Abstract
Negative security assurance (NSA), a key for sustaining the NPT, is supposed to provide a strong incentive for non-nuclear states to keep their status. The NPT also gives economic motivation, assistance for peaceful nuclear activities of the non-nuclear states. The reality that North Korea is going toward the opposite direction should indicate that these traditional ways for promoting nonproliferation are increasingly becoming ineffective.
Neither NSA nor economic assistance could end the nuclear weapon program because these supposed incentives are not consistent with the nation’s main reason for acquiring nuclear weapons. This article explains that North Korea develops nuclear weapons for fulfilling the norm to be an independent nation, rather than confronting external threat which could be eased by NSA. The normative achievement helps North Korea’s regime competition with South Korea, more critical threat than U.S. nuclear power. This competition gives priority to nuclear power over economic improvement which could not allow North Korea to claim supremacy over South Korea in the near future.
Full text available at http://www.nids.mod.go.jp/english/publication/kiyo/index.html