[The options for a nonmilitary response are becoming clear. On Wednesday, the United States circulated to members of the United Nations Security Council a draft resolution that would require all countries to cut off the North’s oil and all refined petroleum products; it would also allow the Security Council to designate North Korean ships that could be boarded and inspected using “all necessary measures,” meaning whatever force was needed.]
By David E. Sanger
 |
|
Korean
People’s Army soldiers attended a celebration this week in Pyongyang,
North
Korea, for
scientists involved in carrying out its largest nuclear blast to
date. Credit
Kim Won-Jin/Agence
France-Presse — Getty Images
|
South Korea’s prime minister is saying
publicly what American officials will not: In the next few days, intelligence
reports predict, North Korea will launch another intercontinental ballistic
missile.
“A special measure is urgently needed to stop
their recklessness,” the prime minister, Lee Nak-yon, told defense ministers in
Seoul on Thursday.
He may be wrong about the timing. But at the
White House and the Pentagon, and out in the Pacific, American officials are
scrambling to decide how the United States should react, particularly if the
North Koreans demonstrate without doubt that they can reach the American
territory of Guam, or even a distance equivalent to striking the West Coast of
the United States.
Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said this
week that President Trump had been presented with all military options and
would meet threats with a “massive military response” that would be “effective
and overwhelming.” Mr. Trump’s aides will not indicate whether fueling up
another ICBM constitutes a threat, saying they want to keep North Korea’s
leader, Kim Jong-un, guessing.
The options for a nonmilitary response are
becoming clear. On Wednesday, the United States circulated to members of the
United Nations Security Council a draft resolution that would require all
countries to cut off the North’s oil and all refined petroleum products; it would
also allow the Security Council to designate North Korean ships that could be
boarded and inspected using “all necessary measures,” meaning whatever force
was needed.
Ultimately, Secretary of State Rex W.
Tillerson has said, the idea is to force North Korea to the negotiating table,
but only after it begins to show a willingness to stop testing and gradually
disarm.
But as several of Mr. Trump’s advisers have
noted in recent days, United Nations resolutions and negotiation strategies are
for the medium term. How to handle the launch is the immediate, urgent
question. Here is a look at the president’s choices, and their downsides:
A
Pre-emptive Strike
Mr. Trump told friends that he was proud of
the moment in April when he ordered an airstrike on an air base where the
Syrian government was believed to have launched chemical weapons attacks. The
bombing unfolded during a visit to the United States by President Xi Jinping of
China, giving Mr. Trump the chance to tell him about it during dinner and to
send an unspoken message about what might happen in North Korea if it, like
Syria, crossed a “red line.”
Technologically, it would not be difficult to
destroy North Korea’s missiles. American warships off the Korean coast could
easily hit the North Korean launch site, which is near the Sea of Japan. They
might even provide warning to the North Koreans to evacuate the base.
But unlike the Syrians, the North Koreans
know how to strike back — on the South Korean capital, Seoul, or American bases
in Japan. Not long ago, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea said he had a veto
on American attacks on North Korea, and promised “there will be no war” on the
Korean Peninsula. (The Americans have a different view, saying that when it
comes to defending American territory, no other country has veto rights.)
But destroying one missile would do nothing
to the North’s many others. And the United States might have a difficult time
proving that the missile was truly threatening without proof of where it was
aimed.
American officials could argue, though, that
Mr. Kim offered an unsubtle hint when he was photographed recently by state-run
media examining maps of targets in Guam, including an American air base that
houses bombers that can reach North Korea.
Shooting
Down Over the Pacific
Never has there been a bigger moment for
American missile defenses — or greater reluctance to use them.
In the vision the Pentagon has sold to
Congress for decades, the warhead of an adversary’s missile could be tracked
and destroyed in mid-flight or closer to landing, known as the terminal phase.
That’s the event for which the United States often trains, with decidedly mixed
results.
If the North Korean missile’s target was
Guam, or the waters near it, shooting it down would be an iffy proposition. The
first shots would be taken, most likely, by Aegis destroyers armed with what
are called Standard missiles, the most successful antimissile system in the
American arsenal. But to make it work, the destroyers would have to be in the
right place, former senior officials say. A Thaad missile defense system, like
the ones the United States has placed in South Korea, could also be employed.
If the missile were headed toward the
continental United States, it could be taken out by one of the antimissile
systems in Alaska and California. In tests, they hit the target about half the
time, under perfect conditions.
“That’s the approach I’d take,” former
Secretary of Defense William J. Perry said during a visit to Washington a few
months ago, as tensions mounted. “Ten years ago I would advocated destroying it
on the pad, but today that’s too risky. Intercepting it looks far more like a
purely defensive measure.”
But American officials are haunted by one
question: What if they miss? It would be obvious to all. That could leave Mr.
Trump humiliated and call into question the wisdom of antimissile defenses,
which the United States has spent $300 billion to develop.
Let
It Happen
This has been the approach thus far: Track
the missile, determine quickly whether it is a threat to a populated area and
let it fall into the sea. That is the most cautious response, and Mr. Trump
could use it to press China and Russia to drop their objections to more United
Nations sanctions.
But it is not cost-free. In each test, the
North Koreans get more information to perfect their future launches. And after
Mr. Trump warned that any threat to the United States would be met with “fire
and fury,” he is acutely aware that making no active response might make it
look as if he had ignored his own red line, exactly what he accused President
Barack Obama of doing with Syria.
Other
Options
In the cyber age, perhaps the most tempting
solution for presidents is to reach for America’s most stealthy weapon. That is
what Mr. Obama did in 2014, when he ordered an acceleration of cyberattacks
aimed at preventing launches.
But there is debate over the effectiveness of
that operation and little visible evidence that the cyberattacks, if
continuing, are working now. Perhaps the United States is waiting for the right
moment, but as one former senior cyber operator said, no target is harder than
North Korea.
And the North Koreans know it.
