Nuclear Weapons on the Korean Peninsula

An Introduction to the ACT Special Issue on the North Korean Crisis

The conclusion of the April 23-April 25 talks in Beijing among the United States, North Korea, and China makes this month’s features especially timely. Reports that North Korea told the United States that it has nuclear weapons raise the stakes in the current crisis over North Korea’s suspected nuclear weapons program.

The United States has been here before. A decade ago, Pyongyang challenged the nuclear nonproliferation regime by pursuing nuclear weapons in violation of its treaty commitments, ultimately threatening to withdraw from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) but stopping a day short of doing so in June 1993.

Months of protracted negotiations followed, resulting in the October 1994 Agreed Framework. Under that agreement, North Korea agreed to shut down its plutonium-based nuclear reactor and related facilities, and the United States agreed to provide two proliferation-resistant reactors and supply North Korea with heating oil while the reactors were under construction.

The Agreed Framework and its implementation were controversial from the beginning and subject to criticism both from the United States and North Korea. For example, North Korea complained that reactor construction lagged well behind the original deadline, while some members of Congress expressed doubts that North Korea was complying with its nonproliferation commitments. The plutonium-based nuclear facilities, however, remained frozen.

During October 2002, the Bush administration announced that North Korea admitted to having an illicit uranium-enrichment program to Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly during a meeting earlier that month.

The situation escalated. North Korea ejected international arms inspectors, announced its withdrawal from the NPT, and restarted its frozen nuclear reactor.

Although similar to the situation in the mid-1990s, today’s crisis is potentially worse. North Korea is the first country to announce its withdrawal from the NPT, and its decision to restart its plutonium-related nuclear facilities represents a rollback of the Agreed Framework’s achievements. Moreover, its apparent pursuit of a uranium-enrichment program in violation of its nonproliferation commitments illustrates the difficulties of arriving at a negotiated resolution to the crisis that will result in the verifiable dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear facilities.

Yet, other options are not promising. The Bush administration’s increasing willingness to take pre-emptive military action against proliferation threats has run up against the difficult reality that the risks of a military strike against North Korea are extraordinarily high. In any case, U.S. allies oppose such a policy.

These five articles, featuring seven authors from three different countries, offer a valuable blend of policy prescriptions and insightful analysis about the dynamics surrounding this complex issue. Taken as a whole, they provide a comprehensive picture of the current debate surrounding the North Korean crisis.

Michael Swaine of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Alan Romberg of the Henry L. Stimson Center provide a detailed proposal for negotiating a resolution to the current crisis, arguing that a near-term focus on Pyongyang’s nuclear program is critical for such a resolution.

Henry Sokolski of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center makes the case for penalizing North Korea for its pursuit of nuclear weapons, arguing that a tough stance on North Korea’s suspected weapons program is important to discourage additional countries from trying to acquire nuclear weapons.

Bates Gill and Andrew Thompson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies provide perspective on the dynamics surrounding China’s current and future role in the North Korean crisis. They argue that ironing out differences between Washington and Beijing will be important to resolving the crisis and to the future of U.S.-Sino relations.

Matake Kimiya of Japan’s National Defense Academy discusses Japanese attitudes toward North Korea and their relationship to Tokyo’s North Korea policy. He also evaluates the potential effects of the crisis on Japan’s defense posture.

Haksoon Paik of South Korea’s Sejong Institute explains Seoul’s role, offering prescriptions both for U.S. and South Korean policymakers for a peaceful resolution to the crisis, as well as describing the obstacles to such a resolution.

The North Korea crisis encapsulates the dilemmas facing foreign policy students and practitioners who wish to control proliferation. We believe all audiences will find this issue informative.