The EconomistJanuary 27th 2018 171T
HE lasttime that America almost
risked a pre-emptive strike on North
Korea the gamble offered a spectacular
pay-off. Ashton Carter, a leading architect
of that plan, recalls that his scheme for
bombing the Yongbyon nuclear facility in
1994 assumed that in one or two days the
entirety of the regime’s nuclear pro-
gramme could be levelled and entombed
in rubble. Mr Carter, who went on to be-
come defence secretary in the Obama ad-
ministration, now thinks that an American
first strike would only put “a significant
dent” in North Korea’s arsenal of nuclear
devices and bombmaking sites. “The dif-
ference today is that the North Koreans are
very good at hiding, burying and moving
around their nuclear infrastructure,” says
Mr Carter, now at Harvard University.
If the potential upsides of a strike have
shrunk, the risks have grown hugely. The
crisis of 1994 saw Kim Il Sung thwart inter-
national inspections and threaten to put
plutonium from Yongbyon into half a doz-
en primitive bombs. Since then power
passed to the despot’s son and in 2011 to his
grandson, Kim Jong Un, a young man in a
hurry who has to date never met a foreign
leader, even from China, the closest his all-
but-friendless kingdom has to an ally.
North Korea has tested six nuclear devices
between 2006 and 2017, including what ap-peared to be a hydrogen bomb, and pro-
duced enough plutonium and uranium for
possibly dozens more warheads. Its mis-
siles credibly threaten American territory
in Guam, Hawaii or even the continental
United States, even if officials do not be-
lieve a North Korean nuclear-tipped rocket
can yet reach an American city.
Just because war in Korea would be un-
speakably dangerous does not mean that it
will not happen. Sober officials with long
careers in Asia policy talk of being more
fearful than at any time in recent memory.
America is governed by Donald Trump,
who revels in matching North Korea in
bluster. He hascalled Mr Kim “Little Rocket
Man” and a “sick puppy”, and promised
that continued North Korean threats to
America “will be met with fire and fury
like the world has never seen”. Mr Trump
has at times called diplomacy with the
Kim regime “a waste oftime”. He is also
scornful of allies and alliances, causing
one Japanese expert to identify a grave
concern: “that Trump will come up with a
military option and not take the costs seri-
ously.” It is not just MrTrump. The generals
seen as a steadying influence on the presi-
dent have given warnings that the Kim re-
gime cannot be permitted to build weap-
ons that threaten American territory.
General Joseph Dunford, chairman ofthe joint chiefs of staff and a man who
wields his influence discreetly, last year
chided anyone who thinks it unimagin-
able that America might use force to check
a North Korean nuclear menace. “What’s
unimaginable to me isallowing a capabili-
ty that would allow a nuclear weapon to
land in Denver, Colorado,” he said. In Au-
gust 2017 H.R. McMaster, a lieutenant-gen-
eral who is national security adviser to Mr
Trump, scolded an Obama-era predeces-
sor, Susan Rice, forsuggesting that their
country could contain and deter a nuclear-
armed North Korea, as it did the Soviet Un-
ion. “She’s not right,” chided Mr McMaster,
asking how “classical deterrence theory”
could apply to so brutal a regime.On manoeuvres
Even the defence secretary, James Mattis, a
cerebral former Marine general who says
his job is to “buytime for our diplomats” to
solve the North Korean crisis, has weighed
in. Put on the spot by reporters in Septem-
ber 2017, he insisted thatthere are military
options that would not imperil Seoul, the
South Korean capital, though its 10m in-
habitants live within range of the North’s
artillery and missiles. Such options exist,
he said, “but I will not go into details.”
Others sound less certain. Mr Carter
notes—with tact—that retaliating against a
foreign attack is the standing policy of the
North Korean armed forces. “If the US and
South Korea decided to initiate a strike, we
would have to make sure that we were
thoroughly prepared for a full-on conflict,”
he says. Invited to contemplate military
options that would not put Seoul in harm’s
way Abraham Denmark, a Pentagon offi-
cial during the Obama era who worked onFace off
WASHINGTON, DC
Hope that Donald Trump is bluffing over North Korea, but do not count on itBriefingAmerica and North Korea
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