Part One of Three Parts
U.S. Navy ships are sailing towards the Korean Peninsula. Kim Jong-un, the leader of the North Korea is threatening nuclear war if the U.S. ships make any aggressive moves. China just moved one hundred and fifty thousand troops to its border with N.K. to deal with a flood of refugees that will be inevitable if there is war on the Peninsula. Donald Trump, the new U.S. President recently tweeted that “North Korea is looking for trouble” and if China does not help, “we will solve the problem without them.” What is going on with North Korea?
N. K. has a widespread and sophisticated nuclear research program including at least one hundred nuclear-related facilities. In the last ten years, N.K. has conducted five nuclear test detonations with the last test in 2016 in the ten to twenty kiloton range. It is estimated by nuclear experts that N.K. possesses enough fissile material to make up to fifty nuclear warheads and may be able to accumulate over a hundred warheads by 2020.
N.K. is believed to have several hundred short and medium range ballistic missiles that could hit any part of South Korea. N.K. has a few intermediate range ballistic missiles that could reach Japan. They claim to have ICBMs that could reach the west coast of the U.S. but questions have been raised about the accuracy and reliability of these ICBMs. Kim claims to be in the final stages of preparation to test N.K. ICBMs but no one is sure how soon that will be.
Many nuclear experts believe the claims by N.K. that they have managed to miniaturize nuclear warheads so that they could be carried by their ICBMs. However, they will also have to develop reentry vehicles that will protect the warheads when they reenter the atmosphere. There is less confidence among experts that N.K. has such reentry vehicles.
The U.S. President and the U.S. military planners are considering different options with respect to dealing with N.K.’s march toward a sophisticated nuclear arsenal. Such options lie on a spectrum that ranges from an all out attack on N.K. to allowing N.K. to fulfill its nuclear ambitions and trying to negotiate peace with the N.K. regime.
The U.S. could stage a preemptive strike against N.K. nuclear facilities and missiles. However, we know that N.K. has over a hundred facilities and there may be many more hidden in underground bunkers which would be difficult to destroy even if we knew where they were. We could attack fixed missile launch facilities but N.K. has mobile launchers that can be easily moved and hidden. If we did not manage to knock out all of N.K.’s nuclear capacity, they could and probably would retaliate against S.K. and millions would die.
Even if we did neutralize their nuclear weapons, N.K. has a huge army and arsenal of conventional weapons. Seoul, S.K. has a population of twenty-five million and is only thirty-five miles from the De-Militarized Zone. N.K. artillery could easily reach Seoul from inside N.K. In addition to explosive artillery shells, they might also deploy chemical and/or biological weapons.
Please read Part Two and Part Three
Flag of North Korea:
