North Korea's nuclear test

On 9 October 2006, North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test at a remote mountain location near P'unggye in North Hamgyong Province, approximately 110 km from its border with China. By unequivocally crossing the nuclear weapons threshold after long warning that it would undertake such a ‘physical demonstration’, Pyongyang openly defied the US and China and placed the tattered non-proliferation regime at increased risk. Five days following the test, the UN Security Council (including Beijing and Moscow, both typically more cautious) strongly condemned the test and imposed major new economic sanctions against Pyongyang.  The resolution also mandated heightened inspections of cargo entering and leaving North Korea. To senior US officials, interdicting the transfer of nuclear materials, technology, delivery systems or other forms of illicit commerce is now an even more urgent priority, but it remains to be seen how various states will interpret their obligations under the Security Council resolution.  

 

In the wake of the resolution, North Korea remained defiant and unrepentant.  By making good on its long-standing threat to detonate a nuclear device, North Korea garnered much greater international attention, but not the validation it sought. Pyongyang’s subsequent ire, though nominally directed at the United States, was also pointed at China, its primary political and economic benefactor. China’s condemnation of the nuclear test was especially tough. But Beijing insisted it was not intent on weakening the Pyongyang leadership’s grip on power, arguing that it sought the North’s return to the Six-Party Talks in which China had staked substantial political capital. China sent a high-level emissary to Pyongyang and subsequently orchestrated confidential discussions in Beijing between the lead US and North Korean nuclear negotiators, resulting in a 31 October agreement to resume the long stalled multilateral talks.  However, Pyongyang is intent principally on deflecting international pressure and conciliating China, and an internally divided Bush administration seems unlikely to meaningfully compensate the North’s leaders. Regional capitals have only begun to weigh the longer-term implications of a nuclear-armed North Korea, and the possibility of heightened confrontation and a larger crisis still looms large.

 

The nuclear test was the culmination of policy developments beginning in late 2005. For nearly a year, the North had boycotted the Six-Party Talks, the episodic diplomatic forum in Beijing focused on achieving a negotiated solution to the nuclear impasse. In mid-September 2005, all six participating states signed a document calling for the denuclearisation of the peninsula, but the agreement unravelled barely before the ink was dry.  Washington shortly thereafter succeeded in freezing North Korean assets at a bank in Macao, which the US contended was a primary conduit for Pyongyang’s trafficking in counterfeit currency. The North insisted that it would not return to the Six-Party Talks until US financial sanctions were lifted, but American officials consistently rejected these appeals.  Pyongyang also failed repeatedly to induce the United States to enter into bilateral negotiations. Pyongyang decided to escalate, undertaking seven ballistic missile tests in a nine-hour period on 5 July 2006. Ten days later, the Security Council passed a unanimous resolution condemning the tests that also sought to prevent any transactions related to missiles and WMD development. North Korean pronouncements in the wake of the resolution warned elliptically but unmistakably that a nuclear test had become a question of when, not if.

 

Kim Jong Il, the North’s mercurial leader, apparently concluded that he had little to lose in undertaking a nuclear test. But it is less evident what he thought he would gain.  Kim was clearly offended by the open opposition of China and Russia to the missile tests, and by their readiness to cooperate with the US and Japan on passage of the resolution. However, he may have concluded that the opprobrium of the international community strengthened his power position within North Korea, while reaffirming his close ties to North Korea’s military leadership.   Kim was evidently convinced that the viability of the North Korean system could only be guaranteed through its ‘military first’ policy, and that there was little that any external power could do to prevent a detonation.  The North’s announcement of 3 October, declaring its intention to test imminently, bore unmistakable similarity in tone and argument to China’s October 1964 defence of its first nuclear detonation, an irony that was not lost on China’s leaders.

 

Kim’s defiance of China spoke volumes about his determination to reject all appeals for restraint, no matter what the apparent risks and consequences.  Chinese sources confirm that North Korea informed Beijing 20 minutes in advance of the test, enabling China to notify other governments. But this offered little solace to Chinese officials, who were deeply angered by Kim’s actions, and by the major setback to China’s efforts to fashion a multilateral settlement. During the visit by State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan to Pyongyang ten days after the nuclear detonation, Kim purportedly informed Tang that he had ‘no plan’ for a second test, but he also argued that the North’s future actions would be contingent on the policies of others, especially the US. Immediately upon his return to Beijing, Tang met with visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. China then orchestrated the renewed contact between the lead negotiators in the Six-Party Talks and the agreement to resume talks, either later this year or early in 2007.  Beijing also believed that it had been able to slow any possible movement towards a second test.  North Korea consented to renewed negotiations on the premise that the talks would focus primarily on the lifting of US financial sanctions. The lead American negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, made clear that the US expects ‘substantial progress’ in Pyongyang fulfilling its denuclearisation pledges of September 2005. Meeting the expectations of either side will be a highly daunting task, and few observers anticipate significant progress, let alone a major breakthrough.

 

Kim may have undertaken the nuclear test in accordance with his own needs and timetable, but the technical results were far from optimal. North Korea purportedly informed China that the anticipated yield from the test would be approximately four kilotons, i.e. 4,000 tons of TNT equivalent. A test of this magnitude, though smaller than the explosive power in the first tests of other new nuclear entrants, would have represented a significant achievement.  However, following analysis of radioactive debris, the Office of the US Director of National Intelligence announced that the explosive yield was ‘less than a kiloton’; additional official disclosures and private estimates estimated the yield as low as 200 tons of TNT equivalent. US intelligence sources also disclosed that the fissile material used in the test was plutonium reprocessed from spent fuel removed from the North’s reactor at Yongbyon, not highly enriched uranium. The test was not an outright failure, but it was far from a full success.  Various explanations have been offered of what went wrong, including possible impurities in the plutonium, problems with the sequencing of the detonators resulting in incomplete implosion of the plutonium core, and other technical or material shortcomings. This suggests that Pyongyang might feel compelled to test again, perhaps more for technical than political reasons. But a future test or tests would risk comparably indeterminate results and greater international condemnation, while also consuming additional portions of the North’s limited plutonium inventory. Amidst Pyongyang’s bravado, the options to enhance its incomplete deterrent remain inauspicious.

 

The immediate consequences of the nuclear test have reinforced the North’s isolation and induced fuller international collaboration to monitor and prevent any North Korean involvement in WMD transactions. Security Council Resolution 1718 for the first time justified enhanced sanctions against the North under Chapter VII provisions, though China and Russia insisted upon exclusion of the use of force as an enforcement mechanism. The resolution obligated all UN member states to heighten cargo inspections and related restrictions on financial and economic transactions involving North Korea ‘in accordance with their national authorities and legislation, and consistent with international law’. This language tacitly acknowledged that the resolution had ventured into uncharted legal waters, especially concerning interdiction principles and procedures; it also reflected the differential interests of various states.  As North Korea’s largest trading partner and the principal provider of energy and food assistance to Pyongyang, China emphasised that it did not want to impede regular commercial activities with the North or imperil its ability to communicate with the leadership. It also remained to be seen how fully and rigorously Beijing would enforce the resolution’s stipulations, though the Chinese appeared to quietly impose restrictions on banking transactions with the North and were possibly limiting oil deliveries, as well.

 

The nuclear test also badly undermined Seoul’s engagement strategy towards Pyongyang. South Korea has pursued an inducement-oriented approach since the late 1990s, arguing that Pyongyang could be persuaded to yield its nuclear weapons potential for specific security assurances and economic guarantees. South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun had invested much political capital and financial assistance in opening doors to the North, even as Pyongyang resumed its nuclear programme. Roh’s ‘peace and prosperity policy’ had triggered major tensions in US-South Korea relations and was also under increasing assault within political circles in Seoul. Following the nuclear test, several senior South Korean officials closely identified with the engagement strategy (notably, Minister of Unification Lee Jong Seok) resigned from office. But some of Roh’s other close advisers continued to direct open criticism at US policy.  Though South Korea assented to the imposition of economic sanctions, Roh seems intent on salvaging as much of his policy as possible.  This includes efforts to continue South Korean sponsorship of a major industrial zone in Kaesong, immediately north of the Demilitarised Zone, and a major tourism project at Mount Kumgang.  Given that these projects are generating substantial hard currency earnings for North Korea, both will be under increased scrutiny and criticism, especially as the campaign to succeed Roh (the election is scheduled for late 2007) begins in earnest.

 

An event as consequential as a nuclear detonation undertaken by one of the world’s most heavily armed and isolated of regimes raises worrisome longer-term possibilities. Many senior officials in the Bush administration have long argued that Pyongyang would never yield its nuclear capabilities. But the nuclear test and the North’s increased accumulation of fissile material occurred on its watch, with the administration unable to impede these highly adverse developments. Similarly, Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has long advocated a tough policy toward the North. He clearly perceives enhanced opportunities to develop a more assertive security posture, with Pyongyang the presumed focus of much Japanese planning, especially pertaining to ballistic missile defence and enhanced interdiction efforts. Some leading Japanese political figures have gone much further, urging renewed consideration of a nuclear weapons option. Though Abe insists that Japan will continue to rely on US extended deterrence commitments, the hints from other politicians were a portent of the shifting tenor of security debate in Tokyo.

 

Despite enhanced US efforts to forge a five-power coalition in opposition to Pyongyang’s overt nuclearisation, the prospect for a fundamental shift in direction among all involved parties remains highly problematic. North Korea is unlikely to prove appreciably more responsive to external pressure in the aftermath of the test than before. Should Pyongyang opt for an additional test or tests, it will prompt even stronger penalties from the United States and Japan, and possibly from other neighbouring states. But Beijing, Seoul, and Moscow remain wary of isolating their embattled neighbour, and all would probably resist any attempts to undermine Kim’s hold on power, fearing the consequences of internal convulsion for their own interests. Pyongyang might opt to forego additional tests but still persist with its nuclear and missile development, buying time through periodic rounds of diplomacy while it awaits the outcome of the 2008 US presidential election.  Pyongyang would then be more confident of its nuclear competence, if not of a fully realised weapons capability.  Continued nuclear development amidst a protracted diplomatic impasse would be a highly unwelcome prospect. The US and all regional actors would undoubtedly prefer a reform-oriented North Korea intent on accommodation with its neighbours and prepared to forego its nuclear weapons capabilities. But no one has yet defined a practicable strategy for achieving this objective upon which all can agree, potentially leaving East Asia more unsettled and less secure than it has been in decades.