Surely deterrence can be made to work, but to live with a nuclear-armed North Korea is essentially to live with what Hawaii has just endured, in perpetuity

Possibly you were unnerved by the weekend’s events in Hawaii, though not half as much as Hawaiians, who for about 40 minutes were convinced they were all about to die, thanks to an errant alert of an inbound ballistic missile.

North Korea’s bold dash for nuclear status; its provocative missile launches in recent months, and the crazed exchange of threats that followed between North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and President Trump; the alarming inconsistency of the statements coming out of a U.S. administration seemingly at war with itself, the president at one point even seeming ready to fire his secretary of state: the whole world is on edge these days. As it happens the president was golfing when the mistaken alert was sent out. Imagine if he had not been.

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But fear not. The major parties to the Korean conflict are meeting in Vancouver this week to sort things out. All the big players are there: Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Norway … Oh sorry. When I said “the Korean conflict,” you naturally thought I meant the one I was just describing. Whereas the guest list for the Vancouver conference is made up of the countries who fought on the United Nations side of the Korean War 65 years ago. So Colombia and the Netherlands are in, while China and Russia, which fought on the other side, are out.

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If that seems strange, consider that one of the aims of the conference — it is more or less openly acknowledged — is to bolster the position of the U.S. Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, within the Trump administration. Tillerson has been publicly championing a diplomatic solution to the crisis, in contrast to the numerous hawks in the White House who are quite visibly preparing for war.

The consensus among military analysts is that a military strike offers no solution, or not at an acceptable cost. Unless it were possible to take out substantially all of the North Korean missile arsenal, together with its entire command structure — and it is not — no one seriously doubts the North Korean response: an all-out attack on neighbouring South Korea, notably its capital city, Seoul, just 35 miles from the border. The death toll, within minutes, would be in the tens of thousands — and that’s assuming only conventional weapons are deployed. If in fact North Korea has the capacity to make good on its leader’s threats to go nuclear, who knows what armageddon could follow.

And yet the logic of the two countries’ positions leaves little room for alternatives. It is absolutely unacceptable to the U.S. that North Korea should have nuclear missiles. It is equally unacceptable to the North Korean regime that it should give them up. Against a far larger and more powerful adversary, nukes are the ultimate leveller.

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However unthinkable the military option may seem, moreover, it is far from clear what the alternative is. As usual, much has been invested in the idea that sanctions are the solution: hence the series of unanimous resolutions of the UN Security Council in recent months, backing its oft-stated ban on North Korea’s nuclear program with tough-sounding new sanctions. But not only do sanctions have at best a spotty record in reining in international scofflaws, it’s not even clear what they hope to achieve.

As with the military option, the intent is presumably to force the Kim regime to give up its nuclear weapons. But the regime is no less adamant in its response: it would sooner die. So to be effective, sanctions would have to lead to regime change. And regime change is not only anathema to Kim, but to China, its historic benefactors. Were Kim to fall, the resulting power vacuum and collapse of order would send millions of refugees streaming across the Chinese border. Or so China fears.

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Sanctions, then, will only be as effective as China allows them to be. And while the Chinese have tightened the screws to some degree, they are also likely to oppose any serious attempt to enforce them: for example, by means of “maritime interdiction,” the multinational quasi-blockade that is also up for discussion in Vancouver. North Korea has already denounced the idea as an “act of war,” but China is unlikely to be much happier.

Realists, then, counsel us to accept the inevitable: a nuclear-armed North Korea, for the foreseeable future. Surely deterrence can be made to work on the Korean peninsular, as it has these past seven decades in Europe. But to live with a nuclear-armed North Korea is essentially to live with what Hawaii has just endured, in perpetuity. Much effort has been expended to suggest the Kim regime is “rational,” as in non-suicidal. But non-suicidal is not the same as stable, predictable, responsible, prudent or wise. The possibility of error is ever-present. And the consequences of error are catastrophic.

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That leaves but one option: ballistic missile defence (BMD). And here we come to Canada’s particular role in all this. Canada is as much within the range of North Korean missiles as the U.S. is. Until now our defence against this has amounted to a hope that we might nestle under the protective umbrella of the U.S. BMD system without contributing anything to it or even endorsing it: an expectation of which American officials have lately been trying to disabuse us.

This is what makes our involvement as co-hosts of the conference so intriguing. Perhaps it is only our usual quest for significance in a part of the world where we have none. If, on the other hand, it signals a willingness to work more closely with the U.S. on defence issues — yes, even the Trump administration — that is surely progress.