朝鲜发展核武的目的：守还是攻？
当金正恩(Kim Jong Un)同父异母的哥哥今年在某国际机场被谋杀时，许多人指出了其中类似中世纪王朝政治的动机：被流放的兄弟对国王是一种威胁，必须被除掉。
Six months later, North Korea’s supreme leader continues to revel in shocking the global community as he shows off his growing military power with an endless stream of advanced weapons tests.
六个月后，朝鲜最高领导人继续以令国际社会震惊为乐——用源源不断的先进武器试验来炫耀朝鲜不断增长的军事实力。
In its publicly stated views, Pyongyang portrays its audacious pursuit of nuclear weapons as a necessary defensive measure to ward off US aggression. But experts are divided on whether the secretive regime’s ambition is only self-preservation, or whether its intentions are altogether more aggressive.
在公开的宣传中，平壤将其冒险研发核武器的行为称为抵御美国侵略的必要防御措施。但这个神秘政权的核野心仅仅是为了自保，还是完全更具侵略性，专家们也意见不一。
Nicholas Eberstadt, a Korea expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think-tank, is among those who believe that North Korea’s ultimate aim is to fight and win a war with the South.
保守派智库美国企业研究所(American Enterprise Institute)的朝鲜问题专家尼古拉斯•埃伯施塔特(Nicholas Eberstadt)等一些学者认为，朝鲜的终极目标是与韩国开战并赢得这场战争。
“If Pyongyang can force an American president to blink in a future Korean crisis, then the US-South Korea military alliance will collapse,” he says. “US forces will be out [of South Korea] and the Kim family regime will take a giant step to settling the still unfinished Korean war on its terms.”
“如果平壤能迫使美国总统在未来的一场朝鲜半岛危机中立场有所动摇，那么，美韩军事同盟将解体，”他说，“美国军队将撤出(韩国)，金氏家族政权将朝着按自己的想法解决这场仍未结束的朝鲜战争迈出一大步。”
Fears over such a scenario are growing in South Korea, where citizens have begun to question whether the US is truly ready to defend its longstanding ally in the face of a nuclear-armed adversary.
在韩国，人们对这一前景的担忧正在加剧。韩国民众已经开始质疑，美国是否真的准备好在一个拥有核武器的对手面前保卫其长期盟友。
“All the pieces for the North’s design are slowly but deliberately falling into place,” Mr Eberstadt adds. “The nukes, the missiles, the cyber war component.”
“朝鲜的每一步棋都经过了精心考虑，在缓慢地完成它的布局。”埃伯施塔特补充道，“包括核武器、导弹、网络战。”
The actions of US President Donald Trump have done little to inspire Seoul’s confidence. After Pyongyang’s sixth nuclear test on Sunday, Mr Trump took to Twitter to accuse South Korea of appeasing the North. It then took almost 36 hours before he picked up the phone to discuss the matter with Moon Jae-in, his South Korean counterpart.
美国总统唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的言行几乎无助于激起首尔的信心。上周日朝鲜进行第六次核试验之后，特朗普在Twitter上指责韩国姑息朝鲜。过了将近36个小时，特朗普才与韩国总统文在寅(Moon Jae-in)通电话讨论此事。
Kim Tae-woo, former head of the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, also believes Pyongyang is seeking to “induce a division in the South Korea-US alliance”. He believes the North’s threats last month to bomb the US Pacific territory of Guam “could make Americans nervous and question why they should protect South Korea at the expense of their own security”.
位于首尔的韩国统一研究院(Korea Institute for National Unification)前院长金泰宇也认为，平壤方面正试图“离间韩美同盟”。他认为，朝鲜上月发出的轰炸美国太平洋领土关岛的威胁，“可能让美国人感到紧张，并质疑为什么要以牺牲自身安全为代价保护韩国”。
However, others see North Korea’s nuclear build-up as rooted in self-protection.
然而，有些专家认为朝鲜打造核武库归根到底是为了自保。
Some point to frequent mentions in North Korean state media of Libya’s Muammer Gaddafi and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein — dictators who met grisly ends after failing to realise that “nuclear deterrence serves as the strongest treasured sword” — as evidence that the regime is motivated more by fear than belligerence.
他们认为平壤政权的行为更多是出于恐惧、而非好战，证据就是，朝鲜官方媒体经常提及利比亚的穆阿迈尔•卡扎菲(Muammer Gaddafi)和伊拉克前总统萨达姆•侯赛因(Saddam Hussein)——两位因未意识到“核威慑是最强大的宝剑”而遭遇可怕结局的独裁者。
“Pyongyang is trying to strike a deal with Washington on its own terms,” says Kim Dong-yeob, a researcher at Kyungnam University in Seoul. “It wants a security guarantee from the US and a guarantee for the regime’s survival.”
“平壤正试图按自己的想法与华盛顿达成协议。”韩国庆南大学(Kyungnam University)研究员金东烨(Kim Dong-yeob)表示，“它希望得到美国的安全保证，一项对朝鲜政权存续的保证。”
North and South Korea have remained technical enemies since the 1950s Korean war ended in armistice rather than a peace treaty. Pyongyang views the continued US military presence in South Korea, as well as joint drills with Seoul, as precursors to an invasion.
自上世纪50年代朝鲜战争停战(双方签署的是停战协定，而非和平条约)以来，朝韩两国实际上一直处于敌对国家状态。平壤方面将美国在韩国持续的军事存在及美韩定期联合军演视为入侵的前兆。
Some experts believe North Korea is seeking a deal that would recognise it as a legitimate nuclear state and free it from the grasp of international sanctions. Such a deal would also entail a peace treaty with the US as a security commitment, a move that would be met with consternation in Seoul.
有专家认为，朝鲜正在寻求达成一项协议，即让国际社会承认其为合法的拥核国，使其摆脱国际制裁的束缚。达成这样的协议首先需要与美国签署和平条约作为安全承诺，而此举将引发首尔的恐慌。
For Stephan Haggard, a North Korea expert at the University of California, San Diego, the recent sabre-rattling from the Kim regime is directed more at China than the US or South Korea.
在加州大学圣迭戈分校(University of California, San Diego)的朝鲜问题专家史蒂芬•哈格德(Stephan Haggard)看来，金正恩政权近期的战争叫嚣更多地是针对中国，而非美国或韩国。
“The tests are not a sign of confidence but desperation: an effort on the part of Kim Jong Un to sway the Chinese to back off their recent sanctions commitments, which are in fact quite draconian,” Prof Haggard suggests in a blog post for the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
“这些试验显示的不是信心，而是绝望：金正恩试图说服中方收回最近的制裁承诺，这些承诺实际上相当严厉，”哈格德在为彼得森国际经济研究所(Peterson Institute for International Economics)撰写的一篇博文中表示。
Growing trade with China, by far North Korea’s largest trading partner, has until now helped the Kim regime mitigate the burden of sanctions and fuel economic growth. But last month China signed off on tough new UN sanctions banning North Korea from exporting coal, iron and lead in a move that could cut Pyongyang’s $3bn export revenues by more than one-third.
直至最近，不断扩大的对华贸易(中国是朝鲜最大的贸易伙伴)帮助金氏政权减轻了制裁造成的负担，推动了经济增长。但上月，中国同意执行联合国新的严厉制裁(禁止朝鲜出口煤、铁和铅)，制裁可能令朝鲜30亿美元的出口收入减少逾三分之一。
“The North Korean regime is pulling resources from a variety of overseas accounts to sustain its balance-of-payments deficit with China, now virtually its only significant trading partner,” Prof Haggard says. “The regime is perfectly aware of what is in those accounts and how long they will last, and it does not like what it is seeing.”
“朝鲜政权正在从各种海外账户中抽取资源，以支撑其对中国的国际收支逆差，而中国眼下实际上是其唯一重要的贸易伙伴。”哈格德表示，“朝鲜政权十分清楚这些账户里有多少东西，能坚持多久，而答案是它不愿看到的。”
Additional reporting by Kang Buseong Kang Buseong补充报道
