Lord Garden: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, for calling this debate on North Korea. As we discussed in the debate on the gracious Speech, the international security outlook is very gloomy, and proliferation is high on the agenda. In looking for the best way forward, as your Lordships will do throughout this debate, we need to reflect on the various approaches tried in recent years, learn the lessons from them and look at the policy options that could help to counter the proliferation problem, to benefit regional stability in the longer term and to improve the prospects of the benighted people of North Korea.

While the nuclear test of 9 October this year was presumably North Korea wanting to signal its membership of the nuclear club, the country has, of course, been working towards this moment for a very long time, going back to its civil nuclear programme of the 1960s. By the early 1990s, the United States was concerned that it might have already extracted enough plutonium-based fissile material from a research reactor to make a bomb. That led to the negotiated agreed framework, which was designed to provide two light-water reactors and oil to compensate for the nuclear energy lost in return for a freeze on the North Korean nuclear programme. That light-water project, as we heard, fell behind schedule, and we know now that from 1996 the North Koreans started a covert programme of uranium enrichment, which they eventually admitted to in 2002.

While all this was going on, the diplomatic game changed very significantly, with the change of US Administration at the start of 2001. It certainly appeared at first that the United States Secretary of State, Colin Powell, would continue the Clinton Administration’s policy of diplomacy as the best way of preventing North Korea from becoming a nuclear weapons state. But very early in 2001 the Secretary of State was countermanded by President Bush, who made it clear that he no longer supported the north/south dialogue. A year later, in the aftermath of 9/11, President Bush completed the diplomatic isolation of North Korea by making it number three on the axis of evil.

It is easy to argue that North Korea would have continued on the path to its nuclear test whatever the circumstances, even if support had continued for the sunshine policy rather than the country’s inclusion on the hit list represented by the axis of evil. However, it is clear that once Iraq, the number one nation on the axis of evil, was invaded, the other two—Iran and North Korea—were reinforced rather than deterred in their views about the need for nuclear capability. By the time the diplomatic path found favour again through the six-party talks, which started in August 2003 after North Korea had withdrawn from the NPT, it was clear that North Korea’s attitude was that the United States would remain a hostile power.

Now that the test has happened, we need to assess the threat that that capability represents and, in the light of that, what we need to do. Assessing North Korea’s nuclear capability is a somewhat imperfect art. It must be based on the amount of fissile material produced each year, the technical capability to weaponise it and the availability of delivery systems. There seems widespread agreement that the test of 9 October produced a surprisingly low yield—less than 1 kilotonne. That could mean that it was an only partially successful fizzle, in the terminology of the nuclear weapons people, or that the North Koreans are so advanced that they can produce extraordinarily low-yield weapons. I think the former is more likely. In plutonium-based weapons, such a fizzle can result from pre-detonation, insufficient manufacturing precision or impurities in the weapons material. That suggests that they have some way to go before they can produce an assured weaponised capability in a form which can be delivered over a distance.

Estimates on the amount of fissile material North Korea can produce are also uncertain. I draw for my data upon the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. On plutonium, North Korea currently has one small 5 megawatt electric reactor which is calculated to have produced, during its lifetime, 43 kilograms of plutonium, plus or minus 10 kilograms. That represents between five and 15 weapons’ worth, a rate of production that will produce one new bomb per year.

There is a larger reactor, which North Korea still has not finished building, although it has been under construction for some 20 years. If that were ever brought into service, North Korea could produce enough plutonium for 10 to 15 bombs per year. Delivery systems, which were also an important part of the threat that North Korea’s weapons represent, are another problem area for the country. The failure of the test firings on 5 July shows that it has some way to go with its missile technology. Even when you have the missile and the warhead, you still have the problem of how you put them together and get them to fit into each other. So we need to take a long view about when North Korea will be able to threaten its neighbours with a fully working nuclear weapons system.

Nuclear weapons are not the only threat that North Korea presents. There is a whole range of security questions, and one needs to consider all of them when strategising how to tackle North Korea. I shall try to put in rough order the threats that North Korea poses to the international system.

First, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, the primary threat is to North Korea’s own people, who are suffering not only an intolerable abuse of human rights but deprivation, famine and death from both natural and state causes. I think that the whole GDP of North Korea is somewhat less than the defence budget that the Minister looks after.

The second most important threat is what would happen if the state were to collapse or implode and refugees flooded across the borders from north to south. There is a potential population of 23 million.

The third threat that I would worry about is the still possible conventional war. The noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, may not be sure what howitzers North Korea has, but it has an awful lot of them and a very big conventional capability, which is within range of being able to take out Seoul. Under “conventional” I include chemical weapons, because North Korea is assumed to have a fairly strong chemical weapons capability.

The fourth threat that I would worry about is the effect of North Korea coming into the nuclear club on other potential proliferators. How we handle that will affect what other potential proliferators decide to do. The fifth threat is the potential sale of nuclear capability to third parties.

Then we come on to the direct threats. First, there are the threats to regional neighbours, including Japan, from North Korea’s nuclear weapons, and then the much longer-term threat of a longer-range strategic possibility. When we look for policies, we have to take into account that if we counter one concern and tackle only one problem we may exacerbate others. We need a strategy that addresses all the problems with the best possible outcome. The UN Security Council resolution following the tests, which has been mentioned, was useful in showing a united international view. Despite the North Korean claims that sanctions were an act of war, seeing China and Russia support the United Nations must have helped put pressure on the regime. The return of North Korea to the six-party talks is also a sign of hope.

North Korea is a very fragile state, however, and the international community, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, needs to be careful that it does not turn the screw so tightly that it collapses uncontrollably. It may be that, as Robert Kaplan has argued, we shall see a future in which China will play a bigger part, establishing its own client regime to produce a sort of Tibetan-style colony, which might bring less risk of instability but would scarcely deliver the free North Korea that we should be seeking in the longer term.

When we look at options for action, it is a relief that, for once, not even the most hawkish experts are arguing for military intervention. There seems little doubt that there would be an immediate military response against South Korea, with massive death and destruction. There would also be a reluctance to contemplate a military stabilisation exercise in the event of regime collapse, with the continuing experience in Iraq. Sanctions as an option are limited; the loss of food aid, as we have heard from both South Korea and China, has been very painful—but more painful to the citizens than to the leadership. Another famine is not impossible; whether that would be the breaking point for the repressed people is a very dangerous gamble.

All that is an argument for containment of the nuclear threat from North Korean strategic weapons and, perhaps more urgently, the risk of onward transmission of nuclear material to third parties. Such sales, either to potential proliferators or extremist terror organisations, need to be taken seriously. These transfers will not happen across the land between North Korea and South Korea, and, given China’s increasingly tight control of the border, I do not think that they will go by land across the north. That leaves sea and air transfers. The proliferation security initiative must have a part to play in this, and I hope that the Minister will say something about how he sees the UK contributing to the development of policies that will promote security in this area. Intercepting ships on the high seas may not lead to calm diplomatic relations around the world but stopping dissemination of nuclear material from North Korea is key. Nor is it obvious how we handle the air freighting issue.

As the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Selsdon, said, we are brought back all the time to the question of dialogue and engagement. There are few options beyond continuing dialogue that can offer certain and benevolent outcomes. As we saw with the end of the Soviet Union, change can come very fast and very unexpectedly. We shall need to be ready to help without appearing to be imperial when the time comes. Diplomacy should be tempered with better long-term strategy. As we have seen with all three members of President Bush’s axis of evil, such characterisation and isolation can have a real negative impact on international security.