North Korea and nuclear danger: Context and policy options

Stephen J. Cimbala discusses the dangers of a nuclear North Korea and the US role to combat it. The Obama Administration reacted with undisguised disappointment to the North Korean testing and launching initiatives. US officials considered interdicting North Korean air and sea shipments suspected of carrying weapons or nuclear technology. Cabinet-level officials in the Obama Administration expressed frustration and concern about the North Korean nuclear and missile tests, as well as about their implications for the nonproliferation regime in Asia and for the future of the six-party talks on North Korean denuclearization. Instead, Obama's advisers were moving toward a different policy consensus about North Korean intentions and policy objectives. That new consensus privileged the assumption that North Korea wanted to be recognized as a nuclear weapons state and that it had no intention of relinquishing or dismantling this capability.