This is the most extraordinary situation which the entire international community finds both perplexing and alarming. There is a tendency to dismiss the tension as bluff from a hermit kingdom full of brainwashed and starving people, run by a despotic family dynasty, supported by puffed up generals and an out of date military, which if the rhetoric sank into all out war would be utterly crushed. Most of this is correct. What is wrong is the policy used to confront it.
When some years back the North Koreans made wild threats about nuclear weapons the U.S President, Bill Clinton, calmly remarked that any such move would be ‘the end of their country‘. This time the responses have been sanctions and speeches, together with some fairly provocative military exercises, but no clear declaration of nuclear retaliation to deter. This has led to a situation almost out of control. It is driven by the uncertainty of the actual status of the North’s nuclear capacity. How many warheads does it have if any? Are they small enough to put on rockets? Are the rockets reliable?
Whatever the answers to those questions, they are irrelevant. The North Koreans say they have them. They should be taken at their word. The key issue is not whether they have them but whether they use them. Nuclear weapons are useful only as a deterrent, but in this regard they are very useful indeed. A third world war was avoided precisely because each of the powers knew that if they launched their weapons they would not live to see the end of that day and their countries would be wiped out. Those who have nuclear weapons know that they cannot use them to threaten, but they can effect deterrence by having them.
The generation of leaders matured into politics following the cold war have lost the plot on this issue and are wholly muddled in how to deal with it. All their softly softly step by step processes leading to isolation, condemnation and sanctions have got nowhere with Iran nor with North Korea. What is required is a bold firm statement. Waste the money you have not got on developing nuclear weapons if you want to, but try and use them and your country will be erased from the map in a full retaliatory strike launched before your weapon is half way to its target. It should be said in public. again and again, loud and clear.
It has worked before and it will work again. Once assured it will not be attacked, North Korea will be forced to think about how to feed its people. That is when meaningful discussions can begin with a real prospect of a better life for the hungry and starving north of the 38th parallel. On the present course anything may happen. Even something so bad as to be beyond imagination.
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