The United States can no longer
tolerate the aggressive and irrational behavior of the North Korean regime. A
once manageable threat is now destabilizing an entire region. The time for half
measures is over. The time for action has arrived.
For decades Pyongyang has pursued a policy of erratic behavior designed to attract attention and to extract concessions from Western powers. For decades we have alternated between threatening retaliation and attempting to buy good behavior by the granting of some demands. However unsatisfying this has been, in the near term we have succeeded in accomplishing our primary task, preventing war.
The North Korean nuclear weapons
program has changed all that. Pyongyang now stands on the threshold of
having deliverable nuclear weapons, which it can mount on ballistic missiles
and use against Japan, North Korea and the U.S. bases within. It’s continued
testing of these missiles demonstrates that they are a very real threat. North
Korea has even made significant strides toward the mounting of ballistic
missiles on submarines, meaning in the near future it may well be able to
threaten not only Tokyo and Seoul but launch a nuclear Pearl Harbor on Honolulu
as well.
The game has changed. Where once the
worst we had to contemplate was waging a conventional war on the Korean
peninsula, we now must face a world in which Kim Jung Un can decide any time he
wants to destroy entire cities within range. This we cannot accept.
The United States can no longer
tolerate the aggressive and irrational behavior of the North Korean regime. A
once manageable threat is now destabilizing an entire region. The time for half
measures is over. The time for action has arrived.
For decades Pyongyang has pursued a
policy of erratic behavior designed to attract attention and to extract
concessions from Western powers. For decades we have alternated between
threatening retaliation and attempting to buy good behavior by the granting of
some demands. However unsatisfying this has been, in the near term we
have succeeded in accomplishing our primary task, preventing war.
The North Korean nuclear weapons
program has changed all that. Pyongyang now stands on the threshold of
having deliverable nuclear weapons, which it can mount on ballistic missiles
and use against Japan, North Korea and the U.S. bases within. It’s continued
testing of these missiles demonstrates that they are a very real threat. North
Korea has even made significant strides toward the mounting of ballistic
missiles on submarines, meaning in the near future it may well be able to
threaten not only Tokyo and Seoul but launch a nuclear Pearl Harbor on Honolulu
as well.
The game has changed. Where once the
worst we had to contemplate was waging a conventional war on the Korean
peninsula, we now must face a world in which Kim Jung Un can decide any time he
wants to destroy entire cities within range. This we cannot accept.
In the near term we have to prepare
for the possibility that we will have to unilaterally disarm the North Koreans.
When and if we judge that they are on the verge of using nuclear weapons we
will have to be prepared to prevent them from doing so. Depending on the
available intelligence, which we can only pray is good, we may have to act
preemptively to take away the nuclear option before Kim can even contemplate
using it.
There should be no illusions about
the magnitude of that task. Firing Tomahawk missiles at an airfield in Syria or
dropping a MOAB on a target in Afghanistan are minor achievements compared to a
strike on the North Korean nuclear program. To accomplish that task we would be
talking about massive and sustained strikes against hardened targets protected
by sophisticated air defense systems. There is no guarantee of success
and we would not accomplish this without substantial losses.
While preparing for the possibility
of strikes on North Korean targets we should be applying every other form of
pressure we can right now on North Korea to make them pay a price for their
belligerence. That means sanctions. That means cyber-attacks. That means
interdicting their extensive weapons smuggling activities worldwide, which earn
them badly needed hard currency.
Ultimately, though, we must
recognize that the path to changed behavior in Pyongyang runs through Beijing.
Without the Chinese the North Korean Communist dynasty would have fallen long
ago. The Chinese have encouraged the decades long status quo, because at the
end of the day they fear the existence of a single Western-aligned Korean
nation on their border. It has served their purposes to have the Kim dynasty
continue its irrational behavior, and they have banked on the fact that we
were ultimately more interested in stability in the region than we were in
forcing the matter to resolution.
What the Chinese need to hear from
us now is that this is no longer the case. They need to understand that Kim
Jung UN’s nuclear program and his threats to attack his neighbors have
destroyed the status quo, and that we will be forced to respond if the
Chinese do not assist us in reining in North Korea.
We should be clear that a Chinese
refusal to assist will not only mean that we will have to consider
preemptive action, but that we will have to revisit a whole range of actions
that we avoided in the past in the interest of stability but which would
potentially radically alter the balance of power in Asia to China’s detriment.
This means putting all options on
the table. It means encouraging the Japanese to build up their military
capabilities. It means pushing forward even more sophisticated American air
and missile defense systems. It means the return of American nuclear
weapons to South Korea. It means reconsidering our entire understanding
regarding what weapons systems we will provide to the Taiwanese.
In short, we need to make it clear
to the Chinese that unless they will act to control North Korea we will
be compelled to take actions, which will alter the strategic balance in East
Asia to Beijing’s detriment. The uneasy stalemate that has existed for decades
has been broken. It is time for a sea change.
By
Sam Faddis, opinion contributor
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