Grim warning from North Korea
The News International
October 14, 2006
GRIM WARNING FROM NORTH KOREA
by Praful Bidwai
The writer, a former newspaper editor, is a researcher and peace and human-rights activist based in Delhi
North Korea has shocked and challenged the world by punching a big hole through the global nuclear order. The effects of its test will ricochet for a long time, changing the Asian balance of power and impacting Iran.
The explosion underscores some plain unvarnished wisdom: the best way to deal with "problem cases" like North Korea is to discard nuclear weapons as a currency of power by pursuing the global nuclear disarmament agenda. The alternative is to risk a more unsafe world with yet more nuclear-armed states.
North Korea shows that a small (pop 23 million), poor, economically and politically isolated country, which recently experienced famines, can build nuclear weapons if it is determined to. Splitting the atom requires neither high science nor very advanced technology.
The science is more than 60 years old, and the technology no more sophisticated than what a car garage has--once you have fissile material or reactors. The test sets a terrible example. Some 40 countries have significant civilian nuclear programmes, which can be diverted to make weapons.
Why did North Korea test? It has a long history of conflict with South Korea and the United States. During the 1950-53 Korean War, General Douglas MacArthur had plans to launch nuclear strikes against the North. The Cold War has not ended in the Korean peninsula.
More recently, President George W. Bush torpedoed the reconciliation process between the Koreas. In 2002, he named North Korea an "exis of evil" state and reneged on aid promises. This negated the improvement in Washington-Pyongyang relations, including the 1994 Agreed Framework, under which North Korea suspended its nuclear activities.
In 2003, Pyongyang quit the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Six-party Talks with Pyongyang (involving the US, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea) faltered largely because of inept US diplomacy. Yet, in September 2005, Pyongyang signed a preliminary denuclearisation agreement in Beijing. Four days later, Washington declared economic war on it.
After the US-led invasion of Iraq, North Korea became desperate to prevent a regime change in Pyongyang. More recently, it became uncomfortable with the appointment of militarist Shinzo Abe as Japan's prime minister and the lead taken by South Korea's Ban Ki-Moon in the election of the United Nations secretary general.
On October 3, Pyongyang foreign ministry said: "A people without a reliable war deterrent are bound to meet a tragic death and [loss of] sovereignty… This is a bitter lesson taught by the bloodshed… in different parts of the world." The blast followed six days later.
North Korea's test exposes the folly of relying on purely physical controls--like International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards under the NPT--to prevent nuclear materials from being put to military use. IAEA safeguards are leak-prone.
In some past years, IAEA inspections failed to account for over 20 kg of plutonium in reprocessing plants--enough for half-a-dozen bombs. Besides, a country can quit the NPT at three months' notice. That's what Pyongyang did, and Iran might do if cornered.
More important than safeguards, and critical to a country's decision not to cross the nuclear-weapons threshold is its political will. Without this, safeguards, even sanctions, won't work. In many countries, this will has got greatly weakened--because the nuclear-weapons states (NWSs) have refused to undertake nuclear arms reduction, leave alone disarmament. Thousands of nukes remain on high alert.
The five NPT-recognised NWSs have flagrantly violated its Article VI, which mandates complete elimination of nuclear weapons--a legal obligation under a 1996 World Court verdict.
India and Pakistan slavishly imitate them in their hypocrisy. India's nuclear deal with the US is widely seen as involving double standards: indulgence for America's friends (India, Israel, Pakistan), and punishment for Iran or N. Korea. But double standards are not Washington's monopoly. All NWSs practise them.
The world has condemned the North Korean test. But it has few options to deal with Pyongyang. Military force isn't one. President Bush has ruled it out--not out of magnanimity, but compulsion. The US is bogged down in Iraq.
Over 37,000 US troops are stationed in South Korea. North Korea's 1.2 million-strong army, with 11,000 artillery pieces, and an arsenal of missiles, can make devastating conventional strikes against South Korea and even Japan, where another 40,000 US troops are stationed. There's the risk of a nuclear attack.
India and Pakistan have strongly condemned North Korea. This is another gross instance of hypocrisy. Pyongyang has cited the same reasons for going nuclear that they did. It doesn't lie in India's mouth to condemn Pyongyang. Nor is it remotely credible for Pakistan to do so after Dr A Q Khan allegedly traded uranium centrifuges with North Korea's missiles. Today, India and Pakistan both practise the same hypocrisy and double standards for which they (rightly) criticised the N-5.
India has strongly warned against "the dangers of clandestine proliferation". The reference is to Pakistan. Some Indian commentators cite President Musharraf's "In the Line of Fire", which says: "Dr Khan transferred nearly two dozen P-1 and P-11 centrifuges to North Korea" along with auxiliary equipment and instruments.
However, on all available evidence, the Korean test used plutonium, not uranium. The plutonium came from a reactor at Yongbyon, built by the Soviet Union in 1965. North Korea removed 8,000 used-fuel rods from it and extracted 25-30 kg of plutonium, enough to make 4-6 bombs. It probably ran the reactor between February 2003 and April 2005 too, and removed some more rods. It would be foolish for India to use the Korean test as a stick to beat Pakistan with. The demand that Dr Khan be subjected to interrogation for his Korean operations won't cut much ice anywhere.
North Korea's test will strengthen the non-proliferation lobby in the US and create more difficulties for the India-US nuclear deal, which already faces hurdles. Japan and South Korea would be singularly ill-advised to go nuclear in response to North Korea. That will trigger an arms race involving China. The whole world will be destabilised under the impact of such an arms race. If the US develops a "theatre ballistic missile defence" ("Star Wars") shield for Northeast Asia, China will respond with utmost hostility.
The time has come for a radically different approach, which reforms the global nuclear order by honestly implementing the two-way bargain on which it was originally based. Under the bargain, the non-nuclear weapons-states agreed not to make or acquire nuclear weapons and subjected themselves to IAEA inspections. In return, the NWSs committed themselves to serious negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide. However, the NWSs have cheated on their part of the bargain.
The remedy lies in negotiating a return to the global disarmament agenda. What the world needs is de-alerting of all nuclear weapons, separating nuclear warheads from delivery vehicles, and phased destruction of nuclear armaments. Regional initiatives are also necessary to dissuade North Korea from a weapons programme by offering it security assurances and generous agricultural and industrial assistance and food and fuel aid. Such arrangements can lead to the creation of a Northeast Asian nuclear weapons-free zone which addresses the security concerns of all the regional states.
The world cannot afford any more breakouts before it takes the nuclear bull by the horns.
October 14, 2006
GRIM WARNING FROM NORTH KOREA
by Praful Bidwai
The writer, a former newspaper editor, is a researcher and peace and human-rights activist based in Delhi
North Korea has shocked and challenged the world by punching a big hole through the global nuclear order. The effects of its test will ricochet for a long time, changing the Asian balance of power and impacting Iran.
The explosion underscores some plain unvarnished wisdom: the best way to deal with "problem cases" like North Korea is to discard nuclear weapons as a currency of power by pursuing the global nuclear disarmament agenda. The alternative is to risk a more unsafe world with yet more nuclear-armed states.
North Korea shows that a small (pop 23 million), poor, economically and politically isolated country, which recently experienced famines, can build nuclear weapons if it is determined to. Splitting the atom requires neither high science nor very advanced technology.
The science is more than 60 years old, and the technology no more sophisticated than what a car garage has--once you have fissile material or reactors. The test sets a terrible example. Some 40 countries have significant civilian nuclear programmes, which can be diverted to make weapons.
Why did North Korea test? It has a long history of conflict with South Korea and the United States. During the 1950-53 Korean War, General Douglas MacArthur had plans to launch nuclear strikes against the North. The Cold War has not ended in the Korean peninsula.
More recently, President George W. Bush torpedoed the reconciliation process between the Koreas. In 2002, he named North Korea an "exis of evil" state and reneged on aid promises. This negated the improvement in Washington-Pyongyang relations, including the 1994 Agreed Framework, under which North Korea suspended its nuclear activities.
In 2003, Pyongyang quit the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Six-party Talks with Pyongyang (involving the US, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea) faltered largely because of inept US diplomacy. Yet, in September 2005, Pyongyang signed a preliminary denuclearisation agreement in Beijing. Four days later, Washington declared economic war on it.
After the US-led invasion of Iraq, North Korea became desperate to prevent a regime change in Pyongyang. More recently, it became uncomfortable with the appointment of militarist Shinzo Abe as Japan's prime minister and the lead taken by South Korea's Ban Ki-Moon in the election of the United Nations secretary general.
On October 3, Pyongyang foreign ministry said: "A people without a reliable war deterrent are bound to meet a tragic death and [loss of] sovereignty… This is a bitter lesson taught by the bloodshed… in different parts of the world." The blast followed six days later.
North Korea's test exposes the folly of relying on purely physical controls--like International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards under the NPT--to prevent nuclear materials from being put to military use. IAEA safeguards are leak-prone.
In some past years, IAEA inspections failed to account for over 20 kg of plutonium in reprocessing plants--enough for half-a-dozen bombs. Besides, a country can quit the NPT at three months' notice. That's what Pyongyang did, and Iran might do if cornered.
More important than safeguards, and critical to a country's decision not to cross the nuclear-weapons threshold is its political will. Without this, safeguards, even sanctions, won't work. In many countries, this will has got greatly weakened--because the nuclear-weapons states (NWSs) have refused to undertake nuclear arms reduction, leave alone disarmament. Thousands of nukes remain on high alert.
The five NPT-recognised NWSs have flagrantly violated its Article VI, which mandates complete elimination of nuclear weapons--a legal obligation under a 1996 World Court verdict.
India and Pakistan slavishly imitate them in their hypocrisy. India's nuclear deal with the US is widely seen as involving double standards: indulgence for America's friends (India, Israel, Pakistan), and punishment for Iran or N. Korea. But double standards are not Washington's monopoly. All NWSs practise them.
The world has condemned the North Korean test. But it has few options to deal with Pyongyang. Military force isn't one. President Bush has ruled it out--not out of magnanimity, but compulsion. The US is bogged down in Iraq.
Over 37,000 US troops are stationed in South Korea. North Korea's 1.2 million-strong army, with 11,000 artillery pieces, and an arsenal of missiles, can make devastating conventional strikes against South Korea and even Japan, where another 40,000 US troops are stationed. There's the risk of a nuclear attack.
India and Pakistan have strongly condemned North Korea. This is another gross instance of hypocrisy. Pyongyang has cited the same reasons for going nuclear that they did. It doesn't lie in India's mouth to condemn Pyongyang. Nor is it remotely credible for Pakistan to do so after Dr A Q Khan allegedly traded uranium centrifuges with North Korea's missiles. Today, India and Pakistan both practise the same hypocrisy and double standards for which they (rightly) criticised the N-5.
India has strongly warned against "the dangers of clandestine proliferation". The reference is to Pakistan. Some Indian commentators cite President Musharraf's "In the Line of Fire", which says: "Dr Khan transferred nearly two dozen P-1 and P-11 centrifuges to North Korea" along with auxiliary equipment and instruments.
However, on all available evidence, the Korean test used plutonium, not uranium. The plutonium came from a reactor at Yongbyon, built by the Soviet Union in 1965. North Korea removed 8,000 used-fuel rods from it and extracted 25-30 kg of plutonium, enough to make 4-6 bombs. It probably ran the reactor between February 2003 and April 2005 too, and removed some more rods. It would be foolish for India to use the Korean test as a stick to beat Pakistan with. The demand that Dr Khan be subjected to interrogation for his Korean operations won't cut much ice anywhere.
North Korea's test will strengthen the non-proliferation lobby in the US and create more difficulties for the India-US nuclear deal, which already faces hurdles. Japan and South Korea would be singularly ill-advised to go nuclear in response to North Korea. That will trigger an arms race involving China. The whole world will be destabilised under the impact of such an arms race. If the US develops a "theatre ballistic missile defence" ("Star Wars") shield for Northeast Asia, China will respond with utmost hostility.
The time has come for a radically different approach, which reforms the global nuclear order by honestly implementing the two-way bargain on which it was originally based. Under the bargain, the non-nuclear weapons-states agreed not to make or acquire nuclear weapons and subjected themselves to IAEA inspections. In return, the NWSs committed themselves to serious negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide. However, the NWSs have cheated on their part of the bargain.
The remedy lies in negotiating a return to the global disarmament agenda. What the world needs is de-alerting of all nuclear weapons, separating nuclear warheads from delivery vehicles, and phased destruction of nuclear armaments. Regional initiatives are also necessary to dissuade North Korea from a weapons programme by offering it security assurances and generous agricultural and industrial assistance and food and fuel aid. Such arrangements can lead to the creation of a Northeast Asian nuclear weapons-free zone which addresses the security concerns of all the regional states.
The world cannot afford any more breakouts before it takes the nuclear bull by the horns.
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