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\n Photo by Carlos Barria\/ POOL \/ AFP<\/p>\n
\n Photo by Carlos Barria\/ POOL \/ AFP<\/p>\n
On 23 March, three weeks into the US-Israel war with Iran, Kim Jong Un delivered what amounted to a victory speech at the Supreme People\u2019s Assembly in Pyongyang. The US was \u201ccommitting state terror and acts of aggression all over the world\u201d, the North Korean leader declared, with the rights of sovereign nations \u201ctrampled upon by unilateral coercion and tyranny\u201d. Yet his country was now protected by its \u201cnuclear shield\u201d, vindicating the regime\u2019s pursuit of nuclear weapons despite the sanctions and international isolation this had wrought. \u201cToday\u2019s reality clearly demonstrates the legitimacy of our nation\u2019s strategic choice and decision to reject the enemies\u2019 sweet talk and permanently secure our nuclear arsenal,\u201d Kim said. It was as close as he could get to saying I told you so.<\/p>\n
Since coming to power following the death of his father almost 15 years ago, Kim has prioritised developing nuclear weapons<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 and the missiles needed to deliver them \u2013 channelling the country\u2019s scant resources into a formidable weapons programme. North Korea is currently estimated to have 40-50 nuclear warheads, along with enough fissile material to build around 40 more. In recent weeks, Kim has shown off the country\u2019s other military capabilities, presiding over a vast military parade in Pyongyang alongside his daughter and potential successor Kim Ju Ae, who is thought to be around 13. Father and daughter stood together on the rostrum wearing matching black leather trench coats. They have also been pictured overseeing missile tests from a warship off the coast of North Korea, firing rifles at a weapons factory, and driving a tank during military exercises.<\/p>\n Unlike the Iranian leadership, which stopped short of developing nuclear weapons, Kim\u2019s relentless pursuit of the bomb appears to have delivered regime security alongside three high-profile meetings with a US president, a status that eluded his father and grandfather. The danger, warn non-proliferation experts, is that other American adversaries \u2013 and perhaps some allies too \u2013 compare the fates of Tehran and Pyongyang and conclude that Kim chose the more prudent approach.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the North Korean perspective, what\u2019s happening in Iran reflects their worldview,\u201d explained Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of The New Nuclear Age: At the Precipice of Armageddon. \u201cThis is a country that has been studying the American way of war very closely since 2003, when they watched the United States invade Iraq and attempt to kill Saddam Hussein at the start of that war. So, everything the North Koreans have done has been trying to buttress their security against threats to their regime.\u201d<\/p>\n Subscribe to the New Statesman today and save 75% <\/p>\n North Korea\u2019s diplomats have long listed the examples of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya as evidence of what happens to countries that do not have nuclear weapons in the 21st\u00a0century. Trump\u2019s then director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, acknowledged<\/a> in 2017 that Kim had watched \u201cwhat has happened around the world relative to nations that possess nuclear capabilities and the leverage they have\u201d. The unfortunate lesson was this: \u201cIf you had nukes, never give them up. If you don\u2019t have them, get them.\u201d The subsequent Russian invasion of Ukraine (which gave up its Soviet-era nuclear warheads in 1994) and now the Iran war have only strengthened that argument. The cumulative effect of the US-Israeli strikes on Iran last year and the current conflict \u201cwill increase interest globally in the possession of nuclear weapons,\u201d Panda told me. \u201cI hope the North Koreans don\u2019t become trend-setters in the 21st\u00a0century, but they are continuously being cited as the case that really stands apart from Iraq, Iran, Libya, and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n Another lesson that Tehran and others may draw from this war is the futility of engaging in diplomatic negotiations with the US. \u201cIran tried to negotiate twice with the United States, and during those negotiations they were bombed,\u201d said Kelsey Davenport, director for non-proliferation policy at the Arms Control Association. \u201cSo, what credible assurance can the US offer that negotiations will be respected? That credibility deficit is going to shape Iran\u2019s thinking and at some point it may conclude that it is paying a very high price for nuclear weapons it does not have, and that crossing the threshold [to weaponisation] would provide more security.\u201d<\/p>\n This does not mean that we should expect an immediate dash for nuclear weapons at the end of this war. But assuming that some iteration of the current Iranian regime survives, Davenport warned that the conflict would strengthen those elements that have long argued nuclear weapons would deter future attacks. \u201cAt the end of this war, Iran will still retain the knowledge to build a bomb, and they will likely have key materials and technologies, so the question is how much this conflict is going to influence Iran\u2019s political decision-making about nuclear weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps counterintuitively, given the extensive capabilities the US and Israel have already demonstrated during this war, Davenport argued it had also illustrated the limits of American conventional military power, which remains unable to target the most deeply buried Iranian facilities. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be surprised if we see Iran take some steps to reconstitute parts of its programs deeper underground,\u201d she said, \u201cin hardened and fortified facilities that the US cannot destroy from the air.\u201d<\/p>\n Panda, too, warned that the severity of the damage to Iran\u2019s conventional capabilities during this conflict could make the surviving leadership only more determined to pursue nuclear weapons. \u201cThree conditions are likely at the end of this conflict: some version of an Iranian revolutionary regime remains in charge, without a very robust conventional deterrence capability, and with 400 kilograms or so of highly enriched uranium and centrifuge components,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a perfect storm for a case of breakneck proliferation.\u201d Instead of putting a definitive end to Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions, he warned that this war could have precisely the opposite effect, by \u201ccreating, essentially, an Iranian North Korea\u201d.<\/p>\n Tehran\u2019s path to the bomb would still be complicated. While North Korea was developing its nuclear weapons it retained substantial conventional capabilities, which, thanks to the geography of the Korean Peninsula, enabled Pyongyang to threaten massive retaliation against the South Korean capital, Seoul, to deter potential attacks. The Iranian regime is unlikely to emerge from this war with a similar capacity, although it has demonstrated the ability, and willingness, to target shipping in the Strait of Hormuz<\/a> and leverage the global economic fallout.<\/p>\n Beyond Iran, Davenport sees another \u201cperfect storm\u201d for wider proliferation as countries around the world extract their own lessons from the war and the broader geopolitical context. \u201cAllies and adversaries no longer have confidence that the US is going to act in good faith, not only when it comes to negotiating non-proliferation agreements, but also when it comes to security guarantees, and extended nuclear deterrence commitments,\u201d she explained. Another factor is the growing division among the five recognised nuclear weapons states, China, France, Russia, the UK and the US. \u201cFor decades they were relatively united in prioritizing non-proliferation, but that unity has now almost completely shattered,\u201d she said, noting that both Iran and North Korea had already demonstrated \u201chow a state can exploit divisions between the major powers to mitigate the consequences of advancing toward the nuclear threshold\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cNuclear weapons are back at the centre of international security in a way that we haven\u2019t seen since the Cold War,\u201d Panda said. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing these dramatic changes in the nuclear order along multiple axes and there\u2019s just tremendous uncertainty about how the dust settles here.\u201d That uncertainty has been compounded by the fractious nature of US domestic politics and the volatility emanating from Washington. \u201cOur allies are smart people and if the US is the cornerstone of your country\u2019s national defence \u2013 you could be Estonia, you could be Japan, you could be Spain, any one of America\u2019s treaty allies \u2013 you can\u2019t look at what is happening in Washington and see a country that will be predictable going forward, so I think our allies are going to do a lot more to hedge against uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n That process is already happening in parts of Europe, where American allies have had to grapple with Trump\u2019s \u201cLiberation Day\u201d tariffs, his threats to seize Greenland, and his ongoing scepticism towards Nato and the European Union, alongside Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine. Poland\u2019s prime minister, Donald Tusk, announced on 2 March that his country had entered talks with France and other European allies on \u201cadvanced nuclear deterrence\u201d. As he explained<\/a>\u00a0the decision in a social media post, \u201cWe are arming up together with our friends so that our enemies will never dare to attack us.\u201d Germany plans<\/a>\u00a0to join French nuclear exercises later this year and has also embarked on talks on shared deterrence. Unlike the UK which relies<\/a>\u00a0on American support for the maintenance of its Trident missiles, France\u2019s nuclear arsenal is fully independent of the US.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if the United States elects an internationalist, pro-alliance, Democratic president in 2028, I don\u2019t think that fixes this,\u201d Panda said. \u201cWe don\u2019t go back to the world as it was in 2024, and we certainly don\u2019t go back to the world as it was in 2015, before Trump\u2019s first term. When it comes to the global nuclear order, there is no turning the clock back.\u201d<\/p>\n On this last point, at least, US allies and adversaries alike would presumably agree. Standing in front of Le T\u00e9m\u00e9raire, a new nuclear-powered submarine, at a naval base in Brittany earlier this month, the French president Emmanuel Macron declared<\/a> that the world had reached a \u201cgeopolitical tipping point fraught with risks\u201d. France would therefore adopt a new doctrine of \u201cforward deterrence\u201d, which would include building up the country\u2019s arsenal of nuclear warheads for the first time in decades. \u201cIn this dangerous and uncertain world,\u201d Macron said, \u201cyou have to be feared if you want to be free.\u201d<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/dl6pgk4f88hky.cloudfront.net\/2021\/09\/TNS_master_logo.svg\"){kind=logo}
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