Joschka Fischer Project Syndicate - October 9, 2006 will become a day to remember. North Korea probably exploded a nuclear bomb on that day. Was it a test that failed? The future may provide answers, but the political fallout is clear and the impact substantial.
First, international pressure, led by the US, China, Russia, and Japan was not enough to prevent North Korea from taking this fateful step. A terrible dictatorship, a regime without a future and a dwarf in terms of power-politics defied the international giants. There is now justifiable outrage, and a call for sanctions is heard everywhere.
But what will be the effect of sanctions against a regime whose goal is survival through self-isolation – a regime that will have no qualms in ruthlessly sacrificing its people? Also, can China really permit strong sanctions against its neighbor, a regime fighting for survival, one equipped with nuclear arms and missiles, and a humanitarian disaster of the highest order among its population? Just how credible and effective can sanctions be?
Second, the Security Council now looks like a paper tiger because its authority was successfully challenged by a worn-out regime. This fact will be noted everywhere, particularly in Teheran. If the boundaries between nuclear haves and have-nots becomes more permeable, or even dissolves altogether, the entire multilateral security system could be called into question. On October 9, the gate leading down this path was thrown open.
Third, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime, which was on the brink of toppling even before North Korea’s actions, is threatening to disintegrate. A number of small and mid-sized powers will now ask themselves a radically new question: if North Korea can be a nuclear power, why not us? If in these times of militarily-accomplished regime change real sovereignty can only be guaranteed by nuclear arms, why not go this route? A collapse of the non-proliferation regime will increase not only the risk of regional nuclear arms races, but also of a transfer of nuclear know-how and technology, increasing the risk of nuclear confrontation.
Fourth, the nuclear crisis triggered by North Korea demonstrates that the US – for the first time since the Cold War's end – is no longer the main player on the international scene and that its options are both limited and problematic. Following the hand-over from Clinton to Bush, the US gave up its strategy of engaging the North Korean regime to moderate its behavior and thus unnecessarily reduced its own options. China has now become the main player in the North Korean crisis, and in the region as a whole. This will have a serious impact across the Pacific and cause America to focus its strategic attention there. Europe might thus be called on to take up the slack in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, both sooner and on a much larger scale than Europeans suspect.
So what is to be done? There is no way around a strategy of engagement and containment with regard to North Korea or the crisis will escalate. The US will have to enter talks – direct and bilateral if necessary. Indeed, it looks like that is what will be needed. China, humiliated by Kim Jong Il, will for the first time have to assume leadership in the region and resolve, or at least contain, the crisis.
Looking to the future, the whole approach to nuclear non-proliferation must change. It is no use lamenting the real danger of nuclear proliferation, while in practice standing idle as the Non-Proliferation Treaty falls apart.
If the world is not one day to consist of a few big nuclear powers and many mid-sized and small ones, then the big nuclear powers must now undertake a serious disarmament and non-proliferation initiative. Part of this initiative must be to provide, as a corollary to new disarmament requirements and control mechanisms, the assurance of non-discriminatory access to nuclear know-how, research, and technology.
This will require an international institutional solution to the problem of enrichment, with participation in the enrichment process entailing new obligations, above all, the willingness to assure transparency through verification and intensive inspections. Moreover, only new strides towards disarmament by the big nuclear powers, and a guarantee of access to technology and know-how under international control, can stop the trend toward “nuclear sovereignty.”
Five years after President Bush called Iraq, Iran, and North Korea an “axis of evil,” developments in these countries remain depressing. Iraq is a disaster, and nothing indicates that the situation can be turned around. With each day, questions about the fallout for the region become more pressing. Civil war? Disintegration and thus the “Balkanization” of Iraq? Will it really be possible to limit the disaster to Iraq itself?
Now North Korea seems to have the Bomb. Iran is intensively working toward the same end, while continuing to expand its hegemonic position in the region. If to the “axis of evil,” we add Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Israel and the Palestinians, along with terrorism, the resulting picture is anything but hopeful. Should the US be tempted now, in response to the failure of its policy, to consider a military “option” against Iran, the nuclearization of the international system will not be arrested. Indeed, such a step will only push the Middle East into an explosive mega-conflict with unpredictable and uncontrollable consequences.

Joschka Fischer was Germany's Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor from 1998 to 2005. A leader in the Green Party for nearly 20 years, he is now a visiting professor at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School.

Copyright: Project Syndicate/Institute of Human Sciences, 2006.
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