4 November 2006 4 November 2006
Murray Levine
North Korea's Nuclear Bomb
We are outraged about North Korea’s underground nuclear test. President Bush tells us it is unacceptable for North Korea to have nuclear weapons. Behind those statements is the implicit threat of war. North Korea says it will treat the imposition of economic sanctions as an act of war. I see no creativity in the rhetoric nor in the policies they and we have adopted. I want to suggest an alternative.
But first let me get out of the way my belief that there are in the world some ideologically driven and ruthless people who will without hesitation try to destroy whoever they perceive as “enemies” of their misguided belief systems. We need to be hard nosed in dealing with ideologues bent on our destruction. We need to have the strength to defend ourselves against them. Having said that I still believe we can oppose ideologues by undercutting their base of support.
To come back to North Korea, I do not believe their announcement that they have a nuclear weapon is of any great military significance. Announcing that they possess a nuclear weapon is simply a claim to the status of a world power. We and they know that the possession of nuclear weapons gains very little. Despite our overwhelming superiority of nuclear weapons, we did not prevail in Viet Nam, we are not prevailing in Iraq, nor did Russia prevail in Chechnya or Afghanistan.. The policy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) kept the Soviet Union at bay for many years, and it is probably keeping China within some bounds today. The Soviet Union’s massive nuclear arsenal did not prevent the breakup of the Soviet Union, nor did it prevent the democratization of the rest of Europe including the former Soviet bloc Neither we nor the former Soviet Union used nuclear weapons in those conflicts because the outcome was too horrible to contemplate. North Korea and Iran must surely be aware that should either country use its nuclear weapon, even though we may sustain heavy losses, that country would be destroyed totally. That threat need not be made explicitly. The North Koreans and Iranians know that in their bones.
With that as background, I would suggest an alternative strategy. We should explicitly recognize that North Korea and Iran have the engineering and scientific expertise to produce a bomb. While we need not go so far as to congratulate them on the accomplishment, we could recognize their accomplishment, recognition I believe they want.
We should then use that recognition to challenge, not threaten them. We can implicitly use the power of shame by emphasizing that they have not used their scientific and engineering talents to contribute positively to the world. True world powers have a responsibility to contribute to the world’s well being. What medicines have they produced? What inoculations have they developed? For what diseases have they identified the genetic structure so that cures or prevention can be undertaken? What advances have they developed in agriculture, in fertilizers, in non-toxic pesticides, in new seeds, or in irrigation to feed the people of the world? What new materials have they developed to produce well designed, culturally appropriate housing? What contributions have they made to develop fast, safe transportation? What have they contributed to predicting weather or natural disasters? What have they contributed to developing inexpensive, renewable forms of energy so that we can stave off global warming? What can they contribute by way of technical expertise to defeat illiteracy on a world wide basis? What new medical delivery systems have they designed?
We should challenge them to use their technical and scientific expertise as partners to collaborate with the United States and other nations to solve world wide human problems. Initially we can talk about projects with no military value. A dialogue to gain cooperation in problem solving would be face saving. We can have direct talks on a new subject with neither side losing face if they engaged in the talks. We can appeal to pride and challenge them to renew their ancient traditions of contributing to civilization for the benefit of the whole world.
We can talk about partnerships in education, large scale exchanges of students and professors, and experts of all kinds. We should talk about world wide video conferences that would bring people from all over to work together on soluble problems. We should talk about making funds available for laboratories and for research conditioned on active partnerships across national lines. The annual cost would be but a small fraction of what we are now spending on destroying each other. A plan to accomplish these ends could be worked out which didn’t threaten the sovereignty of individual nations or require a one world government. We can come to agreements on a project by project basis without having to confront more difficult political problems. If North Korea and Iran refused to participate, a good faith offer on our part would restore our badly eroded moral position and would enable us to justify more effectively coercive approaches. .
This policy would not immediately shut down terrorists, but it would undercut the base of support for terrorists as people world-wide come to understand the benefits of the modern world would flow to them and their children. It is true that North Korea or Iran might sell nuclear technology to terrorists. Under this policy, we would be in no worse a position to interdict such sales than we are now. It may be that in seeking respect in the world community, North Korea and Iran would desist in supporting terrorists. We may gain in cooperation in intelligence to prevent terrorist attacks and to track down active terrorist groups especially if local peoples turned against terrorism..
Rather than a reliance on force and threats of force, we should appeal to the best in history and culture to cooperate in solving critical problems. As we engaged positively, and as people saw benefits flowing to them, the crude appeals of terrorists would fall on deaf ears. We could promote a cultural renaissance that would lead to a golden age in human accomplishment, to a renewed sense of world community, and to a restoration in caring for each other. There is little to lose except the ineffective policies that now threaten our very existence.
Murray Levine is University at Buffalo Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus.
Copyright 2006 by Buffalo Report, Inc.