By Victor Davis Hanson
Thursday, October 19, 2017
No one really knows all that much about North Korea’s
nuclear or conventional military capability or its strategic agenda. Are its
nuclear missiles reliably lethal, are they as long-ranged and accurate as
hyped, and are they under secure command and control?
Conventional wisdom states that Seoul would be destroyed
in minutes by at least 10,000 North Korean artillery and rocket batteries that
are now aimed from right across the Demilitarized Zone. Such guns are said to
be capable of firing 500,000 rounds within a few minutes.
As a result, South Korea and its allies are supposed to
be veritable hostages, with no strategic choices in countering North Korea’s
newly enhanced nuclear threat.
But is Seoul really being held hostage, and would it be
doomed if war broke out?
In fact, no one can be sure of the actual size, nature,
and readiness of the North Korea arsenal — or the degree to which it is
coordinated and effectively aimed. Much less does anyone know how well North
Korea’s guns have been pre-targeted by American and South Korean planes,
counter-batteries, and missiles.
Seoul itself is a huge city of 10 million urban
residents. Indeed, greater Seoul and its population of some 24 million are
sprawled out over a vast area of more than 250 square miles. The idea that the
North Korean military could destroy the world’s third-most-populated
metropolitan area in minutes with conventional weapons is unproven.
Take the example of Israel and its existential enemies.
The Iranians now claim that their Hezbollah proxies in Lebanon have targeted
80,000 rockets at Tel Aviv. Israel’s enemies brag that together they could
bombard the tiny country with 200,000 rockets and missiles in a matter of
minutes should Israel ever again go to war.
In the 2006 Lebanon war, Hezbollah and terrorist forces
on the West Bank boasted that they had launched more than 8,000 rockets into
Israeli cities. Israel claimed the number was closer to 4,000. The entire
population of Israel in 2006 was then less than half of greater Seoul. Yet in
total, some 40 to 50 Israelis lost their lives to rocket attacks in 2006. The
rocket strategy of Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas did not deter Israeli military
operations, nor did it much affect Israel’s strategic options.
Seoul may well be vulnerable to conventional artillery or
rocket strikes. But the usual assessments that the city would be destroyed in
minutes by North Korea and therefore the South Korean government is now held
hostage in its strategic choices are probably not true.
We are told that China has few choices in restraining
North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. But without Chinese money, trade, and
technology, North Korea would today have no nuclear-tipped missiles.
Beijing enjoys playing dumb from time to time as it
unleashes North Korea to threaten the West and consume American time, money,
and military resources in Asia and the Pacific. In truth, China has as much
leverage over North Korea as the United States would have over South Korea
should it ever choose to set off missiles all over the South China Sea and brag
about targeting nearby Chinese cities with nuclear weapons.
The American options for pressuring the Chinese and the
North Koreans, short of war, are said to be few. Most likely, they are almost
endless.
The United States could expel rich elites of the Chinese
Communist Party and their children from U.S soil and universities. It could ban
Chinese citizens from buying U.S. property.
America could ratchet up trade sanctions against China,
and embargo (or blockade) all commerce with North Korea.
The U.S. could declare solidarity with India in its
border disputes with China, organize South Pacific and Asian countries to
resist China’s illegal building of bases in the Spratly Islands, and
triangulate with Russia over mutual worries about Chinese expansionism.
Massive new regional missile-defense efforts might result
in neither China nor North Korea maintaining a first-strike capability over its
neighbors.
The last-ditch lever is allowing Japan, South Korea, or
perhaps even Taiwan to go nuclear. America’s problems with North Korea would
pale in comparison to China’s dilemma of dealing with three democratic nuclear
states nearby.
It is not set in stone that either South Korea or the
United States must spend the rest of eternity targeted with nuclear missiles by
an unhinged dynasty in North Korea. There are economic, military, and
diplomatic options other than all-out war that can dismantle North Korea’s nuclear
weapons — our strategic goal.
We are in the middle, not at the end, of a long North
Korean crisis. But we need to ensure that worries over how the crisis escalates
will be all Chinese and North Korean — and not our own.
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