At best, Washington and Seoul can hope for reduced missile and nuclear arsenals on the Korean Peninsula.

For more than 30 years, South Korea and the United States have struggled to devise a North Korea policy capable of bringing about denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula. In the 1990s, North Korea’s nuclear program was still limited enough that dismantlement did not look fanciful. Even later, agreements in 2005 and diplomacy in 2018 kept alive the possibility that the communist regime might eventually trade at least part of its nuclear program for security, political recognition, and economic benefits. That judgment was defensible when the outcome remained uncertain. It is much harder to defend today.

North Korea has continued producing plutonium and highly enriched uranium, improving its missiles and developing nuclear forces designed for use at different ranges. Plus, North Korea has enshrined nuclear weapons in its laws and state policy. Whatever one thinks of Pyongyang’s pompous claim that its nuclear status is “irreversible,” North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his acolytes plainly no longer describe the bomb as something they are holding temporarily until Washington offers the right price.

President Donald Trump recently let slip that North Korea has “57 very powerful nuclear weapons” without citing any specific evidence or explaining where the figure came from. Given how the persistent lack of reliable data on North Korea’s nuclear arsenal has long frustrated analysts and policymakers alike, the sudden appearance of such a precise number was striking. Wittingly or unwittingly, President Trump may be doing more than describing reality. Encouraged by the prospect of another summit with the young dictator of North Korea, President Trump may be helping to establish a new political reality in which North Korea’s status as a nuclear-armed state is simply taken for granted.

Denuclearization of North Korea should remain the long-term objective. Even if it remains inconceivable that the Trump administration would formally recognize North Korea as a legitimate nuclear-weapon state, insisting that the elimination of its entire arsenal must be the starting point of any meaningful negotiation has become self-defeating. It allows a desirable end state to block measures that could make the situation less dangerous now. Denuclearization, after all, is little more than a dead letter if we do not have the leverage to make it happen.

The first task should be to stop the accumulation of more nuclear material. The 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon, spent-fuel reprocessing, and uranium enrichment all matter because they feed the stockpile from which future weapons can be built. Even if a negotiation does not remove a single existing warhead, stopping the production of additional weapons-grade material would change the threat’s trajectory. Of course, no serious agreement can simply equate “freezing Yongbyon” with freezing the entire nuclear program, since the possibility of undeclared enrichment activity elsewhere has to be taken into account.

On top of this, nuclear testing certainly matters. From a technical standpoint, another nuclear test could help the Kim regime improve the reliability and design of its relatively crude warheads. A complete halt to the testing of nuclear-capable delivery systems would therefore have value even before the nuclear weapons are dismantled. This is where South Korean and American interests need careful handling.

It is only natural that Washington pay particular attention to intercontinental ballistic missiles, which could put American citizens into shock and awe. Limiting ICBM testing would be an obvious American priority.

South Korea, however, cannot judge a nuclear agreement mainly by what it does to ICBMs. The weapons most immediately relevant to Seoul are shorter-range systems that can be used on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea has developed systems such as the KN-23, KN-24 and KN-25 while placing greater emphasis on tactical nuclear capabilities. If a future Washington-Pyongyang agreement constrained missiles that threaten the United States but left the forces threatening South Korea free to expand, it could mark the beginning of the end of the more than 70-year-old alliance.

A halt in nuclear material production, nuclear testing, and missile testing would not solve the North Korean nuclear problem. Neither would limits on tactical systems or stronger barriers against proliferation. But they would keep important parts of the problem from becoming worse. And the halt could provide a starting point for something more ambitious.

We have lived with North Korea’s nuclear threats for almost 40 years. There is little reason to believe that its nuclear blackmail will simply fade away. Yet South Korea and the United States do not need to decide now whether denuclearization is ultimately achievable before taking the first step. Denuclearization is, to be sure, the final destination. For now, the more urgent task is to ensure that the arsenal South Korean President Lee Jae-myung and President Trump’s successors inherit is smaller than it otherwise would be. It is time to stop it from growing.

About the Author: Byong-chul Lee

Dr. Byong-chul Lee is an assistant professor at Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, South Korea. Before joining the IFES, Dr. Lee worked as an aide to the presidential senior secretary for foreign and national security affairs and served as a foreign and national security policy planning staff member at the presidential office of South Korea from 1993 to 1999. He also served as a special aide and policy planning secretary to the speaker of the National Assembly from 2015 to 2016. His commentary has appeared in The New York Times, The National Interest, 38North, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, YaleGlobal, Project Syndicate, The South China Morning Post, among other publications.

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