The reason for this is that North Korea was a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, from which it unilaterally withdrew when it first tested a nuclear weapon in 2003. Allow North Korea to get away with it, the argument goes, and Iran — painfully corralled into a nuclear deal last year — will go the same way. Then, so will a host of other states.
This is true — but it is not the only truth. From the point of view of North Korea’s ruling élite, a hereditary despotism surrounded by richer, more powerful neighbours, the threat of internal uprising and external aggression is an everyday reality. Kim Jong-un has learned, too, that those regimes bribed into giving up their nuclear weapons do not fare well. Ukraine agreed to surrender its warheads in 1994, after receiving guarantees of territorial integrity from Russia, the United Kingdom and the US. These have proved worthless. Muammar Qaddafi, who surrendered his nuclear-weapons ambitions, ended up being murdered on a roadside in Libya.
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