North Korea’s intercontinental nuclear threat is real. The US has to act Monday’s launch by North Korea of four short-range missiles, three of which landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) some […]

Monday’s launch by North Korea of four short-range missiles, three of which landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) some 200 miles off the Japanese coast-line is further confirmation of the ever growing strategic challenge posed by North Korea. The earlier test-firing in February of an intermediate range, solid-fuel missile had already raised concerns that Pyongyang’s ability to threaten its neighbours is accelerating far faster than was once thought and suggests that the window of opportunity for confronting the North is far shorter than was once believed.

And the nightmare scenario of North Korea possessing long-range nuclear missiles can no longer be ignored.

South Korea’s Foreign Minister Yun byung-se, in a statement on 18 February on the sidelines of the Munich security conference pointed to the North’s repeated provocations – two nuclear tests in 2016, along with some 24 missile tests – to argue that Asia is at best one to two years away from reaching the critical tipping point where the North will be able to deploy and target a nuclear-armed missile against states in the region.

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Alarmed Abe

An alarmed Prime Minister Abe, speaking in the Japanese parliament, characterized the latest March missile launches as a “new threat” and there is little doubt that Kim Jong-un is resolutely pursuing his military modernisation strategy to the point where the North may, within the lifetime of a Trump presidency, acquire the ability to target a nuclear-armed warhead at the continental United States.”

While the international community has reason to worry about the development of the North’s long-range missile capabilities, the latest short-range launch is an equally troubling threat and suggests that Pyongyang is deliberately targetting US nuclear-capable forces in its immediate neighbourhood.

Pre-emptive attack

The motive for this may be a calculation by Kim that acquiring a capability to credibly inflict massive damage on US forces in South Korea and Japan may be the best way to offset the risk of a pre-emptive attack by the United States and its allies – a fear, for the North, fuelled in part by the annual Foal Eagle military exercises currently being carried out on the peninsula by the US and South Korea and which incorporate a “decapitation” strategy designed to target the leadership of the North.

In responding to an increasingly more technically sophisticated and heavily armed North Korea (conservative estimates suggests that Pyongyang may have enough fissile material for anywhere between 12 and 20 nuclear devices), the Trump administration and its regional partners have a limited number of options.

Military action and the use of a pre-emptive strike against the North to knock out its nuclear weapons capability is increasingly mentioned. But it is the least attractive option. Conservative estimates suggest that military and civilian casualties would be close to a million, along with massive economic dislocation in the region, and there is little certainty that precision attacks against the North would be reliably able to remove the North’s nuclear assets.

Negotiation time

For progressive politicians in South Korea, as well as for the Chinese leadership, a first step towards a resolution of the crisis is negotiation. Unfortunately, Kim shows no serious appetite for talking since to do would risk slowing down his military modernisation campaign. Only a credible and immediate threat to his personal survival would bring him back around the table and presenting such a threat risks escalating the current tensions perilously close to the outbreak of actual conflict — a Catch 22 situation.

This leaves, economic and political pressure in the form of targetted sanctions the most immediately practicable option. The Trump administration is currently reviewing its North Korea policy and one option for consideration is to expand the current framework of UN sanctions to include secondary sanctions targeting third parties, most notably Chinese banks, involved in financial transactions with the North. Such measures have the potential to impose significant pain on the North but would almost certainly be sharply opposed by Beijing.

Historical issues

Ultimately, any effective response to the North needs to involve a calibrated mix of all three options, as well as careful coordination between the US, South Korea, Japan, and China. However, with China fiercely opposed to the US’s recent deployment of THAAD missile batteries to South Korea, with Seoul gearing up for a new presidential election in the aftermath of yesterday’s impeachment confirmation, and with Tokyo and Seoul at logger-heads over contentious historical issues, Kim can capitalise on significant divisions between these key actors.

On the part of the region’s indispensable power, the United States, there is a clear need for focused and strategic leadership. Regrettably, Trump’s track record to date, the administrative chaos within the White House, and the President’s preference for ad hoc policy making via twitter feed, suggests there is little basis for assuming that this leadership will be forthcoming in the immediate future. The region and the world should be worried.