Hira Bahadur Thapa

Ever since nuclear weapons were manufactured in 1945, the countries possessing them have their own motivation to retain them despite their pledges to get rid of them as part of their obligations as required by the 1968 Treaty on the Non-proliferation of the Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The number of countries having nuclear weapons has now reached nine. The international community recognises only five nations – the US, Russia, the UK, France and China – as the sole possessors of nuclear weapons. Nuclear powers value them for deterrence.

Deterrence has been a controversial principle that sits at odds with international community’s emphasis on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Once the destructiveness of these weapons was demonstrated at the time of their first and last use in August 1945, a continuous debate has been going on whether countries can be persuaded to forsake their nuclear weapons. The race for acquiring deadly weapons has gone unabated even though the global treaty signed and ratified by the largest majority has earned commitments from both the nuclear haves and have-nots to work towards nuclear disarmament.

Nuclear apartheid
The NPT has been extended indefinitely and has almost universal adherence with a few holdouts, including India and Pakistan, among others. Those outside the treaty’s regime have some logical arguments. They view the treaty as an instrument that legalise nuclear apartheid because the internationally recognised five nuclear powers were permitted to possess their nuclear arsenals despite the treaty’s prohibition of nuclear weapons by others.

Judged from the final objective of complete nuclear disarmament, the NPT has got its significance but in reality, it has been seen as a discriminatory treaty. The lack of progress on the part of major nuclear powers like the US and Russia, whose bilateral nuclear arms talks have stalled, hardly convinces non-nuclear weapon states to refrain from acquiring nuclear weapons whose acquisition has provided them extra security and leverage in dealing with other countries.

This has been reinforced by some events in Iraq and Libya where the leaders were overthrown and even killed in wars after they were dispossessed of their nuclear weapons. In 2003, Saddam Hussein was toppled and murdered after Iraq was defeated in the war. Similarly, the Libyan leader Mohammad Gaddafi was ousted leading to his gruesome death in 2011. Both wars were termed unjust and took place after Iraq and Libya abandoned their nuclear weapons depriving them of deterrence.

The involvement of the US in the above wars has always raised a moral question when it pursues nuclear diplomacy with North Korea. There is no doubt that North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is unacceptable seen from the lens of maintaining regional peace and stability. However, one needs to have soul-searching to understand why North Korea does not agree to dismantle its nuclear arsenal. Against this background, it will be in order to analyse why US policy of denuclearising the Korean peninsula has faced hurdles.

Since Bill Clinton’s presidency, there have been on and off negotiations between the US and North Korea regarding the dismantlement of the latter’s nuclear arsenal. When Kim Jong Il was the North Korean leader in the 1990s, President Clinton persuaded him to freeze the plutonium reprocessing activities at Yongbyon nuclear complex. Kim agreed to switch to light water nuclear reactors which would not reprocess plutonium for use in manufacturing nuclear weapons. In return for this concession, North Korea would be supplied necessary fuel from the international consortium led by the US for halting the plutonium producing reactors. Under the provisions of 1994 Agreed Framework the consortium would build two light water nuclear reactors in North Korea.

Notwithstanding the above arrangement, North Korea secretly started enriching uranium working with AK Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear programme. After the revelation of this cheating tension built up and North Korea surprisingly decided to withdraw from the NPT, citing national security concerns in October 2002. Nuclear situation took a worse turn when in 2006 North Korea exploded nuclear device for the first time. It has already conducted six nuclear tests.

The international community has imposed sanctions on North Korea through UN Security Council resolutions to punish it for nuclear provocations. The country has suffered economically due to UN sanctions but has been unwilling to forsake nuclear capabilities, nonetheless. There are strong reasons behind North Korea’s decision not to abandon nuclear weapons. Sadly, it has restarted nuclear reactor in Yongbyon complex where it allegedly produced plutonium in the past as reported by International Atomic Energy Agency. North Korea believes that no body, not even the US would dare to attack or even seriously undermine a state as long as it is armed with nuclear weapons.

Diplomatic profile
Domestically, the retention of nuclear weapons confers a degree of legitimacy on the regime. Nuclear weapons symbolise natural pride for the North Koreans. Capitalising on this, the leaders have been justifying the deprivations that ordinary citizens suffer to support the state and its military. Internationally, nuclear weapons capability raises country’s diplomatic profile making up for deficits in political, economic, and soft power. Had North Korea not succeeded in exhibiting its nuclear power, President Trump would hardly have extended to the North Korean leader, the rare diplomatic recognition by agreeing to meet him in 2018 and 2019.

Therefore, North Korea won’t be prepared to lose this trump card and more so in possible nuclear arms negotiations with the US knowing that the bombs raise the potential costs of defending South Korea, US’s close ally, where it has deployed thousands of troops ever since the division of the Korean peninsula. Absent of peace treaty between the US and North Korea, it is unlikely that the latter would give up the nuclear weapons, the pursuit of which has been its insurance policy.

(Thapa was Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister from 2008-09. thapahira17@gmail.com)