Threat Narratives: The Nuclear North

Having actually taken the time today to read Siegfried S. Hecker's report for the Centre for International Security and Cooperation on his 'Return Trip to North Korea's Yongbon Nuclear Complex', I find it both amusing and disturbing in equal measure how this has been reported in the world's media. Reading Hecker's nuanced and educated (former Los Alamos boss) account of the complexities of the North Korean nuclear programme, and developments therein; together with his conclusion that rightly sees high level engagement with North Korea as the only conceivable course of action, its plain to see how media reporting and the response from leading officials (Adm Mike Mullen) serves an agenda that seeks to portray a heightened sense of threat and justify bellicose national security policies. Hecker notes that whilst North Korean capacity has been enhanced in terms of highly-enriched uranium production via means of light-water reactor technology, it appears to have scaled back or potentially abandoned plutonium production. This does not mean that a nuclear weapons programme has not been abandoned by the North, who's leadership clearly believes it benefits from the leverage of having a nuclear arsenal; but it does demonstrate that the programme has moved very much in a different direction - towards the technologies associated with civilian nuclear power. Yes these may be still used for nefarious purposes, and critical observers will point out that the increased level of sophistication may point to heightened threat if North Korea has other such facilities hidden from prying eyes. But all of this seems to miss the point here. North Korea has nuclear weapons already and won't give them up any time soon. Yes their arsenal may become more sophisticated in coming years, but this is in all probability unavoidable. As Hecker points out military strikes against North Korea are out of the question. And, as the North Koreans pointed out to Hecker they are only doing what they said they were going to do but weren't believed (insert here orientalist attitudes about North Korean inferiority). Hecker himself hints that North Korean nuclear aspirations in terms of both power (electricity) and prestige (power) are legitimate and understandable... a refreshingly realistic (note not 'realist') attitude for such an establishment figure to take. This should not be about zero-sum power politics and grandstanding, but rather trying to reassure a paranoid regime that the (western) world is not out to get them and that a peaceful nuclear programme is worth far more to them (and crucially their population).

N.B: Another interesting aside to this story, as mentioned by Hecker, and ignored by everyone else, is Pakistan's involvement in the (recent) history of North Korean nuclear development. Pakistan seems to be pretty much the biggest exporter of nuclear technology around violating just about every treaty going whilst the US does and says nothing...funny how that works...