Apr 30, 2017 @ 10:44 AM
Why North Korea Cannot Have Nuclear Weapons, But Japan And South Korea Should
Anders Corr , Contributor
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
Nuclear weapons are one of those sovereign rights that should not be granted to autocratic leaders, or to immature or unstable democracies, for that matter.
Russia, China, Pakistan, and Iran are all lacking in qualities of democracy, human rights, environmental sustainability, and international law. Therefore they should not be trusted with nuclear weapons, which can do major damage to these core values.
On April 28, North Korea launched a new missile test that furthers its nuclear weapons program. When opposing this activity the U.S. has been called hypocritical. The U.S. has nuclear weapons, goes the argument, so why should the U.S. deny nuclear weapons to North Korea (or Iran for that matter), which are sovereign states and therefore have the right to self-defense? Or, how could anyone argue that Japan and South Korea should have nuclear weapons, but North Korea should not?
he reason for the distinction, which some might see as hypocrisy, is rarely discussed by diplomats publicly. But I believe the distinction underlies our strong opposition to North Korean nuclear weapons — North Korea is an autocracy that violates human rights and international law and therefore cannot be trusted with this most destructive of weapons. Were Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, or Ukraine to obtain nuclear weapons for their defense against China and Russia, which I think they should do, they would not experience sanctions or violent threats as do North Korea and Iran. They might get a slap on the diplomatic wrist, and nothing more. This is not hypocrisy, but rather based on the core values exhibited by contemporary democracies, and their legitimate authority stemming from 17th-century philosophies of democratic sovereignty.
Let us compare the extreme cases — North Korea versus the U.S., U.K, and France. The latter three countries are mature democracies that have shown strong support for core international values like democracy, human rights, environmental sustainability and international law. They are not perfect, to which U.S. waterboarding at Guantánamo prison, rollbacks of the Environmental Protection Agency, and mining of Nicaragua’s harbor in the 1980s attest. But they are generally much better on human rights, international law, and environmental sustainability than is North Korea.
Continued: https://www.forbes.com/sites/anderscorr/2017/04/30/why-north-korea-cannot-have-nuclear-weapons-but-japan-and-south-korea-should/
Japan: Go Nuclear Now
https://www.forbes.com/sites/anderscorr/2017/01/31/japan-go-nuclear-now/
Other articles posted here, made me think of these I read a few months ago, not that I necessarily share their views. An interesting contrast.
