Is North Korea a Global Threat? | Introduction
In October 2002 North Korea announced to U.S. officials that it had been secretly working on a uranium-enriched nuclear weapons program. This announcement was followed in December 2002 by a statement that North Korea was also restarting plutonium-based nuclear facilities that it had promised to freeze under the Agreed Framework, an agreement it made with the United States in 1994. In January 2003 North Korea officially withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), an international agreement that committed North Korea not to develop nuclear weapons and to allow inspections of its nuclear sites. This series of events plunged the United States and Asia into an international crisis over how to prevent North Korea’s unstable, repressive, and dangerous dictator, Kim Jong Il, from developing nuclear weapons.
North Korea’s actions between October 2002 and January 2003 are consistent with the nation’s long history of belligerent behavior. North Korea is a Communist protégé of the old Soviet Union and Communist China. It was founded in 1948 with Soviet help after the Korean Peninsula was divided into two countries (Communist North Korea and Democratic South Korea) following World War II. Today it is a small country in big trouble. Due largely to the collapse of its Soviet benefactor in 1991, millions of its people are starving and its economy is in desperate condition. It survives largely on aid from the United Nations (UN) and foreign countries, including the United States. Despite its economic weakness, North Korea has commanded center stage in world politics for decades through its belligerent threats and actions. Indeed, it is North Korea’s long history of militarism, isolation, and hostility toward other countries that creates an enormous dilemma for policy makers looking for ways to halt North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. North Korea, which diverts its sparse resources into maintaining the world’s fifth-largest armed force, has acted aggressively toward its neighbors, particularly South Korea, and has gone back on its word in negotiations and agreements. Given this history, policy makers face a thorny dilemma with seemingly no good options for restraining North Korea.
North Korea’s history of militarism
Since its creation, North Korea has maintained a strong military and a hostile stance, particularly toward South Korea, the United States, and Japan. The country’s first leader and dictator, Kim Il Sung, set North Korea on this course by adopting policies similar to those of the Communist Soviet Union. This approach emphasized military strength and quickly resulted in North Korea invading South Korea in an effort to reunify the Korean Peninsula by military means—a clear act of aggression that started the Korean War. After the war, Kim Il Sung remained in power for many decades, during which he kept North Korea isolated from the outside world, built up North Korea’s military, and implemented a highly nationalistic ideology called juche, which emphasizes self-reliance and independence from foreign control.
Since the Korean War, North and South Korea technically have remained in a war stance because, although they signed an armistice, they never agreed on a formal peace treaty. Over the years North Korea has employed spies to infiltrate South Korea, made at least four attempts to assassinate South Korean presidents, built numerous invasion tunnels under the demilitarized zone (the dividing line between North and South Korea), and conducted terrorist attacks against South Korean targets.
Today, Kim Il Sung’s son, a brutal and combative dictator named Kim Jong Il, rules North Korea. He has largely continued his father’s policies of militarism, but on a grander scale. Since North Korea’s economic collapse in the 1990s, Kim Jong Il has become adept at using threats of force and manipulative negotiations to obtain economic aid from other countries. He also has steered North Korea to develop weapons of mass destruction. North Korea now possesses both chemical and biological weapons and at least two nuclear bombs. The country also has developed long-range ballistic missiles capable of delivering these weapons to targets in Asia and the United States. In addition, in order to acquire badly needed revenue, Kim Jong Il has made North Korea the world’s major seller of ballistic missiles to unstable and anti-U.S. countries such as Iran and Syria.
North Korea’s most recent nuclear threats only continue this pattern. They suggest that North Korea may be seeking to develop a nuclear program that can produce a large volume of nuclear weapons each year. This type of weapons capability would give North Korea great power that could be used for many purposes, none good from the standpoint of the United States and other countries. For example, North Korea could use these weapons offensively against its enemies or simply as a deterrent to prevent countries, such as the United States, from taking military action against it or trying to change its regime. In fact, many suggest that America’s 2003 war in Iraq, seeking to end the regime of dictator Saddam Hussein, may have caused North Korea to speed up its nuclear efforts for fear that the United States will attack it next. After all, U.S. president George W. Bush listed North Korea alongside Iraq and Iran as part of what he called the “axis of evil” in January 2002. Others believe that Kim Jong Il has no intention of ever using nuclear weapons and is merely practicing a risky foreign policy of brinksmanship and nuclear blackmail as a means to acquire critical foreign aid and security guarantees. However, the most frightening prospect is that North Korea might begin selling nuclear weapons and technology for profit, in much the same way it has been selling missiles and missile technology for years. Such a development could put nuclear weapons into the hands of terrorists.
The puzzle: how to respond to North Korea’s actions
For the United States and other nations seeking to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons, North Korea’s history of militarism and threatening actions, together with its pattern of deceit and violation of international agreements, poses difficult policy dilemmas. Experts disagree greatly about whether a carrot or a stick approach, or some combination of the two, should be employed. Carrot approaches, such as negotiations and concessions of economic aid, are problematic because Kim Jong Il has shown he cannot be trusted to abide by such agreements. Even among those who support a diplomatic approach, opinions vary widely on how negotiations could be conducted to ensure that North Korea truly gives up its weapons of mass destruction and missiles. Stick approaches, such as military strikes on nuclear facilities or an Iraq-style attack designed to force regime change, are highly dangerous. Military strikes on such a well-armed country would most certainly be met with a military response. For example, North Korea could be provoked to attack South Korea’s capital city of Seoul and kill millions of South Koreans. Furthermore, North Korea has declared that it would consider even nonmilitary measures such as economic restrictions or interdictions of North Korea’s trade in weapons an “act of war.”
To date, the United States has pursued a multinational negotiation strategy that provides for talks between North Korea, the United States, China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan. However, these negotiations have moved extremely slowly and have made little progress. Whether this approach will ultimately be successful and whether the world will be able to contain Kim Jong Il’s thirst for nuclear weapons, remains to be seen.
