A Short History of North Korea's Nuclear Program, Part I

*Special guest post by Eli Lewine

We have reached yet another crossroads in the future of the North Korean nuclear program. Decisions about economic aid and reactor disablement are in progress at this very moment and by the end of the year we may have further concrete evidence that the North is ready to abandon its nuclear ambitions and begin the process of becoming a part of the international community. Yet there is little reflection on how and why the North Koreans got into the nuclear game in the first place.

To begin, we’ll need to take a spin in the way-back machine as the seeds of North Korea’s nuclear ambition have their origin in the Korean War. The United States had from the very beginning used the implicit threat of nuclear weapons as a coercive tool against the Chinese and North Koreans. In July of 1950, for example, President Truman sent 10 nuclear-armed B-29 bombers into the theater and used phrases such as taking “whatever steps are necessary” in order to stop Chinese intervention.

As the war dragged on, the seemingly endless nature of the conflict pushed President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to again openly consider the use of nuclear weapons. By May of 1953, the National Security Council had decided that references to the nuclear threat would be made in an attempt break the deadlocked war. It took just two months from the time the last round of threats were issued to bring the parties to the table to finalize an armistice. Yet while the crisis of the day had ended, the North Koreans would not forget the lesson that had been taught that year about the coercive power of nuclear weapons.

The North understood that without a nuclear deterrent of their own, they would constantly be at a disadvantage with U.S. military forces and the umbrella they provided to the South. As the Sino-Soviet split became more pronounced, the North realized that they could not count on its two closest allies to provide the deterrent against possible U.S. nuclear strikes. Instead, they would need to follow the principles of juche (self-reliance) and jawi (military self-defense). Initially issued by Kim Il’Sung in late 1955 as a way to strengthen the North Korean political regime, jawi became especially important to the nuclear issue as it demanded that the state build military forces of its own and not rely on those of any other state. Part of this policy would be the development of nuclear technology to counterbalance the American power and serve as diplomatic leverage.

In the decade that followed the end of the war, North Korea sent scientists to both the Soviet Union and China to learn the secrets of nuclear technology. By 1964, North Korea had begun its own nuclear research center in Yongbyon and by the next year, the North had progressed enough to be able to purchase a small research reactor for the facility. At the same time, a major surveying operation found large quantities of natural uranium that would give the North Koreans to ability to fuel their own nuclear research. None of these activities raised the concern of the international community as several other nations were conducting similar experiments in nuclear technology through President Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace initiative.

Over the next 20 years, the North’s nuclear program continued to mature and the country began to flirt with steps to bring its program into compliance with international norms. In 1974, North Korea became a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and by 1977 it had even allowed outside inspectors to come in to view their Soviet-purchased equipment. But by the early 1980s the North seemed to reverse course.

In 1979, North Korea began construction on a new reactor that would quickly become an issue of concern to the West. In his book North Korea and the Bomb, Michael Mazarr describes this reactor,

It was much larger than an average research plant, yet was not attached to any power grid that would allow it to serve as an energy producer. It was also of a design nuclear engineers considered most suitable for one deadly task—making plutonium, a by-product of a nuclear reactor that is a favorite material of bomb builders.

Satellite photos taken in the mid 1980s eventually revealed to the West not only this reactor but also other sites, such as weapons testing grounds and a plutonium reprocessing plant. As the primary sponsor of North Korea’s nuclear program, the Soviet Union was pressured by the U.S. and others to pressure the North Koreans to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and to open its sites to inspection. Mindful of its contribution and not wanting to seem to be violating the NPT’s prohibition against assisting, encouraging or inducing non-nuclear weapon states to acquire nuclear weapons, the U.S.S.R. offered to build large power reactors in North Korea in exchange for the North's ascension to the non-proliferation regime. North Korea signed on the NPT dotted-line in December of 1985.

According to the stipulations of the NPT, however, North Korea had to negotiate an inspections regime with the IAEA, yet it failed to meet the deadline to sign the “safeguards” agreement. Instead, the North Koreans argued that sites that the IAEA wanted to inspect were to be considered sensitive military installations unable to be visited and made the demand that the United States verifiably remove any nuclear weapons it has on the Korean peninsula. Eventually, the U.S. complied with this demand and the Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was signed in 1991.

Lauded as a huge diplomatic victory for the forces of nuclear non-proliferation, the IAEA now had access to North Korean facilities and was on its way to conduct its initial assessment of the current status of the North’s nuclear program. The George HW Bush Administration felt that the issue was now on the correct path towards resolution and turned to domestic matters it considered to be more pressing, such as an economic recession and the upcoming presidential election. Little did the U.S. know, however, that by not continuing to help facilitate cooperation between the North Koreans and the IAEA, the inspections regime would falter and lead to an even greater crisis; a crisis that would be left to the incoming Clinton Administration to handle.

Stay tuned for part II...