Nuclear Weapons

A decade has passed since North Korea first tested a nuclear weapon, on October 9, 2006. It conducted its fifth nuclear test last September, and there are rumors that a sixth will come within weeks or months. The United States has tried to both negotiate with and sanction North Korea while strengthening deterrence with South Korea and conducting shows of force to underscore the U.S. commitment to South Korean defense, but these measures have not halted, much less reversed, North Korea’s nuclear program. Instead, following the leadership transition from Kim Jong-il to Kim Jong-un, North Korea has elevated its nuclear program to a primary strategic commitment, reigniting debates among U.S. experts over whether the U.S. goal of “complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization” is feasible. North Korea has conducted four tests during the Obama administration, and the president reiterated after the latest one that the United States “does not, and never will, accept North Korea as a nuclear state.” Yet the longer that North Korea is able to expand its nuclear delivery capability, the more empty U.S. condemnations may become and the closer North Korea will edge toward winning de facto acceptance of its nuclear status. North Korea is believed to have twelve to twenty nuclear bombs and recently successfully tested intermediate-range ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Its latest nuclear test was estimated to yield ten to fifteen kilotons, and U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials believe that the country now has the capability to miniaturize warheads to fit them on Nodong class medium-range missiles. Amid these developments, a review of North Korean and U.S. official statements surrounding each of North Korea’s nuclear tests over the past decade is useful for understanding the evolution of North Korea’s threat. North Korea’s Initial Intentions “The longer that North Korea is able to expand its nuclear delivery capability, the more empty U.S. condemnations may become and the closer North Korea will edge toward winning de facto acceptance of its nuclear status.” At least eighteen months prior to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) first nuclear test, in October 2006, its foreign ministry signaled Pyongyang’s intentions to carry one out. On February 10, 2005, the ministry announced that North Korea was compelled to “bolster its nuclear weapons arsenal in order to protect the ideology, system, freedom, and democracy chosen by the people.” The following month, the DPRK declared that the Six Party Talks on its denuclearization (negotiations between the United States, China, Japan, Russia, North and South Korea)should be transformed into mutual disarmament talks. It had interpreted the Bush administration’s nuclear posture review as implying that Pyongyang could become a target of U.S. nuclear weapons. It said that the United States should rescind what it called a policy aimed at toppling the DPRK through nuclear war as a prerequisite of its own denuclearization. Although a Six Party Talks joint statement from September 2005 envisioned the DPRK denuclearizing in return for steps toward U.S.-DPRK and DPRK-Japan diplomatic normalization, economic assistance, and the establishment of a permanent peace regime, subsequent talks were stalemated after the U.S. Treasury designated Banco Delta Asia (BDA) a “primary money laundering concern” and froze more than $25 million in North Korean funds. North Korea presented its decision to conduct the test in 2006 as a response to U.S. efforts to “isolate and stifle” the regime. At the time it stated a no-first-use nuclear posture, asserted that it would prevent the transfer nuclear weapons and technology, and pledged to “do its utmost to realize the denuclearization of the peninsula and give impetus to the worldwide nuclear disarmament and the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons.” The foreign ministry reaffirmed its willingness to return to negotiations. The Evolution of North Korea’s Nuclear Statements North Korea’s statements following subsequent nuclear tests, in 2009, 2013, and 2016, have portrayed them as enhancing its self-defense capabilities and improving peninsular peace and stability. They have also included assurances of safety regarding potential nuclear fallout. After each test, North Korea has claimed dramatic increases in its capability of one or another facet of its nuclear program: ability to independently develop its own technology (2006), explosive power and technology (2009), miniaturization (2013), hydrogen bomb (2016), and standardization of a warhead, which essential to building a strategic nuclear force (2016). At the DPRK’s seventh Workers’ Party Congress, in May 2016, Kim Jong-un put forward the idea that North Korea’s policy emphasizing the country’s nuclear development would be a “permanent strategic line,” but also presented the country as a “responsible nuclear power” that would only use nuclear weapons as a retaliatory measure against a nuclear attack. The DPRK statement accompanying its September 2016 test shows that North Korean strategic objectives had evolved from defensive deterrence to the capability to pursue nuclear retaliation. How the United States Has Responded President George W. Bush responded to North Korea’s 2006 nuclear test by vowing to coordinate a UN condemnation of North Korea, warning of the dangers of North Korean nuclear proliferation, and reassuring U.S. allies in Asia that the United States would continue to meet its security commitments in the face of a growing nuclear threat. Bush also reiterated his administration’s commitment to diplomacy, signaling a desire to return to the Six Party Talks. The talks reconvened in Beijing in December of that year, and, in February 2007, its members reached an agreement on initial actions toward denuclearization. North Korea would declare its nuclear facilities in exchange for the United States easing sanctions and removing it from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.     “Absent China’s willingness to cut off its economic lifeline to North Korea, North Korea will continue to survive as a parasite, living off of Chinese fears of its collapse or disappearance.”     Obama too has consistently said that North Korea’s nuclear testing is unacceptable, repeated the U.S. commitment to defend South Korea, and characterized the nuclear testing as a self-prescription for isolation and, eventually, regime failure. U.S. allies, including Japan and South Korea, have consistently sought assurances that the United States will honor its commitments to defend against North Korean nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, China has promoted a return to diplomatic negotiations. In response to North Korea’s first nuclear test, Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan traveled to Pyongyang to facilitate North Korea’s return to the negotiating table. These mediation efforts have foundered, however, since North Korea abandoned the Six Party Talks in 2008. In the process, the DPRK also discarded the “action-for-action” approach that had been embraced by the Six Party Talks, in which it would denuclearize in exchange for normalized diplomatic relations with the United States. Instead, North Korea insisted that the United States abandon its hostility toward its regime as a prerequisite for arms-control discussions. This has shut down prospects for renewed negotiations. North Korea’s Efforts to Shape U.S. Choices North Korea’s nuclear sprint in 2016 appears designed to gain survivability of its nuclear deterrent. It also seems to reinforce the country’s intention to develop a direct-strike capability on the United States to overcome Pyongyang’s vulnerabilities and reframe the U.S.-DPRK relationship as one between two nuclear powers. North Korea believes this sprint will enable it to: 1)      reduce its remaining vulnerabilities from its currently limited nuclear deterrent vis-à-vis the United States by enhancing the credibility of its threats and the range of a potential strike; 2)      exploit potential South Korean concerns that the United States might abandon its commitment to defend South Korea if it fears that North Korea could conduct a retaliatory nuclear strike on the United States; and 3)      claim to domestic audiences that North Korea has achieved at least one part of its goal of being a “strong and prosperous state” by 2020. North Korea has long seen U.S. and South Korean political transitions as opportunities to test the mettle of new leaderships as it pursues its strategic objective of winning acquiescence to its status as a nuclear state. Kim Jong-un likely believes that he can survive as leader and North Korea will prosper if he can win U.S. acquiescence to a nuclear North Korea, and it is not surprising that he might see this course as a viable pathway forward. After all, North Korea has successfully exploited divisions among the China, South Korea, and the United States for a decade now while steadily improving its nuclear capabilities. Still, the United States has kept North Korea in the penalty box as an outlier state due to its pursuit of nuclear weapons. But if its goal of North Korea’s denuclearization is indefinitely suspended, the nonproliferation norm embodied by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty will undoubtedly be weakened. Absent China’s willingness to cut off its economic lifeline to North Korea, North Korea will continue to survive as a parasite, living off of Chinese fears of its collapse or disappearance. This piece originally appeared as a CFR expert brief here.

It has been almost three weeks since North Korea conducted its fifth nuclear test, but China and the United States have not yet reached agreement on the text of a new UN Security Council resolution condemning the country. In the aftermath of the fourth nuclear test, the Security Council took almost two months to come up with a resolution; the average number of days between a North Korean provocation and a Security Council resolution was 27 during the Obama administration’s tenure. Based on the growing length of time following UN condemnation of North Korea’s successive tests since 2006, North Korea’s leadership probably feels affirmed in its judgement that it can effectively exploit geostrategic distrust between the U.S. and China. U.S.-China differences  Moreover, North Korea seeks to use impending transitions in the U.S., South Korea and even at the United Nations to flout UN Security Council resolutions with impunity. Immediately following North Korea’s fifth nuclear test, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter publically noted that China “shares important responsibility for this development and has an important responsibility to reverse it.” In response, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson. Hua Chunying, said that “[w]hoever started the trouble should end it” and that the U.S. should “take on its due responsibility.” Sino-U.S. differences over the implementation of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system persist, and the task of hashing out agreement on a new UN Security Council resolution condemning North Korea appears to have taken a back seat to the crisis in Syria. A new UNSC resolution On the positive side of the ledger, China cooperated with the U.S. to crack down on the Hongxiang company, which has been revealed to have engaged in and facilitated illicit transactions and dual use shipments of sensitive chemicals for North Korea’s missile and nuclear development as part of the $500 million in trade over five years that the company has conducted with North Korea. These developments have been facilitated in part by two new sanctions reports, evaluated by Steph Haggard, here and here. Negotiations on a new UNSC resolution are reportedly focused on closing “livelihood” loopholes on shipments of North Korean coal products to China and tightening restrictions on North Korean overseas labor to other countries, Sino-DPRK tourism, or exports of North Korean textiles to China. However, it will be necessary to reach out and touch leadership assets and interests to get the attention of Kim Jong Un. What we should do to strengthen sanctions If such sanctions do not prove to be effective due to China’s inability or unwillingness to enforce them properly, the U.S. should be prepared to take the following measures unilaterally: 1. Impose secondary sanctions on Chinese steel companies that use North Korean coal products. Chinese companies should not be allowed to take advantage of cut-rate North Korean coal to unfairly enhance their competitive advantage in the international market while facilitating North Korea’s nuclear weapons development. Chinese consumers of North Korean coal are therefore legitimate targets of U.S. secondary sanctions. 2. Target Chinese small and medium enterprises that continue to do business as usual with North Korea. There are companies similar to the Hongxiang group that play a gateway role for both legitimate trade and embedded North Korean procurement of dual use items. A recent study by John Park and Jim Walsh on North Korean sanctions evasion techniques highlights North Korean efforts to embed cut-out companies as customers in Chinese procurement networks as a primary means of sidestepping sanctions. 3. Push Chinese authorities to crack down Chinese banks that deal with North Korean citizens since they use multiple personal accounts containing millions of dollars for state purposes. Since opening an account requires identification, Chinese authorities should be able to identify and cut off all North Korean account holders. If necessary, impose secondary sanctions on these banks. 4. Strengthen implementation of shipping sanctions to impose a de facto quarantine on North Korea. A report by Asan Institute for Policy Studies and Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) highlighting the role of China’s Hongxiang company in sanctions evasion recommends proactive monitoring of North Korea’s foreign flagged fleet to ensure enforcement of the existing UNSC resolution, drawing particular attention to data showing that Cambodia and Sierra Leone are flags of choice for the North Korean shipping fleet. The debate we must make North Korea have Despite external efforts to strengthen the international sanctions regime, there is precious little evidence to suggest that Kim Jong Un hears or cares more about efforts by external actors to convince him to reverse course than he cares about the internal factors that have led him to embrace nuclear development. In this respect, sanctions remain a blunt instrument to the extent that they have thus far failed, in combination with other measures, to induce a more active internal debate within Pyongyang over the question of whether North Korea’s survival without nuclear weapons is a viable option. This post originally appeared on Forbes Asia. See the original post here.

Sungtae “Jacky” Park is research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations. Since the July 7 announcement by the U.S.-Korea alliance to deploy the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system on the Korean peninsula, analysts and commentators have been discussing whether and how Beijing would retaliate against Seoul and whether the decision would lead to a dangerous arms race between the United States and China. These are important questions, but Thucydides might say that they are also missing the forest for the trees. By itself, the THAAD controversy is not a make-or-break issue in China-South Korea relations or in the U.S.-China arms race dynamics but is simply one symptom of broader trends, namely the increasingly zero-sum nature of the U.S.-China competition in Asia and the evolution in strategic military technologies. Read more in The National Interest...

The Council on Foreign Relations has just released a report of an independent task force on policy toward North Korea, titled A Sharper Choice on North Korea: Engaging China for a Stable Northeast Asia,  directed by Adam Mount, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, and co-chaired by retired Admiral Mike Mullen, former chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, and former Senator Sam Nunn (R-GA). The task force grapples comprehensively with all the dimensions of U.S. policy toward North Korea, breaking new ground in its recommendations in several areas and confirming the stepped up efforts by the Barack Obama administration and Congress to reinvigorate the U.S. response in others. The product benefits from the participation of a diverse group of specialists and former policymakers who bring a wealth of experience to the elusive task of effectively addressing the challenge to U.S. and South Korean interests posed by the North Korean regime, both through its nuclear development and its human rights practices. The report identifies a set of logical and needed issues and recommendations that a new U.S. administration will want to seriously consider when it takes office in January of 2017. Given its penchant for capitalizing on transition periods in U.S. and South Korean politics, North Korea will likely ensure that it tops the president’s inbox as one of the most serious, dangerous, and complex global challenges that he or she will face by 2020. The task force recommendations include the following: Diplomacy           Engage China in serious discussions about the future of the Korean peninsula, preferably through five party talks that would include Japan, Russia, and South Korea along with China and the United States.             Pursue a freeze on North Korea’s nuclear and missile development as a first step toward denuclearization and a comprehensive peace agreement.   Human Rights           Signal a willingness to suspend North Korea’s credentials at the United Nations if it does not show real progress on human rights. Facilitate information flows to North Korea and support international efforts to seek accountability for North Korean individuals and entities responsible for crimes against humanity while expanding U.S. sanctions against them.   Sanctions           Invest in rigorous enforcement of the existing sanctions regime and apply escalating pressure on North Korea’s illicit activities. Should North Korea fail to reenter negotiations, the United States should work with its allies to expand sanctions to target the full range of the regime’s illicit activities.   Strengthen Deterrence and Defense           Pursue deepened U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral collaboration to strengthen deterrence and defense, including adoption of a collective security commitment and expanded allied capacity to strengthen coordination and capabilities to defend against a range of North Korean capabilities.             Build a trilateral capacity to intercept all North Korean mid-range or long-range missile launches whether they are declared to be ballistic missile tests or civil space launch vehicles.   The report offers considerably more detail and grist for debates surrounding each of these recommendations that represent course corrections and departures from the Obama administration’s approach that has been built on pressure and deterrence while leaving open the possibility for dialogue—if North Korea is willing to credibly demonstrate its willingness to pursue denuclearization. Four nuclear tests and eight years later, it is clear that a new administration may perceive that the window for persuasion of North Korea is closing or that insufficient pressures have been brought to bear to achieve North Korea’s denuclearization. These circumstances provide a starker backdrop and fewer options for policymakers in the next administration who will view the North Korea problem with fresh eyes and greater urgency. Regardless of how they will decide to approach North Korea’s challenge, the report is a valuable starting point for those deliberations.

U.S. President Barack Obama stated clearly immediately following North Korea’s fifth nuclear test that “the United States does not, and never will, accept North Korea as a nuclear state. Far from achieving its stated national security and economic development goals, North Korea’s provocative and destabilizing actions have instead served to isolate and impoverish its people through its relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile capabilities.” There are three primary reasons that support President Obama’s statement that, indeed, the United States will never be able to accept North Korea as a nuclear state. First, the United States cannot accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state for normative reasons; North Korea had signed onto the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear state and then abandoned the treaty in order to pursue nuclear capabilities. Tolerating North Korea’s nuclear status would be equivalent to setting a precedent for other NPT signatories to violate the treaty. Second, the United States cannot accept the North Korea’s nuclear weapons program because of the threat that a nuclear North Korea poses to South Korea’s security, both through possible extortion and potential use of nuclear weapons in a conflict with a conventionally stronger South Korea in which nuclear weapons are the North’s only real advantage. If North Korea attains a strike and survival capability against the United States, the U.S.-South Korea alliance will also come under considerable pressure in ways that will complicate military planning and political coordination within the alliance, even as the United States seeks to maintain its commitment to extended deterrence, which includes the premise that if North Korea were to use nuclear weapons, it would spell the end of the North Korean regime in relatively short order. Third, political power in North Korea, a totalitarian state, is considerably more concentrated compared to other nuclear weapons states such as Pakistan. This means that internal North Korean decision-making on nuclear use would be unchecked and would ultimately depend on a single individual, Kim Jong-un, compounding the risks and dangers of living with North Korea with a survivable nuclear deterrent and direct strike capability on the United States. It should not be surprising that the North Korean foreign ministry criticized President Obama’s statement, arguing that his denial of North Korea’s status as a nuclear weapons state “is as foolish an act as trying to eclipse the sun with a palm.” But in this context, it is worth some reflection in Pyongyang about exactly what North Korea has accomplished since 2009, when the regime abandoned six-party negotiations and argued that the United States must first abandon its “hostile policy” toward North Korea and then pursue mutual nuclear disarmament. As a result, there has been almost no space for diplomacy between the United States and North Korea. By taking advantage of the last American presidential transition to double down on nuclear development by conducting four tests since Obama’s inauguration in 2009, North Korea has made itself a threat to global security, while Myanmar, Iran, and Cuba were each able to take advantage of diplomacy with the Obama administration and establish more normal relations with the United States. It feels ironic and surreal when I recall conversations in Beijing with a Chinese Korea analyst on Election Day 2008, at which time the Chinese analyst asked: “Where will Obama visit first: Tehran or Pyongyang?” In this context, North Korea’s nuclear breakout—and Kim Jong Un’s decision to build his legitimacy on the nuclear accomplishments of his father and grandfather—will likely be regarded as an enormous strategic misjudgment. The North Korean foreign ministry stated: “We will continue to take measures for increasing the nuclear force of the country in quality and in quantity to safeguard the dignity and the right to existence of the DPRK and ensure genuine peace from the U.S. increasing threat of nuclear war.” It is sobering and sad to think that one young man persists in raising the risks, costs, and likelihood of nuclear war at the possible cost of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives against the failing legitimacy of his own hereditary state.

The direction of North Korea’s nuclear program has been clear for more than a decade, since it first tested a nuclear device in October 2006. But the pace has quickened, with two nuclear tests and tests of several missile platforms that will reduce warning time and extend North Korea’s capability to credibly deliver a nuclear weapon. The North Koreans have insisted that they are a “permanent” nuclear state and have signaled that the United States is their ultimate target, threatening nuclear strikes on the mainland. The Obama administration’s primary response, termed “strategic patience”, has strengthened deterrence and has led to a series of United Nations sanctions resolutions designed to increase international pressure. The American goal has been to change Kim Jong-un’s strategic calculus by showing him that having nuclear weapons is detrimental to his regime’s survival. Read the rest of the article in which Scott Snyder makes a recommendation on how to bridge the gap caused by Sino-U.S. mistrust in the Guardian.

North Korea conducted its fifth nuclear test (second in 2016) on September 9, 2016, the sixty-eighth anniversary of the country’s founding. North Korea claimed the test would enable it to build a nuclear warhead that is “able to be mounted on strategic ballistic rockets.” South Korean President Park Geun-hye condemned the “fanatic recklessness” of the North Korean leadership. U.S. President Barack Obama stated that North Korea’s actions would have “serious consequences.” The Chinese foreign ministry stated that it was “resolutely opposed to North Korea’s latest nuclear test and strongly urges North Korea to stop taking any actions that will worsen the situation.” The UN Security Council will no doubt act to condemn the test and to pass a sanctions resolution even stricter than the measures passed only six months ago in response to North Korea’s fourth nuclear test. Among other measures, the resolution will attempt to close the “livelihood” exemption loophole that China has left open on a humanitarian basis, target North Korea’s export of labor to other countries as a means of earning foreign exchange, extend the ban on aviation fuel to include crude oil, widen the ban on exports to include textiles, and prohibit tourism in North Korea. However, words and sanctions have not deterred Kim Jong Un from doubling down on nuclear development and pledging to become a “permanent nuclear state.” North Korea’s nuclear aspirations have become a foundation for Kim Jong Un’s domestic legitimacy. Most worrisome is the quickened frequency of North Korean nuclear and missile tests, which have come in such quick succession that the UN Security Council has resorted to statements condemning clusters of tests, instead of condemning individual tests, in recent weeks. North Korea’s dash to attain a long-range strike capability and survivability for its nuclear deterrent is designed to enhance the credibility of North Korean threats and raise defense costs of the country’s adversaries. By taking these steps, North Korea is betting that the world will acquiesce to a nuclear North Korea rather than mobilizing the level of coercion necessary to force North Korea to reverse course and pursue denuclearization. In so doing, North Korea lives in the space created by geostrategic distrust between China and the United States and continues to take for granted China’s commitment to stability over denuclearization. The backdrop of Sino-U.S. tensions over the South China Sea and disputes over the U.S.-South Korea alliance decision to deploy the Terminal High-Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) system to South Korea provides North Korea with hope that the United States and China will never unite to take collective action to remove the North Korean regime. North Korea knows that China prizes stability overall and fears the geostrategic disadvantages to Beijing of national unification led by Seoul and supported by Washington. Nevertheless, a nuclear North Korea under the leadership of Kim Jong Un has proven itself to be inherently destabilizing, reminding Chinese leaders on an almost weekly basis in recent months that their goal of a stable periphery has been compromised by North Korean recklessness and disregard for Chinese national security interests. At some point, one would expect that China will be forced to take unilateral action to ensure that a more benign and stable North Korea can perpetuate its buffer role in exchange for Chinese support. Alternatively, China will be pushed to take collective action with the United States, South Korea, and the global community to show Kim Jong Un that a nuclear North Korea does not provide him or his regime with a viable survival option. The goal of enhancing external pressure on North Korea through sanctions will only work if it induces a recognition among the regime’s elites that a nuclear weapons program is not a viable security option and that North Korea must move in a different direction. However, even this step represents a threat to Kim Jong Un because it threatens the Kim family-led power structure and challenges the monolithic leadership of the suryong/supreme leader. Nevertheless, if nuclear weapons development has truly become a central tool by which the Kim family justifies the perpetuation of its rule domestically, denuclearization is possible only as a product of regime change; the only alternative to regime change is acquiescence to North Korea as a nuclear weapons state. Such is the strategic choice that North Korea’s current course poses to the United States and its allies.

The Chinese Ambassador to South Korea gave a rather dramatic warning to the leader of South Korea’s opposition Democratic Party on February 25 that a decision to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system would put China–South Korean relations at risk. Thus, it should not be surprising that threats of Chinese retaliation toward South Korea would surface following the July 8 U.S.-ROK announcement that the governments had decided to deploy THAAD in South Korea in response to North Korea’s growing missile threats. Despite emotional assertions that South Korea has compromised Chinese interests by pursuing self-defense against North Korea’s growing missile capabilities, China does not have the capability to punish South Korea without damaging its own economic and strategic interests on the Korean peninsula. The Global Times stated in a July 15 editorial that “Beijing must review and readjust its Korean Peninsula strategies in accordance with the latest threat from the peninsula, including its ROK policies.” At a bilateral meeting between South Korean and Chinese foreign ministers on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting on July 25, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi went out of his way to assert that the South Korean decision “has undermined the foundations of trust between the two countries.” At the same time that Wang Yi was making this claim, National Security Advisor Susan Rice reiterated the U.S. position on THAAD directly to Chinese counterparts during her meetings in Beijing: The decision to deploy THAAD was an “alliance decision” that was made “directly in response to the threat posed by North Korea in its nuclear and missile programs. It is purely a defensive measure. It is not aimed at any other party other than North Korea and the threat it poses. And this defensive weapon system is neither designed nor capable of threatening China’s security interests.” Threats of Chinese retaliation including reductions of tourist flows and visa approvals between China and South Korea and cancellations of Korean pop concerts and television dramas in China have inflamed a South Korean domestic political debate over THAAD deployment in an attempt to take advantage of domestic opposition and threaten the Korean public with retaliatory countermeasures designed to punish South Korea for what Beijing views as a strategic misjudgment. But China’s capacity to pursue economic countermeasures without sacrificing its own economic and political interests remains limited. First, Chinese threats of punishment are likely to alienate rather than win over the South Korean public, while risking damage to a vibrant economic relationship that has brought China and South Korea together. Threats to cut off economic ties or discriminate against South Korean exports are inconsistent with China’s World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations and will generate resentment among the South Korean public. China cannot hope to maintain friendly relations with its neighbors through economic threats or bullying. For instance, immediately following announcement of the deployment, the Global Times advocated cutting off economic ties with companies involved with THAAD and banning of Korean politicians and businesses that support deployment of the system. Such measures may roil South Korea’s domestic political debate, but the costs are so narrowly targeted that the vast majority of the Sino-South Korean economic relationship would not be affected by Chinese retaliatory measures. Second, China might consider retaliation against South Korea by boosting China–North Korea relations. For instance, the Chinese and North Korean foreign ministers traveled on the same plane to the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meeting in Laos and projected renewed closeness between the two countries at the ARF meeting in Laos. The Korea Times on July 25 reported that Chinese foot-dragging on UN statements condemning a spate of North Korean missile tests in violation of UN Security Council Resolutions was an instance of Chinese retaliation for the decision to deploy THAAD. Both of these measures seem to be attempts to impose a price and to sway South Korean domestic opinion by emphasizing that South Korea must pay a price for taking actions perceived to threaten China’s strategic and economic interests. However, Chinese retaliation options against South Korea in response to the THAAD decision are limited and counterproductive to China’s own strategic interests. China needs to retain good relations with South Korea as part of its long-term interest in ensuring that the Korean peninsula is friendly to Chinese interests, knowing that a unified Korea’s future strategic orientation is far more likely to be shaped by Seoul than Pyongyang. Second, closer Chinese relations with North Korea are not an effective means of punishment against South Korea given that it is in China’s interests to do more to bring the North Korean nuclear threat under control. Chinese objections to THAAD both underscore Chinese sensitivity to the U.S. presence on the peninsula and make clear China’s desire to limit the scope of the U.S.-ROK alliance to North Korea in the near-term while hoping that it will disappear completely as part of any process that might lead to Korean unification. Despite these concerns, Chinese senior officials have not backed away from the importance of a denuclearized North Korea. China’s immediate diplomatic focus is ensuring the success of the upcoming Group of Twenty (G20) meeting that China will host in Hangzhou, generating fears in South Korea that the brunt of Chinese retaliation will follow that international meeting. However, the G20 Summit also provides a valuable opportunity for a frank trilateral leaders-level discussion with Xi Jinping about the U.S.-ROK “alliance decision” to deploy THAAD, how it is linked to the growing North Korean nuclear and missile threat, and how to maintain regional stability in spite of North Korea’s destabilizing actions.

On the eve of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s arrival in Washington for a summit with U.S. President Barack Obama, the New York Times published an editorial that weighed in on a subject certain to feature on the leaders’ agenda: India’s bid for membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). The Times opined that the United States should not support India’s membership bid as, “Membership would enhance India’s standing as a nuclear weapons state, but it is not merited until the country meets the group’s standards.” The editorial advised Obama to “press for India to adhere to the standards on nuclear proliferation to which other nuclear weapons states adhere.” It added that the 2008 U.S.-India civil-nuclear agreement had “encouraged” Pakistan to expand its nuclear weapons program. Many in India and the small community of India-watchers in Washington read these words in disbelief. First, the suggestion that Pakistan’s aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons, including those that can be deployed on a battlefield, is a direct result of civil-nuclear energy cooperation with India strikes many as a misread of Pakistan’s motivations. As C. Christine Fair has elucidated in great detail, Pakistan’s strategic culture rests on a constant quest to battle India, seeing itself as India’s equal, and unsatisfied with the territorial status quo. Second, the Times’ view that India has not met nuclear nonproliferation standards expected from it misreads the obligations India willingly took on in its civil-nuclear negotiation with the United States. Indian journalist Siddharth Varadarajan has analyzed Indian obligations carefully here, arguing that India should be held to the commitments it took on beginning in 2005. The Times has every right to an independent view. This of course does not reflect the clear commitment the United States government has made to India. However, the American paper of record should ground its arguments in an appraisal of the complete facts. The editorial skipped the most germane facts of the genesis of the civil-nuclear agreement, and therefore presented an incomplete view. India is not a signatory to the 1968 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), and in the nearly fifty years since the NPT’s inception, New Delhi has maintained one consistent objection: the Treaty creates nuclear “haves” and “have-nots” by legally defining a “nuclear weapons state” as one which tested nuclear devices before January 1, 1967. States which signed the treaty but had not tested before 1968 would fall into the legal category of “non-nuclear weapons states” and would take on specific obligations to ensure they did not develop a weapons program (full-scope safeguards on facilities, for example). The countries which met the threshold to be declared nuclear weapons states did not have a similar set of requirements. Former external affairs minister of India, Jaswant Singh, summarized India’s objection to the Treaty in his 1998 Foreign Affairs article, “Against Nuclear Apartheid.” When the New York Times speaks of India adhering to the standards of other “nuclear weapons states,” it skips over the fact that the term has a very specific, legal meaning in the NPT, and that India will never legally become a “nuclear weapons state” according to the terms of that treaty. Thus India has stayed outside of it. While only a handful of countries have remained outside the NPT (India, Pakistan, and Israel never signed; North Korea withdrew), in India’s case its civilian nuclear energy, defense, and high technology industries suffered from not being able to access the kinds of technology that the global nonproliferation regime prevented non-signatories from obtaining. New Delhi long stated that it believed in global disarmament, but on a “non-discriminatory” basis, and for that reason also refused to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, although since 1998 the country has repeatedly stated its commitment to a voluntary moratorium on nuclear testing. Nonproliferation created a chasm between India and the United States after India’s 1974 “peaceful nuclear explosion.” From 2005 onward, the George W. Bush administration sought a way to deepen strategic cooperation with India—including defense cooperation and sharing of advanced technology—as well as to promote clean energy development in India through the civil-nuclear agreement. Due to India’s “neither-fish-nor-fowl” status, as Ashley Tellis put it, in the narrow legal terms of the NPT, and given the zero probability of India’s accession to the treaty, the civil-nuclear agreement carefully worked out a method to enable cooperation on nuclear energy, while setting aside the question of India’s weapons program. Through the terms of the agreement, India separated its civilian from its strategic programs. It agreed to put the civilian energy programs under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards (through an “India-specific safeguards” agreement) although this is usually obligatory only for non-nuclear weapons states. India also changed its domestic laws to align its export controls with those of the Missile Technology Control Regime, the NSG, the Wassenaar Arrangement, and the Australia Group. In other words, India took on obligations more extensive than the technical requirements of a “nuclear weapons state” under the NPT definition, while not formally becoming one. On its part, the U.S. committed to help shepherd India’s membership in these four key regimes. The question that U.S. policymakers struggled with—and the agreement was indeed controversial—rested not only on the larger strategic significance of deepened cooperation with India, but also on whether the global nonproliferation order was strengthened through the steps India agreed to take. Looking back on the eleven years since this all began, my own view is that the nonproliferation order has been undeniably strengthened since the advent of the nuclear deal. India had never proliferated its nuclear technology to any other country, and it was not going to sign the NPT to become a non-nuclear weapons state, so the fact that it has remained outside the Treaty has been a net-neutral development. But it has put its civilian reactors under IAEA safeguards, a new obligation that as a consequence limits the amount of weapons-usable material it could produce; it has strengthened its export controls domestically; and it now sees itself as a stakeholder in maintaining, not opposing, the nonproliferation order. India supports a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty; it continues to argue for globally nondiscriminatory nuclear disarmament; and it seeks to formally join the four above-mentioned nonproliferation regimes. It has also maintained its unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing. By any metric this should be seen as more than meeting the “standards” required, and a net positive. The New York Times editorial board is entitled to oppose U.S. backing for an Indian place in the NSG. But its readers would be better served if its arguments didn’t elide important background information on how our two countries arrived at their present position. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa

I woke up early this morning, before 4 a.m. in fact, to head to NPR to be live when President Barack Obama spoke in Hiroshima. As I drove across a dark and quiet Washington, DC, the president was already beginning what has to be his most moving speech to date. As my city was waking up, the entire Japanese nation was listening to our president, the first sitting U.S. president to visit the site of the atomic bombings. If you have not heard it, you should take a moment to read it here. President Obama began by taking us back to that precise moment that changed human history, “a bright cloudless morning” when “death fell from the sky.” He reminded us why we must continue to visit Hiroshima, to remember “the terrible force” that took the lives of over 100,000 men, women, and children, among them not only Japanese but Koreans and even Americans held as prisoners of war. "Their souls," he continued, "ask us to look inward, to take stock of who we are, and what we might become.” War fought throughout human history, by powerful and wealthy nations, he argued, affected most those who are “the innocents.” And he reminded us that our future is a choice. In echoes of his first speech on the need to find our way forward to a world without nuclear weapons, President Obama suggested that August 6, 1945 should be seen not as the “dawn of atomic warfare,” but as the “start of our moral awakening.” Throughout his speech, President Obama sought to put faces and feelings on the lives of those who were alive then, and on the human costs of war. He focused on our children. Early on he depicted the confusion of those children who were there in Hiroshima on the day of the atomic bombing, some of whom in fact were in the audience as survivors, or hibakusha. He spoke of the children of Hiroshima today who go through their days in peace –a precious thing, he noted, that must be “protected and extended to every child.” And, he spoke to the stories that we must choose to tell our children, the narratives that we provide that can lead us to reconciliation instead of war –a story of  “a common humanity... [where] cruelty is less easily accepted.” Moreover, President Obama highlighted the choices that will determine our future, which lie in the hands of the world’s leaders. Leaders must understand what he said “ordinary people” already know—those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki seventy-one years ago were “like us,” with lives and families like ours. He noted that the nations that fought World War II were the wealthiest and most powerful, with magnificent civilizations, art, and culture. Yet he laid blame on “the base instinct for domination,” an instinct today that is “amplified by new capabilities” for destruction. He called on leaders to “reimagine our connection to the human race…to one another,” and reminded them to “learn” from Hiroshima and to “choose” to avoid and prevent the catastrophe of war. This plea to avoid the call of nationalism and competition, instead seeking the path of diplomacy and compromise, could not come at a better time for Asia. With North Korea in pursuit of a nuclear arsenal and China rising as a more assertive regional power, many across the region worry about a new inevitable competition across Asia. With even more destructive power, and with some –even in the United States –suggesting that nuclear weapons are inevitable for those like Japan that remain steadfastly opposed, President Obama’s reminder of the human cost of war is prescient. He also put World War II into a global context, reminding us that the scale of deliberate civilian killings in that conflict far outstripped any previous war. He spoke of the sixty million who died in that war—men, women, and children killed and “shot, beaten, marched, bombed, jailed, starved, and gassed” in the horrible “depravity” of that war. He noted too the many sites elsewhere around the world depicting the suffering of so many, reminding us that Hiroshima was not the only site of human suffering. But he did emphasize how the shock of the “mushroom cloud” brought into stark relief how far that global contest had taken us, how close we were to using our technology to “eliminate” human life. Carried in his pocket were four origami cranes, a symbol of hope and rebirth in Japan that has particular salience in Hiroshima. At the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, a special memorial statue was built to honor the story of Sadako Sasaki, a young girl who was four at the time of the atomic bombing and later died of leukemia at the age of twelve. During her illness, Sadako folded more than a thousand cranes, a practice thought to help realize wishes in Japan. Her brother, Masahiro Sasaki, took it upon himself to continue to share those cranes with those who sought peace, even taking one to the 9/11 Memorial Museum as well as to the Pearl Harbor Museum. Her story has been written about in many languages, and read by many children across the globe. One child who read the book was the son of Clifton Truman Daniels, the oldest grandson of President Harry Truman. In 2012, Clifton and Masahiro together toured the museum that President Obama visited today, finding a path to friendship in their common pursuit of peace. Seventy-one years later, the voices of the wartime generation are growing faint. Veterans who fought the war, and those that suffered its worst brutality are now in their final years of life.  That generation has been at the forefront of reconciliation dialogue and outreach between Japan and the United States, reaching out to those they fought against or those who families like theirs were decimated in war. Not all forgive, however, and sensitivities in both countries remain over those who suffered. My inbox today is already full of emails from all generations of Japanese and Americans deeply moved by the president’s visit and by his profound reminder of our shared responsibility in building peace. In Japan, there is widespread gratitude for the president’s visit; in the United States, our election may provide the opportunity for a more partisan reading. I was too deeply moved, and as an American, sincerely proud to watch our president finally demonstrate just how far our two nations have come. I hope leaders across Asia, indeed across the world, take heed of President Obama’s appeal to this generation to reach across national borders and to find courage in our shared humanity.

The seventh congress of the North Korean Workers’ Party (WPK) held from May 6 to 8 was a carefully choreographed affair designed to show the world that its newly installed Chairman Kim Jong-un is fully in control of the North Korean state. By taking the title of Chairman, Kim has signaled that he is no longer reliant solely on the legacy of his father and grandfather, that he is determined to lead, and that he expects the international community to accommodate his absolute leadership of a nuclear North Korea. Through his speech at the conference, Kim Jong-un revealed big plans to safeguard North Korea’s security through its nuclear accomplishments and grow its economy. But Kim has not yet shown how he will gain international acquiescence to North Korea’s nuclear development or how he can secure international support for North Korea’s economic growth. Kim’s plans for economic development are laudable. In his first public speech in 2012, Kim stated that his people should “never have to tighten their belt again.” Since then, North Korea has improved its agricultural production, experimented with limited agricultural reforms, transferred some decision-making responsibility from the state to the firm level, and has stopped opposing private market transactions. The North Korean economy is reported to have grown by one or two percent per year, with the Hyundai Research Institute reporting that North Korea’s annual GDP growth may have reached as high as seven percent. Kim’s reestablishment of a new five-year economic plan at the Party Congress provides needed leadership designed to stoke North Korea’s economic growth. But Kim’s twin emphasis on nuclear and economic development—his Byungjin policy—stands in the way of a real economic take-off because it starves North Korea of opportunities for external economic cooperation. Kim may exhort his people to improve agriculture, construction, and light industry and to become a scientifically and technologically powerful state in areas including information technology, nano-technology, bioengineering, energy, space, and nuclear technology. But the North Korean economy will fail in these areas unless his country is connected to the outside world. International opposition to North Korea’s nuclear development results in sanctions that generate economic pressures on North Korea and cut the country off from the outside world. As much as Kim needs connection to the outside world in order to achieve economic growth, he needs political isolation for his system to survive. Kim may regard North Korea’s nuclear deterrent capabilities as an insurance policy against growing challenges to the legitimacy of his single-man rule. Kim’s power depends on his ability to stand atop a system in which he commands absolute loyalty by suppressing both internal and external political competition. The Party Conference affirmed Kim’s monopoly on power and showcased both his demands and the rewards for absolute fealty among the highest-ranking members of North Korean society. In this respect, Kim’s nuclear program serves two purposes: it helps to ensure North Korea’s isolation by engendering international hostility to the regime while also defending an otherwise vulnerable North Korean state against the possibility of attacks from external enemies. Thus, Kim may regard his formula as his best chance to both preserve his system and maintain the status quo. This is why Kim declared: “We will consistently take hold on the strategic line of simultaneously pushing forward the economic construction and the building of nuclear force and boost self-defensive nuclear force both in quality and quantity as long as the imperialists persist in their nuclear threat and arbitrary practices.” By declaring the permanence of a nuclear North Korea at the Workers’ Party Congress, Kim Jong-un has used the issue to shore up his power internally, but at the expense of North Korea’s international standing. Instead of accepting North Korea as a nuclear weapons state, the international community has consistently condemned its nuclear pursuit and is bent on increasing pressure on Kim through economic sanctions. This makes the nuclear program a primary obstacle to North Korea’s ability to achieve its economic goals. Kim asserted at the Workers’ Party Congress that North Korea would be a responsible nuclear power, pledging only to use nuclear weapons if it is attacked with nuclear weapons. He also called for global denuclearization, perhaps in an attempt to align North Korea with the position of the five legitimate nuclear weapons states originally recognized in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But North Korea’s unilateral exit from the NPT, its failure to meet past denuclearization pledges, and the extreme concentration of political power in the hands of Kim Jong-un are insurmountable barriers to international acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear weapons state. In response to Kim’s claim that North Korea would be a “permanent” nuclear weapons state, South Korea’s Unification Ministry spokesperson reiterated that; “it is only when the North shows sincerity about denuclearization that genuine dialogue is possible.” The United States has rejected North Korean peace overtures, insisting that peace talks are meaningless without talks on denuclearization. Even China’s proposal for talks envisages the United States and North Korea engaging in parallel peace and denuclearization talks. The international community insists that Kim must choose between economic and nuclear development because the last thing the world thinks Kim Jong-un needs, even at his own party coronation, is two slices of cake. This article originally appeared on TheMarkNews.com.

    Kim Jong Un has been intensifying his efforts to develop a long-range nuclear strike capability since the beginning of 2016. The more vulnerable he feels atop a weakening North Korea, the more he seeks a silver bullet to ensure the regime’s long-term survival. This dynamic has been in play for decades, especially as North Korea pursued nuclear weapons to compensate for the loss of its powerful patrons in Moscow and Beijing and fell further behind a far more prosperous South Korea. But Pyongyang’s insecurity has intensified even more under Kim, who, since coming to power in 2012, declared his father’s bequest of a nuclear program as a crowning achievement, changed the constitution to declare North Korea a nuclear state, and declared nuclear and economic development as his twin priorities. Read the full article on CNN.