Academic specialist Dr Jenny Clegg shares background intel on the Korean nuclear crisis
The Korean crisis has heightened anxieties once again over the dangers of nuclear catastrophe. With North Korea poised to carry out its 6th nuclear test in defiance of UN resolutions, Donald Trump has declared ‘a major, major conflict’ is possible. As the Carl Vinson aircraft carrier battle group moves into Korean waters, the North has threatened its own preemptive strikes. Kim Jong-un versus Donald Trump - both seem equally unpredictable, equally dangerous.
North Korea carried out its first nuclear test in 2006 following a breakdown in the 6 Party Talks on Korean denuclearisation. The UN responded immediately with condemnation and sanctions. As talks failed again by 2009, there followed a cycle of tests and escalating sanctions complicated by frequent and massive-scaled US-South Korean military exercises. The repeated deployment by the US of nuclear-capable bombers is North Korea’s most serious concern. In recent weeks B1 bombers have twice joined the exercises, once flying very close to the Korean border. The denuclearisation of the peninsula needs to include all these elements.
For North Korea, the development of nuclear weapons is seen as the means to ensure survival against US attack, citing the experiences of Iraq and Libya. At the same time, its government has said repeatedly, at least up to now, that it has no intention of seeking permanent nuclear weapons status – it states that its programme is in response to US hostile policies. Following the 4th test in 2016, it issued a declaration of ‘no first use’ which was dismissed by the US. North Korea then began to intensify its testing. But again, following its 5th test in September 2016, North Korea voted in favour of starting UN negotiations on a new international treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons.
North Korea’s stance is shaped by its history of devastating war with the US (1950-1953) which saw the loss of over 20 per cent of the population and which ended only in armistice. A small country, uniquely squeezed between four out of the five major world powers, China, Russia, the US, all nuclear weapons states, and Japan (the exception being Europe), North Korea became a focal point of Cold War nuclear rivalry. In fact, General MacArthur’s threat in November 1950 to drop between 30 and 50 atomic bombs to ‘create a belt of radioactive cobalt’ across the peninsula, was just the first among others in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Having lost Soviet protection, North Korea again faced the threat of war with the US, in 1994 under Clinton’s presidency, and in 2003 under Bush. Both crises gave way to negotiations following predictions that war could result in 1 million deaths before the US prevailed. Subsequent disagreements, however, have led to an even further deepening of mistrust which makes the current crisis more dangerous than the ones before.
It is unlikely that North Korea actually has a deliverable nuclear weapon but clearly the window of opportunity to prevent this is shrinking as advances are made. US reliance on ‘strategic patience’ - waiting for regime change from within under the pressure of sanctions - has clearly failed. But whilst calling for a ‘new approach’, Trump still seeks more sanctions, now putting the heat on China to enforce harsher measures.
As North Korea is already under onerous measures, neither the UN, China nor Russia are happy to risk its economic collapse. Banning luxury goods is one thing, but cutting off oil supplies is quite another. Ever since the draconian sanctions imposed on Iraq in the 1990s saw the deaths of half a million children, leading to worldwide outcry, the UN has opposed measures which cause harm to civilian populations. China may not wish to see floods of refugees pouring over its borders, but such an eventuality would surely be yet another humanitarian catastrophe for the world, not just a problem for China.
China also has other concerns. A nuclear disaster or accident would spread contamination into its own North Eastern region. At the same time, North Korea’s programme may trigger the nuclear ambitions of Japan, which has significant stockpiles and could build a nuclear arsenal relatively quickly. Last year, Japan’s Prime Minister Abe made a veiled statement to the effect that the Japanese Constitution ‘does not necessarily ban the possession of them [nuclear weapons]’. The possibility of a nuclear-armed Japan and South Korea was hinted at by Trump during his election campaign and reiterated most recently by Tillerson on his visit to East Asia. Against this, of course, stands the widespread anti-nuclear sentiment of the Japanese population.
Nevertheless the Japanese government is clearly straining, against Article 9 of its constitution, to get more and more involved in regional security. Recent weeks have seen Japanese warships join the Carl Vinson off the Korean coast in a show of force that surely goes beyond the ‘peace clause’. When I interviewed Zhu Rui, Secretary General of the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament, in Beijing last April, he made clear that China’s deepest concern was that the Korean situation would be used to draw Japan into a regional collective security pattern and that this would open the flood gates of militarism.
Meanwhile the UK sent four Typhoon fighter jets to join the recent US-South Korean exercises, no doubt an indication of Theresa May’s determination to seize the Brexit opportunity to ’forge a bold new role for ourselves in the world’. Meanwhile a French assault carrier has appeared at a Japanese port to join a US-Japan military exercise in which UK forces will also participate, in effect representing NATO’s backing for the US-led military build-up which has all the makings of a NAA(Asian)TO.
North Korea has repeatedly asked the US to sign a peace treaty that would finally bring the unresolved Korean War to an end. This would open the way for direct bilateral talks on a dual track agreement on denuclearizing the peninsula in parallel with establishing a peace mechanism to guarantee that the US will not seek regime change. The US should take the initiative. As a first step towards the negotiating table, China proposes the de-escalation of tensions, with North Korea suspending its nuclear and missile activities in exchange for the halt of the large-scale US-South Korea military drills. This conforms with UN resolutions which stress the importance of working to reduce tensions and call for the resumption of the 6 Party talks.
Trump declares that ‘all options are on the table’, suggesting talks are also possible. Will North Korea also make a step by refraining from a 6th nuclear test? Every day that goes by without a test gives cause for hope. But as the US upgrades its military position, shifts military resources to the Korean region under the Asia Pivot, puts THAAD swiftly into position and works towards a global NAATO, it makes it less likely that North Korea will give up its nuclear programme. The election of a pro-dialogue President in South Korea, one who has expressed doubts about THAAD, is also hopeful, but it remains to be seen how this will factor in to North Korean, and indeed all actors’, calculations.