North Korea’s first successful test launch of an
intercontinental ballistic missile on Tuesday has made a big splash, and well
it should, but in reading the media commentary, I have heard a lot about
how the president has or has not bungled North Korea, whether or not China is
responsible, and so on, but fairly few details about the precise level of threat posed by
the DPRK’s nuclear weapons. Let’s pause for a moment to take nuclear warfare
seriously. What is North Korea capable of? What defenses do South Korea, Japan,
and the US possess?
America is not going
to be nuked (by North Korea)
Back in May, the US conducted the first ever successful intercept of an ICBM, using the Ground-based
Midcourse Defense system stationed at Vandenburg Airforce Base in California.
The missile was launched from the Marshall Islands and intercepted over the
Pacific Ocean. I think for people who grew up during the end of the Cold War,
it may come as something of a surprise to learn that no one had ever
successfully conducted a test-interception of an ICBM before. This does not
mean, of course, that this particular missile defense system would intercept
ICBMs with a 100% success rate in the future. The system has successfully
intercepted only 9/17 short- and medium-range missiles launched in tests since
1999. However, our sensors would detect an ICBM fairly soon after its launch, which means we would have the opportunity
to launch multiple missiles to the intercept it, so the chance of our successfully
intercepting an ICBM is definitely better than half.
Not comforted? Well, ok, but I would also argue that North
Korea is not going to launch such a missile for one very important reason: Kim
Jong Un does not want to die.
North Korea is a
rational actor
People tend to think of North Korea as the wacky land of perfectly
synchronized kindergarten accordion ensembles and baffling hairdos. This leads
us to a number of illusions, the foremost being that the Kim dynasty is simply
crazy. The problem with the label of crazy is that the attribution of a total
lack of rationality to a person shuts down any attempt to understand that
person’s actions.
North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is a rational response
to its national security concerns. The conventional (non-nuclear) military
capabilities of the US-South Korea-Japan alliance far, far outweigh North
Korea’s capabilities. If there were a war, there is basically a 99% probability
that North Korea would lose. They are not at all confident that China, their
treaty ally, would assist them. Facing this reality, and considering the fact
that a state in possession of nuclear weapons has never been invaded, they made
the rational choice to equip themselves with a deterrent. A nuclear arsenal
gives them Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) vis-à-vis South Korea, and the
closer they get to having an arsenal of ICBMs, the closer they get to having
MAD vis-à-vis the US. They are simply trying to survive.
America could
obliterate North Korea – not to mention planet Earth
Of course, North Korea is still very, very far from having
MAD capability in light of the fact that America possesses an estimated 4018 nuclear weapons. Should North Korea launch a first strike, it
is a distinct possibility that the president of the United States would decide
to use a certain number of those missiles to end the existence of North Korea.
For that matter, America has enough nuclear weapons to end all life on Earth. By
the way, exactly the same thing could be said of Russia, which possesses 7300 nuclear warheads. If all of these were simultaneously launched at the US,
for example, regardless of whether we could intercept a fair number of them,
enough would land that it does not take a great leap of the imagination to suppose
that humanity would face a nuclear winter scenario.
North Korea is a real
threat… to South Korea and Japan
Although I have argued that North Korea is a rational actor,
and although I do not believe that Kim Jong Un personally would be willing to
face the consequences of launching a nuclear strike, let’s suppose I am wrong.
North Korea does not yet possess many ICBMs, but it certainly has enough short-
and medium- range ballistic missiles to hit South Korea or Japan with one or
more nuclear warheads.
This map shows us how far some of North Korea’s missiles
reach (though targeting is another matter). Among those listed here, Nodong is
the important one, because this class has been successfully tested numerous
times, and they possess a stockpile of a few hundred. These could be used to
hit South Korea or Japan with nuclear warheads. The missile which you see Alaska
in range of, Taepodong-2, is actually a rocket which has been used to launch a
satellite, and there is no evidence that it is intended for use as an ICBM.
Missile defense systems offer South Korea and Japan limited protection
Both South Korea and Japan deploy Patriot missile defense systems from the United States, an earlier version of which had a 40% to 79% success rate against SCUD missiles launched in the first Gulf War. Though the system has since improved, one would like to see a 100% success rate, were one expecting to be attacked.
That's where THAAD comes in. South Korea now possesses another defense against short-range ballistic missiles in the form of the THAAD missile defense system which the US recently deployed in Korea despite strong protest from China (about which more in another post). THAAD has had a 100% intercept success rate in the last eleven trials, and includes "up to 72 interceptors per battery." I take that to mean that if North Korea launched 100 ballistic missiles at once, the single THAAD battery stationed in South Korea would shoot down 72/100.
As I mentioned above, North Korea has a few hundred Nodong missiles, so the current THAAD battery appears to be a step in the right direction, but it isn't perfect protection. If North Korea launched 300 ballistic missiles at once, aimed at various targets throughout South Korea, this would be what defense experts refer to as a "needle in a haystack" strategy. The idea is that regardless of how accurate one's missile defense system is, if the number of incoming missiles is greater than the number of a defending missiles, some of those incoming are going to get through. The "needle" in this haystack refer to a missile tipped with a nuclear warhead. Some say that there would be no way to defend against this form of nuclear attack, because the missile defense units wouldn’t know which missile to target. Indeed, supposing North Korea used all 10-20 of the nuclear warheads believed to be in its arsenal, attached to 10-20 Nodong missiles, and launched in a barrage of a few hundred, this appears to be a guaranteed method of hitting some targets.
The even more serious threat which North Korea presents to South Korea is in the form of conventional artillery. North Korea has thousands upon thousands of artillery pieces aimed at Seoul, and should North Korea choose to use them, hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in South Korea would die. And that’s only the opening salvo of the war.
America is not going to be nuked anytime soon, let alone invaded. I could not confidently say the same of North Korea, which is inhabited by millions of real human beings who have thoughts and feelings like you and me. Nor of South Korea.
President Trump might want to consider filling that vacancy.
