US strategy to knock out North Korean missiles carries risk

Bloomberg

The Trump administration’s national security strategy calls for a more aggressive approach toward stopping a North Korean missile strike on the US: knocking the weapons out prior to launch.
But it’s unclear that the US has the technology or on-the-ground intelligence to effectively carry out a preemptive strike in that kind of crisis situation. And if it
fails, the result could be an even bloodier conflict.
US officials, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, say there’s still time for diplomacy to defuse tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
Tillerson has led what he calls
a “peaceful pressure” campaign that relies on stepped-up sancti-ons while signaling a willing-
ness to restart talks. He’s co-hosting a gathering of foreign minis-ters in Vancouver on January 16 to discuss “security and stability on the Korean Peninsula.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un extended both a warning and olive branch in a New Year’s Day speech, offering to hold talks with South Korea while also claiming his nuclear deterrent was “irreversible” and that it would prevent US President Donald Trump from starting a war.
“It’s reality, not a threat, that the nuclear button is always on my desk,” Kim said. “The US can never start a war against myself and our nation now.”
Trump’s national security strategy, unveiled in December, has options to turn to if diplomacy fails. It calls for a layered missile defense approach “focused on North Korea and Iran to defend our homeland against missile attacks. This system will include the ability to defeat missile threats prior to launch.”
That would be more aggressive and challenging than so-called “boost phase” missile defense technologies intended to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles just after launch.
US systems, including the most advanced Aegis-class Navy cruisers and destroyers based in Japan, still don’t possess a proven capability of doing that, according to analysts and officials.
Trump’s proposal could include preemptive or “left of launch” options, such as lasers, special operations and long-range strikes with GPS-guided munitions as well as cyber attacks, said missile defense advocate and analyst Peter Huessy, president of Maryland-based GeoStrategic Analysis.
The strategy takes a page from former President George W. Bush’s controversial blueprint — elevating preemptive military strikes into national policy — that was used to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Senior administration officials who briefed reporters in December acknowledged the term “preemption” isn’t used in the formal document, but say the strategy makes clear the US will defend its interests when threatened.
Just as the Bush administration’s justification for the preemptive invasion of Iraq was undercut by faulty intelligence, Trump’s strategy could face similar hurdles.
That’s because “left of launch” depends on enhanced, real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to detect and track mobile launch vehicles for attack, according to Michael Elleman, a senior fellow for missile defense at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. North Korea’s rapid 2017 progress in developing ICBMs and nuclear weapons took most analysts by surprise, highlighting some of the existing intelligence shortfalls.

S Korea offers Jan 9 talks with North on Winter Olympics
Bloomberg

South Korea proposed holding talks on Jan 9 with North Korea to discuss participation in Winter Olympics next month, a move that may ease tensions over the country’s N-program. South Korea is suggesting that high-ranking officials from both sides meet at the border village of Panmunjom, Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon told reporters in Seoul on Tuesday. It would be the first formal meeting between the two Koreas since 2015.
“We expect to sit down with North Korea face to face and frankly discuss mutual interests aimed at better inter-
Korean relations,” Cho said, reaffirming the government’s willingness to talk to Kim’s regime without conditions.