North Korea - A fait accompli

Introduction

Casualty estimates for day one of a war with North Korea in the millions are predicated on a set of assumptions that are not explored in public debate. Central to this thesis is the assumption that the US and its allies are unable to defeat that threat posed to Seoul from artillery and missile systems numbering as high as 8000 platforms. This estimate presupposes 100% readiness on the part of the North and an inability of allied conventional weapons systems from successfully striking so many targets on day one.

Military experts will acknowledge that high states of readiness are hard to maintain and decline rapidly with inaction. The weapon to target ratio issue is very significant, but it’s not impossible to drive down the risk.  Small yield nuclear weapons can be deployed in ways that target only Northern military capabilities, located in remote mountainous regions away from population centers, with no threat of fallout, and with sufficiently wide coverage to drastically reduce the threat to Seoul. The weapon to delivery platform ratio the US can bring to bear in the small yield scenario does not eliminate the threat to Seoul – the North might always be able to launch a lone retaliatory missile – but that risk is nothing like the millions cited in public discussions. Crucially, the North’s testing of missiles and nuclear warheads demonstrates that they are still unable to marry the two technologies along with requisite reentry, intelligence and targeting technologies required to field an operational capability. Therefore, there is a limited window of opportunity to act.  The question for decision makers is this: risk retaliation on Seoul today or accept the risk of a thermonuclear detonation on an allied capitol or an American city tomorrow. This assessment explores the risks inherent to both options and outlines both military and normative challenges presented by the DPRK threat. It shows that this administration will likely do exactly what every administration before it has done, namely, be held hostage to the invisible threshold game where a trigger threshold is never reached as fear of the consequences of action spur inevitable inaction. In an ironic twist, this assessment estimates that South Korea, Japan and possibly others in the Asia Pacific region will follow North Korea’s strategy of nuclear proliferation for exactly the same reasons – namely to safeguard the territorial integrity of the state against great powers. The impetus for this radical shift in regional security is the inevitable outcome of America’s withdrawal from the world scene and the requirement to find a cost-effective means to deter the provocative rising nationalist power in the region – the People’s Republic of China.

4 September 2017

This moment is decades in the making. Administrations over the years have refused to act when thresholds have been crossed. There are military options for the DPRK threat. The North has the South in check, but not checkmate. It is possible for the US and its allies to minimize the stranglehold on Seoul, but not eliminate it entirely. There is no such thing as a casualty-free war as America has re-learned over the past 16 years in hot and cold wars spread across the globe. The question is what level of pain the US and its allies are willing to endure for the status quo option, vice, the pain it’s willing to take for the counter-DPRK threat option? Regardless of rhetoric, history and recent events suggest that the lesser of the status quo has been the only option all along. Bluff, sometimes mixed with reward for bad behavior, has characterized US policy since the DPRK started down the road to WMD which it knows is essential for regime survival. The Kim family has taken serious risks over the years, including torpedoing a Republic of Korea (ROK) destroyer and shelling civilians on islands owned by the South, and essentially nothing happened. Peace, even at the risk of outright acts of war, was deemed the cost of doing business in NE Asia while the major powers grew ever deeper trade ties. The US has accepted the fait accompli of the reality of the DPRK becoming a nuclear power. Were that not the case, not acting before now is irresponsible in the extreme because advantage lies to the counter-proliferator at the early part of the nuclear weapons development cycle. This strategic assessment will explore the remaining military options with an eye to the pros and cons of action and inaction. The bottom line assessment is that unless the US is willing to use small yield nuclear weapons against the key threat to Seoul then mainstream nuclear deterrence against an accepted DPRK capability is the inevitable future.

America has got caught in what might be called the invisible threshold game in its approach to the DPRK over the years. Each observable step in the nuclear weapon development cycle heralds a decision-point that policy makers eventually rationalize as insufficient to trigger military action. It used to be that development of a small nuclear warhead was unacceptable. That followed the successful step of a true ICBM-range missile. Yet recently, these thresholds were superseded at least in public debate, by the observation that a functional re-entry vehicle had not yet been perfected, which seemed to be used by the commentariate as sufficient doubt to continue to wait before action to defend against a nuclear threat to CONUS. Given past performance, we can expect a future ‘shock’ that a re-entry vehicle has been accomplished, months if not years in advance of intelligence estimates. Then the next question will be just how effectively Kim Jong Un (KJU) can target US installations in Guam, Hawaii or the mainland. Then one day it will be announced that all of the necessary systems, technical and human, are in place and America will just have to learn to live with a Korean bomb.

Were it not for the fact that Seoul is held hostage by the North’s artillery and missile systems, the world would not be faced with this dilemma. North Korea would have ceased to exist a long time ago (and the regime knows it – always has). KJU, like his father and grandfather, is perfectly rational. He is doing exactly what he needs to do to stay in power. For a small weak state that has nothing to offer the world, nuclear weapons guarantee territorial integrity and provides a platform to make a lot of noise untouched by superpower preferences for how the people in that territory should live (read: democracy and capitalism – which equals regime change). The dirty little secret of nuclear counter-proliferation is that a state bent on developing nuclear weapons quite simply cannot be topped – the best that can be hoped for is delay. Only the weapon developing state can decide to stop its programs – short of invasion and occupation – if there are sufficient resources and the will to weaponize a state will eventually get there. The second, even dirtier, little secret is that giving up nukes is the worse thing that a state can do. Just ask Ukraine.

Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees that were geographically next to impossible for the guarantors to deliver. Had Ukraine kept even a small deterrent, Putin would have been given sufficient pause before invading and annexing Crimea and the eastern region of Ukraine. Had he been around to be interviewed, Colonel Gaddaffi might have had a few worth-while observations on the costs of giving up the security buffer nukes offer. He made a choice at the time that not giving up WMDs might tempt America to extend its Afghanistan and Iraq policies to Libya – which in that unique context might have been the best course of action at the time. KJU will never willingly give up his only tool to keep himself in and keep America out.

China’s national interests are served by the status quo in multiple ways. First, the buffer provided by the North is one of its most vital interests. The last thing it can afford is the South and by proxy the US sharing a land border with the middle kingdom. Second, the more attention KJU generates for himself, the more distracted Washington DC becomes, thereby allowing the PRC to quietly build islands in the SC Sea, develop its ‘belt and road’ infrastructure/trade program, and shore up its periphery with the related Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), an influence architecture that enables and multiplies China’s reach as far afield as Europe. Third, China benefits is the global narrative war when America thrashes against the prevailing winds and tides in the Pacific while China extends a helping hand through carious mechanisms like the Asian Development Bank. When America’s closest ally in the region ignored warnings from Washington and was the first to sign up to be a member of the bank, and thus in for the inevitable gold rush, America completely missed the significance of the move, When Australia abandons you for China, you have a huge soft power crisis on your hands. The idea that China is somehow going to abandon its smart economic diplomacy and be a pro-US envoy to Pyongyang all because President Xi said some nice things at Mar-a-largo is simply absurd. Beijing has America right where it wants it and plaintive tweets from the White House merely reinforce America’s true weakness relative to the Asian power-house. Finally, where did all these new missile systems come from? For a long time North Korean missile systems literally failed to launch.  The New York Times and other outlets have reported the reason being that the US had a successful clandestine program that ensured mission failure. A fantastic delaying tactic and worth doing, but recent initiatives and the appearance of wholly new  systems, in particular the sudden appearance of solid fuel rockets and a brand new submarine launched ballistic missile that looks several stages ahead of where there were just 12 months ago, suggests that KJU got some help. It’s not hard to imagine who might benefit if Kim’s programs resume. Let’s face it; he’s not going to target Beijing (or Moscow).

China’s vital national interests stop short of provoking Washington into war. However, it is possible to see that perhaps Beijing has overplayed its hand by giving KJU a little too much leverage. The tensions between the PRC and its client state are well known and as much as it would like to think it has control, Beijing is no doubt frustrated with the current state of play. KJU has gone too far. Statements out of Washington that all trade with the US will be cut off if China does not force the DPRK to stop its nuclear weapons program will only encourage the Chinese to push the limits yet further because such threats are empty.

This leaves the US with really bad options. Either it has to go to war or back down, neither of which leave the US in a strong position.

So what are the military options? How can the US remove the threat against Seoul? Can it eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons program by the use of force? One thing is certain. The US cannot eliminate the North’s nuclear programs with diplomacy or sanctions.

According to various press reports around 8000 artillery pieces are within range of Seoul. Beyond that, the next layer in the North’s defensive ring is its missile systems that are road-mobile and very hard to target (remember the so-called SCUD hunt in the Gulf War?) The North is known to have chemical warheads for both artillery and missiles. They may also have biological warheads, which are an order of magnitude worse than chemical weapons. Its navy and air force are not much to worry about, but that does not mean that it poses no threat to allied air power. Even without the S-400 systems recently offered by Putin, the DPRK is believed to have a robust integrated air defense system. This is not insurmountable for the US but it adds to the complexity of air operations against the prime threats to the South Korean capital.

Ideally, a bolt-from-the-blue attack on the North during a period of low tensions and at a suitable point in their training cycle, would offer the highest chances for success. As happened before the Gulf War, there was excessive over-estimation of the enemy, which shared dome of the same features of the extant threat pointed south on the peninsula. It’s a fact of military life that not all 8000 systems will be fully manned with the highest quality troops and combat ready at all times. Of course, even a 50% readiness would still pose a terrible threat and a possibly unacceptable risk. Undertaking such an attack even if the conditions permit, which they most certainly do not (currently), would pose all sorts of diplomatic and moral questions. The status of armistice, the endless threats of war by the North, and the very real threat that exists to the South and the US, might justify a bolt-from-the-blue attack, but memories of Pearl Harbor and the self-imposed junction against surprise attack all point to the US never taking this action. Something the DPRK has taken to the bank, year after year.

In a situation of escalated tensions, any move to shore up or pre-position the requisite forces for an attack would clearly signal to Pyongyang and especially Beijing that military action was immanent and would therefore trigger one or the other or both shooting first. China has stated that it will remain neutral if the North shoots first but will extend a nuclear umbrella to KJU if the US takes the initiative (more on that below). In short, with the impossibility of strategic surprise, and only marginal opportunities for operational or tactical surprise, the options available to the US are extremely limited. Remember that the key criteria fir action is to minimize as much as is practicable, the damage the North is able to inflict on Seoul. (For the history buffs, I did deliberately paraphrase Lee’s instructions for Gettysburg for artistic effect.)

Under these circumstances, the best way to maximize surprise and to limit the North’s counterpunch is to use small yield nuclear weapons against the artillery positions in the mountains near Seoul. Via various techniques, including the vector/azimuth of attack, the elevation of detonation, and the yield deployed, it would be possible to use the mountains as a shield to reflect the blast effect back into the North and to minimize fallout. These weapons and their delivery systems would give the allies very good coverage of the threat , certainly compared to trying to achieve the same effect with conventional weapons, which would require more sorties, and a dramatically higher risk of a substantial number of DPRK systems surviving sufficiently intact to mount the famed ‘sea of fire’ threat against Seoul.

At the same time, all known missile launcher lagers north of the DMZ would need to be hit simultaneously. Again, for maximum effect nuclear weapons would be preferable for this mission and plausible as most of these targets are away from major population centers. Conventional weapons could also be used, but for the same reasons as stated above, would pose disadvantages with the added risk of the targets being located deep behind the air defense perimeter, thus posing much higher risks to allied airmen and women. The risk of Northern counterattack from forces that survive an allied first strike with conventional weapons, demands the low yield nuclear solution to minimize that risk.

In this scenario (or as a stand alone mission) the question of regime change and a decapitation strike are often raised. US Policy rejects the nuclear targeting of cites (as opposed to military industrial targets that may be adjacent to cities) and it also rejects assassination. Wiping out Pyongyang with a nuclear weapon in the hope of a collateral hit on KJU is the moral equivalent of the North’s ‘sea of fire’ threat against Seoul. It’s very hard to see that as a viable option. The use of Special Operations Forces in a targeted mission against KJU is theoretically within US capabilities; however the operational reality of such a mission is challenging to say the least. The North is a completely closed society, with people spying on one another. KJU is known to move about on a daily basis, precisely because of the assassination threat. Such a raid would be better mounted by ROK Special Forces but would almost certainly be a suicide mission even for men culturally similar, but not the same as, DPRK security.

The loyalty of DPRK forces and especially, key leadership is not well known outside the system and not much better understood within, as widespread executions of leaders suggests. Attempting to establish and maintain contacts within the Hermit Kingdom among those who might be an alternative powerbase seems to have been mounted by the PRC as an insurance policy. KJU’s elder brother, recently assassinated by VX in Malaysia, may be evidence that the regime discovered China was keeping the elder Kim up their sleeve in case an opportunity arose to install a more Beijing-friendly North Korean leader. How deep the PRCs links go remains to be seen, but as China is the predominant military and economic partner, it’s safe to assume that they have spent their time and intelligence resources wisely. It is unknown what programs of this kind the ROK or the US has, but without dependency, let alone a network, there are next to no HUMINT vectors for the allies, compared to the PRC.

Were it possible to eliminate Kim, a whole new set of challenges would unfold. Most likely, there would be a new strongman to take his place. The DPRK is so deeply enmeshed in the Kim family and related ideologies, the chances are that a single power base arises is low. More likely, a fracturing would occur, resulting in internal turmoil. The key question is, how will the North Korean people react? We simply don’t know. If experts tell you otherwise, think back to all of the flowers and candy that greeted the US forces in Iraq. The public may genuinely be brainwashed. They may pretend to be brainwashed but in fact hate the regime. They may welcome regime change or resist it. Will a change be followed by foreign occupation or will the North be left to sort it out for itself? Most likely, China will send ‘peacekeepers’ and ‘humanitarian relief’, while excluding ROK and allied assistance so as to ensure the territorial integrity of their highly prized buffer with the West.

With or without leader elimination, the limited nuclear option does not guarantee that Seoul will be untouched. But it would vastly reduce the threat and consequent damage. Media estimates of millions killed as a result of a conventional allied strike against the North are exaggerated, notwithstanding the admittedly heavy population density numbering in the millions within range of Northern military systems. Assuming the use of Northern WMD makes those estimates much more realistic. That is what makes the use of small yield nuclear weapons by the US essential to minimize casualties. Unfortunately, even that proposal could not guarantee any outcome. It becomes a question of risk. The risk would be driven right down but a single chemical or nuclear warhead getting through would result in tens of thousands dying. That assumes of course that the North is ready and its WMD systems are at the highest operational capability and readiness.

In judging the risks of the aforementioned options, intelligence is essential. Accurate and actionable intelligence is always hard to come by despite the abundance of capabilities and resources on the allied side. A plan similar to the one above would have to be incredibly confident of its intelligence assessments. For example, if I were the Commander of the US Forces Korea would want a daily assessment if readiness if the forces that threaten Seoul – which is why a bolt-from-the-blue attack in a non-escalated environment would be so much more preferable to what is possible under the current, strained, and thus alert, environment.

A small yield nuclear attack on military targets that threaten Seoul is the best military option available to the allies. It has the highest chance that it will destroy most but not all of the road-mobile missile systems deep inside Northern integrated air defenses. Casualties in the South would range from 10,000 to 200,000 assuming that no Northern WMD makes it through. Without nuclear weapon use by the allies, casualty estimates would likely be as much as an order of magnitude higher.

The North Korean military would be dealt a death blow and the shock factor if US nuclear use would most likely break the back of the Army.

It would likely not be necessary to use nuclear weapons against massed land formations but that option would have to be available. In either case, the allies had better have thought past the phase of major combat operations and have a series if contingencies to cope with the wide number if postwar scenarios that might develop. As noted above, the PRC is most likely to drive deep into the North in an effort to maintain their buffer and in many ways it might be preferable that Beijing, with its strong finances and abundant personnel, picks up the postwar challenges in the North.

Given that KJU has not yet fielded operational ICBMs with thermonuclear warheads capable of surviving re-entry, now is the last best chance to act. Indeed, it has been left quite late, but one thing is for sure: very soon it will be too late. So if the US is going to strike, it must do so now, while accepting the risks outlined above.

Failure to act now will result in the North solidifying its status as a rogue nuclear power and all the risks that poses to the security of its avowed enemy, the United States. The terrible reality is this: Does America risk tens of thousands in Seoul today, or possibly many more in Seattle or LA in a few months time?

Accepting North Korea as a nuclear power capable of attacking the United States is viable if you believe in the deterrent effect of assured destruction. Note the word mutual is missing. North Korea is by far the weaker actor in this scenario. On launch the US and its allies with Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) destroyers at sea adjacent to the peninsula, have their first opportunity to attempt to shoot down a missile as it gathers speed in the boost phase, heading for space. The sensor-shooter loop is pretty tight and, providing ships are on station and ready to shoot, there is a good probability that a single missile (or missiles in single digits) would suffer some degree of loss. Exactly how much is hard to say. There may also be options in cyberspace prior to launch but the more exotic the option, the higher the risk something will fail.

A US BMD destroyer has already demonstrated its capacity to destroy a target in space. So in the second layer of defense after the boost phase, the orbit in space is also vulnerable. Again, it’s a question of readiness, available shooters at sea and on land, and a numbers game – how many incoming targets, and the ratio of defenders to targets. Destruction in the boost phase is highly desirable because the warhead and other debris will fall either on the North or into the sea. A space intercept creates huge problems, including, but not limited to, orbital debris fields, the possibility of electromagnetic pulse, and nuclear detonation, all of which are not conducive to satellite operations. Intercept in the re-entry phase is the hardest and most dangerous, due to the speed if the warheads, upwards of twelve times the speed of sound, and again, debris that would rain down on Earth. If the hardware survives re-entry, in the terminal phase even a hammer moving at Mach 12 would create incredible damage.

Beyond military options against a launch, the US would face some very difficult policy questions. In order to male its deterrent credible, the US would be required to retaliate. Successful intercept of an incoming missile would seriously challenge international political and moral norms, in that some, maybe many, would question the proportionality of assured destruction of all of North Korea in response to a missile launch that failed – by way of intercept.  Would shooting the same number of missiles or warheads back be proportional when we know that the enemy is unable to intercept them and thus would guarantee mass death, especially in the case where the US suffered little to no casualties? Failure to retaliate would be viewed as exceptional restraint in civilized societies, but phenomenal weakness by America’s ever-multiplying enemies, both state and non-state. Such weakness in the past has invited ever more damaging attacks. Scholars of global jihad point to the US withdrawal from Lebanon (and Somalia) as key turning points in the thinking of bin Laden and his ilk, prompting them to go larger and go hard against the far enemy which had hitherto seemed so powerful as to be untouchable. Pulling out weakened deterrence.

This dynamic raises the resolve dilemma. Part of the justification for staying so long and at such cost in Vietnam was the important message it sent Western European allies about American resolve. In the nuclear North Korea shooting war scenario, even if the missile is intercepted, if the US shows too much restraint then it will be seen as lacking resolve, thus inviting ever more significant attacks (in scale or number).

The resolve dilemma gets even more complicated if an American territory or an ally is the target. Would the US kill millions of oppressed North Korean men, women, and children, who have had to suffer under the tyranny or the Kim jackboot, all because our military base at Guam suffered a hit? One of the surprises of the recent crisis was China’s implicit offer of a nuclear umbrella to North Korea. If not implicit, then certainly sufficiently ambiguous as to make Washington think carefully about any reaction to provocation from Pyongyang. This is the first time the PRC has offered a nuclear umbrella to a satellite (and a signal of how seriously it takes the buffer question, something Washington should heed in its calculations). America believes that it convinced its allies not to develop nuclear weapons because Washington promised to retaliate against an aggressor who used WMDS on its allies. This is a basic proposition of non-proliferation; the fewer who have access to these difficult and terrible weapons, the safer the world will be from accident, inadvertent or deliberate use. Many countries trusted in this system (or could not afford to do otherwise); some, like Britain and France, did not.  The idea that America would risk New York or Miami (and, post escalation, the entire US) in response to a hit on Canberra (for example) was absurd. The Chinese offer has to be seen in the same light.

This leads to one of the only viable solutions outside of the short term horizon. It is self evidently clear that the national interests of South Korea and Japan would be best served by withdrawing from the NPT (which would send a much more powerful signal than any White House tweet to both Pyongyang and Beijing), and develop their own nuclear deterrent. American leadership in the region notwithstanding, the only guarantee of putting KJU in check-mate is for Seoul and Tokyo to protect themselves. To this end, it is quite telling that public opinion polling in South Korea for the first time shows a majority in favor of developing an independent nuclear deterrent. No doubt Britain and France are relieved that they have the final guarantor against Putin’s Russia that seems hell-bent on making as much trouble for the West as a broke economy, two-bit kleptocracy can. (Further, it’s remarkable how successful it has been with its low-cost clandestine methods against the fragile US polity – Thankfully, NATO and the EU have proven more robust than the American Republic.) Likewise, against the immediate threat from the DPRK it the long term regional encirclement by the PRC, American allies in Asia may well come to see their vital national interests served by the only weapon that will make China stop at the border.

Proliferation is a terrible prospect. No one would advocate it if they knew the terrible costs and risks involved. But as American leadership and resolve shift to the service of America First, which so far in practice is largely unclear due to a lack of ideological vice pragmatic (and thus contradictory) impulses, our allies will get the message if they have not already. Large scale conventional military forces, especially at the high technological end of the spectrum, are rapidly becoming too expensive for even wealthy countries to field. Witness the NATO debate over the 2% (which they can afford). But the long term trends are there. If protection against invasion is the primary motivation, a nuclear deterrent combined with effective special operations forces, cyber. Drones, propaganda, and spies, is a low cost effective way to achieve many (if not all) contemporary objectives in international security.

It worked for North Korea… why not South Korea?