Late July and early August have brought new attention to a long and still-growing international concern – that of the developing nuclear arsenal being built by the unpredictable regime of North Korean dictator Kim Jung-Un. A lot is being said in an increasingly loud and tense debate, but no one is quite sure how the U.S. and the world will react to Kim’s threats to use his new weapons of war.
Pyongyang is increasingly seen as a threat because of its rejection of negotiations aimed at denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, and its statements that it would use nuclear weapons against the United States if militarily provoked. Tensions continue to rise, as warnings are exchanged between North Korea and the Trump Administration. At the moment, intimidation and fear seem to be pushing foreign policy and diplomacy to the background.
How Did We Get Here?
North Korea’s warlike stance has been apparent since the end of combat on the Korean Peninsula in 1953. For decades, the Pyongyang regime – ruled initially by Kim Jung-Un’s grandfather, Kim Il-Sung – closed itself off from much of the world, depending initially on the Soviet Union for military, economic, and political support. The Soviet collapse in 1989 coincided with the early stages of China’s economic growth, and for the last quarter-century Beijing has been North Korea’s only significant ally.
The Kim family has long sought international recognition for North Korea as a stand-alone military and economic power. Pyongyang has believed that respect for the regime would be accorded by major powers if it developed its own nuclear arsenal; then, the reasoning went, the rest of the world would have little choice but to recognize the influence and power of North Korea on the world stage.
Intelligence sources believe serious nuclear weapons development began about 30 years ago when Soviet military aid helped build North Korea’s first nuclear reactor. Kim Jong-Il, the son of the nation’s founder, continued to plow scarce resources into development of a nuclear infrastructure, culminating in its first weapons test in late 2006. Five years later Kim Jung-Un succeeded his father, and since 2011 there have been five more tests of nuclear devices.
Each test has been headlined as a source of national pride by the regime, which has issued bellicose statements in defense of its interests against hostile nations, especially the United States. Each weapons test, and each successive test of small and large missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, has been criticized as a potentially ominous threat by the international community.
The latest step in weapons development came this summer with two separate and successful test flights of inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The first test flight was powerful enough to reach Alaska and western Canada – and the second, launched at the end of July, was projected by US intelligence agencies as having enough thrust to reach cities throughout much of the continental US.
The UN View
In response to North Korea’s testing program the United Nations Security Council convened on August 5th to vote on Resolution 2371, a measure imposing sanctions on North Korea. The measure – approved unanimously by a vote of 15-0 – was aimed at blocking North Korean exports of iron ore, coal, iron and lead, lead ore, and seafood, and at efforts by Pyongyang to engage in international joint ventures and economic agreements. US Ambassador Nikki Haley said the resolution reflects the “strongest sanctions ever imposed in response to a ballistic missile test,” cutting North Korea’s export revenue by more than one-third.
The following day North Korea’s government newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said the hostile act would result in “an unimaginable sea of fire” for the United States. Both China and Russia had backed the UN resolution – a move seen as repudiation of Pyongyang by its long-time allies. North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) in Manila, criticized the UN resolution as illegal – and blasted the US offer to negotiate differences. The North Korean diplomat said, “we will, under no circumstances, put the nukes and ballistic rockets” up for negotiation, calling his government’s nuclear weapons program a “strategic option” to be used in the event of an attack on North Korea by the U.S.
The US View
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has put the possibility of negotiations with North Korea on the table, but only if missile and weapons tests end. He has also said the United States does not want regime change in North Korea – a position Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he hoped was true. (Russia and the US have their own well-publicized disputes in a relationship that has seemed to get worse as time passes.) Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made a stronger statement, urging North Korea to make a “smart decision” and stop testing missiles and nuclear weapons – putting further strain on relations between Pyongyang and Beijing.
President Trump responded to this exchange of diplomatic statements by Foreign Ministers, and to Pyongyang’s rejection of the idea of negotiations, saying that North Korea “will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen” if it threatens the United States. North Korea’s state-run news agency, KCNA, then ratcheted up the tension with clearly threatening language, saying Kim Jong-Un is considering whether to use ICBMs in a ballistic missile strike against US military facilities on the South Pacific island of Guam.
The Future?
The hostile exchange between President Trump and Kim Jong-Un’s government has come on the heels of US intelligence reports that the North Koreans have successfully developed miniaturized nuclear warheads for its ICBMs. These findings bring new urgency to the need for efforts at containing what is seen as a grave and gathering threat to international stability.
The UN Security Council Resolution is certainly a step in the right direction. There is little confidence, however, that North Korea will reverse decades of weapons development and international political isolation simply because of economic sanctions; it has long been one of the world’s poorest countries.
It will take more than sanctions to reduce the threat of war, nuclear or otherwise. The problem, though, after the tumultuous events of these two mid-summer weeks, is that there is no consensus as to what solutions can be found, or what will come next.
