Abstract
This chapter considers the prospects and risks associated with a nuclear arms race in Asia. North Korea has repeatedly tested nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles under the regime of Kim Jong-un and claimed to have developed an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the continental United States. On-again, off-again negotiations between the Trump administration and the Kim Jong-un regime produced promissory notes of North Korean willingness to disarm at least part of its arsenal—maybe. In return, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) (DPRK) expected the United States and others to lift economic sanctions imposed on Pyongyang for past nuclear and missile tests defying UN restrictions. It was difficult to imagine any set of incentives that would cause North Korea to commit to US-demanded comprehensive and verifiable dismantlement of its entire nuclear program and infrastructure. Nuclear Asia also includes the Indo-Pakistan rivalry, Sino-Russian competition within a declaratory framework of mutual cooperation on strategic matters (read: we both agree that the United States is a dangerous hegemonic superpower and must be resisted, although we both remain wary of one another’s grand designs in the region) and the US Pacific presence, including nuclear-capable air and naval power and US defense commitments to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
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Notes
- 1.
See: Michael Morrell, “North Korea may already be able to launch a nuclear attack on the U.S.,” Washington Post, September 6, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/north-korea-may-already-be-able-to-launch-a-nuclear-attack-on-the-us/2017/09/06/ce375080-9325-11e7-8754-d478688d23b4_story.htm; Elisabeth Eaves, “North Korean nuclear test shows steady advance: interview with Siegfried Hecker,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September 7, 2017, http://thebulletin.org/north-korean-nuclear-test-shows-steady-advance-interview-siegfried-hecker11091; Graham Allison, “The North Korean Threat Beyond ICBMs,” The Atlantic, August 28, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/08/north-korea-nuclear-kim-obama-china/538194/; and Angela Dewan, Taehoon Lee and Eli Watkins, “Mattis Warns of ‘massive military response’ to NK nuclear threat,” CNN, September 3, 2017, http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/03/politics/trump-north-korea-nuclear/index.html
- 2.
James Griffiths, “North and South Korea vow to end the Korean War in historic accord,” CNN, April 27,2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/27/asia/korean-summit-intl/index.html
- 3.
For example: Mark Landler and Eileen Sullivan, “Trump Pulls Out of North Korea Summit Meeting with Kim Jong-un,” New York Times, May 24, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/world/asia/north-korea-trump-summit.html. In less than a week, however, the United States and North Korea indicated renewed interest in holding the summit, which took place June 12, 2018. See Mark Landler, “The Trump-Kim Summit Was Unprecedented, But the Statement Was Vague,” New York Times, June 12, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/12/world/asia/north-korea-summit.html; and Mark Landler, “Trump and Kim See New Chapter for Nations After Summit,” New York Times, June 11, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/world/asia/trump-kim-summitmeeting.html
- 4.
Paul Bracken, The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New World Politics. (New York: Henry Holt and Co./Times Books, 2012). See also: Bracken, Fire in the East: The Rise of Asian Military Power and the Second Nuclear Age (New York: Harper Collins, 1999), esp. pp. 95–124.
- 5.
Schools of thought on nuclear proliferation are categorized and summarized in Henry D. Sokolski, Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future (Carlisle, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press, January 2016), esp. pp. 4–29. For case studies of states that have chosen to forego nuclear weapons, see: Richard D. Burns and Philip E. Coyle III, The Challenges of Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015), pp. 161–189. See also: William C. Potter, “The Diffusion of Nuclear Weapons,” in Emily O. Goldman and Leslie C. Eliason, eds., The Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003), pp. 146–178.
- 6.
See, for example, Alexey Timofeychev, “Is NATO’s antimissile defense system in Europe a threat to Russia?”, Russia Beyond the Headlines, www.rbth.ru, May 16, 2016, in Johnson’s Russia List 2016 – #87 – May 16, 2016, davidjohnson@starpower.net, and “US Missile Defense in Eastern Europe: How Russia Will Respond,” Sputnik, May 16, 2016, in Johnson’s Russia List 2016 – #87 – May 16, 2016, davidjohnson@starpower.net; and, “U.S. Activates Romanian Missile Defense Site, Angering Russia,” Reuters, May 12, 2016, in Johnson’s Russia List 2016 – #85 – May 12, 2016, davidjohnson@starpower.net
- 7.
Peter Douglas Feaver, Guarding the Guardians: Civilian Control of Nuclear Weapons in the United States (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992), p. 12, refers to this as the “always/never problem”.
- 8.
The nuclear agreement of July 2015 between Iran and the P-5+1 member states (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) slows the pace of Iran’s nuclear program and delays its weaponization, but it does not preclude the possibility of eventual weaponization. See: Dalia Dassa Kaye, Lynn E. Davis, Alireza Nader, Jeffrey Martini and Larry Hanauer, RAND Experts Q&A on the Iran Nuclear Deal, One Year Later (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, July 14, 2016), http://www.rand.org/blog/2016/07/rand-experts-qa-on-the-iran-nuclear-deal-one-year-later.html, downloaded July 15, 2016. See also: David E. Sanger and Michael R. Gordon, “Iran Nuclear Deal Is Reached With World Powers,” New York Times, July 14, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/15/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-deal-is-reached-with-world-powers.html, downloaded July 14, 2015. For the text of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Vienna, Austria: July 14, 2015), see European Union, European External Action Service, Homepage, http://eeas.europa.eu/index_en.htm, downloaded July 15, 2015.
- 9.
Raymond L. Garthoff, The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1994), esp. pp. 503–541 and pp. 751–778.
- 10.
Rationality in this sense refers to actors’ expected-utility maximization, assuming no value judgment about their preferences. See Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, The War Trap (New Haven, Ct.: Yale University Press, 1981), pp. 29–33.
- 11.
As Colin S. Gray has noted, “To preempt is to launch an attack against an attack that one has incontrovertible evidence is either actually underway or has been ordered. In such a context, the only policy and strategy question is, “Do we try to strike first in order to try to lessen the blow, or do we receive the blow and strike back?” See Gray, The Implications of Preemptive and Preventive War Doctrines: A Reconsideration (Carlisle, Pa.: Strategic Studied Institute, U.S. Army War College, July 2007), p. 9. Preemption and preventive war can also be understood as part of a family of anticipatory self-defense strategies. See Karl P. Mueller, et al., Striking First: Preemptive and Preventive Attack in U.S. National Security Policy (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2006), pp. 6–10 and passim.
- 12.
Evolving Chinese nuclear strategy and its implications for US policy are traced in Brad Roberts, The Case for U.S. Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2016), pp. 141–175.
- 13.
Scenarios for conventional war between the United States and China are considered in David C. Gompert, Astrid Stuth Cevallos, and Cristina L. Garafola, War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 2016, www.rand.org. On China’s development of A2/AD, see: Christopher P. Twomey, “What’s in a Name: Building Anti-Access/Area Denial Capabilities without Anti-Access/Area Denial Doctrine,” Ch. 4 in Roy Kampenhausen, David Lai, and Travis Tanner, eds., Assessing the People’s Liberation Army in the Hu Jintao Era (Carlisle, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College Press, April 2014), pp. 129–170. See also, for expert assessment: Stephen Biddle and Ivan Oelrich, “Future Warfare in the Western Pacific: Chinese Antiaccess/Area Denial, U.S. AirSea Battle, and Command of the Commons in East Asia,” International Security, no. 1 (Summer, 2016), pp. 7–48, https://doi.org/10.1162/ISEC.a.20049
- 14.
Andrew Futter, Cyber Threats and Nuclear Weapons: New Questions for Command and Control, Security and Strategy (London: Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) for Defence and Security Studies, 2016), p. 30.
- 15.
Roberts, The Case for U.S. Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century, p. 168.
- 16.
For parallels, see David Ignatius, “History shows us how calamitous the North Korea crisis could become,” Washington Post, September 5, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/history-shows-us-how-calamitous-the-north-korea-crisis-could-become/2017/09/05/a7263d38-9282-11e7-89fa-bb822a46da5b_story.html
- 17.
For arguments on both sides of the issue whether nuclear weapons spread will increase the probability of nuclear war, see Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (New York: W.W. Norton, 1995). See also: Joseph Cirincione, Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007).
- 18.
What follows draws upon my contribution to: George Popp, editor, How the US Can Work with Its Partners to Contest DPRK Operations, A Virtual Think Tank (ViTTa) Report, Produced in support of the Strategic Multilayer Assessment Office (SMA) Office (Joint Staff, J39), August 2018. Also useful on this topic is: Anastasia Barannikova, “What Russia thinks about North Korea’s nuclear weapons,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 24, 2019, https://thebulletin.org/2019/04/what-russia-thinks-about-north-koreas-nuclear-weapons/
- 19.
Levite, Ariel (Eli) and George Perkovich, “Three Ways to Break the Stalemate with North Korea,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, July 11, 2019, https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/07/11/three-ways-to-break-stalemate-with-north-korea-pub-79496. See also: William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, “North Korea Nuclear Disarmament Could Take 15 Years, Expert Warns,” New York Times, May 28, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/us/politics/north-korea-nuclear-disarmament-could-take-15-years-expert-warns.html
- 20.
Colin S. Gray, The Future of Strategy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2015), esp. pp. 23–42.
- 21.
The author gratefully acknowledges Dr. James Scouras for use of his AWSM@ model for making calculations and drawing charts. He is not responsible for modifications or applications in this study. For additional information, see Stephen J. Cimbala and James Scouras, A New Nuclear Century: Strategic Stability and Arms Control (New York: Praeger Publishers, 2002), pp. 25–73.
- 22.
Roberts, The Case for U.S. Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century, pp. 197–213.
- 23.
Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, Ct.: Yale University Press, 2008 edition), esp. pp. 99–105.
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Cimbala, S.J. (2020). Nuclear Arms Race in Asia: Challenges and Containment. In: The United States, Russia and Nuclear Peace. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38088-5_5
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