North Korea has been developing a program to acquire nuclear ballistic missiles for about twenty years. The first atomic test was the October 9 2006 with power (estimated by seismographs) between the 0.7 and the 2 kilotons. But the international community has been in flux since last year, when the fifth test, of the 9 September 2016, was evaluated among the 15 and the 25 kilotons, or the typical power of a tactical weapon (the Hiroshima bomb was 15 kt, that of Nagasaki of 20). But the sixth and final test of the 3 September 2017 has reached a higher power than the 70 kilotons. That is a strategic weapon.
The Korean regime since the seventies has succeeded in obtaining missiles Scud that, according to a deserter, the Soviet Union provided them in the 1972. The most accredited version is instead that the missiles were supplied by Egypt in the 1979-80 as a reward for the help provided by North Korea during the Yom Kippur war. Incidentally, with the name of Shabab-1 the first Iranian surface-to-surface missile was also launched. North Korea is in fact an active exporter of missiles to Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, Syria, Libya, thus creating a destabilizing factor even in the Middle East equilibrium, as it has provided Pakistan and Iran with nuclear weapons carriers.
The line born with the Egyptian Scuds developed rapidly after the Hwasong-5 and direct derivatives Hwasong-6 e 7 of the 1998 (which could carry a nuclear warhead at a distance variously estimated between 1000 and 1500 km and could therefore already be defined as a "theater" MRBM), from which the operating versions called "Rodong" were derived.
In fact, however, the missile that most worries the US is Hwasong-10 ("Musudan"), a terrestrial version of the Soviet SLBM R-27 Zyb (SS-N-6 Serb). With a range of around 4000 km, it is an IRBM capable of hitting the US base in Guam and the Taepodong-2 (8000 km) and the Hwasong-13 (12000 km), the latter capable of keeping all the continental United States under fire, apart from Florida.
Beyond military skirmishes and verbal controversies, it is still important to consider the geostrategic and international political implications, which always find in diplomacy the main place where the true reality of the balance of power between the various actors emerges. With this in mind, the visit to Beijing by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson - who opened direct diplomatic contacts with Kim - is a much more important fact than the flight of less than a dozen US planes along the North Korean coasts, however keeping well in international waters. Moreover Tillerson has not only talked about the Korean crisis, showing how in the relations between the United States and China, the great chess game remains mainly the economic and financial one.
The only plausible American military option at this point would be a strike pre-emptive, which however poses a series of very heavy and difficult solutions.
The first is that it would need, if not the alliance, at least the consent of Japan and South Korea. But Japan would be under the fire of North Korean missiles, and South Korea would risk even more: the capital Seoul is a few kilometers from the border, so vulnerable to North Korean artillery, not to mention tactical missiles Scud e FROG. South Korea is a small, economically advanced and heavily populated country, so damage to people and property would certainly be substantial. The US military should therefore simultaneously attack North Korea and protect South Korea and Japan.
The second is that it must be able to knock out all the missiles (preventing North Korea from building new ones) quickly destroying the nuclear infrastructure.
The third is that in any case the American military initiative would be very risky without the tacit consent of China and Russia. As we know, the triad of China, the United States and Russia governs globalization, since they are the only three countries in the world capable of pursuing a great autonomous strategy. The global strategic game is guided by these three great actors, whose rivalries and alliances decide all international politics, heavily influencing the weakest or most blackmailers.
Finally, the most important factor of all: we must first develop a exit strategy that after the military action you report everything on the field of diplomacy and reconstruction.
Put things this way, the chances of the United States deciding to invade North Korea as it did in Iraq are now almost equal to Azerbaijani: the ground attack could only start from South Korea, and preparations would be very difficult to hide. At that point a North Korean missile reaction would be inevitable. Furthermore, China, as shown by the Korean and Vietnam wars, would not tolerate the presence of American forces directly in contact with its borders (Xi says: "we will not accept an attack on the home threshold") but not even a united Korea, militarily strong and ally of the United States.
In short, the situation from the military point of view is therefore strongly stalled, and it is not surprising that the two contenders so far have barked very much, have occasionally shown their teeth, but that there has been no bite.
Arduino Paniccia
President ASCE - School of International Economic Competition of Venice and Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of Trieste
(photo: KCNA / US Department of State / US DoD)
