Last night, January 5th at 8:30pm EST, a purported test of a hydrogen bomb at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in North Korea caused a magnitude 5.1 earthquake. Three previous nuclear tests were also conducted in this area. Shortly after the test at 9:30pm EST, North Korea’s state run media officially announced that it had detonated its first hydrogen bomb stating “this is the self-defensive measure we have to take to defend our right to live in the face of nuclear threats and blackmail by the United States and to guarantee the security of the Korean Peninsula.”
Regardless of whether this seismic activity was caused by a hydrogen bomb or an atomic bomb, North Korea has clearly put forward its intent to produce weapons of mass destruction and delivery means to strike the United States, the Republic of Korea and Japan. This is the fourth North Korea nuclear test causing seismic earthquakes of magnitudes above 4.1, three of these tests-May 24, 2009, Feb 12, 2013 and Jan 5, 2016 have occurred during President Obama’s administration. The test of these weapons of mass destruction suggest that Pyongyang has moved forward with the miniaturization of atomic and possibly hydrogen warheads to be placed on short, medium and long range missiles. Intelligence estimates which are not verifiable suggest that at this time North Korea could possess a range of between 12 to 25 nuclear weapons. On December 12, 2012, North Korea successfully tested and flew a three-stage rocket to place its first payload, a satellite, into orbit around the earth. This past October Pyongyang began making preparations for an expected launch of a long range rocket into space, but was averted due to the escalation of tensions with South Korea following the incident along the border where two ROK soldiers were wounded by land mines belonging to the North.
Ramifications of North Korea’s blatant intent and egregious actions yesterday have a direct impact on the security of the United States, South Korea and Japan in regards to the collective current missile defense systems they have in place to defend their populations from North Korea nuclear and ballistic missile threat. Each nation will allocate additional funding into their defense budgets for missile defense and will make significant steps to become more interoperable and integrated collectively due to this bold North Korean action last night. Along with the current systems each of these countries currently have deployed, additional immediate responses will be seriously considered and most likely be implemented including:
– The United States The critical asset of the world’s best discriminating radar, the Sea-Based X-band radar based in Pearl Harbor will need to be enabled to go out to sea more days than it currently is allocated for contingent and continual operations. More focus and more support will need to be given to increase confidence and reliability in the 30 Ground Based Interceptors currently deployed in Alaska and California with modernization of the current exoatmospheric kill vehicle along with rigorous testing and a successful demonstrations of the capability.
– U.S. Territory of Guam An additional U.S. THAAD battery should be deployed to provide 100% persistent defense for Guam against the North Korean ballistic missile threat and make available a regional expeditionary capability from Guam to deploy quickly into Japan or South Korea should the need arise.
– Japan Tokyo should move forward with the decision to invest in acquiring a minimum of two Aegis Ashore systems similar to the newly operational U.S. capability in Romania, modified to include full air defense capability. The option of the Japanese acquiring a THAAD unit to having a mobile persistent land based missile defense for the protection of their population should also be considered.
– South Korea Seoul will now have the impetus to move forward with an official request for a THAAD battery from the United States. THAAD is the only system in the world today capable of protecting all of South Korea from the North Korean ballistic missile threat.
The bigger national strategic urgency is to increase integrated partnership capacity with our allies and implement policy and development to stay ahead of North Korea’s threat and eventual evolution of MIRVed missiles along with sophisticated countermeasures and decoys five to ten years from now. This requires adhering to the plan in place for existing programs that will reduce shot doctrine as well as investing in emerging technologies such as multiple interceptors, speed of light intercepts, and drastically reducing the cost of intercept.
When dealing with an irrational actor with nuclear weapons such as Kim Jong-Un, it is important to note and recognize that having a credible and demonstrated “right of launch” defense is the most reliable and efficient way to deter threats and irrational decision making of the Supreme leader of North Korea. Relying and investing on “left of launch” capabilities, which would have to include preemptive attacks on North Korea, is not only infeasible under United States policy, but presents a tremendous risk of failure because it can never guarantee 100 percent success which is simply unacceptable in any and all regards to the responsibility of protecting the lives of the American public.
Time and time again, United Nations Resolutions, Six Nation talks, and unilateral and multilateral sanctions have failed to stop North Korea from attaining, testing and developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. It remains the clear indisputable North Korean intent and capability to threaten our nation, Japan and Korea. Collectively, we have to confront the threat and defend our populations with adequate numbers of deployed proven missile defense systems. There is no other choice.
