Why the United States Needs North Korea to Stay Nuclear, A nuclear North Korea is not a threat, but an ideal stabilizer. National Interest Hongyu Zhang, Kevin Wang,
Many are hopeful that the June 12 summit in Singapore between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will lead to denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula. Others believe the historical record makes clear that such a hope is overly optimistic. But what if allowing North Korea to retain its nuclear arsenal could both lead to peace and benefit America’s long-term security interests in the region?
There are two reasons for this. First, possessing nuclear weapons is the best way to pacify North Korea and constrain its aggression. Second, a secure and independent North Korea (without the presence of Chinese or U.S. forces) would also provide a buffer against great power tensions. The long-term primary objective of U.S. strategy in East Asia should be to contain a rising China. To achieve this, the United States must minimize Chinese influence on its neighboring states—whether they are U.S. allies or not. A limited North Korean nuclear arsenal is the most effective way to make this happen.
The United States should, therefore, continue reaching out diplomatically to North Korea and even end some sanctions to seek long-term stability. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, a nuclear North Korea and a balanced peninsula are the best possible outcome for the region and the world.
The View From Pyongyang: A Need for Balance
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union’s backing of North Korea and U.S. backing of South Korea were roughly equal, resulting in a stable power balance on the Korean Peninsula. However, since the Soviet collapse, the balance of power has rapidly shifted against North Korea. The United States continues to lead the Republic of Korea (ROK)-U.S. Combined Forces Command and regularly renews its security commitments in the region. In contrast, Russia abolished its alliance treaty with North Korea in 1994. China also refused to replace the Soviet Union as North Korea’s patron when the matter was discussed between Deng Xiaoping and Kim Il-sung in 1991.
Without this balance, the peninsula has been in prolonged instability and frequently came close to military confrontation. As a sovereign state ruled by a totalitarian regime, North Korea has shown its willingness to guarantee its security at any cost. Intensifying military and economic pressure against the North has only made it more defiant and unpredictable. Therefore, any solution to the present crisis must take into account the security of this sovereign nation. Clearly, massive militarization and isolation are not a long-term solution for North Korea.
……… not only do nuclear weapons offer a level of security that Chinese assurances do not, but they also are the most cost-effective way for a resource-poor North Korea to achieve sustainable security. A nuclear North Korea is not a threat, but an ideal stabilizer. The balance of power on the Korean peninsula and that between the United States and China are interrelated. China’s rise has the potential to shift the regional balance, making confrontation more likely in the future. If a limited nuclear capability guarantees North Korea’s existence and independence, it can provide a buffer space to keep Chinese forces in China and U.S. troops stationed in South Korea separate. ……….
North Korea’s fear of Chinese control is one area where North Korean and American interests of containing China actually align. Moreover, North Korea would prefer to have the ability to hedge between two superpowers to get the best deal, which is only possible by reducing China’s monopoly on economic leverage over North Korea. In the same way that a nuclear China was useful in containing the USSR in the 1970s, North Korea may be helpful in containing China today.
A tacit agreement to allow the DPRK to retain a minimal but credible nuclear deterrent is advantageous to U.S. interests in that it maintains a source of friction in Sino-North Korean relations. By possessing nukes, North Korea will be more independent from Chinese influence and can turn away from China. Thus, a nuclear North Korea would be a viable solution to the imbalance of power on the Korean peninsula after the end of the Cold War. Finally, North Korea would also benefit the long-term U.S. strategy of containing Chinese expansionism. This China containment policy can only be successful if the United States is willing to politically and economically engage with North Korea.
In a 1967 article in Foreign Affairs, Richard Nixon stated that “Taking the long view, we simply cannot afford to leave China forever outside the family of nations, there to nurture its fantasies, cherish its hates and threaten its neighbors.” If Nixon, along with Henry Kissinger’s support, could understand the strategic value of engaging a former adversary with newly acquired nuclear weapons, perhaps policymakers can see the strategic value of doing so with North Korea today.
Hongyu Zhang is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Government at the College of William & Mary, and can be reached at hzhang17@wm.edu. His research focuses on nuclear proliferation, East Asian security, and Chinese foreign policy.
Washington: US secretary of state Mike Pompeo on Saturday warned Iran not to pursue nuclear weapons, saying it would face the “wrath of the entire world” if it did so, but added that he hoped it would never be necessary for the United States to take military action against the country.
In an interview with political columnist Hugh Hewitt conducted on Friday and broadcast the following day on MSNBC, Pompeo said that whatever the fate of the international nuclear deal with Iran, it would not be in Tehran’s interest to seek nuclear arms.
“I hope they understand that if they begin to ramp up their nuclear program, the wrath of the entire world will fall upon them,” he said.
“Wholly separate from if they spin a couple of extra centrifuges, if they began to move to a weapons program, this is something the entire world would find unacceptable and we’d end up down a path that I don’t think is in the best interests of Iran,” Pompeo said
“When I say wrath, don’t confuse that with military action. When I say wrath, I mean the moral opprobrium and economic power that fell upon them. That’s what I’m speaking to. I’m not talking to military action. I truly hope that that’s never the case. It’s not in anyone’s best interests for that.”
Pressed on whether the United States would do whatever it had to do to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Pompeo said: “President Trump has been unambiguous in his statements that say Iran will not be able to obtain a nuclear weapon.”
The US detonated dozens of nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958 including a thermonuclear weapon 1,100 times more powerful than Hiroshima
By Mark Hodge, 26th June 2018
TERRIFYING footage shows a series of nuclear bomb tests unleashing the fires of hell on an idyllic Pacific Ocean paradise.
The video clips, recently released by the US government, give a glimpse into the horror caused by 67 nuke explosions detonated in Bikini Atoll and Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958.
Carried out in the early days of the Cold War, the tests included the 1954 Castle Bravo bomb which remains the most powerful thermonuclear weapon America has ever detonated.
The civilisation-wrecking 15-megatonne explosive, which exploded near Bikini, was 1,100 times bigger than the atomic bomb used to massacre thousands in Hiroshima in 1945.
Bravo – nearly three times its predicted power – exposed thousands in neighbouring islands to the radioactive fallout despite the 167 residents in Bikini Atoll being evacuated before the first test in 1946.
Fallout from the unprecedented explosion – including radioactive particles – spread around the world.
US government scientists declared Bikini safe for resettlement in the early 1970s but residents were removed in 1978 when it became clear that they were ingesting dangerously high levels of radiation from the contaminated fish, plants and water.
To this day, the small community remain exiled from their home.
Dubbed the Pacific Proving Grounds, the Marshall Island sites were used to carry out atmospheric nuclear tests – meaning the bombs were dropped from planes or detonated while underwater.
During the first test on July 1, 1946, military scientists wanted to see the impact of the bombs on naval warships and even filled the boats with animals such as pigs and rats to study the effects of nuclear fallout on livestock, reports Atomic Heritage Foundation.
Among the tests carried out in Enewetak was the world’s first hydrogen bomb, nicknamed Mike, which was detonated on November 1, 1952.
Between, 1977 and 1979, 4,000 American troops were taken to the former island paradise to clean up the contaminated remnants of the 43 nuke tests there.
Hundreds of the soldiers sent now complain of health problems including cancer, brittle bones and birth defects in their children while many of the them are already dead, reports The New York Times.
Speaking with ABC, Michael Gerrard, the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, explained that one of the explosions on Enewetak “didn’t work” causing devastating damage to the environment.
He said: “The plutonium was just broken apart by the conventional explosion, leading to about 400 little chunks of plutonium that were spread around the atoll.”
The troops sent to Enewetak collected and dumped 85,000 cubic metres of radioactive material – while wearing only shorts and t-shirts.
According to ABC, the plutonium in the area has a radioactive half-life of more than 24,000 years.
Islanders started to show signs of cancer in the 1960s, while residents further afield showed elevated risk of thyroid tumours and leukaemia, according to Georgetown University professor Timothy J. Jorgenson.
Former residents of Bikini Atoll and their relatives were awarded more than £1.5billion by the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal which was established in 1988.
But despite being permanently displaced from their home, the US stopped paying compensation in 2011 after Congress refused to provide additional funds.
Remarkably, marine life in Bikini has flourished, a Stanford University study last year.
Hundreds of schools of fish including tuna and sharks have thrived while swimming around coral as big as “cars”, reports The Guardian.
Professor Steve Palumbi’s team said Bikini’s marine life looks normal and healthy and do not have mutations like animals found at the Chernobyl nuke site, despite the island being declared a nuclear wasteland.
Palumbi believes that the absence of humans has in fact benefited the local wildlife.
He said: “The fish populations are better than in some other places because they have been left alone, the sharks are more abundant and the coral are big.
“It is a remarkable environment, quite odd.”
He added: “This is the most destructive thing we have ever done to the ocean, dropping 23 atomic bombs on it, yet the ocean is really striving to come back to life.”
The scientists believe that the worst-affected fish died off decades ago and the current marine life are only exposed to low radiation levels because they frequently swim in and out of the atoll
However, a 2012 United Nations reports found that the Bikini remains uninhabitable to humans because of “near-irreversible environmental contamination”.
The fish cannot be eaten, the plants cannot be farmed because of the contaminated soil and consuming water would be dangerous.
In his paper Professor Jorgensen writes: “What happened to the Marshall Islanders next is a sad story of their constant relocation from island to island, trying to avoid the radioactivity that lingered for decades.
“Over the years following the testing, the Marshall Islanders living on the fallout-contaminated islands ended up breathing, absorbing, drinking and eating considerable amounts of radioactivity.”
Between 1945 and 1963, the US and the Soviet Union carried hundreds of atmospheric nuclear tests.
Gases and “radioactive particles” from those detonations have been spread worldwide, according to a study carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
At least one CDC report claims that radiation deposits from these tests could eventually be responsible for 11,000 cancer deaths in the US alone.
The organs and tissue of anyone who has lived in the US – which carried out atmospheric nuke tests in Nevada – since 1951, shows signs of being exposed to nuclear fallout.
The group had been examining “the ways in which (the Meeting) is complicit in the nuclear weapons industry, including the funding of those activities through our investments, purchases, or other business transactions, and to plan for ways to eliminate or reduce that complicity in order to be compliant with the treaty.”
Timmon Wallis and Vicki Elson were the subjects of a May cover story, “Lay down your arms,” in Hampshire Life Magazine. Written by Emma Kemp, the piece focused on Wallis’ involvement with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, ICAN won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for developing a treaty banning nuclear weapons.
Today, both Wallis and Elson work with ICAN, which initiated the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, also known as the Nuclear Ban Treaty, which was adopted by 122 countries on July 7, 2017. It prohibits the development, production, use and threat of nuclear weapons. As Kemp reported, “Once 50 countries have ratified the treaty, it will come into effect and be implemented into law in the respective countries. The United States is not one of the participating countries.”
But Wallis, 61, and Elson, 59, are hoping to change that. The two activists, who plan to marry this summer, launched the Northampton-based organization NuclearBan.US, to help people nationwide comply with the treaty. Continue reading →
Weatherwatch: the nuclear option and rising levels of anxiety Danger of coastal flooding might make sensible people think …
Nuclear pollution is a genome destroying thing. I guess that people who have never taken genetics or biochemsitry just dont get it. Perhaps they have another agenda. Ignorance being brainwashed and spreadin propaganda memes is no excuse . The greedgut gulpers will all go too. It is a psychotic death spiral. We could use a few less people but i am not for genocide.
Nuclear and radiation is not a culling event it is insane lose-lose extinguishment.People noted no flies for months after three mile island meltown. Same for chernobyl. Whole species of insects extinct there. Considering that radiation and radionuclides cause exponentially increasing destructive heritable mutations in a species, this makes sense. Insects in a space with concentrated cesium 137 or some other shit can breed themselve into extinction in a couble of years or less in places like chernobyl, fukushima, mayak because insects can produce several generations in 1 or 2 years.
It is amazing there are any insects left in the world now. After all the bombs detonated. The numerous undocumented meltdowns. The radioactive medical waste. Fracking making nuclear waste. 170 million americans drink the most radioactive water in the world! Thorium welding rods used all over the us that are full blown radionuclide death. Americium in smoke detectors throughout the world. Americium being a very close cousin to plutonium in deadliness, radiation, and effects. The millions upon millions of tons of nuclear waste from uranium, reactors, processing, in landfills, from medical waste bomb making , depleted uranium in the world now. A thousand or more nuclear reactors w 400 being huge nuclear power murder stations and many others in nuke ships. So many hi level nuke fuel pools. Huge nuclear reactors belching out huge amounts of radioactive
http://ifyoulovethisplanet.org/?p=6431
Interview with genetecist wertelecki about the heritability rule of genetic mutation heritability from nuclear radiation mutations that increases with each generation. Will cause extinction a species in 10 generations
Look what was happening this sunday in leafy Cheshire! Who knew?? The STOP URENCO Declaration was read out by dedicated folk who would hesitate to call themselves Protectors. That is what they are though in a BIG way. They made the journey to Capenhurst in Cheshire to remind us all that enough is enough of […]
Trump’s Nuclear Bailout Won’t Happen: Get Out Of Nuclear Investments, Seeking Alpha, Ezra Weener,
Summary
The nuclear and coal industries are dying.
Natural gas and the growing renewable industries are making nuclear energy economically inefficient and a money-losing proposition.
Trump has ordered energy secretary Rick Perry to find a way to revive these industries citing “national security” and “resilience”.
Despite many positives for these industries, some potential bailout plans negatively impact the free market; regulators have pushed back intensely, and it is unlikely anything significant will be done.
Investing in uranium miners or nuclear power plants based off the possibility of a bailout would be a huge mistake.
Over the last 7 years, the nuclear and coal industries have been getting killed. The spot price of uranium has dropped around 65% and made it basically impossible to economically mine, refine, and sell uranium. This comes from the U.S. and other countries moving away from nuclear power for fears of radiation, possible disasters, and a focus on renewables.
All this has made nuclear power harder to produce and increased the cost of production, while a boom in natural gas electricity production has lowered wholesale electricity selling prices to the point that it is no longer a properly viable source of power. As stated in DOE Staff Reports on Electricity Markets and Reliability,
“Flat demand growth, flattened supply curves, Federal and state policy interventions, and the massive economic shift in the relative economics of natural gas compared to other fuels are placing pressures on centrally-organized wholesale electricity markets, resulting in low average wholesale energy prices.”
Irish Times 25th June 2018 , Cllr Mark Dearey, Cllr John Trainor, Co-Chairmen, Nuclear-Free Local Authorities All-Ireland Forum: … on nuclear safety after
the UK leaves the Euratom arrangements, it is clear that Minister for the
Environment Denis Naughten must do more than simply accept cosy platitudes
from his UK counterpart. While the Border issue is a pivotal part of the
negotiations of Brexit, the parallel decision to leave the Euratom Treaty
arrangements is still of real importance.
The treaty oversees all external safety and security checks at UK nuclear sites, particularly Sellafield, as
well as monitoring the UK’s duties in not proliferating nuclear materials
that could be converted into a nuclear weapons programme.
In our view, the UK government needs to grow up on the issue of the jurisdiction of the
European Court of Justice on matters of nuclear safety. The UK government
has compromised all over the place on Brexit, and by refusing to do so on
this subject, it is putting all of our safety at risk on a point of
political expediency.
As The Irish Times has correctly noted, the transfer
of these duties to the domestic nuclear regulator is not without risk, and
there is real concern that there may not be enough inspectors recruited in
sufficient time and that key and complicated IT systems to verify such work
are put in place by March 2019.
Last month the Oireachtas Joint Planning
Committee heard of detailed concerns over the UK’s approach to assessing
the transboundary impacts of plans to develop new nuclear plants like
Hinkley Point and Wylfa.
Any accident from an existing or new nuclear plant
could have devastating health, economic and social impacts on Ireland, so
it is important not just to receive assurances, but to properly audit them
and to be satisfied that a new nuclear safety regime remains fit for
purpose.
Ireland is extensively doing that with other impacts of Brexit on
the country, and in our view, this should be a core part of that detailed
discussion. We also want to know how both governments will prioritise
nuclear safety and energy policy in a post-Brexit world, where we see a
real lack of forward thinking in addressing the energy needs of both the UK
and Ireland. https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/brexit-and-nuclear-safety-treaty-1.3541656
EDF and VEOLIA Conclude a Partnership Agreement on Nuclear Plant Decommissioning and Radioactive Waste Processing, Business Wire June 26, 2018
“We are proud to have signed this agreement with VEOLIA, which underscores EDF’s determination to become a key player in decommissioning and radioactive waste management. This partnership is also tangible evidence of EDF and VEOLIA’s desire to pool their know-how in the interest of developing successful industrial sectors.”
On 26 June 2018, EDF and VEOLIA (Paris:VIE) entered a partnership agreement to co-develop remote control solutions for dismantling gas-cooled reactors (natural uranium graphite gas or UNGG in French) and for vitrifying radioactive waste, in France and worldwide.
EDF is currently decommissioning 6 gas-cooled reactors reactors at Bugey (Ain department in France), Chinon (Indre-et-Loire department) and Saint-Laurent-des-Eaux (Loir-et-Cher). Key milestones have already been secured on all these complex projects, and EDF confirms its objective to dismantle these nuclear facilities in the shortest timeframe possible. Veolia will thus provide EDF with its experience in remote handling technologies (robotics) with a view to designing and delivering innovative solutions to access the cores of gas-cooled reactors and to cut up and extract components under optimum safety and security conditions……..https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180626005932/en/EDF-VEOLIA-Conclude-Partnership-Agreement-Nuclear-Plant
The U.S. Senate approved a Hanford spending bill for the next fiscal year that would provide $315 million more for the nuclear reservation than proposed by the Trump administration.
The vote was 86-5 for a package of funding bills.Earlier this month, the U.S. House passed a spending bill for fiscal 2019 that would provide $247 million more for the Hanford Site than the administration’s funding request.
The two bills next must be reconciled. A final version then could be sent to President Donald Trump for his signature.
The Senate bill would restore all but $25 million of the cuts to current spending that were proposed by the administration.
The total Hanford budget under the Senate plan would be $2.4 billion, plus some additional money for security at the site.
“Once again, I’m proud that Democrats and Republicans have come together to reject President Trump’s senseless budget cuts and instead craft a budget that honors the sacrifices of central Washington families,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
Murray, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, worked to secure money for Hanford as the appropriations bill was being written.
Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 15 Issue: 97, The Jamestown Foundation, By: Sergey SukhankinJune 25, 2018 Russia’s Kaliningrad Oblast is currently hosting several of the games of the World Cup soccer championship, but this Baltic exclave has recently attracted widespread attention for an entirely different reason. On June 18, Western media reported on Russia apparently undertaking ambitious renovation works on a military bunker located in the oblast, which is to be used to store nuclear weapons. This was corroborated by satellite images. The director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, Hans M. Kristensen, has claimed that “during the past two years, the Russian military has carried out a major renovation of what appears to be an active nuclear weapons storage site in the Kaliningrad region, about 50 kilometers from the Polish border” (Kyiv Post, June 18; Poland Radio, June 19). The Swiss paper Tages-Anzeiger additionally argued that, thanks to the renewed infrastructure, should a major crisis break out, the Russian side would be able to rapidly deploy to the exclave non-strategic nuclear weaponry currently stored in the central part of the Russian Federation. This would expose all of Poland to a potential strike (Inopressa.ru, June 20).
On the basis of the available images, Russian sources have been able to identify the location of the reported bunker: between the villages Kulikovo and Zviagintsevo (Rosbalt, June 18). Although, data presented last year strongly suggested that a greater number of such sites in Kaliningrad could be used in a similar capacity (Bmpd.livejournal.com, March 27, 2017). The majority of Russian outlets have only partially agreed with the recent information reported in the Western media. ……..https://jamestown.org/program/against-background-of-world-cup-russia-restores-nuclear-potential-of-kaliningrad/
Bellona 18th June 2018 , The pace of cleanup at a major Cold War dump for spent nuclear submarine
fuel in Northwest Russia is going faster than planned, officials with
Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom have said, with efforts racing
ahead twice as rapidly as initially thought possible.
Still, Rosatom has elected not to revise its deadline for removing decades of piled up nuclear
fuel assemblies at Andreyeva Bay, a Soviet era submarine maintenance base,
whose proximity to Europe made it a lighting rod for international
environmental concern. On Thursday, Anatoly Grigoryev, who heads up
Rostom’s international technical programs, told the Interfax newswire
that technicians had shipped away a load of fuel that was expected to take
a year to remove in only six months. http://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2018-06-andreyeva-bay-nuclear-fuel-removal-going-faster-than-planned-rosatom-says
nuclear-news 