As everyone has noticed by now, North Korea detonated a nuclear bomb yesterday.  Here are some thoughts on the matter:

    1) In general, this is simply the culmination of five years of bad Bush administration foreign policy.  Yes, it is possible that NK might have detonated even if US policy had been different.  But analysts from across the political spectrum – from Republicans like Don Gregg to Taoists like me – are in agreement that the Bush approach has only made matters worse.  Whatever chances we might have had to limit NK nuclear development were destroyed by the "tough guy" stance of Bush and company from their very first day in office.

   2) That said, the detonation does not, as the WaPo suggests, change the balance of power in E. Asia.  We have known of the possible NK capability for a decade or so; now that has been confirmed.  But prudent policy-makers (are there any left in DC?) would have had to assume that capability even without detonation.  So, this does not really affect the military balance.  Rather, it is a political-diplomatic statement.  The trick is to interpret what that statement means.

    3) I think it could mean what NK policy has meant fairly consistently since the end of the Cold War: the regime there is worried primarily about its own survival; its calls for security guarantees by the US have gone unheeded for a long time; and the lesson Pyongyang drew from our Iraq invasion was that Saddam’s mistake was not having nukes.  In the face of Bush’s tough guy routine, Kim called his bluff and upped the ante.  All of this is to say that Kim is not "crazy."  Indeed, it drives me crazy that so many lazy analysts fall back on the "he’s nuts" conclusion, when a perfectly rational explanation for NK behavior is at hand.  The problem is, I guess, that NK’s rationality is based upon an assumption of a threatening US, which most American commentators seem unwilling to consider (please note: I am not saying the US is bad; rather, I as simply saying that it is not irrational for NK to operate on worst-case scenarios, which is a fairly standard foreign policy decision-making rule for pessimistic realists).

    4) There is also no reason for NK to believe that the US will stand by a heightened sanctions regime now that detonation has taken place.  The implicit message of US policy toward India and Pakistan is that sanctions can be waived under the right political circumstances.  The deal with India earlier this year reinforces the message of the political negotiability of nuclear power; here is what Bush said then:

"What this agreement says is — things change, times change, that leadership can
make a difference," Bush said at the news conference. "I am trying to think
differently, not to stay stuck in the past, and recognize that by thinking
differently, particularly on nuclear power, we can achieve some important
objectives."

 "Things change, times change…"  If you were Kim Jong-Il, and you were thinking about detonating, might you reasonably believe that, after a couple of years of pressure, you could cut a deal with the US to back off whatever sanctions might be in place?  So why not detonate and create a stronger bargaining position?

     5)  The timing of the blast is also interesting.  There were reports a couple of weeks ago that this was in the works; and, I imagine, the actual decision to detonate must have been made weeks or months before that.  But look how it transpired: just as the new Japanese Prime Minister made an important trip to meet with the Chinese President, and the two leaders announced a common determination to rein in NK nukes…Kaboom.  This is clearly an embarrassment for China, and it is an even greater slap in the face for Japan.  He probably didn’t time it quite so perfectly, but I can imagine that Kim is happy for the insult to Japan, and he is probably hoping that China will not turn against him too harshly.

     6) So, what is to be done?  One clear possibility is that China will take a harder line and start to cut off oil and food shipments to Pyongyang.  But I don’t think this will work.  There are limits for Chinese policy: they do not want to provoke a NK collapse, for which they would pay a high price in regional instability and economic costs.  Moreover, Kim has shown an incredibly brutal willingness to impose costs on his own people.  He made them suffer through the terrible famines of the early 1990s.  Would Chinese sanctions be that bad?  Probably not.  In short, more of the same tough guy tactics will not improve the situation.

      On the other hand, it is now more difficult to do what I think should have been done long ago, which is to completely reverse course and give NK what it wants: security guaranteed from the US.  This was possible before detonation, but the Bush administration was simply unwilling.  Now, the political context makes it much more difficult.  The alternative, sanctions of some sort (military action is obviously out of the question because of the conventional military threat the North poses against Seoul), are a dead-end street.  Even if they are imposed, the North will wait us out in the belief of a deal down the road, a la India and, to a lesser degree, Pakistan. 

     All that is left is to wait a decent interval – six months – and then quietly start talking.  Ultimately the only real outcome can be trading security guarantees, and maybe some economic help, for limitations on future nuke development and a re-imposition of IAEA monitoring.  1994 is still the best future.

UPDATE: More from Donald Gregg in today’s WaPo: "Bush’s Blunder in North Korea."