Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T10:28:43.695Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

North Korea's Quest for Nuclear Weapons: New Historical Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2016

Walter C. Clemens Jr.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Soviet and East European documents provide significant revelations about the interactions of North Korea and its allies. First, they show Pyongyang's longstanding interest in obtaining nuclear technology and probably nuclear weapons. Second, they reveal that North Korea's leadership consistently evaded commitments to allies on nuclear matters—particularly constraints on its nuclear ambitions or even the provision of information. Third, North Korea's words and deeds evoked substantial concerns in Moscow and other communist capitals that Pyongyang, if it obtained nuclear weapons, might use them to blackmail its partners or risk provoking a nuclear war. When aid from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was not forthcoming, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea sought to bypass Moscow and obtain assistance from the Kremlin's East European clients and, when that proved fruitless, from Pakistan. The absence of international support reinforced the logic of self-reliance and “military first,” pushing North Korea to pursue an independent line with respect to its nuclear weapons. These patterns cannot be extrapolated in a linear way, but they surely suggest reasons for caution by those hoping to engage North Korea in a grand bargain.

Keywords

North Koreanuclear technologyweaponsUSSREastern EuropeChinadiplomacy
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of East Asian Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , April 2010 , pp. 127 - 154
Copyright
Copyright © East Asia Institute 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bernstein, Jeremy. 2007. Plutonium: A History of the World's Most Dangerous Element. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Jeremy. 2008. Nuclear Weapons: What You Need to Know. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Jeremy. 2009. “What A. Q. Khan Really Did.” New York Review of Books 56, 9 (May 28): 46.Google Scholar
Clemens, Walter C. Jr. 1968. The Arms Race and Sino-Soviet Relations. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution.Google Scholar
Clemens, Walter C. Jr. 2008. “North Korea and the World: A Bibliography of Books and URLs in English, 1997–2007.” Journal of East Asian Studies 8, 2: 293–325.Google Scholar
Hecker, Siegfried S. 2006. “Report on the North Korean Nuclear Program,” Stanford University Center for Security and International Cooperation (November 15), at http://iis-db.stanford.edu/pubs/21266/DPRK-report-Hecker-06-1.pdf (accessed May 16, 2009).Google Scholar
Lankov, A. 2004. “The Troubled Russia-North Korea Alliance.” Asia Times Online (December 25), at www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/FL25Dg01.html (accessed April 29, 2009).Google Scholar
Mazarr, Michael J. 1996. North Korea and the Bomb: A Case Study in Non-proliferation. New York: St. Martin's.Google Scholar
Rongzhen, Nie. 1983. Nie Rongzhen hui yi lu , 2nd ed., 3 vols. Beijing: Zhan shi chu ban she.Google Scholar
Oberdorfer, Don. 1997. The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Potter, William C., Miljanic, Djuro, and Slavs, Ivo. 2000. “Tito's Nuclear Legacy.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 56, 2 (March–April): 63–70.Google Scholar
Reed, Thomas C., and Stillman, Danny B.. 2009. The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and Its Proliferation. Minneapolis, MN: Zenith.Google Scholar
Richelson, Jeffrey T. 2006. Spying on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to Iran and North Korea. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Joo, Seung-Ho. 2009. “Moscow-Pyongyang Relations Under Kim Jong-il: High Hopes and Sober Reality.” Pacific Focus 24, 1 (April): 107–130.Google Scholar
Zhihua, Shen. 2008. “Alliance of ‘Tooth and Lips’ or Marriage of Convenience? The Origins and Development of the Sino-North Korean Alliance, 1946–1958.” Working Paper Series , WP-08-09. Washington, DC: US-Korea Institute at SAIS.Google Scholar
Solingen, Etel. 2007. Nuclear Logics: Contending Paths in East Asia and the Middle East. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Stalin, J. V. 1950. “Letter [top secret] from Filipov [Stalin] to Soviet Ambassador in Prague, conveying message to CSSR leader Klement Gottwald, August 27, 1950.” Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI), fond 558, opis 11, delo 62, listy 71–72. Published in Andrei Ledovskii, “Stalin, Mao Tsedunh I Koreiskaia Voina 1950–1953 godov,” Novaia I Noveishaia Istoriia 5 (September–October 2005): 79–113. Translated for North Korea International Documentation Project by Gary Goldberg. www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=va2.document&identifier=E4474099-B4AD-4067-B4A88B9C7643B3BE&sort=Collection&item=The%20Korean%20War.Google Scholar
Szalontai, Balazs, and Radchenko, Sergey. 2006. “North Korea's Efforts to Acquire Nuclear Technology and Nuclear Weapons: Evidence from Russian and Hungarian Archives.” CWIHP Working Paper No. 53, www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/WP53_web_final.pdf, accessed 3/26/09.Google Scholar
Wampler, Robert A., ed. 2003. North Korea and Nuclear Weapons: The Declassified U.S. Record. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 87 , at www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB87/#docs (accessed January 2, 2009).Google Scholar
Weathersby, Kathryn. 2008. “Dependence and Mistrust: North Korea's Relations with Moscow and the Evolution of Juche.” Working Paper Series , WP-08-08. Washington, DC: US-Korea Institute at SAIS.Google Scholar
Wit, Joel S., Poneman, Daniel B., and Gallucci, Robert L.. 2004. Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. 2008. “Korea, DPRK, Nuclear Program,” Cold War International Documentation Project, Virtual Archive 2.0, at www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=va2.browse&sort=Subject&item=Korea%2C%20DPRK%2C%20Nuclear%20Program (accessed March 28, 2009).Google Scholar