Beyond Empty Threats

Yes, Stealth fighters have some value in deterring a North Korean  first strike, if we think that’s a possibility, but I do not believe that any weapon in the U.S. military arsenal (with this possible exception) can deter or prevent a North Korean nuclear test.  The threat of a direct, large-scale  use of force by either the United States or North Korea against the other  is an empty threat. 

The conventional Korean War has been a standoff since 1953.  The unconventional Korean War has raged ever since.  Over the intervening years, North Korea has provoked air and naval skirmishes, infiltrated commandoes into the South, orchestrated terrorist attacks, and killed the wife of the South Korean President right in front of him.  This unconventional war rages to this day:  the North Koreans run a sophisticated political subversion operation in  the South, proliferate weapons of mass destruction, and have engaged in ambitious economic warfare against the United States for years. 

Today more than ever, North  Korea knows that its survival depends on preserving order  inside its borders while projecting  anarchy into South Korea and the United States.  The irony is that this conflict has been waged against us mostly unilaterally because of our investment in conventional deterrence.     With tens of thousands of Americans in Korea in a hostile political environment and within range of North Korean artillery, our posture has been self-deterring.  Our inability to see beyond conventional deterrence, and the political and  economic superstructures  that grew to depend on it, robbed us of the capacity  to  enter the unconventional war.  North Korea has taken great advantage of this.   The good news is that I think we’ve finally caught on to this,  which is  why our decisions to  restructure our forces, move them  away from the DMZ,  and engage North Korea in the economic war are essential prevailing in one of two ways —  either reestablishing unconventional deterrence, or prevailing over the agency of chaos.  That’s why North Korea is using every means available to it to stop those moves.  It’s also why we should be so  worried that South Korea is joining them.

In the conventional standoff, South Korea is an ally  to the limited extent of  its own protection; in the unconventional war — the war that really matters now —  it is more foe than friend.

Our halting moves to join the unconventional war  are  a start, but North Korea’s belligerence proves that  those  moves  are  still insufficient.  If North Korea is deterrable, we haven’t yet threatened the things that matter the most to  its rulers.  In fact, Pyongyang probably is not deterrable, because belligerence toward the United States, attacking the legitimacy of South Korea, and  the isolation of its own  population are  the keystones of its political culture.  By ceding its political culture, it cedes its own legitimacy and  authority in ways that could rapidly spin out of control.  That’s why we should be mindful of the value of non-permissive openness  in creating some chaos of our own, in the interests of reestablishing order in the longer term.