North Korea

North Korea conducted its second nuclear test May 25, prompting international condemnation for violating UN demands and raising tensions in the region. The test comes a month after North Korea declared that it would no longer participate in multilateral talks on its denuclearization and would carry out nuclear and missile tests to strengthen its deterrent capability. (See
ACT, May 2009.) After the test, Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) struck a similar note, saying the blast was "part of the measures to bolster up [North Korea's] nuclear deterrent for self-defense." (Continue)

North Korea's long anticipated rocket launch April 5 set off a chain of events resulting in international sanctions on North Korean firms and Pyongyang's withdrawal from six-way talks to end its nuclear weapons program.

North Korea, which warned that any UN response would provoke a hostile reaction, insisted that it is no longer bound by multilateral agreements reached with the United States and countries in the region and stated its intention to reconstitute the nuclear facilities that it temporarily disabled under those accords. In an April 25 Foreign Ministry statement, Pyongyang declared that it had begun separating plutonium to enhance its "nuclear deterrence." (Continue)

In the initial weeks of the Obama administration, former Vice President Dick Cheney stated that there was a "high probability" of a terrorist attempt to use a nuclear weapon or biological agent and that "whether they can pull it off depends on what kind of policies we put in place." President Barack Obama, in his April 5 Prague speech, said that terrorists "are determined to buy, build, or steal" a nuclear weapon and that the international community must work "without delay" to ensure that they never acquire one. Obama also outlined a number of policies for locking down vulnerable nuclear material and strengthening the nuclear nonproliferation regime. (Continue)

Experts from the independent, nonpartisan Arms Control Association (ACA) declared that North Korea's launch of what is believed to be its long-range Taepo Dong-2 rocket satellite carrier today was a "confrontational move that undermines stability in the region and makes progress in the six-party talks on that country's denuclearization more difficult to achieve." (Continue)

Amid heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula, Pyongyang appears to be making preparations to test its long-range ballistic missile, the Taepo Dong-2. North Korea reportedly began moving components of the missile, which may be capable of reaching parts of the United States, to its eastern missile launch site at Musudan-ri in early February. The Wall Street Journal quoted an unnamed U.S. counterproliferation official Feb. 3 stating, "The North Koreans appear to be moving missile-related equipment around, but it's too early to say whether or not they will proceed with an actual test." (Continue)

U.S. presidents have struggled with the challenges posed by a hostile North Korea since the end of the Korean War and with the dangers of a nuclear North since the mid-1980s. The diplomatic struggle over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program has had many ups and downs, from the near outbreak of a second war in 1994 to an agreement a few months later to end the nuclear program, from the prospect of a visit to Pyongyang by President Bill Clinton in 2000 to the breakdown of the 1994 agreement in 2002 and the North Korean nuclear test in 2006, from limited arrangements over the past few years that have constrained Pyongyang's plutonium production program to recent disputes over verification. (Continue)