North Korea Is a Nuclear State Now, It Is Time to Accept That

UPDATE: On September 2nd, North Korea tested what appeared to be a hydrogen bomb, hours after releasing photos of it claimed was one which could fit in a missile warhead. The test was North Korea’s 6th.
“Fire and fury” will meet new North Korean threats, so says President Donald Trump. The “DPRK should cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime” was how Defense Secretary James Mattis put it. Pyongyang should not “test” the now “hyperpower” United States, says Trump aide (and fake PhD) Sebastian Gorka. From an already hawkish White House, saber-rattling rhetoric increased this week as the tensions over the North Korean nuclear program intensified.
On July 28th North Korea test launched an ICBM. Estimates put the missile’s potential range at as far as Los Angeles and approaching Chicago — a significant increase over projections following the North’s first ICBM test on July 4th. In response, over the weekend the United Nations Security Council passed extensive new sanctions against Pyongyang in a 15–0 unanimous vote (which kicked off the current round of hostile bombast). These developments come a little less than a year since Pyongyang’s fifth nuclear test and a little more since its claim to have miniaturized a nuclear weapon enough to fit on a ballistic missile — a claim with which U.S. intelligence now concurs.
Denials of North Korean technological capabilities have consistently been proven wrong and, though delusions of eliminating its nuclear program appear to persist, the time and opportunity for preventative action has elapsed (if ever it existed). Simply put, North Korea is today a nuclear state. Policy approaches must adjust to that reality and begin figuring out ways to live with a nuclear North.
Indeed, questions remain as to whether North Korea can yet actually launch a successful nuclear strike. For instance, reports suggest the July 28th missile’s reentry vehicle (necessary for successful delivery of a warhead to its target) disintegrated during descent.
This, of course, is beside the point. Perhaps today Kim Jong-Un cannot nuke a major American city, but the nuclear and missile programs continue to advance at a rapid pace and only appear to be trending in the right direction — quickly — for the regime. What matters is that such a capability is not far off and the remaining preventative options for the United States would be in themselves catastrophic.
Possessing a nuclear deterrent is for Kim Jong-Un and company rooted in regime survival. North Korea is not likely to give it up for concessions and guarantees, particularly having seen what has occurred in Ukraine (despite sovereignty guarantees provided in exchange for their nuclear weapons in the early 1990s), an increase in hawkish rhetoric emanating from Washington, and the apparent bad faith of the current American administration in its attempts to wiggle out of the Iran nuclear deal. When it comes to reining in the regime, there are no more carrots, only sticks.
The lack of remaining diplomatic options to reverse the clock on the nuclear program limits preventative prescriptions to really only a military one. A decapitation strike aimed at Kim and/or a broader operation to overthrow the regime entirely would be required. However, as the Iraq war demonstrated, military action has a way of not going exactly to plan. In the case of war on the Korean peninsula, though, these consequences are much more predictable.
First and foremost, an attack on the North all but guarantees massive causalities in South Korea. Understanding any action against it is an existential threat, the Kim regime has no incentive to hold anything back in their response. North Korea has extensive artillery capabilities arrayed near the demilitarized zone (DMZ) dividing the peninsula. With Seoul, South Korea’s capital of nearly ten million people, a mere 35 miles from the border, upwards of one million civilians could be killed in a conflict. Even if this is a worst-case scenario, a fraction of this estimate is still a devastating outcome.
This does not include South Korean military forces which are on the front lines (literally along the DMZ) against North Korea which would be heavily targeted by a counterattack. Additionally, there are around 30,000 U.S. military personnel in South Korea, most based around Seoul. And, of course, if Kim does possess a nuclear weapon small enough to fit in a missile, he does need an ICBM to conduct a nuclear strike on the South, Japan, or American installations and territories, such as Guam, within range of North Korea’s short- and medium-range ballistic missile arsenal.
Then there is the elephant in the room, or rather the dragon. In East Asia, China cannot be divorced from any policy considerations. Toppling the Kim regime would necessitate filling that power vacuum with something which, in the thinking of Seoul and Washington, would be their forces. For the Chinese, already skeptical of American interests in the region, the prospect of a unified, pro-U.S. Korea and American troops standing on the Yalu River is a red line.
Beijing has spent the last sixty years supporting, to one degree or the other, the varying iterations of the Kim regime, in part as a buffer to prevent such a scenario. There is a serious risk of a narrow operation to prevent a nuclear North Korea by removing Kim from power escalating into a larger war between China and the United States, two nuclear armed states — a frightening irony, to say the least.
Needless to say, preventative military action against North Korea comes with a prohibitive cost. The newest round of sanctions passed over the weekend by the Security Council are positive measures to increase negotiating leverage as well as to more broadly reaffirm international norms. However, they are unlikely to pressure the Kim regime into relinquishing their nuclear weapons. Finding ways to ratchet down the tension and bring the North into serious diplomatic talks — something about which they have been reticent — in order to find an agreeable accommodation with the status quo is now incumbent upon the major players.
Establishing such discussions, let alone reaching acceptable terms, will be extremely difficult both diplomatically and politically. And, of course, North Korea’s track record of abiding by the terms of its agreements is littered with bad faith and cheating. This is a genuine risk and legitimate concern which must be taken into consideration in negotiations. Tough as it may be, though, there are opportunities for a peaceful accord.
As stated above, the crux of North Korea’s nuclear program is as a guarantor of regime survival. Offering some assurances to the Kim regime could help deescalate hostilities and be a basis for the limiting of the nuclear program’s scope. Such options include the granting of official recognition to Pyongyang (the U.S., South Korea, and Japan have no formal relations with North Korea) as well as curtailing regular joint military exercises conducted by the U.S. and South Korea. As they equally bother Beijing, the latter may also provide a greater incentive for China — the country with the most influence in North Korea — to pressure Kim to give concessions and stick to agreements. Additionally, some international sanctions could be lifted in exchange for certain curbs on nuclear weapons and missile systems.
None of this should be expected to result in the complete denuclearization of the peninsula. It is a long way from peaceful coexistence to positive, trustworthy relations in which that could occur, but coexistence is possible. The world survived Stalin’s U.S.S.R. and Mao’s China acquiring the bomb. Bitter enemies India and Pakistan, two countries whose politics and relations are not always defined by cooler heads, have not erupted into nuclear conflict.
The Kim regime is a detestable and mendacious gang and to grant it the legitimacy of being a nuclear state is a Mount Paektu sized pill to swallow. Agreeing to measures to avoid cataclysmic war does not, however, mean any North Korean behavior would be tolerated. International pressure to improve conditions inside the country should continue and Pyongyang would have to rejoin the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (from which it withdrew in 2003) and be vigilantly monitored against proliferation. It must also be made clear — including by China — that further aggression by North Korea or violations of agreements would be met with strong action.
There are no good choices, just one stark reality: North Korea is now a nuclear state. Millions of lives depend on accepting and adjusting to that truth. Unfortunately, many of those currently making decisions are not very good with reality. For everyone’s sake, let’s hope they wake up before there is indeed a fire and fury like we have never seen.
