Would North Korea Really Give Up Its Nuclear Weapons?
To be sure, Iran will be closely watching the outcome.
After two summit meetings between the leaders of North Korea and the United States, to discuss denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and the lifting of sanctions, talks have stalled. Today, a historic and symbolic meeting took place between President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un at the DMZ on the border of North and South Korea. Only time will tell if this gesture will lead to a resumption of talks.
It is in the nature of negotiations that, at the outset, neither side is sure about the other’s end goal nor what it would settle for. So, is North Korea really serious about giving up its nuclear weapons so soon after acquiring them; or is it just trying to squeeze the maximum deterrence from its existing arsenal of nuclear devices and ballistic missiles by reminding the United States and the world of their existence? If the former, then how far is it willing to go and what would it be seeking in return? If the latter, then how long is it prepared to continue preening itself on the world diplomatic stage?
As for the United States, is it serious about wanting to completely denuclearize the Korean Peninsula? That may be so; but how realistic is it about its chances of success? Or, is this a kind of show trial for domestic consumption or to send a message to Iran, which itself may fancy becoming a nuclear weapon state?
The general public is even further in the dark. All we get are tweets from the President and media opinion, based on what the Administration is willing to tell them. And of course, it is not beyond the Administration to use leaks to the media, whether true or false, as part of its negotiating tactics. So who is playing whom on a string here? How can we in the general public get to understand what is really going on; and what are the realistic expectations from these negotiations and any which may take place with Iran?
Let us go back to first principles. What was the motivation for North Korea to acquire nuclear weapons in the first place? Presumably, it was to act as a deterrent to prevent the United States and South Korea from invading or engaging in regime change. Being a hermit kingdom, it may have felt isolated except for its relationship with China; but it could never be sure that China would come to the rescue again, as in the 1950’s, if it were invaded by the United States. Admittedly, there have been recent reports in the Chinese Press, which may or may not represent Government opinion, that if North Korea was the victim in an attack by a major power, then China would have its back; but not if it were the aggressor. While such a guarantee might provide comfort now for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, it may not have been on offer when the decision was first made to go nuclear. Then, the leaders of the nation could easily have imagined why the United States might invade. It had already done so once before (although only because the North attacked the South first). Also, the United States had gone to war against a number of small countries whose political systems and/or human rights records met with its disapproval. North Vietnam and Iraq are two cases in point.
So, it is reasonable to conclude that the leaders of North Korea were afraid that they would be attacked by the United States, and so they sought a nuclear deterrent, which is the great equalizer. Whereas a small nuclear state could never take on the United States in a nuclear exchange, without facing obliteration, that is not the point. Nuclear weapons are not there to use, but to deter the enemy from attacking with either nuclear or conventional weapons. Though North Korea’s nuclear devices may be clunky and their ICBM’s unreliable and inaccurate, they still give the US leadership pause. A nuclear missile aimed at Los Angeles, which hit a town near the Mojave desert by mistake, is still too much for the US to risk inviting. Though it could be argued that no rational North Korean leader would risk massive retaliation by sending a nuclear missile over the United States, there is always the uncertainty about the rationality of a desperate leader, if provoked.
In effect, North Korea already has a nuclear deterrent against the United States, albeit a primitive one. It therefore may feel secure against any attempt to take out its leadership or to attack its nuclear facilities with bunker-busting bombs. In such case: why would it be willing to give up its nuclear weapons? Conceivably, the only way it would do so is if it no longer felt threatened by the United States. A treaty or the arbitrary lifting of sanctions would not do it, as such arrangements can be broken. To achieve that happy state would require the two nations to become friends through co-operation in finance, trade and technology transfer, to kick start the North Korean economy and bring it out of the economic dark ages. However, the two would make strange bedfellows indeed. As with China under Deng Shao Ping 40 years ago, North Korea would have to allow Western capitalists to provide investment and technology, while the Communist Party and the Supreme Leader maintained political control. Whether the old doctrinaire Marxist generals in the North could make this quantum leap is a key question. Yet, the Chinese did it!
Next, we should ask: is the United States capable of making the necessary adjustment? It would entail massive aid to a former enemy whose political system and human rights record were still anathema to it. Yet, this has been done before by Nixon and Kissinger in China; and has worked spectacularly well, although China was not asked to give up its nuclear weapons. As for the US negotiators, they surely realize that North Korea would never give up its nuclear weapons without the necessary quantum shift in relations between the two countries. The difficulty is going to be getting to that endpoint after more than a half century of distrust between the two nations. In addition, any solution reached will have to be in accord with the wishes of North Korea’s big brother, China.
Superimposed on the strategic issues are the personalities involved at the top. Kim Jong Un is a Communist dictator who promotes a personality cult. Personal face is important for an Asian, particularly this Asian. If it looks like being lost, we can expect him to pull back from negotiations. Although President Trump is no dictator (not yet anyway), he does invoke the cult of personality. Coming from the rough and tumble of the construction industry in New York, he is inclined to be abrasive and not above making threats. It will take time and patience, but with good will on both sides there is a light to be found at the end of the tunnel.
The situation with Iran is somewhat different. For one, Iran does not yet have a nuclear weapon, although it has uranium enrichment machines capable of producing bomb quality material within a year or two. This is inclined to embolden the United States to keep the genie in the bottle. As for the Iranians, they will have noted the respect accorded the North Korean nuclear program, manifest in two summit meetings granted to the North with the President of the United States, the world’s superpower. The search for this kind of respect may spur on the Iranians to emulate North Korea.
However, an Iranian bomb would be very destabilizing in the powder keg which is the Middle East. Israel, a US ally, would see it as neutering its own nuclear deterrent with respect to Iran. This would limit its freedom to act conventionally against Iran if it tried to undermine Israel by funding terrorists, for example. Mind you, Israel does not admit publicly to having nuclear weapons, but its neighbors believe that it does. In such case, one of the prime motivations for Iran to seek nuclear capability may well be to neutralize the Israeli bomb.
In the Middle East there has long been enmity between Shia Muslims (Iran) and Sunni Muslims (Saudi Arabia), between Muslims and Jews and between Muslims and Christians. Saudi Arabia (a US ally) would be alarmed if Iran acquired a nuclear weapon. In addition, in the West there is fear of a nuclear device in a Muslim nation falling into the hands of Muslim terrorists. Admittedly, nuclear weapons already exist in Muslim Pakistan, but the nuclear program there is kept under the tight supervision of the pro-Western military. Complicating relations further are deep cultural differences: Iran is a Muslim theocracy, which the United States does not know how to deal with, and vice versa.
Back in the Obama era, the United States, Russia and Western Europe entered into an Agreement with Iran whereby it halted its nuclear weapon program at the penultimate step (uranium enrichment) in return for the lifting of economic sanctions. This was the classic textbook approach to bribing a nation to forswear its nuclear ambitions. Granted, Iran never admitted it had a nuclear weapon program. It insisted that its uranium enrichment machines were solely for the purpose of producing fuel for peaceful nuclear electric power. But nobody really believed that story, as imported power-station fuel was readily available from either Russia or the West. The distrust of Iran by the US Trump Administration and Israel was such that they suspected Iran would cheat under the agreement, despite the presence of international safeguards inspectors at its facilities from time to time. There was also concern expressed that Iran was still sponsoring international terrorism, although we in the general public have no way of knowing whether intelligence reports bear this out, or whether the politicians are lying to us again. In any event, the United States walked away from the Agreement and re-imposed economic sanctions. The other signatories to the Agreement, Western Europe and Russia, were annoyed with Trump over this action, as they had spent 10 years getting Iran to forswear its nuclear weapon ambitions and agree to safeguards. Iran now has to decide whether it will resume enriching uranium towards bomb quality, which would put it in violation of its Agreement with the Russians and Europeans (which may no longer be valid now that the United States has broken it).
It is hard to see the kind of solution emerging with Iran that may be possible with North Korea. The web of alliances the United States has with Israel and Saudi Arabia and allies make it difficult to extend the hand of friendship to their mortal enemy Iran, which is receiving support from a reinvigorated Russia. On the other hand, Iran may not want to keep its nuclear program on hold if sanctions are re-imposed. Rather, it may be tempted to push on to a nuclear weapon capability to improve its negotiating position, as did North Korea. Yet, this would risk a surgical military strike or cyber-attack on its uranium enrichment plant by the United States or Israel, in order to head off such a gambit. A successful computer virus attack on Iran’s centrifuge enrichment machines has already been launched by the United States a few years ago. There are a lot of moves yet to be made in this deadly game of chess with Iran before a new beginning can ever be envisaged, let alone achieved.