[imText1]The U.S. may face trouble achieving its long term strategic goals in Northeast Asia while continuing to shelter its allies beneath a nuclear umbrella and in the absence of leverage with China, a forum in Washington D.C. noted yesterday.
The event, “Extended Deterrence in N.E Asia Achieving Mixed Results”, was hosted by the Korea Chair and the Proliferation Prevention Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C.
By way of example, Dr. Patrick Morgan of the University of California Morgan noted how little the “nuclear umbrella” has helped in reversing North Korea’s nuclear program, curbing its proliferation related activities or in limiting its capacity to conduct nuclear blackmail.
While agreeing that North Korea is unlikely to ever use its nuclear weapons directly against U.S. allies; Morgan told the forum he believes this is primarily because of other factors and does not detract from his analysis of the failings of nuclear deterrence in this case.
Morgan emphasized that ever since increasing differences between North and South Korea in economic, military and political terms first caused Pyongyang a “terrible deterrence” problem, Pyongyang “has worked very hard to try and overcome” it by building its own nuclear weapons, and now, as a result, many of Washington’s policy goals cannot be realized through the provision of its own extended deterrence in the region.
To try and change the game, Morgan firstly advised the U.S to try and find ways to adjust the regional security management arrangement to compensate for “detaching extended nuclear deterrence from the problem.”
While one such adjustment could be a strengthening of conventional forces in the area, Morgan also noted that China’s role is critical in this situation, and pointed out that one way to influence China to better coordinate with Washington could be to indirectly threaten Beijing, perhaps one day through a gradual promotion of nuclear programs in Japan or South Korea; programs that Beijing would almost certainly view with the utmost suspicion.
However, another speaker, Dr. Victor Cha, cautioned against ending the nuclear umbrella.
Cha, while pointing to Washington’s inability to limit Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests and its conventional belligerency as evidence of some of the failings in the system, stopped short of advocating its end, saying that North Korea could view such a move as a major act of conciliation or even an admission of defeat; perhaps giving Pyongyang the misconceived confidence that they exercise “nuclear superiority” on the Korean peninsula.”
Contemplating how best to overcome the nuclear impasse, Robert Carlin, Co-Chair of the National Committee on North Korea, advocated dialogue, saying, “What can we accomplish in utilizing this extended deterrence directly with North Korea? Well we can’t accomplish anything with it I don’t think if we don’t eventually engage in some sort of conversation. There are a lot of things we have to know about their concept of the utility of their nuclear weapons, apart from the public statements.”
“Unless we sit down and talk to them about it at length, in depth,” Carlin went on, “we are not going to be able to figure out the danger points, the points at which they may have misconceptions, and the points they are willing not to press on the nuclear issue.”
