The 30-year U.S. effort to compel North Korea to give up its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons capabilities has rested on offering Pyongyang a simple choice: a relationship with the United States, or weapons and isolation.
North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has made his choice. His government passed a law in September declaring the country a nuclear weapons state. Mr. Kim called that designation “irreversible” and ruled out further talks on denuclearization. The North has fired a dozen ballistic missiles in the past two months, is boasting of the ability to deploy tactical battlefield nuclear weapons and is expected to conduct another nuclear test — its seventh — perhaps as early as next week.
It’s time for the United States to face reality. Efforts to encourage Mr. Kim to abandon his weapons have not only failed, but he is as clear as ever about using them to protect his country.
Washington needs to contemplate the unthinkable: accepting that North Korea is a nuclear state.
Successive U.S. administrations have steadfastly refused to do that. It would be a setback for global nonproliferation and send the message that you can defy the international community — the United Nations has passed a series of resolutions condemning North Korea and imposing sanctions over the years — and get away with it.
But it also, ironically, may be the best way to reduce the persistent and growing threat of an inadvertent conflict on the Korean Peninsula by removing a major obstacle that prevents North Korea and the United States from meeting to work out their differences.
The risk of war has spiked over the past year as the two Koreas engaged in a rhetorical and actual arms race. North Korea’s decision to call itself a nuclear state appears to show Mr. Kim is worried about a pre-emptive strike aimed at killing him and decapitating his regime, and with good reason — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s administration has placed new emphasis on a strategy of deterring a North Korean nuclear attack by preparing for pre-emptive strikes that could include targeting Pyongyang’s senior leadership.
North Korea vowed last month that any attempt to remove him from power would prompt a nuclear counterattack. But for that to work, it would mean granting other figures in his regime the authority to launch a nuclear counter-strike in his absence. This is deeply worrying. More people with that authority means more scope for a deadly miscalculation. Add to this the fact that North Korea’s actions have prompted calls in South Korea, which does not have nuclear weapons, to acquire them, and in Japan to bolster military spending and develop a stronger strike capability.
Something must be done to de-escalate the situation, but the United States has even fewer cards to play than before due to changes in the wider geopolitical landscape.
The Ukraine war has caused a deep rift between the United States and Russia and, to a lesser extent, Russia’s ally, China. The three big powers were crucial participants in previous multiparty negotiations to disarm North Korea, which ultimately failed. But Russia and China are now less likely to support U.S. pressure on North Korea; after Pyongyang resumed intercontinental ballistic missile tests this year, Beijing and Moscow vetoed a U.S. push for tighter sanctions on the North. Mr. Kim seems to have sensed the changed dynamic and has doubled down on his relationships with China and Russia.
If the past 30 years weren’t convincing enough, the current crisis shows that a new approach is sorely needed.
During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union showed they could sit down and discuss ways to reduce the risk of nuclear war. But nearly any ways in which America’s relations with North Korea might be improved — such as through economic cooperation or development assistance — are held hostage to Washington’s insistence that Pyongyang disarm first.
President Donald Trump’s attempt at diplomacy with Mr. Kim foundered on this very shoal: According to North Korea’s foreign minister, Ri Yong-ho, Mr. Kim had asked for some sanctions to be removed in exchange for his agreement to dismantle the North’s most important nuclear facility (Mr. Trump said Mr. Kim had asked for all sanctions to be removed in exchange for the closing of that facility). Not without complete disarmament, Mr. Kim was told. The talks collapsed in 2019 without an agreement, and Mr. Kim has used the subsequent years to build up his arsenal.
There is precedent for the United States to finesse the situation. Israel, India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, but Washington chose to live with that so long as they didn’t brandish their weapons.
Although Israel has never acknowledged its nuclear capability, it remains the worst-kept secret in the world. But it does not openly flaunt its capability, which made it much easier for Arab neighbors like Egypt not to pursue their own nuclear programs in response. The United States turned a blind eye to India until it conducted a round of tests in 1998. Washington pragmatically set aside its concerns over those tests to enable cooperation in other areas.
Had the Trump administration taken this approach three years ago, we might be in a very different place today. No, North Korea would not be disarmed by now. But we could be exploring other steps to reduce tension, might have secured commitments of good behavior from Pyongyang and perhaps even some gesture toward disarmament in exchange for sanctions relief and economic assistance. This is far from ideal, but vastly preferable to Pyongyang stockpiling weapons.
Mr. Kim may see opportunities in a more relaxed U.S. attitude, too. He wants nuclear weapons as protection but is smart enough to know that they also make him a target. He was willing to engage with Mr. Trump and may eventually be willing to do the same with President Biden.
Turning a blind eye to North Korea’s entry into the nuclear club will sting, but we are essentially already doing that: U.S. officials do little more than talk about how Mr. Kim’s nuclear program is unacceptable, as he builds bomb after bomb. It’s time to cut our losses, face reality and take steps to reduce the risk of war on the Korean Peninsula.
Jeffrey Lewis (@ArmsControlWonk) is an expert on nuclear nonproliferation at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. He is also the author of a novel that imagines a nuclear war with North Korea.
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