Would Unified Korea Keep the North’s Nuclear Weapons? Perhaps to Pursue a Neutralist Foreign Policy



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Image result for north korea nuclear weaponsThis is a local re-print of an essay I published at The National Interest a few weeks ago.

The basic idea is that a unified Korea, even one unified under Southern leadership, has much stronger incentives to keep the North’s nukes than most people seem to think.

Generally, everyone seems to think that a UROK (united Republic of Korea) will give up its weapons to the American or, maybe, the Chinese. Or maybe destroy them. But keeping them would be a great way to keep a UROK out of the looming great power contention in northeast Asia between the US, China, Japan, and Russia.

If you are tiny Korea – the shrimp among whales – you want to stay out of the way when these big boys fight. That will be tough given Korea’s geography right in the middle, but nukes would be a really great way nonetheless to insist.

Also, nukes are a great way to defend sovereignty generally against all interlopers, even if there is no regional hot war. Even after France became friends with Germany after WWII, it still built nukes to make sure Germany never invaded it again. A UROK would almost certainly think the same way about its neighbors given their history kicking Korea around and manipulating it.

I am not sure. A UROK still allied to the US would come under a lot of pressure to denuclearize. But the probability of retention is way higher than most people think.

The full essay is after the break.

 

 

One of the many hopes raised by the recent détente efforts of South Korean President Moon Jae In and US President Donald Trump is the political confederation if not eventual unification of the two Koreas.

While full-blown unification is a pro forma goal of both Korean polities, many lesser steps and stages have been considered over the years. Frequently a confederation of some kind is mooted. This covering institution would follow China’s ostensible approach to Hong Kong and Taiwan – one country, two systems. In a ‘Greater Koryo Confederation,’ the North and South would retain their own internal political system but try to approach international affairs jointly as well as share resources. Over time, integration would increase, eventually leading to unity as suspicions between the two sides faded away.

This is very much the thinking of the South Korean left, from which Moon has come. The South Korean right still holds to the ‘Germany model’ – North Korea collapses of its own dysfunctions and/or external pressure and is simply absorbed into a greater Republic of Korea (South).

But either model now faces a new wrinkle – the future disposition of North Korea’s nuclear weapons. It should be pretty clear at this point that North Korea will not give up many of its nuclear weapons or missiles. They may give up some, in exchange for large American counter-concessions, but complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament (CVID) is a fantasy. North Korea is a nuclear weapons state whether we want to accept that or not.

Hence if unification, or some softer confederal solution occurs, what would happen to North Korea’s nuclear weapons? In the West at least, there seems to be a vague, albeit widespread, sense that a unified Korea would not need such weapons, and that they would be destroyed or surrendered – variously to China, America, or some other third party. I hear this all the time on the conference circuit here in South Korea.

This is likely if the South Korean right gets its way. The South Korean right likes the US alliance, worries about China (Chinese naval encroachments in the Yellow Sea are a major issue for the South Korean navy now), and wants better relations with Japan. In its favored scenario, North Korea implodes and is absorbed, much like East Germany, and the larger, but otherwise unchanged Republic of Korea (South), stays where it is geopolitically, just as the enlarged, post-unification Federal Republic of Germany (West) did.

For the left here though, regional geopolitics is a much more mixed bag. North Korea is not, in this perspective, an enemy or opponent, but a fellow Korean state which has lost its way. The answer to inter-Korean tension is therefore not war-threats, sanctions, and confrontation, but brotherly outreach and assistance. On Japan, the opposite is true; the South Korean left is unremittingly hostile for historical and nationalist reasons. That Japan is a liberal democracy and North Korea an orwellian monarchy are passing regime type concerns which do not cut to real, historical-cultural issues driving the South Korean left’s alignment choices.

The left here is also much more skeptical of the US-Korea alliance. The last two left-liberal presidents before Moon openly tangled with the US over North Korea in ways their conservative predecessors never had. Today the left here largely blames the sanctions regime – demanded by the Americans – for halting inter-Korean détente. Anti-Americanism on the South Korean left has been an occasionally political force. Finally, the Southern left is far more comfortable with China than the right. Where the South Korean right would align with the US, and somewhat with Japan, in the looming Sino-US competition in Asia, the left would not. It would likely seek a neutralist position.

Earlier this year, I argued that South Koreans care less about denuclearization than the US for these reasons: “Given that the South Korean left does not see North Korea as an enemy, but harbors deep animosity for Japan and American intervention in South Korea life, a nuclearized, unified Korea would be an ideal foundation from which to pursue a neutralist, non-aligned, post-unification foreign policy.”

An old Korean proverb has it that Korea is a ‘shrimp among whales.’ For a small state surrounded by larger ones – China, Japan, Russia, and the US – possibly stumbling their way into a major confrontation, holding onto nukes is actually not a bad idea. Like Switzerland – marooned for centuries in the middle of raging great power conflicts – a unified Korea might well choose a heavily armed neutralism. Such a non-aligned or finlandization strategy would help avoid a repeat of Korea’s late 19th century fate. Then, this small state in the middle of much larger competitive ones got was manipulated by them in a ‘great game.’ Korea was sucked into this regional competition even though it did not want to be. It eventually lost its sovereignty to imperial Japan and was next riven by the Cold War.

Nuclear weapons, coupled with today’s powerful, capable, Korean militaries, would permanently vouchsafe this unhappy possibility – much as France sought nuclear weapons in part to assure that Germany would never invade it again. Once Korean unification is achieved, why align with the various regional whales as they crash into each other, possibly sparking a major regional conflict? Korea’s geography would, as before, make it difficult to avoid getting sucked into a four-party conflict – China, the US, Russia, Japan – but nuclear weapons would make easier. The temptation to keep them – as tool to push back on Korea’s difficult political geography – will be high.

Robert E Kelly
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science & Diplomacy
Pusan National University

@Robert_E_Kelly