Well, that’s interesting. The editors of the Wall Street Journal have come out in support of an idea that I floated some time ago—shoot down North Korean missiles:
The North already has the technology to launch a nuclear weapon against South Korea and Japan. But hurdles remain to deploying an ICBM with a nuclear warhead. Chief among them is a re-entry vehicle capable of withstanding extremes of temperature and vibration. A successful test could provide the North with valuable data to work the problem.
The U.S. has ship-based missile defenses in the region, and intercepting the test would have the dual purpose of slowing Kim’s nuclear progress and demonstrating an effective deterrent. Kim may figure the U.S. won’t take such action as it prepares to inaugurate a new President and South Korea is riven by an impeachment trial of President Park Geun-hye. But the U.S. right to self defense provides ample justification, and U.N. Security Council resolutions ban the North from pursuing its missile program.
Even the defensive use of force carries risks that Kim would retaliate, but the larger risk is letting a man as reckless as Kim gain the means to hold American cities hostage.
Serious diplomatic engagement with China over North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons development program would be even better. When you have a well-founded fear of your neighbor’s dog biting you or your children, you don’t open up a dialogue with the dog. Strenuous measures in reaction to North Korea’s hostile programs are being abetted by Chinese support and the Chinese are making a cost-benefit analysis that presently favors continued support of Kim’s repellent regime. We should change that calculus.
However, as I’ve said before, we should be viewing North Korean missile tests as opportunities both to test our own technology and to counter theirs. He either fears his fate too much, etc.
What if our anti-missile systems don’t actually work?
Then we’re wasting a lot of money and denied knowledge that if we are to remain a free society we need to know.
Let’s say our various ABM systems are 50% effective. Do we broadcast that fact when the enemy may believe our systems to be 90% effective? The gap between what we know, and what they know, can work in our favor. That said, I suspect we can knock down a single missile with some reliability. The issue was always about coping with sophisticated Soviet countermeasures not currently available to Dear Leader, or whatever we’re calling this year’s Kim.
Our potential adversaries already know whether our systems are 50% effective, 90% effective, or not at all. The U. S. can only keep secrets from the American people. If the Chinese or Russians want to know, they already do.
My views are heterodox. The truth is North Korea is not China’s dog. 60 years ago they were, but for the last 30 years any assistance or forebearance has been blackmailed from China. Pyongyang is closer to Beijing then Ottawa is to Washington, so when Kim says as part of immolating himself, he will send 10 million refugees into China, create a nuclear holocaust in the region, and at the end have American troops at the China border, Chinese leaders cannot call his bluff. The relationship is so bad that Chinese media have questioned what was the point of sacrificing so much blood for this kind of treatment.
Ironically, there may be a better chance of a limited reapproachment with this Kim then his father or his grandfather. His two ancestors cared so much on self-reliance/non-dependence on others they willingly starved 10+% of the population. To me, this Kim has signaled he places high priority on economic growth. So perhaps a limited version of the Iran deal is possible – no proliferation, no more missile tests, no new bombs in return for some economic aid. It’s a mistake to ask for denuclearization because the Kim family sees nuclear weapons as the guarantee to their survival, but on other things they maybe negotiable. We won’t know if the signals are real until we give it a try. I also don’t know if it’s worth negotiating if denuclearization is off the table.
Won’t happen.
Quite a bit about our missile defense capabilities is public knowledge, to include the various test flights and the general capabilities of the systems.
Suffice it to say that the Sea-based system mentioned by the WSJ does not have any advertised or claimed capability against ICBMs and only a limited, notional and untested capability against some IRBMs. So unless the North Koreans decide to test their missiles by firing them toward the US with sufficient range to be within the engagement window of the GBMD sites in Alaska or California (GBMD is the only system with any tested capability against Intermediate and Long-range ballistic missiles), then there won’t be any shootdowns of North Korean ICBM test launches….Unless we want to take the dumb risk of trying with an untested system that isn’t designed for that kind of missile.
Andy:
That was my memory of ABM systems too, but only in the most general and hazy sense. Thanks for doing the actual research.
CuriousOnlooker:
I think your analysis is credible. It reminds me a bit of the old wisecrack about banks: when you owe the bank $1,000, the bank owns you; when you owe the bank $1 million you own the bank.
Still I think that the Chinese have leverage that they don’t care to use. Nearly all strategic materials come to North Korea through China or with China’s consent. As I said in the body of the post, the Chinese are doing a cost-benefit analysis and as long as the U. S. doesn’t care to up the ante the Chinese will continue to provide the North Koreans with what support they do.
The Americans are doing a cost-benefit analysis, too, and we’ve decided that the risks posed by North Korea aren’t sufficient to press the matter. That could change.
Dave, you are right that the Chinese do have leverage, I am emphasizing their ability to use it is limited short of an extreme crisis since a miscalculation would be disasterous for them. North Korea is now more the wild dog that the Chinese released.
Not that I sympathize with the Chinese government, they made their bed, another of Mao’s terrible mistakes supporting the Kim family.
The American actions in the South China Sea probably don’t make the Chinese want to get tough with NK.
Trump should get tough with them on trade but balance that with concessions re spheres of influence.
North Korea really believes in Juche – at least for now. A more normal country would accept China as a protector, but the North Koreans don’t trust anyone. China certainly has the levers to hurt NK, but utilizing those levers is dangerous and unpredictable.
The one thing everyone agrees on (except the US) is that North Korea should not collapse. Neither China nor South Korea wants to pay the very high price to pick up the pieces.
I think that generational change will be an important factor in changing attitudes towards the North in South Korea. Reunification is not quite as high a value as once it was; most South Koreans today don’t remember their relatives in the North. I don’t know what it portends but I’m pretty sure it means something.