From Harvard, Nicholas Burns on North Korea's Nuclear Test

By Nicholas Burns.

Cambridge, MA. Like all of you, I was troubled by news of North Korea’s latest nuclear test.  In interviews today, I’ve tried to make the following points about how the U.S. should react to this latest dangerous initiative of the North Korean regime.

The North Korea nuclear tests remind us once more of the great danger its reckless, authoritarian leadership poses to the rest of the world.  North Korea is an outlaw state and its irresponsible development of nuclear weapons threatens the security of the United States, our treaty allies South Korea and Japan and friendly nations across Asia.

A 23 kiloton tower shot fired on April 18, 1953 at the Nevada Test Site as

part of the Operation Upshot-Knothole nuclear test series. Photo: Wikipedia.

The Obama and Bush Administrations have been dealing with North Korea’s nuclear challenge for many years.  It will be a major, priority challenge for the next American President.  Whether or not this week’s test is confirmed as a hydrogen bomb, it is an ominous development.  North Korea currently has the capacity to threaten all of our allies and friends in Asia.  During the next decade, it may develop the ability to threaten the United States homeland itself with ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads.  That is why it is so critical that the U.S. Administration and Congress work together to develop a long-term policy to contain this threat and to eventually overcome it.

In the short term, there are four steps the Obama Administration can and should take to expand pressure on the North Korean regime.

First, the U.S. should lead an effort at the United Nations Security Council to secure universal condemnation of this reckless nuclear test.

Second, President Obama should make crystal clear the absolute determination of the U.S. to protect our treaty allies, South Korea and Japan.

Third, the U.S. and Asian countries should also pressure the government of China to act much more resolutely to restrain and contain the North Korean regime.  This issue has to become one of our priority demands if China wishes to play a global leadership role and to enjoy stable and successful relations with the U.S. and its allies in the future.

Fourth, and finally, the U.S. should expedite and strengthen our missile defense program in order to develop a capacity to protect the United States and our allies from North Korean missiles in the future.  This program ought to have bipartisan support.

Nicholas Burns is the Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of the

Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations, Harvard Kennedy School

Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

Contact:

Email: nicholas_burns@hks.harvard.edu

Website: http://www.twitter.com/rnicholasburns

Publications: http://pages05.net/hks-belfercenter/forms/NicholasBurns

Experience

Nicholas Burns is the Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project and Faculty Chair for the Programs on the Middle East and on India and South Asia. He serves on the Board of Directors of the School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and is a Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

Burns is Director of the Aspen Strategy Group, Senior Counselor at the Cohen Group, and serves on the Board of Directors of Entegris, Inc.  He is a member of Secretary of State John Kerry’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board at the U.S. Department of State. He also serves on the boards of several non-profit organizations, including the Council on Foreign Relations, Special Olympics, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, the Atlantic Council, America Abroad Media, the Association of Diplomatic Studies and Training, the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, the Boston Committee on Foreign Relations and the Gennadius Library. He is Vice Chairman of the American Ditchley Foundation and serves on the Panel of Senior Advisors at Chatham House: the Royal Institute of International Affairs.  He is a member of the Committee on Conscience of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Order of Saint John and Red Sox Nation.

Professor Burns served in the United States government for twenty-seven years.  As a career Foreign Service Officer, he was Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2005 to 2008; the State Department’s third-ranking official when he led negotiations on the U.S.–India Civil Nuclear Agreement; a long-term military assistance agreement with Israel; and was the lead U.S. negotiator on Iran’s nuclear program. He was U.S. Ambassador to NATO (2001–2005), Ambassador to Greece (1997–2001) and State Department Spokesman (1995–1997).  He worked for five years (1990–1995) on the National Security Council at the White House where he was Senior Director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia Affairs and Special Assistant to President Clinton and Director for Soviet Affairs in the Administration of President George H.W. Bush. Burns also served in the American Consulate General in Jerusalem (1985–1987) where he coordinated U.S. economic assistance to the Palestinian people in the West Bank and before that, at the American embassies in Egypt (1983-1985) and Mauritania (1980 as an intern).

Professor Burns has received twelve honorary degrees, the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award, the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service from the Johns Hopkins University, the Boston College Alumni Achievement Award and the Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award from Tufts University. He has a BA in History from Boston College (1978), an MA in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (1980), and earned the Certificat Pratique de Langue Francaise at the University of Paris-Sorbonne (1977). He was a visiting Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in summer 2008.

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