Over the past fifteen years, Pakistan has demonstrated how nuclear weapons can allow a country to engage in limited hostilities without triggering all out war. It has also shown that once a nuclear-armed state initiates hostilities, the international response will focus on restoring stability, with denuclearization reduced to a secondary goal.
The Pakistan model may provide North Korea with a dangerous option for breaking the diplomatic stalemate that’s been in effect since denuclearization talks were dissolved in 2009. Since then, in a strategy known as “strategic patience,” the Obama administration has insisted that unless Pyongyang wants to discuss its prior commitments to denuclearization, our governments have nothing to talk about. A limited conflict could change that calculus and compel talks instead about how we can live with a nuclear North Korea. To that end, Pyongyang may well be looking to take a page out of Islamabad’s playbook.
