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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
This essay examines the role that nuclear weapons have played in Northeast Asia in creating a system of inter-state relations based in part on nuclear threat and the impact of North Korea on that system. The US-led alliances that rest on extended nuclear deterrence have been characterized as hegemonic in the forty years of Cold War in the Gramscian sense of hegemonic, that is, allied elites accepted US leadership based on its legitimating ideology of extended nuclear deterrence, institutional integration, and unique American nuclear forces that underpinned the alliances. A crucial aspect of American nuclear hegemony in Asia was the guarantee that the hegemon would ensure that no adversary could break out of the system after China's 1964 successful nuclear test, as expressed by the Non Proliferation Treaty and IAEA safeguard system. The failure of the United States to stop and now reverse the DPRK nuclear over the previous two decades threatens its hegemonic leadership in Northeast Asia, and is linked to the decreasing ability of American power to shape events in other proliferation-prone regions such as South and West Asia.
1 This paper is a revised version of a presentation at the 5th Jeju Peace Forum, “Shaping new regional governance in East Asia: A vision for mutual benefit and common prosperity” August 13, 2009; further revised and presented at the Research workshop on Australia-Japan Civil Society Cooperation for Nuclear Disarmament Nautilus Institute at RMIT, RMIT University, Melbourne, 18-19 September 2009, supported by the Australia-Japan Foundation and RMIT University Foundation. I am grateful to Mark Selden, Mel Gurtov, and Richard Tanter for comments.
2 D. Puchala, “World Hegemony and the United Nations,” International Studies Review, 7, 4, December 2005, pp. 575-577 provides a short account of Gramscian hegemony; see also P. Hayes, “North Korean proliferation and the end of US nuclear hegemony,” in S. Lodgaard et al, edited, Nuclear Proliferation and International Security, Routledge, 2007, pp. 118-136; and “American Nuclear Hegemony in the Pacific,” Journal of Peace Research, volume 25, no 4, December, 1988, pp. 351-364. The term hegemony has many different usages in political science and the author uses it here strictly as defined above, and only in relation to “nuclear alliances” in East Asia. Thus, this essay does not claim that the DPRK nuclear breakout is the only nuclear breakout to affect American power negatively, or that there have not been many other failures of American power to achieve objectives since the end of World War II (“loss of China” 1947, stalemated Korean War, 1953; defeat in Vietnam, 1975, and so on to the setbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2009) for reasons unrelated to nuclear weapons and therefore, not accounted for by problems in American hegemony. The usage in this essay is modest in its scope and limited to its application to the East Asian postwar context.
3 See P. Hayes, et al, American Lake, Nuclear Peril in the Pacific, Viking/Penguin, 1987., online here.
4 See P. Hayes, Pacific Powderkeg, American Nuclear Dilemmas in Korea, Lexington Books, Lexington Massachusetts, 1990, at: also published by Hanul Press in Seoul, translated into Korean; English text found here.
5 Until the late sixties, USFK maintained a war plan to use military force to replace the South Korean government with a US appointed government should the South Korean government be threatened with overthrow from below.
6 P. Hayes, “The Stalker State: North Korean Proliferation and the End of American Nuclear Hegemony,” Nautilus Policy Forum Online 06-82A, October 4th, 2006, found here. My “stalker state” theory of DPRK nuclear weapons motivations contrasts with two others schools of thought as to what prompted the DPRK to develop nuclear weapons, viz, the “strategic state” theory that argues that the DPRK has always single-mindedly and shrewdly pursued nuclear weapons; and the “soprano state” theory which asserts that the DPRK is a narco-criminal syndicate aimed at accruing profits from rent extraction from the population and from trading in the shadow global economy. Each of these theories contains elements of truth, but I believe that only the stalker state theory is consistent with the decadal slow motion style and politically determined use of nuclear threat by the North Koreans. A good example of the soprano theory is David Asher (formerly Senior Advisor, East Asian and Pacific Affairs, US State Department in the Bush Administration) “The North Korean Criminal State, its Ties to Organized Crime, and the Possibility of WMD Proliferation,” Policy Forum Online 05-92A: November 15th, 2005, found here. The best proponent of the strategic theory is Nicholas Eberstadt; see, for example, “Kim Jong Il's Nuclear Ambitions,” Policy Forum Online 07-010A: February 6th, 2007, found here.
7 See R. Wampler, “North Korea and Nuclear Weapons: The Declassified U.S. Record,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 87, April 25, 2003, found here.
8 For the concept of nuclear next use, see P. Hayes, “Global Insecurity And Nuclear Next-Use,” NAPSNet Special Report, May 2004, here.
9 North Korean officials recently stated: “North Korea hopes “to find common ground “and “common stakes “with the U.S. in order to bring about a “long range accommodation. “The U.S. and the DPRK “share some strategic interests “including the prevention of any single nation from dominating the region. And the DPRK “may welcome “a U.S. presence in the region if it has good relations with the U.S.” As reported in D. Zagoria, “U.S.-DPRK Relations at a Crossroads: Danger of Drift,” Summary Record of a Conference Organized by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP) and The Korea Society, October 30, 2009, unpublished record.
10 See P. Hayes, “Embrace Tiger, Retreat To Mountain, Test Nuke,” Nautilus Policy Forum Online 06-60A, July 21st, 2006, found here; also published in Open Democracy as “Nuclear little brother: North Korea's next test” found here.
11 Nodong Sinmun Commentator's article, 25 June 09
12 M. Richardson, “N-clouds over a US umbrella,” August 5, 2009, found here.
13 J. Schoff, Realigning Priorities, the U.S.-Japan Alliance and the Future of Extended Deterrence, Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, March 2009, p. xiii, found here.
14 I. Reynolds, “U.S. wants to boost Japan nuclear umbrella: paper,” Thu Jul 16, 2009 10:55pm EDT, TOKYO (Reuters); “U.S., Japan to hold official talks on nuclear umbrella,” Kyodo News, Washington, July 7, 2009; “U.S. may maintain tactical nuke arms for attack submarines,” Kyodo News, Washington DC, July 30, 2009.
15 Lee J.H, “Calls for nuclear weapons in South Korea,” UPI, Oct. 21, 2009, found here.
16 See, for example, J. Nye, “Obama's nuclear agenda,” Daily Times, October 13, 2009, found here.
17 The DPRK imposes a vastly greater cost on the United States than it incurs–on the order of 3 billion $/year or greater for the United States calculated as a roughly 10 percent increased cost of sustaining US forces in Korea and region at a state of higher readiness in response to the DPRK's nuclear threat, versus perhaps 0.3 billion $/year for the DPRK's nuclear weapons program–a ratio of 10:1–although this cost is relatively higher for the DPRK than the United States.
18 P. Morgan, “Considerations Bearing on a Possible Retraction of The American Nuclear Umbrella Over the ROK,” communication, June 21, 2009.
19 T. Suto and H. Tosaki, “Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: A Japanese Perspective,” in G. Perkovich and J. Action, Abolishing Nuclear Weapons, A Debate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2009, p 214, found here.
20 G.Perkovich, Extended Deterrence On The Way To A Nuclear-Free World, International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament Research Paper, May 2009, found here.
21 Choe S.H and D. Sanger, “North Korea Reveals Second Path to Nuclear Bomb,” New York Times, September 5, 2009, found here.
22 Nodong Sinmun Commentator's article–25 June 09.
23 As proposed by T. Suzuki et al, “A Proposal on Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Policy from Japan : 10 Recommendations Based on “Asian Mutually Assured Dependence (A-MAD) “Concept,” presentation at Stanford, Washington DC, Stockholm and Beijing, September 13-23, 2009, Japan Cooperative Security Initiative, found here.
24 This dilemma—the emergence of overwhelming US-ROK counter-attrition capacity over DPRK conventional forces targeting Seoul and combined forces which could create crisis via increasing DPRK propensity to use their forces first rather than lose them–is explained by A. Long, From Cold War to long war: lessons from six decades of Rand deterrence research, Rand Corporation, 2008, found here, pp. 77-80; J. Matsumura et al, Assessment of Crusader: The Army's Next Self-Propelled Howitzer and Resupply Vehicle, RAND Corporation, MR-930-A, 1998, provide detailed analysis of technical difficulties faced by US-ROK forces in overcoming multiple rocket launchers attacking northern Seoul; pp. 22-26, found here.
25 B. Blechman, “Extended Deterrence: Cutting Edge of the Debate on Nuclear Policy,” May 28, 2009, found here.
26 J. Pomfret and B. Hardin, “U.S. Struggles To Keep Step With Japan's Shifting Foreign Policy,” Washington Post, December 5, 2009, Pg. 8.
27 A good summary of these pledges is found in J. du Preez, “Security Assurances Against the Use or Threat of Use of Nuclear Weapons: Is Progress Possible at the NPT Prepcom?” Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey, April 24, 2003, found here.
28 “In order for North Korea to denuclearize, the North Koreans said, there is a need for a permanent peace regime on the Korean peninsula to replace the present armistice agreement, not just oral security assurances. The present arrangement is simply a cease-fire. This cease-fire needs to be transformed into a permanent peace regime. “Until we get (such a permanent peace regime) we are not free to give up nuclear weapons.' “In Zagoria, op cit.
29 See W. Overholt, Asia, America, and the Transformation of Geopolitics, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2008, for a good description of this process and its outcome with regard to US relations with China.
30 For Chinese perspective on these issues, see Major General Pan Zhenqiang (ret), Nuclear Weapons in a Changing Security Environment in North East Asia, Background Paper for the ICNND, Deputy Chairman, China Foundation for International Studies Beijing, May 12, 2009, found here.
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