Nuclear bees in North Korea

Army, Aug 2003 by Collins, John M

Even so, there is scant cause for complacency. Porous anti-missile defenses in South Korea, Japan, Guam and Okinawa leave crucial command posts, seaports, airfields and supply depots nearly naked to ballistic missile attacks. DPRK rocket launchers and long-range artillery massed near the demilitarized zone could endanger Seoul and its defenders.

Hypothetical Military Operations

Hypothetical U.S. preemptive courses of action and North Korean responses outlined below constitute rude escalation ladders with unevenly spaced rungs. Each side, however, could (and probably would) skip rungs or elect some synergistic combination. Presentations summarize salient strengths and shortcomings of each option, but express no preferences and predict no outcomes.

U.S. Overtures: U.S. armed forces could execute three of the following five overtures unilaterally. ROK participation could significantly strengthen Option A and possibly Option B. Options C and D clearly would require South Korean collaboration.

* Option A: Blockade North Korea. The U.S.-ROK coalition, along with minesweeping assistance from the Japanese Navy, could install impervious naval blockades off both coasts of North Korea. Strictly enforced cordons could prevent pariah nations from shipping militarily useful products to the DPRK, deprive that already impoverished country of other sustaining resources and thereby break its back. Naval blockades could also intercept surreptitious outgoing maritime shipments of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, components and delivery vehicles en route to rogue nations and transnational terrorist groups that threaten the United States, its allies and friends. U.S. and ROK flotillas could easily defeat enemy surface combatants and submarines that try to break the barrier.

Several potential shortfalls, however, are evident. Serious problems could arise if blockaders barred ships from China, North Korea's most prominent trading partner. Overland consignments from China and Russia could compromise naval blockades. Small but nevertheless important exports from the DPRK to rogue states and freelance terrorists might continue by air. Most important, naval blockades are acts of war that might precipitate unpredictable acts by the volatile Kim Jong Il.

* Option B: Destroy DPRK Nuclear Facilities. Belligerent DPRK spokesmen acknowledge the possession of plutonium weapons (perhaps as many as five, according to official U.S. estimates) and the intent to produce more. Intelligence reports also identify, but do not precisely locate, covert uranium enrichment programs that could begin to bear fruit as early as 2004. The pursuit of suitable delivery systems continues apace. Combat operations to obliterate or curb North Korea's budding nuclear capabilities thus deserve serious consideration, unless nonmilitary pressures reverse those trends, which presently appears unlikely.

U.S. attack aircraft and cruise missiles armed with conventional munitions could easily eradicate North Korean nuclear structures on the surface. Special techniques coupled with caution, however, would be required. Direct hits on active reactors, for example, could blanket Seoul with radioactive fallout within a few hours and endanger southern Japan the next day, whereas collateral damage likely would be negligible if preemptors concentrated on electrical grids and other essential structures. Installations buried deeply in bedrock could survive bombardment by the best U.S. bunker-busting bombs now extant, but explosions that seal cavern entrances might make "buried treasures" permanently inaccessible.