Pyongyang Goes Ballistic - Doing what works for the other evil ones.

National Review Online ^ | June 20, 2006 | Frank J. Gaffney Jr.

[neverdem]

June 20, 2006, 8:29 a.m.

Pyongyang Goes Ballistic
Doing what works for the other evil ones.

By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.

At any moment, the North Korean regime of Kim Jong-Il — one of the most despotic and dangerous on the planet — will demonstrate that it has acquired the means to deliver nuclear weapons and other payloads over very long distances. It is likely that one of the intended targets for such weapons is the United States of America.

At the very least, that is the message the launch of the so-called Taepodong 2 is intended to convey. Pyongyang wants to get our attention and this launch is certain to achieve that purpose.

Two questions occur: First, why would Kim Jong-Il be willing to risk fresh isolation and possible sanctions that have been threatened by the United States and Japan in the wake of a missile launch that will, if past practice is any guide probably transit Japanese airspace and fly a trajectory towards U.S. territory? And second, what does the answer to the previous question mean for American policy toward the so-called “Hermit Kingdom”?

While to some, North Korea’s behavior at the moment is a puzzlement, it is actually a perfectly logical response to recent international actions with respect to other pariah states. Call it “the squeaking wheel” syndrome.

In particular, the other remaining member of the original “Axis of Evil,” Islamofascist Iran, has lately been systematically rewarded for its misbehavior. The more belligerent the rhetoric from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinijad, the more imminent the completion of Iran’s ominous nuclear weapons program, the more the U.S. and other Western powers have tried to appease Tehran.

Should we be surprised then that the Iranian regime’s partner in terror, nuclear weaponry, and ballistic-missile developments, North Korea, would be redoubling its threatening behavior — confident that the result would be, not sanctions and isolation, but fresh rewards?

Other powers, even lesser ones, have similarly learned that behavior explicitly hostile to the United States and its vital interests can be undertaken with impunity. In fact, Washington has once again conditioned them to believe it will go to great lengths to ensure that such behavior will not be allowed to interfere with diplomatic, commercial, and other bilateral ties.

For example, Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Communist China have collaborated in military exercises and arms build-ups whose objects are unmistakably aimed at this country and its armed forces. At their instigation, nations of Central Asia are being encouraged to distance themselves from us — with potentially far-reaching strategic and energy implications.

What is more, both Russia and the PRC are actively encouraging and abetting our hemisphere’s version of the Axis of Evil — Hugo Chavez’s budding dictatorship in Venezuela and that enduring well-spring of revolution, Fidel Castro’s Cuba — to foment instability in the region. Toward that end, for example, Putin has sold the oil-rich Chavez at least 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles and reportedly has on offer aircraft, missiles and the makings of a nuclear weapons program.

In short, forceful rhetoric from Washington and Tokyo notwithstanding, North Korea has every reason to believe that its missile test will actually improve its position, not worsen it. Russia and China and most especially South Korea (and, for that matter, the U.S. State Department) can be expected to demand that the United States respond as it has elsewhere — with more concessions.

Of course, the last thing we should contemplate doing is compounding the aforementioned problems and expectations by rewarding the most directly threatening move North Korea has made to date.

This is particularly true insofar as the Taepodong 2 launch may portend Pyongyang’s determination to be able to inflict the single most devastating sort of attack on this country: detonating a nuclear weapon high in space over the United States in order to unleash an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP). Such a burst of immensely powerful energy would devastate our power grid and damage, if not destroy, all unshielded electronic devices coast-to-coast.

A blue-ribbon commission tasked by Congress with assessing this threat found in 2004 that it could have a “catastrophic” effect on this 21^st Century superpower, possibly reducing it in the blink of an eye to a pre-industrial society (not unlike much of North Korea). Interestingly, the commission also established that the Soviet Union’s foremost experts on this phenomenon were in North Korea. Collaborative missile testing with Iran may signal that Kim Jong-il is even farther along than we suspect in operationalizing such a capability.

Under these circumstances, the United States must now make a redoubled effort to deploy effective, comprehensive defenses against ballistic missiles that might be used for EMP and other attacks. We must urgently augment the modest ground-based systems put into place in Alaska and California in the wake of President Bush’s laudable decision to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. This can be done most efficiently and quickly by modifying existing Navy ships equipped with the Aegis fleet air defense system so as to give them the capability to shoot down such missiles at various points along their flight trajectory.

Second, we must recognize that negotiating with the North Koreans — either multilaterally or bilaterally is a loser, just as it is with the Iranians. Pyongyang’s next missile test must be met not with intensified negotiations and more inducements to play ball with our diplomats.

Instead, we must work toward the only end that is likely to make a whit of difference for the future security of this country: Do as Ronald Reagan did with the Soviet Union — work not just to contain, but to bring down the odious despot in North Korea and his allies in Tehran.

— Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is an NRO contributor and president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington.

[Publius6961]

BUMP

[LibertarianInExile]

It was a good article until it got to this EMP stuff. Has anyone even documented this?

[Publius6961]

may portend Pyongyang’s determination to be able to inflict the single most devastating sort of attack on this country: detonating a nuclear weapon high in space over the United States in order to unleash an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP). Such a burst of immensely powerful energy would devastate our power grid and damage, if not destroy, all unshielded electronic devices coast-to-coast.

This may be overstating the problem a tad. N Korea doesn't have the skill and experience, or the size weapon to accomplish this. If they do, it would be as the surrogate to other powers, likely to be just as vulnerable to an emp attack of their own, mysteriously launched from somewhere near N Korea. I doubt whether China, Pakistan, or Russia have all their facilities protected against an EMP attack, as well as S Korea. If it attempts even unsuccessfully to do such a thing, it should be bombed literally back to the stone age without even the slightest intention of subsequent invasion, occupation, aid, reconstruction, or anything else. Just give them something to deal with for the next decade or two; but definitely missiles and nuclear research would be out of the question for a long time.

[mkjessup]

EMP is certainly an effect of a nuclear blast detonated high in the atmosphere, but I find it unlikely that if Kim Jong Ill were to decide to lob a nuke at the U.S., that he would choose to try and play the EMP card, because it is too risky. If he plays it successfully, he (and all of North Korea) still get wiped out from our inevitable retaliation from subs, carriers, land based silos and strategic bombers.

If Kim plays the EMP card UNsuccessfully (meaning no EMP effect, or the U.S. shoots down the NK missile), he still ends up a major loser and very likely ends up buried under a few tons of radioactive rubble.

If you really want the Full Monty of EMP scaremongering however, just head on over to World Nut Daily and their EMP trumpeteer, the one, the only Joe "G2 Intel" Farah.

He'll keep you up nights with scary nightmares, you hear me? ;)

[JimSEA]

Tomorrow, Friday in Korea, the weather will be good for a launch for the first time since they created this crisis by bringing to missile out.

[ClaireSolt]

How can we just sit around and wait? Even Clinton would have lobbed a cruise missle in there.

[LibertarianInExile]

"EMP is certainly an effect of a nuclear blast detonated high in the atmosphere..."

Theoretically, or so I hear. But has this ever been proven as an effect in any sort of test? I don't recall ever seeing anything but movie references to it.

[Dumpster Baby]

EMP was discovered during the atmospheric testing during the late 1940'and through the 1950's. They were able to measure and quantify the phenomenon since all the electronics back then used vacuum tubes. Tubes are something like 100,000 times more resistant to short term voltage spikes than transistors are.

[BunnySlippers]

Call it “the squeaking wheel” syndrome.

Kim Jong Il = the Jesse Jackson of the international area. Shake down artist extraordinaire!

[LibertarianInExile]

But the way I hear it nobody knows what, if any, effect a "voltage spike" of that sort will have on transistors at all. "EMP" may have an effect similar to a solar storm, or it may be a complete shutdown, or it may be no more than a blip of static on the radio. We simply don't know that any effect will occur, and thus blowing a couple of nukes on a gamble something will happen is a bad bet.

[Billthedrill]

Your point is well taken - Kim lobbing a nuke over the U.S. would be suicidal. Even if he had one big enough to toast the grid, which he does not (I don't think we do anymore either) our retaliation would be from missiles that are protected from EMP, and we have a lot more of them than Kim's little buddies could ever make.

The author is correct - this is a "squeaky-wheel" activity. If he can be bought off, and he was before, that would be great from his point of view. If he launches and the thing actually works he has an exportable product. If he launches and it fails it'll be our fault.

There is in addition the small but finite possibility that he'll launch and we'll shoot the thing down. Of all these scenarios that's the only one with a negative outcome for Kimmy. If he's smart he won't let it end up in our envelopes, and he doesn't really know what those are.

[Nik Naym]

I know this is not a thread for jokes but I just can't hold it any longer:

If a guy has a Type "O" Blood, does that mean he has a Type "O"... um,.... well, ....

On second thought never mind.

[maro]

Don't we have an EMP weapon? Why don't we use it on him, and then have the tanks roll all the way to the Yalu?

[Army Air Corps]

"Even Clinton would have lobbed a cruise missle in there."

Only if he were shagging an intern.

[lesser_satan]

Nah. He'd just have Madame Albright expose herself to Dear Leader. Depending on the extent of Kim's psychosis/ perversion, he'd be overcome either by revulsion or zipper-suit bursting lust (he's so ronery, don't you know), and stand down.

[mkjessup]

The Starfish Prime nuke test of 1962 proved EMP is much more than a theoretical effect, the nuke was launched from the Johnston Island test range in the Pacific, a Thor missile with a 1.5 megaton warhead for high altitude detonation. The EMP caused over 300 street lights in Hawaii to fail, televisions and radios temporarily ceased to function, burglar alarms went off and power lines fused. In other parts of the islands, telephone lines and circuits used in a microwave link burned out.

And that was nearly 1000 miles away from the actual detonation.

[Old Student]

"Theoretically, or so I hear. But has this ever been proven as an effect in any sort of test? I don't recall ever seeing anything but movie references to it."

Google TEMPEST, Faraday Cage, and EMP, and you'll find a considerable amount of material... The effect is real, and can be quite dangerous to people who depend on solid-state electronics. The Russians built much of their war-fighting capability with vacuum tube tech specifically to avoid most of the damaging effects of EMP.

[ArrogantBustard]

Yes. Google term are nuclear and EMP.

[LibertarianInExile]

Thanks for the EMP info. I had heard about it but did not know there was ANY actual substantiation of the effect.

Just goes to show you this board really IS educational. Y'all are teachers today, 'cause I sure learned something.