In their bombshell op-ed to the Washington Post (discussed here), Ashton Carter and Bill Perry suggest that if the U.S. were to launch a surgical strike on North Korea’s missile/rocket launch facility, Pyongyang would have little choice but to suck it up and take it. Frankly, I’m inclined to agree, although I think I’ve made it fairly clear that I do not support attacking North Korea over something like this.
Mingi Hyun, however, believes there to be a real risk that North Korea would retaliate to such a strike, targeting South Korea in particular:
As much as some believe that showing teeth and resolve by the US may set a positive precedent for developed countries’ battle against nuclear weapons proliferation, there may lie concerns for leaders in Pyongyang as to whether a lack of firm response to any American military action will be interpreted as an invite of sorts for further surgical strikes against other identified WMD-related targets such as the missile factories in Jagang Province or the chemical factories in South Hamgyeong Province.
In addition, as long as the US and North Korea’s neighbors are unwilling to risk strict sanctions and/or a large-scale military action (e.g. war of regime change) against Pyongyang, North Korean leaders will find room to respond to a surgical strike. The North Korean leadership knows how to play ball and stay within the boundaries, so as to continue its survival while staying true to its reputation as a miscreant. Artillery shells from just across the DMZ may not fly out of mountains and head for Gwanghwamun, but asymmetric warfare and the ability to influence South Korean politics have always been the forte of ethnically Korean communists. As a former ranking South Korean intelligence official told me two years ago, North Korean capabilities in the asymmetric arena, particularly against South Korean targets and population, have continued to be realistic threats despite the alleged advances in North-South relations.
A U.S. strike, in of itself, is likely to influence South Korean politics as it will inevitably make the United States look like the bad guy, especially if comes before a North Korean launch. And this will hurt Korea’s relatively pro-American conservative opposition, who will be associated—fairly or unfairly—with (in the minds of many) dangerous and destabilizing U.S. behavior. Doubly so if such an attack comes over objections from the South Korean government, and triply so if the South Korean government first learns of the impending U.S. attack by watching the bombs drop the morning after on CNN (something that’s not entirely out of the question, as the Pentagon might fear—not completely without justification—that if Seoul were cut into the loop, Roh’s people might tip off the North Koreans or, aghast, leak U.S. plans to the South Korean press). It won’t help if the Japanese are perceived to be excessively smug after the attack.
Moreover, even if the South Koreans completely disavow any connection to the attack—and I imagine that they would—but the North Koreans launch limited attacks on South Korean targets anyway (example: naval clashes in the West Sea, shootouts in the DMZ, etc.), much of the public will blame the Americans for starting the trouble. If North Korea responds by attacking U.S. naval vessels in the East Sea or shooting down U.S. surveillance aircraft and the Americans respond with more airstrikes, Washington will got blamed for stirring shit up. And if, heaven forbid, Pyongyang responds to an attack by launching a limited missile strike against targets in Japan, I shudder to imagine how the South Korean public might respond.
All this will gravitate against America’s friends in South Korea. The Americans will be seen as the real threat to peace on the peninsula, regardless of how or against whom the North Koreans respond. And South Korean politicians will find it very difficult to associate themselves with Washington. North Korea would have won a political victory without even having to play dirty games in the South. And all at the low, low cost of a missile that they wouldn’t have been able to use anyway.
None of this should rule out a U.S. strike, however, should Washington feel it has no other choice. The U.S. government, after all, is responsible to the U.S. public, not the South Korean public. But if you’re going to go through with a strike, you should do so knowing what the political costs in the region will be.
Now, back to the question of whether the North would respond to an attack on its missile launch facility. Well, I can’t see how they wouldn’t respond somehow—countries, by and large, tend to get pissed when they get bushwhacked, and North Korea is perpetually pissed off at any rate. The problem for Pyongyang, though, is that if it attacks an American or Japanese target, the U.S. Navy is going to respond. Let’s say this leads to a low-level conflict between North Korea and the United States, a series of tit-for-tat strikes, for instance. Ultimately, this will favor the Americans, who have more and better ways to inflict limited losses on North Korean military assets.
The North Koreans could, of course, raise the ante, but only at the risk of starting a conflict they won’t be able to stop nor survive, something the North Korean leadership has to understand. Of course, the North Koreans could launch strikes on South Korean targets, especially if they believe the South Korean public will blame the Americans in the end. But even this can only go so far without inviting South Korean/American retribution, and poses the risk of wasting the political points Pyongyang would score playing the victim of American aggression.
16 Comments
As interesting a scenario as this might be, I find it highly unlikely to happen. First of all, doing it before a missile launch would be madness. Secondly, the Dear Leader has no intention of doing another missile launch. The threat of such is just another way of creating a crisis and then “negoiating” a “solution” which involves cash and new stuff.
The Dear Leader has been backed into a corner that he has never been into before. The Bush adminsitration, either my necessity or design, has played the game expertly with him. Korean from either side of the DMZ thrive on attention and crises. Slowly and quielty separating the Dear Leader from his scources of financing is by far the best method of assuring his eventual demise.
Besides, what is the use of an airstrike without the ground troops to back it up? The cream of the US military is tied up in Iraq in an unwinnable war, that being the Marines and I don’t see that ending any time soon.
The Dear Leader is not his own master. Before he attacks SK, he must get OK from China.
China will jerk the chain. And, tell this dog to just take it.
Ashton Carter and Bill Perry are not stupid. They know the relationship between China and NK.
I dunno…I have come to believe that this is a all classic instance of nothing is going to happen until it happens in the sense that we’re going to go back and forth until either the United States or North Korea makes a fatal miscalulation and there is a war. (By war I mean Japan gets it. I really can’t see the DPRK inflicting too much direct harm on the South at this point.)
Otherwise, we just have to live with this uncertianty for a very, very long time (or the DPRK collapses.)
“take it” means “just roll over and play dead”.
China has the olympic game coming up in 2008. It wants to keep a low profile till then.
After the olympic, China will attack Japan directly or by using NK(even SK, if SK joins the Great Chinese Empire).
Man, I hope you’re around to tell us when the Martians are about to invade. Cuz I find this “Nostodamus Of The Blog Comments section” thing you got going on pretty helpful.
But I can’t help but wonder if you couldn’t use these powers to warn people of natural disasters or something? Or at least to win the lottery
No no no…. That’s not how it goes at all. North Korea doesn’t attack South Korea and Japan at the behest of China. The puppet states in South Korea and Japan will attack North Korea at the behest of their imperialistic masters in the USA, only to be driven back by the Dearly Great x10 Leader Kim Jong-il and his merry band of Juche Warriors, who will combine to form the mighty SONGUN, a 200-kilometer-tall robot that will use its fire breath to turn South Korea into a sea of ashes before using its +10 lazor sword (a replica of Kim Il-sung’s genitals) to send the American war machine yelping back home, thus reuniting Korea and allowing it to once again become the largest country in the world. KNCA told me so.
Oh crap… I meant KCNA. D’oh!
I believe a healthy portion of this kind of talk is meant primarily for Pyongyang to hear.
I think a secondary target is Seoul.
A lot of people have tried to convince me Clinton had his finger on the button in the early 1990s under the advice of these same two people, but I refuse to buy it.
I believe it is an effort at deterance through rhetoric. It is part of the game of brinkmanship that North Korea plays all the time and we at times join in, because that might be what NK understands best.
Henry Kissinger talked about this in the reaction to the Axe murder the US set up. When they went back to cut down the tree in the DMZ, they took the whole freaking US military with them. The purpose, as stated long after by the US planners — to make Pyongyang think, “Those g.d. Americans are crazy!!”
Whatever the case, if this had come from the Bush administration (and don’t rule out that Perry and Ashton were not approached behind the scenes by the Bush administration to put this out), it would have put the US in the same boat NK faces when it goes for brinkmanship —
if you never pull the trigger, the threats lose their value.
If it were not for the media and outsiders focusing on the sky falling, I’d say warn the North a little, let them shoot the missile up, and then make them wait for goodies that never come.
Stopping NK from testing its largest missile capability is not the important goal.
The important goal is to make damn sure NK does not gain from the interntational community by testing another ICBM.
The US should be focused on going to great lengths to apply pressure on NK after NK tests the missile.
The US should use a missile launch, if it comes, to apply pressure on China, SK, and to a lesser extent Russia to increase sustained pressure on the North.
The reward for NK if it tests another missile MUST NOT BE diplomatic and material gains.
It should very well be a lasting damage to their standing among the important nations involved with it and a loss of future material gains.
Since I place most importance on what should happen after NK tests its missile –
I think talk of bombing the North before it can do it is bad policy.
Even if the North does not shoot the missile, we can’t tell if the threats were the turning point in the decision making or not.
Also, our threats could convince SK and China they have to cave into the North by promising behind the scenes to give more goodies if the North will not shoot the missile, which is exactly what NK wants.
China and SK don’t want to twist NK’s arm. They probably feel even if they did right now, the North won’t listen now that the US has thrown down the gauntlet too. They might be convinced more than NK that the US is probably going to strike. So, they could very easily decide to cave into NK’s behind the scenes demands.
But, again, since this is coming from former government officials, especially ones NK is very familiar with, but not the offical word of the US government —
—–it will not lead to the steps I mentioned above.
Which is a small part of the reason I believe this is bluster meant for NK’s ears as part of a game of propaganda brinkmanship.
“The problem for Pyongyang, though, is that if it attacks an American or Japanese target, the U.S. Navy is going to respond. ”
no, US already attacked (and an act of war) in this case. what difference does this make? why would NK go for SK (who is against the surgical operation) instead?
i think this is the most naive and wishful thinking from some americans.
one should not question NK’s intention to retaliate by attacking on US/Japan (including terrorist attack), one should question its ability to carry this out.
there may not be many, but definitely a few japanese/english fluent NK spies who can carry out these jobs…
Without Russian or Chinese intervention, North Korea would be unable to retaliate. If Russia or China do intervene on North Korea’s behalf, there will be hell to pay.
–Remort
And if, heaven forbid, Pyongyang responds to an attack by launching a limited missile strike against targets in Japan, I shudder to imagine how the South Korean public might respond.
Are you to suggest that much of the South Korean public would be giggling in delight if that happened?
I think the inability to react in a “predictable” manner is absolutely a moot point. The US and North Korea and the missile issue are not 3 elements living in a vacuum and I get nervous when political leaders with little understanding of a region and/or issue try to approach problems like this with an arrogant attitude that does little more than pausit a guess. If the US initiates a “surgical” strike, whatever that means relative to the possible collateral damage, the will be repercussions and those have to be estimated in advance. There has to be some kind of planning beyond the strike itself to deal with the variety of situations that might evolve. Simply saying they “probably” can’t react is lazy at the very least. I agree almost whole heartedly with the political sentiments of this administration, however, when it comes to planning the important details of their activities abroad they have failed to do their homework. I want to know that they have specific plans to deal with whatever, mild, medium, or disatrous outcomes that could take place in the event of such an attack. Without those plans they had better do nothing and simply ride this out. NK can’t keep escalating the stakes indefinately…
Belay my last, not the administration that made the statement…In this case it’s Perry and Carter being the dumbasses.
I want to know that they have specific plans to deal with whatever, mild, medium, or disatrous outcomes that could take place in the event of such an attack.
The plan is to cross fingers and “hope” that NK doesnt retaliate. That’s the plan.
NK can’t keep escalating the stakes indefinately…
The next escalation would be to actually test a nuclear warhead.
And then after that, a missile designed to take out US/Japanese intel satellites.
And then after that, a “stealth” missile designed to be invisible to BMD radar.
The list goes on.
BTW, ICBMs are much much cheaper to produce, and in massive quatities also, compared to maintaining an effective BMD system (key word: effective). Even so, the BMD is unlikely to have a 100% probability of kill success. If we head in the direction of an ICBM vs missile defense dichotomy, expect to see NK produce lots of Taepodongs in the future.
If there was ever a way to financially bleed an enemy dry by making him expend lots of effort in developing and maintaining a big, complicated, and expensive defense system to counter the threat of cheap missiles, this is it.
ICBMs are cheaper to produce than BMD system? Not really. Take into account the relative affordability of the sides in question and the stage the technology was starting from. NK’s ICBM program represents a hodgepodge of low tech (i.e. low reliability), untested, pirated or black market purchase gadgets that aren’t reliable as offensive tools. That’s leaves defense which in this case implies blackmail. US BMD already has an extremely advanced tech baseline from which to begin. It’s a matter of integrating existing radars and tweaking the missile-to-radar communication ability.
Further, trying to bleed the US is exactly what screwed the Evil Empire into non-existance. Reagan simply outspent the USSR into oblivion as the US has an enormous absorption capability for such spending. The threshhold of “pain” may be higher for the Norks but it is still more expensive, relatively, for their ICBM program than for the US BMD program. Eventually they will break.
A stealth missile?? Come on.
No, the list doesn’t go on. There is a point where pressure crosses the line to aggression. The question is where it is and whether both sides will understand when it is reached/breached. A misunderstanding on that critical issue will mean the end of NK leadership.
I just saw the CBS News broadcast related to this (it was from last week) in which Cheney is quoted as saying something like, “you’d better be prepared to fire not just one shot.”
The way I had read it referenced, it sounded like he was referring to North Korea not being able to do something belligerent because they only have the one missile. However, the way it appeared on CBS News, it seems he was saying that if the US were to attack the missile site, as Perry and Ashton were suggesting they do, then the United States had better be prepared to fire more than just one shot (meaning a war could erupt?).
For those who saw or read the whole interview, to whom was Cheney referring?