[fn Plaza] North Korea's Nuclear Program Summoned by the Iran War

James Laney, then the United States Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, urgently brought his grandchildren back to the United States. Plans were also being accelerated for the return of U.S. Embassy in Seoul staff and U.S. military families. There were even reports that Japan was preparing evacuation measures for its nationals staying in South Korea. It was the spring of 1994.
Once North Korea's nuclear program was exposed, it withdrew from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in March 1993 and threatened the international community with brinkmanship. As the United States and others pressed North Korea to give up its nuclear program, Pyongyang raised tensions by brandishing the option of armed retaliation. In March 1994, North Korean delegation chief Pak Young-soo at inter-Korean talks in Panmunjom also threatened that "if war breaks out, Seoul will be turned into a sea of fire."
At the time, the Clinton administration considered a 'precision strike' on North Korea's nuclear facilities in Nyongbyon. It also pushed for sweeping sanctions on North Korea, the deployment of 10,000 additional U.S. troops to South Korea, and more advanced weapons to prepare for North Korean provocations. It estimated that at least 500,000 people could die if North Korea struck Seoul and other metropolitan areas. Still, the Clinton administration did not waver in its determination to stop North Korea's nuclear development.
That June, amid the standoff and the risk of conflict, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's meeting with Chairman Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang abruptly shifted the Clinton administration's hard-line stance. The United States, South Korea, and Japan reached the Geneva Agreement, under which light-water reactors would be built in exchange for North Korea abandoning its nuclear program. But friction over North Korea's renewed nuclear efforts led the George W. Bush administration in 2002 to again plan strikes on nuclear facilities. The September 11 attacks delayed the operation, and after that, negotiations and breakdowns repeated through the Six-Party Talks. After six nuclear tests, North Korea became a de facto nuclear state.
The events of 1994, including Carter's visit to Pyongyang and Clinton's plan for a preemptive strike on North Korea, are remembered by few today. More than 30 years later, the Iran war has brought them back into focus. The United States and Israel have cited preemptive attacks and war as justification for trying to stop Iran's nuclear development.
Rafael Harpaz, the Israeli Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, said at a press conference on March 5, shortly after the war began, that "because no action was taken on North Korea's nuclear issue, we ended up in the current situation, with North Korea possessing nuclear weapons." He stressed that "we learned lessons from what happened here, on the Korean Peninsula, between 1994 and 1996." He added, "As a result, North Korea came to possess 40 to 60 nuclear warheads."
A few days later, on March 11, Gilad Cohen, the Israeli Ambassador to Japan, was even more direct in citing North Korea's nuclear case to justify the attack on Iran. He said that when the United States did not strike during the 1994 North Korea nuclear crisis, the result was a nuclear-armed North Korea threatening countries with missiles and undermining stability in the Indo-Pacific. After the Iran war, U.S. officials also referred to the response to North Korea's nuclear development as a failure in the same context. Claims that Carter's visit to North Korea was a mistake in which he was manipulated by Kim Il Sung have also grown stronger.
In the meantime, North Korea has strengthened its strategic position by building up its nuclear capabilities to the point where it could propose nuclear arms reduction talks with the United States. China, which had pressed for North Korea's denuclearization, did not mention denuclearization even once at the North Korea-China summit in Pyongyang on the 8th and 9th. Chinese President Xi Jinping's first visit to North Korea in seven years showed the geopolitical closeness of the China-Russia-North Korea triangle and North Korea's elevated strategic standing, which has been solidified as that of a de facto nuclear state.
Today, it is hard to find even one person who remembers the North Korea nuclear crisis from 30 years ago. North Korea's growing nuclear and missile attack capabilities have also slipped from our list of concerns. North Korea is steadily improving the reliability of its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which can reach the contiguous United States beyond Guam and Hawaii. If North Korea's ICBMs can strike the U.S. mainland, America's deterrence against North Korea will be tied up. North Korea's nuclear capability, combined with missiles such as ICBMs, is a dagger aimed at our neck.
The U.S. nuclear umbrella is also shrinking under North Korea's strengthening nuclear and missile capabilities. Confident in its nuclear armament, North Korea is pursuing its goal of advancing its nuclear program while trying to expand its influence in the region under the theory of "hostile two states." As transactional alliance ties deepen and a rising "sphere of influence" order begins to stir, it is urgent to have our own Plan B and Plan C beyond the U.S. nuclear umbrella to respond to North Korea's nuclear threat. To ensure that our prosperity, stability, and conventional military superiority do not become a fleeting mirage in the face of North Korea's growing nuclear power, a range of response measures must be prepared with extraordinary resolve. The North Korea nuclear crisis of 1994 is still not over.
june@fnnews.com Reporter