North Korea Continues to Test Obama’s World View

North Korea, in the form of an underground nuclear explosion today, presented another test to President Obama’s efforts to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and his dream of a world without nuclear weapons. Early reports indicate the test is North Korea’s most powerful to date using the smallest device so far. Under President Obama’s watch, North Korea:

• Sank a warship of ally South Korea, causing the murder of the 46 sailors aboard.
• Conducted three separate tests of a missile specifically directed at threatening the U.S. homeland (April 2009, April 2012, and December 2012). The April 2012 test was two months after the Obama Administration had offered North Korea massive amounts of food aid to do what it had already promised to do: not test long-range missile technology.
• Tested a nuclear weapon at least twice (May 2009 and February 2013).

Obama’s Nuclear Naivety

To bring about a world without nuclear weapons, President Obama argued the United States had to reduce its arsenal so Iran and North Korea would follow suit.

“It’s naïve for us to think ... we can grow our nuclear stockpiles ... and that in that environment we’re going to be able to pressure countries like Iran and North Korea not to pursue nuclear weapons themselves.” 
          - President Obama, 7/4/2009

To this end, he embarked on a nuclear arms treaty with Russia, which required only the United States to reduce its nuclear delivery vehicles. Now it is reported he will announce in the State of the Union Address this evening plans for further U.S. nuclear reductions—in tandem with Russia if possible, but unilateral if necessary.

The Obama Administration has further argued the United States must ratify the CTBT because that would “provide a disincentive for states to conduct [nuclear] tests.”

The United States has been reducing its nuclear weapons stockpile for 40 years. It has not conducted an explosive nuclear test since 1992 and has maintained this policy in a very public way, so as to exert moral leadership on the issue. North Korea and Iran must not have gotten the message that they should follow us in reducing our arsenal and not conducting nuclear tests.

Policy Prescriptions for Rogue Nuclear Regimes

North Korea’s nuclear test and Iran’s continued acceleration of its nuclear program counsel for certain policy views and prescriptions:

1. Accept the fact this North Korean regime is not going to be talked out of its nuclear weapons program.
2. Accept the fact there is absolutely zero empirical evidence U.S. nuclear behavior has any effect on the nuclear weapons programs of North Korea and Iran.
3. As President Obama contemplates unilateral U.S. reductions, accept the observation of the bipartisan Strategic Posture Commission that there is no reason to “believe that unilateral nuclear reductions by the United States would have any positive impact on countries like North Korea and Iran.”
4. As President Obama chases yet another arms control agreement with Russia, Congress must be vigilant in ensuring he does not promise Russia to limit our missile defense capabilities as part of that agreement. Recall he told the Russian President he would have “flexibility” to make further capitulations on missile defense “after my election.”
5. The Obama Administration must consider what additional sanctions it can impose on North Korea for this most recent violation, and Congress should provide any additional authority the President may need. In the April 2009 Prague speech in which he promised to rid the world of nuclear weapons, President Obama proclaimed: “rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something.” For those words to mean something, President Obama should heed the words of Senator Obama, who said in 2008: “If the North Koreans do not meet their obligations, we should move quickly to re-impose sanctions that have been waived, and consider new restrictions going forward.”
6. The provision of humanitarian assistance should forever be separated from North Korean promises to do what it already has an international obligation to do. In 2012, the Obama Administration sought to provide massive amounts of food aid in exchange for a North Korean promise to do what it is already obligated to do, which is not conduct tests of nuclear or long-range missile technologies. It has since violated those obligations numerous times.
7. Accept that Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will not prevent future North Korean tests.

The Obama Administration asks Senators to believe if the United States were to formalize its nuclear testing moratorium in the form of CTBT ratification, we would gain some kind of moral leadership we now lack. It has said there is no single step the United States could take “that would more effectively restore our moral leadership” on nonproliferation matters than ratification of the CTBT. The North Korean nuclear test is evidence suggesting quite the opposite. It strains credulity to believe North Korea conducted this nuclear test because the United States has not ratified the CTBT, or that ratification would have prevented the test.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests should finally disabuse the Obama Administration of its belief that North Korea can be negotiated out of its belligerent weapons programs. North Korea’s history is replete with commitments to halt long-range missile tests and nuclear activities, followed quickly by North Korean missile tests and re-started nuclear activities. President Obama has said there must be consequences for North Korea’s violations of its international agreements, and those words must be put into action.