North Korea's declared nuclear bomb test program will increase the incentives for other nations to go nuclear, will endanger security in the region and could ultimately result in nuclear terrorism. While this test is the culmination of North Korea's long-held aspiration to become a nuclear power, it also demonstrates the total failure of the Bush administration's policy toward that country. For almost six years this policy has been a strange combination of harsh rhetoric and inaction.

President Bush, early in his first term, dubbed North Korea a member of the "axis of evil" and made disparaging remarks about Kim Jong Il. He said he would not tolerate a North Korean nuclear weapons program, but he set no bounds on North Korean actions.

The most important such limit would have been on reprocessing spent fuel from North Korea's reactor to make plutonium. The Clinton administration declared in 1994 that if North Korea reprocessed, it would be crossing a "red line," and it threatened military action if that line was crossed. The North Koreans responded to that pressure and began negotiations that led to the Agreed Framework. The Agreed Framework did not end North Korea's aspirations for nuclear weapons, but it did result in a major delay. For more than eight years, under the Agreed Framework, the spent fuel was kept in a storage pond under international supervision.

Then in 2002, the Bush administration discovered the existence of a covert program in uranium, evidently an attempt to evade the Agreed Framework. This program, while potentially serious, would have led to a bomb at a very slow rate, compared with the more mature plutonium program. Nevertheless, the administration unwisely stopped compliance with the Agreed Framework. In response the North Koreans sent the inspectors home and announced their intention to reprocess. The administration deplored the action but set no "red line." North Korea made the plutonium.

The administration also said early this summer that a North Korean test of long-range missiles was unacceptable. North Korea conducted a multiple-launch test of missiles on July 4. Most recently, the administration said a North Korean test of a nuclear bomb would be unacceptable. A week later North Korea conducted its first test.

It appears that the administration is deeply divided on how to deal with North Korea, with some favoring negotiation and others economic and political pressure to force a regime change. As a result, while the administration was willing to send a representative to the six-party talks organized by the Chinese in 2003, it had no apparent strategy for dealing with North Korea there or for providing leadership to the other parties. In the meantime, it increased economic pressure on Pyongyang. Certainly an argument can be made for such pressure, but it would be naive to think it could succeed without the support of the Chinese and South Korean governments, neither of which backs such action. North Korea, sensing the administration's paralysis, has moved ahead with an aggressive and dangerous nuclear program.

So what can be done now that might have a constructive influence on North Korea's behavior? The attractive alternatives are behind us. There should and will be a U.N. resolution condemning the test. The United Nations may respond to calls from the United States and Japan for strong sanctions to isolate North Korea and cut off trade with it. But North Korea is already the most isolated nation in the world, and its government uses this isolation to its advantage. Stronger sanctions on materials that might be of use to the nuclear program are reasonable, but the horse is already out of the barn. Economic sanctions to squeeze North Korea would increase the suffering of its people but would have little effect on the elite. In any event, they would be effective only if China and South Korea fully participated, and they have shown no inclination to do so.

There will be calls to accelerate our national missile defense program. But the greatest danger to the United States from this program is not that North Korea would be willing to commit suicide by firing a missile at the United States, even if it did develop one of sufficient range. Rather, it is the possibility that the North Koreans will sell one of the bombs or some of their plutonium to a terrorist group. The president has warned North Korea not to transfer any materials from its nuclear program. But the warnings we have sent to North Korea these past six years have gone unheeded and its acts unpunished. It is not clear that this latest one will have any greater effect. If a warning is to have a chance of influencing North Korea's behavior it has to be much more specific. It would have to promise retaliation against North Korea if a terrorist detonated a nuclear bomb in one of our cities. It must be backed by a meaningful forensics program that can identify the source of a nuclear bomb.

This test will certainly send an undesirable message to Iran, and that damage has already been done. But it is important to try to keep this action from precipitating a nuclear arms race in the Asia-Pacific region. Both Japan and South Korea have the capability to move quickly to full nuclear-weapon status but have not done so because they have had confidence in our nuclear umbrella. They may now reevaluate their decision. We should consult closely with Japan and South Korea to reassure them that they are still under our umbrella and that we have the will and the capability to regard an attack on them as an attack on the United States. This may be necessary to discourage them from moving forward with nuclear deterrence of their own.

Our government's inattention has allowed North Korea to establish a new and dangerous threat to the Asia-Pacific region. It is probably too late to reverse that damage, but serious attention to this problem can still limit the extent of the damage.

The writer was secretary of defense from 1994 to 1997.

Copyright 2006, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive and The Washington

Post. All rights Reserved.

North Korea is poised to flight test a ballistic missile that may have intercontinental range -- an action the Bush administration declares would be provocative. Others have called for sanctions if the flight test occurs, the use of U.S. ballistic-missile defenses to intercept the missile in flight or a pre-emptive attack against the missile-launch site. But is this missile test a red line that, if crossed, seriously threatens U.S. security and, hence, warrants strong action? The simple answer is "No."

In thinking about this test, one must not lose sight of two paramount goals: rolling back North Korea's nuclear weapons program and the eventual peaceful reunification of North and South Korea. Ballistic missiles constitute a serious threat to the U.S. homeland only when armed with nuclear warheads and they are only one delivery means for such weapons. In this sense, ballistic missiles are of secondary concern. By most estimates, North Korea has sufficient nuclear material for a few nuclear explosive devices, but whether they can design a nuclear weapon that satisfies the size, weight and delivery constraints associated with intercontinental-range ballistic missiles is far from obvious.

If North Korea tests a three-stage version of the Taepodong-2 missile, it will likely attempt to put a satellite into orbit, just as it did in 1998 when it failed to place a satellite into orbit with the smaller Taepodong-1 missile. North Korea has a sovereign right to launch satellites, or to test ballistic missiles for that matter. International protocol requires launch notification and restrictions on air and marine traffic for reasons of range safety -- steps North Korea failed to take in 1998 -- but no international agreement bars this test. True, North Korea agreed to a unilateral moratorium on ballistic missile flight tests in 1999, pending further talks with the United States regarding North Korea's missile program, but the Bush administration refused to join these talks. North Korea leader Kim Jong Il reaffirmed this flight test moratorium in the 2002 Pyongyang Declaration signed with Japan, but this document is not a legally binding commitment.

If successful, this flight test would demonstrate that North Korea can produce rockets large enough to carry payloads intercontinental distances. However, this does not translate into an immediate threat because North Korea has not demonstrated that it can build a nuclear warhead that is small enough to fit on top of a Taepodong-2 missile and that can survive re-entry into the atmosphere after flying intercontinental distances.

Given vastly superior U.S. conventional and nuclear forces, deterrence should dissuade North Korea from ever using such missiles, except for saber rattling, or worse selling nuclear weapons or nuclear material abroad (this is a serious red line). Kim Jong Il may be a ruthless totalitarian leader, with little regard for the welfare of his people, but he is not suicidal.

More important, these missiles would be highly vulnerable to pre-emptive attack in the midst of a crisis, which is when pre-emption makes sense, because these missiles are large and easy to detect, they are not mobile, and they take many hours, if not days, to erect in a vertical position and fuel -- precisely the activity that generated this concern.

On the other hand, U.S. sanctions against North Korea in the wake of a test flight could backfire. They would likely cause rifts with other friendly parties to the Six Party talks aimed at eliminating North Korea's nuclear weapons, especially China. U.S. national missile defenses may not be within range, depending on the flight trajectory, to intercept this flight test. If this unproven U.S. missile defense were to fail and North Korea's flight test succeed, the Bush administration would be embarrassed, and Kim Jong Il triumphant. And, pre-emptive attack against the test facility would be a unilateral act of war at a time when U.S. unilateralism has hurt more than helped U.S. vital interests. South Korea would adamantly oppose such adventurism because Seoul is vulnerable to retribution, being within artillery range of the Demilitarized Zone.

So, what should the United States do on the eve of this flight test? Nothing, beyond expressing its dismay that North Korea appears to favor conflict over cooperation.

A Taepodong-2 flight test allows the United States to learn more about this missile than North Korea, given the concentration of technical intelligence assets in the area, which would help resolve the question of whether this missile, in fact, constitutes a serious threat to the U.S. homeland. In addition, such a test would isolate North Korea further and reinvigorate the Six Party Talks by encouraging South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States to overcome their differences and create a united front to persuade North Korea to renounce its nuclear weapon program, which is the real threat.

Stepping back, U.S. leaders should see that North Korea is a mouse and the United States the elephant. Contrary to popular mythology, elephants are not, and should not be, afraid of mice.

North Korean technicians are reportedly in the final stages of fueling a long-range ballistic missile that some experts estimate can deliver a deadly payload to the United States. The last time North Korea tested such a missile, in 1998, it sent a shock wave around the world, but especially to the United States and Japan, both of which North Korea regards as archenemies. They recognized immediately that a missile of this type makes no sense as a weapon unless it is intended for delivery of a nuclear warhead.

A year later North Korea agreed to a moratorium on further launches, which it upheld -- until now. But there is a critical difference between now and 1998. Today North Korea openly boasts of its nuclear deterrent, has obtained six to eight bombs' worth of plutonium since 2003 and is plunging ahead to make more in its Yongbyon reactor. The six-party talks aimed at containing North Korea's weapons of mass destruction have collapsed.

Should the United States allow a country openly hostile to it and armed with nuclear weapons to perfect an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear weapons to U.S. soil? We believe not. The Bush administration has unwisely ballyhooed the doctrine of "preemption," which all previous presidents have sustained as an option rather than a dogma. It has applied the doctrine to Iraq, where the intelligence pointed to a threat from weapons of mass destruction that was much smaller than the risk North Korea poses. (The actual threat from Saddam Hussein was, we now know, even smaller than believed at the time of the invasion.) But intervening before mortal threats to U.S. security can develop is surely a prudent policy.

Therefore, if North Korea persists in its launch preparations, the United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy the North Korean Taepodong missile before it can be launched. This could be accomplished, for example, by a cruise missile launched from a submarine carrying a high-explosive warhead. The blast would be similar to the one that killed terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. But the effect on the Taepodong would be devastating. The multi-story, thin-skinned missile filled with high-energy fuel is itself explosive -- the U.S. airstrike would puncture the missile and probably cause it to explode. The carefully engineered test bed for North Korea's nascent nuclear missile force would be destroyed, and its attempt to retrogress to Cold War threats thwarted. There would be no damage to North Korea outside the immediate vicinity of the missile gantry.

The U.S. military has announced that it has placed some of the new missile defense interceptors deployed in Alaska and California on alert. In theory, the antiballistic missile system might succeed in smashing into the Taepodong payload as it hurtled through space after the missile booster burned out. But waiting until North Korea's ICBM is launched to interdict it is risky. First, by the time the payload was intercepted, North Korean engineers would already have obtained much of the precious flight test data they are seeking, which they could use to make a whole arsenal of missiles, hiding and protecting them from more U.S. strikes in the maze of tunnels they have dug throughout their mountainous country. Second, the U.S. defensive interceptor could reach the target only if it was flying on a test trajectory that took it into the range of the U.S. defense. Third, the U.S. system is unproven against North Korean missiles and has had an uneven record in its flight tests. A failed attempt at interception could undermine whatever deterrent value our missile defense may have.

We should not conceal our determination to strike the Taepodong if North Korea refuses to drain the fuel out and take it back to the warehouse. When they learn of it, our South Korean allies will surely not support this ultimatum -- indeed they will vigorously oppose it. The United States should accordingly make clear to the North that the South will play no role in the attack, which can be carried out entirely with U.S. forces and without use of South Korean territory. South Korea has worked hard to counter North Korea's 50-year menacing of its own country, through both military defense and negotiations, and the United States has stood with the South throughout. South Koreans should understand that U.S. territory is now also being threatened, and we must respond. Japan is likely to welcome the action but will also not lend open support or assistance. China and Russia will be shocked that North Korea's recklessness and the failure of the six-party talks have brought things to such a pass, but they will not defend North Korea.

In addition to warning our allies and partners of our determination to take out the Taepodong before it can be launched, we should warn the North Koreans. There is nothing they could do with such warning to defend the bulky, vulnerable missile on its launch pad, but they could evacuate personnel who might otherwise be harmed. The United States should emphasize that the strike, if mounted, would not be an attack on the entire country, or even its military, but only on the missile that North Korea pledged not to launch -- one designed to carry nuclear weapons. We should sharply warn North Korea against further escalation.

North Korea could respond to U.S. resolve by taking the drastic step of threatening all-out war on the Korean Peninsula. But it is unlikely to act on that threat. Why attack South Korea, which has been working to improve North-South relations (sometimes at odds with the United States) and which was openly opposing the U.S. action? An invasion of South Korea would bring about the certain end of Kim Jong Il's regime within a few bloody weeks of war, as surely he knows. Though war is unlikely, it would be prudent for the United States to enhance deterrence by introducing U.S. air and naval forces into the region at the same time it made its threat to strike the Taepodong. If North Korea opted for such a suicidal course, these extra forces would make its defeat swifter and less costly in lives -- American, South Korean and North Korean.

This is a hard measure for President Bush to take. It undoubtedly carries risk. But the risk of continuing inaction in the face of North Korea's race to threaten this country would be greater. Creative diplomacy might have avoided the need to choose between these two unattractive alternatives. Indeed, in earlier years the two of us were directly involved in negotiations with North Korea, coupled with military planning, to prevent just such an outcome. We believe diplomacy might have precluded the current situation. But diplomacy has failed, and we cannot sit by and let this deadly threat mature. A successful Taepodong launch, unopposed by the United States, its intended victim, would only embolden North Korea even further. The result would be more nuclear warheads atop more and more missiles.

Ashton B. Carter was assistant secretary of defense under President Bill Clinton and William J. Perry was secretary of defense. The writers, who conducted the North Korea policy review while in government, are now professors at Harvard and Stanford, respectively.

North Korea's nuclear facility at Yongbyon, which had been "frozen" under international inspection since 1994, was reactivated this January for the production of plutonium. Just last week the North Koreans announced that they intended to use the resulting plutonium to make nuclear weapons, which only confirmed what we always believed.

If it keeps on its present course, North Korea will probably have six to eight nuclear weapons by the end of the year, will possibly have conducted a nuclear test and may have begun deployment of some of these weapons, targeted against Japan and South Korea. By next year, it could be in serial production of nuclear weapons, building perhaps five to 10 per year.

This is a nightmare scenario, but it is a reasonable extrapolation from what we know and from what the North Koreans have announced. The administration to this point has refused to negotiate with North Korea, instead calling on the countries in the region to deal with the problem. The strategy underlying this approach is not clear, but the consequences are all too clear. It has allowed the North in the past six months to move from canned fuel rods to plutonium and, in a few more months, to nuclear weapons. And the consequences could extend well beyond the region. Given North Korea's desperate economic condition, we should expect it to sell some of the products of its nuclear program, just as it did with its missile program. If that happens, a nuclear bomb could end up in an American city. The administration has suggested that it would interdict such transfers. But a nuclear bomb can be made with a sphere of plutonium the size of a soccer ball. It is wishful thinking to believe we could prevent a package that size from being smuggled out of North Korea.

How did we get into this mess?

For several decades North Korea has aspired to have nuclear weapons. During that period successive administrations have, through a combination of threats and inducements, curtailed their program but never their aspirations. In the late 1980s the first Bush administration saw the potential danger and persuaded the Soviet Union to pressure North Korea to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and subject its nuclear facilities to international inspection. The North Koreans complied, but they stalled long enough to give them time to make and store enough plutonium for one or two nuclear bombs before the inspectors arrived.

Shortly after the Clinton administration took office, they tried again. As spent fuel was being taken from the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, the North Koreans ejected the inspectors and began preparations for reprocessing. This would have given them enough plutonium for five or six additional nuclear bombs. President Clinton considered this sufficiently dangerous that he declared reprocessing a "red line." In response, I had the Joint Chiefs prepare a plan to use military force if necessary to prevent this outcome. When Kim Il Sung offered to negotiate the issue, Clinton responded that he would negotiate only if the North Koreans froze all activity at Yongbyon during the negotiation. In the end, military force was not necessary. The agreement that ended this crisis was far from perfect, but in its absence North Korea could today have 50 to 100 nuclear weapons.

But the North Koreans never gave up their desire for nuclear weapons. Even as they complied with the freeze at Yongbyon, they covertly started a second nuclear program at a different location. American intelligence discovered signs of this program and last fall confronted the North Koreans, who did not dispute the charge. The administration responded by stopping fuel oil deliveries called for under the old agreement, to which the North Koreans responded by reopening Yongbyon and racing to get nuclear weapons.

There are three basic approaches for dealing with this dangerous situation. The administration can continue to refuse to negotiate, "outsourcing" this problem to the concerned regional powers. This approach appears to be based on the hope that the regional powers will be able to prevail on North Korea to stop its nuclear program. But hope is not a strategy. If their hopes are not realized and North Korea continues on its present course, it will soon have a significant nuclear arsenal. And while the regional powers could play a role in resolving this crisis, they are unlikely to succeed in the absence of a clear American negotiating strategy in which they can participate.

A second alternative is to put economic pressure on North Korea and hope for "regime change." Or the United States could take military action to bring this change about. But while the regime may one day collapse, with or without economic pressure, there is no reason to believe that it will happen in time - the nuclear threat is imminent. Taking military action to force a timely regime change could result in a conflict comparable to the first Korean War, with casualties that would shock the world.

The third alternative is to undertake serious negotiations with the North Koreans to determine if there is a way to stop their nuclear program short of war. The administration is clearly reluctant to negotiate with the North Koreans, calling them loathsome and cheaters. It is easy to be sympathetic with this position; indeed, the only reason for considering negotiation with North Korea is that the other alternatives are so terrible. The administration, seeing the danger, has said that it "would not tolerate" a North Korean nuclear arsenal. The North Koreans responded to this declaration by accelerating their program. The conflict between our views and their actions is a formula for drifting into war. It is imperative that we stop that drift, and the only clear way of doing that is by negotiating.

Any negotiations with the North Koreans are likely to be difficult and protracted, so they should be predicated on a prior agreement that North Korea will freeze its nuclear activities during the negotiations. For negotiations to have a chance of success, they would need to have a positive dimension, making it clear to North Korea that forgoing nuclear weapons could lead it to a safe and positive future. But they would also need a negative or coercive dimension, both to induce North Korea to take the right path and to give us and our allies more credible options if diplomacy should fail. President Kennedy said it best: "We should never negotiate from fear, but we should never fear to negotiate."

The nuclear regime in place since the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) took effect in 1970 is broken and needs to be fixed, the world's highest-ranking nuclear official told a half-full Memorial Auditorium in a wide-ranging lecture about the future of nuclear energy and weapons yesterday afternoon.

"We have a dysfunctional system -- system that cannot endure," said Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "We're reaching the fork in the road. Events in the last few years have made it clear that we need to change course."

The big news from ElBaradei's speech was his support for American entreaties to Iran. But the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize recipient also commented on North Korea, India, Pakistan, Iraq, terrorism, disarmament and the future of nuclear energy.

He said there are probably eight current nuclear states, excluding North Korea. He worried aloud that countries which can currently produce nuclear energy peacefully are only six months away from developing nuclear weapons for military purposes.

"Acquiring the technology to enrich uranium or reprocess uranium basically is the key to develop nuclear weapons as we have seen in Asia and Iran," he said. "They are virtually weapons states because in six months time if they decide for security reasons to develop their own weapon, they are there."

Iraq

While not a household name, ElBaradei was a prominent figure in the news as the lead weapons inspector in Iraq during the run-up to the 2003 American invasion. He said at the time that he could not find evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, but he would not conclude that there were no weapons in the country or that Saddam Hussein did not have a program.

ElBaradei asked for more time to complete inspections, but the Bush administration declined his request and decided to invade. The U.S. never found the nuclear and biological material that some had promised existed.

"Luckily...well I'm not sure luckily...we were proven right that there was no nuclear or any weapon of mass destruction in Iraq," he said. "But I hope that all of us have learned from the Iraq experience that we cannot just jump the gun. You have to be absolutely sure of the facts."

India

ElBaradei surprised observers when he supported the U.S. agreement with India earlier this year, which allowed the country to continue developing nuclear weapons and energy. He said the agreement with India did not endorse its proliferation activities but was indicative of the kind of outside-the-box thinking the international community needs when considering the spread of nuclear weapons and material.

"The end result is India coming closer and working with the rest of the world," he said. "It is not a perfect agreement, but it has a lot of advantages. From the safety, security and nonproliferation perspective, I see that agreement as a win-win situation."

Pakistan

Pakistan developed nuclear weapons as a response to India. Some have criticized Pakistan for its poor stewardship and control of the bomb, pointing out that weapons were almost fired during a skirmish over the disputed Kashmir region.

AQ Kahn, a senior nuclear scientist who helped Pakistan join the exclusive nuclear club, was caught selling compact discs and other information about bombs to several other countries.

"How much damage was done in the process we don't know," ElBaradei said.

The release of this nuclear material demonstrates the need for a "more robust verification system," he said, adding that Pakistan has come closer to the international community in recent years.

North Korea

Kim Jong Il expelled all IAEA inspectors in Dec. 2002, withdrew from the NPT in Jan. 2003 and announced in February 2005 that his military had a nuclear deterrent.

"North Korea is still a major problem," ElBaradei said. "We don't talk about it enough, but North Korea is declaring right now that they have a nuclear weapon. And the longer that they continue to be in that status, the more it is accepted in the collective conscious. This would be terrible because it will have a lot of negative ramifications in South Korea and Japan."

ElBaradei said ongoing negotiations are an important development but more needs to be done.

"What we see with the current six-party talks should have taken place years ago," he said.

Nuclear Proliferation

ElBaradei stressed that he understands the value of nuclear power, which produces much of the developed world's energy. Reducing its use would create more dependence on greenhouse gas-creating fossil fuels, he said.

"We need to use nuclear energy responsibly to maximize benefit and minimize risk," he said.

He said his "number one nightmare scenario" is a terrorist group acquiring nuclear technology since terrorists are not deterred by the possibility of reprisal.

In the post-Cold War world, ElBaradei said he could see no justification for the U.S. and Russia to maintain their nuclear arsenals on ready alert to fire with thirty minutes notice. He called on America to lead by example and continue to disarm its nuclear stockpile.

"Rather than pass judgment, I'd definitely like to say the U.S. should do more in leading by example in terms of nuclear disarmament," he said.

In September 2005, ElBaradei was reappointed to a third term as director general of IAEA. The United States had considered holding up his nomination but dropped its objections under pressure from European allies, who admire the former law professor from New York University.

Diplomat to the Core

The Egyptian native's sometimes broken English was interspersed with self-corrections and careful legalese nuance. ElBaradei answered questions posed by Political Science Prof. Scott Sagan, the director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation.

When Sagan made bold pronouncements about different country's nuclear activities, including the United States' "colossal failure" when North Korea violated the NPT, ElBaradei seemed careful not to point fingers, play the blame game or make enemies. Nonetheless, for a senior United Nations official, his speech was notably blunt.

"There's no international public servant whose integrity and work I admire more than yours," Sagan told ElBaradei.

Accompanied by his wife, ElBaradei spent the day at the University visiting with faculty and students. He spoke at a lunch sponsored by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and traveled to Sagan's home for a dinner with invited guests. He left the area at 8:30 p.m.