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There's only one workable solution to the North Korea problem

Donald Trump didn't create this problem. But the world now depends on him as its best chance of solving it.

Peter Hartcher
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The failure of North Korea's much-anticipated ballistic missile test on the weekend tells us three things.

First, that it is completely undeterred. Donald Trump's missile strike on Syria didn't deter North Korea's "Dear Marshal" Kim Jong Un.  Neither did Trump's threat to attack North Korea. Nor did his talk that the US and China were now working to tackle the problem together.

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The Trump administration warns it's not to be tested as the defiant Pyongyang regime fires back it's "ready to react" to American force.

Second, North Korea remains determined to become the planet's ninth nuclear missile state as soon as possible. It already has nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles. It now needs to marry the two technologies, making nuclear bombs small enough to fit onto a missile tip.

Third, that while this latest missile test failed, Kim's scientists will have learnt from it. Every test, whether successful or not, is another step towards the regime's destination.

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"They have been continuously escalating, and we have been continuously conciliating, for 25 years," says a former US negotiator with North Korea, David Asher, now a scholar at the Centre for a New American Security in Washington.

"There is no logical reason that they couldn't do it," he tells me. "It's sad that we didn't take care of this problem much earlier. Now it's a shitstorm."

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Trump's national security adviser H.R. McMaster says the US is considering all non-military options to halt the Pyongyang regime's progress to nuclear missiles.

There are only a few ways that a nation can be prevented from going fully nuclear. 

One is negotiation. This can work. The Iran agreement of 2015 is a case in point. Iran has dismantled part of its nuclear infrastructure in return for the easing of harsh UN sanctions. Its progress towards nuclear missiles has been halted.

Would this work with North Korea? Bill Clinton's administration tried it. Pyongyang merely gamed the negotiations.

The Kim dynasty's regime took the inducements offered, cheated on its compliance promises, and continued covertly working on the nukes.

Another is armed force. This can work, too. Israel bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 before it could become operational. This set back the Iraqi nuclear weapons program. 

However, if other events had not intervened, Iraq could have rebuilt. A determined regime can always rebuild, perhaps in underground facilities that are harder to attack.

Would this work in North Korea? A military strike on North Korea's nuclear facilities faces an insurmountable problem. It would likely provoke the very event that North Korea has spent 60 years preparing for.  Pyongyang has massive arrays of artillery and missiles aimed just south of the border, at Seoul and the US bases nearby. They are kept in permanent readiness to launch. 

Seoul is a densely populated city of 10 million, some 50 kilometres away. No system exists that could protect against devastation. North Korea doesn't need nukes to kill millions in short order. 

To contain any such retaliation, a pre-emptive attack on North Korea would need to be so intense, perhaps nuclear, that it would unleash the very carnage that the world is seeking to avoid.

A third is the modern variation on armed force, cyber war. This can work too. The US and Israel attacked Iran's underground uranium centrifuges using a computer virus, the Stuxnet worm. The limitation here is that it is only a temporary setback to a nuclear program. 

Could cyber war work on Pyongyang? There is strong suspicion that it already has. A years-long phase of North Korean missile failures suggests to some analysts that American cyber war is responsible. But, again, this has its limitations. North Korea is making undeniable progress regardless. 

Finally, there is the guarantee of security under the protection of major nuclear power. This can work, too. The US has successfully prevented a nuclear arms race in Asia for 70 years by putting its allies under its protection, the so-called nuclear umbrella. A nuclear strike on Japan, South Korea or Australia would be answered by a strike by the US. 

Could this work in North Korea's case? It already has a defence treaty with China, a nuclear power. It is conceivable that Beijing could persuade Pyongyang to abandon its own nuclear plans and take shelter under a Chinese nuclear umbrella. 

This leads to the inevitable destination for any really workable solution to the North Korean problem – China. 

Despite China's recent rhetoric, there is ample evidence that Beijing has been content to allow the Kim dynasty to barrel ahead with its nuclear program.

When the South Korean navy managed to recover fragments of a North Korean missile that exploded over the Sea of Japan recently, its technicians discovered missile components supplied to North Korea by Chinese firms, including state-owned firms.

Whether this is deliberate Chinese supply or merely lax Chinese enforcement of UN sanctions, it suggests that Beijing has not been serious about curbing the Kims' nuclear ambitions.

David Asher, who led the North Korea Activities Group within the National Security Council in the George W. Bush White House, says that China has never been serious about curbing Pyongyang: "China has been financing their economy for a decade. They give direct material assistance to China. They have done nothing to distance themselves strategically from North Korea.

"China knows more about North Korea's nuclear program than we do. Why haven't they stopped it?"

His conclusion: they don't want to. "North Korea and China are allies against the United Nations," a reference to the fact their opponents in the Korean War were lead by the UN. "China's strategists think North Korea is extremely useful."

Asher's experience of dealing with China and North Korea from 2002 to 2005 made him deeply sceptical of China's assurances: "China assured us we could combine to bring North Korea to heel. And none of that ever happened."

As the Trump administration now seeks to work with China on the Pyongyang problem, the former negotiator has this advice: "China will only take this seriously if they are coerced into it."

Is Trump prepared to exert this much pressure on China? Would he sacrifice some of the US relationship with China in order to deliver real results in North Korea?

This is a diabolically difficult problem and there is not yet any sign of progress to any workable solution. Trump, of course, didn't create this problem. The world now depends on him as its best chance of solving it. God help us all.

Peter Hartcher is international editor.

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