Why now? North Korea is developing more and better nuclear weapons as fast as possible. It can forge nuclear alliances in ways that cannot be easily stopped. Urgency is needed to slow, freeze and reverse this process. Reaffirming the American commitment to provide extended nuclear deterrence to the region did not deter North Korea from continuing to arm and test nuclear weapons. If anything, these nuclear threats, especially those in the April 2010 US Nuclear Posture Review, made the situation worse.
Furthermore the six-party talks are moribund. A new framework is needed to manage the insecurity created by North Korea’s nuclear weapons and the risk of nuclear war in Korea.
Currently the White House is comfortable with containment, at least until it fails catastrophically. Nothing indicates that US President Barack Obama will change his policy of isolating, shaming and squeezing North Korea. This myopic policy enables the North to continue a ‘nuclear succession’ in which Kim Jong-il bequeaths a nuclear-armed nation to a new generation of leaders.
As a strategic consideration, North Korea demoted the US from being the primary target of its nuclear threat in early 2009. Until then, the North tried to compel the US to change its policies via nuclear threat, and failed. Since then, North Korea has focused the threat on Seoul. In March 2010, it sank the South Korean warship Cheonan, thereby demonstrating that it intends to exploit the power potential of its nuclear weapons, including risking full-scale nuclear war in Korea. Only China’s intercession and engagement of North Korea has stabilised the situation. For South Korea and Japan, becoming beholden to China to restrain North Korea is a poor substitute for American leadership.
If North Korea is to give up its nuclear weapons, it will require a sovereign American guarantee that the US is not targeting the North with nuclear weapons. The only way that North Korea can obtain that is through a binding treaty commitment approved by the US Senate — something the US has never put on the table. In contrast, a nuclear weapon-free zone would provide North Korea with some real security instead of a strategic dead-end.
The zone could solve a number of linked and seemingly intractable security problems in Northeast Asia.
First and foremost, it would offer the only peaceful path to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons. There are two ways for the North to join the zone. One is to encourage North Korea to sign the zone treaty at the outset, but allow it to waive some of the nuclear-free requirements until it is secure enough to do so. The other way is to simply leave the door open until the North decides to disarm and join the zone for its own reasons (most likely the cumulative costs of nuclear outlaw status or a change in leadership); or it collapses, at which time the zone would cover a unified Korea.
A second problem the zone would address is that it would lock Japan and South Korea into permanent non-nuclear status, without hedging. Currently, both countries have virtual nuclear weapons capacity that could be realized in months (for Japan) or a few years (for South Korea). The nuclear weapons potential of Japan and to a lesser extent South Korea (before or after unification) is of great concern to China.
Third, the zone would replace China’s vague ‘no first-use’ declaration with a stronger commitment to not target South Korea or Japan.
Fourth, the zone would establish an enduring, long-term security institution in the region based on cooperation and transparency. By making Japanese and South Korean security inter- dependent, it would create a shared non-nuclear narrative based on stringent monitoring and verification.
Fifth, the zone would ensure that US conventional forces remain anchored in the Korean Peninsula for the foreseeable future, even after reunification, as a Chinese buffer.
Sixth, the zone would impel US allies and adversaries to adjust their expectations to accord with the relatively inactive condition of US nuclear forces today. The US has already effectively ‘recessed’ nuclear extended deterrence.
Seventh, the zone would demonstrate that the US intends to share management of security issues in the region not only with its allies, but also with China, Russia and even North Korea. This shift to multilateralism would also recast the US-Japan alliance from a primarily military to a primarily political axis of great power — which is consistent with the views of Japan’s new political leadership on the need to construct a cooperative strategic relationship with China.
Overall, the zone would herald a shift in the role of US forward-deployed forces from a purely partisan to partly pivotal deterrent — thereby preserving both its hegemonic role and restoring its geopolitical leadership.
The US could also link the zone to global strategic nuclear disarmament. For example, given that the zone would eliminate the threat of a nuclear-armed Japan, the US might make its support for the zone contingent on China participating in strategic arms limitation talks once Russian and American forces each reach 1,000 warheads. In the unlikely event that China tries instead to block the zone, then the US could threaten to share nuclear weapons planning with its East Asian allies, a prospect that would bring China to the table.
Finally, the zone would be the first to cover the territory of OECD states in the northern hemisphere. It would significantly reinforce an important global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament norm. Thus, not only would the zone make the region safer, it would have also contributed to global security.
The August 6, 1945 nuclear explosion over Hiroshima city fused the fates of 70,000 Koreans who were killed or injured with that of a similar number of Japanese civilians also killed or injured. On August 6, 2012, it would be fitting if hibakusha from Japan, wonpok huischanga from the two Koreas, and any survivors from other countries who are still alive, were to welcome the six heads of state to Hiroshima to sign the zone treaty.
Peter Hayes is Director, The Nautilus Institute for Security & Sustainability, San Francisco, and Professor of International Relations, RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Global Asia.
This is an edited version of the full article that was first published here on Global Asia.
There are a number of contentions in your piece that I’d take strong issue with.
For one thing, it’s a big stretch to claim that “is developing more and better nuclear weapons as fast as possible.” If they were trying to do so, Yongbyon would have been rebuilt and operating again by now, and they’d be working on a larger reactor to produce larger quantities of fissile material.
The second is that you seem to think that nuclear weapons have, uniquely, given North Korea a threat that gives them impunity to pull stunts like sinking a South Korean warship. This ignores the widely-held view that North Korea could wipe out much of metropolitan Seoul and kill hundreds of thousands of people (and thousands of American soldiers), using conventional artillery.
Thirdly, what makes you think that Japan and South Korea are just itching to give up their nuclear hedging? Long term, they have bigger fish to fry than North Korea; the largest country on Earth – which will in the next few decades likely become the biggest economy and possibly the biggest military power on arth – is just across the way and has historically poor relations with both countries.