Wowie! Zowie! What a surprise. The Profound Analysts have pondered the matter long and hard and have decided that the Hermit Kingdom of the North has shrunk an implosion device to the size necessary to be boosted on one of its medium to intermediate range ballistic missiles. It is not as if this development was either unanticipated or, for that matter, awesomely productive of anxiety.
Japan, South Korea and the US way over-subscribed their production norm for anxiety over the recent (unsuccessful) launch of a militarily incompetent liquid fueled ICBM equivalent launch vehicle. Why these governments went exo-atmospheric over a test launch which has no relevance to any escalation of North Korea's military capacity while issuing only the most subtle and vague heads-up over the Dear Leader and the Hermits having mastered the technology of weaponizing their plutonium stockpile defies rational analysis.
Suffice it to say that there are nuclear powers and then there are nuclear powers. The possession of a half-dozen warheads amenable to delivery over ranges of less than 1,500 nautical miles does not place a country on the same level as Russia, China or even, at the lower end of the spectrum, India and Pakistan.
The minimal capacity of the North Koreans is within the ability of current generation anti-ballistic missile systems to handle without leaks to a very, very high level of confidence. Given that neither Japan nor South Korea, the two countries at greatest hypothetical risk of a North Korean nuclear strike, have raised a mighty ruckus over this development indicates that neither sees itself as being unduly threatened.
As long as North Korea has a couple of dozen or fewer delivery systems which are mobile, quick reaction and easily hardened in nature, it presents no unmanageable threat. Any potential Hermit Kingdom menace is not enhanced by the realisation that not even its well-tunneled mountains would provide a sufficient protection against the inevitable retaliation. Even in the (likely) event that China demurred from any robust response to the worst imaginable case of a nuclear attack by the North upon either or both South Korea and Japan, the US would be obligated to take all necessary actions.
Even if the US were not ready and willing to launch against the Hermit Kingdom of the North (which is possible given the direction of the upper atmospheric winds), there is no and can be no certainty of that in Pyongyang. It is even (barely) conceivable that the Russians would decide to smack the annoying lads in the Hermit Kingdom. It must be recalled that the Kremlin has not felt well disposed to Pyongyang since the promises of Great Leader Kim came a cropper in late summer 1950.
The limited number of credible delivery systems available to the North either today or in the near- to mid-term future coupled with the relative ease and efficiency of contemporary ABM systems and the probability of harsh retaliation assures that the status of nuclear power adds no weight to North Korean diplomacy. The nukes have added no real bite to the bark of Pyongyang. Seoul and Tokyo appreciate this. So does Washington. (So, we can be sure do the men of the Forbidden City and the Masters of the Kremlin.)
Any real threat from North Korea is of the indirect nature and has been neither increased nor diminished by the public acknowledgement of the North as a nuclear state. Dear Leader and the Hermits are cash poor--very, very cash poor. They have little to sell. Except military technology.
There are buyers for what the North has to sell. Whether missiles or their components or nuclear production expertise, there is a ready market. The Pyongyang regime has not been at all reluctant to sell missile systems and components in the past. This is true regardless of the position of the "international community" as well as any "sanction regime."
The Northerners do not have sufficient supplies of plutonium or highly enriched uranium to engage in commodity sales. They do not have an industrial capacity which would allow the export sales of turnkey plutonium "factories." And, the Israeli Air Force has demonstrated the risks involved in the export of nuclear reactors--particularly those obviously skewed to the production of plutonium.
But, the Northerners have the knowledge necessary to aid others in making their own fissionable materials. Their own deliverable nuclear devices. Given the information oriented nature of the "post-modern" economy, the Hermits have the most desirable, most easily sold and exported goodies of all. (Ahh, let's hear it for intellectual property. The key ingredient of the new world.)
The quality and utility of North Korea's intellectual property as it pertains to nuclear weapons has not been altered by the official recognition of the country having become a member in some sort of standing in the nuclear club. However, the market value of the property may have been enhanced by the tip of the collective hat given to the Hermits.
There is not a diddly that the US (or the "international community") can do to roll back reality. There is precious little that can be done in the line of retarding, let alone totally restricting North Korea's ability to reconstitute its plutonium production capacity.
The only player with sufficient leverage, at least in principle, to modify North Korea's plans in the nuclear venue is China. So far Beijing has not seen it to be worth its while to do more than enter into a tad of palaver with the Hermits.
As long as Pyongyang limits itself to a modest number of warheads and delivery systems and makes no snarls in the direction of China, there is little, if any likelihood that Beijing will change its policy. There is nothing in it for them.
By staying on the sidelines, doing as little to promote sanctions as possible and making occasional noises of chastisement in the general direction of Pyongyang, China can monitor, perhaps even guide the North Korean export trade in nuclear and missile knowledge. This approach keeps North Korea in its essential and time-honored role of buffer and periodic proxy.
That's a low-risk, relatively high-payoff game for the Chinese to play. Don't expect them to change. And, get a grip on it, without a Chinese change there will be no "flexibility" in the Pyongyang branch of the nuclear club.
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