North KoreaWhy nuclear deterrence could work on North Korea
The same logic that kept a nuclear war from breaking out between the United States and former Soviet Union is the best strategy to now pursue with North Korea, several scholars said last week at Stanford. The discussion revolved around whether North Korea will have the ability to strike the U.S. with nuclear warheads, and can the U.S. depend on a deterrence strategy like it did during the Cold War? Deterrence theory holds that nuclear weapons are intended to deter other states from attacking with their nuclear weapons, through the promise of retaliation and possibly mutually assured destruction.
The same logic that kept a nuclear war from breaking out between the United States and former Soviet Union is the best strategy to now pursue with North Korea, several scholars said last week at Stanford.
The panel, convened at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), included political scientist Scott D. Sagan of CISAC; political scientist Mira Rapp-Hooper of Yale University; and political scientist Vipin Narang of MIT. The moderator was James D. Fearon, a political scientist at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. The event was titled “Can the U.S. Deter a Nuclear North Korea” and held in the William J. Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall.
Nuclear decision-making
The discussion revolved around whether North Korea will have the ability to strike the U.S. with nuclear warheads, and can the U.S. depend on a deterrence strategy like it did during the Cold War?
Deterrence theory holds that nuclear weapons are intended to deter other states from attacking with their nuclear weapons, through the promise of retaliation and possibly mutually assured destruction.
Sagan, who recently wrote an essay in Foreign Affairs magazine on the North Korea nuclear crisis, said he has come to decide deterrence is the best approach to the issue.
“I am not one who gladly listens to the siren song of nuclear deterrence,” he said, noting that while he is a self-described dove on disarmament issues, he is more hawkish on allowing countries to obtain nuclear weapons, which deterrence implies. “I accept deterrence reluctantly.”
In North Korea, he said, no military alternatives exist to solve the problem. For example, even if a decapitation strike were successful – and several U.S. attempts have failed in the past with regard to Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi – there’s no way to know if North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has already given his generals the green light to unleash nuclear or powerful conventional attacks in the case of his demise.