Optimism after North Korea

Writing in today’s Washington Post, Joseph Nye reminds us that we don’t need to give up on halting international proliferation simply because North Korea built a barely functional nuclear weapon of some kind.

Nye notes that during the 1970s, a similar nuclear "breakout" moment occurred, but the NPT and related proliferation regimes did not collapse. Through assiduous diplomacy, the United States pushed the individual countries who were pressuring the proliferation regime to stop their anti-regime activities and arranged a strengthening and updating of the nuclear proliferation regime, the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group. And most importantly, the United States extended its nuclear umbrella to clearly cover some of its most vulnerable allies, like South Korea and Japan.

Nye says that the U.S. can reaffirm its commitment to Japanese and South Korean security and ask everyone to recommit to international proliferation institutions as the United States had the world do in the seventies. Nye makes it seem that, with work, these are achievable.

Nye also wants the United States to support two IAEA initiatives:

• Increased funding for the IAEA and its inspection activities;
• An international enriched uranium “bank” for countries that promise not to develop indigenous nuclear enrichment programs.

As for North Korea itself, Nye believes that integration is better than sanctions. Of all the things that Nye recommends, that’s the only one I can’t agree with. The North Korean regime would be able to use economic integration to strengthen itself without freeing its people, using the Chinese example.

If anything, the North Koreans’ recent return to nuclear negotiations has given us a hypothesis we really should test – whether financial sanctions are the lever we can use to pressure the Kim regime. If the Kim regime doesn’t back down after the upcoming negotiations, we should try to get China to have its banks limit North Korean access to the international financial system. That pressure, in addition to American limits on North Korean finances, might be enough to push the North Koreans to give up their nuclear programs.

If that fails, then maybe we’ll try Nye’s prescription for economic integration. Only so much optimism for me.