hankyoreh

Why is North Korea so dead set on developing nuclear weapons? To attack the South and force a Communist reunification? To send a nuclear missile into the heart of the US and flatten the country? Both are impossible scenarios. No matter how state-of-the-art North Korea manages to make its nuclear weapons, Pyongyang would be wiped off the map and the country leveled the second it used one. In the end, North Korea’s nukes are children’s toys compared to the US arsenal.
It’s only when we have a real answer to the question of why North Korea wants nuclear weapons that we can begin to solve the problem posed by its nuclear program. All sorts of carrot-and-stick tactics have been used since it first declared in April 2003 that it had a nuclear weapon, and none of them has worked. Instead, its nuclear development capabilities have only grown. Early this year, it carried out a fourth test with what it claimed to be a hydrogen bomb. It’s the result of leaders misunderstanding - or deliberately ignoring - the root of the issue.
First of all, let’s look at when it was that North Korea first began developing nuclear weapons. Professor Lee Jae-bong of Wonkwang University traces the decisive factor back to the US’s decision to keep nuclear weapons in South Korea. From his analysis of a collection of diplomatic documents from the late 1950s that were declassified and released by the US State Department in the 1990s, he concluded that the US had positioned nuclear weapons in the South by “January 1958 at the latest,” prompting a threatened North Korea to pursue its own ongoing nuclear program from the 1960s onward.
Struggling with a fiscal deficit in the wake of the Korean War, the US was concerned that the bulk of its massive aid to South Korea would go chiefly to maintaining the country’s 720,000 troops. The idea was that it would use its nukes to block the North Korea threat, allowing South Korea to cut its troops back. On Jan. 28, 1958, United States Forces Korea confirmed the arrival of 280-mm atomic cannons and Honest John nuclear missiles in the South. Various other tactical nuclear weapons were subsequently introduced, until around 800 nuclear warheads were in position by the 1970s, Lee writes in his book Lee Jae-bong’s Courtroom Testimony.
Under the circumstances, North Korea understandably felt its survival threatened. Lacking any nuclear weapon development capabilities at the time, it went to Russia and China to ask for assistance, but was turned down. By the ’70s, it fell behind the South in economic strength and was left incapable of competing in a conventional arms race. It began its nuclear weapons development as a way of achieving the maximum effect for minimum cost.
On the basis of this logic Pyongyang has continued demands for guarantees on the stability of its regime as a condition for denuclearizing. This can clearly be seen in the September 19 Joint Statement produced in 2005 from the six-party talks. The core agreement there was that North Korea would give up all nuclear weapons in exchange for a promise from the US not to attack or invade.
Since then, that statement has ended up as so much scrap paper. Even after the Sept. 19 agreement, the George W. Bush administration in the US continued imposing various sanctions to pressure the North. Suspicious of its motives, North Korea carried on with its nuclear program and performed a second test in Oct. 2006. The situation ever since has been a vicious cycle of missile launches and nuclear tests from the North and sanctions by the international community. The events unfolding in the wake of the “H-bomb” test earlier this year are a far cry from any kind of resolution.

Jung Suk-koo

If we want to truly solve the North Korean nuclear issue, we have to start by acknowledging, like it or not, that North Korea develops and desires nuclear weapons because it is concerned about its survival. We also need to follow through on this understanding when considering negotiating tactics, using “cards” like a peace agreement that would guarantee the security of the regime in Pyongyang or forming diplomatic relations between North Korea and the US or Japan. When we focus instead on sanctions by the international community or military pressure, the only result is more time wasted while North Korea’s nuclear capabilities continue to grow. That’s how it’s played out so far. And while there are some people who are hoping for the regime to collapse, it’s neither possible nor desirable in practical terms as long as China continues holding out. An unprepared-for North Korea collapse would be, if anything, a catastrophe.

The only conclusion that appears possible from Seoul and Washington’s commitment to ignoring the obvious solution in favor of ramping up military tensions is that they want to put the North Korean nuclear issue to political use. It makes complete sense for people to get the impression that the South Korean government uses the nuclear issue for domestic political purposes, while the US tries to use it as leverage over China. It’s an approach that leaves any resolution to the issue a distant dream.

By Jung Suk-koo, Executive editor

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