Nuclear Issues

President Donald Trump has identified North Korea as an urgent threat from whom nobody is safe, but efforts to maximize pressure and convince Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program have always been a long shot. The only chance of ending North Korea’s nuclear obsession is for the United States, South Korea, Japan, and China to collectively put enough pressure on Pyongyang to convince Kim Jong Un that a deal has to be made. Once North Korea comes to the table, all four states then have to be ready to take yes for an answer, offering a combination of security and economic incentives to make denuclearization a reasonable alternative for North Korea’s leader.

While tensions continue to flare along the Korean peninsula, the Trump administration struggles to articulate its strategy to persuade North Korea to halt its nuclear program. In a recent visit to the de-militarized zone, Vice President Pence warned Pyongyang to not test America’s “strength and resolve,” citing recent U.S. military strikes in Syria and Afghanistan as a forewarning. A not-so-veiled threat that the Trump administration considers “all options” to be on the table. What is unknown, however, is whether this increased rhetoric is merely saber-rattling or is the opening salvo for a true shift from Obama’s doctrine of “strategic patience.” That is, continuing to apply political and economic pressure until Pyongyang returns to the negotiating table.

“The Trump administration is currently conducting across the entire government a review of our Iran policy,” U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced on April 19, adding that “an unchecked Iran has the potential to follow the same path as North Korea and take the world along with it.” Ironically, the Trump administration appears to be following the same path on Iran as George W. Bush did on North Korea. The result could be equally dangerous.

By undermining implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA — a viable, verified, and sound agreement that blocks Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons — President Trump risks removing the shackles from Tehran’s nuclear efforts. We’ve been down that road before; instead of preserving and strengthening the Agreed Framework with North Korea, Bush freed Pyongyang to keep working on nuclear weapons that could eventually reach American territory.

Last week’s meeting between President Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe went surprisingly well, but if this summit is the baseline test of Mr. Trump’s capacity to handle foreign policy and national security challenges, then the bar may be set too low, because rising tensions in East Asia will almost surely test the administration in the future.

Nuclear weapons remain the most powerful weapons on the planet and how President Donald Trump’s team manages nuclear issues is critical to our security. These are hard challenges; none were perfectly addressed under President Obama’s leadership. But we made them a priority from day one. Whether or not the new team puts them at the top of the to-do list, here are five issues that will demand their attention before too long.

This is not the first time that the idea of a Japanese nuclear capability has been floated: In the late 1960s, after the first Chinese nuclear test, the Japanese government under Eisaku Sato sanctioned multiple feasibility studies on how much time and money Japan would need to develop nuclear weapons. However, these studies unanimously argued against making the political decision to build the bomb, citing the tremendous losses Japan would incur in the forms of insecurity, economic costs, and damage to its diplomatic relations in the international community.

"Until recently, calls for nuclear armament were considered extremist in South Korean political discourse. However, public support for nuclear armament is growing in South Korea due to North Korea’s nuclear provocations. In a recent Gallup Korea poll, 58 percent supported nuclear armament. If the U.S. security guarantee is not credible in the minds of South Koreans, and nuclear armament is the only way to defend South Korea’s security from North Korea, a nuclear option will seem even more appealing to the public."

US and South Korean foreign policy needs to catch up with the increasingly likely reality that North Korea has already crossed a nuclear weapons state threshold, writes Se Young Jang.

"In a complete volte-face the nuclear supplier states that created the NSG (then the London Group) in 1975 due to proliferation concerns raised by India's perfidy are contemplating its inclusion. Paradoxically, that sounds like a death knell of the NSG and the non-proliferation regime."

"In Northeast Asia, where national security still overwhelmingly dominates the perspectives and behavior of states, nuclear proliferation, both vertical and horizontal, is gaining stronger momentum. China’s recent but substantial investment in modernizing its nuclear arsenal and improving its reprocessing capacity is alarming its neighbors, as well as the United States. The nuclear pursuits of North Korea and, in particular, the acceleration of nuclear and missile tests seem to be spiraling, whereas diplomatic efforts to stop Pyongyang's nuclear path have been futile to date. In addition to its fourth nuclear test in January 2016, a series of missile and rocket tests and the recent firing of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), Pyongyang is reportedly preparing another nuclear weapons test in the coming months..."