by Cara Beale
More than a month has passed since North Korea's reportedly successful underground test of a one-ton nuclear device. Pyongyang has claimed that North Korea would never use atomic weapons first and that it remains "committed to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," but religious thinkers and scholars who specialize in issues of contemporary terrorism and nuclear proliferation are thinking with new urgency both about nuclear danger and the direction of U.S. policy.
Charles B. Strozier, a psychoanalyst, professor of history, and director of John Jay College's Center on Terrorism at the City University of New York, says he doubt seriously whether North Korea has any immediate intention to use its apparent new-found power for widespread destruction. Strozier, who is best known for his 1994 book APOCALYPSE: ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FUNDAMENTALISM IN AMERICA, says countries that have desired in the past to get the bomb use it instead "to enhance their power and prestige."But North Korea's provocation is grave nonetheless, according to Strozier. Though he doubts any abrupt action from the Pyongyang regime, he also warns that "the existence of the weapons really brings into the world the power of God, and therefore it creates a kind of a yearning for that incredible power they represent. The mere existence of the weapons in the world evokes a tendency toward creating violence on a scale that rivals that of God."
"They shouldn't even be called weapons," Strozier states starkly. "They should be called instruments of genocide."
Kim Jong Il's motivation for acquiring weapons of mass destruction is clear to David Cortright, a founder of the National Religious Partnership on the Nuclear Weapons Danger and a Catholic peace activist who has taught and written widely on nonviolence. "What they want is a normalization of political and economic relations with the United States," says Cortright. "They've said at times very explicitly that they would be prepared to give up their nuclear and missile programs in exchange for guarantees of security and normal relations with the United States."
The Bush administration countered rumors of a second nuclear test this fall the by applying pressure on North Korea in the form of tougher financial and weapons sanctions. In addition, a new round of six-party talks on ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions will reportedly resume in December. But scholars have mixed reactions both to sanctions and to multilateral talks. According to Rick Nutt, a religion professor at Muskingum College in Ohio who has written specifically about the Presbyterian Church and issues of national security and nuclear weapons, "There need to be some restrictions, some effort to get North Korea to alter its behavior. North Korea has sought bilateral talks with us. Perhaps it's time for the U.S. to engage North Korea not only multilaterally, but also bilaterally. We can take steps that we haven't necessarily wanted to take that can help to diffuse the situation."
Cortright says the sanction measures are largely incomplete. "What's missing with the sanctions package is that it should be accompanied by a gesture of negotiating. Then you might have a positive result," he suggests. Cortright also disapproves of Washington's resistance to engage North Korea in bilateral talks. "It's a profound failure of moral imagination, because it disregards all that we know in human experience about how to reach agreement and how to settle differences," he says. "Without that dialogue we only have the option of an enemy status. The fact that we are irresponsible in our use of power and unwillingness to negotiate with the other side strikes me as a policy that is highly unethical in that it is increasing the danger."
Despite Kim Jong Il's apology for the October test, his denunciation of the rumors of a second detonation, and the likelihood of new talks, prospects for the future remain dim, according to some scholarly assessments.
