Op-Ed
Kim Jong-Il, The Bomb and You
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Between the Lines
October 18, 2006 - 9:47pmAt 10:35 a.m. on the morning of October 9th, North Korea tested a nuclear weapon. The governments of the world have all reacted with disapproval and dismay. The U.N. is discussing sanctions, the Bush Administration appears unsure of how to react and North Korea threatens further provocation. North Korea’s evident goal is to intimidate the West into sustaining its government with a steady tribute of oil and money. The danger of giving in to this sort of blackmail is obvious: every other rogue regime will perceive nuclear weapons as an easy path to wealth and security. We are thus compelled to confront and contain North Korea. How bad is this mess? What can we do about it?
In 1994, when it first became clear that North Korea had a nuclear weapons program, the Clinton Administration flinched from the prospect of using military force. War in Korea would have been difficult, bloody and would have imperiled the millions of South Korean civilians within artillery range of the border. South Korea’s capital, Seoul, is within the range of North Korean guns dug in just across the border. The carnage from even a few hours of bombardment could be ghastly, and with vast populations thus held hostage, taking a diplomatic approach was a defensible decision. Unfortunately, Clinton’s approach also failed, leaving us with few ways out.
Since 2002, American policy makers have had to work on the assumption that North Korea had not merely a weapons program, but one or more nuclear weapons. North Korea’s regime is almost entirely opaque and so we have little chance of learning where its nuclear weapons are stored or how many of them there are. A conventional preemptive strike thus stands little chance of removing the nuclear threat, and so any conventional military action incurs the risk of nuclear war.
The American nuclear deterrent cannot be counted on to prevent a nuclear war. Nuclear strategy is often reduced to MAD: “Mutually Assured Destruction,” but there is much more involved. While the United States would probably respond with devastating retaliation if one of our cities were struck by a nuclear weapon, there are a great many possible North Korean actions that we would have difficulty responding to. Suppose North Korea did a nuclear test in the Sea of Japan, washing slightly radioactive water ashore and damaging some fishing boats; would we really be comfortable killing millions of innocent people in response? Suppose a tactical nuclear weapon was used on South Korean ground troops? On U.S. troops? On Japanese civilians? Reflexive genocide is a poor strategic posture: there are nuclear provocations that we ought not respond to with an all-out bombardment.
Proliferation poses additional awkward questions. Would we risk nuclear war if North Korea sold nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia? What if they sold whole weapons? Suppose the buyer were not Saudi Arabia, but Syria? Suppose not Syria, but Somali warlords linked to al-Qaeda? Suppose the buyer of the nuclear weapons was Osama bin Laden himself? Some of these would justify us in initiating what might become a nuclear war; some would not. There is no consensus or even clarity about just where the line is. We need this sort of clarity; even an initially conventional military response to North Korean proliferation would run grave risks.
Any conventional conflict with North Korea could easily escalate to include demonstrations with nuclear weapons; this could escalate further to an all-out strategic nuclear war, without any obvious places to draw lines. Since lines are obscure here, the North Korean leadership might intend to walk up to the line at which we would respond with genocidal fury, only to discover that they had wandered well across it. Without perfect knowledge about the intentions of the other side, deterrence is an unstable state of affairs, and can easily break down, with unimaginable consequences. Mutually Assured Destruction — MAD — is not a sane way to prevent nuclear warfare.
Americans spent nearly 40 years worried that an all-out nuclear war with the Soviet Union could begin at any moment; a war that would almost certainly destroy the country, and perhaps much of the rest of the world. North Korea in some ways is a more dangerous threat, and in some ways less. Kim Jong-Il presides over a much weaker state than the Soviet bosses did, and his state is in far more desperate straits, with millions starving to death, and tens of thousands fleeing each year to the comparative freedom and prosperity of China. Desperation makes people reckless and short-sighted, and so we cannot count on Kim being as restrained as the Soviets were.
On the other hand, North Korea is a much weaker opponent than the USSR and is likely to remain so. In the event of war, we might lose a single city; this would be very unfortunate but it is certainly better than having the entire country destroyed. We can build missile defenses sufficient to stop a North Korean missile strike against the United States or Japan. Indeed, we will likely have such a defense within a few years. This will greatly reduce North Korea’s prospects for a first strike successful enough to incapacitate the United States.
While we are in no real peril of national destruction, millions could die if a crisis with North Korea escalates too far. If we are to make it through the coming years or decades without catastrophe, there will be difficult choices. We need to be explicit with ourselves and with North Korea about just what we are prepared to tolerate and what we are not. We need to be aware that sometimes “not tolerating” an action will result in deadly warfare. We need above all to remember that sometimes “tolerating” an action would be even worse.
Ari Rabkin is a graduate student in Computer Science. He can be contacted at asr32@cornell.edu. Between the Lines appears Thursdays.