US faces shortage of options over North Korean missile
All the strategies for reining in Kim Jong-un would carry huge risks
North Korea successfully launched an intercontinental ballistic missile last week that could one day carry nuclear warheads to the United States, a move that has revived talk of military intervention in the state.
Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, once a somewhat abstract strategic concern for bureaucrats in Washington, have suddenly become more pressing. The secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said earlier this year that all options are on the table for blocking its nuclear weapons programme.
Talk of a “surgical strike” often surfaces when politicians are contemplating military intervention in conflicts or troubled areas around the globe, perhaps because it carries connotations of a focused, efficient attack, with minimal collateral damage. That is a distracting illusion.
There is no option for military intervention in North Korea that would not cost civilian lives and carry a high risk of dangerous escalation. The lives most immediately at risk in the case of open conflict are those of South Koreans. Nearly half the population lives within 80km of the demilitarised zone that separates the northern and southern halves of the peninsula, according to the New York Times.
North Korea’s missile launch came as the US prepared to mark Independence Day.
Parts of Seoul are within range of rocket-launchers and guns hidden in caves and tunnels along the border. As recently as 2010 North Korean shelling killed two marines and injured civilians. It is possible to intercept artillery shells, rockets and other low-altitude weapons, through systems such as Israel’s Iron Dome, but South Korea has not got any equivalent. If North Korea unleashes these on the south, even the most optimistic estimates say thousands of lives would be lost from attacks on military targets, rising to tens or even hundreds of thousands if Pyongyang aims at civilians.
Kim Jong-un has ballistic missiles that could reach sites across South Korea and Japan, and a stockpile of chemical and nuclear weapons. This arsenal is thought to have been built up as a deterrent, but few think Kim would hesitate to use the weapons if he felt his life or power was in immediate threat. His half-brother was killed using the nerve agent VX in a Malaysian airport earlier this year, he purged his uncle, and reportedly executed a defence chief with antiaircraft guns.
The US and its allies cannot count on taking out the North Korean leadership with the type of missile or drone strikes used to pick off Isis fighters. Assassinating leaders of enemy states is notoriously difficult, even with US financial and technical resources. Failed efforts to kill Saddam Hussein in the first weeks of the 2003 Iraq invasion, and decades of botched attempts on Fidel Castro, are reminders of how difficult killing from a distance can be.
Kim and his inner circle are secretive and cautious, and western intelligence systems inside the state are weak. In 2008 analysts were left speculating for months about whether his father, Kim Jong-il, was alive or dead. News that he had suffered a stroke in August only leaked into the outside world in winter.
Perhaps the biggest risk in taking action in North Korea is its unpredictability. Once fighting starts, there would be many reasons for escalation, analyst Anthony Cordesman told the New York Times. Stopping it would be much harder.