Ignatius Has A Plan For North Korea
A good one, to boot…well, it’s not really his, but enough preliminaries. The subject: what to do now that the current regimes of ‘deterrence’ have failed.
[Harvard professor Graham] Allison believes that the world community must now focus on what he calls “the principle of nuclear accountability.” The biggest danger posed by North Korea isn’t that it would launch a nuclear missile, but that this desperately poor country would sell a bomb to al-Qaeda or another terrorist group. Accountability, in Allison’s terms, means that if a bomb explodes in Manhattan that contains North Korean fissile material, the United States would act as if the strike came from North Korea itself — and retaliate accordingly, with devastating force. To make this accountability principle work, the United States needs a crash program to create the “nuclear forensics” that can identify the signature of fissile material of every potential nuclear state. Arms control expert Robert Gallucci describes this approach as “expanded deterrence” in his article in the September Annals.
President Bush seemed to be drawing this red line of accountability when he warned Monday: “The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States, and we would hold North Korea fully accountable for the consequences of such action.”
Tough words, but are they credible? That’s why the second essential pillar of a new security regime is a restoration of deterrence. The Bush administration warned North Korea over and over that it would face severe consequences if it tested a nuclear weapon. So did China and Russia, but Kim Jong Il went ahead anyway. Iranian leaders are similarly unimpressed by Bush’s saber rattling, viewing America as a weakened nation bogged down by an unwinnable war in Iraq. To restore deterrence, the West needs to stop making threats it can’t keep. And the United States must salvage its strategic position in Iraq — either by winning, or organizing the most stable plan for withdrawal.
After the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy got serious about preventing nuclear war. He installed a “hotline” so the White House and the Kremlin could talk when crises arose; he negotiated the 1963 Test Ban Treaty; and he began the discussions that led to the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty. That treaty worked adequately for almost four decades. Instead of the 20 nuclear states that Kennedy feared would exist by 1975, we had just eight, until last weekend. But the North Korean test threatens to begin what a 2004 U.N. commission warned would be “a cascade of proliferation” that could spread to Japan, South Korea, Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
We are present at the unraveling. We must “think about the unthinkable” with new urgency. The United States and its allies must begin constructing a system that can succeed where the Non-Proliferation Treaty has failed. A terrorist nuclear bomb in Manhattan or Washington isn’t a thriller writer’s fantasy; it’s a probability, unless America and its allies establish new rules for nuclear accountability that are clear and credible.
Anyone who has read this blog with any regularity knows this is music to my ears. I have argued as forcefully as possible that the UN Security Council has lost all credibility, and the United States, by making the sort of empty threats Ignatius refers to, has nearly done the same.
This is the soundest piece I’ve yet seen on the current crisis. I hope I can hunt down a copy of Allison’s full article…
His thesis is all well and good, but what happens if the bomb is traced to have come originally from the Pakistani security forces? Dr. Kahn was a notorious and well – documented supplier to just about anyone who was willing to pay for a nuke, or the essential materials to make one. If they are indeed our nominal ally, how do we apply this doctrine to Pakistan, if it unfortunately comes into play?
As for Japan, forgettaboutit – you could make a reasonable assumption that they’ve already got nukes, predicated on the missiles that were lobbed over their mainland previously by NK, as well as continued provocative military maneuvers that have been conducted by China in their territorial waters (Chinese subs have been intercepted by Japan’s naval forces in their harbors and sea lanes in the recently).
I’m a skeptic.
NK is still holding a gun at sk’s head. Any attack against them destroys the sk economy and infrastructure, not to mention lives.
the only successful means of dealing with nk is by a coup.
the chinese have the mechanism to produce it, but lack the will, fearing the potential refugee crisis and a departure from remaining ‘impartial’ in world affairs.
Comrades,
The key is to force China’s hand in the matter, and it would be relatively easy to do. China is in a fairly unstable, or precarious PR position sice being awarded the Olympic Games coming up. She will do almost anything to save face in the PR department, in order to show she is an international player, someone to be respected. She also needs the capital influx, and is on a crash building course to provide for the millions expected to attend the games.
All one would have to do is to tell the PRC that the US and other Capitalist Lap Dogs will be doing something else come the Olympics, unless something is done about the “Fearless Leader” in NORKdom. Heck, the President and Congress could even prohibit US media from covering the Olympics, and US citizens and corporations from participating in it in anyway shape or form. That threatened loss of capital and face might do wonders towards solving the current “problem” north of the Korean DMZ.
Respects,
Gwedd
I would not dispute that the best leverage we have is the Olympics, but it will take more than a tiny stick to move the boulder.
Comrades,
It was common knowledge in the 70′s that we could easily trace the fissile material’s origin from any detonation. I would have no problem with retaliation based upon origin as a benchmark reaction to nuclear detonation upon the United States or any of our allies.
If ther material comes from Pakistan, then Mushariff goes down big time. Maybe the realistic threat of nuclear anhililation will slap some sense into some of these folks and wake them uip to the need to secure their nuclear stockpiles.
As to NORK, we (the United States, et al, ) are still in a state of war with them. The Korean War ended with a truce, not a surrender or amistice, and as such, we don’t need as great a level of provocation to renew our aggression.
Regarding Iran, well that is a more sticky wicket. How to deal with a regime that WANTS to bring about a holocaust? How to deal with a regime that WANTS a nuclear war so as to bring about the return of the 12th Imam? How to deal with a regime that will say or do whatever is required to provide them with enough time to develop the weapons they want?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Respects,
Gwedd