So... North Korea Has an ICBM.... Now What?

The July 28th North Korean ICBM launch was significant for several reasons:

1. They're now 2/2 on ICBM launches.
2. This is their first nighttime launch - they did this with the hope that we wouldn't be able to see the preparations as early. It didn't work, but they did show the ability to roll out and launch missiles relatively quickly.
3. This confirmed our previous suspicions that their July 4th ICBM was under-tuned / had more capability than shown. Most of us were surprised by exactly how much more capability they had.

Now, the question is: What can we do about it? Administrations have drawn the famous "We will not allow North Korea to become a nuclear power / we will not allow North Korea to develop a missile that can threaten the United States" red-lines for almost as long as I can remember. Red-lines are great... but now we're waiting on nuke test 6 and ICBM test 3. American policy has clearly failed.

To be clear, this failure is not just on the Trump administration. Everyone from Clinton on is to blame here; we've kicked the can down the road for years, and now we're out of road. If you think that it's some kind of cruel joke that Trump is the one that is going to have to deal with this, get in line.

For as complicated as this situation is, the end-game is actually pretty binary: we are either going to accept North Korea as a nuclear power or we aren't. This is not a choice that is to be taken lightly. North Korea sees their nukes as their one guarantee of survival, and will do everything in their power to keep them.

What we shouldn't do is exactly what we've been doing:

1. North Korea launches a missile.
2. We 'strongly condemn' the launch. Whatever that means.
3. We hold live-fire exercises with South Korea.
4. We send a pair of B1's on a flyover of the Korean Peninsula.
5. Wait for the next launch.

This entire sequence is an exercise in futility: North Korea and the world know exactly what the capability and the reach of the United States military is - they just don't give a shit. They obviously don't fear the military option. It's cute for us to say things like, "the era of strategic patience is over," but every time they spit in our face and we do nothing about it, it only reinforces their paper tiger rhetoric. To be clear, I am not advocating for war on the Korean Peninsula, I'm just looking at the writing on the wall. More than anything, I would like for us to have a concrete policy that the entire administration understands and stick with it. If that is disarmament by force, fine. If it's getting them to the table and hashing out something that is acceptable for all parties involved, fine. But something has to give; we can't continue to let this powder-keg of a region stay as volatile as it is right now.

Another thing we should stop doing immediately is trying to trivialize their accomplishments. We've done this for years, and they've proven us wrong every time: We said their nuke had a small yield - they tested a bigger nuke. We said their missile program was only a threat to South Korea, Japan and Guam - they tested an ICBM. We said that ICBM could -only- hit Alaska. They tested it again and showed the capability to hit 90% of the United States. The current narrative is, "well, we don't think their reentry vehicle (the part of the missile that delivers the payload) works / survives the stresses of reentry." - spoiler alert: we said the same thing when China was developing their ICBM program. Know what they did? They married a nuclear warhead to an ICBM and tested it to prove us wrong. The facts are that at some point, we have to assume that they can do at least most of what they say they can do. We don't know for certain that they've mastered reentry, we don't know for certain that they've mastered miniaturization, but we know that they're working on it, and based on their recent string of successes and advancement, my guess is they have help. If they can't yet mate a nuclear warhead to a missile that can land in the continental United States, it won't be long before they can. Personally, I'm not sure I want to wait for that eventuality.

So... what do we do about it?

We have three -real- options, and - stop me if you've heard this before - they all suck.

1. Diplomacy: The diplomatic approach is obviously doing nothing. Despite what we've called 'crippling sanctions,' North Korea's economy is thriving; Bloomberg reported two weeks ago that in 2016, the DPRK's economy grew at the fastest rate since 1999. Mining, manufacturing and utilities (electricity, gas and water supplies) make up the bulk of their legitimate growth. There's also the shadowy income from hacking and illegal cyber-activities that has become a staple of the reclusive regime. China has no interest in helping us solve this issue, and I'm of the opinion that Russia is actively engaging in helping Kim's missile program. Even when their economy was at the lowest levels, sanctions weren't hurting the regime; Kim and his generals still had all of the grandeur they desired while the regular people suffered.

2. The Wait-and-See: Several prominent voices are suggesting the wait-and-see approach: they think the regime is going to collapse on its own. The facts are that economic numbers simply don't support this plan. Tom Malinowski wrote a piece in Politico before the 2nd ICBM launch that suggested a few things to go along with this approach:

"Flood the zone with information: In the last year of the Obama administration, we increased our funding for getting information to North Koreans. But the State Department still allocates less then $3 million for this effort, and the Trump administration’s first budget request did not mention it. Congress should work with the administration to create a well-funded, dedicated program. The State Department should also continue efforts we began under Obama to enlist like-minded allies in Europe and Asia to back these efforts, and tech companies to find creative ways for North Koreans to share information safely. More funding should also go to scholarships for North Korean defectors, so that they will be ready to help their people if the North opens up.
Emphasize human rights and reunification, not regime change: In one sense, this is a distinction without a difference, since the Kim regime could not exist if North Koreans could speak, travel and vote freely, and of course it could not survive reunification. But we are more likely to gain support for goals that enjoy broad international legitimacy than with rhetoric that evokes the invasion of Iraq. Our language, like our methodology, should be all about empowering North Koreans to make their own choices, rather than imposing ours.
Continue sanctions, but don’t shut off North Korea: Even if we can’t stop North Korea’s weapons programs, it makes sense to cause delays and disruptions, including through targeted sanctions against Chinese companies that work with the North Korean military. But we should not encourage an end to general trade between China and North Korea because the movement of goods enables the movement of people and ideas. The Kim regime was never more secure than when its country was closed to the world; a return to total isolation would prolong its life, while make its ultimate demise harder to manage.
Strengthen, don’t undermine, the U.S.-South Korean alliance: Everything we must do to empower the North Korean people and to manage the burdens and risks of the North’s eventual transformation depends on close cooperation with South Korea. We may need to sustain this difficult joint effort for years to come. It was thus incredibly irresponsible for President Trump to break solidarity with our ally when the need for it was at its highest, by threatening to renegotiate the U.S.-South Korea trade agreement during President Moon’s recent visit to Washington. As our strategy shifts from preventing North Korea’s nuclear development to deterrence of use, we should also reassure South Korea, as well as Japan, that we will treat an attack on our allies as an attack on ourselves.
Communicate to North Korean elites: When the Kim regime approaches its end, much will depend on whether key regime officials decide to stick with their leader or hedge their bets. Working with South Korea, we should find ways to convey to these figures that there can be a place for them in a reunified Korea (with at least their safety and wealth protected), so long as they are not personally tied to the regime’s crimes and make the right choices when it matters.
Talk to China about reunification: The Chinese government is terrified of regime collapse in North Korea. It does not want to concede the possibility by talking about it. Yet somehow, we must find a way to have an honest conversation. Does China really believe that the status quo can be sustained forever? If not, would China prefer to work with us to prepare for and shape a transition in ways that are realistic (i.e., U.S. troops would not leave the southern part of Korea), but that would take China’s interests into account? Or would it rather that the United States and South Korea act unilaterally in that scenario? If the latter, how do we avoid a confrontation—for example, if South Korean troops move north to secure nuclear facilities as Chinese troops move south?
While German unification was not perfectly analogous to what we may face in Korea, we did face similar challenges then, and managed to find the common ground with Moscow that we will need with Beijing. The Cold War analogy applies in a broader sense, too. For decades, we managed the risks of our confrontation with the Soviet Union through deterrence, diplomacy, arms control and occasional military moves—these were the traditional methods of statecraft that occupied Western officials on a daily basis, and rightly so, since they prevented catastrophe. But these methods did not end the confrontation. That happened only when the people living behind the Iron Curtain took matters into their own hands. And when we looked back after 1989, we recognized that soft power—the spread of democratic ideas and culture, aided by people-to-people ties and communications technologies, and our principled insistence on respect for human rights—did more than hard power to bring this about. One day we may look back upon the end of Korea’s division and say the same—if we see the cards we actually have, and play them well"

I understand his line of thinking, but this is not Russia or another superpower that we are dealing with. It's an almost completely isolated regime that seems to have the singular goal of destroying the United States. Besides, we've been doing these things for years and they've done nothing but speed up their program. China is understandably not interested in reunification, particularly while we have bases in South Korea --  we wouldn't want a Chinese base in Mexico, either.

3. The Military Option: Nobody's favorite option, but one that is beginning to look inevitable. South Korea seems to think so too, with the agreement to deploy extra THAAD launchers that President Moon Jae-in originally opposed vehemently. Trump has also explicitly said that if there's going to be a war, it's going to be over there. Meaning, before they develop the capability to reliably target us at home. That doesn't give us much time. What would War on the Korean Peninsula look like? In a word? Bad. Ugly. Vicious. Terrible. We can't just launch a few tomahawks at an almost-empty airfield to send a message here. Let me be clear: we would, with 100% certainty win a war against North Korea. It wouldn't be as pretty or as simple as anyone thinks, though. They've spent decades preparing for another potential confrontation with South Korea and the United States. Air superiority and command of the sea would make this an untenable fight for North Korea, but not before they inflicted heavy casualties on South Korea, Seoul in particular. The DPRK has not forgotten the lessons of the Korean War. While their air force (if you want to call it that) is in a constant state of disrepair, they've built up their air defenses (albeit with mostly antiquated systems) accordingly. They even have some semi-modern rough-equivalents to the formidable Russian S300. They have thousands of MANPAD (man-portable air defense) missiles and low-altitude anti-aircraft guns. Our pilots are experienced in dealing with these contingencies and we would likely overwhelm them relatively quickly, but we shouldn't expect to do it without taking minor casualties. Many of North Korea's submarines aren't capable of launching missiles, and our sub-hunters are the best in the world, so we don't have much to worry about there. By far the biggest problem we would face in North Korea is their artillery. I wasn't joking when I said that North Korea has been preparing for this eventuality for decades; almost all of their heavy weaponry is tucked safely inside HARTS (hardened artillery sites) which consist largely of fortified caves and tunnels. This has the double-bonus of keeping us in the dark about where some of their attacks might come from, and giving them the option to roll a unit out, fire and retreat back into defilade, limiting the efficacy of ROK / US counter-battery fire. There are hundreds, if not thousands of artillery positions, including Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) on or near the DMZ that can be ready to fire into South Korea within minutes.

Extreme desire for hardened positions might also be their Achilles heel when it comes to an artillery barrage. The myth that they could utterly annihilate Seoul was never true -- that is nothing but people buying into the rhetoric and just looking at equipment by the numbers. To be sure, they have a TON of artillery, most of which is pointed directly at South Korea, but only some of it has the range to hit Seoul. With as fervently as they've worked to protect their artillery, it is also unlikely that they would open up with everything they have at once, as this would expose it all to counter-battery fire at the same time. ROK/US Artillery teams in Seoul have done the same thing that the DPRK has; we have likely enemy artillery positions charted and coordinates dialed-in for almost instantaneous fire missions if a shooting war were to break out. Our aircraft, submarines and destroyers would target and likely wipe out much of their missile program and air defense capability in the opening salvos, leaving remaining aircraft to hunt for artillery and surviving air defenses. Seoul has evacuation plans and bomb-shelters throughout the city as well, so the estimates of 250k-1 million casualties are hopefully over-estimated. 

Some people are arguing for an approach similar to what we've taken with Russia. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) with a caveat: we don't get destroyed. Basically, let them develop their programs with the full knowledge that if they use their weapons on us or our allies, we will turn their country into a parking lot. I'm not really a fan of this theory for a couple of reasons. Kim has explicitly said that they're working to build a thermonuclear warhead, and he's expressed the desire to turn the United States and our allied countries into 'Seas of Flames'. Sometimes, it's best to listen to what your adversaries tell you they're going to/want to do. 

I hope that my predictions are never put to the test and we find a way to resolve this peacefully, but the current trajectory isn't looking good.