Well, Maybe a Nuke or Two

ALL TOO OFTEN, THE DEEDS OF DIPLOmacy are cloaked in riddles — especially when their results are likely to embarrass or anger. Jetting back from his recent trip to the countries of the former Soviet Union, U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry trumpeted the Clinton Administration’s continuing success in weaning Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine from nuclear weapons. But when the conversation turned to North Korea, the Secretary spoke with less clarity. “Our policy right along,” he said, “has been oriented to try to keep North Korea from getting a significant nuclear-weapon capability.”

Hmmm. Let’s see. Does that not suggest that the U.S. is prepared to allow North Korea to retain an “insignificant” nuclear capability?

“We don’t know anything we can do about that,” the Pentagon chief conceded, referring to U.S. intelligence reports that Pyongyang may already possess one or two atom bombs. “What we can do something about, though,” he added, “is stopping them from building beyond that.” Perry’s statement is at odds with what President Clinton declared last November when he said that “North Korea cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear bomb; we have to be very firm about it.” That resolve has apparently been replaced by a recognition that the seepage of nuclear know-how is relentless. After surveying atomic-weapons programs in North Korea and Pakistan, the Administration has concluded that both countries have almost certainly succeeded in barging their way into the nuclear club — if only as junior members. Rather than continuing to try to strip them of their atomic status, Washington has decided to accept the new entries — but not without first exacting a price.

No one in Washington will stand up at a lectern and announce such a policy change. But its outlines have begun to emerge in recent weeks, at least regarding these two nations. Pakistan will be asked to prove that it no longer builds nukes — and to limit its arsenal to the 10 or 15 weapons the U.S. believes it now has. In exchange, Washington will deliver the 38 American-made F-16 jets Islamabad has paid for but hasn’t received because of its suspected A-bomb efforts. In North Korea’s case, the Administration is willing to live with one or two bombs in exchange for Pyongyang’s acceptance of rigorous international inspections that would ensure that no further production takes place. “It’s not so much a conscious decision,” a State Department official explains. “But if they’ve got one or two, it’s going to be impossible to get them to give them up; every sewer and cave in the country is a potential hiding place. But stopping them from getting more is much more doable.”

Clinton’s newest posture does not sit well with either out-of-power Republicans or arms-control purists. “The consequences around the world will be disastrous,” predicts Brent Scowcroft, President Bush’s National Security Adviser. The U.S., he says, should go to war, if necessary, to prevent North Korea from obtaining even a single atomic weapon. “A small number of nuclear weapons is not fundamentally a military weapon, but a terror weapon designed to intimidate,” says Scowcroft. “So the difference between an insignificant number and a significant number may defy close analysis.”

Although doing so would ultimately prove suicidal, Pyongyang could boost U.S. and South Korean casualties dramatically by detonating a nuclear bomb just as the North launched an invasion of the South. As North Korean troops streamed toward Seoul, the blast would cripple allied satellites and communications, giving Kim Il Sung’s troops a tactical edge.

While nations like India and Israel are believed to have joined the recognized nuclear powers (the U.S., Britain, China, France and Russia), North Korea would be a nuclear “rogue state,” with all that label implies. One possible scenario: strapped for cash, Pyongyang sells atomic technology to Iran, which then turns it over to radical Muslim groups like Hizballah. “If the bomb is in a pleasure craft coming up the Potomac by the Pentagon,” says Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, a private research and education group, “then I think Mr. Perry would have to admit one bomb is significant.”

Though the intention of the new Clinton policy is to reduce the proliferation of nuclear weapons, some experts warn that it could have the opposite effect. “A few nuclear weapons in North Korea,” says former Defense Secretary Harold Brown, “could have a significant effect on the possibility of nuclear programs in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.” Such a rationale is already in play among South Koreans. “If that is America’s new policy,” says Seoul newspaper columnist Choo Young Kwan, “we may eventually have no choice but to develop our own nuclear weapons.”

And while Washington wants to jump-start the stalled nuclear talks between the U.S. and Pakistan, not everyone agrees that sending more F-16s to the subcontinent is the way to do it. If war flares anew between Islamabad and New Delhi, the CIA believes, the Pakistani air force will use its F-16s to drop nuclear bombs on India.