I rejected the terms. I told Hill I could not accept having the IAEA’s verification authority and role compromised in this way. Of course I understood that the six parties wanted the credibility that would come from the Agency’s involvement, but in fact the opposite would occur: the inspections would not be credible if conducted under the auspices of an ad hoc group of countries. Either we would perform verification under the auspices of the international community, as we had done for fifty years, or they could find someone else to do the job. I asked my IAEA colleagues to pass the same message to the other members of the six-party talks.
When I saw a copy of the North Korean declaration, which should have included all nuclear activity, past and present, it was immediately clear that the document was incomplete. It declared the amount of plutonium produced but gave no information about the country’s past nuclear weapons program or the number of weapons—nor did it mention the alleged uranium enrichment activities.
Hill agreed: the North Koreans, he said, would likely continue to hold on to their existing nuclear weapons for as long as possible. Nevertheless, real progress had been made, because at least their weapons program had been frozen at the current level, as a result of dismantling the facilities. Achieving a final resolution would require more time and patience. Even verification of the declared plutonium would no doubt be a lengthy and complex process.
At the time, I took particular note of Hill’s remark that, given Japan’s perception of its own security, some observers were no longer excluding the possibility of Japan rethinking its nuclear weapons status. Hill did not elaborate, and I did not press him on the point. But I remembered that back in October 2006, both the Japanese foreign minister, Taro Aso, and the Liberal Democratic Party policy chief, Shoichi Nakagawa, had suggested opening discussions about a Japanese nuclear weapons program.[14] For Japanese scholars, this was a startling development. Japan was a strong supporter of the NPT; even public mention of Japan’s consideration of nuclear weapons capability had long been considered taboo.
This only reinforced my view that, for any country, the consideration of whether to develop, own, or use nuclear weapons is subject to change at any time, depending on how that country understands its current security situation. It can never be ruled out, as long as the option is open. Changes in the perception of national or regional security can be enough to reverse long-standing policy.
The pendulum swung yet again in the summer of 2008. Pyongyang had a falling-out with Washington because the United States had not removed North Korea from its list of states sponsoring terrorism. Under the Joint Agreement, this was the next action-for-action, once North Korea had taken steps to dismantle its facilities at Yongbyon. The problem, I was told, was that the hard-liners in the U.S. administration were hoping to get “something extra” from North Korea before removing the country from the list: specifically, more progress on the verification of the North Korean declaration.
Naturally, Pyongyang saw this as the United States reneging on yet another commitment. North Korean nuclear experts promptly got the order to begin reinstalling equipment at the dismantled facilities. On October 8, 2008, IAEA inspectors were prohibited from further monitoring the shutdown in Yongbyon.
Three days later, the United States backed down. North Korea was removed from the list of terrorism-sponsoring countries. The next day, North Korea resumed the dismantling process. The IAEA was again granted access to the Yongbyon facilities.
But the spring of 2009 would bring another setback. Despite international pressure not to do so, North Korea went forward on April 5 with a “satellite launch,” which was perceived to be a test of its longest-range missile. President Barack Obama called the test a “provocation” and urged the UN Security Council to take action. On April 13, the council condemned North Korea for the launch. Pyongyang responded with predictable anger, declaring that North Korea would never again take part in the six-party talks. Once again, the IAEA’s inspectors were asked to leave the country.
North Korea at the time was in an ongoing crisis. Poverty was at extreme levels: the allocation of rice per person had fallen to two hundred grams per day, well below a minimally nutritional diet. Meanwhile, the poor health of Kim Jong Il was causing a struggle between the aging dictator, who wanted to install one of his sons, Kim Jong Un, as successor, and high-ranking army generals, who saw an opportunity to grab power. Any external confrontation was an excuse for the hardliners to call for dramatic action.
The pendulum had not quite reached the end of its swing. On May 25, 2009, North Korea successfully tested its second nuclear weapon. It was still small by nuclear weapon standards but markedly more powerful than the first. The test was condemned by the UN Security Council and by the five other governments of the now-dormant six-party talks.
The long-alleged enrichment program also resurfaced, this time as a fully outfitted uranium enrichment facility, proudly unveiled by the North Koreans in November 2010 to Siegfried S. Hecker, a Stanford University professor who had once directed the Los Alamos National Laboratory.[15] Hecker and his colleagues were shown a sophisticated control room and an enrichment hall equipped with what the North Koreans said were two thousand centrifuges already producing low-enriched uranium. The facility was housed in a former fuel fabrication center, making clear that the enrichment plant had been constructed after April 2009, when inspectors had last been in the country. The speed of construction led many to conjecture that North Korea must have other uranium enrichment operations elsewhere in the country.[16] The revelation was yet another stunning testament to the futility of attempts to contain proliferation ambitions through confrontation, sanctions, and isolation.
To my way of thinking, the second North Korean nuclear test was far more frustrating than the first. Much had been accomplished on the North Korean file during the intervening two years. And the detonation had come at a time when, given the policies of the new American administration, the prospects for progress on global nuclear disarmament were better than they had been at any time in the recent past.
But the biggest source of frustration by far has been watching the cycle of ups and downs in North Korea’s relationship with the West. North Korea’s actions and reactions have been largely predictable. When Pyongyang has been engaged in a meaningful dialogue, the situation has generally improved. When dialogue has stopped, when perceived insults have occurred, when a policy of isolation has been reintroduced, the situation has deteriorated. It is that maddeningly simple.
Thus the Security Council’s condemnation of North Korea’s missile launch had of course made the situation worse. Quite possibly, with the new U.S. administration in power, North Korea had been deliberately provocative, in the hope of attracting attention from the Obama administration and extracting better treatment than it had received from the Bush administration. In any case, the North Koreans were certain to overreact, as they had in every earlier situation. Is it possible, I wondered, that diplomats and politicians had become so focused on the specific issue of the day that they had lost sight of the endgame of disarmament?
Invariably, whether dealing with North Korea or another nuclear proliferation case, the Security Council seemed to be either too divided or too restricted in its options to produce anything other than toothless statements or actions that prompted unintended consequences. In case after case, the stances taken by the Security Council in response to threats of nuclear proliferation were hollow and ineffectual. For the council to become effective, several adjustments were clearly necessary: a focus on the root causes of insecurity, and not just the symptoms; greater agility and realism in dealing with noncompliance, intervening early rather than postmortem; effective enforcement measures that would target the regimes in question, not innocent civilians; and consistency of approach when dealing with similar situations.[17]
14
On October 18, 2006, during a lower house committee session, Foreign Minister Aso said, “It is one idea not to allow discussions or even to talk about [possessing nuclear arms] when a neighbor country is going to have them, but it is important to have various discussions.” The next day he was quoted as saying, “Japan is capable of producing nuclear weapons.” But he added, “We are not saying we have plans to possess nuclear weapons.”
15
David E. Sanger, “North Koreans Unveil New Plant for Nuclear Use,”
16
David E. Sanger, “U.S. Concludes North Korea Has More Nuclear Sites,”
17
Of course, the council also needs to be reconstituted to be representative of the twenty-first century. It is absurd that the P-5, the council’s permanent membership, does not include countries such as Brazil, India, and South Africa.