The EconomistJanuary 30th 2021 BriefingNuclear proliferation 172
1gimes governing nuclear exports.
Great-power sabre rattling, a sense that
some countries get to bend the rules and a
reassessment of America’s role as a stead-
fast ally during the presidency of Donald
Trump may all have provoked interest in
proliferation. What is more, though the
bomb’s spread has slowed, it has never
stopped—and proliferation begets prolif-
eration, whatever speed it unrolls at. Iran’s
nuclear programme spooks Saudi Arabia.
North Korea’s arsenal casts a darkening
shadow over South Korea and Japan.They could if they wanted to
Despite a dalliance with the idea of follow-
ing China into the nuclear club in the
1960s, Japan is for obvious reasons general-
ly seen as making a case for nuclear cau-
tion. At the same time it is the only non-nu-
clear-armed state which operates major
facilities for enriching uranium and repro-
cessing plutonium from spent reactor fuel,
both potential routes to fissile material for
a bomb. And in 2017 North Korea tested
some of its nuclear-capable missiles by fly-
ing them over the archipelago to splash
down in the Pacific beyond.
Such experiences change perspectives.
Japanese conversations about nuclear
weapons were once “sotto voce” and con-
fined to a small cluster of “very conserva-
tive thinkers”, says Richard Samuels of
mit. Now, he writes in an article with his
colleague Eric Heginbotham, “What once
had been nearly taboo...has a conspicuous
presence in Japan’s security discourse.”
The idea is still deeply unpopular. Mark
Fitzpatrick, who used to oversee non-pro-
liferation policy at the State Department,
reckons that Japanese scientists would
only comply with an order to produce nuc-
lear weapons “in the event of a sharp dete-
rioration in Japan’s security situation”. But
his examples of such deteriorations are
hardly outlandish. “In the imaginings ofJapanese policymakers,” he says, “the most
likely scenarios would be if South Korea
goes nuclear or if the Koreas unify and keep
Pyongyang’s existing arsenal.”
South Korea lacks enrichment and re-
processing capabilities, and is thus rather
less well-placed than Japan to develop nuc-
lear weapons. But it is closer to North Ko-
rea, and more worried. “Politicians are try-
ing to normalise and remove the stigma of
discussing nuclear weapons in public dis-
course,” according to Toby Dalton of the
Carnegie Endowment, a think-tank, and
Ain Han of Seoul National University.
On a technical level, the country has
sought to acquire submarines powered by
nuclear reactors, the fuel for which is clos-
er to weapons-grade than that for power
stations. And on January 13th it announced
tests of a submarine-launched ballistic
missile. No other non-nuclear state has
ever seen a need for such a capability.
Polls show that a majority supports ei-
ther the development of nuclear weapons
or the return of the American ones sta-
tioned there during the cold war. But ex-
tending American deterrence is harder to-
day. For America to use nuclear weapons
on the Korean peninsula would always
have been a momentous decision, but in
the past it would not have put millions of
Americans on the frontline. Now that
North Korean missiles can apparently
reach North America, attacking Pyongyang
puts New York at risk. Strategic calcula-
tions are sensitive to such things, and both
South Korea and Japan know it.
Taiwan has similar worries; China’s in-
creased ability to strike half way round the
world could affect America’s willingness to
come to the island’s aid in extremis. But
though the country explored nuclear op-
tions as recently as 1988, the fact that, to-
day, such efforts would furnish a much
more powerful China with a pretext for
pre-emptive strikes and possibly invasionmakes rekindling them unappealing.
Mr Biden has not said how he plans to
address North Korea’s increasing nuclear
prowess and its impacts. He will be keen to
avoid doing anything which encourages
proliferation elsewhere. American prom-
ises, blandishments and threats have often
checked nuclear ambitions among its al-
lies. A real sense of what American and in-
ternational displeasure could mean eco-
nomically might well change what South
Koreans say about nuclear weapons.
But North Korea is not going to give up
its nuclear weapons. And any deal with
America which legitimised North Korea’s
arsenal in an effort to stop its growth would
increase South Korea’s incentive for at least
keeping the nuclear option available—a
posture known in the nuclear trade as
hedging. So would a resumption of North
Korean missile tests. Jeffrey Lewis and Da-
vid Schmerler of the Middlebury Institute
of International Studies (miis) in Califor-
nia recently published evidence that North
Korea was preparing to test a new long-
range submarine-launched missile.
The fear generated by North Korea’s
growing arsenal and the fact that Japan,
South Korea and Taiwan could all “produce
nuclear weapons in perhaps two years—or
less in Japan’s case”, according to Mr Fitz-
patrick, makes East Asia a hot spot. But it is
not the only one. George Perkovich of the
Carnegie Endowment divides potential
proliferators into two categories: those
with ample means but less ambition, and
those with greater ambition but fewer
means. The East Asians fall into the first
category; for the second, look to the Middle
East, where insecurity is more violently
manifest than in Asia and neither the fet-
ters of liberal democracy nor the pull of
alliances as strong.
According to a recent study by the Cen-
tre for Strategic and International Studies,
another think-tank, “Personalist authori-And so it growsNuclear
weapons
acquiredUnitedStatesand
USSR/Russiaarms
controlagreements60 70 80 90 2000 10 21
India North Korea
PakistanUSSR becomes: Russia;
Kazakhstan(until1995);
BelarusandUkraine(until 1996)South Africa
(until1991)United USSR Britain France China Israel
States20100SALTI
ABM
(ends2002)INF(ends2019)
STARTINew
STARTNewSTART
extended
to 2025SORTSTARTIISALTII302010030Pursuing nuclear-weapons capabilityExploring options around nuclear weaponsNumber of countriesIn possession of nuclear weapons1939 50Sources: “When did (and didn’t) states proliferate?”, by Philipp C. Bleek, Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs, 2017; UN Office for Disarmament AffairsNuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
60Number of parties
110 139 187 189 190