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Danger and opportunity: Australia and the North Korea crisis
Dr Elsina Wainwright, Program Director - Strategy and International, Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
There are two points at which the great global security challenges of the day - terrorism, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation, and state failure - intersect most directly with Australia's long-term regional strategic interests. One is Indonesia, where the risk of extremist Islamic terrorism and the potential for political instability threaten our enduring interests in a peaceful, cohesive and cooperative neighbour. The other is North Korea.
North Korea is one of the poorest countries in the world. But it is also one of the most disruptive - since the fall of Saddam Hussein, perhaps the most disruptive - member of the international community. Its government is highly repressive, and its people are close to destitution. It maintains large armed forces, arrayed in a highly threatening posture against South Korean and American forces on its southern border. It has developed and deployed ballistic missiles which can target its neighbours, including Japan, and it has sold missiles to many countries of concern. It has large stocks of chemical weapons, and probably has some biological weapon capabilities as well. In the past it has conducted terrorist operations against South Korean targets. It allegedly produces and sells drugs on the international market. Worst of all, it claims to have nuclear weapons, and threatens to produce more.
A global problem
It is North Korea's nuclear weapons program that has created the acute policy challenge now facing the international community. A nuclear-armed North Korea is a cause for intense international concern for three reasons. First, because a successful North Korean nuclear program would encourage other proliferators. There is a risk that North Korea's WMD development - especially its nuclear weapons program - may inspire others to follow its example. North Korea is the first country to withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and its defection from the global non-proliferation regime may, if allowed to stand, encourage others to go the same way.
Second, because North Korea would most likely sell nuclear weapons, materials and technology to others, including terrorist groups. North Korea has already shown itself willing to sell missiles to other countries; they are indeed one of its only exports. There is good reason to fear that it would sell nuclear capabilities to the highest bidder as well.
And third, because North Korea could use or threaten to use its nuclear weapons against South Korea, Japan, or US forces based in the region. North Korea's regime is reckless, unpredictable and perhaps potentially unstable, and its internal policies are opaque. No one could be sure that it would not at some stage launch a nuclear attack.
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