Such narratives generally state that a peace regime would assuage North Korea’s security concerns and get the Six-Party Talks back on track. A recent article in China’s Global Times makes this very argument, and though convincing it ultimately rests on faulty assumptions.

First, a US peace treaty at this stage would implicitly act as a symbol of recognition that the United States accepts North Korea’s status as a nuclear power. While some may argue that this has already happened, the United States simply cannot explicitly or implicitly accept a nuclear North Korea. It would undermine the non-proliferation treaty even further than it has already been and could shatter South Korean/Japanese confidence in the US nuclear umbrella. While this may not disturb regional powers like Russia and China, it should. Such a loss in confidence would undermine the current balance in deterrence and could ultimately lead to Seoul and Tokyo seeking nuclear weapons for themselves. Furthermore, destabilising the balance of deterrence will only encourage North Korea’s provocation-in-exchange-for-aid strategy.

The peace regime argument assumes that North Korea’s decision to develop nuclear weapons derives from ‘insecurity’. Dig deeper, and there is the further assumption that North Korea’s insecurity is purely external — the result of pressure from the combined forces of the United States and South Korea. While it is true that North Korea’s decayed military forces are no match for the forces arrayed south of the Demilitarized Zone, the simple fact is that the North already has a weapon of deterrence: artillery. Seoul’s proximity to North Korean artillery means the North could obliterate the city within five minutes, a danger that has always stayed the hand of US–ROK forces during previous periods of hostility. Furthermore, the US has offered a number of written and spoken guarantees as a part of its efforts in the Six Party Talks process, including seven by President Obama since 2009.

But are external factors the only reason for Northern insecurity? One could argue that all totalitarian states are inherently unstable and require large amounts of capital for internal security, propaganda and ideological training. The security apparatus and bureaucratic elite must constantly be paid off by the regime to maintain order. Totalitarian regimes are expensive to run, after all. In other words, North Korea’s insecurity is also self-created and stems from the regime type of the country as much as it does the regional geopolitical situation. Take Vietnam: it has successfully managed to adopt economic reforms, while forging a new relationship with the United States, all while remaining a nominally communist-run state.

If Pyongyang’s insecurity is derived from the unaffordability of its system, why does it not enact economic reforms to ease the lives of its citizens and pay off the bureaucracy? While it has tried small incremental reforms over the years, it has always rolled these back because of the fear that reforms would create a middle class, which may call for greater rights within the system. The general population would become aware of the economic and political success of South Korea, surely a regime-killer in any scenario. This explains the 2009 currency reform, which wiped out the emerging merchant class in the country. Pyongyang is systematically unable to reform its economy. Thus, it is will continue to rely on Chinese aid and support.

While North Korea’s rulers realise that they cannot accept economic reform, they also know that the economy remains in critical condition. Without a strong economy, internal security and the military become weaker and private markets sap the regime of its legitimacy as the sole provider of resources to the population. Despite the development of special economic zones with China, these have had limited success. Indeed, the relationship between the two is increasingly characterised by extractive policies by Beijing on the North’s resource base. Naturally, Pyongyang also realises this, and knows that without nuclear weapons it has a strong chance of simply becoming another Chinese resource–client state.

Nuclear weapons are more than just providing security from ‘foreign forces’ for the North. They also provide the only way for the North to squeeze aid from China, the United States and its allies in order to avoid  economic reform. Its most recent test and bellicose rhetoric show that it is getting increasingly desperate for that aid. The silence from Washington must be puzzling. But as former US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, ‘We’re not buying the same horse twice’. Chinese patience with Pyongyang also seems to be slipping. On a visit to mark the 60th anniversary of the Armistice, Vice-President Li stressed regional stability in his remarks to Kim Jong-un. The fact that Chinese–DPRK trade plummeted 13.6 per cent between June and January of last year underlined his remarks .Ultimately, unless a peace treaty were explicitly tied to denuclearisation, it would only act as a means of legitimising the regime’s nuclear status. It would enable the North to continue pressuring the region to bankroll what is the world’s least efficient form of government.

John Hemmings is a non-resident fellow at the Pacific Forum CSIS and a doctoral candidate at the London School of Economics.