Professor Alexei Bogaturov, the deputy director of the International Security Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, says the threat of an external attack dictates the logic behind Pyongyang's actions. "The US invasion of Iraq prompted all threshold countries to accelerate their nuclear weapons programs," he said. "They decided that the US would not have launched the war if Iraq had had nuclear weapons."
The expert believes that US attacks at Iran over its nuclear program could have provoked Pyongyang's dramatic decision. But "the US will hardly resort to military force" in this case, Mr. Bogaturov said. "Russia and China will be against it."
It is a fact that North Korea has not held nuclear tests. "The probability that the country has working nuclear devices, let alone nuclear weapons, is minimal," believes Yevgeny Myasnikov of the Center for Disarmament Problems. In his opinion, the North Korean statement might be a bluff. But other experts point out that a primitive nuclear charge can be built without tests and the probability that it will explode "is rather large."
Observers admit that the presumed North Korean nuclear charge could be small enough to be carried by a transport plane. But they do not rule out that the country may have nuclear warheads, because it could get technical documents from some other country, such as Pakistan.
The inclusion of North Korea in the "axis of evil" three years ago forced the communist preserve to elaborate a survival strategy for the presidency of George Bush. Yesterday's announcement is probably designed to strengthen the core that allows the national leaders to keep the public in check. They must show the people that they will not bow to foreign pressure and will not pay for their right to self-determination by making concessions to the US.
