The World : Has North Korea’s Nuclear Brinkmanship Finally Crossed the Line?

The term “crisis” has been applied to the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program so often in the past 15 months that skepticism can be forgiven. But this time there is a difference--one that will lead to either a real breakthrough or an inexorable confrontation.

For all the twists and turns in the on-again off-again diplomatic games played between North Korea and its interlocutors, there has been, at bottom, the hope that some worthwhile deal could be reached to end its nuclear program. But North Korea’s latest gambit--removing spent fuel from the core of its nuclear reactor with no international monitoring--may be the step that takes it from brinkmanship to the point of no return.

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who are now at North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear complex completing an inspection blocked by Pyongyang in March, confirm that Korean technicians have begun removing some of the 8,000 plutonium-rich fuel rods from its 25-megawatt reactor. This defueling of the reactor, which takes some two months to complete, is a make-or-break issue, because the fuel rods hold the key to one of the chief mysteries about Pyongyang’s nuclear program: Has North Korea attained enough plutonium to make one or two nuclear devices?

The frequently repeated mantra of U.S. officials in recent years has been that Pyongyang “may already have one or two nuclear bombs.” That conclusion is based on a worst-case estimate of what North Korea might have done during a 100-day period in 1989--when North Korea shut off its reactor and claimed it had “removed damaged fuel rods.”

But it is not known exactly how much plutonium was reprocessed during that period, only that IAEA laboratory analysis revealed that North Korea produced more than the 90 grams it claimed. (Five to eight kilograms are needed for a nuclear bomb.) By taking samples from the removed fuel rods, the IAEA would be able to solve that mystery, and measure with precision the amount of plutonium North Korea has acquired. If North Korea carries out the defueling, it will be impossible for the IAEA to learn the truth about its nuclear history.

U.S. negotiators have stressed repeatedly to North Korea that preserving the history of its nuclear activities is a precondition of any package deal that would provide diplomatic and economic incentives in exchange for ending its nuclear program. Why, then, would North Korea recklessly embark on a course almost certain to lead to confrontation?

Brinkmanship is a standard North Korean tactic. But always before, they have pulled back at the last moment: Pyongyang backed off its March, 1993, threat to become the first member to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; and again, last February backed off a threat to prevent the IAEA from continuing to safeguard its nuclear facilities when faced with the threat of sanctions. But this time, they appear to be going over the edge.

It is possible that the pattern of empty U.S. threats in Bosnia, Somalia and Haiti, mixed signals and the fact that Washington has yet to put an offer on the table, may have emboldened Pyongyang to push the envelope once again and force the issue.

Another plausible explanation is that, by destroying its nuclear history, North Korea’s strategy is to attain the ambiguous status of nuclear-threshold countries, such as Pakistan. If so, it would try to force the international community to accept freezing rather than rolling back its nuclear program as the basis of any deal--and so keeping both its nuclear option and getting economic aid.

The Administration’s approach to proliferation in South Asia has been to put a cap on the program of Pakistan and India, with the hope of later reversing them. North Korea might believe that “a few are OK” might apply to East Asia, too.

In any event, where does this leave U.S. efforts to stop the North Korean nuclear threat? It still may not be too late to reach a diplomatic solution. Before Pyongyang’s defueling of its reactor, the Clinton Administration was prepared to start a new round of high-level talks in Geneva where it would, for the first time, put a package deal of diplomatic and economic incentives on the table.

The only obstacle to moving ahead with negotiations was the completion of an IAEA inspection of North Korea’s reprocessing facility, which North Korea prevented in March. The IAEA nuclear detectives returned to North Korea on Tuesday to accomplish that task--and to find a solution to the refueling crisis.

One way out is for Washington to tell Pyongyang immediately that, if it reaches some arrangement with the IAEA either to supervise the reactor defueling or to separate and seal the fuel rods the IAEA has identified as necessary to determine its nuclear history, the Administration will send a presidential envoy to present a package deal. The IAEA could then analyze the fuel rods later, as long as they were kept under surveillance.

However, if, as it appears, North Korea is deliberately destroying the history of its nuclear activities, the United States and the entire international community are faced with a devil’s alternative.

If Washington and its Asian partners accept the new facts created by Pyongyang and decide it is better to try and stop its nuclear program from going any farther, and live with the possibility of one or two nuclear bombs than to punish North Korea for its perfidy, the integrity of the NPT and IAEA would be destroyed.

On the other hand, if the U.N. Security Council decides to begin applying progressively tougher sanctions against North Korea, the United States and the international community would head down a path likely to lead to a second Korean war.

Neither option is appealing. Perhaps more troubling than living with proliferation on the Korean Peninsula, however, is the question raised by North Korea’s behavior: With a track record of terrorism, aggression and broken pledges, is any deal negotiated with North Korea worth the paper it is written on?

The tragedy of U.S. policy is that Washington has yet to present a clear and precise offer to North Korea to test its intentions. Now we may be drifting toward a confrontation without knowing for certain if any deal was possible.*