{"id":24591,"date":"2016-02-12T06:00:05","date_gmt":"2016-02-11T19:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=24591"},"modified":"2016-02-10T15:38:44","modified_gmt":"2016-02-10T04:38:44","slug":"north-korea-waiting-out-the-tortoise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/north-korea-waiting-out-the-tortoise\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea: waiting out the tortoise?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"14050357496_2d1d92c795_z\"<\/a><\/p>\n

North Korea\u2019s latest satellite launch helps expose the paucity of the international community\u2019s options for responding against a determined proliferator. The UN huddles to agree on new sanctions against Kim Jong-un\u2019s regime. China counsels all parties to act calmly and with deliberation, clearly still believing that the present regime in Pyongyang is preferable to an uncertain future on the peninsula. The Obama administration clings tenaciously to its policy of strategic patience\u2014a policy that makes sense only on the condition that we can wait out North Korean radicalism.<\/span><\/p>\n

North Korea\u2019s nuclear and missile programs are never going to win any prizes for speed or technological prowess. Events typically have a stage-managed character to them. They\u2019re often conducted to celebrate particular occasions on the leadership calendar: Kim Jong-un\u2019s birthday, for example. Official media coverage of the events contain a mixture of real and concocted footage. The test of an apparent submarine-launched ballistic missile depicts the missile streaking boldly into the sky,<\/span> which in all likelihood never happened<\/span><\/a>. Coverage of the space launch last Sunday appears to<\/span> include footage from the 2012 space launch<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

But one thing is clear: even a tortoise will eventually reach the winning post. What constitutes the winning post? A semi-reliable long range ballistic missile that can be fitted with a solitary nuclear warhead and perhaps some elementary penetration aids to confuse a ballistic missile defence. How far is North Korea from that goal? We don\u2019t know\u2014and that\u2019s worrying in itself. Common sense says it\u2019s better at building shorter-range missiles than longer-range ones, but the same is true of everyone. Common sense also says it\u2019s harder to miniaturise a nuclear warhead than to build one at all, but again that doesn\u2019t get us far in judging North Korean progress down the miniaturisation path.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the absence of hard data about the rate of technological progress, there\u2019s an obvious tendency to make worst-case assumptions about North Korean capabilities. That seems to be the US military\u2019s approach, with senior US military leaders occasionally stating that<\/span> they have to assume Pyongyang already has the ability<\/span><\/a> to target the continental US with a nuclear warhead.<\/span><\/p>\n

The assumption isn\u2019t contrived. The launch of a satellite into space uses similar technologies to those needed for a long range missile. The launcher has to accelerate the satellite to a velocity of 7km\/sec in order to achieve orbital insertion, and that\u2019s the sort of capability a state needs in order to build an intercontinental ballistic missile. If the throw-weight of the launcher is large enough\u2014in other words, if the nuclear warhead weighs approximately the same as the satellite\u2014it should be possible to substitute one payload for another.<\/span><\/p>\n

True, a satellite launch isn\u2019t exactly like a ballistic missile test: it doesn\u2019t allow testing of a re-entry vehicle, for example. Stresses upon an ICBM RV are higher\u2014because of velocity and heat\u2014than they are upon a shorter-range RV. And the payloads might not be perfectly interchangeable, for the simple reason that the physical dimensions of a nuclear warhead are more constrained than those of a satellite meant to broadcast a few happy slogans about life under Kim Jong-un. But remember the tortoise. If we give Pyongyang long enough, and the regime endures, it will eventually reach the winning post.<\/span><\/p>\n

With sanctions ineffective, negotiations non-existent, and strategic patience wearing thin, the international community is in the market for new ideas on how to constrain the tortoise. What we might call the gentler options have so far failed, which means that harder options are gradually looking more attractive. Those include something already under discussion: the deployment of US ballistic missile defences to neighbouring countries. But Beijing opposes that option, concerned that the associated radars would look deeply enough into China that they could provide early tracking capabilities against Chinese strategic missiles.<\/span><\/p>\n

The harder options might also include the deployment of a small number of US nuclear warheads in Northeast Asia to reinforce extended deterrence relationships with US allies, though it\u2019s hard to see the Obama administration pursuing that course. And we shouldn\u2019t entirely rule out the possibility of overt military action against the North\u2019s nuclear and missile programs. That would be an extreme option\u2014many would prefer tolerating Pyongyang\u2019s possession of a small nuclear arsenal before reaching that point. Still, tolerance turns upon the same axis as strategic patience\u2014the judgment that we can wait out North Korean radicalism. Can we?<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re past the easy options, and they haven\u2019t worked. But in all likelihood the latest bout of nuclear and missile testing<\/span> won\u2019t be enough<\/span><\/a> to precipitate the harder options now necessary to deflect Pyongyang from its course. International leaders will take solace in the fact that they\u2019re menaced by a tortoise, after all.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

North Korea\u2019s latest satellite launch helps expose the paucity of the international community\u2019s options for responding against a determined proliferator. The UN huddles to agree on new sanctions against Kim Jong-un\u2019s regime. China counsels all …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":24594,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[86,85,674,673],"class_list":["post-24591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-north-korea","tag-nuclear-test","tag-satellite","tag-space-policy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNorth Korea: waiting out the tortoise? | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/north-korea-waiting-out-the-tortoise\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"North Korea: waiting out the tortoise? | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"North Korea\u2019s latest satellite launch helps expose the paucity of the international community\u2019s options for responding against a determined proliferator. 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