To Strike or Not to Strike

In a pair of complementary op-ed pieces in the Washington Post, we compare and contrast the reasons for either striking or not striking North Korea if they continue preparations to launch a ballistic missile. First, two former Clinton administration officials take the hawkish approach, arguing we should strike and destroy the missile if preparations continue:

Should the United States allow a country openly hostile to it and armed with nuclear weapons to perfect an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear weapons to U.S. soil? We believe not.

...The Bush administration has unwisely ballyhooed the doctrine of "preemption," which all previous presidents have sustained as an option rather than a dogma...But intervening before mortal threats to U.S. security can develop is surely a prudent policy.

Therefore, if North Korea persists in its launch preparations, the United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy the North Korean Taepodong missile before it can be launched.

Their argument boils down to this: we believe North Korea has nuclear weapons. It is possible that they have designed nuclear warheads for their ballistic missile. It is also possible that such a missile could strike the continental United States. This is the threat for which pre-emptive action is justified, therefore we should strike and strike now.

Charles L. Pritchard, a former U.S. envoy to North Korea takes a different approach:

The most egregious suggestion comes from an American treasure whom I admire beyond words: William J. Perry, former defense secretary and special assistant for North Korea policy. Perry and co-author Ashton B. Carter [the authors of the above article] advocate a preemptive military strike against North Korea's missile while it sits on the launch pad. While criticizing President Bush's preemption in Iraq, Perry justifies a strike against North Korea as a prudent policy before mortal threats to U.S. security can develop. He argues that because we will forewarn North Korea that South Korea had nothing to do with it, Pyongyang is unlikely to attack the South. But just to be prudent, he says we should beef up our military forces in South Korea. That way, if war does break out, we will prevail swiftly with less cost in lives.

If you were Kim Jong Il and saw a buildup of American forces on the Korean Peninsula before an announced preemptive airstrike, would you be thinking that it would be only a limited strike and not the start of an effort to bring down your regime?

To him, the missile launch would not be a "mortal threat":

Make no mistake: A missile test is a step in the wrong direction, and the appropriate first response would be for the United States to reimpose the specific sanctions that were lifted in 2000 as a direct result of the missile moratorium.

But the missile test is not a violation of anything more than our pride, ripping a gaping hole in the false logic that talking with the North Koreans somehow rewards and empowers them.

I'm sure you're dying to know who convinced me. Honestly, I can find merit in both arguments. I do agree with Pritchard that the missile threat is being blown out of proportion. The chance that the North Koreans would mount a nuke on a missile and fling it at us, and the odds that it would actually manage to hit us, are small. But unlike Pritchard, I believe the odds on that are bad enough for us to make a missile launch more than a mere violation of our pride. I don't believe that the North Korea government-Kim Jong Il that is-has any desire to be personally obliterated by the massive nuclear strike that would follow any attack on our country. But...North Korea takes the cake when it comes to paranoid and unpredictable regimes. Perhaps Kim Jong Il is a believer in the Nixon "madman" approach to foreign policy...or perhaps he's not that stable, or not that smart, or not that disciplined, and could imagine a situation in which launching a missile at us-nuclear warhead or not-benefits him in some way. Therefore I believe that we must be prepared to threaten, and more importantly be willing to use, military force to put an end to North Korea's missile program if nothing else works. At the same time, I am a firm believer that our government must take a more direct approach with North Korea. We shouldn't be sitting around waiting for China of all countries to jump-start the six-nation talks that have thus far borne no fruit, simply because we don't want to be seen as "rewarding" bad behavior on the part of North Korea. If we won't have direct talks, then we need to at least get the process moving by making it known what we are willing to offer N. Korea to come back to the table...and what we're willing to do if they don't.

In his piece Pritchard says this missile crisis has manged to turn some "very smart people into foolish ones." On that he's right. Going from one extreme of barely deigning to speak to North Korea, to threatening to blow up their missile program, is highly counter-productive. True diplomacy requires a willingness to be flexible and prudent. Clearly a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile that can reach us, is a threat to us in the hands of the North Koreans. Just as clearly, it would be beyond egregious to strike at North Korea, thus inviting reprisal from North Korea in the form of attacks on South Korea, or greater efforts to undermine us. Really, what we need is a bigger stick, and a bigger carrot. I have no problem "rewarding" North Korea for their bad behavior if it gets rid of both the missile and the nuclear program, and solidifies our relationship with South Korea, which prefers a more peaceful approach anyway. A prudent "middle way" is the course we should be following.