North Korea’s Biological Weapons programs in the wake of Trump - Kim Jong Un historical meeting

Much of current scholarly literature and policy analysis on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has focused on the country’s rampant nuclear program, long-range missile testing activities and on the risks of technology transfers from the country to other proliferators. On the contrary, limited notice has been given to the DPRK chemical and biological weapons undertakings. The topic has been somehow neglected notwithstanding the fact that, during the last 40 years, the DPRK has maintained and expanded its chemical and biological (C/B) research and development programs with potentially significant results, as the assassination of Kim Jong Nam (Kim Jong Un half-brother) by nerve-agent VX seems to have demonstrated. Hard facts concerning DPRK C/B activities are rare, and most sources are of uncertain reliability, often mutually inconsistent and a decade old. However, more recently, several key countries have disclosed information and judgments of some value for the analysis of North Korea C/B weapons commitments (whose a full understanding remains nevertheless a challenge, due to the inherent limitations the study of any C/B program suffers compared to nuclear weapons’ assessments). The article contributes to this dialogue by investigating the country’s strategic posture towards chemical and biological weapons, assessing the actual risk posed by C/B weapons’ use, and exploring viable threat reduction activities. More specifically, in this paper I examine that state of knowledge over DPRK C/B infrastructures (research, development, production and testing, inventory and storage), their size, organization, and attributes. Secondly, I analyse the country’s participation to the C/B non-proliferation regimes (from framework conventions to most recent and informal networks) and describe it in terms of both embeddedness and compliance. Third, I reason on the likely and extent of most convincing CBW deployment’s scenarios (in the event of a war on the Korean Peninsula, sabotage operations, or in targeted killing actions). Finally, I take into consideration the very consequential implications that the potential (and expected) changes in the country’s nuclear posture may have over biological and chemical weapons related decisions. The article concludes with a discussion of prospective threat reduction policy options within and beyond traditional security strategies that could be implemented by most interested actors (South Korea and the United States).