Senators will receive a classified briefing Monday on North Korean nuclear aggression, including a recent nuclear test that analysts say poses a “grave and expanding threat” to the United States.
Jesse Karotkin, the deputy national intelligence manager for East Asia at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, will appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at 5 p.m. for a closed hearing titled “Assessing the recent North Korea nuclear event, missile tests and regional dynamics.”
North Korea conducted a nuclear test this month, which registered as a 5.0 magnitude earthquake. It was the country’s fifth nuclear weapons test, and its second this year.
The hearing is likely to touch on some of the findings from a Friday Council on Foreign Relations report on North Korean aggression lead by former chairman of the joint chiefs Adm. Michael Mullen and former senator Sam Nunn. That paper found North Korea’s continued tests of both nuclear and ballistic missiles, which could strike the continental U.S., pose a “grave and expanding” threat to the U.S. homeland, American service members stationed abroad and stability in the East Asia region.
How much of a role China takes on in stopping future tests will play a critical role in the security of the U.S. and the region, according to the report. The key will be convincing China that solving the problem of a nuclear North Korea is in both countries’ security interests, as well as guaranteeing that the unification of North and South Korea will not hurt China’s interests.
“If China, the United States, and U.S. allies can work together to pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear program and mitigate its threatening military posture, a stable, prosperous Northeast Asia led by China and U.S. allies can emerge,” the executive summary said. “For this reason, encouraging a transformation of China’s policy toward North Korea should be the next administration’s top priority in its relations with China.”
Following the nuke test in early September, Defense Secretary Ash Carter also called on China to use its influence with North Korea to stop future nuclear tests.
“It’s China’s responsibility. It shares important responsibility for this development and has an important responsibility to reverse it. It’s important that it use its location, its history and its influence to further the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and not the direction things have been going,” Carter said while traveling in Oslo.
The report also recommends that President Obama as well as the next president begin talks as soon as possible with South Korea, Japan, Russia and China to “present North Korea with a sharper choice” to either stop nuclear testing to comply with the United Nations or “face severe and escalating costs.”
“These steps should be carefully and deliberately sequenced to calibrate pressure on North Korea — to credibly signal to Pyongyang that the United States and its allies will continually increase pressure until serious talks resume, to ensure that the regime has an opportunity to respond to specific pressure tactics at designated junctures, and to maximize opportunities to work with China,” the report says.
