Turner live on WHIO Radio today
Congressman Mike Turner, R-Dayton, who serves on the House Intelligence and House Armed Services committees will discuss the situation in North Korea live on AM 1290 and News 95.7 WHIO today at 7:45 a.m. during Miami Valley's Morning News. You can also listen live at whio.com.
North Korea’s claim it detonated a hydrogen bomb is “worrisome” because the world community has “few levers” to influence the isolated state’s behavior, a Wright State University instructor said.
“It’s worrisome because it going to increase tensions in the region,” said Laura Luehrman, a Wright State University associate professor of political science who specializes in China studies. “…It’s worrisome because it shows again how few levers we have to influence behavior in such a closed state, a closed country.”
Area experts weighed in Wednesday on reports North Korea, long an avowed enemy of South Korea and its ally the United States, had exploded a powerful hydrogen bomb. Skeptics think the regime may be exaggerating its nuclear capabilities, because seismic tests showed the explosion was no larger than three prior tests in the isolated country.
“But if they have in fact tested a a hydrogen bomb that is a major increase and it ratchets up the tension,” said Glen Duerr, a Cedarville University assistant professor of international studies.
Taking notice
Major nations in the world took notice Wednesday. The United Nations Security Council and U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Dayton, separately condemned the nuclear test. Turner, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said North Korea was “a direct threat” to the United States and its allies.
“North Korea’s continued development of nuclear weapons and advanced delivery capabilities must be met with decisive action and condemnation by the entire international community,” the congressman said in a statement. “North Korea is a nuclear proliferator and has chosen a course of steady escalation.”
Cy, a Dayton area man who was born in North Korea and asked that his full name not be used because of concerns about retaliation, said he was concerned about family members who live in the isolated, communist state.
“I’m very concerned because some of my family is still there, my brothers and sisters,” he said Wednesday. “Life in North Korea is really miserable … They spend all this money to build this H-bomb while the people are poor.”
He doubted North Korea would ever use the weapon, however. “I don’t think they are going to use the atomic bomb except if there’s a Korean war and they’re situation is pretty bad,” he said.
James W. Snyder, 84, of Kettering, was a U.S. Marine who fought in North and South Korea during the war that went from 1950 to 1953. “I’m sure they know if they would invade South Korea again we would be there and the same thing that happened then would happen again,” he said.
He said he believes China, if it was aware of an impending strike by North Korea, would prevent its use of nuclear weapons, particularly because China values its economic ties with the United States.
A familiar pattern
The familiar pattern of a North Korean nuclear test and international condemnation won’t mean much change, said Tony Talbott, a University of Dayton lecturer in politics and human rights.
If North Korea has a thermonuclear weapon, or hydrogen bomb, it would be significant as one of only five countries in the world that have acknowledged possessing that capability, he said.
“On the other hand, it’s may be not as meaningful as folks are trying to make it out to be because it doesn’t really change anything,” he said. “North Korea has very, very limited resources, has a very small stockpile of nuclear weapons and it would be literal suicide for them to use one.”
Talbott said the U.N. Security Council has been “relatively ineffective in containing the North Korean nuclear program.” He said the outcome won’t be different this time.
“You have to bring China fully on board to do anything more than we have and … we’re at about the limits of what the Security Council can do without authorizing the use of military force and no one is going to,” he said.
“We know very little about North Korea,” he added. “I think it’s a mistake to assume North Korea is some crazy, off-the-rails regime because then we then we tend to marginalize them and not take them seriously. We have to take them seriously, but it’s very difficult to predict what they will do.”
The dilemma of tightening sanctions risks a negative humanitarian impact on North Korean citizens, while the tougher measures fail to deter the regime’s development of nuclear weapons, Luehrman said.
“This is a regime that has shown absolutely no regard for the sanctity of human life,” she said.
China, a long-time ally of North Korea, has little control over North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his regime, she added.
“I just think we have to be very, very cautious in recognizing the limited hand” China has with North Korea, she said. “This was a huge slap in the face to China as well as South Korea and the rest of the world.”
Luehrman said the push to get North Korea back into multi-lateral, six-party talks with other nations is the right approach. “We have to do everything we can to get them back into regional talks to show that the international community is unified,” she said.
Duerr, of Cedarville University, said voices around the world should rally against North Korea’s nuclear provocation and the United States should pursue both a diplomatic course and continue joint military exercises with South Korea.
“I think the North Koreans have to know the U.S. can and will respond,” he said.
Still, he doesn’t think North Korea has the advanced technology to put a warhead on a missile that could hit the United States. “North Korea is nowhere near, at least yet, able to deliver a missile … to the United States, but it has been getting better with it’s nuclear weapons test and that is scary for the United States as well as South Korea and Japan in particular,” he said.
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