Going Rogue: the North Korean Nuclear Program
- Pedro Chicalhoni
- 24 mars 2021
- 7 min de lecture
To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the workers' party in North Korea, the Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un unveiled a massive intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) during a heavily scripted parade. Even the specialists were struck by the sheer size of the metal monstrosity, capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads–according to speculations. To make matters even worse, a smaller ICBM, named Hwasong-15, had been showcased and tested in 2017. The old piece of armament had a range of 13,000km: enough to nuke most of Europe and the entire American soil.
North Korea parades what appears to be a new and larger ICBM (Source: Breaking Defense)
Despite the military prowess, most North Koreans endure terrible living standards. When compared to their southern counterparts, life expectancy under Kim Jong-Un’s regime lags behind 12 years due largely to famines. How is it possible for a country where only 3 percent of roads are paved to boast an astounding atomic arsenal?
To answer that question, one must trace back the roots of the North Korean nuclear program in this first essay on rogue States (countries that represent a threat to global stability). It covers the origins of the atomic pursuit in the 50s until the first North Korean test in 2006.
Early developments, triggered by fear of the U.S., facilitated by the Soviets
Although the establishment of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea took place in 1948, their leader at the time, Kim Il-Sung, was well aware of the bombings in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Indeed, the two atomic weapons forced an empire that once ruled over East Asia to surrender. The Korean War would only crystalize Kim Il-Sung's plan to amass an arsenal robust enough to discourage a feared U.S. attack.
However, after the armistice in 1953, a war-ravaged North Korea was not in a position to invest in research and development. Conversely, South Korea received American aid and threatened to leave Pyongyang behind in terms of economic growth. To solve this conundrum, Kim Il-Sung struck a bargain with the communists: both Chinese and Soviets.
Despite Beijing's extension of an estimated $590 million in aid, Sino-North Korean relations soured by the end of the 60s, mostly because China pressured Kim Il-Sung to side with them against the USSR. While talks with the Chinese deteriorated, the partnership with the Soviets had just begun.
Regardless of the rapprochement between the two Cold-War superpowers following the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, North Korea felt reassured of the Soviet commitment. After the USSR Premier Aleksei Kosygin's visit in 1965, Soviet aid skyrocketed, and North Korea distanced itself from the Chinese for a couple of years.
To the communists, economically supporting Kim's regime was justifiable, considering that North Korea had become a front-line State against a capitalistic presence in East Asia. Admittedly, Stalin is said to have asked Kim if he was ”short of arms” back in 1950, promising to supply him with weapons to ”strike the southerners in the teeth.” During the following decades, Moscow would help Pyongyang establish its infamous reactor and acquire plutonium reprocessing technology.
From technical cooperation to autonomy
The North Korean government created the Atomic Energy Research Institute and the Academy of Sciences in December 1952 to start its nuclear research. However, the atomic project de facto started four years later, when Korean scientists and technicians traveled to Soviet institutions. In 1959, this partnership culminated in an agreement on the peaceful use of nuclear energy between the two nations, establishing the above-mentioned research complex and infamous reactor in Yongbyon.
A North Korean nuclear plant in Yongbyon (source: Reuters).
During the 60s, the USSR contributed with technical training and material resources, including the IRT-2000 nuclear research reactor and its associated equipment. Although the reactor operated with a 10 percent enriched uranium fuel, it was gradually upgraded to process highly enriched uranium for military purposes. All of the strategic weapon-related decisions were ultimately controlled by then-North Korean premier Kim Il-Sung.
To a certain extent, Kim's nuclear program developed without foreign intervention after this initial phase. The Soviets provided the means and the expertise to get the project up and running, whereas the Chinese under Mao Zedong refused to share their technological secrets with Pyongyang, supporting the premier only through moderate trade.
North Korea would continue with its research in the 70s, both for civilian and military applications. Its engineers managed to use their own technology to expand the soviet gift, the IRT-2000 reactor, and reprocess plutonium. In the 80s, Kim's regime constructed uranium milling facilities and a fuel rod fabrication complex. Also, they reverse-engineered their way towards a 5MW(e) nuclear reactor (5 million watts of electricity, enough to power 4000 homes per year). Finally, they achieved a tenfold increase in power for their reactor and began experimenting with the explosives needed for atomic bombs' triggering mechanisms.
In short, North Korea was dedicating a substantial portion of its resources to advance defensive goals. It feared U.S. attacks and being isolated as a front-liner against the western powers since communist countries were slowly giving in to capitalism. The end of the Cold War would exacerbate those concerns. Nevertheless, a new international framework for nuclear non-proliferation offered North Korea a way out and–ironically–helped Kim in his quest for an operational atomic bomb.
The ups and downs of non-proliferation
President John F. Kennedy attempted to slow down the nuclear arms race by outlawing experiments in the atmosphere, in space, and underwater. His efforts to ”get the genie back in the bottle” did not work, for North Korea was one of the few countries that refused to sign the test-ban treaty in 1963. In reality, Kim Il-Sung's government went in the opposite direction, developing its nuclear reactors.
Fast forward two decades of research and North Korea would accept signing the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). But it was done in exchange for Soviet assistance in constructing four light-water reactors: not ideal for producing plutonium for military use but still suitable for it.
Given that North Korea had signed the NPT, U.S. President George H. W. Bush withdrew, in September 1991, the nuclear weaponry in South Korea. A couple of months later, both Seoul and Pyongyang proceeded to sign the Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, promising not to ”test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons.” Additionally, both sides agreed to refrain from creating nuclear reprocessing and uranium enrichment facilities as well as allow bilateral inspections.
In spite of those steps towards a safer peninsula and six rounds of successful bilateral inspections, relations began to crack. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was denied access to two suspected nuclear waste sites under North Korean control. The inspection agency promptly requested an ad hoc authorization from the Security Council, leading to North Korea's threat of withdrawing from the NTP.
Minister for External Affairs Frank Aiken signing the Nonproliferation Treaty at the Moscow signing ceremony on 1 July 1968. (Source: National Security Archive)
The following three months of talks in Washington were leading to a new framework where North Korea would receive a special status vis-à-vis its safeguards commitments. Simply put, it would allow inspections but to a more limited extent, excluding some strategic nuclear activities. However, during the diplomatic talks, Korean technicians continued to operate Yongbyon's reactor against the IAEA's will, worsening the crisis. Moreover, North Korea even joined the agency in 1974, designating a nuclear scientist to be stationed at the IAEA's head office in Geneva. However, the scientist's key function was to gather information to learn how to design a nuclear reactor.
While U.S. President Bill Clinton stated that it would demand the Security Council to impose economic sanctions (an ”act of war” according to Pyongyang), former U.S. President Jimmy Carter met with Kim Il-Sung to compromise. In exchange for two American light-water power reactors and 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil per year for almost a decade, North Korea would allow inspections, freeze its operations on the reactors, and implement the previous joint declaration with South Korea. Moreover, the U.S. had to provide “formal assurances against the threat or use of nuclear weapons.”
One may argue that Kim Il-Sung–soon to bequeath his position to his son Kim Jong-Il– ended up with the long end of the stick. He bought time for his scientists, expanded the energy capacity of the nation, and was only compelled to allow superficial inspections within his facilities. It's not a surprise that this approach crumbled in the 2000s, paving the way for the first North Korean nuclear test.
Failed multilateral approaches led to a new rogue State
Dissatisfaction from Pyongyang due to the delayed construction of the light-water power reactors on one side and from Washington due to poorly executed inspections demanded a revision of their agreement. In 2001, the Bush administration called for ”verifiable constraints on North Korea's missile program, a ban on missile exports, and a less threatening North Korean conventional military posture.” On top of that, other countries suspected Kim Jong-Il was hiding an illicit highly enriched uranium (HEU) program.
In early 2004, it was revealed that North Korea had been granted access to Pakistani uranium enrichment methods in exchange for missile construction technology. In fact, Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, had provided Kim Jong-Il with information in the 1990s. Besides, U.S. intelligence identified a covert uranium enrichment facility at Kangson in the outskirts of Pyongyang. The North Korean nuclear program was a ticking bomb.
North Korea argued it had to promote those operations for generating electricity–but also claimed it was part of its right to self-defense. Sanctions were imposed and multilateral talks were held. Initially, the meetings involved China, North Korea, and the United States, but they soon extended access to Japan, Russia, and South Korea.
Representatives of the six nations posed for photographs before the talks.
(Source: the New York Times)
Despite good intentions, tensions mounted, and the Six-Party process stagnated for years. By the time the representatives had reached an agreement (the Statement of Principles), whereby North Korea would forgo its nuclear program and crawl back to the NPT, Pyongyang had been working on its uranium enrichment facilities. After the signing of the deal in September 2005, the United States and North Korea spent over a year quarreling about its implementation and details. It all culminated in new sanctions of sorts: U.S. financial institutions boycotted Banco Delta Asia, a Macao-based bank, accused of aiding North Korea in illicit transactions.
On October 9, 2006, at about 10 pm, U.S President George W. Bush was notified by National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley that a message from Beijing had arrived. North Korea was about to conduct its first nuclear test. With the underground detonation of an underwhelming atomic device, the world staged witnessed the arrival of a new rogue state.
Maddock, Shane J. Nuclear Apartheid: The Quest for American Atomic Supremacy from World War II to the Present. University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
Siegfried S. Hecker. Denuclearizing North Korea. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 64, No. 2, May/June 2008, pp. 44-49, 61-62.
Gregory Karou. A Technical History of Soviet-North Korean Nuclear Relations, in James Clay Moltz and Alexandre Y. Mansourov, eds., The North Korean Nuclear Program: Security, Strategy, and New Perspectives from Russia. New York: Routledge, 2000.
Bermudez, Jr., Joseph S. Exposing North Korea's secret nuclear infrastructure - PART TWO, Jane's Intelligence Review, Vol. 11, Is. 8, 1 August 1999.
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