The implications of North Korea’s tactical nuclear warheads

[Boats]

The implications of North Korea’s tactical nuclear warheads
By: Rob York - NK-News 10-07-21
Re: https://www.nknews.org/2021/10/the-i...lear-warheads/

Photo link: https://www.nknews.org/wp-content/up...ll-935x500.png
Image: Rodong Sinmun | North Korea tests a cruise missile, Sept. 13, 2021

If North Korean state media is to be believed, the regime tested a cruise missile last month with a range of 1,500 km (932 mi), allegedly hitting targets after a flight of a little more than two hours. Analysis after the test suggests that the regime has tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) capability, which may signal a new phase in nuclear negotiations.

The wider applicability of tactical nuclear weapons increases the chance of a tactical nuclear exchange, which in practice would soon result in a strategic nuclear exchange. The fact that these weapons, certainly when deployed by ballistic missiles, are now available means the moment the Korean People’s Army finds itself on the losing side of a conflict, it is highly likely it will resort to the use of nuclear weapons.

While North Korea’s cruise missile test may not represent a step up in destructive power for the regime’s arsenal — the alleged upper-200-kiloton yield of its boosted fissile missile test in Sept. 2017 is far beyond conventional tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) yields — there may be a lower use threshold for these new nuclear weapons.

There are also associated risks not directly related to conflict between a TNW-possessing state and another nuclear power: TNWs are easier to steal and presumably to share with rogue states and actors, for instance, and command and control structures in North Korea are anything but clear.

CRISIS INSTABILITY

That North Korea has an interest in TNWs is not news. Earlier this year, Kim Jong Un announced plans to develop them, along with nuclear submarines and other weapons. In one of the most comprehensive overviews of North Korea’s military capabilities, Stijn Mitzer and Joost Oliemans suggest that tactical nukes are a logical next step for the regime after establishing a sufficient deterrent with its current nuclear and long-range missile capabilities.

Whether this would be a significant step forward for the Korean People’s Army isn’t cut and dry. however. As my colleague David Santoro, the Pacific Forum president and author of “U.S.-China Nuclear Relations: The Impact of Strategic Triangles,” puts it, “there is no such thing as a tactical nuclear weapon because any nuclear weapon use would be strategic.”

He, along with other nuclear policy experts, suggest that such capability enhances the risks associated with North Korea’s nuclear program, but not drastically.

“In effect I don’t think [TNW capability] would change much because North Korea right now can already threaten nuclear use on Japan and hold South Korea at bay with conventional weapons,” Santoro told this author. “I doubt they’d want to use nuclear weapons on the peninsula, though they could.”

Van Jackson, author of “On the Brink: Trump, Kim and the Threat of Nuclear War,” said TNW increases “crisis instability” but not the “regional nuclear balance.”

“It would not be difficult for North Korea to acquire tactical nukes, and in fact they might already have them,” he told this author in early August.

Ankit Panda, author of “Kim Jong Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea,” said that TNW “could lead to a lower threshold for North Korean nuclear use (and this threshold is already quite low).”

“That creates new challenges for the U.S.-ROK alliance in planning for contingencies and thinking about escalation,” he said. On the other hand, “the risks of nuclear use by North Korea are already considerable and they explicitly target U.S. bases/staging facilities in Northeast Asia and Guam with nuclear weapons. The introduction of TNWs doesn’t fundamentally upend this.”

URGENT NEED FOR DIPLOMACY

Both Jackson and Panda, who have argued for the U.S. to seek arms control with North Korea rather than complete denuclearization, say that negotiations with Pyongyang are the only way to address Kim Jong Un’s tactical nukes.

Jackson notes that in 2019 he prescribed “primarily foreclosing on tactical nuke and [submarine-launched ballistic missile] development, secondarily at rolling back the existing inventory of warheads.”

Without diplomacy, “it’s inevitable that North Korea will develop new, better and more ways to kill with nuclear weapons,” he said. “[The U.S. does] the same thing. I think that’s the context to understand their pursuit of tactical nuclear weapons and what to do about it.”

Panda, who wrote in his 2020 book that the North Korean nuclear arsenal was no longer a problem to be “solved,” but to be “managed,” said that TNWs do not substantially change how he thinks of the problem, especially with regards to how “unintentional and inadvertent escalation” should be addressed.

“On the diplomatic side, TNWs should be very much on the agenda and we should seek to dissuade Kim Jong Un from persuading these capabilities,” he told me in August.

Santoro was less definitive. “There isn’t anything in particular that the U.S. or her allies can do to address that particular problem, unfortunately,” he said.

This is a perspective many jaded watchers of the Korean Peninsula may share: North Korea has yet to respond to the Biden administration’s preliminary outreach and spent the summer denouncing the U.S. (and South Korea) for their joint military drills, and evidence suggests they have restarted significant activity at the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, a development the International Atomic Energy Agency described as “deeply troubling.”

If past patterns hold true, North Korea may be gearing up for a new round of provocations. Then, after a certain time, it may acquiesce to negotiations where there is no guarantee of success.

Tactical nuclear weapons may not be a game-changer for peninsular security, but North Korea’s progress towards a TNW deterrent may signal the end of a quiet phase in U.S.-Korean and inter-Korean relations.

Edited by Arius Derr

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Personal note: The little Fat Man is at it again. This sneaky little guy always has another
trick in his bag. When he's quite like he has been - he's up to no good and is working
on another poison apple to toss out to the world.