The Larger North Korean Threat

On April 5, North Korea said it launched a communications satellite. Most other countries believed that it was a test launch of a ballistic missile that may one day be able to reach Alaska. Leaders across the globe protested the act for good reason: After withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003, North Korea has furthered its nuclear program and may already have a substantial nuclear arsenal.

Russia's mass media debated whether Pyongyang's nuclear missile program posed a real threat. It turns out that half of Russians see no reason for concern. "Let them test their missiles," they said. "They will never be able to reach Russia anyway."

Furthermore, the argument goes, why point the finger at North Korea when the real nuclear threat comes from the United States? It is ludicrous to compare North Korea's small nuclear potential with the thousands of nuclear warheads that exist today in the U.S. arsenal. In addition, the United States has already shown its aggressive use of atomic weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

These arguments, however, are fundamentally flawed. Washington used atomic weapons in 1945 during World War II while defending itself against the militaristic Japanese Empire that tried to enslave China and other countries in Southeast Asia. Had the Soviet Union possessed atomic bombs in the early 1940s, it would undoubtedly have used it against Hitler's Germany without the slightest hesitation. It should also be remembered that in 1945, few understood what we know today about the dangers of radiation to humans and the environment, and there were no international treaties that banned the weapons.

After 1945, the United States never again used atomic weapons -- not when it had a complete monopoly on these weapons until 1949, nor when Washington enjoyed a clear nuclear supremacy over the Soviet Union until the 1970s.

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And there were no shortage of serious U.S.-Soviet standoffs -- both direct and proxy -- during the Cold War. Rather than lob nuclear bombs at each other, the Soviet Union and the United States engaged in long and difficult negotiations to establish controls over strategic nuclear weapons and disarmament.

This also applied to the global nonproliferation of nuclear arms. Moscow placed so much importance on nonproliferation that it even refused to share its nuclear secrets with China and East Germany, its two key Cold War allies. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed in 1968 to limit the number of nuclear powers to five countries: the United States, China, France, Britain and Russia. The treaty was extended in 1995, and Russian diplomacy played a major role in convincing countries that were not members of the nuclear club to sign the treaty on a indefinite-term basis.

The concern regarding North Korea's nuclear military program is not only that the Pyongyang regime has a tendency to act recklessly and irrationally, which could easily lead to one of their errant missiles landing on Russian territory. The other danger is in how the rest of the world will react to North Korean nuclear provocations.

It is interesting that Japan does not fear the United States' enormous nuclear arsenal, despite the fact that after Washington dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, more than 200,000 civilians died from radiation poisoning. But even the smallest gains that North Korea has made toward building a nuclear arsenal have caused panic in Japan. If North Korea expands its nuclear program, Japan might renege on its non-nuclear status. In that case, Japan could employ all of its scientific, technical and manufacturing expertise to quickly emerge as a full-fledged nuclear power. In response, China would probably increase the size of its own nuclear arsenal significantly. This, in turn, would lead to a domino effect where other Asian countries would scramble to develop their own nuclear capabilities.

Apart from this danger of proliferation in the Far East, densely populated India and Pakistan have already joined the nuclear club on the sly. These two countries have been on the brink of war for years, and if a large-scale war ever breaks out, one side could resort to using nuclear weapons. What's more, Pakistan and Afghanistan are rife with terrorists who would like nothing better than to get their hands on a nuclear weapon, even if it only a crude "dirty bomb."

There are also disturbing developments in the Middle East. Iran is expanding its nuclear energy program, and there are serious concerns that it can be used to develop nuclear weapons. This would be particularly dangerous considering Iran's intentions to destroy Israel, which is believed to have nuclear weapons.

The dangers are exacerbated by the fact that the balance of forces in the world have shifted from a unipolar U.S. hegemony to regional power centers where the current generation has little appreciation for the nonproliferation and disarmament treaties signed in the 20th century. I once gave a lecture to some Indonesian university students, and they asked why a small country like Britain is allowed to have nuclear weapons but a much larger country such as Indonesia is forbidden. I explained that the leading global powers --the United States, France, Britain, China and the Soviet Union -- established the initial limitations for nuclear arms after World War II. Then, to my surprise, I found out that the students knew almost nothing about World War II. In fact, they had never even heard the name Hitler before.

In Russia, many of my students have never even heard of Hitler. On exams, they also had only a fuzzy notion of who was in power when the Cold War ended. They answered Peter the Great, Tsar Nicholas II and Stalin, although Mikhail Gorbachev sounded vaguely familiar to a few. The alarming ignorance of history among today's students only makes the need to strengthen mechanisms that enforce nuclear nonproliferation more urgent.

Further reductions to the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals should be a top priority in negotiations between the White House and Kremlin. And it is of absolutely critical importance that nobody -- including the unpredictable and reckless North Korean leader Kim Jong Il -- is able to undermine the international agreements for nuclear nonproliferation that are so vital for providing global stability and security.

Yevgeny Bazhanov, a Distinguished Scholar of the Russian Federation, is a member of the executive committee of the Association for Dialogue and Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region.