MICHAEL HEAZLE |

The crisis on the Korean Peninsula has for the first time introduced an element of confusion over the strategic goal pursued by the US and its allies in dealing with North Korea.

The stated US goal over the last three decades has been to prevent the DPRK from achieving any nuclear-weapons capability. Now it appears Kim Jong-un’s regime does have nuclear-weapons capability and possibly the means to hit the continental US, and some are arguing that the goal, not the strategy, needs to change. We should now learn to live with a nuclear-armed North Korea as we learned to live with a nuclear China. A continued mix of diplomacy and sanctions, it is assumed, will allow us to do that. This approach, however, clearly has not prevented North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons, and is even less likely to work now that Pyongyang’s objective of becoming a nuclear state has been achieved.

It is premature to abruptly change strategic goals without considering an alternative disarmament strategy, and a dangerous signal to send to Pyongyang and Beijing. It basically says North Korea’s strategic goal has been achieved while admitting the US goal is lost. But successive US administrations have steadfastly maintained that a nuclear-armed North Korea is unacceptable, and denying Pyongyang nuclear status remains as compelling a goal today as it has ever been, if not more so.

Those advocating acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear state look to containment and deterrence as the means of reducing the risk of conflict on the Peninsula. But while this may reduce the risk of conflict in the short term, acceptance and further patience does not eliminate risk; it merely makes some risks less likely while making others more likely, in addition to potentially introducing new, previously unconsidered risks. So while the high stakes involved in disarming Kim’s regime are clear, there needs also to be better recognition of the risks involved in not disarming North Korea. Then we can judge which risks and outcomes are more or less unacceptable.

The argument supporting acceptance over resistance is based firstly on the terrible price a military conflict would impose, and secondly on the failure so far to spoil North Korea’s nuclear ambitions through diplomacy and sanctions. These two tactics obviously have failed, and there is nothing to indicate that they can work now, at least not without being made part of a broader, qualitatively different, approach.

As horrifying as the idea of war with North Korea is, the cost of a North Korean attack is a risk rather than a certainty and needs to be considered in comparison with the risks of accepting a nuclear North Korea.

Please click here to read the full “The unacceptable dangers of accepting a nuclear North Korea” article in The Interpreter by Griffith Asia Institute member, Associate Professor Michael Heazle.