North Korea’s claim that it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb last week continues to draw both skepticism and outrage from the international community. The Cipher Brief spoke with Gordon Chang, author of Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes on the World, about Pyongyang’s capabilities and motivations, and how the U.S. can effectively counter this threat.
The Cipher Brief: What are North Korea’s motives in detonating this bomb and announcing it to the public?
Gordon Chang: North Korea has to validate the designs of its weapons because it sells them. Its Iranian customers, not surprisingly, want to make sure the products work. Also, the North needs to develop a warhead for its KN-08 missile so that it will have a deterrent. So expect more tests—many more tests.
TCB: What is the significance of this test if in fact North Korea detonated a hydrogen bomb?
GC: The significance of a hydrogen weapon is that it kills more people and therefore is a better deterrent. Yet the North does not need an H-bomb to have a deterrent. Just one nuke will do the trick, and Pyongyang has many of them, perhaps as many as 20.
In any event, even a simple fission detonation is bad news, especially if North Korea used the opportunity to develop a miniaturized warhead, which they undoubtedly did.
TCB: What can the U.S. and other countries in the region do to counter the threat?
GC: To counter the threat of North Korean nukes, the U.S. needs a better missile-defense system, with interceptors on both sides of the Pacific.
Also, the United States needs to impose costs on Pyongyang. Washington should push the United Nations to impose more sanctions. More important, America needs to enforce the ones already in place. Moreover, the U.S. needs to get the South Koreans to stop supporting the North Korean economy through the Kaesong industrial park. And America should interdict North Korea’s shipments of weapons to Iran.
TCB: What role does China—who has the closest ties to North Korea and was not given advance notice of the test by the North Koreans—need to play in responding to the test?
GC: China needs to decide which side it is on. Chinese diplomats say things we want to hear, but the Chinese military has transferred mobile launchers that make North Korean nukes a real threat to us. There are in Beijing many different opinions on the Kim regime at the moment, which means there is no consensus to change long-held policy favoring the North.
By the way, it is not clear to me that Beijing did not have advance notice of the detonation.
TCB: Does North Korea have the capability to launch a bomb that would reach the U.S. mainland?
GC: North Korea’s KN-08 missile, in all probability, can reach the northern half of America’s West Coast. The longer-range Taepodong can go even farther than that.
TCB: South Korea is under the U.S.’s nuclear umbrella of protection. Should the North bomb South Korea, what would be the U.S.’s options for response?
GC: If North Korea bombed South Korea, the United States would be at war. Washington has a treaty obligation to defend the South, and any defense would mean a general conflict on the Korean peninsula.
