How We Called North Korea's Bluff

Toward the end of Stanley Kubrick's Cold War classic, Dr. Strangelove, the Soviet ambassador announces that his country has just succeeded in creating a Doomsday's device. It works like this: The moment a nuclear attack takes place on Russian soil, an enormous thermonuclear bomb will be detonated, the radiation from which -- thanks to its encasement in cobalt -- will engulf the whole world, causing the death of all living creatures on the planet, except for the select few safely tucked away deep in mine shafts and subterranean caverns -- government officials, of course.

Unfortunately, a psychotic Air Force general has ordered his squadron of B-52's to attack the USSR, one of which, manned by the indefatigable Slim Pickens, manages to squeak through, landing its bomb in an obscure corner of Siberia, thereby setting off the fatal chain reaction that will doom the human race.

Dr. Strangelove, upon hearing the announcement of the existence of the Doomsday device -- which up to that moment had been a Soviet top secret -- explodes in anger. "You fools! What good is a Doomsday bomb if no one knows about it? Why didn't you tell anyone?"

And, indeed, that is the whole point of such device -- it exists to act as a deterrent to attack, and hence it is of no value unless your potential enemies know of its existence. Secret bombs, no matter how terrible, will deter no one.

This seems to be a lesson that has not been missed by North Korea; and one must wonder whether Kim Jong Il, who is known to enjoy Western culture, might not be a fan of Kubrick's movie. For that would explain why the North Koreans, unlike the Kubrick's Soviets, are shouting from the rooftops: "We have nukes! We have nukes!" They want us to be in no doubt that they possess such weaponry.

To many this is an ominous sign -- and indeed, before the Iraq War, this is how I was inclined to see it. But with the fall of Saddam Hussein, the North Korean determination to let the world know that it has nukes -- while certainly not good news -- is not quite as terrifying as it would have been had Saddam Hussein been permitted to remain in power.

In my essay "Our World Historical Gamble," I argued that the greatest threat to our nation, and indeed the world, comes from the possibility of a "rogue" nuclear strike -- or, even worse, a series of such strikes.

The essence of a rogue strike is that it would leave no clues concerning the identity of those who detonated the bomb, and, even more critically, no clues concerning the identity of those who had constructed the bomb in the first place. There would, in short, be no return address that would permitted the US to retaliate for the attack, in which case America would be placed in the dreadful position of doing nothing or lashing out blindly.

First, there has to be a group that has the motive to make such an attack; and second, there has to be genuine uncertainty on the part of the US concerning the ultimate source of the nuclear weaponry that had been used against us. But such uncertainty can exist only if there are in fact a number of different possible suspect nations, any single one of which might conceivably have acted as the middle man in providing the nuclear device for subsequent use by the terrorists.

After 9/11, there can be no doubt about the first condition: there is in fact an organization that has the psychological motives to make such an attack.

Which brings us to the second condition. If today a rogue nuclear bomb exploded in downtown Chicago, how much uncertainty would there be over the ultimate source of the devise that had been used against us? What countries would we suspect of having sold, or simply having provided, such a weapon for the use of terrorists?

One less country than we would have been forced to suspect not many months ago -- namely, Iraq. We know now that, if such an event occurred, that Iraq could not possibly have anything to do with it. And this means that we would automatically exclude them from our list of possible suspects.

This is because North Korea's most credible threat to us arises from the possibility that they might sell or provide their nuclear weapons to terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda. But the only way that North Korea could this, without risk to its own survival, is if there are other countries that could also plausibly be suspected of having supplied such weaponry. If North Korea is the only place in town to buy nuclear weapons, you do not need a Sherlock Holmes to find out who provided the terrorists with theirs. In which case, North Korea would face certain retaliation from the US, most likely in the form of a massive nuclear attack.

This is why the collapse of Saddam Hussein has drastically weakened North Korea's hand. Before the Iraqi war, the chief leading suspect in the case of a hypothetical rogue nuclear strike would have been Iraq. But with the disappearance of Saddam Hussein, North Korea has been put in the uncomfortable position of being the number one suspect in the case of a rogue nuclear attack undertaken by any terrorist group against the US. And this severely reduces North Korea's power to blackmail us.

Of course, this does not mean that North Korea cannot threaten us directly, the way the USSR did; but this is precisely the kind of threat that the US handled during the Cold War. If they strike us, we annihilate them.

This is why those who say that North Korea's development of nuclear weapons brings us closer to the nightmare scenario of a rogue nuclear strike are making a statement that would have been chillingly accurate prior to the Iraqi War; but with the end of Saddam Hussein's regime, this is no longer the case, and for the simple reason that North Korea can no longer plausibly hide behind Saddam Hussein.

Which means that North Korea, if they genuinely intended to provide nuclear weapons to terrorists, should have followed the exact opposite strategy from that mandated by the Doomsday scenario. As Dr. Strangelove might have put it, "You fools! If you wished to sell nuclear weapons to terrorists, why did you tell everyone you had them in the first place? Why didn't you keep quiet?"

The answer is simple: North Korea is not building weapons to be sold to terrorists, but to blackmail the US in helping it out of fear that North Korea might sell such weapons to terrorists; and that is quite a different thing.

It is difficult not to draw the conclusion that North Korea is attempting to simulate irrationality, in order to frighten the United States into bolstering up their failing regime with economic assistance. They want us to believe that they would sell nuclear weapons to Al-Qaeda, yet they are perfectly aware that, in the post-Saddam environment, it is precisely North Korea against which the US would automatically retaliate in the event of a rogue nuclear strike from an "unknown" source.

Thus, counter-intuitively, the strongest possible move that the US could take against North Korea's effort to blackmail us has already been taken: it was the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime. And that is why the debate on the existence of Iraqi's WMD's completely misses the point: If, in fact, it can be demonstrated that Iraq was not even close to developing nuclear weapons, then it means that no Iraqi devices are out there floating around unaccounted for; hence, if any surface unexpectedly in an American city, there will be no doubt where it ultimately originated, and at whose door to place the blame. In short, it was through Iraq that the US called the North Korea bluff.

Not at all. Nor is the reason for providing such help simply humanitarian: it is not in American interests -- or the world's -- for a regime like North Korea's to implode. But, at the same time, our help must come attached with a clear and serious statement of American policy: The sale or provision of nuclear weaponry by any country to a terrorist group will be treated exactly as we would treat a direct nuclear attack on the US undertaken by that country.

Well, you only give them away if you've got them to give, enough to satisfy your own strategic desires and enough left over to give to guys with turbans. I don't believe that North Korea does.

The reason I say that is that all of their maneuvering to this point would have been unnecessary if they had simply touched off a test device somewhere. It's only necessary if they're trying to convince us that they're close enough to be a hazard in the absence of actually possessing at least one working device. I really expected them to do so by now, even if they had to purchase the test device from elsewhere (assuming anyone in the ex-Soviet Union or China is crazy enough to do this, which is a stretch).

I suggest we publish a "Doomsday List" of rougue contries that we believe are trying to acquire nuclear bombs (Iran, NK, Lybia, etc.) and announce that it is US policy that should any terrorist nuclear attack on the US occur we will immediately launch a full scale nuclear attack on every country on the list. Therefore as long as they remain on the list, their survival is dependent on all the other countries on the list. In order to be removed from the list they would have to meet any conditions we establish to prove to us they do not have the capabiltiy to produce nuclear weapons. No negotiations, just meet our conditions of face oblivion in the event or a nuclear terrorist strike on the USA. It would be one hell of an incentive for them to cooperate.

Anything that North Korea agrees to is worthless. As long as a "fruitcake" is in control there, we will have to stay "battle ready," and on the edge.

What next??? Aren't we getting down to a real shortage of personnel to devote to these continuing world problems?

I didn't like this article very much because Harris seems to have dismissed any role for Pakistan or Iran. Iran isn't a nuclear power yet but soon will be unless we intervene even sooner. So his reasoning, if good at all, is good for about two seconds.

And, imo, it's too early yet to say much about Iraq's nuclear progress under Saddam. If a nuke went off on American soil tomorrow, I'd suspect N. Korea. But I'd also suspect half-a-dozen other players.

I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect that setting off a purchased nuke wouldn't fool anyone. I'd be willing to bet that the source reactor for the fissible materials could be identified by analyzing the radiation and through environmental sampling. I suspect rather strongly that U.S. intelligence has a really good idea of where all of the "official" weapons grade fissible materials producing reactors are and what sort of radiation signatures a nuclear detonation would produce from each of them.

Any of you nuclear physicists out there care to confirm or deny?

I like that idea VERY much. Of course, in the long term we'll still have to deal with the problem anyway because their next move would be to crank out a couple of hundred (or thousand) nukes and put them on missiles. Still, it'd give us some much-needed time (God forbid another rat moves into the WH for 8 years!).

This is a long and pretty good article. I finally just finished it, after the enjoyable Strangelove descriptions.

Well... The problem is that the author must feel that north korea isn't 'crazy enough' to do this or that.

People over there are resorting to cannibalism. It's getting worse each day.

The USSR was never anywhere even close this destitute, and after the Cuban crisis, even Krustchev started to realize that a nuclear war is hopeless.

However, the Soviet Politburo still wanted to live. Their people did too. If someone has absolutely nothing to lose like north korea, I'm not so sure we'd be safe in a MAD environment.

Harris seems to have dismissed any role for Pakistan

I think he is taking for granted that we have those being 'watched'. While many have problems with us being buddy-buddy with Musharraf, the nuclear angle is the most important, and I think it was since day one. We have the Pak nukes in a friends pocket, safe from the radicals there.

I have admired Gen. Musharraf since before 9/11 for trying to bring his country from a corrupt breeding ground for medieval killers to a modern rule of law state. A millitary coup is not the prefered way in most cases, but when the culture respects nothing but strength, it was the only way.

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