The fallout from North Korea’s nuclear test will reach beyond its neighbours to the south.
AAP/Yonhap
Overnight North Korea conducted its
third nuclear weapons test.
The test came in the wake of a successful long-range rocket launch in
December and resulting condemnation from the United Nations Security
Council via
UNSC Resolution 2087.
This latest development raises two obvious questions: Why did North
Korea conduct the test, and how might the international community react?
Pyongyang’s motives
The seismic signature of this blast
registered 4.9 on the Richter scale, larger than a reading of 4.52 from a similar explosion in 2009.
There are several ways of interpreting the larger yield of the most recent blast.
It could have been a bigger bomb, ergo the larger explosion. This
seems unlikely given Pyongyang’s need for a miniaturised weapon to
demonstrate its deterrent capability.
It may have been North Korea’s first
test of a uranium-based weapon using fissile material from Pyongyang’s advanced
High Enriched Uranium (HEU) program.
Uranium-based nuclear devices are more technologically sophisticated
than plutonium bombs, but the uranium feedstock does not have to pass
through the numerous processes of the
nuclear fuel cycle
to be weaponised. HEU installations are more efficient in producing
fissile material and harder to detect because they bypass the reactor
burn process, hence their appeal.
Or the test may have been of a
smaller device packing a stronger punch.
Miniaturisation is the next technological milestone for the North’s
nuclear scientists in order to produce a nuclear warhead that is
deliverable atop a missile. To confirm itself as a nuclear weapons
power, North Korea must demonstrate it has developed a deployable
nuclear device. A nuclear bomb has no deterrence value unless it can be
reliably and accurately delivered to an enemy target.
International reaction
After every North Korean provocation, journalists and colleagues
usually ask me how the international community is likely to react.
The international reaction is the most predictable variable in the equation. The answer is: more sanctions.
Why sanctions? Military force is essentially off the table. A casual
glance at a map of the Korean peninsula will show that Seoul is
essentially indefensible against North Korean rockets and artillery due
to its close proximity to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).
The estimated
cost of war and reunification
should an American military action escalate to full-scale war is
estimated in the trillions of dollars and millions of lives, borne
largely by South Korea. For any rational military strategist, the risks
of an armed response to North Korea’s pin-prick provocations are
prohibitive.
China fears the potential for economic and social dislocation in its
northeastern provinces cause by large refugee flows from North Korea in
the event of war or state collapse.
The pre-existing sanctions regime imposed by
previous Security Council resolutions and
domestic legal instruments
includes measures such as restrictions on North Korean exports, asset
freezes applied to specific North Korean citizens and enterprises, and
controls on North Korean imports of dual-use technologies. The
sanctions regime is enforced via the
Proliferation Security Initiative, a global naval interdiction effort aimed at disrupting WMD trafficking.
Despite its stern rhetoric, the expansion of sanctions in UNSC 2087
was relatively mild. It placed travel bans and asset freezes on four
officials and six state-owned enterprises from the North Korean space
program and Pyongyang’s amorphous network of foreign exchange banks and
dummy companies. This network exists to subvert international sanctions
and fund North Korea’s nuclear and missile proliferation activities.
The sanctions regime has been
largely ineffective
in controlling North Korea’s nuclear and missile proliferation
activities. There is a limit to the number of individuals and
state-owned entities in North Korea that can be targeted for sanctions.
One would therefore expect a new round of sanctions to include a
crackdown on foreign entities thought to be assisting North Korean
sanction-busting.
A stronger sanctions regime also requires cooperation from Beijing,
as China is the country with the greatest economic leverage over the
DPRK. Chinese foreign policy elites have been engaged in
intense debate over the appropriate approach to North Korea for some time, however it is likely that the official policy of
restrained disapproval will continue to carry the day.
Determined proliferation
The inability to prevent North Korea testing a nuclear device is evidence of its
weak leverage
over Pyongyang. Indeed it is the international community’s weak hand
that creates the strategic space for relatively scot-free North Korean
provocations.
North Korea is a determined nuclear weapons and ballistic missile proliferator, driven by a number of
economic, strategic, political and bureaucratic motivations all linked to the regime’s over-arching goal of survival.
The successful test sends a powerful strategic signal that North Korea is serious about expanding its nuclear arsenal.
A South Korean official said that North Korea had notified the US and China of its nuclear test plan a day earlier.
Source: The Conversation - An independent analysis and commentary from academics
and researchers.
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