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North Korea Now Miniaturizing Warheads for Their ICBMs
Well, this isn’t good.
North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, crossing a key threshold on the path to becoming a full-fledged nuclear power, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded in a confidential assessment.
The new analysis completed last month by the Defense Intelligence Agency comes on the heels of another intelligence assessment that sharply raises the official estimate for the total number of bombs in the communist country’s atomic arsenal. The U.S. calculated last month that up to 60 nuclear weapons are now controlled by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Some independent experts believe the number of bombs is much smaller.
The findings are likely to deepen concerns about an evolving North Korean military threat that appears to be advancing far more rapidly than many experts had predicted. U.S. officials last month concluded that Pyongyang is also outpacing expectations in its effort to build an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking cities on the American mainland.
The UN Security Council unanimously passed a new sanctions regime against North Korea which is expected to cut its export revenue by a third. This led Pyongyang, or course, to issue more threats:
“Packs of wolves are coming in attack to strangle a nation,” the North Korean statement said. “They should be mindful that the D.P.R.K.’s strategic steps accompanied by physical action will be taken mercilessly with the mobilization of all its national strength.”
Given Seoul’s 10 million residents are located just 35 miles from the demilitarized zone, all allied military options would be very bloody indeed. How do you recommend the US and its allies respond?
Published in Foreign Policy, Military
Sounds good to me. Then, whatever peace treaties between S. Korea, China, and America that are necessary. I would prefer a unified Korea governed from Seoul, but we’ve gotta avert total disaster. Nuclear war would be bad for business.
Our enemies have perfected the gray war (see exhibit A, Ukraine). Can we imitate them?
I know the balloons and loudspeakers really pissed people off – maybe there was a reason for that. Maybe the people aren’t as united and supportive as they seem – or as they used to be.
I imagine they would pull the trigger on war over propaganda? But how about deniable propaganda?
If so, how would you do deniable propaganda?
Who knows? The effectiveness of any threat is directly proportional to its credibility. I think it’s good tactics to leave your opponent an escape route. A lot depends on how you assess the objectives of North Korea.
As far as shooting down a missile goes, I don’t know. There are a lot of uncertainties. I think you have to consider the risk that we miss, emboldening him to saber rattle further or even launch. I think you have to consider that miss or not it would give him information to evaluate how good our defenses are and therefore how long his nuclear ICBMs will remain a trump card. And miss or not, I think you have to consider his internal position – which I believe is propped up by his belligerence against the US. If we take this step, do we force him to respond lest he lose face with those around him, potentially costing him his position and his life? Does he fear that whether there’s any risk of it or not? Totalitarian dictators are notoriously paranoid.
Naval provocation is a little different. It’s a better beaten path. If we stay in declared international waters, he’s got to keep a certain distance and we’re entitled to defend ourselves if he doesn’t. I think the clearer rules give us a little more freedom to respond with force if the Norks are the clear aggressors.
I’d throw a parade. Problem is, I don’t think China wants to be responsible for cleaning up this mess, and I don’t think it has an easy path to annexation of NoKo either. The Kims like their little satrap as it is and the tension between Korea and China goes back into the mists of history. It’s not like the North is just going to just fall into China’s lap under current circumstances.
But they might be able to replace Kim with a more controlled lap dog.
Ignoring whether that would be legal or ethical, it would be inadequate for stopping the threat.
Russia’s secret war against Ukraine only works because Ukraine is a relatively weak country compared to Russia, those parts of Ukraine were relatively poorly defended, and because the scope of the Russian mission is very focused on capturing ports on the Mediterranean. The action is small enough that Russia can tell a story about how these are just local militias of ethnically Russian people who juat happen to be doing this and aren’t part of the government.
In contrast, North Korea has been prepared for war to resume for about the past 70 years. It’s pretty much the only thing that their country does besides make nuclear weapons. As such, they have a massive army just waiting to cross the DMZ at any moment. The first thing they’re going to do at the slightest provocation is drive hundreds of tanks and thousands of troops across the DMZ in a direct push for Seoul. The 30,000 US troops already stationed nearby are not going to be enough to stop that onslaught; you’d need to commit many thousands more troops, and even then you’re really talking about fighting over the rubble of Seoul rather than preventing the DPRK from taking it. And if the goal of this exercise is to eliminate a relatively sophisticated nuclear weapons program, you’re talking about an mission with a relatively open ended scope that requires conquest of pretty much the entire country.
The only way to wage a war against North Korea that will have a chance of working is an actual war. And by “actual war”, I mean one that starts with an overwhelming attack against North Korea, either as a premptive measure or as an immediate counter attack to a DPRK invasion. The forces required for that are too large and sophisticated to pretend that they’re local militias who just happen to be the only white people in an asian country.
You’re also talking about thousands of people dying every day until it’s over, even assuming that it stays conventional and other regional powers do not join the hostilities. So, a new war here should be either done very seriously and deliberately, or not at all.
The objective is to establish some form of deterrence. I’d give us a 90% chance of shooting down one of his missiles. But there is also a 20% chance his missile fails before we need to shoot.
If they hit us they’d be obliterated. If they hit Tokyo we’d start debating whether we also want them to hit Seoul, if we really want retaliation and we could go on talking about it for many months. Japan would start building their forces, including Nukes and the world would get on their case, especially the Chinese. If we preemptively hit them they will bombard Seoul. If we just play along with the same game, and threaten and beg the Chinese, they’ll keep building up their weapons hoping to get some money at the end of the process. None of the options is attractive, but if we preemptively strike, we have to take out everything, carpet bomb in hopes we’d get some of the artilillary. China can’t want this, but how far are we (all the players) willing to go in preparation and threats before the NK does something? You’re right to be concerned that you live in Japan.
Having spent just a few days in Seoul, I can tell you that American servicemen stand out like sore thumbs. Their size, color, and even behavior is just not Korean. There’s no way to blend in.
There is no good outcome. None.
Option 1: Kick the can. We do what we’ve done for the past 20+ years and the Norks do their thing and eventually they agree to something they have no intention of honoring so everyone can save face and the status quo will continue until the next crisis, except this time the nuclear threat will be real. Millions of North Koreans continue to live (and die all too quickly) under the murderous regime.
Option 2: Norks restart the war. They launch a first strike before we can build up significant forces. Thousands of American troops and hundreds of thousands of South Koreans living near the DMZ are killed in the first days of the war, and it goes downhill from there. We win, but the entire peninsula is devastated with death tolls in the millions. Meanwhile chaos erupts at other hot spots around the world as our attention and resources are focused on Korea.
Option 3: The US/South Korea restart the war. We launch strategic strikes to decapitate the NK leadership and wipe out their ability to attack Seoul. Even with our best efforts it’s impossible to completely eliminate the threat. The best case results in tens of thousands killed in the first weeks. The worst case is measured in millions of deaths. The initial casualty counts are possibly lower for our side, but the end result is the same as Option 2.
What won’t happen:
Magic Pixie Fairy Dust Option: We kick the can down the road and the Kim dynasty suddenly collapses in a bloodless revolt, Korea is unified and everyone lives happily ever after.
Fantasy Mil Sci-fi Dream Option: Our first strikes are 100% successful at eliminating all the nuclear weapons in the North and destroying the artillery and troops threatening Seoul. The Nork regime suddenly collapses and we’re back in Magic Pixie Fairy Dust world.
Most people who haven’t thought too deeply about it are either snorting the fairy dust or having fantasy dreams. No good solution exists. 20 years ago? Maybe. Not now. None.
Not the China option? Where the risk of our not paying our debts drives them to replace Kim with a more reliable puppet?
I don’t think that China is neutral in this. They tend to benefit from the chaos that their puppet causes, and Kim is unlikely to target Chinese cities with his nuclear arsenal so there’s little downside for them in letting him be crazy. Would they believe that we would engage in what is essentially economic warfare with them over Korea, and would that change the equation for them? I don’t think the former is correct, and your guess is as good as mine for the latter. Relying on China to solve the problem is just one way (albeit a very likely way) of kicking the can along.
If we repudiate our debts to China won’t that jack up our interest rates as investors demand higher returns for riskier debt? China knows that this is a potentially ruinous option for us.
I prefer Milton Freidman’s observation. They send us stuff and we give them little pieces of paper.
First off, it’s not like there is a bunch of paper bonds in the Nakatomi Plaza bank in China. Those bonds are electronic records in electronic ledgers. Second, the bond issuer makes periodic interest payments. The bond redemption is far in the future, and usually almost always they are just rolled over, like the CDs in your IRA. Third, quite often those bonds are used as collateral for loans. If they are no good, it’s a worldwide debt implosion that would make the mortgage bust of 2008 look like a vacation in Cancun. Last, but most important, the US dollar, for all its flaws, is the reserve currency of the world. Nobody wants to mess that up, least of all the United States.
There’s an old saying….when you owe the bank $100,000 they own you. When you owe the bank $300 billion, you own the bank.
Clearly American soldiers would never blend in. Perhaps South Korean irregulars could pull it off, but I wonder if even they would stick out as too tall, well-fed, and healthy-looking compared to their Northern cousins?
Russia also has the advantage that the Russia/Ukraine border is huge and poorly defended, no doubt entire Russian army units can slip across a few at a time undetected, then blend in with a sympathetic local population. The Korean DMZ is the most heavily-guarded border in the world, and even if you sneak some irregulars across (perhaps by boat?) are there any preexisting resistance forces within the North to hide them and give them shelter?
Thr Russians had a naval base in the Crimea. They were able to stack troops and weapons there. Somewhat like the way we used our bases in the Canal Zone during Urgent Fury.
We wouldn’t pay on bonds to a country we were at war with. A client going too far could be considered something close to an act of war and a reasonable reason for a temporary suspension of payments. It may not be a desirable path – but the lack of confidence in US bonds will come at some point anyways. And, anyways, it has got to be better than opening an active front with North Korea.
The Chinese *are* threatened by North Korean nukes for the same reason. If the US is attacked in any successful way (e.g. EMPs), they don’t get paid. And not just in a temporary fashion.
I’m glad you don’t have to be the one to make these decisions.
It depends on whether you assume North Korea will behave differently than every other nuclear state or not. If you assume that North Korea is going to make a nuclear first strike, then yes, that would be somewhat correct.
On the other hand, if they act like every other nuclear state, then they just become another state that nobody will start a war with, who will feel free to start war with non-nuclear powers nearby. Given that South Korea and Japan are implictly protected by the American nuclear umbrella, then an argument could be made that allowing North Korea to have nuclear weapons is not going to be a big deal, just as it would not be a big deal for Russia, China, and other powers hostile to the US. And China has a vested interest in the current regime continuing to exist to prevent a reunification of Korea as a democratic capitalist state, so they and other countries could easily decide that this isn’t a big deal for them.
Being protected by the US nuclear umbrella isn’t quite the same as having your own. There’s always that smidgen of doubt as to whether the US will risk a nuclear exchange for Seoul or Tokyo. If a Democrat is president, it’s more than a smidgen.
So am I, but I detect you intended some sort of snark. I’m not quite clue-full enough to figure it out though. Oh, well.
I was reacting to a comment, suggesting war is inevitable. The US shield of South Korea can be slowly boiled away (e.g. withdraw troops, or we’ll shoot) just as restrictions so far have been slowly boiled away. The only way to stop this is to give nukes to the South Koreans. This is the same technique Iran will use once they are an explicit nuclear power. Their goals will simply become easier by the time they reach the point of being willing to go all out.
By the way, my concern isn’t simply North Korea, but the people they sell to (like Iran). If you think the Chinese don’t care – well the NKs really don’t care. As long as there is deniability, it seems they’ll sell anything to anyone given enough cash.
I don’t think the NKs will launch a nuclear strike. But I think they know the US is so scared of them doing so (as are others) that resistance to their slow gains will be minimal at best. Even if there is no nuclear war – there are substantial costs in allowing that activity.
By the way – I think Pakistan and India and India and China could easily start real wars – even if not nuclear. I don’t think we can assume all nuclear powers will stay clear of conflict with nuclear neighbors.
Yeah, I shouldn’t have been snarky. That was inappropriate of me. I apologize for that.
You do seem to be weighing things a little… disproportionately. It’s true that there are no good options, but it’s not clear that opening an active front with North Korea is the worst one to choose. I don’t think it’s clear that war is so bad here that violating international law (e.g. grey war) or defaulting on sovereign debt (e.g. not paying China, unless we actually went to war with them) are choices worth considering as alternatives.
The only real choices are actual war, or acquiescence. There’s a real debate to be had on whether it would be better to have a war now or whether to acquiesce. There don’t seem to be any good third options that don’t involve divine intervention.
True. So if you are China and trying to decide whether or not your client state having nuclear weapons is going to be a problem for you, you have to include in the calculation the possibility of South Korea and Japan choosing to nuke up in response for exactly that reason.
I don’t know what South Korean nuclear capabilities are; I do know they’ve previously been rather explicitly protected by American nuclear weapons that were actually present in Korea until the H. W. Bush administration.
Nobody wants Japan to have nukes, but they have a sufficiently advanced civilian nuclear program that they probably already possess “breakout” capability. I dunno what it would take for them to take the plunge and actually do it.
Michael Totten argues for a formal peace and recognition – so Kim loses his story line of enemies waiting to destroy the Korean people. Can’t say that’s a promising path to dissuade other potential threats.
Less need to saber rattle to get what he wants. He gets it anyways.
That’s assuming that he doesn’t like rattling his saber.
The Japanese could have a fission bomb like the Hiroshima Little Boy, overnight. A fusion warhead delivered by a missile, less than two years.
“Depending on the breaks.”
Even if he does, there is less to rattle about – which takes some of the oomph out of it. And due to ethnic/racial boundaries, he doesn’t have little clients to establish – like Cuba has Venezuela.
If this problem stood alone, it might not be a bad path…