North Korea and Nuclear Weapons

9 SPEAR VERSUS SHIELD?

North Korea’s Nuclear Path and Challenges to the NPT System

Yangmo Ku

SINCE ITS INCEPTION in 1968, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has played a critical role in spreading the norm of nuclear nonproliferation and in preventing many non-nuclear-weapon states from developing nuclear weapons.1 Scholars estimate that without the making of the NPT, approximately fifteen countries would have become nuclear states in the 1960s and 1970s.2 After the end of the Cold War, several former Soviet republics—Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Belarus—possessed many nuclear weapons but returned them to Russia voluntarily.3 South Africa and Libya also gave up their nuclear weapon programs in 1991 and 2003, respectively. As shown in these examples, the NPT has been an important legal means to preclude nuclear proliferation in the international community.

However, the NPT has also demonstrated its weakness as three states—India, Pakistan, and Israel—never signed the treaty and therefore developed nuclear weapons outside the treaty’s jurisdiction. This has seriously damaged the universality of the NPT. In addition, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea), which had signed the NPT in 1985, withdrew from the treaty in 2003 and became a de facto nuclear power. It is important to note that North Korea’s nuclear adventurism has caused additional damage to the validity of the NPT because it set a precedent for other NPT members to consider whether they want to develop nuclear weapons in the future.

Since its withdrawal from the NPT in 2003, the DPRK has continually sought to develop nuclear weapons and, thus far, has conducted five nuclear tests. It has showed marked progress in its missile programs as well. A report issued by the US-Korea Institute at the School of Advanced International Studies estimates that North Korea currently possesses ten to sixteen nuclear weapons, including six to eight devices fashioned from plutonium and four to eight from weapons-grade uranium.4 The DPRK has also advanced its capacity to miniaturize nuclear warheads for missiles, though technological problems remain. On the basis of these accomplishments, the Kim Jong-un regime has pursued since March 2013 the so-called byeongjin strategy, which focuses on two targets simultaneously—nuclear and economic development—for national success.5

In this context, this chapter addresses following questions: Why has North Korea persistently sought to develop nuclear weapons? How has the DPRK taken advantage of the weakness of the NPT system to achieve the status of a de facto nuclear state? What implications does nuclear North Korea have for the NPT system and the East Asian region? By answering these questions, this chapter argues that regime survival has consistently been the most important motive for North Korea’s nuclear development. North Korea became a de facto nuclear power by primarily utilizing four weak elements in the NPT system: the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards system, the NPT withdrawal clause, few constraints on transfers of nuclear technology, and the freedom to conduct underground nuclear tests. The chapter also contends that the NPT system itself will continue to have little actual power to deal with the North Korean nuclear problem. Additionally, North Korea’s persistent nuclear threat could gradually increase neighboring countries’ desire to acquire nuclear weapons, thus damaging peace and stability in the East Asian region.

In the subsequent sections, this chapter first explores basic characteristics of the NPT system. While examining North Korea’s nuclear path, it then analyzes how the DPRK has, since its signing of the treaty in 1985, leveraged the weakness of the NPT system to attain the status of a de facto (though not a de jure) nuclear state. Finally, it describes some of the implications that the North Korean nuclear problem has for the NPT system and the East Asian region, before outlining a possible solution to reduce regional tensions.

Basic Characteristics of the NPT System

The NPT and its operational arm, the IAEA, have been at the center of a vast nonproliferation regime encompassing various restrictive rules and specialized control institutions, including the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Over the last forty-five years, the NPT has served as a conceptual framework “essential for understanding and properly addressing a wide range of issues that relate to nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.”6 The NPT, which came into effect on March 5, 1970, had the following three objectives: (1) to prevent nonnuclear states from acquiring nuclear weapons, (2) to disarm the nuclear weapons of the five nuclear states, and (3) to guarantee nonnuclear states’ rights to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.7 This treaty came out of a grand bargain between the non-nuclear-weapon states and the five nuclear weapon states. The former accepted the nonproliferation obligation in return for the latter’s disarmament obligations and sharing of nuclear technology for peaceful uses.

The IAEA, established in 1957, has taken the responsibility for enforcing the terms of the NPT. As shown in its Article 3, the NPT assigned the task of assuring compliance with its terms to the IAEA in order to prevent diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.8 To fulfill its nonproliferation mandate, “the most important task of the IAEA is the prompt detection and reporting of unauthorized nuclear work in any non-nuclear-weapon state that is a party to the NPT.”9 According to Article 2 of the IAEA statute, the agency’s primary goal is to encourage the peaceful uses of atomic energy while seeking to make sure that nuclear materials would not be utilized for any military purpose.10

This NPT system, however, has fundamental weaknesses. First of all, depending on the intent of users, peaceful nuclear activities can be easily diverted for military purposes. The advance of technology further lowered the technological barriers between civilian nuclear activities and nuclear weapons. One example is the spread of centrifuge enrichment technology. This technology enables states to produce low-enriched uranium to fuel reactors, but states can use the same technology to make a nuclear bomb by acquiring weapons-grade uranium within weeks.11 Second, NPT members are allowed, under Article 10, to withdraw from the treaty on three months’ notice. Third, the NPT and the IAEA have an ineffective enforcement mechanism. If NPT member states violate IAEA safeguards, the IAEA must inform the UN Security Council of their violations. In response, the UN Security Council is supposed to enact a resolution to assess blame for the violation and to enact some sort of punishment. This enforcement mechanism, however, does not often work well because of diverging interests among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

North Korea’s Nuclear Path and Challenges to the NPT System

It appears that regime survival has been the most significant motive for North Korea’s nuclear development.12 During the Korean War (1950–53), the founder of the DPRK, Kim Il-sung, began to pursue nuclear weapons owing to the US nuclear threat from several sources. US general Douglas MacArthur seriously took into consideration the use of nuclear weapons to end the war early.13 In addition, President Dwight Eisenhower deployed numerous tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea in the 1950s. By the 1970s, more than seven hundred US nuclear weapons were there. Under these circumstances, the DPRK kept asking its patron, the Soviet Union, to provide it with a nuclear facility. As a result, in 1965 the Soviet Union established a nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, and the DPRK tried to produce plutonium to use to develop nuclear weapons in order to deter what it perceived to be American aggression and South Korean acquiescence.

The end of the Cold War may have further sparked North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. The DPRK suddenly lost its communist allies, including the Soviet Union and East European countries. The loss of economic aid greatly damaged the North Korean economy, as the DPRK had been heavily dependent on trade with those countries. Moreover, the North Korean state became politically isolated from the international community because the Soviet Union restored diplomatic relations with the North’s archenemy, South Korea, in 1990. The Soviet Union also allowed South Korea to join the United Nations (UN). Even China normalized its relationship with the Republic of Korea (ROK), in 1992. Responding to these aggravating circumstances, North Korea reaffirmed its desire to pursue nuclear development, as it could use its nuclear program as a military guarantor for its regime’s survival and acquire a diplomatic bargaining chip with the United States and its allies.14 Given such a significantly weakened economy and isolated political condition, North Korea may have resorted to an asymmetrical force—nuclear threat—for its survival, as the DPRK could no longer compete with South Korea in terms of conventional military forces.

Furthermore, the DPRK leaders may have learned from two incidents—the 2003 Iraq War and the 2011 Libyan Civil War—that giving up nuclear weapons could easily lead to a military invasion and regime collapse.15 Iraq’s Saddam Hussein tried to develop nuclear weapons in the 1990s but ceased doing so later and was ultimately removed from power by the United States. The Muammar Qaddafi regime in Libya voluntarily abandoned its nuclear program in 2003 because of Western persuasion and pressure. But this made it easier for forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to conduct a military intervention into the Libyan Civil War during the Arab Spring of 2011, and Libyan rebel forces finally killed Qaddafi. Kim Jong-il’s stroke in 2008 may have also strengthened North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, because its strong nuclear capability was regarded as a guarantor of regime survival under unstable domestic conditions.16 This could be a cause of two North Korean provocations, the launch of a longrange rocket in April 2009 and its second nuclear test in May 2009.

Given the DPRK’s nuclear ambitions, the following sections address how the DPRK has taken advantage of the weaknesses of the NPT system to achieve the status of a de facto nuclear state. North Korea has utilized the following four weak elements of the NPT system: the IAEA safeguards system, the NPT withdrawal clause, unrestrained transfers of nuclear technology, and the holding of underground nuclear tests.

IAEA Safeguards System

According to the NPT, all non-nuclear-weapon states are subject to comprehensive safeguards thoroughly implemented by the IAEA. All states that sign the NPT must make a comprehensive safeguards agreement (CSA) with the IAEA within eighteen months of signature. The IAEA has the right to judge a state’s compliance of its safeguards by verifying that “nuclear material is not diverted to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.”17 A CSA includes “provisions for the timely detection of diversion of significant quantities of nuclear materials using materials accountancy, containment, and surveillance of all nuclear materials.”18 As mentioned before, following the enforcement mechanism of the NPT system, the IAEA must inform the UN Security Council if NPT member states violate IAEA safeguards. It is up to the UN Security Council to assess such violations and adopt sanctions of some kind to rectify them.

North Korea, however, was not effectively constrained by the IAEA’s safeguards system.19 In the early 1980s, the United States became highly concerned about North Korea’s nuclear program, which had been tracked by US satellites. Using indigenous expertise and the foreign procurement of materials, North Korea began constructing a 5-megawatt gas-graphite reactor at Yongbyon to produce plutonium. The reactor went operational in January 1986.20 The United States urged Moscow to persuade Pyongyang to sign the NPT in the hope that it would lead to international inspections and control of the DPRK’s nuclear facilities. In December 1985, the Soviet Union, which held talks with the Kim Il-sung regime over civilian nuclear power stations, promised to provide four light-water nuclear reactors to the DPRK in return for a nonproliferation pledge. As a result of Soviet persuasion, North Korea signed the NPT on December 12, 1985.21

Despite the DPRK’s joining the NPT, it was not until April 1992 that North Korea signed its NPT-mandated CSA.22 The IAEA had little ability to force North Korea to sign the CSA as stipulated in the NPT. Instead, North Korea was prompted to sign the safeguards agreement by the 1991 US withdrawal of its tactical nuclear weapons from South Korea, the 1991 Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and the ROK’s promise to suspend the annual Team Spirit joint military exercises with the United States in return for the DPRK’s signing of the CSA.23 During that delay period, North Korea avoided the IAEA’s thorough inspection of its nuclear facilities and gained enough plutonium to develop several nuclear weapons. Even after its signature on the CSA, North Korea did not fully accept IAEA safeguards by denying access to other suspicious nuclear facilities that the DPRK had not originally declared. In July 1992, the IAEA revealed that North Korea had likely attempted three reprocessing campaigns (not one, as it had claimed in its May 1992 declaration to the IAEA).24 Facing IAEA’s unprecedented request for special inspections and Washington’s adoption of a hard-line approach, the DPRK threatened to withdraw from the NPT in 1993, though it repealed its withdrawal decision one day before it came into effect. Therefore, although North Korea was a signatory of the NPT, the treaty and IAEA safeguards system did not prevent it from extracting nuclear materials from its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon.

Meanwhile, Iraq’s secret nuclear program became a backdrop for the introduction of a change to the IAEA’s safeguards system. Iraq’s clandestine nuclear program, masked by its IAEA-inspected peaceful project, was discovered after the 1990 Gulf War. This surprise raised serious international concerns over the effectiveness of the IAEA’s traditional safeguards system. The IAEA was only able to inspect materials and facilities that each state declared under the safeguard convention. This narrow approach failed to detect serious noncompliance beyond those declared facilities. Thus, disclosure of Iraq’s secret violations of the IAEA’s traditional safeguards prompted the IAEA to improve its safeguards system. As a consequence, the IAEA announced in 1997 the making of the Model Additional Protocol (INFCIRC/540), which “extended the obligations of states to declare, report and grant on-site access to their entire range of nuclear fuel cycle activities—from mining to the disposition of nuclear waste.”25 As a breakthrough legal instrument to improve the safeguards system, the Model Additional Protocol granted IAEA inspectors the right to seek out and make known all undeclared nuclear activities. However, this new protocol has a clear limitation: It is up to NPT members to voluntarily accept the agreement. North Korea has not accepted the Model Additional Protocol and thus is not subject to the strengthened safeguards system.

Withdrawal from the NPT

Moving beyond the weak IAEA safeguards system, North Korea adroitly took advantage of Article 10 of the NPT, which allows each party to withdraw from the treaty “if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of the treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country.”26 A state that intends to withdraw from the NPT is just required to give notice of such withdrawal to all other NPT members and to the UN Security Council three months in advance. Over the last forty-five years of the NPT, only North Korea has applied this clause, as it withdrew from the NPT in January 2003. This provocative act did not bring about any immediate sanctions on the DPRK, although it did damage its international image and economic cooperation with other nations in the long term. This escape clause in the NPT provided North Korea with a useful means to fulfill its nuclear ambitions.

North Korea’s diplomatic threat to withdraw from the NPT worked well during the first nuclear crisis in 1992–94. Facing international pressure to give up its nuclear ambitions, the DPRK embarked on nuclear brinksmanship and skillfully leveraged the United States and the IAEA.27 When North Korea refused required IAEA inspections in 1992, the United States feared a North Korean withdrawal from the NPT, which would seriously undermine the then upcoming 1995 NPT Review Conference. This led to the delayed investigation of North Korea’s alleged violation.28 In March 1993, another North Korean threat to quit the NPT ushered in hasty diplomatic maneuvers led by the United States that brought significant advantages to North Korea. In July 1993, the United States initiated a series of diplomatic negotiations with the DPRK in Geneva. During this diplomatic process, the United States actually planned to bomb the North Korean nuclear facilities at Yongbyon.29

However, this tension eased owing to the mediation of former US president Jimmy Carter in June 1994. As a result of their negotiations, the United States and North Korea reached the so-called Agreed Framework, in which the DPRK promised to freeze development at its nuclear facilities in return for annual receipt of 500,000 tons of heavy oil and the provision of two 2,000-megawatt light-water reactors by the United States and its allies. Unlike the onetime meeting of January 1992, these nuclear discussions meant ongoing, direct diplomatic negotiations with the United States, the first time this had happened since the Korean War. As a result, the IAEA became marginalized because the DPRK would discuss safeguards matters with the United States instead. South Korea was likewise excluded from the nuclear process.

Furthermore, North Korea achieved the status of a de facto nuclear state after its actual withdrawal from the NPT. The revelation of North Korea’s secret uranium-enrichment program in October 2002 led to the second nuclear crisis, culminating in DPRK’s withdrawal from the NPT in January 2003. After that, the DPRK “kicked out IAEA inspectors, restarted a nuclear reactor that had been frozen under the 1994 Agreed Framework, and moved spent fuel rods to a reprocessing facility that can produce plutonium.”30 This clearly revealed the fundamental weakness of the NPT and the IAEA, which had little capacity to constrain North Korea’s provocative actions. In February 2003, the IAEA Board of Governors declared that the DPRK had not complied with its obligations under its CSA based on the NPT, thereby requesting the UN Security Council’s involvement.

However, the UN Security Council could not take any immediate action toward North Korea because China and Russia were opposed to the council’s involvement, given the overarching division in the council over the Iraqi War. Because of this stalemate, South Korea and Japan pushed the United States to resume talks with North Korea. Pressed by Seoul and Tokyo, the George W. Bush administration initiated multilateral talks chaired by China in August 2003. The Six-Party Talks, in which the United States, China, the DPRK, the ROK, Japan, and Russia participated, had six rounds of negotiations from 2003 to 2008. Although they produced a 2005 joint statement and a 2007 joint action plan, the talks could not finally resolve the North Korean nuclear problem, owing to the DPRK’s provocative actions and the United States’ inflexible stance.31 Utilizing weaknesses of the NPT system and ineffective multilateral talks, therefore, North Korea gradually advanced its nuclear capability with few constraints.

Unrestricted Transfers of Nuclear Technology

North Korea also challenged the NPT system by acquiring nuclear technology from Pakistan. The DPRK conducted missiles-for-nuclear-technology trade with Pakistan between the mid-1990s and early 2000s. It was reported that the DPRK provided Pakistan with “missile parts it needs to build a nuclear arsenal capable of reaching every strategic site in India.” In return for this, Pakistan provided North Korea with “many of the designs for gas centrifuges and much of the machinery it needs to make highly enriched uranium for the country’s latest nuclear weapon project.”32 In February 2004, this news was confirmed. Pakistan’s top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, accepted full responsibility for leaking weapon secrets and equipment to Iran, Libya, and North Korea. It was believed that “A. Q. Khan could not have sold nuclear secrets and sent technology for enriching uranium abroad without the knowledge of top military officials.”33

In the early 1990s, Pakistan eagerly sought nuclear delivery systems based on its already acquired capability to build nuclear weapons using highly enriched uranium cores. It was necessary for Pakistan to invest in ballistic missiles in order to have a secure nuclear-strike capability against India. Despite its strong ambitions for developing missile programs, Pakistan had many constraints, including US-led multinational efforts to restrict trade in ballistic and cruise missile technology.34 In 1987, the United States and its allies established the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) in an attempt to restrict the spread of ballistic missiles. Owing to this restraint, Pakistan could not purchase long-range ballistic missiles from China, which received strong pressure from the United States, and thus it chose North Korea as an alternative supplier. Of course, North Korea had not signed the MTCR. Pakistan’s lack of hard currency hampered it from purchasing North Korean ballistic missiles, but “it could provide North Korea with a route to nuclear weapons using highly enriched uranium. This route would not only circumvent North Korea’s Agreed Framework with the United States, but would also be difficult to detect using satellite imagery.”35

As an NPT signatory, North Korea evidently violated its NPT obligations by developing a centrifuge-based uranium-enrichment program with the support from Pakistan. Under DPRK’s 1992 CSA, North Korea was not prohibited from conducting uranium enrichment because North Korea would only have to declare such facilities when safeguarded material was introduced into the facility.36 But it is a clear violation of Article 2 of the NPT,37 which stipulates that “each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to receive the transfer . . . of nuclear weapons . . . not to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons . . . and not to seek or receive any assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons.”38 Simply put, under this article, North Korea agreed not to produce or otherwise secure nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.

This was also a violation of the 1992 Joint Declaration of a Denuclearized Korean Peninsula, under which North Korea promised not to undertake plutonium reprocessing or uranium enrichment. Additionally, according to the 1994 Agreed Framework, North Korea was required to make progress in implementing the joint declaration. Strictly speaking, it was not a violation of any international treaty for Pakistan—a nonsigna-tory to the NPT—to have a nuclear trade with North Korea. The nuclear-for-missile deal did, however, violate “Pakistan’s solemn assurances to the international community that it would abide by global nonproliferation norms and export control regulations.”39 Therefore, the NPT system had not functioned effectively, failing to preclude A. Q. Khan from transferring nuclear technology to other states, including North Korea, Iran, and Libya.40

Freedom to Conduct Underground Nuclear Tests

Since its withdrawal from the NPT in January 2003, North Korea has enjoyed freedom to conduct underground nuclear tests. Outside the NPT, the DPRK was able to conduct nuclear tests five times—once in 2006, 2009, and 2013 and twice in 2016—as well as gain more nuclear materials through reprocessing at plutonium-based facilities at Yongbyon. The NPT, the IAEA, and the UN Security Council could not prevent North Korea from taking such provocative actions. The Six-Party Talks also failed to hinder the DPRK from pursuing its nuclear adventurism, although it produced two agreements in September 2005 and February 2007. Those nuclear tests enabled North Korea to enhance its nuclear capability, seriously damaging the validity and credibility of the NPT system.

Another pillar of the nonproliferation regime, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), should have played a key role in constraining North Korea’s nuclear tests. The Partial Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited all nonunderground nuclear explosions, dates from 1963. The international community was unable to adopt a comprehensive ban on nuclear explosive testing primarily owing to the lack of an incentive for nuclear weapon states, particularly France and China, to conclude an agreement to cover underground tests.41 In the wake of long negotiations, the CTBT was finally opened for signature in 1996, and more than a hundred countries signed the treaty in that year. According to the treaty, “each State Party undertakes not to carry out any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion, and to prohibit and prevent any such nuclear explosion at any place under its jurisdiction or control.”42 Moreover, the CTBT had “no special withdrawal clause and it called for an elaborate global network of observational technology to help to verify compliance by detecting and confirming violations.”43

However, this treaty has not yet entered into force owing to nonratification by eight major states, including the United States and China. Negotiations over the CTBT have been very difficult because of disputes over the CTBT’s scope, the monitoring and verification systems, procedures for on-site inspections, and conditions for the treaty’s entry into force. As of September 2016, 183 countries have signed the treaty, and 164 have ratified it.44 But North Korea has not signed the CTBT. Thus, the CTBT has made no significant progress in preventing North Korea’s underground nuclear tests.

Given the enforcement mechanism of the NPT system, in which the IAEA reports states’ violations of the NPT to the UN Security Council, North Korea’s nuclear tests brought about the imposition of UN Security Council’s economic sanctions. UN Resolutions 1718, 1874, 2094, and 2270 were adopted after the nuclear tests. UN Resolution 2087 was also made after North Korea’s firing of a long-range missile in January 2013. These resolutions prohibited North Korea’s arms trade with other nations (except in small arms), banned the exporting of luxury goods to the DPRK, and restricted financial exchanges with North Korean trade companies.45 However, these UN Security Council resolutions and economic sanctions have not worked effectively, as China, the DPRK’s patron, has taken a lukewarm stance on the issue. For China, the denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula is an important policy goal, but it does not want North Korea to collapse because of harsh economic sanctions. Chinese leaders are afraid of the negative consequences that the North Korean collapse could bring, such as a massive influx of North Korean refugees into Chinese territory, sharing a border with a nation potentially hostile to China, and an unstable regional economic order. Taking advantage of China’s ambivalent stance, North Korea has continued to conduct nuclear and missile tests despite economic sanctions, thereby becoming a de facto nuclear state. Given this result, the NPT system has been ineffective in restraining North Korea’s development as a nuclear power.

Conclusion: Implications of Nuclear North Korea

North Korea’s skillful use of the weak NPT system enabled the DPRK to become a de facto nuclear state. Thus, some experts argue that the beginning of the end of the NPT has arrived. Others claim that though the NPT did not prevent North Korea from acquiring a nuclear capacity, it has impeded the nation’s import of critical technologies and, in so doing, has slowed the North Korean nuclear and missile programs and raised their cost. Moving beyond these claims, what other implications does a nuclear North Korea have with regard to the NPT system and, in addition, to the future stability of the East Asian region?

First, the NPT system itself will continually have little actual power to deal with the North Korean nuclear problem unless North Korea returns to the NPT and the international community greatly improves the NPT’s enforcement mechanism simultaneously. As noted earlier, North Korea has seriously damaged the norm of nuclear nonproliferation in the world. The NPT system has not worked effectively in dealing with its recalcitrance. Instead, bilateral and multilateral dialogues have played and will play a key role in addressing North Korea’s nuclear adventurism, though they have not been successful thus far. Following the first nuclear crisis in 1992–94, bilateral negotiations between the United States and North Korea culminated in the Agreed Framework, in which the US and its allies promised to provide the DPRK with heavy oil and two light-water reactors in return for its freezing of nuclear facilities. But this agreement was officially annulled in October 2002, when North Korea’s secret uranium-enrichment program was revealed. In the wake of the second nuclear crisis, the United States chose to handle the issue multilaterally, and the Six-Party Talks began. From 2003 to 2008, six countries—the US, China, the ROK, the DPRK, Japan, and Russia—often conducted multilateral dialogues to resolve the North Korean nuclear problem. As a result of these talks, two joint agreements were made on September 19, 2005, and February 13, 2007. However, these agreements did not produce successful outcomes. Therefore, the international community depended on either bilateral or multilateral dialogues to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue, rather than emphasizing international institutions such as the NPT and the IAEA.

Second, the process in which the DPRK has attained the status of a de facto nuclear state offers two opposing implications. On the one hand, such process may have set a bad precedent for the proliferation of nuclear weapons. A country that potentially seeks nuclear armament could use the North Korean case as a model for developing nuclear weapons. In other words, a precedent has been provided of a country that could become a nuclear state if it can endure harsh international pressure. On the other hand, the North Korean case may have taught others the importance of adhering to the NPT. North Korea’s economic underdevelopment and diplomatic isolation could give a clear message that nuclear development would bring too much sacrifice to a potential nuclear state. Over the last two and a half decades, North Korea has lost important opportunities to cultivate its economy, as its consistent nuclear adventurism led to the imposition of harsh economic sanctions from the United Nations and individual states, particularly the United States. In addition, the DPRK’s nuclear development generated an image of a rogue state in the international community and thus prevented the DPRK from attracting foreign investment, which is an important factor for economic growth. As a consequence, North Korean citizens suffer most from their unruly regime’s nuclear adventurism, as international economic sanctions exert tremendous hardships not on elite groups but on the common people. North Korean elites can sustain their privileges even under terrible economic conditions while “around two million children, pregnant women and elderly North Koreans are suffering from malnutrition and 18 million people are experiencing some kind of food shortage.”46

Third, North Korea as a de facto nuclear power could increase neighboring countries’ desires to have nuclear weapons, although it does not immediately push other Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea to develop them. Indeed, some conservative politicians and thinkers in Japan and South Korea have mentioned the necessity of developing a nuclear weapon program to counter North Korea’s nuclear threats. For instance, Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s former secretary general Ishiba Shigeru stated, “Having nuclear plants shows to other nations that Japan can make nuclear weapons. . . . With nearby North Korea working on a weapons program, Japan needs to assert itself and say it can also make them—but is choosing not to do so.”47 Ultra-hawkish politicians such as former Tokyo governor Ishihara Shintaro and the late former finance minister Nakagawa Shoichi openly argued that Japan should have nuclear weapons.48 South Korean politician Chung Mong-joon also said, “We could not maintain peace without the balance of terror. . . . We want a nuclear weapons free Korean Peninsula, but paradoxically we need to develop nuclear weapons to achieve that goal.”49 Conservative commentator Kim Dae-jung also argued that South Korea needed to start its own nuclear weapon program and make Northeast Asia a safe region by the balance of nuclear terror.50 In addition, 66 percent of the South Korean public surveyed by the Asan Institute for Policy Analysis in February 2013 supported South Korea’s autonomous development of nuclear weapons for deterring North Korea’s nuclear threats.51

In this context, how should the international community deal with the North Korean nuclear problem, which seems extremely hard to resolve? Answers are difficult to come by owing to an intrinsic dilemma. The United States and North Korea currently have no strong motives for resuming diplomatic talks, as the two previous diplomatic attempts in the 1990s and 2000s failed and resulted in strong mutual mistrust. A preemptive attack against North Korea’s nuclear facilities cannot be a viable option either, because it could trigger the second Korean War and bring about tremendous military and civilian casualties. On the other hand, maintaining strategic patience, a policy taken by the Barack Obama administration, could allow the DPRK to stockpile more nuclear weapons and to even develop the technology to put a nuclear warhead on a long-range missile.52 Another plausible scenario—the collapse of the current Kim Jong-un regime triggered by power struggles among its top leaders—could be very dangerous too, because it could produce political and military instability and spark an unintended military conflict between South and North Korea, as well as between the United States and China. For this reason, it might be inappropriate for the international community to push too ardently for the DPRK’s regime to collapse.

Meanwhile, many pundits have predicted since 1994 the demise of the North Korean regime, but the DPRK has shown a significant level of resilience in response to internal and external shocks, including the death of top leaders Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, harsh economic crises, and international economic sanctions. It would be implausible, furthermore, to imagine that the international community, particularly the United States, recognizes North Korea as a de jure nuclear state and makes efforts to control the transfer of the DPRK’s nuclear technology and materials to other nations or nonstate actors. These actions could deal a fatal blow to the validity of the NPT by rewarding a serious rule violator.

Considering these circumstances, I think there is currently no panacea for resolving the North Korean nuclear problem. It also appears unrealistic to expect the Kim Jong-un regime to return to the NPT and/or to the negotiating table for denuclearization. The regime has already declared North Korea to be a nuclear state, and it places enormous weight on nuclear weapons for enhancing its regime security and legitimacy. In this adverse circumstance, one feasible option might be to try to manage the North Korean nuclear crisis more safely through an engagement policy. Given the history of the nuclear standoff between the DPRK and the international community over the last two decades, I realize that North Korea’s nuclear development was at least frozen and delayed during diplomatic talks. Of course, this goal would not be easy to achieve owing to the DPRK’s recalcitrant actions and top US leaders’ notably negative view of the DPRK. Nevertheless, this engagement policy is worthy of pursuit, as it could at least lead to the more stable management of the North Korean nuclear crisis than the other options mentioned above—an increase in North Korea’s nuclear weapon stockpile, political and military instability, or the outbreak of war.

Notes

1. In this chapter, the NPT system is defined as a mechanism in which the Non-Proliferation Treaty and its agent, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) operate. The treaty itself functions as a legal means to provide overarching guidelines for nuclear nonproliferation, and the IAEA works as a practical agent to fulfill the mission. This definition is much narrower than that of a nonproliferation regime, which encompasses a variety of restrictive rules and specialized control institutions, including the NPT, the IAEA, the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and the Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones (NWFZs).

2. Mark Hilborne, “The NPT,” in Handbook of Nuclear Proliferation, ed. Harsh V. Pant (New York: Routledge, 2012), 255.

3. Hans Blix, “Introduction: The Present Nuclear Order, How It Came About, Why It May Not Last,” in Nuclear Proliferation and International Order: Challenges to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, ed. Olav Njolstad (New York: Routledge, 2011), 7.

4. Joel S. Wit and Sun Young Ahn, “North Korea’s Nuclear Futures: Technology and Strategy,” US-Korea Institute at SAIS (2015), 17.

5. Tak Sung Han and Jeon Kyung Joo, “Can North Korea Catch Two Rabbits at Once: Nuke and Economy? One Year of the Byeongjin Line in North Korea and Its Future,” Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 26 (June 2014): 133–53.

6. Hee-Seog Kwon, “Is the NPT in Trouble? Setting the Stage for the 2015 Review Conference,” Asian Journal of Peacebuilding 2 (2014): 264.

7. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), “Information Circular (INFCIRC/ 140): Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons” (April 22, 1970), https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/
documents/infcircs/1970/infcirc140.pdf.

8. Richard D. Burns and Philip E. Coyle III, The Challenges of Nuclear Non-Proliferation (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), 53–57.

9. Pierre Goldschmidt, “Safeguards Noncompliance: A Challenge for the IAEA and the UN Security Council,” Arms Control Today, January–February 2010.

10. IAEA, “The Statute of the IAEA,” https://www.iaea.org/about/statute#a1–2.

11. Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, “Serious Rules for Nuclear Power without Proliferation,” Nonproliferation Review 21 (2014): 79.

12. For a detailed account of North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear development, see the Wilson Center, “North Korean Nuclear History,” http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/113/north-korean-nuclear-history.

13. Walter C. Clemens, “North Korea’s Quest for Nuclear Weapons: New Historical Evidence,” Journal of East Asian Studies 10 (2010): 127–54.

14. Leon V. Sigal, “How to Bring North Korea Back into the NPT,” in Njolstad, Nuclear Proliferation and International Order, 67.

15. Jing-Dong Yuan, “DPRK Nuclear Challenges and the Politics of Nonproliferation,” in North Korean Nuclear Operationality: Regional Security and Nonproliferation, ed. Gregory J. Moore (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), 220.

16. Moojin Yang, “Bukhaek munje ui gyeongkwa wa jaengjeom, geurigo jeongchaekjeok jeeon” [The North Korean nuclear problems: The progress, issues, and policy proposals], Hyundae Bukhan Yeongu 16 (2013): 114–15.

17. IAEA, “Information Circular (INFCIRC/153): The Structure and Content of Agreements between the Agency and States Required in Connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons” (June 1972), https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/
documents/infcircs/1972/infcirc153.pdf.

18. Robert L. Brown, Nuclear Authority: The IAEA and the Absolute Weapon (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2015), 70.

19. Jihwan Hwang, “Haekhwaksan ui gukjejeongchi wa bihwaksan ui yuigi: Bukhan kwa iran ui sarye yeongu” [International relations of nuclear proliferation and the non-proliferation regime in crisis: Challenges from North Korea and Iran], Gukjekwangye Yeongu 14 (December 2008): 66–70.

20. Mary Beki Nikitin, “North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons: Technical Issues,” Congressional Research Service Report, RL34256 (April 3, 2013): 1.

21. Balbina Y. Hwang, “North Korea: An Isolationist Nuclear State,” in Pant, Handbook of Nuclear Proliferation, 200.

22. Brown, Nuclear Authority, 108–11. Because of this delay, the United States became very suspicious of North Korea’s acts. Indeed, the United States initially took into consideration North Korea’s expressed insecurities and offered, in exchange for signing its CSA, to begin negotiations on diplomatic normalization and economic relations, including trade.

23. Hwang, “North Korea: An Isolationist Nuclear State,” 204.

24. Sigal, “How to Bring North Korea Back,” 67.

25. Burns and Coyle, Challenges of Nuclear Non-Proliferation, 56.

26. IAEA, “Information Circular (INFCIRC/140).”

27. Hwang, “North Korea: An Isolationist Nuclear State,” 205: In late 1992, the United States was undergoing a significant political change from twelve years of conservative Republican rule to the liberal Democratic rule of President Bill Clinton. The IAEA had been struggling to restore legitimacy in the wake of its ineffective inspections in Iraq before the Gulf War.

28. Gilinsky and Sokolski, “Serious Rules for Nuclear Power,” 88.

29. Yuan, “DPRK Nuclear Challenges,” 219.

30. Jean du Preez and William Potter, “North Korea’s Withdrawal from the NPT: A Reality Check,” http://archive.is/xfli.

31. For a detailed account of the process of the Six-Party Talks, see Sigal, “How to Bring North Korea Back,” 65–81.

32. David E. Sanger, “In North Korea and Pakistan, Deep Roots of Nuclear Barter,” New York Times, November 24, 2002.

33. Mike Collett-White, “Pakistani Nuclear Scientist Seeks Clemency for Leaks,” Washington Post, February 4, 2004.

34. Gaurav Kampani, “Second Tier Proliferation: The Case of Pakistan and North Korea,” Nonproliferation Review 9 (Fall–Winter 2002): 109–11.

35. Sharon A. Squassoni, “Weapons of Mass Destruction: Trade between North Korea and Pakistan,” CRS Report for Congress, March 11, 2004, 4–5. The 1994 Agreed Framework did not directly address uranium enrichment, as it only dealt with the freezing of North Korea’s plutonium-based nuclear programs.

36. Ibid., 5.

37. Justin Farber, “A Legal Interpretation of North Korea’s Nuclear Program,” Global Tides 6 (2012): 5. While emphasizing North Korea’s violation of Article 2 of the NPT, Farber says, “If North Korea, as a signatory of the NPT, ever pursued the acquirement of nuclear weapons in any way, it would violate international law.”

38. IAEA, “Information Circular (INFCIRC/140).”

39. Kampani, “Second Tier Proliferation,” 107.

40. Paul K. Kerr, Steven A. Hildreth, and Mary Beth D. Nikitin, “Iran-North Korea-Syria Ballistic Missile and Nuclear Cooperation,” CRS Report, May 11, 2015. The NPT system could not constrain North Korea’s transfer of nuclear technology to Syria as well. According to official US accounts, “North Korea assisted Syria with building a nuclear reactor that may have been part of a Syrian nuclear weapons programs.” However, the CRS report claims, “there is no evidence that Iran and North Korea have engaged in nuclear-related trade or cooperation between the two,” despite the existence of their ballistic missile technology cooperation. Although some media reports have indicated alleged instances of nuclear-related cooperation between the two nations, “this information remains speculative and unconfirmed by official sources.”

41. Dean Knox, “The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: Foundations, Context and Outlook,” in Pant, Handbook of Nuclear Proliferation, 263–65.

42. Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, “Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty,” http://www.ctbto.org/fileadmin/content/treaty/treaty_text.pdf.

43. Burns and Coyle, Challenges of Nuclear Non-Proliferation, 90.

44. Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, “Status of Signature and Ratification,” http://www.ctbto.org/the-treaty/status-of-signature-and-ratification.

45. Hyoung-soo Jang, “Daebuk gyeongje jaeje: Hyunghwang kwa jeonmang [Economic sanctions on North Korea: Current situation and future outlook],” KDI Bukhan Gyeongje Yeongu (March 2013): 39–41.

46. Elizabeth Shim, “Majority of North Koreans Suffer from Food Insecurity, Says U.N.,” United Press International, April 9, 2015.

47. “Japan Pro-Bomb Voices Grow Louder amid Nuke Debate,” Associated Press, July 31, 2012.

48. “Nuclear Arms Card for Japan,” Japan Times, April 29, 2013.

49. “Chung Mong-joon: Bukhaek upaegyomyon urido jache haekmujang haeya” [Chung Mong-joon: South Korea should also have nuclear capabilities to remove North Korean nuclear weapons], Yonhap, June 3, 2012.

50. Dae-jung Kim, “Hanguk ui haekmugi nonuihal pilyodo updan malinga?” [South Korean nuclear weapons: Is there no value in discussing the issue?], Chosun Ilbo, February 7, 2011.

51. Jiyoon Kim, Friedhoff Karl, and Chungku Kang, “The Fallout: South Korean Public Opinion Following North Korea’s Third Nuclear Test,” Asan Institute for Policy Studies, Issue Brief, no. 46 (February 25, 2013): 9.

52. Wit and Ahn, “North Korea’s Nuclear Futures,” 11–12.