North Korea has the initiative. It is flying rockets over Japan, it claims to have mounted a hydrogen bomb on to an inter-continental ballistic missile and it may have conducted a sixth nuclear test.
It seems little can be done. Diplomacy, economic sanctions and military threats have proved ineffective. We may just have to learn to live with a nuclear-armed Korea. Or so many commentators would have us believe. But there are some options that might impose penalties that could have an effect on North Korea and its long-term ally and protector, China.
They will only change their deliberately chosen path if the cost of continuing towards building a long-range nuclear-tipped rocket force exceeds the benefits.
First, during the Cold War, the US shared thermonuclear weapons with Germany, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. The logic was to give Europe a means to defend itself when technological developments meant the American homeland became within range of Soviet long-range missiles.
Without sharing it was feared America would not risk nuclear attack in a crisis and so the Soviets could drive a wedge in the US-Europe alliance. That scenario is playing itself out again in north-east Asia. Japan and North Korea might be left isolated if North Korea can blackmail America from providing military assistance in time of crisis because of fear of nuclear attack.
Sharing American nuclear weapons with Japan and South Korea would frighten China. China is already worried about America’s deployment of a single Terminal High Altitude Area Defence anti-missile battery to South Korea.
Please click here to read the full “North Korea’s nuclear ambitions are not unstoppable” article published at The Age, written by Griffith Asia Institute Visiting Fellow, Dr Peter Layton.
