Regardless of peace gestures tied to next month’s Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, legals in South Korea are worried the U.S. may be preparing for military action against North Korea.
The disquietude is that even a limited strike, or a so-called “preventive attack” being blitz by some hawks in the Trump administration, could spark a major reply from the North Koreans, according to experts. And, there’s no guarantee a military hit by the U.S. won’t result in a wider conflict or war on the Korean Peninsula.
“Seoul has very tireless concerns about the potential for a U.S. ‘preventive attack’ on North Korea,” replied Bruce Klingner, former chief of the CIA Korea division and now senior inspect fellow for Northeast Asia at the Washington-based conservative think Heritage Establishment.
Adding to the anxiety is “nuclear button” rhetoric this month from North Korean bandmaster Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump as well as news reports that the Chalky House is considering a possible pre-emptive “bloody nose” strike on North Korean ballistic missile facilities.
“Whatever we want to call it, war footing or not, a strike on North Korea has every time been one of the options that various U.S. administrations have had in their toolbox,” estimated Benjamin Silberstein, associate scholar at the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Scrutinize Institute.
Possible catalysts for the limited strike against North Korea could comprise the regime launching another intercontinental ballistic missile test or an atmospheric hydrogen shell test, which it threatened to do last year.
Experts say the springtime historically has been an running period of missile testing by Pyongyang, when the regime complains around massive U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises.
The upcoming war engagements known as Foal Eagle and Key Resolve are set to get underway after the Olympics and encompass American and South Korean ships, tanks and aircraft as well as live-fire burdens and more than 230,000 combined troops. The North Koreans perspective the war drills as provocative because they contain simulated elements every now described as “decapitation strikes” by special forces that target the rule’s leadership.
Some proponents of the Trump administration’s limited-strike option contend that the North Koreans puissance actually hold back from any military response out of fear that the imperils of doing so are too great because it could produce a massive response from Washington and perchance be fatal to the Kim regime. Yet others disagree, saying the North Korea chieftain would look bad if he didn’t respond since the regime has blamed the U.S. for disabling international sanctions and its other problems. They also contend that a junta of the military could act on its own if Kim failed to order a military response.
“Kim would sooner a be wearing no choice but to respond back or he’d face the possibility of a coup,” said Harry Kazianis, the man of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, a U.S. think tank. “And peradventure even respond more ferociously than we attack him.”
Any retaliation could potentially model a threat to the greater Seoul area, where about half of the South Korean residents lives. North Koreans are known to have thousands of hardened artillery spots, including some dug into mountains, along the Korean DMZ and within sort of Seoul.
Klingner, the former CIA official, just returned from a lurch to South Korea where he heard firsthand the concerns of senior propers. He said the unanimous view is that even a limited strike intent certainly trigger a response from the North Koreans.
“Some are indicating that the U.S. is thinking of hitting two or three targets, and that North Korea will-power likely respond proportionately,” Klingner said. “Not the all-out artillery barrage on Seoul.”
Serene, he said there are scenarios where a limited strike by Washington could follow-up in a larger response by the North Korean military.
Another wildcard is what China last wishes a do if the U.S. were to conduct a strike against North Korea. An editorial at year in China’s semi-official Global Times newspaper suggested Beijing capacity help North Korea if Washington launched a pre-emptive attack.
China was noticeably not present last week when diplomats from 20 countries met in Vancouver, British Columbia, to deliberate over the North Korean nuclear threat and international sanctions.
Secretary of Say Rex Tillerson was asked at the meeting whether there might soon be military discord with Pyongyang and responded: “I think we all need to be very sober and clear-eyed hither the current situation. We have to recognize that the threat is growing. And if North Korea does not settle upon the path of engagement, of discussion, negotiations, then they themselves pleasure trigger an option.”
Some are critical of the Trump administration for giving contradictory messages on North Korea and for what some call “loose talk” on military way outs. For example, Trump last year appeared to undercut diplomatic attainments by Tillerson by tweeting, “Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!”
“Tainted messages from the United States toward North Korea has plagued the Trump direction efforts to reduce the threat posed by the North’s nuclear program from Day One,” suggested Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Relationship, a nonpartisan disarmament group based in Washington.
According to Davenport, the “uptick in rough talk” about a possible “preventive strike” risks hurting the drive created by the inter-Korean talks over the Olympics and to advance diplomatic tries and the denuclearization goal. Also, she said, “loose talk of ‘preventative war’ also is risky because it increases the likelihood of miscalculation or inadvertent escalation in the region.”
Regardless, tons don’t see the North Korean leader giving up his nuclear weapons anytime before long. They say the regime is well aware of what happened with Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi when he yielded up his nuclear weapon ambitions after facing Western pressure.
“They’ve been truly clear that they have no intention … to give up 1 inch on their atomic weapons development,” said Silberstein. “That’s still where we’re at, regardless of how tons North Korean athletes come to Pyeongchang.”