North Korea's high-stakes nuclear gamesmanship

What, exactly, does North Korea have to gain by continuing to violate UN Security Council resolutions and baiting the United States into a confrontation on nuclear development? That's the question today after Pyongyang announced it would begin enriching uranium as an addition to its known plutonium-enrichment program unless UN sanctions were lifted, according to the New York Times. North Korea said it also would conduct additional nuclear weapon and ballistic missile tests if the UN did not apologize for the Security Council's April 13 condemnation of its most recent missile test and threat to tighten economic sanctions, which it said it considered "a declaration of war." Pyongyang has managed to exact some concessions from Washington, including high-level dialogue and shipments of food for its impoverished people, with earlier threats, but it is hard to see what Pyongyang wants now. North Korea was impoverished by the collapse of the Soviet bloc, which cut its international trade lifeline, and has been depending on shipments of food from the West to feed its people. Of course, the billions of dollars it is pouring into its weapons research would feed a lot of people if redirected into domestic programs. Instead, the North denounced the Security Council as “a tool for the U.S. highhanded and arbitrary practices” and refused to acknowledge its continuing activities, which the United States believes includes helping Syria with its nuclear research. A spokesman for the U.S. State Department, Fred Lash, said Wednesday that the Security Council resolution was “balanced and appropriate.” “We certainly call on North Korea, as we have in the past, to uphold its commitments” under a Sept. 19, 2005, joint statement of six-party talks and a 2006 Security Council imposing sanctions, the Times said. “We remain committed to achieving the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, hopefully through the six-party talks,” Lash said. “We urge them, as we always do, to return to the table.”