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Even if the international mood in favour of steep US and Russian nuclear cuts was to last, it is unlikely to spread to Asia, where nuclear arsenals remain comparatively modest and where regional allies rely on Washington for extended deterrence. This does not render nuclear arms control irrelevant in Asia, where there is a modest but significant tradition based on informal and unilateral restraint rather than formal agreement. But as more of Asia's nuclear programs have come out of the closet and as great power relationships intensify, the region needs to look nuclear arms control more squarely in the eye. For arms control to have real purchase in tomorrow's Asia, China and the USA will need to look beyond their currently asymmetrical relationship and find an understanding based on increased nuclear transparency which also restrains their potentially escalatory competition in advanced conventional war-fighting abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Northeast Asian nuclear-weapons-free zone (NWFZ) or a Japan-South Korea NWFZ could help entice the DPRK to carry out its commitment in the September 2005 Six-Party Joint Statement to 'abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs'. There are two possible scenarios for the nuclear future of North Korea, and in turn, the security of South Korea and Northeast Asia: containment, in which North Korea remains nuclear-armed with a growing stockpile of nuclear weapons and gradually improving delivery capabilities; and gradual rapprochement with the USA, South Korea, and Japan. In either of these cases a Northeast Asian NWFZ or a Japan-South Korea NWFZ would improve prospects for regional stability and a denuclearized Korean peninsula and could make a significant impact in light of North Korea's nuclear arming and other recent changes in the security environment in the region. An NWFZ has implications for the future role of nuclear weapons in the regional balance of power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

North Korea is at the top of the agenda of Asia-Pacific security, but the agenda remains almost exclusively reactive, not proactive. Against this backdrop, the article argues that the key to dealing with North Korea is Pyongyang's culture of self-destruction, collectively held ideas of state-centred sacrifice designed to ensure regime survival. Fears of insecurity embedded in unequal relations with Asia-Pacific powers have lead this authoritarian state to construct and reconstruct a national identity narrative of life and death, fostering domestic solidarity against foreign powers. As an inseparable part of this ideational power, its nuclear weapons are primarily utilized to attract international attention, to maximize political and economic gains and, in the end, to guarantee regime survival. Given the dynamic of increasing accessibility to dual-use technology, ideology-based non-proliferation rules, and North Korean determination to weaponize its nuclear technology, it is time for the Asia-Pacific powers to acknowledge that North Korean nuclear proliferation is about knowledge of nuclear technology and weapons, and will continue to remain uncontrolled and directionless. Autonomy of knowledge suggests that the Non-Proliferation Treaty is unenforceable in North Korea and, by extension, in other parts of the world, a problem the international community must face and accept. North Korea's neighbours, not the distant powers, must take the lead in regional security, seeking solutions acceptable to all the parties for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neither a balance of power model nor a balance of terror model can predict with assurance whether nuclear Asia will be stable or unstable. Even if fewer than eight states in Asia become nuclear weapons states, the problems of crisis management and escalation control, growing out of clashes between conventional armed forces, becomes harder to manage. As well, nuclear weapons have psychological effects on their owners, and not always predictable ones. Classic balance of power theory, written prior to the nuclear age, anticipated the use of small wars for intrasystemic adjustments without the elimination of major actors. Balance of terror theory regards small nuclear wars as possible escalators into larger ones. Europe's nuclear experience may be a misleading guide for twenty-first century Asia - with regard to the effects of both power and terror relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spread of nuclear weapons in Asia during the first two decades of the twenty-first century has the potential to disrupt existing security arrangements within and outside of the region, to provide a catalytic agent for an outbreak of conventional or nuclear warfare, and to consign to the ash heap of history optimistic projections about the triumph of economic globalism and political postmodernism in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars attribute conventional violence in a nuclear South Asia to a phenomenon known as the "stability/instability paradox." According to this paradox, the risk of nuclear war makes it unlikely that conventional conflict will escalate to the nuclear level, thereby making conventional conflict more likely. Although this phenomenon encouraged U.S.-Soviet violence during the Cold War, it does not explain the dynamics of the ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan. Recent violence has seen Pakistan or its proxies launching limited attacks on Indian territory, and India refusing to retaliate in kind. The stability/instability paradox would not predict such behavior. A low probability of conventional war escalating to the nuclear level would reduce the ability of Pakistan's nuclear weapons to deter an Indian conventional attack. Because Pakistan is conventionally weaker than India, this would discourage Pakistani aggression and encourage robust Indian conventional retaliation against Pakistani provocations. Pakistani boldness and Indian restraint have actually resulted from instability in the strategic environment. A full-scale Indo-Pakistani conventional conflict would create a significant risk of nuclear escalation. This danger enables Pakistan to launch limited attacks on India while deterring all-out Indian conventional retaliation and attracting international attention to the two countries' dispute over Kashmir. Unlike in Cold War Europe, in contemporary South Asia nuclear danger facilitates, rather than impedes, conventional conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]