At 11:36 a.m. Monday Seoul time — 10:36 p.m. Sunday in New York — the North Korean government reportedly detonated a small nuclear weapon in Hamgyong Province. The apparently successful test made the nation of 23 million the ninth to join the so-called "nuclear club," according to the nonpartisan Arms Control Association based in Washington, D.C.
Princetonian staffers Anastasia Erbe, Julia Osellame and Victoria Whitford interviewed experts at the University for analysis of likely U.S., U.N. and Asian responses as well as on the future of nuclear nonproliferation worldwide.
The Daily Princetonian: How legitimate was the test?
Frank Von Hippel, Wilson School professor and former White House assistant director for national security: One of the questions I've been asked is how do we know if it's a nuclear explosion as opposed to a pile of TNT? U.S. airplanes will be flying around North Korea to test if radio activity has been released. Presumably this was an explosion with plutonium.
DP: Did U.S. action — or inaction — prompt the test?
Wolfgang Danspeckgruber, Wilson School professor: No, the U.S. did not provoke the North Koreans. The international community including Russia and China pressured North Korea.
Robert Einhorn, Wilson School lecturer: The approach the Bush Administration has followed for the last six years has been a failure.
Von Hippel: For the U.S., it demonstrates the failure of our policy with North Korea. The Bush administration has been paralyzed between wanting to have the regime change and talk about exchanging their weapons program for a better relationship. Now Bush may see this as an opportunity to get ... support for a total regime collapse instead of promoting bilateral talks.
Willard Peterson, East Asian Studies professor: To make a causal connection between what America did and didn't do is speculative. The world just doesn't know what the inner leadership in Korea is thinking, planning, and they are certainly doing things to manipulate the rest of the world.
DP: Bush has said he wants to resolve the issue diplomatically. Is this the best response? What steps should the United States take?
Danspeckgruber: We have to think about options of punishment. We have to be sure not to punish the people, but the leadership. I am afraid that besides punishing North Korea, we may have to live with the nation, to accept it, unless we want to launch World War III. The problem is how do you control to whom they give their technology and knowledge.
Aaron Friedberg, Wilson School professor: It depends on our objective. To push ahead with financial measures falls outside sanctions aimed at the regime and hurts the people. We should cut [the regime's] access to hard currency it earns through criminal activity.
Peterson: If the U.S. takes military action, that's exactly doing what the North Koreans want us to do; that is, the administration is falling into a trap that is set for them, and we've done that before. To me, if I was recommending, the problem is to be fought by South Korea, Japan and China — the U.S. should stay out.
DP: Is nuclear weapon delivery possible?
Von Hippel: People are skeptical about a starting-level country [like North Korea] having a weapon [small and light enough for a warhead].
DP: What's the next step for the United Nations, whose new Secretary-General is South Korea's foreign minister Ban Ki-Moon?
Von Hippel: The U.N. Security Council will get involved. The countries that were reluctant will ... crank up the pressure more, Japan in particular with their new prime minister. China might put more pressure to some degree.
DP: What is the future of nuclear nonproliferation?
Danspeckgruber: In earlier years, to be capable of detonating a nuclear device, it was supposed that you had to have a very developed and sophisticated scientific industrial base. Then came 1998, out of the blue first India and then Pakistan made two detonations. [North Korea] could then offer their help to others who we really don't want to get it. North Korea will not be able to do much harm itself, but by offering technology to others.
Japan may in the future be much more likely to contemplate the capability of having nuclear weapons, meaning Japan could say, "We will get ready to have them." Japan has the technological sophistication and instruments to develop nuclear weapons within weeks.
Von Hippel: My main concern is what the reaction in Japan will be. Will they feel they have to reconsider their status as a nonnuclear weapon state? And if that were to happen, what would South Korea do? I'm worried about a regional domino effect.
DP: What are the implications for Iranian nuclear acquisition?
Von Hippel: Iran has been enjoying the [North Korean] company. It has somewhat more impunity from the fact that there are two of them.
Danspeckgruber: That the U.S. did not manage to avoid this detonation has potentially very somber ramifications for the next member of the 'Axis of Evil' who tries to attempt anything. For example, if Iranians obtain nuclear weapons and do a similar thing to what North Korea has done, then it will be more difficult to control them.
Einhorn: If the international community does not react strongly to the North Korean test, then Iran and perhaps others later will feel they can move down the nuclear path with impunity.
DP: Does this test mean that the world is on the brink of nuclear war?
Von Hippel: It's another finger on the trigger. North Korea is a country which is desperate and isolated [but it likely lacks the means to deliver a nuclear weapon].
Friedberg: I wouldn't say that we are at all on the brink of nuclear war when we're not even clear what North Korea's capabilities are.
DP: Is disarmament a true possibility for North Korea?
Friedberg: I don't think they would do it voluntarily. To accept a written pledge in which disarmament was required would be after a combination of pressure from South Korea, China, Japan and the U.S., along with the promise of economic assistance. However, it is not realistic.
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