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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| If Necessary, Strike and Destroy |
| 2006-06-22 |
| North Korea Cannot Be Allowed to Test This Missile By Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry North Korean technicians are reportedly in the final stages of fueling a long-range ballistic missile that some experts estimate can deliver a deadly payload to the United States. The last time North Korea tested such a missile, in 1998, it sent a shock wave around the world, but especially to the United States and Japan, both of which North Korea regards as archenemies. They recognized immediately that a missile of this type makes no sense as a weapon unless it is intended for delivery of a nuclear warhead. A year later North Korea agreed to a moratorium on further launches, which it upheld -- until now. But there is a critical difference between now and 1998. Today North Korea openly boasts of its nuclear deterrent, has obtained six to eight bombs' worth of plutonium since 2003 and is plunging ahead to make more in its Yongbyon reactor. The six-party talks aimed at containing North Korea's weapons of mass destruction have collapsed. Should the United States allow a country openly hostile to it and armed with nuclear weapons to perfect an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear weapons to U.S. soil? We believe not. The Bush administration has unwisely ballyhooed the doctrine of "preemption," which all previous presidents have sustained as an option rather than a dogma. It has applied the doctrine to Iraq, where the intelligence pointed to a threat from weapons of mass destruction that was much smaller than the risk North Korea poses. (The actual threat from Saddam Hussein was, we now know, even smaller than believed at the time of the invasion.) But intervening before mortal threats to U.S. security can develop is surely a prudent policy. Intervening before a mortal threat developed is exactly what Bush did in Iraq, and it is exactly what the Clinton administration failed to do in Korea. The authors should have resisted this clumsy attempt at CYA because, without the preceding paragraph, the article is perfectly reasonable. Therefore, if North Korea persists in its launch preparations, the United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy the North Korean Taepodong missile before it can be launched. This could be accomplished, for example, by a cruise missile launched from a submarine carrying a high-explosive warhead. The blast would be similar to the one that killed terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. But the effect on the Taepodong would be devastating. The multi-story, thin-skinned missile filled with high-energy fuel is itself explosive -- the U.S. airstrike would puncture the missile and probably cause it to explode. The carefully engineered test bed for North Korea's nascent nuclear missile force would be destroyed, and its attempt to retrogress to Cold War threats thwarted. There would be no damage to North Korea outside the immediate vicinity of the missile gantry. The U.S. military has announced that it has placed some of the new missile defense interceptors deployed in Alaska and California on alert. In theory, the antiballistic missile system might succeed in smashing into the Taepodong payload as it hurtled through space after the missile booster burned out. But waiting until North Korea's ICBM is launched to interdict it is risky. First, by the time the payload was intercepted, North Korean engineers would already have obtained much of the precious flight test data they are seeking, which they could use to make a whole arsenal of missiles, hiding and protecting them from more U.S. strikes in the maze of tunnels they have dug throughout their mountainous country. Second, the U.S. defensive interceptor could reach the target only if it was flying on a test trajectory that took it into the range of the U.S. defense. Third, the U.S. system is unproven against North Korean missiles and has had an uneven record in its flight tests. A failed attempt at interception could undermine whatever deterrent value our missile defense may have. We should not conceal our determination to strike the Taepodong if North Korea refuses to drain the fuel out and take it back to the warehouse. When they learn of it, our South Korean allies will surely not support this ultimatum -- indeed they will vigorously oppose it. The United States should accordingly make clear to the North that the South will play no role in the attack, which can be carried out entirely with U.S. forces and without use of South Korean territory. South Korea has worked hard to counter North Korea's 50-year menacing of its own country, through both military defense and negotiations, and the United States has stood with the South throughout. South Koreans should understand that U.S. territory is now also being threatened, and we must respond. Japan is likely to welcome the action but will also not lend open support or assistance. China and Russia will be shocked that North Korea's recklessness and the failure of the six-party talks have brought things to such a pass, but they will not defend North Korea. In addition to warning our allies and partners of our determination to take out the Taepodong before it can be launched, we should warn the North Koreans. There is nothing they could do with such warning to defend the bulky, vulnerable missile on its launch pad, but they could evacuate personnel who might otherwise be harmed. The United States should emphasize that the strike, if mounted, would not be an attack on the entire country, or even its military, but only on the missile that North Korea pledged not to launch -- one designed to carry nuclear weapons. We should sharply warn North Korea against further escalation. North Korea could respond to U.S. resolve by taking the drastic step of threatening all-out war on the Korean Peninsula. But it is unlikely to act on that threat. Why attack South Korea, which has been working to improve North-South relations (sometimes at odds with the United States) and which was openly opposing the U.S. action? An invasion of South Korea would bring about the certain end of Kim Jong Il's regime within a few bloody weeks of war, as surely he knows. Though war is unlikely, it would be prudent for the United States to enhance deterrence by introducing U.S. air and naval forces into the region at the same time it made its threat to strike the Taepodong. If North Korea opted for such a suicidal course, these extra forces would make its defeat swifter and less costly in lives -- American, South Korean and North Korean. This is a hard measure for President Bush to take. It undoubtedly carries risk. But the risk of continuing inaction in the face of North Korea's race to threaten this country would be greater. Creative diplomacy might have avoided the need to choose between these two unattractive alternatives. Indeed, in earlier years the two of us were directly involved in negotiations with North Korea, coupled with military planning, to prevent just such an outcome. We believe diplomacy might have precluded the current situation. But diplomacy has failed, and we cannot sit by and let this deadly threat mature. A successful Taepodong launch, unopposed by the United States, its intended victim, would only embolden North Korea even further. The result would be more nuclear warheads atop more and more missiles. Ashton B. Carter was assistant secretary of defense under President Bill Clinton and William J. Perry was secretary of defense. The writers, who conducted the North Korea policy review while in government, are now professors at Harvard and Stanford, respectively. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #8 I am with Frank. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-06-22 23:54 |
| #7 Call the bastards out and be done with it, we've been phueching with them since 1950. Sixtysix years should be long enuf. The gig is up! End it quickly, the shi*storm will be over in a couple of weeks. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-06-22 16:18 |
| #6 splash it |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-06-22 16:05 |
| #5 If I was Japan, I'd destroy it on the pad. I understand Steve's point. Kicking the can down the road has been our NK strategy since the Clinton admin at least. It may well work as NK's system is utterly unsustainable. Still Carter/Perry do address his arguments. It is not clear that destroying the device on the pad will definitely lead to the shelling of Seoul. And, even if it did, the fact that they now have an ICBM means that our interests have officially diverged from those of SK. The fact that NK might attack an uninvolved 3rd party should not automatically stop us from defending ourselves if we perceive an imminent threat. Similarly, Japan also has to consider its own security when deciding what to do about the missile and considerations about SK must be of secondary concern. They're closer, and therefore I think they are more likely to conclude it must be taken out. I assume we are sharing intel with Japan and SK. Hopefully we can verify that it's not a warshot and follow Steve's approach. However, if we (the US and/or Japan) cannot make this determination, we need to err on the side of caution when considering how to protect our homelands from an ICBM brandished by a nuclear armed rogue state. Maybe the ingrates in Seoul should have thought this through a few moves before taking their odd nationalistic yet selfish soft line stance vs. the Norks instead of fomenting the collapse of the regime. My only concern is for our military people stationed in SK and I believe the fact that they are at risk (one SK legislator referred to them as 'hostages' a couple years ago) is the real reason we will not likely take out the missiles on the pad. |
| Posted by: JAB 2006-06-22 16:02 |
| #4 What Steve White sed. Should the United States allow a country openly hostile to it and armed with nuclear weapons to perfect an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear weapons to U.S. soil? Hummmmm.... |
| Posted by: 6 2006-06-22 15:45 |
| #3 Track it into the boost phase, and splash it as soon as it hits international airspace. Justify it by claiming that the trajectory threatened Tokyo, or Klamath Falls, or someplace, and there was no NOTAM issued in advance so we couldn't be sure it wasn't a warshot. |
| Posted by: Mike 2006-06-22 15:42 |
| #2 Our options here are very limited, but Perry and Carter are completely wrong. First of all, we don't know for sure that the bird has been fueled. Everyone says that you have to launch a liquid-fueled missile shortly after you fuel it, etc, etc. Okay -- if it's been fueled, when's it going to fly? Everyday it sits there is another day for the missile to corrode. So maybe our intel is wrong. Again. So maybe we shouldn't jump the gun. A nuclear strike on N Korea, in the absence of an overt attack by them on us or Japan, would ruin us in the world. We'd be pariahs even if China and Russia didn't respond right away. A conventional attack guarentees the destruction of Seoul. That's a city of 11 million people. How many millions would die in a conventional war? And we can't count on a decapitation scenario; I'll bet Kimmie is at least as good as Saddam ever was in not being where we can put a laser-dot him. Blowing up the missile pad, as Carter and Perry advocate, leads directly to war. We'd win it at the cost of millions of civilian casualties. No. As Mr. Warren notes in the other article, this isn't a missile test, this is a provocation. Negotiations won't work (we all know that), because Kimmie is a sociopath -- he'll lie, pocket our concessions and provoke us again. So the only realistic option is containment. That means staying calm and not responding to provocation. Perry and Carter are wrong to advocate shooting it down if they really mean that, but they're smart if what they are really going after is good containment -- we show the NKors that they don't particularly rattle us, because we have the technology to settle their hash. For this particular situation -- as long as the Taepodong doesn't hit American or Japanese soil, we stay calm. Don't shoot it down; track it, use it as a dry-run exercise for the anti-missile systems, and sit back. Make a few taunts -- is that all ya got, little man? But containment, always, until North Korea implodes. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2006-06-22 12:29 |
| #1 Funny. I was about to post this article with the same exact comment. If we had bipartisan support to do this, our enemies would never test us in the way that NK is now doing. Unfortunately William "the Refigerator" Perry and Ashton Carter do not have influence over Pelosi or Reid. They have succeed in convincing me that we should take it out on the pad if NK does not follow appropriate procedures to notify airmen and mariners, etc. |
| Posted by: JAB 2006-06-22 09:09 |