Don’t panic, don’t scoff
SOUTH KOREA | SEOUL — When North Korea makes threats to nuke its enemies, as it has over the last several days, outsiders often have one of two reactions: to dismiss it as yet another example of empty propaganda or to panic.
There are good reasons to do neither. There are many ways the North can retaliate that fall short of war, nuclear or conventional.
North Korea’s latest warning came Monday in response to the beginning of annual South Korean-U.S. military drills. Pyongyang always responds furiously to the springtime war games, which it views as an invasion rehearsal.
NORTH’S BLUFF
The first thing to keep in mind is that Pyongyang’s near-term nuclear warnings are mostly bluff; more of a strong deterrent that Pyongyang can use in its propaganda, rather than an actual sign of imminent war.
The North knows that its atomic program, which is still relatively primitive, is outgunned by the thousands of warheads the United States possesses. Pyongyang is very unlikely to do something that could lead to overwhelming retaliation by superior militaries.
Still, the bellicose bluster is not without danger.
POORLY UNDERSTOOD
North Korea is so poorly understood by outsiders, even by analysts in the South, that its threats make the already jittery Korean Peninsula even tenser. This general anxiety causes both Korean militaries to bolster their positions and increases the possibility that a misjudgment by North Korea’s young leader, Kim Jong Un, could lead to an escalation of violence should a skirmish erupt.
South Korean analysts believe North Korea will follow its nuclear threats with some sort of low-level provocation. It launched short-range projectiles last week, hours after the U.N. Security Council approved new sanctions. It also could stage a cyberattack, which South Korea says Pyongyang has done in the past.
COVERT ATTACKS
Rather than traditional military confrontations, in which it would be heavily outgunned, the North favors covert, surprise attacks that South Korea cannot immediately respond to. In 2010, North Korea was said to have staged a torpedo attack on a South Korean warship and an artillery bombardment on a South Korean island that killed a total of 50 South Koreans.
North Korea denies it torpedoed the South Korean ship, though it acknowledges shelling the South’s Yeonpyeong Island.
NUCLEAR CAPABILITIES?
The exact status of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is a mystery, but a general outside consensus is that North Korea has yet to master the technology needed to build a nuclear-armed missile that can directly attack the U.S. mainland.
Still, after rounds of tests, the North is thought to have a handful of rudimentary nuclear bombs. Some analysts think it can arm shorter-range missiles. And even a crude nuclear weapon could be delivered by other means.
The country, one of the world’s poorest, has also successfully sent satellites into orbit twice, rocket launches that outsiders say were covers for tests of banned technology used in long-range missile firing. Seoul defense officials believe North Korea doesn’t yet have a workable re-entry vehicle necessary to get a warhead safely back into the Earth’s atmosphere.
Analysts, however, believe it’s only a matter of time before North Korea gets a reliable intercontinental ballistic missile because its scientists will continue to explode new, advanced atomic devices, and send up rockets, to improve their designs and technologies.