One day after North Korea's nuclear test drew widespread condemnation, the country on May 26th test-launched two more short-range missiles. This marks Pyongyang's second nuclear test, after its first in October 2006. Amid rising tensions on the Korean peninsula, South Korea joined the Proliferation Security Initiative, a U.S. initiative to curb the trade of weapons of mass destruction, an action North has called a declaration of war.

John S. Park, Senior Research Associate on Northeast Asia with the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention and Director of the Korea Working Group, answered your questions about North Korea's nuclear capabilities and global security on Facebook!

He provides some background with this "On the Issues" below.

• How does North Korea's second nuclear test impact the international community?
• What will and should the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea do about North Korea's nuclear test?
• How are North Korea's nuclear and missile tests affecting Japan?

How does North Korea's second nuclear test impact the international community?

One major impact of North Korea's nuclear test is the challenge it poses to the U.S. -led effort to promote global nuclear disarmament -- an initiative launched by President Obama in his Prague speech in early April. It will be difficult to try to engage various countries on these nuclear disarmament talks while North Korea continues to increase its nuclear capability. The significance of this global initiative is that it has placed Washington and Pyongyang on a road to escalation. Each North Korean WMD activity basically obliges President Obama to condemn Pyongyang – a war of words could translate into a long dormancy for the six-party talks.

The overarching security concern is that Pyongyang could eventually sell or transfer such technology to the Middle East or to terrorist groups, as North Korea improves its missile and nuclear technology. North Korea has a well-documented partnership with Iran on the transfer of missile technology.

With illicit networks already in place to facilitate such transfers, Washington is concerned that these networks could be used to proliferate nuclear material and technology on a global scale.

What will and should the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea do about North Korea's nuclear test?

So far, these five members in the six-party talks have all joined together in opposing North Korea's recent nuclear test. The significance here is that Beijing's response is much more restrained this time round compared to its expression of anger following North Korea's first nuclear test in October 2006. At that time Beijing used the term 'flagrant' in condemning North Korea's action and led the effort to get a punitive UN Security Council resolution in place. The only prior instance of Beijing's use of this term "flagrant" occurred when the U.S. accidentally bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999. Following the nuclear test on May 25, Seoul and Tokyo led the call for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.

In practice, there is not much more that the five countries can do other than make strongly worded symbolic statements and reaffirm earlier resolutions. Although the latter could have an impact, without full implementation and enforcement they amount to paper tigers. While it is easy to say that we should fully implement these measures -- that is, economic sanctions – we would have to be prepared to face two possible consequences if we go down this path. First, North Korea could rapidly raise tensions further in a dangerous game of more brinkmanship. For example, future missile tests can be conducted closer to Japanese and South Korean territorial waters. The second possible consequence is an increased likelihood of instability in North Korea if these economic sanctions are fully enforced – especially by China who shares a porous border with North Korea.

However, China is unlikely to fully support any measures that raise the prospects of such destabilizing consequences. Beijing still hopes that calm and clear-headed thinking will prevail in the end and we can eventually return to the six-party talks process.

This brings us back to square one with strongly worded statements and UN Security Council resolutions that lack teeth.

At the moment, there's a great deal of discussion in Washington about a policy instrument that would have a surgical impact only on the North Korean leadership and could impede further North Korean missile and nuclear development if properly applied – this policy instrument is the financial sanctions stick.

For example, when North Korean held bank accounts in Banco Delta Asia were frozen by the Monetary Authority of Macau as part of a Treasury Department investigation in the mid-2000s, North Korean leaders protested swiftly and loudly. It's believed that when specifically timed and coordinated, targeting bank accounts linked to large North Korean state trading companies and senior North Korean leaders could constitute an effective means to deter certain North Korean brinkmanship actions in the future. Given that many North Korean accounts are held in Chinese banks, however, Beijing's full cooperation on financial sanctions is critical to developing credible pressure.

While financial sanctions would provide Washington and Beijing with an effective short-term policy tool, applying this type of sanctions would undermine the Chinese leadership's longer-term objective of promoting stable ties with key members of the North Korean leadership – particularly during a leadership transition period in Pyongyang. Beijing views a viable Chinese Communist Party-Korean Workers' Party relationship as an important element of maintaining stability on China's northeast frontier. Beijing's direct support and implementation of financial sanctions could seriously harm its communist party-to-communist party ties with Pyongyang. Beijing is cognizant of its inability to both apply harsh measures against North Korean leaders and cultivate working relationships with them. Understanding growing Chinese frustrations and limitations in dealing with North Korea needs to be a priority for Washington in order to effectively engage Beijing in a serious discussion about red lines regarding future North Korean brinkmanship. Washington ultimately needs a direct answer from Beijing on a key question: under what specific circumstances will Beijing seize North Korean accounts in Chinese banks? Without that answer, no sanction will be deemed credible to Pyongyang.

With respect to recent policy debates in Washington, it's becoming clear that the Obama administration has few options. From the outset of the new U.S. administration, an offer was extended to the North Koreans for a resumption of direct bilateral negotiations as had occurred during the last few months of the administration of George W. Bush. To be clear, it was North Korea that ignored this early offer.

How are North Korea's nuclear and missile tests affecting Japan?

Of all the countries involved in dealing with North Korea's nuclear and missile tests, Japan feels directly threatened by North Korea. That is, North Korea is perceived to be a direct threat to Japan's national security. If North Korea continues to conduct more tests, the view in Tokyo will grow that neither Beijing nor Washington can 'stop' North Korea. How Japan ends up being more proactive in its self-defense will have major implications in the region. Close U.S. -Japanese security policy coordination and cooperation will be needed more than ever. Washington will have to make the extra effort to demonstrate awareness of and support for Japanese security concerns. There is growing debate in Tokyo about adopting a policy of preemption as a means of self-defense.

Should Japanese Self-Defense forces detect an imminent North Korean missile launch aimed at Japan, lawmakers are exploring the adoption of a new policy that would permit Japanese forces to "take-out" the North Korean missile test.

The view is: "why should the Japanese people wait by idly to be attacked by the North Koreans?"

The views expressed here are not necessarily those of USIP, which does not advocate specific policy positions.