Kim's threats to the 25 million people of Seoul are nothing new. But the stakes are raised now that it appears North Korea has the capability to launch missiles that can reach the Sea of Japan, Guam, and perhaps Hawaii, Alaska and even the mainland U. Guam is a likely target because of its strategic U.
While there seems to be little debate anymore is that North Korea's long-range missiles can reach the United States.
There is no doubt at all that its short-range missiles can reach its neighbors. Japan and South Korea are the most likely targets of North Korea's threats, whether those measures are conventional or nuclear. The U. The only response to an attack from North Korea would be to employ the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense THAAD missile defense system, which can intercept and shoot down short, medium and intermediate ballistic missiles inside or outside the atmosphere.
And then there is the fear that has Washington truly concerned: that North Korea sells its weapons to consumers who are not U. In response to Kim's threats to the United States and its allies and interests, the U. Security Council voted unanimously in August to impose strict new sanctions on North Korea's international trade. The goal of the sanctions is to get Kim to abandon his nuclear weapons program, or to get his regime to at least start to negotiate.
But sanctions have failed in the past. South Korea and the United States are staging their annual springtime military exercises, though they will be scaled back due to the coronavirus pandemic they were canceled entirely in North Korea often perceives these exercises as a hostile act, and Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korea's leader, sent the Biden a warning. How to solve the North Korean problem has been an issue for decades, but this doesn't mean a full-blown nuclear conflict with North Korea is closer than ever.
About Us. B2B Publishing. Business Visionaries. Hot Property. Times Events. Times Store. Imagine warheads hitting throughout the Pacific and North America. The United States had little choice but to risk an even larger exchange during the Cold War. America and the Soviet Union were at military odds around the world.
No effective missile defense was or is yet available. Mutual assured destruction was a horrid doctrine but perhaps the only effective means of defense. After all, the alternatives appeared to be surrender or destruction. That is not the case with North Korea. The potential of North Korea becoming a midlevel nuclear power puts a premium on negotiation. However, few Washington policymakers believe Pyongyang will ever fully denuclearize.
Proposals for more basic arms control also might prove unavailing, in which case withdrawal would become the only way to avoid North Korea becoming a real nuclear danger to the United States.
And gaining an ability to force Washington to back down would enhance the value of developing nuclear weapons. However, their worth already is enormous, as they are the only sure deterrent to U. Absent unlikely denuclearization via diplomacy, continuing to protect South Korea will increasingly expose the U. Nothing at stake in the peninsula warrants taking that risk. Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of several books, including Tripwire: Korea and U.
Foreign Policy in a Changed World. And because of the global pandemic, the hermit kingdom has shuttered its borders, halting imports of food and medicine in a way more punishing than international sanctions could ever be.
That dangerous security threat is now in President Joe Biden's lap, and his administration is expected to announce the results of a policy review on North Korea soon. Experts and people briefed on it say they expect that while Biden will not formally abandon the goal of "total denuclearization," he will attempt to achieve the more limited aim of diminishing North Korea's nuclear threat, while at the same time seeking to lower the visibility of a thorny foreign policy problem that has no neat solution.
The administration also plans to seek to reinvigorate the so-called trilateral relationship between the U. Whether there are direct talks with the North Koreans depends on the North's behavior, that person said. While denuclearization would remain a long-term goal, the U. If unchecked, those delivery systems, including solid-fuel missiles, ICBM warheads and multiple re-entry vehicles, could allow North Korea to launch attacks faster and potentially evade U.
The two, who are both now senior fellows at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote that the fallout from the Covid pandemic has exacerbated the regime's economic woes, and could mean North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would be open to cutting a deal. He noted that North Korea has shut down its borders completely in an effort to tamp down the spread of Covid, including imports of food and medicine from China.
In so doing, it has imposed a blockade on itself more draconian than sanctions, which don't usually cover humanitarian aid.
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