U.S., Others Grasp for Answer to N. Korea Test
If intelligence agencies confirm that the seismic disturbance picked up over the weekend was indeed an atomic explosion, North Korea will now have to be reckoned with on terms like those accorded other adversaries with a nuclear arsenal. The North is being condemned and may even be sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council.
But the losers in this nuclear showdown also include several of the key countries in the effort to rein in North Korea's nuclear ambitions:
The United States has tried for four years to prevent a nuclear breakout, hewing to a generally hard line that has sought to halt North Korea's nuclear activities before any concessions are made. It has put growing emphasis on isolating the North, and recent sanctions on a Macao-based bank handling some of North Korea's suspect financial transactions seem to have convinced Pyongyang that the Bush administration will be a relentless antagonist, despite Washington's statements that a brighter future awaits the North if it sheds its nuclear programs. The administration has refused to negotiate directly with North Korea except through the six-country group set up for the purpose. U.S. officials say the North Korean complaints on sanctions and on no bilateral negotiations are an excuse, not a real reason.
China, the principal ally and trade partner of the North, sought to use quiet persuasion to avert a test blast. It has refused to constrict the flow of food, oil, and investment funds into the North that buoy a regime still wedded to Stalinist economics in spite of recent, limited reforms. For China, keeping the North stable and intact has been a higher priority than determining whether it is a nuclear power. Now, it will have to face squarely a question it has tried to avoid answering: Why shouldn't the one country with the greatest leverage over the North push harder to steer Pyongyang away from nuclear weapons–especially when it could lead Japan and South Korea to consider going nuclear as well?
South Korea has extended a brotherly hand to its dramatically poorer neighbor, offering trade, investment, and humanitarian aid, along with stiff resistance to past efforts at pressuring the North for its nuclear work. The policy is meant to slowly improve living standards in the North and draw it out of its shell. North Korea has now replied to South Korea's make-nice efforts by presumably touching off a bomb, embarrassing Seoul deeply.
The apparent failure of U.S. policy to prevent a nuclear breakout doesn't necessarily open the way for any new approach that's likelier to work. The military options are terrible and would be even if U.S. forces weren't stretched by fights in Iraq and Afghanistan. North Korea is already perhaps the most isolated nation on Earth, so more sanctions may exert only a modest impact. And with the long-standing expectation that the North had probably managed to use its plutonium to make an actual weapon, some of the Bush administration's diplomatic partners may be looking for ways to accept the new status quo. This is a bad turn of events, the argument goes, but it's possible to live with a nuclear North Korea–even one ruled by a totalitarian power structure led by Kim Jong Il–after all.
But it is a future that may portend many unpleasant surprises. North Korea may be embarked on a determined strategy to use its nuclear program to gain concessions and security guarantees from the United States, the one country it is said to fear could cause its downfall. One of the most perceptive North Korea watchers, Peter Hayes, executive director of the Nautilus Institute, calls Pyongyang a "nuclear 'stalker state.';" He wrote last week, "Like a repeat offender, the DPRK [North Korea] is likely to continue to use nuclear threat to stalk the United States until it achieves what it perceives to be a genuine shift in Washington's attitude. Unlike an individual who stalks, there is no simple way to lock up a state that stalks another with nuclear threat."
If that's right, don't be surprised if the North's gambit this week marks the start of something more dangerous, not its culmination.