Escalating Nuclear Threat

 

Escalating Nuclear Threat

 

                                                                                  By Lee Hyon-soo

 

After a series of ballistic missile tests, North Korea recently conducted its fifth nuclear test. North Korea’s nuclear program has so advanced that it is a matter of time before its nukes are deployed.

 

The international community will definitely impose harsher sanctions on North Korea in due course. In this regard, it is imperative that China should realize that it is in its best interest to reign in North Korea before it is too late.

 

Once North Korea’ s nukes are deployed, South Korea will bear the brunt of the nuclear threat because it lacks a nuclear deterrence capability. The South Korean government says that it will unleash preemptive strikes to destroy Pyongyang completely, if and when there are signs that North Korea is about to launch nuclear-tipped missiles toward South Korea. But this is easier said than done. It would be very difficult to detect signs of an imminent missile launch in advance because missiles can be launched from submarines whose whereabouts are hard to trace. In addition, if South Korea strikes first, it will have to bear the blame for having started a war.

 

The United States assures South Koreans that they need not worry about North Korea’s nuclear threat because they are protected under the U.S. nuclear umbrella. But one may wonder whether the United States will actually retaliate in the case of a North Korean nuclear attack on South Korea if the continental United States is also vulnerable to North Korea’s nuclear attack.

 

Overcome by feelings of helplessness, some South Korean politicians and opinion leaders argue that Seoul should develop nukes of its own. This too is easier said than done. We need to understand why the international community condemns North Korea’s nuclear program with one voice. Of course, the whole world is concerned about the fact that North Korea’s nuclear arsenal will disrupt the peace and security not only on the Korean Peninsula but also in the Far East. But what is of utmost concern is that North Korea’s nuclear program hampers the global nuclear non-proliferation regime.

 

Come to think of it, horrible weapons of mass destruction such as nukes should not have been invented. But as several countries already have nuclear arsenals, the international community is trying to contain them through the NPT (Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty). That is why any challenge to the NPT is not tolerated.

 

Granted, there are valid grounds for South Korea to want to develop nukes. Even so, its path is strewn with unsurmountable obstacles.

 

For starters, it would be almost impossible to get acquiescence from the United States. If South Korea disregards the U.S. opposition, it will adversely affect the ROK-US Mutual Defense Treaty and the procurement of uranium needed for the operation of nuclear power plants.

 

If South Korea actually pulls out of the NPT and starts to develop nukes, the international community will treat South Korea just like North Korea. And harsh sanctions will follow. If isolated from the rest of the world, a trading nation such as South Korea cannot survive.

 

If push comes to shove, South Korea may talk the United States into redeploying tactical nuclear weapons which were removed from its soil in the early 1990s. But now is not the time to do so because such an action will give North Korea a good excuse to hang on to its nukes, and the international community will be deprived of the grounds on which to penalize North Korea.

 

It seems that there is not much South Korea can do to counter North Korea’s nuclear threat on its own. All that South Korea can do now is to reinforce its defense capability with the help of the United States and cooperate with the international community to induce North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.

 

 

The Korea Times

September 2016