North Korea test stirs fear of arms race

US officials expressed concern that North Korea's neighbors, including Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, could eventually decide to develop weapons of their own.

``All of these countries have the capability," said a State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the subject with the press.

``Both Taiwan and South Korea already started down the path of nuclear weapons years ago and we lobbied them heavily, explaining why it wouldn't be such a good idea."

US officials also fear that North Korea's moves could embolden Iran, which the United States also accuses of trying to develop a nuclear weapon. In turn, a nuclear-armed Iran could spur Saudi Arabia or other neighbors in the volatile Middle East to one day seek nuclear deterrents, analysts say.

``It could really become unraveled," said Daniel Pinkston , director of the East Asia nonproliferation program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif. ``Who is going to stand by when everyone is arming themselves with nuclear weapons? I think it is at a critical stage now."

North Korea is the first country to conduct a nuclear test after pulling out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The treaty, which was created in 1968 and entered into force two years later, now includes 185 nations -- nearly every country in the world. Under the treaty, the five declared nuclear powers at the time -- the United States, the Soviet Union, France, China, and Great Britain -- agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenals, while non-weapons states agreed to forgo a nuclear weapon in exchange for access to civilian nuclear power technologies.

Since then, the treaty has been credited with helping to dramatically limit the number of new atomic weapons states, providing a way for would-be nuclear powers, including South Africa and Brazil, to abandon the nuclear option and take advantage of the incentives offered to those that eschew nuclear arms.

``Had there not been a treaty, I think there would be 30 or 40 nuclear weapons states by now," said George Bunn , the first general counsel for the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, who helped negotiate the treaty. Many countries, including Switzerland and Sweden, were exploring the possibility of developing nuclear weapons at the time, he said.

Asia has long been at risk of an arms race. Taiwan began a nuclear weapons program after China's first nuclear test, in 1964, but eventually abandoned the program. South Korea admitted in 2004 to UN weapons inspectors that it had conducted secret experiments involving enriched uranium in 2000, and on plutonium in 1982, but denied weapons ambitions.

The treaty obligates nuclear powers to reduce their own arsenals, a commitment that encouraged the Bush administration to sign the Treaty of Moscow in 2002, which US officials say will reduce the number of American nuclear warheads to fewer than 1,700 by 2012, from more than 10,000 in 1990.

Britain and France have made even greater reductions, Bunn said.

But nonproliferation efforts have also experienced serious setbacks. India and Pakistan, which never signed the treaty, became new nuclear powers, shocking the world with test explosions in 1998. International condemnation and sanctions followed, but now both countries are warmly embraced by the United States. (Israel is believed to have developed its own arsenal in the 1960s but has never acknowledged it and never signed the treaty.)

The Bush administration and many other countries accuse Iran of violating the spirit of the treaty by conducting nuclear work in secret for nearly two decades, without the knowledge of UN inspectors, even though Iran is a treaty signatory. Iran, which acknowledged the nuclear experiments, says it is only seeking civilian nuclear power.

Critics of the Bush administration say that it, too, has undermined the treaty by seeking to develop new kinds of nuclear weapons, and by refusing to negotiate with non-nuclear states that want the United States to make deeper cuts in its arsenal.

In 1995, when the treaty was up for renewal, President Clinton got countries around the world to support it by agreeing to push for a global ban on testing nuclear weapons, a key demand of states without nuclear weapons.

But Bush does not support the ban on nuclear testing because, he says, it cannot be enforced. His administration was far less responsive to the demands of non-nuclear nations at last year's treaty review conference, analysts said.

``I think in the end the administration hasn't really accepted the basic bargain that the treaty embraces, which was a combination of disarmament, nonproliferation, and peaceful uses," said John Wolf , former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation under Bush who now heads the Eisenhower Fellowships in Philadelphia.

Bush has also angered some nonproliferation specialists by offering India civilian nuclear cooperation. The deal, now before Congress, would make India the first country in the world to gain access to sensitive nuclear technology without signing the pact.

Kongdan Oh, a specialist on North Korea at the Institute for Defense Analyses , which does work for the federal government, said that North Koreans see that the United States has accepted the nuclear programs of India and Pakistan, and calculate that their own program will one day be tolerated.

Yesterday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States views the nuclear programs of India and Pakistan differently than North Korea's because those two nations share the values of the United States.

``In terms of India, you have the world's largest multi-ethnic democracy. In terms of Pakistan, you have a country that has made the strategic decision to ally itself with those who are promoting freedom and democracy around the world," McCormack said. ``In the North Korea regime, you don't have that. You have a regime that is actually going in the other direction."

But nonproliferation advocates said the idea that the United States will tolerate the nuclear arsenals of its allies undermines the spirit of the treaty.

``During my years working for Kennedy and Johnson, nobody would have said such a thing, and I don't think the Clinton administration would have either," Bunn said when told of McCormack's comment about democracies. ``The whole concept of the treaty is that it doesn't matter what your politics are."

State Department officials insist that the treaty remains a cornerstone of US policy. The Bush administration is now working diligently to secure international sanctions in the Security Council against North Korea and Iran, to try to push the two regimes to abandon their nuclear programs. But analysts said the effort could fail.

``North Korea could get away with it," said Morton Bremer Maerli, a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs who has written extensively about the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. ``This is a serious blow to the treaty."