By Gary Samore, August 31, 2018
Destruction of North Korea's Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site. Photo credit: Voice of America
Any verification regime for eliminating North Korean nuclear weapons is likely to involve uncertainty. But a degree of uncertainty might be an acceptable price to pay.
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I would offer that NK is apparently, even inadvertently, moving towards precipitating a “forced pre-emptive first-strike condition” in this South East Asian region of the international atomic arms race.
There is reason to recognize the developing potential for the combination of sophisticated high explosive delivery systems and a ruthless governmentcapable of using them, to create a forced condition requiring “striking first before being struck”. The combination of a leadership that has demonstrated deadly actions, against disfavored high ranking officers and even family members, and modern long range weapons can readily be viewed as an unacceptable condition…especially by those who have been part of a long standing military standoff in the targetable local region. I refer especially to South Korea, Japan and, less directly, their allies including the United States.
I see this impending condition as inherent in the dynamics of international arms racing. Eventually, a condition will arise as a result of a newly attained powerful attack capability by one contender, to force potential likely targets to *pre-empt” this impending capability. Or, somewhat conversely, this condition may force the holder of this new capability to attack first because it also recognizes this first-strike condition and, is itself, forced to pre-empt the pre-empt in a ‘use them or lose them’ reciprocal condition.
I believe an awareness of this ‘hair trigger end-game play’ and its inherent inevitability in international arms racing, needs to be more fully understood in the public domain. Again, this is an automatic and imbedded end-result coming out of high tech arms racing. The public needs to be informed of this potential in the hopes that public pressure, resulting in effective pre-emptive diplomacy, can avoid this condition and begin the step-wise dismantling of these systems ultimately by all parties involved .
Gerald Harrison
gharr1736@gmail.com