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Once again, the post-cold war era is turning out to be more complicated than anyone expected as the West searches for ways to stop nuclear proliferation. There is no obvious answer, and the Western dithering that has accompanied the rape of Bosnia does not inspire confidence that the international community will come up with a strong plan of action soon. The U.S. is juggling competing objectives that undercut its own commitment to non-proliferation -- the desire to improve relations with China or to secure Syria's cooperation in the Mideast peace talks -- and so far, Washington has not figured out how to galvanize its main allies around a tougher antiproliferation policy.
North Korea is currently the gravest concern. Pyongyang signed the nonproliferation treaty in 1985 but grudgingly agreed only last year to allow inspectors to examine what it insisted was its purely civilian nuclear-power industry. When the monitors showed up, they confirmed intelligence reports that the installation at Yongbyon, north of the capital, had been processing plutonium at least since 1987.
No U.S. blandishments will keep Pyongyang honest -- even if it remains formally in the nonproliferation pact -- if its real intent is to free itself from international oversight while it pursues its nuclear dream. North Korea may have temporized to forestall U.N. economic sanctions that loomed if it became the first member to quit the treaty. But most observers are pessimistic that Kim will really cave in to political or economic pressure. "We're not dealing with rational people but with an unreconstructedly Stalinist regime," says a top British diplomat. "They don't believe in compromise but in maximum advantage."
Though the Security Council could authorize military means to disarm or punish Pyongyang, any attempt to use force would be extremely tricky. Bombing a functioning nuclear facility could produce an instant Chernobyl and, probably, retaliation. "We might try to take out their nuclear capability with a scalpel," says a Western analyst in Seoul, "but they would respond with a chain saw."
Doing nothing about the North Korean bomb is a bad option too. South Korea was well along in the development of nuclear weapons in the 1970s until the U.S. pressured Seoul to cancel its program. It could quickly and easily change course again. A nuclear arsenal in North Korea "could result in the dissemination of nuclear weapons throughout the region," says Christophe Carle, research fellow at the Institut Francais des Relations Internationales in Paris. "I can't imagine Japan and South Korea and Taiwan refraining from doing so short of extraordinary U.S. assurances." An East Asia in which six powers have nuclear arms would be perilously unstable.
China is not only a member of the nuclear club but also one of the world's leading proliferators of weapons of mass destruction. The Chinese have been selling ballistic missiles and nuclear equipment to all comers in the Third World. Its missile technology has gone to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran. CIA Director Woolsey has told Congress that China is getting new missile technology from Russia and Ukraine. This is ominous, he said, not only because the transfers improve China's military capabilities, but also because China could pass this more advanced technology to other states. So far, the U.S. has been unable to persuade China to curtail its sales.