EXTRAORDINARY VISITS

Abstract

North Korea has the bomb but not much of a nuclear arsenal. For fifty years, it pursued the plutonium path to the bomb in parallel with its pursuit of nuclear electricity. My visits to North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear complex provided a window to its plutonium capabilities. After having made six visits to North Korea, Pyongyang surprised me during my seventh visit last November by showing me a small, modern uranium enrichment plant, which I was told was needed for its new indigenous light water reactor program. However, the same capabilities can be used to produce highly enriched uranium bomb fuel. Following a pattern of having made poor risk-management decisions during much of the past twenty years of diplomacy dealing with the North Korean nuclear threat, Washington remains in a standoff with Pyongyang.

Keywords:

• North Korea
• United States
• nuclear weapons
• nuclear power
• diplomacy
• nuclear exports

Acknowledgements

The bulk of this viewpoint article is based on a presentation I gave at the conference on “The Power of Nonproliferation Education and Training,” held during the twentieth-anniversary celebration of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey, California, December 4, 2009. I have made updates to include my November 2010 visit to Yongbyon and other relevant details.

Notes

1. I have reviewed the fifty-plus year history of the North Korean program and how its technical capabilities were intertwined with political intent; see Siegfried S. Hecker, “Lessons Learned from the North Korean Nuclear Crises,” Daedalus 139 (Winter 2010), pp. 44–56.

2. Siegfried S. Hecker, “North Korea's Yongbyon Nuclear Complex: A Report by Siegfried S. Hecker,” Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, November 20, 2010,<cisac.stanford.edu/publications/north_koreas_yongbyon_nuclear_complex_a_report_by_siegfried_s_hecker/>.

3. The implications of the uranium enrichment program are described in greater detail in: Siegfried S. Hecker, “Redefining Denuclearization in North Korea,” Bulletin of the American Scientists, December 20, 2010,<thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/redefining-denuclearization-north-korea-0>; and Siegfried S. Hecker, “What I Found in North Korea and Why It Matters,” APS News 20 (March 2011), p. 8.

4. Siegfried S. Hecker and William Liou, “Dangerous Dealings: North Korea's Nuclear Capabilities and the Threat of Export to Iran,” Arms Control Today, March 2007, pp. 6–11, <www.armscontrol.org/act/2007_03/heckerliou>; and Siegfried S. Hecker, “From Pyongyang to Tehran, with Nukes,” Foreign Policy, The Argument blog, May 26, 2009, <experts.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/05/26/from_pyongyang_to_tehran>.