March 2024
By Keith Luse

In the 1964 nuclear thriller “Fail Safe,” a squadron of U.S. nuclear bombers destroy Moscow when the aircraft inadvertently were ordered to bomb the Russian capital.

Although U.S. and Soviet forces were sent to intercept the bombers, launched by accident due to a fault in the electronic system, they failed. The U.S. president, portrayed by Henry Fonda, simultaneously ordered the destruction of New York City in a desperate move to prove that the U.S. attack was a mistake and thus prevent all-out nuclear war between the two nuclear-armed countries.¹ In the end, New York and Moscow were obliterated, and millions of people died. Despite a hotline that allowed the U.S. and Soviet leaders to talk to each other, they were ultimately unable to prevent Armageddon. It was a haunting, if fictional, case of war by accident.

Such fiction may become reality on the Korean peninsula, which is now a hot spot with verbal volcanic ash spewing from both sides of the 38th parallel. Due to these tensions, which began to build after the failed 2019 Hanoi summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and later intensified following the election of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, the prospect of war resulting from accident or miscalculation has increased. By all indications, however, this rising threat has been lost on the international community. Global leaders appear numb to the festering crisis, much like the frog that remains in the pot of steadily heating water until it boils to death.

Provocative Behavior

For anyone paying attention, there is no lack of evidence that leaders in North and South Korea are acting provocatively. A prime example is Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader’s sister, who has emerged as an authorized, key spokesperson for her brother, channeling his sentiments by offering unceasing, critical assessments of South Korean and U.S. leaders.

A case in point was her 2022 reference to South Korean Defense Minister Suh Wook’s statement about his country’s capability to launch a preemptive military strike if there were indications of a potential North Korean missile attack on the South. Kim Yo Jong was quoted as dismissing the minister as “the senseless and scum-like guy [who] dare mentioned the ‘preemptive strike’ at a nuclear weapons state, in his senseless bluster, which will never be beneficial to South Korea, either.”² On the prospect of new sanctions targeting North Korea, she also lashed out, calling Yoon “a running wild dog gnawing on a bone given by the U.S. and his government idiots.”³

Not to be outdone in raising the regional temperature, the Yoon administration in 2022 “reinvigorated military planning for preemptive and retaliatory strikes against the North Korean leadership under the so-called Kill Chain and Korean Massive Punishment and Retaliation…strategies, respectively.” Killing the North Korean leader is a priority.⁴

Although eliminating an enemy leader may be a traditional component of military strategy, in this case, South Korea’s personalization of its intent has not been lost on the North Koreans. Yet, rather than intimidating the North Korean leadership, the publicly announced assassination plan, which was conceived years earlier and revived during the Yoon administration, has boomeranged.

The North Koreans reacted by enacting a law that calls for “automatic” nuclear launches if the country’s leadership or command and control systems are threatened, underscoring leader Kim Jong Un’s concern for a so-called decapitation strike. As North Korea enshrined the right to use preemptive nuclear strikes to protect itself, Kim warned that the law makes the country’s nuclear status “irreversible” and bars denuclearization talks.⁵

If the North Korean leader were eliminated or Pyongyang concluded that enemy actions directly threatening its leadership were in play, institutional buttons automatically will be pushed. There will be no need or opportunity for a North-South hotline conversation to cool tensions. Missiles will be launched, and among other offensive military actions, full-force cyberattacks will be unleashed by North Korean cyber warriors operating from home, China, Russia, Southeast Asia, and perhaps elsewhere.⁶

Meanwhile, emboldened by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, angered by the failed Hanoi summit, and determined to strengthen his country’s defenses, Kim is rapidly advancing his missile and other military capabilities and putting them on full display. Gone is the day when Russian President Vladimir Putin would warn Kim that making threats of “preventive nuclear strikes” could create a legal basis for military action against North Korea.⁷ Now, Putin is more apt to buy North Korean weapons than act as a check on Kim’s excesses. As North Korea closes in on achieving the capability of hitting a U.S. city with a missile, Kim’s lingering angst over the summit may be defused. It is possible that he will conclude that he will restore the reputational “face” that he felt he lost at the summit only when he has the power to strike the U.S. homeland and can look eye to eye with U.S. President Joe Biden or Biden’s successor as the leader of a nuclear-armed state. As one U.S. analyst noted, in Hanoi, the North Korean leader appeared particularly upset because the results seemed different from what he had been led to believe would occur.

If this is the analysis in Pyongyang, the North Korean leader is being ill-advised by his inner circle. The U.S. president is undoubtedly briefed on the status of North Korea’s progress toward developing a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of striking New York or anywhere else in the United States. As the North Koreans get closer to achieving this goal, some Biden administration officials or their successors almost certainly will press for preemptive strikes on Pyongyang to protect the U.S. population.

There is another possible destructive outcome as the North Korean leader seeks to achieve his fullest satisfaction and reclaim his self-esteem after the summit debacle. Kim may be compelled to extract a pound of flesh such as happened in 2010 when the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan sank and nearly 50 sailors died after an attack that Seoul blamed on Pyongyang. The North Korean leader may be planning another surgical strike, mistakenly believing that any South Korean or U.S. response would be limited and manageable.

Even as Kim has been energized by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and his symbiosis with Putin, Yoon too has been emboldened by his meetings with Biden and their joint emphasis on a policy of deterrence that is intended to tame North Korea. The Yoon administration has demonstrated a robust response to North Korean actions, including intensifying military drills, pulling a larger U.S. military presence into the region, and touting the plans to kill the North Korean leader. In December, South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won Sik reminded North Korea that “[t]raining for decapitation strikes to take out North Korean leader Kim Jong Un remains an option for South Korea’s military.”⁸ It is unclear if Seoul is conducting assessments to determine whether specific U.S.-South Korean deterrent actions could trigger further provocations by Pyongyang or even trip the wire of war.

Meanwhile, citing the Russian war on Ukraine, many South Koreans are questioning the credibility of the United States as an ally and advocating Seoul’s development or acquisition of its own nuclear weapons arsenal. If that occurs, North Koreans would protest publicly; privately, there would be smiles and toasts among the military elites in Pyongyang. Their analysis would include the premise that South Korea’s nuclearization would reduce significantly any pressure on North Korea to eliminate its own nuclear program, which is estimated to have produced sufficient fissile material for 50 or more nuclear bombs, according to nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker.

Ignoring Risk Reduction

Despite the tensions and hardening attitudes, risk reduction does not appear to be a priority of either side. A casual negligence in addressing this brewing storm is palpable in Washington, Seoul, Beijing, Tokyo, and other capitals where officials should understand how catastrophic another war on the Korean peninsula could be.

One example of this indifferent attitude is the fact that many South Koreans ignored an air defense drill held in August and did not bother to take shelter.⁹ Perhaps international leaders, discouraged by the tight Putin-Kim embrace, have sidelined thoughts about how to engage North Korea. The North Korean leader, however, astutely leverages his timing and interventions with peers in the international community. Why is there no obvious urgency or determination to develop creative exit-ramp options that might be considered by both Koreas and defuse the gathering crisis?

Given the Ukraine war, the October attack on Israel by Hamas, Israel’s far-reaching response, and the myriad of other global hotspots, the U.S. international to-do list is overloaded. For members of Congress who usually are eager to underscore any sign of North Korean aggression, recent moves by Pyongyang showcasing its advancing missile, submarine, and drone capabilities may simply prompt a resigned sigh. For lawmakers who steadfastly support the U.S.-South Korean alliance, worries about the situation on the Korean peninsula getting out of hand are tempered by the confidence that the Yoon government can be relied on to deal with North Korea as need be. Many in Congress may be unaware of the extent to which South Korean leaders are stoking the embers that could become flames of war.

Although the U.S. president has the lead in managing foreign policy, Congress also has a major role to play, and its response to international crises over many years offers important lessons for this situation. Should a nuclear weapons exchange occur on the Korean peninsula, for instance, multiple House and Senate committees would convene oversight hearings with officials from a range of government departments and agencies called to testify publicly and explain what happened. Classified hearings and briefings also would be held. Depending on legislative rules, testimony might be sought from officials of South Korea and Japan, both U.S. allies, and from representatives of emergency relief organizations. Some individual lawmakers would reach out to the Chinese embassy in Washington, inquiring as to why that government allowed developments on the peninsula to evolve into war.

Besides public and classified congressional hearings, members would demand copies of cables and other communications by officials throughout the U.S. executive branch in Washington and those stationed throughout Northeast Asia. The second-guessing would be fast and furious. What questions would be asked by Congress? That depends in part on whether Seoul and Pyongyang continued to exist or were leveled to the ground. There will be much for which to answer. The impact of nuclear strikes on the Korean peninsula would have global implications.

As U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) stated in a February 2006 address to the UN Security Council, “Does anyone believe that proposals for advancing standards of living, such as expansions in education for our children, stronger protections for the environment, or broader health care coverage, would be unaffected by the nuclear obliteration of a major city somewhere in the world? They would not. The immediate death toll would be horrendous, but the worldwide financial and psychological costs might be even more damaging to humanity in the long run.”¹⁰

Here is a sampling of possible hearing questions that foreshadow the devastation and instability that such a war would unleash. It would be better to consider such questions now as a motivator for governments to search for a solution that could prevent a debacle.

Questions for U.S. Department of State, Department of Defense, and Central Intelligence Agency officials. What action or combination of events tripped the wire that started the conflict? Do the South Korean and North Korean governments still function and, if so, in what way? Are any of the leaders still alive? Although we know that a few million people are dead in South Korea, what are your estimates of North Korean casualties? As emergency health care workers in Seoul and Pyongyang and other impacted areas were largely eliminated in the catastrophe, who will provide health care services to survivors in both countries? Are discussions underway with the Chinese and the United Nations on developing a strategic plan for how China, the United States, and the UN might provide emergency assistance on the peninsula without getting in each other’s way? Have there been any communications between Washington and Moscow following the nuclear attack on Seoul and Pyongyang, between Pyongyang and Seoul, between Pyongyang and Washington?

In addition, how many U.S. Defense Department ships are available to provide offshore medical services? What other countries are qualified to assist in addressing the challenges associated with this catastrophe? Given Japan’s experience with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, will the Japanese government be consulted on recovery operations? Have reports been confirmed that Russian ships are headed toward the peninsula? Were mutual defense treaties in place between Moscow and Pyongyang and Beijing and Pyongyang? Even though Pyongyang and Seoul are destroyed, do you anticipate an attack by Russia or China on U.S. interests in Northeast Asia or elsewhere? Did U.S. and South Korean officials actively attempt to work with North Korea on exit-ramp options to reduce tensions? Did the Chinese make any effort to assist? Did South Korea and the United States put in place any fail-safe mechanism to prevent the unthinkable that has now occurred?

Questions for UN officials, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and nongovernmental organizations involved in humanitarian assistance. Are the deaths concentrated in Seoul and Pyongyang or spread throughout both countries? Given the large number of U.S. citizens, including military personnel and civilian, living in South Korea, it appears that U.S. casualties may be in the tens of thousands. What medical assistance is available to U.S. military and embassy personnel in addition to those U.S. civilians who survived? Do the human remains examined so far reveal whether weapons of mass destruction in addition to nuclear weapons were utilized? What food and medical supplies are available? Were blood supplies protected during the attacks? Given the radioactive fallout, how many years need to pass before the citizens of Seoul and Pyongyang could return?

The Legacy of Conflict

It is unclear whether most citizens of Seoul or Pyongyang realize that war could be imminent. If it happens, people in both capitals would die after an attack as they walk or shop, take kids to school, or sleep. Older members of the North Korean leadership circle certainly remember the U.S. carpet bombing of their country during the Korean War, including blanketing the civilian population with napalm as skin fell from the bodies of children and adults. As U.S. Air Force General Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command during the Korean War, told the Office of Air Force History in 1984, “Over a period of three years or so, we killed off…20 percent of the population.” Dean Rusk, a supporter of the war and later secretary of state, said the United States bombed “everything that moved in North Korea, every brick standing on top of another.” After running low on urban targets, U.S. bombers destroyed hydroelectric and irrigation dams in the later stages of the war, flooding farmland and destroying crops.¹¹

Despite this gruesome history, some North Korean elders, especially those who survived the Korean War, may welcome a conflict now even knowing that their deaths would be sealed by a U.S. response to a North Korean nuclear first strike. The revenge of spilled U.S. blood would usher in their long-sought personal peace. For this reason, the conventional wisdom among some national security experts in the United States and South Korea that North Korea is unlikely to launch a preemptive attack on South Korea or on U.S interests in the region is farcical.

Both sides have a national memory bank overflowing with deposits of death and destruction caused by the other. Beyond the pain of the Korean War, the older generation of South Koreans will recall, for example, how North Korean agents bombed the South Korean presidential delegation that visited Rangoon, Burma, in 1983. South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan survived, but 21 people perished, including four cabinet-level officials. Even before this, North Korean agents made numerous, unsuccessful efforts to kill South Korean President Park Chung-hee. In 1974, a North Korean sympathizer assassinated South Korean First Lady Yuk Young-soo.

If an attack occurs on either or both capitals in the months ahead, victims could die rapidly or linger for days or years, depending on whether the weapons used are chemical, biological, incendiary, or nuclear. Both North Korea and South Korea have been holding defense drills. In the South’s case, it was the first time in six years.¹²

The attitude of too many experts and veteran Korea watchers that “we’ve been here before and the situation will cool down” is less than convincing. It sends a deceptive message to all who live on the Korean peninsula, masking an urgent situation. Without more awareness and a new determination among leaders to find a new equilibrium, this time the boiling water may not be turned off before the frog dies.

ENDNOTES

1. “Fail Safe,” Turner Classic Movies, n.d., https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/4556/fail-safe#synopsis (accessed February 4, 2024).

2. Mitch Shin, “What to Make of Kim Yo Jong’s Verbal Attack of South Korea’s Defense Minister,” The Diplomat, April 4, 2022, https://thediplomat.com/2022/04/what-to-make-of-kim-yo-jongs-verbal-attack-of-south-koreas-defense-minister/.

3. Hyung-jin Kim, “Kim’s Sister Makes Insulting Threats to Seoul Over Sanctions,” Associated Press, November 24, 2022.

4. Ankit Panda, “South Korea’s ‘Decapitation’ Strategy Against North Korea Has More Risks Than Benefits,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, August 15, 2022, https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/08/15/south-korea-s-decapitation-strategy-against-north-korea-has-more-risks-than-benefits-pub-87672.

5. Josh Smith, “Kim Jong Un’s ‘Decapitation’ Fears Shine Through in New North Korea Nuclear Law,” Reuters, September 9, 2022.

6. Office of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of Justice, “Three North Korean Military Hackers Indicted in Wide-Ranging Scheme to Commit Cyberattacks and Financial Crimes Across the Globe,” press release, February 17, 2021,
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/three-north-korean-military-hackers-indicted-wide-ranging-scheme-commit-cyberattacks-and.

7. Sarah Malm, “Putin Warns Kim Jong Un That Making Threats of ‘Preventive Nuclear Strikes’ Could Create a Legal Basis for Military Action Against the Rogue State,” Daily Mail, March 9, 2016, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3483581/Putin-warns-Kim-Jong-making-threats-preventive-nuclear-strikes-create-legal-basis-military-action-against-rogue-state.html.

8. Jeongmin Kim, “Drills on Assassinating Kim Jong Un Remain an Option, ROK Defense Chief Says,” NK News, December 19, 2023, https://www.nknews.org/2023/12/drills-on-assassinating-kim-jong-un-remain-an-option-rok-defense-chief-says/.

9. Hyonhee Shin and Ju-min Park, “South Korea Holds Rare Air Raid Drill but Many Citizens Ignore It,” Reuters, August 23, 2023.

10. “Address to the UN Security Council,” February 6, 2006, https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/io/rls/rm/60473.htm (address of Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.)).

11. Blaine Harden, “The U.S. War Crime North Korea Won’t Forget,” The Washington Post, March 24, 2015.

12. “South Korea Conducts First Civil Defence Drills in 6 Years,” The South China Morning Post, August 23, 2023.

March 2024
By Ankit Panda

In the last decade, as North Korea has made tremendous qualitative progress in its nuclear and missile programs, non-nuclear South Korea has responded by shoring up its own precision strike arsenal.

Beginning in 2021, North Korea explicitly stated an intention to develop tactical nuclear weapons, sharply intensifying the perceived threat in South Korea. Since then, Pyongyang has developed an array of new short-range nuclear delivery systems, rendering its ambitions more credible. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, meanwhile, has indicated that many of these short-range systems will be deployed with so-called frontline units of the Korean People’s Army. Although Kim remains the sole authority on nuclear weapons use in North Korea, he has indicated further that there may be conditions under which the authority to use nuclear weapons could devolve to military commanders. One such condition, outlined in a September 2022 law, could be the degradation of North Korea’s nuclear command-and-control systems in a conflict or the death of the country’s leader. Either circumstance could prompt an “automatic and immediate” nuclear retaliatory attack.¹

North Korea’s adoption of such a fail-deadly posture for its nuclear forces is largely a response to South Korea and the United States. The advanced capabilities available to that alliance, including an array of long-range, non-nuclear strike options supplemented by U.S. nuclear capabilities, present a threat to the survivability of North Korean nuclear forces. More important, however, is the renewed public emphasis on preemptive disarming attacks and decapitation strikes by the conservative government in Seoul, which was inaugurated in May 2022.

Cumulatively, these developments in recent years have contributed to a sharply heightened risk of nuclear war. The two Koreas are mired in an intense security dilemma, which could cause future crises between them to spiral quickly into a possible, large-scale war. In turn, this likely would precipitate North Korean nuclear use, with devastating consequences.

To cope with North Korea’s advancing capabilities, South Korea has become a pioneer in what might be dubbed a strategy of conventional counterforce, namely relying on its advanced non-nuclear capabilities to hold at risk Pyongyang’s nuclear forces. The two Koreas remain stuck in a fierce asymmetric arms competition marked by an action-reaction cycle.

Since the administration of South Korean President Park Geun-hye, from 2013 to 2017, Seoul has spent considerable resources developing a “three-axis” system, which includes a preemptive strike plan known as the “Kill Chain,” an air defense component known as “Korea Air and Missile Defense,” and a retaliatory decapitation plan known as “Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation.”² The first and third components of these plans are underwritten by Seoul’s growing array of conventional missile capabilities.

North Korean Missile Modernization

Despite acute resource constraints in North Korea, Kim, like his father and grandfather, has ensured that the country’s military readiness remains high. Since taking the reins of power in late 2011, he has made the development of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery a major priority. Between 2013 and 2017, Kim pursued a major nuclear development campaign that culminated in the testing of two different types of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and a thermonuclear device in 2017.

Following the inaugural flight test of an ICBM known as the Hwasong-15, in November 2017, Kim declared his nuclear deterrent “complete” and pivoted by early 2018 to diplomacy with South Korea and the United States. Although this diplomacy temporarily resulted in a pause in North Korean missile testing activity and quickly kept tensions from boiling over as they might have in 2017, it ultimately proved unsustainable. Kim found himself empty-handed after the North Korean-U.S. summit in Hanoi in 2019 when U.S. President Donald Trump rebuffed his demands for sanctions relief in exchange for concessions on uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing at the Yongbyon complex.

Since the collapse of diplomacy in 2019, North Korea has doubled down on its nuclear force development efforts. The hallmarks of its ongoing nuclear modernization program center on tactical nuclear weapons, improved responsiveness, and force dispersal. The two latter components represent Pyongyang’s chosen path to a broadly survivable nuclear deterrent, designed to be robust against South Korea’s conventional counterforce strategy.

The diversity of North Korea’s nuclear forces reached breathtaking levels as of early 2024. Pyongyang has indicated that it is actively pursuing everything from lake-submerged, short-range ballistic missile launchers to fixed silos to an autonomous, underwater, nuclear-armed torpedo to rail-mobile missile launchers to submarine-launched cruise missiles.

Kim likely does not yet possess the requisite weapons-grade fissile material to produce a sufficient number of warheads to enable the deployment of this wide range of delivery systems at scale, but he has articulated a goal of increasing fissile material output in an “exponential” manner in the coming years. Kim’s ambition should be taken seriously if not literally. North Korea likely possesses sufficient fissile material to enable the manufacture of 60 to 80 nuclear warheads today.

Given the apparent entry into operation of a new, suspected, experimental light-water reactor; efforts to continue plutonium reprocessing at the old gas-graphite reactor at Yongbyon; and unconstrained uranium enrichment, North Korea slowly is shoring up its stocks of weapons-grade fissile material. Over time, Kim’s ability to flesh out his tactical nuclear forces will grow, and additional nuclear testing likely lies ahead under the ongoing military modernization campaign.

Instability, Arms Control, and the Risk of War

Circumstances between the two Koreas today manifest a clear-cut example of crisis instability risks. Thomas Schelling once described this as the problem of the “reciprocal fear of surprise attack,” in which even if neither side wants a war, the benefits of shooting first in a crisis are perceived as so great for each that both have strong incentives to do so, fearing that the other might act instead.³

North Korea expects to seek tactical surprise and strategic advantage in a crisis by resorting to an early, large-scale nuclear attack to degrade the ability of South Korea and the United States to prosecute a war. Kim has described the purpose of his nuclear forces as twofold: to “deter” and, should deterrence fail, then to “repel” an attack with nuclear use.⁴

The latter would include nuclear use to destroy ports, airfields hosting fifth-generation stealth fighters, command-and-control nodes, radars, and missile defense systems. South Korea, meanwhile, plans to prevent precisely such an attack by shooting the proverbial archers in North Korea by destroying as much of the mobile missile and strike complex as possible with precise, conventional weapons.

As each side publicly communicates these sets of goals, the other’s belief in the advantages and the necessity of shooting first grows. Failing to shoot first comes to be seen as fatal in a crisis. Neither appears to see any benefit in walking back from this fundamental orientation toward preemptive attack.

Critically, the powerful nature of the incentives to attack under mutual postures of preemption is most likely to manifest in escalation even when neither side has an interest in escalation as such. It is the fear that the adversary may preempt that could drive one to consider escalation rational in the course of what might otherwise have been a limited crisis.

Given the poor state of political relations between the two Koreas and the lack of any interest in diplomacy, conditions are hardly propitious for any formal arms control initiatives in the near term. What little remained in the form of confidence-building measures also has largely disintegrated as tensions flared between Seoul and Pyongyang in recent years.

The Comprehensive Military Agreement, agreed by Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in during their summit in Pyongyang in September 2018, has been scrapped completely by North Korea. South Korea too has started to resume proscribed activities, such as flying military helicopters along the Military Demarcation Line separating the two sides.⁵

Although limited in scope, the agreement was built on an important premise, namely that accidental clashes could spark serious crises that could quickly propel the two sides into a general war. The agreement sought to prohibit a range of activities within the immediate vicinity of the demarcation line that could increase perceived threats.

In Seoul’s assessment, North Korean violations of the agreement had been ongoing since late 2019.⁶ With the arrival of the Yoon administration, violations increased in frequency and severity. In December 2022, for instance, North Korea flew multiple drones into South Korean airspace in precisely the sort of action that could be interpreted as a precursor to a major armed attack.⁷

South Korea retaliated in kind, sending drones of its own into North Korean airspace. The UN Command, which oversees the implementation of the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War, assessed that both Koreas violated the armistice with these actions.⁸

This South Korean propensity for disproportionality has manifested acutely under the Yoon administration, which has come to espouse a philosophy that holds that only resolute shows of force can contribute to deterring North Korea. Beyond the drone incident in December 2022, at least two other incidents are evocative of this tendency. In November 2022, a North Korean missile for the first time transgressed the maritime delimitation between the two Koreas. In response, the South Korean side launched three air-to-ground missiles across that same threshold, upping the ante threefold. In the first few days of January 2024, meanwhile, South Korea responded to North Korea’s firing of 200 artillery rounds near the inter-Korean demarcation line by firing 400 rounds of its own.⁹

Worsening prospects for engagement, North Korea’s newfound strategic partnership with Russia in the aftermath of the latter’s brutal, full-scale invasion of Ukraine is likely to raise Kim’s confidence in unconstrained competition with South Korea. Pyongyang’s decision to reject its decades-long objective of unification with South Korea may be in part a reflection of this.

Political Courage and Military Organizational Change

Although arms control continues to be a useful tool for practically reducing the risk of unwanted war on the Korean peninsula, it will require a willing counterpart. North Korea’s post-2019 political and diplomatic recalibration has resulted in a fundamental lack of interest in reciprocating any external overtures from South Korea or the United States.

Although the conditions for proactive arms control and cooperative risk reduction could again manifest on the Korean peninsula at some point, there is an urgency today that demands attention. Policymakers in South Korea and the United States should recognize that even without North Korean reciprocity, they can take measures to reduce the risk of unwanted war and escalation from a conventional war to a nuclear war that do not necessarily require Pyongyang’s involvement.

Such measures would not require compromising general deterrence of North Korea. Instead, South Korea and the United States should recognize that even as North Korea postures its own forces offensively and irresponsibly, some of their own policies and military plans exacerbate the risk of escalation within a conventional war and the risk of nuclear conflict. Unilateral policy change by South Korea and the United States could reduce these risks and lead to a long-term adjustment in North Korean threat perceptions that could be propitious for an eventual return to negotiated, cooperative measures like the 2018 agreement.

Two such measures are easily identified. First, South Korea’s current emphasis on preemption as a matter of its core national defense strategy for dealing with North Korea contributes to escalation risks. To preserve deterrence while reducing escalation pressures, Seoul could adapt its strategic communications toward Pyongyang to emphasize that it would not seek to attack North Korean nuclear forces massively and preemptively early in a war.

Eliminating this source of use-it-or-lose-it pressures for Kim is likely to reduce significantly the risk of nuclear escalation. South Korean policymakers recognize the nuclear risks that manifest on the Korean peninsula as a result of North Korea’s stated intention to resort to the early use of nuclear weapons in a war to mitigate its conventional military vulnerabilities. Yet, preemption continues to be a preferred strategy in Seoul.

Second, the United States can eliminate a prominent source of use-it-or-lose-it pressures for North Korea. Under the Trump administration, the United States publicized a counterproductive effort to seek “left-of-launch” techniques that could disable North Korean missiles prior to their launch in a conflict.¹⁰ Although the precise nature of such capabilities remains obscure and perhaps exaggerated, North Korea is likely to take this seriously. The Biden administration’s 2022 Missile Defense Review retains a commitment to “comprehensive missile defeat,” which John Plumb, U.S. assistant secretary of defense for space policy, clarified involves a continued reliance on measures to left and right of launch.¹¹ This comprehensive approach includes nonkinetic measures, such as possible offensive cyberattacks on North Korean nuclear command and control.

In addition to precise South Korean missiles seeking to preempt his nuclear forces, Kim would have to concern himself with the possibility that an exquisite, undisclosed U.S. offensive cybercapability could sever him from his nuclear forces. Command and control, the central nervous system of any nuclear force, has been considered a unique vulnerability since the 1950s. Yet, as the United States and the Soviet Union discovered early in the Cold War, threatening to hold an adversary’s ability to use its nuclear weapons at risk creates powerful incentives to escalate in ways that may actually undermine a defender’s interests.

The United States and its allies have an interest in depriving Kim of such incentives. Although it would have been ideal for the Biden administration to include these sorts of assurances on interference with nuclear command and control in its 2022 Nuclear Posture Review or Missile Defense Review, it still would be a useful to convey this intention today. Such a statement need not be specific to North Korea, but could apply to all nuclear-armed adversaries of the United States, inclusive of North Korea.

These various measures can be implemented without compromising deterrence of North Korea. Kim will continue to understand that nuclear use can be met with appropriate punishment by the United States and South Korea and that nuclear use will not automatically confer strategic or tactical benefits disproportionate to the costs North Korea is likely to incur.

To preserve deterrence messaging without needlessly contributing to nuclear risks with threats of nuclear force preemption, leadership decapitation, and possible interference in nuclear command and control, the allies should hew closely to the declaratory policy that they articulated in the Washington Declaration from 2023, which simply notes that North Korean nuclear use would be met with a “swift, overwhelming, and decisive” response.¹² What that may mean in practice is left as an exercise in ambiguity for Kim.

Implementing these changes is worthwhile as a means of nuclear risk reduction on the Korean peninsula that does not depend on a change in current political circumstances. Although cooperative arms control and risk reduction efforts are no doubt desirable, North Korea’s unwillingness to pick up the proverbial phone should not be a deterrent to the allies taking matters into their own hands where possible.

Unfortunately, a change of this sort will require political courage in Washington and Seoul, where national leaders must come to terms with the unsustainability of the status quo and thus chart a new path. This is easier said than done. Under U.S. President Joe Biden, North Korea has never topped the U.S. geopolitical agenda. Insofar as his administration has a strategy for the Korean peninsula, it has been one of deepening U.S.-South Korean cooperation and accelerating trilateral cooperation with South Korea and Japan.

For South Korea, meanwhile, the fundamental disposition toward North Korea under the Yoon administration is one of competition paired with the “audacious initiative,” which seeks to lure the North away from its nuclear weapons with promises of economic benefits. Yoon’s initial North Korea policy efforts appeared to be driven substantially by the experiences of several prominent officials who had served in the Lee Myung-bak administration, from 2008 to 2013. In particular, veterans of the twin crises of 2010, when North Korea sank the South Korean naval ship Cheonan and shelled Yeonpyeong Island, killing scores of South Koreans, reentered government with the determination to convey resolute strength at all costs to Pyongyang. As a result, Seoul is reluctant to consider any measures that could be perceived as undermining the projection of strength, even if they might contribute to a reduced risk of a confrontation with North Korea.

For the United States, South Korea’s disposition toward disproportionate retaliation, paired with its significant autonomous conventional counterforce capabilities, are a source of concern.¹³ The Biden administration has undertaken significant efforts to reconcile several countervailing interests with Seoul. On the one hand, it has undertaken new forms of nuclear reassurance at a time when an increasing number of South Koreans view an independent nuclear deterrent for the country as desirable. On the other hand, it has started to seek better operational coordination with Seoul to ensure that South Korea does not escalate crises with North Korea in ways that could be detrimental to U.S. interests. Both of these elements are addressed in the Washington Declaration, which established a new Nuclear Consultative Group while setting up an effort to “closely connect” the existing alliance Combined Forces Command with South Korea’s planned Strategic Command, which will oversee many of the country’s conventional counterforce capabilities.

Seoul and Washington should quietly, candidly, and privately begin exploring the sorts of risk reduction measures that would advance their own interests. This could entail the adoption of the recommendations above in addition to proposing proactively to North Korea potential future cooperative efforts, up to and including formal arms control.

As much as it will be a bitter pill for the allies to recognize that their long-standing objective of a fully denuclearized Korean peninsula is unlikely to manifest soon, focusing on near-term risk reduction is a core interest. Simply put, lowering the risk of nuclear war is worth the trade-offs that come with deprioritizing denuclearization diplomacy with Pyongyang. Doing so does not require any sort of formal recognition of North Korea’s status as a nuclear-weapon power, but simply accepting the reality that is plainly clear on the Korean peninsula.

Coexistence with a nuclear North Korea can be unbounded, unconstrained, and dangerous as it is today. Alternatively, it can be managed. U.S. and allied interests will be better served by turning toward alternatives.

ENDNOTES

1. “Law on DPRK’s Policy on Nuclear Forces Promulgated,” Korean Central News Agency, September 9, 2022, http://kcna.kp/en/article/q/5f0e629e6d35b7e3154b4226597df4b8.kcmsf.

2. Josh Smith, “Analysis: South Korea Doubles Down on Risky ‘Kill Chain’ Plans to Counter North Korea Nuclear Threat,” Reuters, July 26, 2022.

3. Thomas C. Schelling, “The Reciprocal Fear of Surprise Attack,” RAND Corp., January 1, 1958, https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P1342.html.

4. Kelsey Davenport, “North Korea Passes Nuclear Law,” Arms Control Today, October 2022.

5. Chad O’Carroll, “ROK Choppers Spotted Near DMZ After Collapse of Military Deal With North Korea,” NK News, December 6, 2023.

6. Ankit Panda, “South Korea Expresses ‘Regret’ at North Korean Violation of 2018 Military Agreement,” The Diplomat, November 26, 2019, https://thediplomat.com/2019/11/south-korea-expresses-regret-at-north-korean-violation-of-2018-military-agreement/.

7. Choe Sang-Hun, “South Koreans’ Steely Nerves Are Shaken by North Korean Drones,” The New York Times, December 28, 2022.

8. Josh Smith, “Both North and South Korea Violated Armistice With Drone Flights, U.N. Command Says,” Reuters, January 26, 2023.

9. Hyung-Jim Kim, “South Korea Says the North Has Again Fired Artillery Shells Near Their Sea Border,” Associated Press, January 6, 2024.

10. Ankit Panda, “The Right Way to Manage a Nuclear North Korea,” Foreign Affairs, December 6, 2018, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/north-korea/2018-11-19/right-way-manage-nuclear-north-korea.

11. “The 2022 Missile Defense Review - A Conversation With John Plumb,” Center for Strategic & International Studies, November 4, 2022, https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2023-01/ts221114_Plumb_Defense_Review.pdf.

12. “Washington Declaration,” The White House, April 26, 2023, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/04/26/washington-declaration-2/.

13. Ankit Panda, “Indo-Pacific Missile Arsenals: Avoiding Spirals and Mitigating Escalation Risks,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2023, pp. 21-25, https://carnegieendowment.org/files/Panda_Indo-Pacific_Missiles_final_1.pdf.

March 2024
By Daryl G. Kimball

Russia is pursuing a new and more advanced anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons system that would violate the Outer Space Treaty, according to Biden administration officials.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan briefed select members of Congress on new U.S. intelligence about the system on Feb. 15, and later that day, White House spokesperson John Kirby confirmed to reporters that the system is “related to an anti-satellite weapon that Russia is developing.”

Although it is not an “active capability that has been deployed,” Kirby said that the new system “would be a violation of the Outer Space Treaty, to which more than 130 countries have signed up to, including Russia.”

Article IV of the treaty expressly prohibits countries from deploying “in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install[ing] such weapons on celestial bodies, or station[ing] such weapons in outer space in any other manner.”

Kirby said that “our general knowledge of Russian pursuit of this kind of capability goes back many, many months, if not a few years. But only in recent weeks has the intelligence community been able to assess with a higher sense of confidence exactly how Russia continues to pursue it.”

“We found out there was a capacity to launch a system into space that could theoretically do something that was damaging,” President Joe Biden told reporters at the White House on Feb. 16. “Hasn’t happened yet, and my hope is it will not.”

According to a CNN report that same day, officials familiar with the intelligence assessment confirmed that the Russian ASAT system under development involves a nuclear explosive device that would produce not only a massive nuclear-driven blast wave and a surge of radiation, but also a powerful electromagnetic pulse that could destroy, blind, or disable other satellites in orbit over a wide zone.

Such a weapon could pose a threat to U.S. and allied military communications, early-warning, and intelligence-gathering satellites if it were to become operational. It also would pose a threat to thousands of other space-based assets in orbit operated by dozens of other countries and commercial entities.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States experimented with various types of ASAT weapons systems concepts, including the use of nuclear explosions to destroy objects in space and the production of beams of directed energy to destroy or disable enemy satellites.

Between 1958 and 1962, the United States carried out a handful of very high-altitude nuclear detonations, including the massive 1.4-megaton Starfish Prime test that occurred 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean and demonstrated the potential of nuclear detonations as ASAT weapons. The Soviets conducted a series of high-altitude nuclear test explosions over Kazakhstan between 1961 and 1962.

These test explosions produced a surge of free electrons that created X-rays capable of severely damaging electronic components and computer systems on the ground and in low earth orbit, an electromagnetic pulse that can disable unprotected electrical components on satellites, and a nuclear flash that can blind optical sensors on reconnaissance satellites. The Starfish Prime nuclear test explosion also produced radiation belts that lingered for months, disabling eight of the 24 satellites that were in orbit at that time, according to a 2022 report by the American Physical Society.

In 1963, U.S. and Soviet negotiators concluded the Limited Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits nuclear test explosions in the atmosphere, and in 1967 the Outer Space Treaty.

As Jaganath Sankaran wrote in Arms Control Today in 2022, Russia has been pursuing a range of ASAT system capabilities for more than a decade, including co-orbital ASAT weapons capabilities in the geostationary orbit where most military command-and-control satellites operate, as well as ground-based lasers and a range of satellite jamming systems to deny and degrade the capacity of weapons that rely on satellite-enabled information.

In 2021, Russia conducted an ASAT weapons test on one of its own satellites, breaking it into more than 1,500 pieces of debris, which can pose a serious threat to other objects in orbit. China, India, and the United States also have demonstrated ASAT missile capabilities.

But none of these systems involved nuclear explosive devices. Today, there are approximately 9,500 active satellites in orbit and two crewed, orbiting space stations. One or more nuclear weapons explosions in orbit would create far more indiscriminate damage than the 1962 Starfish Prime nuclear test, and the loss of satellite services would affect significant commercial, military, communications, and navigations systems on Earth.

On Feb. 15, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed the claim that Russia was pursuing a nuclear-armed ASAT weapons capability as a “malicious fabrication," but on Feb. 16 he told RIA Novosti that Russia is ready to discuss the issue “if there are such initiatives from the American side.”

On Feb. 15, Kirby said, “We are in the process with engaging with Russia about this.” He said that Biden “has directed a series of initial actions, including additional briefings to congressional leaders, direct diplomatic engagement with Russia, with our allies and our partners as well, and with other countries around the world who have interests at stake.”

On Feb. 20, Russian President Vladimir Putin commented on the topic of nuclear weapons in space during a working meeting in Moscow with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

“Our position is clear and transparent: we have always been categorically against, and are now against, the placement of nuclear weapons in space,” Putin said, according to Kommersant. “On the contrary, we call for compliance with all agreements that exist in this area and proposed to strengthen this joint work many times over.”

March 2024
By Libby Flatoff

The U.S. Air Force notified Congress on Jan. 18 that the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) would cost 37 percent more than expected and take about two years longer than planned to build and deploy.

The cost per unit for the Sentinel system originally was projected to be $118 million and now is estimated at $162 million, putting the projected total program cost at roughly $120 billion over the next decade, up from an estimated baseline of $96 billion, the Air Force told Defense News.

The expected delay of the system’s initial operating capability likely will result in greater sustainment costs to keep the existing fleet of Minuteman III ICBMs operational.

The projected overrun would put the new missile system in “critical” breach of the Nunn-McCurdy Act, a law designed to prevent major cost overruns for weapons systems, a chronic problem plaguing the Pentagon.

There are two levels of breaches under the act. A program is in significant breach when the program unit cost increases by 15 percent of the current baseline or 30 percent over the original cost estimate. A critical breach occurs when the cost increases by 25 percent of the current baseline or 50 percent of the original estimate.

In 2020, Northrop Grumman was awarded a sole-source $13.3 billion contract for engineering and manufacturing Sentinel missiles to replace the current arsenal of 400 deployed Minuteman III ICBMs.

The Sentinel development program calls for acquiring 659 missiles, updating 450 launch silos, and modernizing more than 600 facilities to “like new conditions,” according to Air Force Global Strike Command. (See ACT, May 2023.)

In 2020 the Pentagon estimated that the total cost of the next-generation Sentinel program, including decades of operations and support, could be as high as $264 billion. (See ACT, March 2021.) Taking the new cost increases into account, the total cost of the program over its planned 50-year life cycle could be as high as $300 billion, plus another $15 billion for the production of the new W87-1 warhead for the missiles.

Under the act, the Defense Department is required to report to Congress whenever a major defense acquisition program exceeds certain cost thresholds. The notification must include an explanation of the cost increase, changes in the projected cost, changes in performance or schedule, action taken or proposed to control cost growth, and prior cost estimating information.

In addition, the department must submit a new selected acquisition report containing the new status of the total program cost, schedule, performance, cost per unit, and cost breach information. The report on the Sentinel program is due to be submitted within 45 days after President Joe Biden submits his budget to Congress, now set for March 9.

With a critical breach, the Office of the Secretary of Defense is required to conduct a root-cause analysis to determine what factors caused the cost increase.

Under the act, if the program is to continue, the defense secretary must certify no later than 60 days after the new selected acquisition report that the program is essential to national security, the new cost estimates are reasonable, the program is a higher priority than those whose funding will be cut to cover the cost increase, and a new management structure is in place to control additional cost growth. If the certification and requirements are met, the program will be allowed to continue.

At the Air Force Association forum on Feb. 11, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said that “nothing is off the table right now.… [W]e’re going to take a look at the totality of the [defense] budget” when addressing how to cover the additional $35 billion needed for the Sentinel program.

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee and co-chair of the bicameral Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, argued in a statement Jan. 18 that the overrun is “proof that we must look closely at our nation’s nuclear policies…[and] address our security needs without compromising fiscal responsibility.”

Some experts, such as Gabe Murphy, a national security policy analyst with Taxpayers for Common Sense, say that the United States should get rid of ICBMs entirely. “Whatever strategic value nuclear ICBMs may have held in the past, in our current security environment, they serve as little more than a bottomless pit…[into] which the Pentagon throws taxpayers’ hard-earned money,” Murphy wrote in an Feb. 11 essay for Stars and Stripes.

In 2016, former Defense Secretary William Perry wrote in The New York Times “that the United States can safely phase out” its land-based ICBM force. He argued that although the ICBM force is too costly and dangerous, submarine and bomber forces are highly accurate and thus are “sufficient to deter our enemies and will be for the foreseeable future.”

Despite the cost increases, congressional backers of the Sentinel program say it should go full-speed ahead. “Sentinel is absolutely necessary for the future of our nuclear deterrent. I’m committed to conducting vigorous oversight of the program and ensuring the Air Force follows through on making the necessary changes to address the cost overruns while continuing to advance the program,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said in a Jan. 19 press statement.

Others urged support for Sentinel whatever the cost. “Despite these challenges, abandoning or downsizing Sentinel isn’t an option. Our nation’s safety and prosperity depend on an updated and fully operational nuclear deterrent,” argued Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), the ranking members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and its strategic forces subcommittee, respectively, on Jan. 19 in The Wall Street Journal.