the national bureau of asian research nbr special report #67 | august 2017 north korea and asia’s evolving nuclear landscape Challenges to Regional Stability By Aaron L. Friedberg, Robert Jervis, J. James Kim, Jina Kim, Matthew Kroenig, Sugio Takahashi, Michito Tsuruoka, and Christopher Twomey cover 2 NBR Board of Directors Charles W. Brady Richard J. Ellings Matt Salmon (Chairman) President Vice President of Government Affairs Chairman Emeritus NBR Arizona State University Invesco LLC Ryo Kubota Gordon Smith John V. Rindlaub Chairman, President, and CEO Chief Operating Officer (Vice Chairman and Treasurer) Acucela Inc. Exact Staff, Inc. President, Asia Pacific Wells Fargo Quentin W. Kuhrau Scott Stoll Chief Executive Officer Partner George Davidson Unico Properties LLC Ernst & Young LLP (Vice Chairman) Vice Chairman, M&A, Asia-Pacific Melody Meyer David K.Y. Tang HSBC Holdings plc (Ret.) President Managing Partner, Asia Melody Meyer Energy LLC K&L Gates LLP George F. Russell Jr. (Chairman Emeritus) Joseph M. Naylor Chairman Emeritus Vice President of Policy, Government Honorary Directors Russell Investments and Public Affairs Chevron Corporation Lawrence W. Clarkson Dennis Blair Senior Vice President Chairman C. Michael Petters The Boeing Company (Ret.) Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA President and Chief Executive Officer Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. Thomas E. Fisher U.S. Navy (Ret.) Senior Vice President Maria Livanos Cattaui Kenneth B. Pyle Unocal Corporation (Ret.) Secretary General (Ret.) Professor; Founding President University of Washington; NBR Joachim Kempin International Chamber of Commerce Senior Vice President William M. Colton Jonathan Roberts Microsoft Corporation (Ret.) Vice President Founder and Partner Ignition Partners Clark S. Kinlin Corporate Strategic Planning President and Chief Executive Officer Exxon Mobil Corporation Tom Robertson Corning Cable Systems Norman D. Dicks Vice President and Corning Incorporated Senior Policy Advisor Deputy General Counsel Van Ness Feldman LLP Microsoft Corporation NBR Counselors Charles W. Boustany Jr. Aaron Friedberg Joseph Lieberman U.S. House of Representatives (Ret.) Princeton University U.S. Senate (Ret.) Norman D. Dicks Slade Gorton Ashley Tellis U.S. House of Representatives (Ret.) U.S. Senate (Ret.) Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Thomas B. Fargo U.S. Navy (Ret.) NBR Chairman’s Council and Board of Advisors Michael Armacost Robert J. Herbold Mary Minnick Stanford University The Herbold Group, LLC Lion Capital Richard Cody Carla A. Hills Sam Nunn L-3 Communications, Inc. Hills & Company Nuclear Threat Initiative Nicholas Eberstadt Robert D. Hormats Joseph S. Nye Jr. American Enterprise Institute Kissinger Associates, Inc. Harvard University Karl Eikenberry Toshi Kawachi Stanley Palmer Stanford University Mitsubishi Corporation Marvin & Palmer Associates, Inc. Donald Emmerson David Lampton Dwight Perkins Stanford University Johns Hopkins University Harvard University Rebecca Fraser Nicholas Lardy Thomas Pickering Qualcomm, Inc. Peterson Institute for International The Boeing Company (Ret.) Economics Robert Gilpin Clarine Nardi Riddle Princeton University Richard Lawless Kasowitz, Benson, Torres New Magellan Ventures & Friedman LLP Lee Hamilton Indiana University Chae-Jin Lee Stanley Roth Claremont McKenna College The Boeing Company Stephen Hanson College of William and Mary Kenneth Lieberthal Sheldon Simon Brookings Institution Arizona State University Harry Harding University of Virginia William J. Lynn, III John White DRS Technologies, Inc. Harvard University Donald Hellmann University of Washington Rajan Menon City College of New York the national bureau of asian research nbr special report #67 | august 2017 north korea and asia’s evolving nuclear landscape Challenges to Regional Stability Aaron L. Friedberg, Robert Jervis, J. James Kim, Jina Kim, Matthew Kroenig, Sugio Takahashi, Michito Tsuruoka, and Christopher Twomey the national bureau of asian research The NBR Special Report provides access to current research on special topics conducted by the world’s leading experts in Asian affairs. The views expressed in these reports are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of other NBR research associates or institutions that support NBR. The National Bureau of Asian Research is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institution dedicated to informing and strengthening policy. NBR conducts advanced independent research on strategic, political, economic, globalization, health, and energy issues affecting U.S. relations with Asia. Drawing upon an extensive network of the world’s leading specialists and leveraging the latest technology, NBR bridges the academic, business, and policy arenas. The institution disseminates its research through briefings, publications, conferences, Congressional testimony, and email forums, and by collaborating with leading institutions worldwide. NBR also provides exceptional internship opportunities to graduate and undergraduate students for the purpose of attracting and training the next generation of Asia specialists. NBR was started in 1989 with a major grant from the Henry M. Jackson Foundation. Funding for NBR’s research and publications comes from foundations, corporations, individuals, the U.S. government, and from NBR itself. NBR does not conduct proprietary or classified research. The organization undertakes contract work for government and private-sector organizations only when NBR can maintain the right to publish findings from such work. To download issues of the NBR Special Report, please visit the NBR website http://www.nbr.org. This report may be reproduced for personal use. Otherwise, the NBR Special Report may not be reproduced in full without the written permission of NBR. When information from NBR publications is cited or quoted, please cite the author and The National Bureau of Asian Research. This is the sixty-seventh NBR Special Report. NBR is a tax-exempt, nonprofit corporation under I.R.C. Sec. 501(c)(3), qualified to receive tax-exempt contributions. © 2017 by The National Bureau of Asian Research. Front cover image: North Korea, Nuclear Bomb Character Family / shutterstock.com For further information about NBR, contact: The National Bureau of Asian Research 1414 NE 42nd Street, Suite 300 Seattle, Washington 98105 206-632-7370 Phone 206-632-7487 Fax [email protected] E-mail http://www.nbr.org nbr special report #67 | august 2017 north korea and asia’s evolving nuclear landscape Challenges to Regional Stability TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Robert Jervis The Asian Nuclear System in Comparative and Theoretical Context 7 Christopher Twomey Japan’s New Nuclear Deterrence Challenges: 17 The Implications of Russia’s Nuclear Saber-Rattling and NATO’s Response Michito Tsuruoka Thinking about the Unthinkable: The Case of the Korean Peninsula 27 Sugio Takahashi North Korea’s Nuclear Posture and Its Implications for the U.S.-ROK Alliance 37 Jina Kim Domestic and Regional Constraints on South Korea’s Approach to North Korea 47 J. James Kim Toward a Common Strategy for Deterring a Nuclear North Korea 57 Matthew Kroenig Conclusion: The North Korean Crisis and the Second Nuclear Age 65 Aaron L. Friedberg the national bureau of asian research nbr special report #67 | august 2017 Introduction Robert Jervis ROBERT JERVIS is the Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Politics at Columbia University. He can be reached at <[email protected]>. 1 here is a small but not trivial chance that by the end of 2017 the United States will have used force against North Korea. The Trump administration, after declaring its predecessor’s policy of “strategic patience” a failure in light of the quickening pace of North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and delivery systems, has claimed to be embarking on a newT and more belligerent policy. That the criticisms of the past ring true does not provide grounds for believing that President Donald Trump—or anyone else—has a viable alternative. Of course the confrontation on the Korean Peninsula is only the most dramatic of the challenges in Asia. In the long and even medium run, the rise of China is more challenging and could lead to a greater rearrangement of the world order, if not to a much larger war. The Chinese and North Korean situations are not unrelated to each other, and almost all observers note that the former is key to influencing the latter. This of course presents trade-offs and conundrums to U.S. policymakers, who need to ask themselves how they are to cope with the rise of China while enlisting Beijing in the effort to tame, if not bring down, the Kim dynasty. If this were not challenging enough, the United States has to simultaneously reassure (and perhaps restrain) allies who have deep conflicts with each other and important domestic divisions. This reminds us that while many of the ideas that analysts and policymakers bring to East Asia come from the Cold War, the struggle with the Soviet Union, for all of its dangers, had a certain simplicity that is absent in East Asia. The line dividing Europe was relatively clear; opportunities for provocations were limited; NATO, for all the rivers of ink spilled in describing its perennial crisis, was quite united; the clients of the Soviet Union had little autonomy, with Cuba being a troublesome exception; and after the mid-1970s, Soviet power declined relative to the West, although many observers were slow to detect this trend. The East Asian security complex is, well, complex. To start with,