Why North Korea will never sell Nuclear Weapons to Terrorists

A lot has been said in the US amongst academics, the media and in government circles about the risk of North Korea selling Nuclear weapons to terrorists. North Korea is as yet not a threat to the global order, it is barely even a threat to the regional order, and even its capacious, but nonetheless nasty attacks with sadly tragic and unnecessary consequences do not amount to a threat even to the average South Korea, their property or their livelihood. Therefore China remains a mute in public about North Korean provocations and rather unseemly behaviour on the world stage. The likes of Andrei Lankov and Victor Cha, not to mention Brian Myers do a far better job of explaining the ins-and-outs of Chinese policy towards North Korea, so sufficit to say I will offer only the briefest of explanations.

China does not maintain North Korea's existence out of a fraternal sense of loyality and love for its Communist younger brother. The Chinese have made this abundantly clear to both the Americans and to their own people. Its pretty clear that China sees North Korea as a necessary evil. The alternative to North Korean existence is a refugee crisis, possible wars, and of course South Korean-led unification stemming from sudden, state collapse. South Korean-led unification is of course going to happen one day, but neither China nor South Koreans in general are particularly enthusistic about it for differing reasons. The Chinese don't want a pro-American state on their North-eastern border, and the South Koreans don't want to pay the painful costs of unification. But if Wikileaks has told us anything new, it is that China accepts unification's inevitability and is willing to co-operate with both South Korea and the United States. This is a very positive development. If Washington is receptive to the needs of the world's emerging dominant power in East-Asia (I remain sceptical as to whether China will ever become a super power but that's another blog entry) the situation could be very well resolved in the long run.

However even if such cordial soundings were not coming from Beijing there is every reason to believe that the doomsday scenarios dreamt up by the strongest of Hawks in Washington are baseless. I will explain why. But first I will mention some of the things North Korea has done which supposedly add weight to this doomsday scenario. North Korea has sold missiles and Nuclear technology to Iran (with the help of Beijing in the first case, according to the State Department). This of course is not welcome news for the Arab states of the Gulf, or Israel for that matter let alone the United States. Nonetheless this poses no real threat beyond the limiting of a first-strike capability which the United States used to possess over Iran. Contrary to popular-wisdom amongst hawks in general, the Iranian leadership are not suicidal death-cultists who control a state. They are rational, greedy mobsters who seek to silence dissent, in order to fascilitate the continued stealing of their country's oil wealth. They are as much a threat to the wellbeing of the United States as the Saudi Royal family. They just happen to make slightly more offensive noises about history, democracy, and Israel in public. They also sell weapons to our enermies. But they know that if they were to sell more than grenade launchers, I.E. if they were to sell nuclear devices, they would lose their lives and livelihoods. Russia, one of the most anti-American states in the world today would not tolerate such actions let alone the United States. If Iran started selling nuclear weapons to terrorists these weapons could very well get into the hands of Chechen separatists etc. in Russia. The results could be unimaginably horrible. Thus Iran is smart enough to only sell the expertise it has acquired from North Korea to other states. While Iran's president might be a bombastic, election cheating, holocaust denier, he is not so stupid as to destroy what he really wants. The Iranian leadership is very close to Kremlin and is not so stupid as to bite its allies. Concurrently, Russia would not allow a nuclear Iran to attack Israel, as this would threaten world peace. Russia recognises Iran's right to this nuclear deterrent so long as it remains a deterrant and not an aggressive weapon of war.

By the same token, although I am sure Kim Jong Il would welcome the revenue that could be acquired from selling nuclear devices on the open market to wealthy men who seek to fund suicide attacks, such a trade is impossible. North Korea's material survival is founded on aid from and trade with China. China would never allow North Korea to undertake such trades. I would go so far as to say that if China were to suspect that such trade was about to take place it would threaten regime overthrow with South Korean support. China has two very good reasons to prefer South Korean military invasion of the North over the sale of nuclear weapons to terrorists. First, China has its own terrorist problem; Al Qaeda may not be the nightmarish, all knowing, unbiquitous spider that Donald Rumsfeld wanted us to think it was before the Invasion of Iraq in 2003 but put it this way, if they got nuclear technology they might be able to spread it around. The consequences are both dire but not necessarily merely for previously attacked main-land America. China has its own militancy problem in Xinjiang. It is not widely discussed in the west, not so much because its not an issue but because the region itself is difficult to get into and the Chinese authorities don't want to draw attention to it. But they are far better appraised of the problem than I, and I would bet a lot of money that this would be a major reason why the threat of a sale of nuclear technology to terrorists would lead China to almost unbelievable counter-measures.

Second and much more obvious is that China is a resource importing country. It relies on the stability of the global supply lines of trade. If Nuclear technology were to get into the hands of terrorists the results are unpredictable, but I will guarantee you that the effect on global supply lines of natural resources would be devastating. An attack on a Gulf state, mainland America, Continental Europe, China itself etc. would result in a global economic panic. The consequences for China would be socially and politically far more dangerous than Korean unification. The cost of Korean unification would be securing the North-east border from refugee exodus, in addition to humanitarian and developmental aid. There would also have to be reassurances from the United States and an acceptance by the Chinese of America's ally on its border. But the collapse of Chinese growth would not be on the cards.

However, if a real nuclear terrorist attack were to take place in any of the five areas mentioned above the psychological shock to the global economy would be worse than Black Tuesday which precipitated (in part) the Great Depression. In fact I would bet that the attack itself's direct physical impact would be minimal even if it killed upwards of 500,000 people compared to its effect on the quality of life of the rest of mankind. The reasons for this are simple and yet probably not well understood by most. Markets respond to instability and economic fragulity about as well as my hand does to being put in a fire. Basically global trade would collapse overnight. All supply lines would close out of the fear of more attacks. With global trade at a standstill, credit lines, banks and even sovereign credit lines would cease to function. The result would be an international emergency the likes of which we have not experienced since the Black Death in the 14th Century. Law and Order would breakdown. This of course would be a negative development for everyone (even Kim Jong Il). But the Chinese authorities know only too well that their political legitimacy is premised on the continued rapid growth of their economy. Without that the fragile social order would collapse and the strong (but not strong enough) Chinese state would probably collapse with it.

The argument is therefore simple. North Korea selling nuclear weapons to terrorists threatens the existence of China, so therefore it will never happen.