The nuclear stalemate is crumbling – what are our options?

chess

The game is over…

Robert Carter/Cracked Hat Illustration

THE game theorist Thomas Schelling, who died last year, is one of science’s great unsung heroes. It was largely his analysis of nuclear strategy that prevented the US and USSR from turning the cold war into a hot one – and immolating the human race.

That polarised conflict is now history. Rather than two superpowers, at least nine states now have nuclear weapons – the latest and most worrying being North Korea. That’s not the whole story: nuclear tensions are also being ratcheted up by innocuous-looking upgrades of the US nuclear arsenal (see “The new nuclear race: Why North Korea isn’t the real story”). The arms race is back on.

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So how do you solve a problem like Korea? There are no easy answers. For all the bluster, the military options are limited and economic measures handicapped by lack of consensus. We are faced not with a Schelling-style scenario of two mutually hostile states, but a Gordian knot of intertwined and incompatible national interests.

To cut the knot, the goal has to be to convince the North Korean leadership it doesn’t need nukes to ward off being invaded and overthrown. The “hermit kingdom” must be drawn into the modern community of nations, where zero-sum “my nation against your nation” thinking is increasingly obsolete and states are less and less likely to settle their differences with violence. Bringing North Korea in from the cold might achieve the same. That will be a long and delicate process, with much risk of a misstep. It also means talking to a regime whose words and deeds are repugnant, although a less bellicose stance might even lead to social reforms too.

But the world doesn’t have a better option. The long stalemate is crumbling; other would-be nuclear powers are watching closely. As Winston Churchill put it: meeting jaw to jaw is better than war.

This article appeared in print under the headline “No more games”

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