Deep Kimchi, Part II

North Korea has nukes.

So what?

Belmont Club notes, correctly, I think, that this may cause Kim Jong-Il more problems than it solves:

In exchange, North Korea may believe that that the declaration it possesses nukes will confer great power status upon it. That would be true if nuclear weaponry represented the acme of technical development it once did. But its effect will now be to force Japan, Australia, Taiwan, South Korea and perhaps Singapore to the crossroads: either obtain ironclad guarantees of inclusion under the American nuclear umbrella or develop nukes themselves. For all these countries, building nuclear weapons will be a trivial task lasting six months and ten minutes. Six months to get approval from their legislatures and ten minutes to build them. Alas for North Korea, Japanese nukes are almost certain to be not only more powerful, but beautiful and imaginative beyond description, if such a word may apply to these infernal engines.

I have questions, though.

Will the Japanese break with their post-war tradition and build nukes? Do Japanese at large see the DPRK as a threat?

Taiwan - I imagine a Taiwanese bomb would tilt a few heads in Beijing.

Still, Wretchard makes a good point, one I've touched on before; Pyongyang has less than a dozen nukes, threatening Seoul. Seoul's allies have thousands of nukes, which could make South Korea an island rather than the end of a peninsula.

Posted by Mitch at February 16, 2005 04:32 AM | TrackBack