North Korea tensions: why is there a debate about accepting Pyongyang's nuclear state status?

As North Korea has taken steps to heighten tensions on the Korean peninsula in recent months, some analysts have floated the possibility of accepting the country as a nuclear state, arguing that it might actually make the region safer.

Jeffrey Lewis, an expert on nuclear non-proliferation at the US-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, argued earlier this month that Washington needs to contemplate the unthinkable, which is to accept that North Korea is a nuclear state.

"[This might] be the best way to reduce the persistent and growing threat of an inadvertent conflict on the Korean peninsula by removing a major obstacle that prevents North Korea and the United States from meeting to work out their differences," Lewis wrote in The New York Times.

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Brad Glosserman, non-resident senior adviser at the Honolulu-based Pacific Forum, noted that North Korea's belief that adversaries want it defenceless drives it to improve its capabilities.

"On all counts, then, it is better to acknowledge nuclear capability now," Glosserman wrote in the Japan Times last week.

Speaking to This Week in Asia, analysts said even though accepting North Korea as a nuclear state may help manage tensions in the region, it would be impossible for Washington to accept.

Not only will the acceptance undermine the global non-proliferation treaty and encourage other countries to pursue their nuclear ambitions, it would also indicate that the US has failed in its North Korea policy, analysts added.

Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul said Pyongyang "wants a proliferation pass and to be periodically bribed to pause its weapons tests - in other words, 'pay to de-escalate'".

"Giving into nuclear blackmail would divide US allies and is not a sustainable strategy. Instead, now is a good time for the US, South Korea, Japan and Western partners to close ranks on multiple challenges in the Indo-Pacific by tightening sanctions, strengthening trade security, and better coordinating deterrence," Easley said.

Earlier this month, North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile towards its eastern waters after flying fighter jets near the border with South Korea.

The move reportedly came hours after Seoul scrambled F-35 fighter jets and other aircraft when about 10 North Korean warplanes were detected as close as 12km to the border, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Apart from carrying out a record number of weapons launches this year, North Korea passed a law in September declaring the country a nuclear weapons state. Its leader Kim Jong-un even described the designation as "irreversible" and ruled out further talks on denuclearisation.

In the past two months, Pyongyang has fired a dozen ballistic missiles and is boasting of the ability to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. It is also expected to soon conduct another underground nuclear test - its seventh and the first in nearly five years.

On the possibility of accepting North Korea as a nuclear state, Nah Liang Tuang, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore, said that even though nuclear disarmament negotiations are currently "a non-starter", accepting Pyongyang into the community of nuclear-armed states is a "verboten option" as this will "terminally undermine" the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and even encourage other nuclear arms aspirants.

The NPT is aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, and to achieve nuclear and general disarmament.

"I would thus recommend that sanctions-based pressure be strictly upheld along with diligent efforts to undermine the Kim regime's illicit revenue streams," Nah said, referring to UN sanctions that include an arms embargo, export bans, prohibitions on mineral imports from North Korea and restrictions on Pyongyang's investments and financial activities.

Among North Korea's alleged illicit activities often cited include the manufacture and sale of illegal drugs, the manufacture and sale of counterfeit consumer goods, arms trafficking and counterfeiting foreign currency, especially the US dollar and Chinese yuan.

Khang Vu, a PhD candidate in political science at Boston College with a focus on East Asian politics and nuclear weapons, said that accepting North Korea as a nuclear state was the first step towards making real progress in managing escalation on the Korean peninsula.

"There is little chance that North Korea will give up its weapons after so many years of weapons development and sanctions," Vu said, adding that arms controls limiting some parts of North Korea's nuclear programme should be the next step as it allows for some degree of inspections that could prevent nuclear accidents.

Arms controls with North Korea would not undermine Washington's non-proliferation efforts elsewhere as efforts to limit nuclear arms can continue even after a state is recognised to be a nuclear power, such as in the case of Israel or Pakistan, he said.

"However, this move is unlikely to be accepted at the policy level," Vu noted, as accepting North Korea as a nuclear state "is tantamount to admitting failure and no administrations want to take the blame".

In the unlikely scenario that the US and North Korea could enter into an arms control deal, Vu said there were problems with compliance and monitoring because both Pyongyang and Washington "have a bad record" of not fulfilling agreements.

"Low mutual trust puts into question the longevity of such a deal," Vu said, adding that while "arms control is not a perfect option, it is the best option at the moment".

Jae Jeok-park, an associate professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, said unless North Korea was equipped with technologies of re-entry and miniaturisation, Washington would not recognise Pyongyang as a nuclear state.

According to nuclear experts, North Korea still struggles to secure such advanced technology.

"The US recognition of North Korea as a nuclear state would indicate that Washington failed in its North Korea policy," Park said, adding that regional states would also have doubts about Washington's nuclear commitment to the region.

"Japan would go nuclear, so would Taiwan and South Korea," Park said, adding that if this were to happen it would lead to more regional instability.

Lee Sung-yoon, a professor of Korean studies at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, said the only successful US denuclearisation project on the Korean peninsula was with South Korea. By threatening the withdrawal of all US forces in South Korea, Washington was able to compel Seoul to give up its nascent nuclear weapons programme in the early to mid-1970s.

"With North Korea, the US and other nations in the region have been repeatedly outmanoeuvred by Pyongyang in their denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula" talks over the past 30 years, Lee said.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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