North Korea confronts the United Nations, US with its latest blast
Updated
The latest North Korean nuclear blast has presented a new challenge to both the United States, and the United Nations.
Presenter:Sen Lam
Speaker: Jim Walsh, of the Massachussetts INsitute of Technology's Security Studies Programme
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WALSH: Well they're going to continue deliberations tomorrow, come up with a common text. There'll be a debate internally, particularly among China, the US annd Japan over whether a resolution should include sanctions and what the scope and depth of those sanctions ought to be. And then beyond that, it becomes more puzzling. I'm sure you'll see US Secretary of Defence Gates visit Japan on this upcoming tour and reassure Japan that the US, its treaty ally will stand behind it. And then there'll be consultations among the parties involved in the six-party talks. But right now I think things are at a stand-off.
LAM: Indeed you mentioned the possible US response, this new development wouldn't it pose a huge challenge to Barack Obama to put him under pressure if you like, to drop his push for direct diplomacy with North Korea?
WALSH: Well I do think it may put him under some political pressure. He'll be attacked by conservatives in the US for his attempt to reach out to North Korea. And my guess is that I think our response here in the US, the US government's response is going to be moderate or temperate, they may issue a strong statement but I do not expect any sort of military response, I don't expect the US to do anything other than sort of quietly persist with the current policy. And so Obama will be criticised for that, for being patient and persistent. But at the end of the day, I don't think anyone can do anything about the North Korean situation in the short term and so it's sort of hard to blame him.
LAM: This latest explosion was far more powerful than the one that North Korea launched in 2006. How worried should we be by this latest stunt by Pyongyang?
WALSH: Well I think the last test was not as robust as it might have been, the yield was less than a kiloton and there was speculation at the time that this was a fizzle. And when people said it was a fizzle, everyone sort of also shook their heads because if you say that that only encourages the North Koreans to want to go ahead and carry out another test. So they had a second test. And it appears and of course you don't really know for a month or several months out what the real data is going to say. But it appears as if it was a more significant test. But in line with a sort of a typical early test by a developing nuclear state. They have neither the intention nor the capability to take what is a crude nuclear device at this point and make it into a weapon. If they can somehow make it small enough to fit on the tip of a missile and to fire. So again neither the intention nor the capability to really translate today's test into some sort of meaningful military threat that's not on the immediate horizon.
LAM: So why is North Korea doing this?
WALSH: Well, that is the question everyone wants the answer too and I wish I had it. I guess there are two main competing theories here and one will prove, er, we'll see soon enough which one is correct. The sort of traditional theory so far has been that North Korea is interested in bargaining and that when they carry out provocative action, that's to increase their leverage so they're in a better position when they return to the bargaining table. A crisis means that all the parties want to solve the problem and crisis often divides states as Japan and China often take different views of this. And that helps North Korea at the bargaining table. If North Korea returns to the bargaining table that will be evidence for the bargaining theory. But there's another theory that this has more to do with internal politics rather than the negotiating table, that this is about somehow tied up with succession and the political transition in the North Korea. And if that's true, then North Korea is less likely to return to the bargaining table and we're in for I think quite some time of little progress and stalemate or even some regression.
LAM: It seems a bit drastic though to drop a 20-kiloton bomb just for some distraction from some political problems?
WALSH: You know I think that this may be not so much a matter of distraction for domestic audience in the way we would think about it in Australia, the United States or other democracies. I think rather, it may play out, and of course this is all speculative, we really don't know what's going on in North Korea but trying to put it altogether the best we can. One could say on the one hand, governments that undergo political transition often engage in shows of strength during this time because they are worried about the uncertainty that is being displayed to the outside world. And it's just not North Korea that does that, a lot of countries do that, and North Korea has in fact done it in the past.
