By Ambassador Robert G. Joseph, Ph.D.
Senior Scholar, National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP)
Former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security
Directed by Kim Jong Un and mandated in its constitution, North Korea is building as many nuclear weapons as fast as it can. While most estimates of its current arsenal range from 40 to 80 weapons, the actual number could be significantly higher. A 2021 RAND study foresaw the potential of the stockpile growing to more than 200 by 2027. While much remains unknown about the enriched uranium and plutonium production of fissile material for the warheads, it is known that both programs are expanding at an accelerating pace. By 2030, using conservative assessments, there is little doubt that the North could have more nuclear weapons than either the United Kingdom or France.
The North’s advancement and diversification of delivery systems is as aggressive as the buildup of the warheads. Moving from crude, shorter-range liquid-fueled ballistic missiles 30 years ago, North Korea today has developed and deployed an armory of much more sophisticated ballistic and cruise missiles, including ones with intercontinental range, that can be delivered from mobile vehicles and submarines. The North’s nuclear threat to the United States and our allies is now an accepted fact. The 2026 National Defense Strategy states that Pyongyang’s nuclear forces “present a clear and present danger of nuclear attack on the American Homeland.”
North Korea has been very open about its nuclear intentions. As noted by the Congressional Research Service, as early as 2021, the North announced its Five-Year Defense Plan “to field new submarines, develop tactical nuclear weapons, deploy multiple warheads on a single missile, and improve the accuracy of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), among other goals.” Since then, Pyongyang has adopted a preemptive employment doctrine, declared itself to be “forever a nuclear weapons state,” and has codified in law that there will be “no bargaining over our nuclear power.” Through the scale and scope of its nuclear program and its declaratory policies, Pyongyang has made clear that, as long as the Kim dynasty rules, North Korea will possess nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are considered essential to regime survival and survival is the preeminent objective.
Except for a few remaining useful idiots (to adopt Lenin’s term) who the regime has manipulated to spread its propaganda, the stark reality of North Korea’s nuclear program has led to a consensus that the almost single focus on denuclearization in U.S. and international policies has failed. Even those most wedded to the pursuit of negotiations to convince Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear ambitions now recognize the failure of that decades-long effort stretching across five presidential administrations. There is also a near-consensus that, given the growing threat, there is a need to alter fundamentally U.S. policy. But there is no consensus on what that new policy should be.
The Trump administration, while paying lip service to denuclearization, appears content to put North Korea on the backburner, focusing on Iran and domestic issues. But what could go wrong with a North Korea armed with 100 or 200 nuclear weapons and a leadership that could carry through on its threats to use nuclear weapons or perhaps sell them to another rogue state or terrorist organization? While many will argue that Pyongyang would never dare to do either (“we would turn the country into glass”), their argument breaks down with 10 seconds of thought. The North does not think about nuclear weapons as we do and it has a long record of selling whatever it can for cash, including nuclear technology. The United States and allies are likely unprepared for either contingency.
Others who recognize the failure of the denuclearization-first policy have begun to advocate for more traditional arms control and confidence-building negotiations without abandoning denuclearization as the final goal. This “new” approach suffers from the same fallacies on which the denuclearization policy was based. Even if Kim were to override the legal barrier prohibiting “bargaining” over the North’s nuclear weapons, there is no chance for success. Pyongyang’s playbook has always been to buy time and demand concessions while covertly advancing its capabilities. Even if we suspend disbelief and posit that negotiations were to produce an agreement, why would anyone believe that Pyongyang would live up to its commitments given its record of cheating on every nuclear accord it has agreed to in the past? As it was in 1992 and 2002, it is entirely predictable that North Korea would cheat and use the resources it receives to expand its nuclear and missile programs while intensifying repression of its own people.
Government, seldom a forum for innovative thinking, is often known for the absence of learning from either failure or success. It is a place in which bad ideas can have a powerful influence and almost never go away. The threat posed by North Korea to the region and to the U.S. homeland is not just dangerous but fundamental and potentially transformational. It must be countered with new ideas and new capabilities.
Much of my career was in the nonproliferation area, promoting new policies and designing new tools to deal with the dynamic threat of WMD proliferation. While serving on the NSC staff, I was involved in President Bush’s withdrawal from the ABM Treaty to permit the defense of the United States from ballistic missile attack, in particular from North Korea. I was also involved in the establishment at the Kananaskis summit of the G-8 Global Partnership, the Proliferation Security Initiative, and the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, among other efforts to prevent further proliferation and, when prevention failed, to prepare to counter threats to our nation. It was at this time, more than 20 years ago, that I concluded that as long as the Kim dynasty rules in the North, the nuclear threat will only grow. Everything that has happened since has reinforced that conclusion.
Recently, I had the privilege of chairing a distinguished group of experts with deep experience in national security, economics, and human rights involving North Korea. All of us shared the view that denuclearization has failed because it focuses on a symptom while neglecting the cause of the problem: the artificial division of the Korean Peninsula and the survival strategy of the Kim regime based on the twin pillars of nuclear weapons and the catastrophic denial of human rights of its own people. Our report, “Toward a Free and Unified Korea – Resolving the Challenge at Its Source,” was published last month by the National Institute of Public Policy.
All group members shared the view that the almost exclusive focus on denuclearization provided time and concessions to the Kim regime that would not only fail to end the North’s nuclear program but would contribute to today’s situation. Further attempts, even if slightly modified, will only produce the same results. We conclude that the underlying national security challenges on the peninsula — as well as the human rights nightmare that defines life in North Korea — can only be resolved by ending the artificial division of the peninsula and establishing a free and unified Korea.
Looking at the prospects for unification from a geostrategic, cultural, and economic perspective, we conclude that a unified and democratic Korea is not a distant aspiration but an achievable goal through concrete measures by government, civil society, and business interests. We debunk the myths that have long impeded any substantial effort to work toward unification. Unification is the only durable solution to the security threats and human rights catastrophe that plays out every day in the North. We must move from crisis management to strategic resolution.
The initial step is to summon the political will to adopt unification as the official end state and to place human rights at the forefront of U.S. and South Korean foreign and national security policy. Treating human rights as a strategic requirement is essential: the Kim regime’s rule depends on societal repression that can be undermined by expanding access to information.
North Korea’s prison camps, surveillance system, and information blockade are not separate from the nuclear issue — they are the internal machinery that allows the regime to pursue nuclear weapons while keeping its population silent and afraid. Weakening that control through information access and civil society support directly challenges the operating system that sustains both internal repression and external nuclear threat. At the implementation level, we recommend establishing transition planning mechanisms for WMD security, humanitarian response, and economic reconstruction. Recognizing that this effort must be Korean-led, we emphasize the ethos of Hongik Ingan, which frames unification not as a consequence of conflict or absorption but as the completion of Korean independence grounded in history and national identity.
Unification is often dismissed as unrealistic, too costly, or too destabilizing. These objections have discouraged serious planning for decades. But they rest on assumptions that serve the status quo — and the status quo is not stable. It is producing a larger nuclear arsenal, a more dangerous missile force, and continued suffering for the North Korean people. The alternative is to continue managing recurring crises, negotiating temporary pauses, and waiting for the next provocation. That is not a strategy. It is a path toward a more dangerous future.
As we look ahead, all group members agreed that the status quo is changing in ways that are detrimental to U.S. interests and becoming increasingly dangerous. We can continue to try to manage recurring crises until we fail, or we can seek to resolve the underlying problem. The choice before Washington and Seoul is between managing a worsening danger and addressing it at its source. A free and unified Korea is the only durable answer to the nuclear threat, the only just answer to the suffering of the North Korean people, and the only end state that finally resolves the challenge where it begins.
