LIFE WITH A NUCLEAR ARMED NORTH KOREA

By Robert Alvarez

February 23, 2003

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The Bush Administration's efforts to stop despotic nations from acquiring weapons of mass destruction are being sorely tested by North Korea. Unlike Iraq, the doctrine of preemptive military action is not on the "front burner," given the likelihood of a second, very bloody Korean War, just as a huge US military presence stands poised to attack in the Middle-East. Hence, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) recently noted the Bush Administration "argues that North Korea's actions do not constitute a crisis."

Considering that the nuclear non-proliferation regime threatens to unravel in the Far East and the collapse of a starving, heavily armed North Korea could seriously destabilize its neighbors, perhaps the Bush Administration ought to reconsider what a crisis is.

In resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis, two major choices are on the table - containment or engagement. Upon entering office, the Bush Administration promptly squelched the Clinton engagement policy, and is sticking to its guns in support of containment, as resistance mounts from China, South Korea and Japan. It's instructive to see how the Bush containment policy has worked so far.

After President Bush included North Korea as a member of the "Axis of Evil," in January 2002, the United States finally sent its first official delegation to Pyongyang for formal talks in October of last year. At the meeting, Assistant Secretary of State, James Kelly, confronted North Korea over its efforts to acquire uranium enrichment technology. While the quest for gas centrifuge technology is a legitimate concern, it was the manner in which it was brought up that deserves attention.

Kelly issued an ultimatum to cease this activity, or terminate the Agreed Framework between the United States and North Korea. The 1994 Agreed Framework specifically froze North Korea's plutonium production program in exchange for fuel oil, opening of commercial opportunities, and construction of light water reactors.

Taken quite by surprise, the North Koreans abruptly ended the meeting. The next morning, Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok-ju responded by asserting that North Korea possesses "more powerful" weapons and insisted on a non-aggression pact with the US.

Enriched uranium is not specifically part of the 1994 Agreed Framework, because at the time, such efforts were not considered credible. In five years, North Korea could make fuel for ten times as many nuclear weapons from its 1950's model plutonium program, than from a much more difficult enrichment technology. Even if North Korea's uranium enrichment is far more advanced, the Agreed Framework contains provisions that would place it under full-scope international safeguards.

Instead the Bush Administration chose to hold the Agreed Framework hostage at the Pyongyang meeting, in an "all or nothing" confrontation, which blew up in their faces.

Undaunted, the Bush Administration then suspended heavy oil shipments under the Agreed Framework in November. North Korea responded the next month by announcing its intentions to restart plutonium production, expelling IAEA inspectors, and taking steps to withdraw from the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. "By their own admission," says the CRS. "Bush Administration officials were surprised by the intensity for North Koreas moves..."
This persistent blundering by the Bush Administration is having a seismic impact in the Far East. With over five tons of plutonium in hand, well-advanced missile capabilities, and the world's third largest nuclear energy program, Japan can nuclearize its military assets with relative ease. "Our nation will use military force as a self-defense measure if they start to resort to arms against Japan," said Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba recently.
Fortunately, Japan strongly prefers to keep its constitutional ban on nuclear weapons. But will this be the case if North Korea resumes building a nuclear arsenal and has missiles capable of reaching Japan?

Life with a starving, nuclear armed North Korea is now a very real possibility thanks to the Bush containment policy, which now is fueling a growing confrontation with profound implications.

A good place to start fixing this mess is to sit down once again with North Korea to put things back on track. The Agreed Framework should not be terminated. For all its criticisms, this agreement ceased plutonium production for over 8 years. It started rapprochement with the Koreas and Japan - the first big step toward a nuclear weapons free Korean Peninsula. Meanwhile, the Bush Administration should stop degrading the threat posed by nuclear non-proliferation, by using it as a pretext to reconfigure power in the Middle-East and bolster politically unstable oil supplies.

In 1994 and 1995, as senior advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Energy, Robert Alvarez led DOE Teams into North Korea to secure the reactor spent fuel at the Yongbyon nuclear site.