In North Korea, Every New Bomb Is a Greater Peril
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
WASHINGTON — While the Bush administration has insisted that North Korea's efforts to expand its nuclear arsenal is not a crisis, most experts believe it is the gravest security threat in Northeast Asia in a decade.
The danger they see is in the difference between the North Korea of today — a rogue state that United States intelligence says probably has one or two nuclear bombs — and a North Korea with an arsenal of six or seven bombs and the means to produce more every year, exactly the fast track the country has put itself on.
Not only would such an expansion vastly increase the military threat to American allies and forces in the region, and potentially to the United States itself, it would also add to the risk that North Korea could sell fissile material on the black market. It could encourage nonnuclear states in Asia to build their own nuclear arms. If North Korea were ever to collapse, the task of locating and securing nuclear material would be more complicated.
Still, Bush administration officials have gone out of their way to play down the significance of North Korea's nuclear effort. As Secretary of State Colin L. Powell put it at the start of last week, "It is not yet a crisis."
There seem to be several reasons the Bush administration has adopted that attitude. Publicly, officials say that the North Koreans are trying to generate a crisis atmosphere to wring concessions from Washington and that they are determined not to play along.
But a senior official, who asked not to be identified, acknowledged that other factors, especially Iraq, are also at work. With American forces flowing to the Persian Gulf, the administration would like to contain the problem in North Korea while it concentrates on ousting Saddam Hussein.
The Bush administration is also trying to reassure nervous allies, especially South Korea, who fear that tough terms for any negotiations with North Korea will create new tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
Still, many analysts believe that North Korea's latest moves present a threat equal to the one the Clinton administration confronted almost a decade ago when North Korea unloaded the fuel rods from its Yongbyon reactor, raising fears it would reprocess them to produce bomb-grade plutonium. (Eventually, North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for promises of American aid to meet its energy needs in other ways.)
AFTER that crisis passed, American intelligence estimated that the North Koreans still had enough plutonium on hand to make one or two bombs. Though there is no proof that they actually made weapons from the plutonium, the C.I.A. has concluded that they have likely done so, since they have the scientific talent and they have had the time.
Whatever the country's current nuclear capability may be, there is no question that North Korea is poised to rapidly expand its arsenal. By reprocessing spent fuel from the Yongbyon reactor, North Korea could acquire about five bombs worth of plutonium in six months or less, according to current and former American officials. In addition, restarting the reactor itself would churn out enough plutonium for one bomb a year.
North Korea could also increase its arsenal by completing the construction of two larger reactors and by proceeding with its uranium enrichment efforts. North Korea could have a system to enrich uranium by the middle of the decade, the C.I.A. says, producing sufficient fissile material for two bombs a year.
Some administration hard-liners assert that an expanding arsenal does not represent a qualitatively new threat since it is likely that North Korea has already crossed the nuclear threshold. Still, most experts believe that a growing arsenal introduces new dangers.
If North Korea had half a dozen bombs or more it could threaten the South and Japan, and still have weapons left over to try to deter a retaliatory American attack.
"If you have only one or two bombs you don't have a military strategy," said Robert J. Einhorn, a former senior State Department official, who led talks with North Korea during the Clinton administration. "But when you have six or seven you can develop a strategy of threatening or even using some weapons while holding some in reserve. You can do more than simply fire off a single weapon in desperation or in revenge."
In North Korea, Every New Bomb Is a Greater Peril
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An expansion would be all the more worrisome since North Korea has long been developing ocean-spanning missiles. Its missile efforts are far more advanced than those of Iran and Iraq. North Korea has a moratorium on missile test flights. But if it lifted that moratorium and finished developing its Taepo-Dong 2 missile, it might be able to strike the United States with a nuclear payload.
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Concern over that chain of events, in fact, was a driving force behind the Bush administration's push to build a missile defense. The expansion of North Korea's arsenal would also complicate any contingency plans the Pentagon might have for a pre-emptive strike. It is far more difficult to locate a dozen weapons than it is to find one or two.
Another big worry is that more North Korean nuclear weapons might mean more proliferation. There is no evidence that North Korea has ever sold fissile material. But if it was turning out several bombs' worth of fissile material a year, it would have some to spare. Selling nuclear material would be a serious provocation, but it is a step North Korea might take if it was politically and economically isolated and was trying to stave off collapse.
"North Korea has a record of selling missiles for cash," said Gary Samore, director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the top official on proliferation on President Bill Clinton's National Security Council. "The more nuclear weapons they have the greater the danger is that they could spare some for money, and there certainly would be buyers."
THE expansion of North Korea's nuclear arsenal might also put pressure on South Korea and Japan to follow suit. Referring to the Japanese and South Koreans, Kurt Campbell, who was the Clinton administration's senior Defense Department official on Asia and now is the senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said: "Those who have nuclear ambitions are clearly in the minority. But talk about nuclear options would no longer be taboo in polite strategic company."
Adding to the worry is the diplomatic impasse. The United States has said no direct negotiations will take place until North Korea first dismantles its efforts to make highly enriched uranium and freezes its plutonium production. Along with allied nations, it has cut off shipments of heavy fuel oil.
North Korea responded by evicting inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency and announcing that it would restart its reactor at Yongbyon and reopen the factory that would reprocess spent fuel.
North Korea's actions contrast with the recent approach taken by Iraq, which has so far provided the latest group of United Nations inspectors unimpeded access.
Iraq, however, is what the United States is concentrating on. The administration is determined to prevent Iraq from joining the nuclear club. American officials have also concluded that an invasion of Iraq can be carried out quickly and at a minimal cost, in contrast to a war with North Korea. American military planning calls for a winter war if Iraq does not voluntarily disarm, and the administration does not intend to be thrown off course by the developments in Asia, however worrisome.
President Bush indicated as much on Thursday. "I believe the situation with North Korea will be resolved peacefully," he said, but Saddam Hussein's "day of reckoning is coming."
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