The US must prepare for the North Korean threat

By Josh Hypes

More than 80 North Korean ballistic missiles and 100 artillery rounds crashed into the seas surrounding South Korea and Japan last week. North Korea is showing off its increased strategic and tactical options—and illustrating the danger it poses to the free world. Not only is the rogue state getting closer to delivering nuclear payloads, but its development of short-range capacity and technical weaponry demonstrates its willingness to escalate tensions to increase its coercive bargaining power.

To meet the demands of this challenge, the U.S. must upgrade South Korean and Japanese missile defense systems, putting pressure on North Korea to make concessions, such as a minor arms control agreement supervised by international inspectors or a pause on missile testing.

The recent missile tests were a response to joint American, Japanese, and South Korean “Operation Vigilant Storm” air exercises.

North Korea claimed those drills were an “open provocation” against its sovereignty. In response to the North Korean tests, the South Korean Air Force fired three surface-to-air missiles north of the Northern Limit Line, the maritime border between the two countries.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration insists the “Operation Vigilant Storm” drills were defensive and not meant to aggravate tensions. This response is right out of Washington’s North Korea playbook. It seeks to cool tensions but it’s the type of response North Korea has come to expect from the United States.

These predictable responses to North Korea’s aggression give the North Koreans more time to develop more coercive means to spur possible American concessions at the negotiating table. Hypothetically, perhaps in a couple of months, Biden’s national security team might reach out to North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, seeking to plan a peace summit. And within a year, during the summit, the two leaders will call it a great diplomatic victory by lifting some sanctions on the North or ordering a minor withdrawal of troops along the North and South Korean border at the 38th parallel. Months later, North Korea will renege and continue to expand its arsenal.

This worn-out diplomatic approach to national security is a theme throughout the Biden Administration’s foreign policy. In his rhetoric, Biden will play hardball in China, excoriating it for industrial espionage and aggravations against Taiwan. In practice, he’s willing to give the totalitarian dictatorship massive concessions in international negotiations, such as the Paris Climate Accord conference.

North Korea understands its isolation from the rest of the world. The Western coalition is large, strong, and armed with more than 4,000 nuclear warheads. It also recognizes that the U.S. is weak when enforcing these agreements. Still, there’s much to gain through the appearance of cooperation, such as the removal of sanctions or a pause on Western military exercises.

While these peace talks continue, North Korea builds a nuclear weapon capable of striking the American continent to discourage Western interference on the Korean Peninsula.

Rodger Baker, the Stratfor executive director at RANE, a private intelligence company, recently spoke on campus to the Alexander Hamilton Society regarding North Korea’s recent testing. He said North Korea is sending signals to the West that it can use various missile strikes to target and disrupt U.S. naval assets, including an electromagnetic pulse, which is a burst of electromagnetic energy used to scramble communication systems, and shorter-range missiles. This ultimately shows a North Korean interest in developing tactical weaponry to give it more options in conflict.

A North Korea with nuclear capabilities to strike the U.S. radically disrupts the dynamic of American alliances in the Korean peninsula, according to Baker. For example, the U.S. might become less likely to assist South Korea with regional issues. North Korea would likely become bolder, reasserting itself on the international scene using the threat of nuclear retaliation to push off sanctions.

Yet Baker argues that North Korea’s specialization in its nuclear program comes at the cost of its conventional forces, which it has failed to modernize. The Korean People’s Army is largely relegated to serving as labor for state infrastructure projects.

Diplomacy is a tool, but it is not the only tool in the United States’ arsenal. If the opportunity for negotiations should come, they must clearly stipulate the means and objectives for denuclearizing the Korean peninsula. Deepening our alliances in East Asia with South Korea and Japan is one solution to increasing the pressure on North Korea. Preparing an effective system to shoot down short-range missiles in the area can effectively counter North Korea’s tactical weaponry.

We also must take steps to improve relations and encourage cooperation between Japan and South Korea. Currently, the U.S. must often act as an intermediary between the two nations because of their shared complicated history, scared by the lasting legacy of Japanese imperialism. The U.S. must work with these two countries to reach a satisfactory agreement and encourage the two nations to look toward the future.

Re-establishing an Obamaera tri-lateral forum between the foreign ministers of the three countries is one way to improve communication and address some of these issues.

Ultimately, the U.S. must work to change the environment and neutralize the threat posed by North Korea before it goes nuclear.

Josh Hypes is a junior studying politics and journalism. He is a political correspondent at the Collegian.