Strange Doves (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying About This Missile and Worry About Proliferation Instead)

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” — Napoleon Bonaparte

The day after Newt Gingrich called for destroying North Korea’s Taepodong II ICBM on the ground, former Clinton-era SecDef William Perry has made a similar call in a Washington Post op-ed. He is joined by Ashton Carter, who turns out to have been Perry’s assistant before he was Demi Moore’s. The latest to support this proposal is … Walter Mondale:

“I think it would end the nuclear long-range dreams of this dangerous country.”

Mondale’s call, aside from its obvious mismatch with his performance in office, betrays his ignorance of how extensive, hidden, and hardened North Korea’s nuclear program is. William Perry and Ashton Carter’s argument, unlike Mondale’s, is sufficiently coherent to warrant a response. They argue that the risk of letting North Korea launch is unacceptable because North Korea now has nukes, and because a launch would represent irreversible progress toward the North’s ICBM program. They also believe that our missile defense system is too unreliable to depend on.

It’s true that there are many unknowables here. None of us can really say what’s inside the T-dong 2, other than the melted-down rice bowls of the two million people who were starved to death to fund its construction. Nor can we know where this thing will land. Our missile defense system is still very early in its development, and its success is far from certain.

With all that said, this particular missile is one relatively minor symptom of the greater cancer that the North Korean regime represents, and a rash reaction to it would actually increase the long-term threat that North Korea will eventually transfer weapons of mass murder to terrorists who can’t be deterred. In that context, a North Korean missile test is more theater of extortion than an imminent threat to our security. Its launch would actually accelerate some recent positive political developments — developments that may help our efforts to isolate and ultimately eliminate the entire North Korean regime. An ill-advised strike could reverse these favorable trends and prolong a brutal tyranny whose state pathology is rooted in mass terror.

Argument: The risk of letting the test go forward is unacceptable

[T]here is a critical difference between now and 1998. Today North Korea openly boasts of its nuclear deterrent, has obtained six to eight bombs’ worth of plutonium since 2003 and is plunging ahead to make more in its Yongbyon reactor.

Response: Although the long-term risk is significant, the immediate risk is low, and much lower than the danger of proliferation

It seems less likely today that North Korea will launch than it was just a few days ago. In 1998, we were caught off guard by the launch of the Taepodong I over Japan. This time, our reaction was strong and immediate, and every nation in the region has called on North Korea not to go through with it. This isn’t to say they won’t, but they’re now aware that it would have severe consequences.

What is not different from 1998 is deterrence. I don’t think Perry and Carter are suggesting that North Korea is preparing for a live-fire nuclear first strike. Yes, it’s now just possible they could do it. Since at least 1960, they’ve also had the ability to level everything north of the Han River, including most of Seoul. Since 1993, they’ve had fissile nuclear material. Since sometime shortly thereafter, they probably had a crude nuke that they could deliver to the South, possibly to a U.S. military base, through one of the estimated two dozen tunnels rumored to run (incredibly) the length of the Korean peninsula. In 1998, when North Korea launched the T-dong I, they had their first nuke, and they probably could have hit Tokyo with a chemical, radiological, or biological weapon. This week’s crisis is not substantially different from all those other crises. In their context, it is yet more theater of extortion, but not an imminent threat to our national security. The North Koreans know that we can watch and track their missiles. They’re experts on putting on shows for our satellites for blackmail. Granted, North Korea says and sometimes does some very irrational things, but for sixty years, they’ve preserved their regime by going only so far, because they know that launching a missile against the United States or Japan would be the end of them.

The absence of deterrence also explains why Kim Jong Il has sold so much dangerous technology and materiel to Middle Eastern regimes with a panoply of irrational and undeterrable clients. We even used to call this greater threat a “red line” before it became obvious that the North had crossed it, beginning during Perry’s tenure at the Pentagon and continuing ever since:

• Since the 1990’s, North Korea has provided technical assistance to the Iranian nuclear program.
• In 1998, according to the New York Times, North Korea and tested a nuclear weapon in Pakistan.
• Since at least the 1990’s, there has been a consensus that North Korea was the source of Syria’s SCUD-C missiles, and traded dual-use equipment with Syria that could be used for biological weapons.



• In 2002, the United States and Spain intercepted the freighter So San, which was carrying a cargo of North Korean missiles hidden under a load of cement to Yemen.
• In 2003, the Washington Post reported that India had intercepted a complete North Korean missile factory that was being shipped to Libya.
• Also in 2003, U.S. satellites detected North Korean cruise missiles being loaded on planes bound for Tehran.
• Yet again in 2003, as one of his last official acts, Saddam Hussein attempted to buy North Korean SCUDs with a range exceeding U.N. limits. The plan stopped only when North Korea concluded that a U.S. invasion was imminent and decided to keep both the missiles and Saddam’s down payment.
• In 2004, the United States found North Korean-made uranium hexafluoride in Libya. More here.
• In 2005, South Korean newspapers reported that Iran had sold Russian-made cruise missiles to North Korea.

In other words, North Korean missiles are a “grave and gathering threat,” but much less of a threat than North Korean proliferation. If things weren’t bizarre enough already, try to guess who said this, in response:

“I think, obviously, if you’re going to launch strikes at another nation, you’d better be prepared to not just fire one shot…. “*

Argument: Interception Is Too Risky

First, by the time the payload was intercepted, North Korean engineers would already have obtained much of the precious flight test data they are seeking, which they could use to make a whole arsenal of missiles, hiding and protecting them from more U.S. strikes in the maze of tunnels they have dug throughout their mountainous country.

Response: Although our missile defense system is barely operational and its performance less than reassuring, it may still be enough to deter a test

A strong point, but not as strong as it would have been before the launch of the first Taepodong in 1998, or in in 1994, when Clinton nearly struck the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. Clinton’s last-second cancellation of that strike and some disastrous Jimmy Carter diplomacy transformed North Korea, with its well established disregard for human life, into the nuclear-armed arsenal of terror it is today. It would be nice if we could interfere with the collection of that data somehow. I don’t know, and therefore won’t assume, that we can jam North Korean tracking radar. I will make the modest assumption that the value of the flight data is proportional to flight time of the missile. If it were possible to intercept it early, the value of the data ought to be limited.

Could we intercept it? I don’t claim to know. I’m about to throw around a lot of links here, but if you’re really interested in the system’s layers, architecture, and cool pictures, go here. If you’re interested in its current status as of two months ago, go here. The totality of what I’ve read convinces me that the missile defense system is still early in its development, barely operational, and far from a sure thing. The system is composed of multiple systems and layers, many of which are nowhere near deployment. The Navy’s Standard-3 missiles, which intercept at relatively low altitude, are probably the most reliable component of the system, and are based on a proven anti-aircraft missile. We have just deployed ground-based interceptors in Alaska. They’re well over the North Korean horizon, but Aegis radar on two Navy destroyers off North Korea’s coast could help with tracking and interception. The system has received some very bad press for its performance during tests, however, and not even the Pentagon sounded very enthusiastic last year. More recent results have been more encouraging. An airborne laser system won’t be ready for testing against real missiles for two years. Finally, here’s what the head of the Missile Defense Agency said today:

“From what I’ve seen from our testing from the last several years … and what I know about the system and its capabilities, I’m very confident,” Lt. Gen. Henry “Trey” Obering told reporters after a speech to a seminar.

Overall, I don’t know enough to conclude whether multiple shots from all of the system’s available layers would give us more than a 90% chance of taking the thing out. I certainly know less about the risk of failure than the Administration officials who have alternatively leaked, then downplayed, threats to use the system. I do agree that a failed intercept would look bad (if anyone knew about it, that is).

Second, the U.S. defensive interceptor could reach the target only if it was flying on a test trajectory that took it into the range of the U.S. defense.

I don’t think so. See, “Aegis destroyers, off North Korean coast,” above. The Ground-Based Interceptors are designed to work with that radar.

Third, the U.S. system is unproven against North Korean missiles and has had an uneven record in its flight tests. A failed attempt at interception could undermine whatever deterrent value our missile defense may have.

It’s technically true that we lack experience in shooting down North Korean missiles, but the missile defense system, in its current embryonic form, is specifically designed to stop a Taepodong (bottom of Page 3). The reliability of the ground-based interceptors looks like the weak link.

Having said all this about the reliability of the system and the value of deterrence, what good is the system at all? Remember that deterrence means convincing your opponent that his action will cause a feared consequence. If your adversary doesn’t stand to lose anything or doesn’t fear the consequence you can impose, he isn’t going to be deterred. Several potential threats fit one of those circumstances. Taiwan, for example, can’t deter China from a first missile strike or an extortionate threat to launch one. The leaders of Iran may not fear the vaporization of their nation and its subjects because they believe that the Twelfth Imam will follow a global apolcalypse. North Korea could launch a missile strike in the throes of its collapse, or as an escalation of existing hostilities. Having a reliable BMD system limits North Korea’s ability to accelerate matters a step further.

If the North does not launch this missile, it’s entirely possible that widespread reports that the U.S. would order a shootdown will have been a factor in that decision. Losing the nation’s pride to U.S. defenses would humiliate the North Korean regime in the eyes of its people (they’d find out). Even this very embryonic and untried system may help to deter North Korea from this launch without firing a shot.

Argument: Diplomacy Has Failed

The six-party talks aimed at containing North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction have collapsed. . . . We believe diplomacy might have precluded the current situation. But diplomacy has failed, and we cannot sit by and let this deadly threat mature.”

Response: Such as your own?

This a gratuitous distortion. No, there is little to no chance that diplomacy will strip North Korea of its nukes or its missiles. This was just as true, and just as obvious, after eight years of diplomacy by Perry’s colleagues Warren Christopher, Madeleine Albright, and half the combined payroll of Brookings and the Council on Foreign Relations. When it comes to diplomacy with North Korea, everyone has failed. That tends to be the result when you’re slow to pick up on the fact that you’re negotiating with someone who’s only playing and stalling you. Perry’s colleagues spent eight years bribing and toasting a tyrant whose disregard for human life should have made the difference between his will and our perceptions completely clear to everyone, including George W. Bush. Unfortunately, Bush did little more than fine-tune the Clinton approach for most of his tenure. He even used many of the same people (Jack Pritchard and Nicholas Burns, to name two) to do it. Publicly, at least, the Administration still thinks it can negotiate North Korea’s disarmament:

“We think diplomacy is the right answer, and that is what we are pursuing,” [National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley] said when asked about Mr. Perry’s recommendation in an opinion column published today in The Washington Post.

Nor have nine years of the most obsequieous South Korean appeasement blunted the North’s belligerence or brutality. The only thing short of war we haven’t tried is challenging and undermining the regime’s very legitimacy to rule, taking that message to the North Korean people, and giving them the knowledge and the means to bring change about. This isn’t mutually exclusive with strengthening financial sanctions, a blockade, or with diplomacy. But it will take time, and it will be greatly helped by some North Korean provocation that convinces more leaders and the voters who elect them that North Korea must be isolated rather than bribed.

Argument: This is unlikely to trigger a war

In addition to warning our allies and partners of our determination to take out the Taepodong before it can be launched, we should warn the North Koreans. There is nothing they could do with such warning to defend the bulky, vulnerable missile on its launch pad, but they could evacuate personnel who might otherwise be harmed. The United States should emphasize that the strike, if mounted, would not be an attack on the entire country, or even its military, but only on the missile that North Korea pledged not to launch — one designed to carry nuclear weapons. We should sharply warn North Korea against further escalation.

North Korea could respond to U.S. resolve by taking the drastic step of threatening all-out war on the Korean Peninsula. But it is unlikely to act on that threat. Why attack South Korea, which has been working to improve North-South relations (sometimes at odds with the United States) and which was openly opposing the U.S. action? An invasion of South Korea would bring about the certain end of Kim Jong Il’s regime within a few bloody weeks of war, as surely he knows.

Response: Yes, but the benefits still don’t outweigh that risk

I agree (see “deterrence,” above). Never mind that this this cuts against Perry’s argument that the danger of not acting now is too great because North Korea has nukes. Never mind that the same argument made more sense in 1994, when North Korea’s nuclear program was pretty much confined to the reactor at Yongbyon, and when Bill Clinton almost took it out but blinked. Indeed, Perry later suggests that he’s factored a risk of war into his analysis:

Though war is unlikely, it would be prudent for the United States to enhance deterrence by introducing U.S. air and naval forces into the region at the same time it made its threat to strike the Taepodong. If North Korea opted for such a suicidal course, these extra forces would make its defeat swifter and less costly in lives — American, South Korean and North Korean.

Only prudent, I suppose, but I really don’t see that the risk of not acting is greater than the risk of acting, at least as Perry seems to assess it. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I don’t get why the same people who wussed out when these people went nuclear are now arguing that Bush should do a first strike in response to an incrementally greater missile threat. Meanwhile, the same personalities are presumably still opposed in principle to regime change. Why are these Dems (and Gingrich) all trying to sound hawkish suddenly?

Argument: North Korea’s Neighbors Will Understand

[O]ur South Korean allies will surely not support this ultimatum — indeed they will vigorously oppose it.

Response: A preemptive strike would result in a political and diplomatic fiasco

That’s a dramatic understatement. The neighbors would not understand. A preemptive strike would reverse some encouraging diplomatic, political, and financial trends that a North Korean test would accelerate.

The United States should accordingly make clear to the North that the South will play no role in the attack, which can be carried out entirely with U.S. forces and without use of South Korean territory. South Korea has worked hard to counter North Korea’s 50-year menacing of its own country, through both military defense and negotiations, and the United States has stood with the South throughout. South Koreans should understand that U.S. territory is now also being threatened, and we must respond.

Response: South Korea, which is wearying of neutralism, would veer sharply back to the left

This is also nonsense, but it’s partially excusable; Perry has to be mindful of diplomatic niceties. Still, you can’t tout the strength of the U.S.-Korean alliance in one breath and admit in the next that South Korea isn’t unduly worried about (what Perry considers) a direct threat to the United States. And true to form, the South Koreans don’t see what the big deal is:

In Seoul, a South Korean official said his government is skeptical of U.S. intelligence indicating that North Korea is preparing to launch a new, larger version of the Taepodong-2 missile capable of hitting the West Coast of the United States. He said his government is not particularly alarmed by the situation and “doesn’t understand why there is such fuss in other countries on this.”

That may explain why President Bush seems to have spoken to everyone except except Roh Moo Hyun, South Korea’s leftist President, whose party, policies, and legacy have been devastated by a string of disasters at the polls. North Korea’s thuggish behavior in the face of South Korea’s diplomatic initiatives have contributed much to these results. Absent some dramatic development, the South Korean government’s ability to undercut U.S. pressure on North Korea will continue to shrink. Next year, South Koreans are likely to elect a much friendlier government. Unless we somehow screw that up, this will put us in a far, far better diplomatic position than the one we are in today. A preemptive strike would screw that up. It would instantly reinvigorate an extreme, ethnocentric, anti-American movement, heavily influenced by North Korean ideology, which portrays the United States as an aggressor and North Korea (which only meant to launch a wee harmless satellite, they will surely say) as the victim. Unfortunately, it would work.

Japan is likely to welcome the action but will also not lend open support or assistance.

Response: Japan, which has been a stalwart ally in this crisis, would be uncomfortable at best with a preemptive strike

The destroyers sailed from Yokosuka, and that’s enough, but the Japanese people and goverment will strongly and openly support us splashing a T-dong. They might not support a first U.S. strike so enthusiastically. Meanwhile, Japan signed an agreement today that will significantly expand its cooperation with the United States on missile defense and add its considerable technological heft to this ambitious but troubled project.

China and Russia will be shocked that North Korea’s recklessness and the failure of the six-party talks have brought things to such a pass, but they will not defend North Korea.

Response: China and Russia would distance themselves from North Korea if it tests a missile, and that would help the U.S. to further isolate and weaken North Korea — so why get in the way of that?

Correct. China and Russia are playing the Great Game at the expense of the United States and each other. China, by far the more influential of the two, wants North Korea to drain and distract Washington’s diplomatic and military capital away from Taiwan and other areas where China has interests. It also wants to pursue the Finlandization of South Korea, continuing to successfully drive a wedge between it and the United States. In a perfect world, it would gladly sell North Korea to get Taiwan (I’d also like to trade the clothes my wife bought in Tongdaemun in the 1980’s, and am hoping someone will swap them for the planer I didn’t get on Father’s Day).

I do think, however, that the Chinese are serious about opposing an actual North Korean launch, because they’re deathly afraid of other nations in the region (a) joining the U.S. on missile defense, or (b) getting nukes of their own. This test opens up a rift between North Korea’s interests and China’s. Ditto the Russians. Here is something else with which we ought not interfere.

I can’t prove it, but I think the Bush Administration has secretly disabused itself of the hope for a diplomatic solution. Since August of last year, its policy has been to quietly constrict Kim Jong Il’s criminal financing of his regime. Of course, we have to make a public show of demanding that North Korea return to talks, but no one can expect much from those by now. Economic measures against North Korea’s illegal commerce and money laundering have started to bite. Hard.

Focus on the Big Picture: Bringing Down the Regime

What this means is the North has never been more isolated, and that is one trajectory we should not intercept. They seek to slip their noose, either by blackmailing us into some kind of deal, by causing us to lose our nerve, or by provoking us into doing something stupid. We reap an incalculable diplomatic advantage from North Korea firing the first shot. We can make that decision with reasonable certainty that North Korea won’t attack Japan or the United States, this time. A North Korean test would alarm South Koreans and completely discredit South Korea’s appeasement policy. It would cause Japan to close ranks with the U.S. and impose sanctions against the North. It would force China and Russia to distance themselves from North Korea, and possibly to reduce support. Other nations might join the Proliferation Security Initiative and reduce their economic and diplomatic ties. North Korea’s atrocities against its own people would attract more of the attention they have been wrongly denied. Europe might move from the sidelines and restrict trade. Even the U.N. might get off its ass for once. In short, more people would conclude that North Korea is (a) dangerous, (b) unreasonable, and (c) an urgent priority (notice, by the way, that North Korea and Iran always act up at the same time).

With missiles being so low on the list of bad things North Korea could do to us, it would be shockingly ill advised to do North Korea the favor of overreacting to its theatrics at the moment when they’re as weakened and isolated as they’ve ever been. We must keep our eye on ending the real North Korean threat: proliferation, which will be a grave danger as long as the regime itself exists. The failure of every known brand of diplomacy makes ending this regime’s ability to proliferate an urgent national security priority. In the short term, that means constricting its finances and trade. It may also require a blockade, although neighboring nations would oppose and try to undermine that for now. Ultimately, it means ending Kim Jong Il’s rule, a task that is greatly complicated by the opposition of North Korea’s neighbors. This week, North Korea is doing us many favors in advancing its own isolation. If an unnecessarily hot-headed reaction isolates us diplomatically, the greater danger is more likely to come to pass.

* Answer: Dick Cheney, that warmonger!