I think the regime's intentions have always been clear on wanting this capability but I am glad that it is not longer in question for some. That is one very positive thing that come from last week's launch – there should be no questions as the regime's priorities and intent.
Hugh White is right to question the impact on the concept of extended deterrence now. However, I think he is wrong in his assessment that an ICBM is a bad investment for Pyongyang. He is correct from a Western viewpoint but from the regime's viewpoint it provides multiple opportunities for a return on investment from its belief that it provides a deterrence and defense capability, that it is instrumental in multiple ways to support its blackmail diplomacy based on provocations to gain political and economic concessions, it supports domestic propaganda, it enhances credibility with the regime elite, and proliferation brings hard currency. From the regime's calculus it is a damn good investment.
V/R
Dave
The prospect of a North Korean ICBM
By Hugh White - 17 December 2012 11:39AM
As usual, most commentary on North Korea's rocket launch last week focuses on the politics and diplomacy of Pyongyang's delinquency. But it is worth exploring the strategic implications more specifically. These are significant, but not straightforward.
The apparently successful launch of a three-stage rocket makes it rather clearer than before that North Korea has both the capacity and the intention to build an intercontinental-range ballistic missile (ICBM). It is now prudent to expect that in perhaps as little as a decade, if North Korea survives in its present form, it may well have an operational ICBM capability. This would give Pyongyang the capacity to deliver a small number of probably relatively low-yield nuclear warheads onto American cities.
The key question, therefore, is what this would mean for strategic affairs in Northeast Asia over coming decades.
The first thing to say is what it doesn't mean. It does not mean North Korea has any rational options to initiate an unprovoked nuclear attack on the US, because that would certainly produce a totally devastating US response. Nor does it make much if any difference to Pyongyang's capacity to deter a nuclear, or regime-threatening conventional, attack on North Korea. Its existing medium-range nuclear delivery options bring plenty of high-value targets within range of its nuclear forces today, so Pyongyang already has the capacity to deter military action which potential attackers would fear might cross Pyongyang's red lines.
But an ICBM capability would undermine the deterrent umbrella extended by the US to its Asian allies.
Extended deterrence depends on the credibility (to both the adversary and the ally) of US threats to respond to any nuclear attack on the ally with a US nuclear attack on the adversary. Such credibility depends a great deal on whether the adversary has the capacity to hit back at the US. As long as North Korea has no credible capacity to target America itself, a US retaliatory strike on the North carries relatively low risks for the US itself.
But if the North can hit back, the costs for the US go up dramatically, and the credibility of the US threat goes down. In a crisis, everyone will be asking whether stopping North Korea doing whatever it wants to do is important enough to America to risk a nuclear attack on Honolulu or LA.
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