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Primarily there is the historical background: Ukraine was not a sovereign nation until 1991, prior to that it was part of the Soviet Union and at the will of the ruling communist party. Therefore there was no choice as to whether they wished to amass a nuclear stockpile - the decision was imposed on them by the Soviet Union. On the other hand North Korea, or at least it’s leaders (the Kim dynasty), have purposely followed a program of nuclear stockpiling for the past 50 years. At its base there is a difference in terms of nuclear motivation and ambitions.

Then there is the actual process of disarmament: indeed with the fall of the Soviet Union the UN was in a difficult position with Ukraine and how it would get them to disarm. The issue of disarmament was the hot topic of ’91 within the Ukrainian nation as at that time they had inherited over 200 nuclear missiles from the Soviet Union, with as many as 176 launching sites in their territory. “It is true that back then, the temptation to keep the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal or part of it was pretty big,” a Ukrainian ambassador recently admitted.

Yet the newly independent nation wanted to start anew. “Ukraine also had to endure the bad image of a rogue state. We felt the need to get international recognition and support to revive our economy,” the spokesman said, adding, “We needed to design and build warheads if we decided to possess them, which would have required the government to pay a lot of money.”

As a result Ukraine’s willingness to give up its supply of weapons was combined with a U.S. program called Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) assistance, which made the transition to denuclearization possible. Under this program nuclear facilities and personnel were slowly turned over to civilian uses, which gave money to the economy while reducing the threat.

In contrast North Korea’s leaders have shown no interest in giving up their nuclear arsenal. In fact it is their only real bargaining chip to get any attention internationally. Furthermore they refuse the reveal the details of their weapons or economy, making it extremely difficult for a CTR program to be put to work in an attempt to get North Koreans working on more peaceful projects. Indeed the pattern seems to be that North Korea only wishes to allow in aid, not inspectors, and is willing to use nuclear threats in order to achieve this.

Furthermore the CTR program in Eastern Europe was a costly procedure; between 1991 and 2005, the U.S. invested $7 billion in CTR programs in the former Soviet Union in order to remove nuclear missiles. To do similar in North Korea would require between $200 million and $500 million and the cooperation of the other countries involved in the Six Nation talks, namely South Korea, the U.S., Japan, China and Russia. It is questionable whether any of these nations would be willing to sacrifice that kind of money in the wake of the global recession. 

Indeed in the coming weeks with the world’s gaze turned to Seoul on account of the G20 summit it is all the more likely that North Korea will cling to its nuclear stockpile in an effort to gain something from the major world powers. Therefore it seems somewhat unrealistic to look at the case of Ukraine’s disarmament as a situation that can just be cut and paste onto North Korea. For the foreseeable future cooperative disarmament is extremely unlikely. However if all the neighboring nations work together maybe there is hope that one day they will be able to talk North Korea around to reconsidering their nuclear legacy.


북한의 모델 우크라이나?

20여전 전에 소련연방의 붕괴로 세계에는 큰 정세 변화가 일어나고 있었다. 여파는 동 유럽 전역에 큰 변화를 몰고 왔다. 여파가 가라앉기 시작하자 우크라이나는 갑자기 UN과 서구에 위협을 가했다; 전 러시아 지도자들의 호의 하에 지구상에서 세 번째로 큰 핵을 보유한 빈곤국가. 그러나 19년 후 우크라이나는 아주 다른 나라가 되었다. 놀랄 것도 없이 어떤 분석가들은 우크라이나의 변신을 바라보고 있다, 그리고 우리 이웃 국가(북한)에게도 같은 일이 일어나지 않을까 궁금해하고 있다.

20세기 후반의 우크라이나와 21세기 초반의 북한의 신문지상의 분석은 명백해 보인다. 과거에 두 국가는 강력한 공산 국가에 의지했다, 두 국가 모두 적군들을 핵 무기로 위협할 능력과 엄청난 경제력을 가지고 있었다. 그러나 20년 후 두 국가의 차이점은 현재 완전히 반대이다. 그러나 몇몇 방위 전문가들은 우크라이나를 변화시키는데 작용한 것들이 북쪽의 ‘은둔 국가’에게도 가능하지 않을지도 모르는 가설을 제기했다.