

To be sure, pursuant to a February 2007 agreement, North Korea did take concrete steps to disable its nuclear facilities, including demolition of the cooling tower at its main atomic reactor in the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center in June 2008. Such measures were supposed to brake the country’s nuclear momentum, by ensuring that restarting the program would be costly—perhaps even prohibitively so.

But, by restarting its nuclear program without rebuilding the cooling tower, North Korea has avoided many of those costs. Kim Jong-un’s regime—which has as little regard for the environment as it does for international rules and norms—simply called for the steaming water used to cool the reactor to be dumped into a nearby river.

Against this background, the argument for talks is weak. After all, negotiations are simply a means to an end, and if that end is unclear or unlikely, it makes little sense to engage in them. Instead, the international community should reject North Korea’s demands outright, ending the regime’s fantasy that the world will simply accept it as a nuclear-weapons state.

Fortunately, the international community’s response to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions generally aligns with this imperative. What’s needed is more cooperation with China on sanctions enforcement, as well as deep and quiet talks with the Chinese that aim to address any strategic mistrust over the eventual political arrangements on the Korean Peninsula.

The US should also continue to strengthen its security relations with Japan and South Korea, including by developing and deploying antiballistic missile systems. Direct measures like those that were allegedly used to hamper Iran’s nuclear program should be explored and accelerated.

None of this is to say that engaging North Korea is not an option. On the contrary, previous agreements should remain on the table. The September 2005 deal addressed North Korea’s key national interests: it gained assurances of peace and diplomatic recognition, in exchange for the dismantling of its nuclear program.

If the Kim regime really wants an opportunity to join the international community, it has everything it needs, written, agreed, and ready to be implemented. If, however, it wants to continue its march toward nuclearisation, it should know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it will remain a pariah. Its status as a nuclear-weapons state will never be accepted.

A generational shift in the North Korean nuclear program?

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The death last week of General Jon Pyong-ho, aged 88, chief architect of the North Korean nuclear program, raises the tantalising question, ‘where to from here?’. We’ve become accustomed to a North Korean nuclear program that limps rather than runs. Two factors have constrained the program: a shortage of fissile material and a lack of nuclear testing. Deals cut in the 1990s and at the Six Party Talks (SPT) have also slowed proceedings; twice now the small 5MWe gas graphite reactor (the source of all the North’s current stockpile of plutonium) has been mothballed—and subsequently de-mothballed. But with that reactor being restarted last October, and a new 25MWe light water reactor (LWR) coming on-stream, are we about to see a generational shift to a new, more energetic North Korean nuclear program?

The short answer is ‘no’. The longer answer is more complicated. Broadly, fissile material shortages seem likely to hamper the program for some time yet. Estimates vary as to the size of the current North Korean plutonium stockpile. The US Congressional Research Service figure of between 30 and 50kg (enough for five to eight bombs) seems reasonable, but that figure could be lower if the third nuclear test involved a plutonium device rather than a uranium one (something we don’t know). If the 5MWe reactor is now running smoothly again, Pyongyang can use it to produce about one-bomb’s-worth (6kg) of plutonium per year. But the process is slow, beginning with construction of suitable fuel rods for the reactor, irradiation of the fuel in the reactor, removal and cooling of the fuel, and reprocessing to extract the plutonium. Read more

A minimum-yield threshold treaty?

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The Strategist has featured a number of items recently related to the Strategic Insights paper that Crispin Rovere and Kalman Robertson have written about the proposed next step in nuclear arms control. Broadly, the original authors call for a minimum-yield threshold treaty on the grounds that low-yield nuclear weapons are uniquely dangerous—more likely to be used than their larger siblings, less amenable to positive control by national leaderships, and an invitation to nuclear arms races and escalation ladders. Their latest contribution to this debate—their response to Malcolm Davis’ objections—repeats this argument about unique dangers, while asserting that it is mere military logic, not misplaced humanitarianism, that lies behind their proposal.

Let me begin by saying that I don’t accept the assumption underlying the Rovere and Robertson approach—that the most usable nuclear weapons are necessarily the most dangerous ones. The logic of that approach is that nuclear weapons states should be allowed to build only those nuclear weapons which are less usable. Their particular gripe against low-yield nuclear weapons is that those weapons stand at the firebreak between conventional and nuclear war. But there’s a good argument for having some nuclear weapons that allow nuclear deterrence to fail in discrete small packets rather than in one sudden complete collapse. Insisting that it fail in larger packets wouldn’t be a step forward. Read more

Prohibiting low-yield nuclear weapons is a step in the right direction

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Malcolm Davis raises some important issues regarding our proposal for a treaty restricting low-yield nuclear weapons. We’re word limited on our response, so we strongly recommend the longer discussion paper for subject-matter experts as it examines comprehensively all of the issues that Dr Davis quite rightly raised.

There are of course a number of views put forward by Davis that we’d associate ourselves with; such as the role of traditional nuclear deterrence, and the need to pursue tools in addition to arms control for reducing nuclear risk (he referred to tactical ballistic missile defence systems for instance).

And yet, the scepticisms expressed with respect to the proposed treaty appear to reflect a misunderstanding of the relationship that exists between this proposed arms control measure and overall military strategy. Read more

A low-yield solution to nuclear problems

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A U.S. developed M-388 Davy Crockett nuclear weapon mounted to a recoilless rifle on a tripod, shown here at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland in March 1961. It used the smallest nuclear warhead ever developed by the United States, March 1961.

Crispin Rovere and Kalman A Robertson suggest eliminating low-yield non-strategic nuclear weapons (NSNW) in ‘Non-strategic nuclear weapons: The next step in multilateral arms control’. I’m sceptical of their proposed solution—a Minimum Yield Threshold Treaty. Firstly, their definition of a ‘low-yield’ weapon as having a yield of 5 kilotons (kt) or lower is open to challenge given the nature of modern nuclear weapons which have selectable yields. This definition creates a serious problem because states with low-yield NSNWs can design such weapons to have yields higher than 5 kt, and be excluded from any minimum-yield threshold treaty. This would make any such treaty relatively easy to circumvent from a technical standpoint.

A more fundamental problem is how to make such a treaty actually happen. How do you convince North Korea, Israel, India and Pakistan, and potentially Iran in the near future, to sign an agreement to ban low-yield NSNWs? New nuclear weapons states choose to acquire these weapons in line with what they judge to be their strategic interests. For example, Pakistan’s acquisition of NSNWs can be seen to be a response to a combination of Indian conventional military advantage, and lack of Pakistani geographical depth along the lines of any Indian military advance, together with lack of warning time under Indian ‘Cold Start’ military doctrine. Removal of Pakistan’s NSNWs would see Islamabad faced with either a quick defeat at the conventional warfighting level, or rapid escalation to strategic nuclear strikes on Indian cities in the event of a major conflict on the subcontinent. Pakistan’s rapidly growing nuclear arsenal generates a security dilemma for Delhi in return, which responds through its own nuclear modernisation. Read more