All the Pieces in Place

 

By Bill Lee

North Korea will have a genuine nuclear threat capability. In the nuclear triad, it has to develop and miniaturize a nuclear weapon, have the means to deliver it, preferably by a ballistic missile, and, in the case of a missile, perfect a re-entry vehicle that can withstand the intense heat and vibration of a re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

North Korea has clearly developed a nuclear capability, but can it miniaturize a nuclear device? That is the crucial question. The DPRK’s development of an ICBM that can hit the US mainland seems, considering its recent ballistic missile tests, a foregone conclusion. And developing the re-entry technology, while formidable, should be within North Korea’s reach, considering its other technological achievements. So North Korea should have a nuclear warhead mountable on a missile, the means of its delivery, and the technology to ensure that the warhead can survive a re-entry and detonate.

The real question is: Does North Korea, namely, Kim Jong Un, have the will to use its nuclear arsenal? How can Kim Jong Un convince the world he is crazy enough to use a nuclear weapon?

The first thing he has to do is demonstrate to the world that North Korea actually does have a functioning ballistic missile that can deliver a nuclear weapon. Kim Jong Un might decide to do that by launching a nuclear-tipped missile towards a remote target in, say, the South Pacific and detonating a nuclear explosion. Why not? The United States did the same thing in the Marshall Islands in the late 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s. Such a demonstration by North Korea would rain down international condemnation on it, but would probably not trigger an attack against it since no country (i.e., the United States) was targeted. The end result: North Korea shows that it has a genuine nuclear capability.

Still the question is whether North Korea has the will to use its nuclear capability. But does it really have to show that it has the will? If confronted with a belligerent, for example, a robber, pointing a loaded weapon at you, are you really going to need to know whether he has the will to pull the trigger? I will take him at his word. The United States — media and government — has already painted Kim Jong Un as “a madman,” “irrational” and so on, concluding that, will or no, he could be unhinged enough to launch a nuclear-tipped missile at the United States. Thus, with the stakes so high, the only real option is to tacitly recognize the DPRK as a nuclear power and negotiate a freeze of its program. If Donald Trump doesn’t recognize that, then he is the really insane one.

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