In response to the latest United Nations sanctions over its February nuclear test, Pyongyang has become more provocative and unpredictable — scrapping the armistice that ended the 1950–53 Korean War; threatening a preemptive nuclear strike against the South and the US; and canceling non-aggression pacts with the South.
Those actions coincided with ongoing US–South Korean war
games on the other side of the 38th parallel involving nuclear-capable bombers.
In response, North Korea accused the US of preparing a military invasion with
nuclear weapons, and threatened to attack US military bases on Japan and the
Pacific island of Guam.
Over the past decade, past experience has shown that the
more sanctions the international community places on Pyongyang, the more
Pyongyang is motivated to respond defiantly. The longer the stalemate drags on,
the more fissile material North Korea will produce, and the better weapons it
will make. The North can also sell its fissile materials to anyone in the world
seeking to buy it.
On the other hand, as more sanctions are imposed on
Pyongyang, the more desperate of a threat North Korea will seem to its two
nuclear hostages: South Korea and Japan. The resulting escalation could
ultimately lead to a Cuban missile–type crisis, a nuclear conflict in no one's
interest. To avoid such a result, Washington must be willing to negotiate a
compromise: a reliable security assurance including no regime change and a
peace treaty.
At this point, Pyongyang's nuclear capability can no longer
be doubted. With three nuclear tests under its belt, Pyongyang should have more
confidence in its capability to combine its warheads with medium-range missiles
capable of reaching all of South Korea and Japan. While North Korea currently
lacks the ability to deploy a warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile
that can reach the US, last December's long-range rocket test and the recent nuclear
test show it is seeking such a capability and, could have it within several
years.
US intelligence agencies estimate that the recent test
yielded an explosion of "several kilotons", much more powerful than
past detonations. A several-kiloton bomb is not as powerful as the 15- and
20-kiloton bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it could cause greater
casualties given the significantly higher population densities of South Korea
and Japan today, especially in their capitals of Seoul and Tokyo. Such a bomb
could cause hundreds of thousands of deaths from the blast, burns, and ensuing
radiation.
Washington apparently would like to facilitate North Korea's
collapse through long-term isolation and sanctions. Yet, a cornered and
desperate Pyongyang would almost certainly not go down quietly.
Pyongyang will undoubtedly continue to take provocative
steps to escalate the crisis until it gets a security assurance from
Washington. Kim Jong-eun is unlikely to give up his nuclear deterrent — the
sole tool that props up his regime — unless he gets more cooperation from
Washington.
North Korea has a long "playbook" of provocative
actions, and we may not have yet seen all that is in that book. Elements within
a desperate and collapsing North Korea could even sell highly enriched uranium
(HEU) to the highest bidder. HEU is much more attractive than plutonium to
terrorist groups in the market for nuclear weapons because it is easier to hide
during transport and easier to make into a bomb.
Even if the probability of such a nuclear transfer is
extremely low for any sane country, a nuclear armed and desperate North Korea
might do so in a last-ditch attempt to save the regime. After all, North Korea
is already appears to be selling missiles and missile technologies to Iran and
others. North Korea reportedly helped Syria build a reactor that was destroyed
by Israeli airstrikes in 2007.
Of course, Washington will not tolerate such a nuclear
transfer. Nuclear terrorism is, as President Obama has declared, "the
single biggest threat to US security". Washington will attempt to
intercept and interdict any such shipments from North Korea. However, Pyongyang
states clearly that an attempted blockade of any kind by the United States and
its allies will be regarded as "an act of war" and met with "a
decisive military response".
Any military conflict could escalate to a full-scale war in
which nuclear weapons could be used. Indeed, North Korea has threatened the
South with "final destruction". To be sure, Pyongyang would understand
that any use of its nuclear weapons would invite a devastating retaliation and
the end of its regime. But, a cornered and desperate Pyongyang may implode its
nuclear weapons before its regime imploded. No one wants to play a game of
"chicken" with Pyongyang.
President Barack Obama and Kim Jong-eun could end up
confronting each other "eyeball to eyeball", each with nuclear
weapons on hair trigger, as president John F Kennedy and Nikita Khruschev did
over five decades ago during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. However, the
younger and less-experienced Kim of the smaller and isolated Kingdom might not
behave as rationally as Khruschev.
To avoid a potentially catastrophic confrontation, the key
to defusing such a crisis is an acceptable compromise. The only way to win this
game is to prepare a large "carrot" — a package including security
assurances and political and economical benefits, to induce Pyongyang to
denuclearize, while the United Nations and others, including China, prepare "sticks"
to enforce the deal. Attempting to prevail by a purely coercive strategy is too
risky, and could yield catastrophic consequences.
Hui Zhang, a physicist, is leading a research initiative on
China's nuclear policies for Harvard University's Project on Managing the Atom.
His expertise is in both China's nuclear policy and nuclear arms control.
Ref: here
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