Tag Archive for: North Korea

Time for double or nothing with North Korea

Two missile maintenance crewmen perform an electrical check on a US LGM-30F Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in its silo.

In a recent article in Foreign Affairs, Robert Art and Robert Jervis wrote about the late Kenneth Waltz’s unique contribution to the field of international politics.  One of the things Waltz brought to his research was an interest in economics and, as Art and Jervis note, that interest made Waltz focus on incentives. So let’s have a look at the incentives on the current North Korean nuclear issue.

At the moment, we hold out to Pyongyang the incentive that it can have a proper economy and become a fully-fledged member of the international community if it renounces its nuclear program.  We pair that incentive with a matching disincentive: that if North Korea proceeds down the nuclear path it will find itself subjected to increasingly stringent sanctions and international isolation.

That incentive structure hasn’t changed much over the last two decades. But any observer of North Korean behaviour over that time would have to conclude that those incentives don’t seem to be delivering the desired outcome. North Korea has now conducted three nuclear tests, all of small but gradually increasing yield, and has opened a second pathway—uranium enrichment—to the production of fissile material, alongside its earlier plutonium reprocessing efforts. It has constructed a missile that can put a satellite into orbit. True, the satellite’s probably pretty lightweight, but the launch vehicle is clearly the basis of an intercontinental delivery system. Read more

What the North Korean nuclear test also means

Nuclear fear

North Korea’s latest nuclear test has been discussed from several angles: the level of technological progress of the regime; if China should and will end its support for its neighbour; and whether tougher sanctions by the international community would have any significant impact on Pyongyang’s nuclear behaviour. Yet, equally significant is the fact that North Korea’s nuclear test is also part of a broader picture: the emergence of nuclear multipolarity in the Asia-Pacific region.

After the Cold War, there were high hopes that the role of nuclear weapons in international politics would diminish. And for a short time, things seemed to be moving in that direction as both the United States and Russia started to reduce the number of their strategic nuclear warheads during the 1990s. But more than 20 years later, Washington and Moscow still retain enough nuclear stockpiles to wipe each other off the map multiple times. France and the United Kingdom show no signs of getting rid of their minimum nuclear deterrent despite their enormous financial costs. And Israel certainly has no intention of dismantling its ‘unofficial’ nuclear arsenal in the face of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Read more

A third North Korean nuclear test could be a game changer

In a recent article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Siegfried Hecker from Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation suggested North Korea could conduct a third nuclear weapon test within as little as two weeks if it chooses to do so. His warning is a timely one—not least because a successful nuclear test by Pyongyang might seriously disturb the strategic dynamic in Northeast Asia.

Public anxiety about a possible third test seemed more focused a few months ago. Indeed, the botched April launch of a satellite into space using a long-range missile gave rise to fears that the North would try to conduct another more successful nuclear weapon test. Given the level of development of the North Korean nuclear weapon program and the drivers of the regime, a third test is highly likely at some point in the future. With Kim Jong-un expected to rule for decades, he has few aces up his sleeve, including a nuclear one.

So far the two previous tests have not much ruffled strategic feathers in Northeast Asia. But they have both been small. If a third test provides a yield of, say, fifteen kilotons—about the size of the Hiroshima explosion—the effects could be quite different. A test on that scale would signal to North Korea’s neighbours that it had achieved significant nuclear progress. While a fully-weaponised North Korean nuclear arsenal might still be distant, a third test would increase feelings of insecurity in South Korea and Japan in particular and prompt both governments to reach out to the United States for further security assurances. Read more