Facing reality: North Korea already is a nuclear weapons state

Treating North Korea as another rival nuclear power would involve using the tools the U.S. has employed for decades to deal with such adversaries: containment, deterrence, and measures designed to lower the risk of a small incident escalating into an all-out confrontation. It might be the least bad option there is left

Is It Time to Accept the Reality of a Nuclear-Armed North Korea? By John Cassidy, 12 Aug 17, “…….A year ago, the Institute for Science and International Security estimated that Pyongyang had between thirteen and twenty-one nuclear warheads; since then, the number has likely grown. Last month, the North Koreans carried out two tests of ballistic missiles that, at least in theory, could hit parts of the U.S. mainland. The tests were apparently successful. And, according to a recent report in the Washington Post, the Defense Intelligence Agency believes that Kim’s regime has developed a miniature nuclear warhead that could soon be fitted to these long-range missiles……In a presentation to the Asia Society last week, John Park, a director of the Korea Working Group at the Belfer Center, pointed out the Kim had been entirely consistent in his desire to obtain a nuclear deterrent, which, in addition to safeguarding his regime, would enable North Korea to avoid a costly conventional-arms race and focus on economic development. Park said that many Chinese officials privately sympathized with the North Korean policy………

The President refused to be drawn out on whether he was considering a preëmptive strike against North Korea, and said that he was still open to negotiations. But he also added, “What they’ve been doing, what they’ve been getting away with, is a tragedy and it can’t be allowed.” ……

“Mr Kim’s bombs and missile-launchers are scattered and well hidden,” an editorial in this week’s Economist points out. “America’s armed forces, for all their might, cannot reliably neutralise the North Korean nuclear threat before Mr Kim has a chance to retaliate.” Even if a U.S. strike did take out Kim’s nuclear weapons, his forces have thousands of artillery pieces trained on Seoul, a city of ten million people located only thirty-five miles from the border with the North. Retaliation with these conventional weapons could kill tens of thousands of people. Not for nothing did James Mattis, the Secretary of Defense, say in May that a war with North Korea would be catastrophic. (On Thursday, Mattis repeated the warning.)……

“This young guy leading North Korea will not denuclearize, period,” Kathy Moon, a professor of Asian studies at Wellesley College and a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution, said earlier this week in an interview with WBUR, a Boston-based public-radio station. “What the U.S. faces is a problem between North Korean capabilities and intentions, and an anachronistic, outdated U.S. policy-strategy called denuclearization. The North doesn’t want to talk as long as denuclearization is on the table and is the goal of the United States. We need to really think hard and face the reality and suck it up—that this is a fully nuclear state. We don’t have to say, ‘Hey, welcome to the nuclear club.’ But we could work towards arms control and disarmament, which is a different framework, which acknowledges that it is a nuclear state, and try to get some diplomatic headway on that level.” …..

August 12, 2017 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | North Korea, politics international, USA, weapons and war

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