By Oh Young-jin
How would the United States differ from South Korea in dealing with North Korea's nuclear and missile threat?
Is there any way of influencing the North in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction?
For the first question, the answer would be not much. For the second, there is.
These are the conclusions I came to after a long chat recently with Dr. Bruce Bennett, a Korea expert at the U.S. Rand Corp.
Here is what Bennett has to say about the North Korean threat:
Let's go back to 2006 when the North detonated its first nuclear weapon. If there was a war to remove North Korean nuclear capabilities then, we would have far fewer targets to hit. The North would retaliate, but it would not have nuclear weapons with which to retaliate. The damage then would have been less than it would be now. Let's think about 10 or 15 years from now at a point when the North has, say, 200 nuclear weapons. Would it be time to have war with the North? If war were to happen sooner or later, it would be now.
Here is my take:
The U.S. does not want to repeat its mistake of letting the North's threat get bigger. The Trump administration has left no doubt about it. It has put the North "front and center" on its list of diplomatic challenges, while insisting on the death of the "strategic patience" advocated by the previous Obama administration _ ignoring the North without taking positive action.
For the U.S., the North is now a pariah state on the verge of acquiring a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile. But in the future, the North could be a pariah state that has a formidable nuclear arsenal. For the U.S., the choice between the present North and the future North could not be clearer. The North Korean issue should be settled now.
So, what is left is how? It is easy to think of force as the first option. That tumbles down the list when casualties to the tune of millions are considered. Plus, the next war on the Korean Peninsula could be a nuclear war, considering that if the North does not use its nuclear weapons first, it might be the first target by the South and the U.S. and it would lose the chance to use nuclear weapons completely.
Therefore, dialogue would be an alternative, but the problem is that this has proven to be an ineffective way of resolving long-running differences. The North believes a U.S. withdrawal from the South would be its ultimate goal that surpasses any U.S. guarantees. Even if the U.S. leaves the South, it would be unlikely to lead to the immediate repetition of a North Korean attempt to take over the South as it did during the 1950-53 Korean War for a variety of reasons.
Above all, the world ― China and the U.S. included ― would not want one of the world's key economies to fall into turmoil with the consequences hard to fathom. South Korea does not want a nuclear-armed North Korea as much as the U.S. does not want it. But it far more strongly opposes war than the U.S. does.
Regarding non-military options, here are Bennett's remarks:
If Kim Jong-un does not think he will suffer, he will not stop. Kim Jong-un has to convince his elites that he is strong, powerful and capable or he could face an overthrow. All we have to do is we can weaken him and make his people unhappy about him. The Korean government could tell Kim Jong-un, "If you do a missile launch, we will flood the missile base with leaflets [and] usb drives to advertise a reward of $500,000 for any defector from the missile forces."
Also Kim Jong-un is unlikely to have a red button on his desk for missile launches. He would likely have a chain of command to execute his order from chief of general staff, through chief of strategic forces and base commander down to particular squadron commander. We can affect those people in between by telling them Kim is not a good leader. Our efforts could be to tell those commanders to think that launching nuclear missiles is not good for them because the U.S. would likely fire nuclear weapons back because the North launched the first missile.
Here is my take: Bennett compared this information attack to the death of the beast by a thousand cuts rather than through one stab into its heart. Considering our sense of helplessness, let's start and give him the first cut.
Oh Young-jin is The Korea Times' chief editorial writer. Contact foolsdie5@ktimes.com and foolsdie@gmail.com.
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Is there any way of influencing the North in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction?
For the first question, the answer would be not much. For the second, there is.
These are the conclusions I came to after a long chat recently with Dr. Bruce Bennett, a Korea expert at the U.S. Rand Corp.
Here is what Bennett has to say about the North Korean threat:
Let's go back to 2006 when the North detonated its first nuclear weapon. If there was a war to remove North Korean nuclear capabilities then, we would have far fewer targets to hit. The North would retaliate, but it would not have nuclear weapons with which to retaliate. The damage then would have been less than it would be now. Let's think about 10 or 15 years from now at a point when the North has, say, 200 nuclear weapons. Would it be time to have war with the North? If war were to happen sooner or later, it would be now.
Here is my take:
The U.S. does not want to repeat its mistake of letting the North's threat get bigger. The Trump administration has left no doubt about it. It has put the North "front and center" on its list of diplomatic challenges, while insisting on the death of the "strategic patience" advocated by the previous Obama administration _ ignoring the North without taking positive action.
For the U.S., the North is now a pariah state on the verge of acquiring a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile. But in the future, the North could be a pariah state that has a formidable nuclear arsenal. For the U.S., the choice between the present North and the future North could not be clearer. The North Korean issue should be settled now.
So, what is left is how? It is easy to think of force as the first option. That tumbles down the list when casualties to the tune of millions are considered. Plus, the next war on the Korean Peninsula could be a nuclear war, considering that if the North does not use its nuclear weapons first, it might be the first target by the South and the U.S. and it would lose the chance to use nuclear weapons completely.
Therefore, dialogue would be an alternative, but the problem is that this has proven to be an ineffective way of resolving long-running differences. The North believes a U.S. withdrawal from the South would be its ultimate goal that surpasses any U.S. guarantees. Even if the U.S. leaves the South, it would be unlikely to lead to the immediate repetition of a North Korean attempt to take over the South as it did during the 1950-53 Korean War for a variety of reasons.
Above all, the world ― China and the U.S. included ― would not want one of the world's key economies to fall into turmoil with the consequences hard to fathom. South Korea does not want a nuclear-armed North Korea as much as the U.S. does not want it. But it far more strongly opposes war than the U.S. does.
Regarding non-military options, here are Bennett's remarks:
If Kim Jong-un does not think he will suffer, he will not stop. Kim Jong-un has to convince his elites that he is strong, powerful and capable or he could face an overthrow. All we have to do is we can weaken him and make his people unhappy about him. The Korean government could tell Kim Jong-un, "If you do a missile launch, we will flood the missile base with leaflets [and] usb drives to advertise a reward of $500,000 for any defector from the missile forces."
Also Kim Jong-un is unlikely to have a red button on his desk for missile launches. He would likely have a chain of command to execute his order from chief of general staff, through chief of strategic forces and base commander down to particular squadron commander. We can affect those people in between by telling them Kim is not a good leader. Our efforts could be to tell those commanders to think that launching nuclear missiles is not good for them because the U.S. would likely fire nuclear weapons back because the North launched the first missile.
Here is my take: Bennett compared this information attack to the death of the beast by a thousand cuts rather than through one stab into its heart. Considering our sense of helplessness, let's start and give him the first cut.
Oh Young-jin is The Korea Times' chief editorial writer. Contact foolsdie5@ktimes.com and foolsdie@gmail.com.
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