Robert Gates, the most seasoned senior U.S. national-security official of the last half-century, lays out a response
The Gates proposal proceeds from several basic principles. First: There simply is no good pure military option for attacking North Korea. The sheer destruction and danger of an all-out war on the Korean Peninsula take that idea off the table.Second: “China is still the key no matter how you slice it,” Mr. Gates says. As has been noted by every recent American administration, China is the one country with sufficient leverage over North Korea to make a difference... “It seems to me the need is for a comprehensive strategy you would lay out to the Chinese at a very high level, which would basically have both a diplomatic and a military component.” In other words, make a deal with China before you deal with North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong Un, directly.
.. Under the Gates approach, the U.S. would make China the following offer: Washington is prepared to recognize the North Korean regime and forswear a policy of regime change, as it did when resolving the Cuban missile crisis with the Soviet Union; is prepared to sign a peace treaty with North Korea; and would be prepared to consider some changes in the structure of military forces in South Korea.
In return, the U.S. would demand hard limits on the North Korean nuclear and missile program, essentially freezing it in place, enforced by the international community and by China itself.
.. “I think you cannot get the North to give up their nuclear weapons,” Mr. Gates says. “Kim sees them as vital to survival. But you may be able to get them to keep the delivery systems to very short range.”
.. the North Koreans would have to agree to invasive inspections that could insure a limited nuclear stockpile of no more than a dozen or two dozen nuclear weapons, as well as inspections to ensure they aren’t developing more weapons or further capabilities for delivery.
.. On the flip side of that offer, Mr. Gates says, the U.S. would present a tougher alternative for China: “If that is not an outcome you can accept, we are going to take steps in Asia you hate.”
.. Absent such an agreement, the U.S. would “heavily populate Asia with missile defenses.” That would include missile-defense buildups in South Korea, Japan and aboard additional American ships stationed in the Pacific. In addition, the U.S. would declare that it would shoot down “anything we think looks like a launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile” from North Korea.
The secret to Kim’s success? Some experts see Russian echoes in North Korea’s missile advances
There is no record of Pyongyang’s obtaining blueprints for the Russian missile engine, and experts disagree on whether it ever did so. But the discovery of similarities has focused new attention on a question that has dogged U.S. analysts for at least the past two years: How has North Korea managed to make surprisingly rapid gains in its missile program, despite economic sanctions and a near-universal ban on exports of military technology to the impoverished communist state?
.. Many weapons experts say North Korea’s startling display of missile prowess is a reflection of the country’s growing mastery of weapons technology, as well as its leader’s fierce determination to take the country into the nuclear club. But others see continuing evidence of an outsize role by foreigners, including Russian scientists who provided designs and know-how years ago, and the Chinese vendors who supply the electronics needed for modern missile-guidance systems.
.. “My first question would be, ‘What else have they got?’ ”
.. On Oct. 15, 1992, police detained 60 Russian missile scientists, along with their families, as they prepared to board a plane for North Korea.
.. Under questioning, the scientists confessed that they had been hired as a group to help the North Koreans build a modern missile fleet. In those early days after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was little work for Russia’s elite weapons scientists and little pay to help them feed and clothe their families.
.. North Korea also obtained sensitive nuclear technology from Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
.. “North Korea’s ballistic missiles, especially its long-range missile project, were often considered a joke because of an unusual number of test failures,” Kampani said.
.. The jokes all but stopped after North Korea achieved a series of technical breakthroughs in surprisingly rapid succession. Just in the past four years, Pyongyang has launched satellites into orbit and successfully tested one missile that can be fired from a submarine
.. “The consensus has been that North Korea’s program — missile as well as nuclear — is mostly indigenous,” said Laura Holgate, a top adviser on nonproliferation to the Obama administration who stepped down in January as head of the U.S. mission to the United Nations in Vienna. “They continue to seek to import commercial dual-use technologies for their weapons programs, but the design and innovation is homegrown.”
.. shown in independent analyses to be a modified version of a Russian missile commonly known as the R-27 Zyb. North Korea is believed to have obtained the Russian blueprint in the 1990s and to have spent years working on prototypes, current and former U.S. officials said.
.. “It is a mistake to think that this is really a hermit kingdom that is cut off and doesn’t have access to the Internet,” Cohen said. “They have a lot of disadvantages, but the biggest part of the government economy is their nuclear and missiles program, so the smartest folks they have are directed to do this work.
“My fear,” he added, “ is that people underestimate them.”
Kim Jong-un Is Not a Freakish Buffoon
North Korea is not a problem that can be solved. As much as the West may engage in wishful thinking about a revolution, the Kim family regime has survived far longer than almost anyone predicted. Even today, it shows no signs of collapsing, and the North Koreans show no signs of rebelling en masse.
Does anyone actually think that with another round of sanctions the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, will suddenly give up power and North Koreans will all become liberal democrats? Or that somehow Washington could brandish enough aircraft carriers that the North Korean military and political establishment will surrender?
.. The widespread mocking of Kim Jong-un as a freakish buffoon is a sign of our misguided approach. Viewing him as a joke is a mistake not because it’s rude, but because it contributes to a dangerous underestimation of his power. Mr. Kim has managed to rule for almost six years as a brutal totalitarian dictator. He may be many things, but he is not a lightweight.
.. North Korea isn’t unpredictable; rather, it is the most predictable country on earth.
.. The North Koreans are also very calculating. By aiming test missiles at Japan, Pyongyang is sending a clear signal: Take a preventive shot at our missile sites, and we will take a shot at Japan, most likely at the roughly 50,000 American military personnel stationed at United States bases there. It would not be the start of a second Korean War, but rather a poke for a poke. Would the United States really want to up the ante a second time?
.. Twenty years ago, there might have been an opportunity for the two sides to reach a deal. But both Washington and Pyongyang have had years of evidence to back their claims that the other side will never live up to its word.
.. North Korea poses almost no threat to South Korea as long as the United States-South Korea alliance remains ironclad. Kim Jong-un may be many things, but he is not suicidal. Deterrence will continue to work.
.. For the United States, making steady progress in alleviating the humanitarian and economic problems, while maintaining strong deterrence against the nuclear program, is the only way forward.
Putin’s Assist for North Korea
Russia sends a message to Trump by nixing a U.N. resolution.
President Trump meets with Vladimir Putin on Friday, and the Russian strongman sent his early regards on Thursday by nixing a U.S. resolution at the U.N. Security Council condemning North Korea’s latest missile launch. The resolution didn’t stipulate any action, but our friends the Russians still objected.
The Kremlin excuse is that the draft U.S. statement referred to the rocket as an intercontinental ballistic missile. Never mind that North Korea claims the missile was the equivalent of an ICBM, and the U.S. and other analysis of the trajectory and altitude suggest the same.
“The rationale [for Russia’s rejection] is that based on our (Ministry of Defense’s) assessment we cannot confirm that the missile can be classified as an ICBM,” Russia’s U.N. mission said in an email to other Security Council members. “Therefore we are not in a position to agree to this classification on behalf of the whole council since there is no consensus on this issue.”