Professor Thomas Lee wrote an op-ed for CNN about recent North Korean missile threats.
Judging from the United Nations Security Council’s emergency meeting on July 5, it seems that the United States is not going to get China and Russia on board for serious collective UN sanctions against North Korea. US Ambassador Nikki Haley spoke about the United States going alone if that didn’t happen, and left it unclear what that might mean. There were surely more discussions during the G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany. We have arrived at a critical juncture.
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First, the United States has some anti-ballistic missile defense (ABMD) systems operational, but they are not designed to be effective against long-range ballistic missiles.
One such ABMD is the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, which the United States recently began installing in South Korea. (In theory, THAAD’s sophisticated radar might also be used against missiles originating in China, thereby threatening its nuclear deterrent, which is part of why China is so upset about THAAD.) Yes, a THAAD missile successfully intercepted a test target on Tuesday in Alaska. But the word “Area” in the acronym THAAD marks its limitation to theater or regional defense, not intercontinental defense.
Some US Navy cruisers and destroyers have the Aegis Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense system (ABMD) which is a seaborne anti-ballistic missile system, too. The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force has a handful of Aegis warships, too. Aegis ABMD suffers from the same limitations with respect to longer-range missiles as THAAD.
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North Korea historically staged launches or engaged in belligerent acts on important dates. For instance, they shot down a US Navy surveillance plane on April 15, 1969, then-North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung’s 57th birthday, killing 30 US sailors and one marine.
More recently, North Korea launched a missile in February 2017 while US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe were meeting at Mar-a-Lago. The February missile splashdown was in the sea between Korea and Japan. And the North Koreans have been especially active with missile launches since Trump was elected.
Thus, it is likely that US military and intelligence officials expected that they might launch a missile on July Fourth — “hey, United States, here are some fireworks for you” — and that it would splash down in the same seas. Moreover, US and South Korean military were engaging in anti-missile exercises at the time.
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It is much easier to hit the missile right at launch or right before it launches. But North Korea has developed too many mobile launchers and hardened fixed launch sites for the United States to take them all out, even if they don’t yet have a submarine launch capacity. This is very different from 1994, when the United States last seriously contemplated a missile strike against the North Korean nuclear program. At that time, it was conceivable that a strike hitting only a handful of sites would have done the trick.
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If the United States can’t shoot down a North Korean missile, end their program by a military strike, or get China and Russia onboard for stiffer international sanctions, what can it do?