Launch of a North Korean Taepodong 2 ICBM
MissileThreat.csis.org

Just this Tuesday,  China’s minion North Korea claimed to have made its first fully successful test launch of an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). By doing so, North Korea underlined the precarious U.S. position in the orient, created by the past eight years of the Obama administration’s foreign policy and national security weakness.

The North Korean Threat

By all accounts  the missile tested was a variation of the Taepodong 2, also called the Hwasong 7 by the North Koreans. [More recent news reports the Pentagon as saying this is a new type of ICBM that “we have never seen before.”] It was launched on a very steep trajectory that reached an altitude of 2,802 kilometers (1,737 miles) and splashed down in the sea between Korea and Japan 933 kilometers (580 miles) from its launch site. In a more standard trajectory for such a weapon it could achieve a range of greater than 4,000 miles.

North Korea certainly has the missiles that can reach all of our Asian allies and Alaska, and it is only a matter of time before they can extend their reach to California. But do they yet have nuclear warheads to fit on top of them? We know they have nuclear devices from their past tests, but to be put into an ICBM warhead  they would have to be miniaturized to weigh less than 1,000 kg, which is the reported load limit for the Taepodong 2 or for any of their other major missiles. Having come this far in their missile and nuclear weapon development programs, we would be incredibly stupid to assume anything other than they will achieve this final milestone within the near future.

Other than the bragging rights, what does North Korea expect to achieve with such weapons? For one thing, the North Koreans have been highly successful in using their nuclear weapons program to extort donations from the United States, South Korea, Japan and others. Back in 1994 the Clinton administration signed an agreement with North Korea in which the North Koreans promised to freeze and then dismantle their nuclear program. In return North Korea would receive donations of fuel and an “alternative power system for North Korea that will allow them to produce electricity while making it much harder for them to produce nuclear weapons. The United States and international inspectors will carefully monitor North Korea to make sure it keeps its commitments. Only as it does so will North Korea fully join the community of nations.” Well, we know how that worked out! The quoted words are from a public announcement of the agreement by President Clinton. A video of this announcement is shown below.

Not learning from the mistakes of the Clinton administration, the later Obama administration  made the mistake of continually trying to bribe North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. In the words of Barack Obama in a 35 page policy document meant to define his foreign policy approach, “The challenges we face require strategic patience and persistence.” If only we kept negotiating, we would get our adversaries to see the light.

Besides the motivation of extorted lucre, North Korea also earns dividends by selling missile and nuclear technology to Iran. In addition to earning North Korea needed foreign exchange, the raising of an Iranian nuclear threat helps distract the Americans and Europeans from the North Koreans. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between the P5+1 powers and Iran notwithstanding, Iran is continuing to seek the same kinds of weapons of mass destruction as North Korea. Iran has also learned to emulate North Korea’s blackmail of other countries and their contempt for negotiated agreements.

The Chinese Menace

Yet the biggest military threat  to the United States and its Asian allies comes not from North Korea, but from the nation for which North Korea is merely a client: China. China has had ICBMs and nuclear weapons for some time, and has been improving on them with a highly successful program developing Hypersonic Glide Vehicles (HGVs). In addition, the People’s Liberation Army Navy is rapidly expanding with ballistic missile submarines, one new aircraft carrier and one additional new carrier being built. Currently, the Chinese navy is the fastest

growing in the world, clearly with an eye to matching the U.S. Navy. They are reportedly planning for a 500 ship navy. The U.S. Navy currently has a “deployable battle force” of 273 ships and are planning for an expansion to 308 ships. A recent U.S. Naval War College analysis suggests the Chinese navy could have more than 430  major surface combatants and near to 100 submarines by 2030. They might well outclass the U.S. Navy in both numbers and capability within 15 years. On top of all this, China has the world’s largest standing army with 2.3 million men and 510,000 in reserve.

When these impressive military and naval capabilities are matched with China’s imperial ambitions in the South and East China Seas, and in other parts of the world, one has to worry that war between China and any number of other countries — including the United States — is becoming more likely. Chinese leaders themselves are very aware of this possibility. The South China Morning Post in an article last January reported on a commentary on the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) official website. In it an official stated, “‘A war [with the U.S.] within the [new] president’s term’ or ‘war breaking out tonight’ are not just slogans, they are becoming a practical reality.”

American Weakness

Over the past eight years of Barack Obama’s administration,  both China and North Korea had grown used to a very weak U.S. president who spoke softly, but who carried no stick at all. On the very rare occasions when he offered any threat (remember the “red line” in Syria, or when he threatened military action against Iran?), President Obama would backpedal rapidly when his bluff was called.

Even worse than Obama’s vacillating will was the way in which he has hollowed out the U.S. armed forces over his eight years. While China has been rapidly building up military strength, the U.S. has been unilaterally disarming.

Just as worrisome, given the advances in Chinese, North Korean and Iranian ICBM development, has been Obama’s cuts in the development of Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) defense. Overall Obama cut expenditures on ABM systems by around 25%, and would probably have cut them to zero if he thought he could get away with it. Nevertheless, over this time engineers have indeed proved they can “hit a bullet with a bullet” with systems like the Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system or the Standard missile system SM-3 with the Navy. Particularly impressive is THAAD’s record of successful tests intercepting missiles. According to Dan Sauter in 2014, a spokesman for the Lockheed Martin project developing the system,

THAAD has a 100 percent mission success rate in the last thirteen rigorous developmental and operational tests, including eleven for eleven successful intercepts. The most recent of these tests demonstrated the operational integration of THAAD Aegis and PAC-3 in simultaneous endo and exo atmospheric engagements of threat representative targets in an awesome display of the BMDS [Ballistic Missile Defense System] in action.

The shield THAAD could provide against ballistic missiles is so impressive, China has threatened to go to war with South Korea and the U.S. if the system were deployed to South Korea. Also read here. Russia also is threatening to launch nuclear missiles against any European country that allows deployment of THAAD on their territory.

Before I leave the subject of promising ABM systems not implemented due to Obama-era cuts, I must mention railgun systems for terminal defense, which have projectiles so cheap, one could shoot  large numbers of them at incoming warheads and never come close to the expense to the attacking country of producing the incoming warhead. Also, take a look at the post U.S. Railgun Systems Proliferate.

When Donald Trump came to office, both China and North Korea had been conditioned in their responses to U.S. policies by eight years of a very weak U.S. president. When the Chinese president Xi Jinping met with Donald Trump at Trump’s Florida Mar-a-Lago resort in April this year, Trump thought he had an agreement with Xi concerning North Korea’s missile and nuclear developments.

The deal was that Xi agreed to bring their North Korean clients to heel with their nuclear weapon and ICBM programs, and the U.S. would not press trade sanctions on China. Xi probably thought he could do something inconsequential and cosmetic to placate Trump and the U.S. Nevertheless, for whatever reason, China has not delivered, and Trump does not seemed disposed to ignore the failure. In no uncertain terms, President Trump has declared that Obama’s “era of strategic patience with the North Korean regime has failed.” What this will mean in the future given our present relative military weakness is yet to be seen.

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