By Victor Davis Hanson
Thursday, July 13, 2017
North Korea recently test-launched a long-range missile
capable of reaching Alaska.
When North Korea eventually builds a missile capable of
reaching the U.S. mainland, it will double down on its well-known shakedown of
feigning indifference to American deterrence while promising to take out Los
Angeles, San Francisco, or Seattle unless massive aid is delivered to
Pyongyang.
Kim Jong-un rightly assumes that wealthy Western nations
would prefer to pay bribe money than suffer the loss of a city — and that they
have plenty of cash for such concessions. He is right that the medicine of
taking out Kim’s missiles is considered by Western strategists to be even worse
than the disease of living with a lunatic regime that has nukes.
No wonder that the Clinton, Bush, and Obama
administrations had few answers to North Korea’s serial lying and deceit about
its nuclear intentions.
Sanctions were eventually dropped or watered down, either
on reports of the mass starvation of innocent North Korean civilians or on
false promises of better North Korean behavior.
China publicly promised to help rein in its unhinged
client while privately doing nothing. Apparently, Beijing found a rabid North
Korean government useful in bothering rivals such as the Japanese and South
Koreans while keeping the U.S. off balance in Asia and the Pacific. The dynamic
economies and pacifism of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan were taken for granted
by China as easy targets for coercion and blackmail.
Russia is never any help. Under President Vladimir Putin,
Russian foreign policy is reductive: Whatever causes the United States and its
allies a major headache is by definition welcomed.
There seems to be zero chance of a North Korean coup or a
Chinese intervention to remove Kim. The brainwashed North Korean population is
cut off from global news and knows nothing other than three generations of Kim
family dictators. The military junta that surrounds Kim is likely as aggressive
as its leader. These functionaries see his survival as the only guarantee of
their own privilege and influence.
A preemptory strike might not get all of North Korea’s
nuclear missiles and could prompt a conventional response that would wreck
nearby Seoul — a scenario about which North Korea openly brags.
Pyongyang believes that only the Israelis are wild enough
to preempt and bomb neighboring nuclear facilities, as they did in 1981 against
Iraq and again in 2007 against Syria. And yet Israel attacked only because
neither Iraq nor Syria had created deterrence by possession of a single
deliverable nuclear weapon.
What are the bad choices for the Western alliance in
defanging North Korea before it miscalculates and sends a missile that prompts
a war?
Sanctions have in the past crippled Pyongyang. But this
time around they should not be lifted, despite the prospect of ensuing chaos in
North Korea. It may be tragic that a captive population suffers for the lunacy
of its leader, but such misery is still preferable to an all-out war.
Nor should China be exempt from accompanying stiff trade
restrictions. Almost every weapon component in the hands of North Korea either
came directly from China or was purchased by cash earned through Chinese trade
and remittances. Certainly, China would not allow South Korea to send missiles
its way along with promises of nuking Beijing while the U.S. kept still about
the provocation.
Australia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the U.S. need
to coordinate a massive missile-defense project aimed at ending North Korean
assumptions that even one of its missiles has a chance to reach its intended
target. Such a Marshall Plan–like investment would also send a message to China
that its own nuclear deterrent could be compromised and nullified by the
defensive efforts of its immediate neighbors. China has made life difficult for
the U.S. and its Asian allies, and it should learn that the allies could make
things even more problematic for China.
None of our allies in Asia and the Pacific wish to
develop nuclear weapons, both for historic and economic reasons. But the United
States should inform Russia and China that allied democracies in the region may
choose to develop a nuclear deterrent to stop North Korean antics — a
development that would prove disastrous to both Russian and Chinese strategic
planning.
Asia is already a dangerous place, with both Indian and
Pakistani nuclear missiles and a likely nuclear Iran in the not-so-distant
future. Do Moscow and Beijing wish to add three or four more nuclear powers
near their borders?
The current danger is not just limited to North Korea.
Iran, a beneficiary of North Korean nuclear assistance, is watching how far Kim
can go. It will certainly make the necessary strategic adjustments if he
succeeds in shaking down the Western world.
We are nearing an existential showdown, as failed efforts
at bribery and appeasement have run their course.
Only a tough, messy confrontation now can prevent a
disastrous war later on.
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