Right on schedule, Sunday morning President Obama received the campaign trail’s notorious “3 a.m. phone call” that promised to test his mettle in the early days of his presidency.  Incidentally, “the call” happened to be a knock on the door of his Prague hotel room by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs at 4:30 a.m. local time, and Obama happened to be waiting with one hand on the receiver and the other on his foreign policy playbook.  Three hours later, after Japan had watched North Korea’s three-stage rocket fly ominously over the northern tip of its main island before plunging into the Pacific Ocean, President Obama took the stage in Prague for a scheduled speech on the fitting subject of nuclear non-proliferation.

North Korea’s bold defiance of international nuclear weapons regulations has been a matter of grave concern since the rogue state removed itself from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003.  Three years later, Pyongyang burrowed even deeper into the abyss of international alienation when it expelled International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors and conducted a test of a nuclear weapon, albeit ostensibly unsuccessfully.

Three days ago, North Korea’s alleged attempt to launch a satellite into orbit demonstrated its potential to carry a nuclear warhead as far as Alaska.  But amid the hawkish cries for preemptive action and the widespread calls for a “strong response” to North Korea’s “provocative” launch, one-third of the UN Security Council’s 15 members remain tentative.  In fact, the reluctance to take a firm stand — shared by two of the Council’s five permanent members, China and Russia — has led to a stalemate, with not even a modest warning yet agreed upon as a suitable punishment.   This indecisiveness has left many in the international community confused and frustrated.  After all, North Korea flagrantly violated UN Security Council resolution 1718, which explicitly banned it from testing ballistic missiles.  But China’s UN Ambassador Zhang Yesui pleaded with Council members to “refrain from taking actions that might lead to increased tensions” and Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin maintained that “the core element in this situation is the six-party talks” to denuclearize North Korea, which have been dormant for months.

President Obama’s response to Russian and Chinese leadership has been characterized as soft, especially since recent polling data indicates that a majority of the American public favors military action to eliminate North Korea’s ballistic missile capability.  Pyongyang’s actions, however, do not constitute a distinct nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula, but rather represent just one piece of the global nuclear security puzzle.  Obama’s focus must continue to remain on the eventual goal of eliminating worldwide nuclear proliferation which requires, above all, a unified position held by all members of the Security Council.

An International Crisis Group briefing paper published last week by Gareth Evans reiterated the sentiment that “an overblown response would likely jeopardize the six-party talks to end North Korea’s nuclear program”, stating further that “what is needed is a calm, coordinated response from the key actors to raise pressure on Pyongyang to return to the talks rather than a divided reaction.”  Evans also appropriately likened North Korea’s launch to a “tantrum” — the stunt is irritating and disruptive, but not immediately threatening.  North Korea’s status as a sovereign state constrains it to the fundamental geopolitical model of nuclear deterrence.  Assuming just the slightest shred of rational thought on Kim Jong-Il’s part, a nuclear strike on Japan or South Korea is extremely unlikely as it would trigger North Korea’s immediate demise.  This line of reasoning should by no means be interpreted as a pardon to allow North Korea’s unchecked proliferation, however the true threat lies not in Kim Jong-Il’s hands, but rather in the hands of terrorist organizations that could fill the vacuum left behind should the unstable government collapse into a failed state or should Pyongyang become willing to sell nuclear material and technological know-how to prospective customers like Al-Qaeda.  In Prague, President Obama echoed this fear, calling terrorist possession of nuclear weapons “the most immediate and extreme threat to global security.”  Malevolent non-governmental organizations like Al-Qaeda represent the only true overlap of the “capable” and the “willing” with regards to the use of nuclear weapons.  This fact makes the task of securing all vulnerable nuclear material around the world of paramount importance.  Obama announced his intention to achieve this goal, in cooperation with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, within the next four years.

Obama’s strategy for the containment of vulnerable material is only one phase of his broader trajectory toward a world free of nuclear weapons.  Regardless of whether or not such a future world lies within the realm of possibility, the most important stepping stone is a cooperative effort to strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  But the NPT stands for more than just non-proliferation, and the treaty runs the risk of amounting to nothing more than the ultimate nuclear grandfather clause if the U.S. and Russia do not hold up their end of the bargain and make clear strides toward large-scale disarmament.  On cue, Obama and Medvedev unveiled their plans to renew the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which is due to expire in December, by this July.  Obama further demonstrated his dedication to renewed multilateral engagement with his hopes of making the Proliferation Security Initiative and the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism durable international institutions, as well as promoting his plan for the U.S. to host a Global Summit on Nuclear Security this year.

Global security in the 21st century is only attainable through global cooperation.  Heavy threats and harsh rhetoric aimed at North Korea have only raised tensions and fueled its appetite for its increasingly isolated game of brinkmanship.  A strong response is important, but a unified response is essential.  The U.S. must stand shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the UN Security Council to pursue calm, responsible, and cooperative multilateral diplomacy designed to convince North Korea that its political and economic interests are best served under the protective international shelter of the NPT and the IAEA.  Soft power can be a very effective means of achieving hard security, especially when exercised in concert by the entire free world.

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