Since June 25, 1950, when North Korea, with Soviet and Chinese backing, invaded the South, in an effort to reunify the country, North Korea has been on the offensive. Ever since, the U.S., South Korea, and Japan have been playing defense in a failed attempt to get North Korea to behave. The Korean War ended in 1953, with estimates that 400,000 UN troops, mostly South Korean, were killed or wounded. U.S. casualties were 54,000 dead and over 100,000 wounded. It is estimated that 3 million civilians were killed.
Since then, North Korea has continued to act recklessly. In 1966, North Korea dispatched a commando team to attack the presidential Blue House in Seoul. In 1983, North Korea sent a commando team to Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar), to attack visiting South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan and his delegation, with 21 South Korean officials killed. In 1987, Korean Airlines Flight 858 was bombed in mid-air, with 115 passengers and crew perishing. In 2010, North Korea attacked a South Korean navy vessel, with 46 sailors killed. These are just some of the international terrorist acts that emanated from North Korea. More recently, with the leadership of Kim Jong-un, who succeeded his father in December 2011, a number of domestic acts of savagery have occurred, including the 2013 brutal execution of Kim’s uncle, Jang Song-thaek, and the February 2017 assassination of Kim’s half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, with the use of VX nerve agent in a public area at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
This is the North Korea we’ve been dealing with since the beginning of the Korean War. Moreover, since that time, North Korea has developed a threatening nuclear weapons arsenal. North Korea is assessed to have 12 to 18 or more plutonium based nuclear weapons and an equal or greater number of highly enriched uranium-based nuclear weapons. Many assess that North Korea can miniaturize these nuclear weapons, as it pursues the ability to mate them to missile delivery systems. Over the past five years of Kim’s reign, North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests, each progressively larger and more sophisticated. Last year alone, there were two successful nuclear tests.
North Korea’s missile arsenal is equally impressive, with short-, mid- and long-range missiles. Over the past five years, there were over 50 missile launches, with over 25 launches conducted in 2016 alone. In 2016, a successful launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile, (IRBM), with a range of over 4,000 kilometers, was conducted. That is a range that can reach Guam. It successfully had a submarine ballistic missile launch, with a range exceeding 1,000 kilometers. This year alone, during Shinzo Abe’s state visit and in the midst of his meeting with President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Largo, North Korea successfully launched an IRBM with additional capabilities: it was mobile, thus hard to locate, and it was a solid-fuel missile, thus making it even more difficult to locate. A few weeks ago, North Korea simultaneously launched four missiles, a clear message that it can defeat our plans to deploy a THAAD missile defense system in South Korea.
During the last few years, North Korea has been working on two intercontinental ballistic missiles, the KN-08 and KN-14, each with a range of over 9,000 kilometers, thus capable of reaching the whole of the United States. Kim made it clear during his 2017 New Year’s address that North Korea will launch this ICBM in 2017.
Given North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and assessed ability to miniaturize these weapons, it is only a matter of time before it will be able to mate them to an ICBM that can reach the United States. Thus in a few years North Korea will be an existential nuclear threat to the United States. Currently, it is an existential nuclear threat to South Korea and Japan and to 28,000 U.S. military personnel in South Korea and the 40,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan.
This is the North Korea we are dealing with. It is a country that recently posted YouTube simulations showing the deployment of nuclear weapons against New York, Washington, and Seoul. It is also a North Korea that financed its nuclear and missile programs by selling missiles to Iran, Libya, and Syria. It is a country that was assisting Syria with the construction of a nuclear facility to manufacture nuclear weapons. Fortunately, Israel bombed and destroyed this nuclear facility at Al Kibar, Syria, in 2007.
North Korea wants to be accepted as a nuclear weapons state. It cites Pakistan and India as countries with nuclear weapons and diplomatic relations with the U.S. It demands similar treatment. A North Korea with nuclear weapons is not in the interest of any country. The potential for its nuclear weapons, fissile material, or both getting into the hands of the wrong states and other entities is a reality. Indeed, nuclear terrorism is of concern for all nations. Also, there is the potential of miscalculation or accidental use of a nuclear weapon, which could trigger a war on the Korean Peninsula. Certainly, a North Korea with nuclear weapons will encourage such countries as South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and others to acquire nuclear arsenals, despite U.S. extended deterrence commitments to our allies.
Since 1994, the U.S. has been negotiating with North Korea, seeking a peaceful resolution of this nuclear issue. The 1994 Agreed Framework got North Korea to halt its program at Yongbyon, its nuclear plutonium enrichment facility. When the North was discovered pursuing a clandestine uranium enrichment program, in violation of the Agreed Framework, the U.S. in 2002 ceased manufacturing two Light Water Reactors for the North and ceased shipping heavy fuel oil, payments for its halt of its plutonium program at Yongbyon. The Six-Party Talks that started in 2003 succeeded in September 2005 in again getting North Korea to halt all of its operating nuclear programs. As part of this deal, the State Department removed North Korea from its list of terrorist nations. The Six-Party Talks ended when the North refused to sign a verification agreement permitting monitors to inspect suspect nuclear sites outside of Yongbyon. Since then, there have been no negotiations or discussions with North Korea.
For the past eight years, the U.S. has pursued a policy of strategic patience with North Korea, using sanctions and international condemnation to get the country to halt its nuclear programs. This policy has failed, as the Secretary of State noted during his recent visit to Japan and South Korea.
The Trump Administration is drafting a strategy to deal with a nuclear North Korea. All options are on the table, from pre-emption to negotiations. It is now up to North Korea to decide if it is willing to discuss halting its nuclear and missile programs, in exchange for a discussion of a peace treaty and other actions to address North Korea’s security concerns. North Korea also wants sanctions relief and the scaling down of the joint military exercises with South Korea. These all can and should be discussed with North Korea, if it is prepared to halt its nuclear and missile programs and cease the production of fissile material. Once this is accomplished, North Korea should be prepared to discuss the complete and verifiable dismantlement of all of its nuclear programs, in line with its commitment outlines in the September 2005 Joint Statement that also committed the U.S. and others to provide significant deliverables, like civilian Light Water Reactors and access to international financial institutions.
If North Korea is not willing to halt its nuclear and missile programs, and continues to upgrade these programs, all in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, then the U.S. has no choice but to work with our South Korean and Japanese allies and deploy additional missile defense systems in the region, while imposing additional sanctions and expanding and intensifying military exercises with South Korea and eventually, having Japan join in these military exercises. Hopefully, North Korea will understand that it will not be recognized as a nuclear weapons state and that its nuclear weapons, in fact, will lead to further isolation and international condemnation. Ideally, China will more effectively put pressure on North Korea and, using its significant economic leverage, convince Kim that it is in North Korea’s interest to halt its nuclear and missile programs. This is something China can and should accomplish.
A clear red line for the U.S. should be our resolve to never permit North Korea to launch an ICBM, knowing that such a missile eventually can reach the U.S. with a nuclear warhead.
It is time for the U.S. and its allies to stop playing defense and go on the offense with a threatening North Korea.
The views are the author’s and not any government agency or department.
