‘Everything on the Table’ as US Considers Shooting Down any Missiles Launched by North Korea

One show of force by Kim Jong-un would be a missile test. Another show of force would be the shooting down of that missile under orders from President Trump. If that isn’t enough to ponder, what would come next is an even bigger question.

Amid heightened tensions over North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, the Pentagon is looking for ways short of war to pressure the country into denuclearization, particularly if Pyongyang goes forward with a sixth nuclear test.

The defense secretary, James Mattis, has briefed Congress on the option, but the military has not yet decided to intercept a test missile.

One US official said the prospective shoot-down strategy would be aimed at occurring after a nuclear test, with the objective being to signal Pyongyang that the US can impose military consequences for a step Donald Trump has described as “unacceptable”.

As usual, the North has some bellicose comments to make about all of this.

But North Korea’s deputy foreign minister, Han Song-Ryol, told the BBC that Pyongyang would continue to test missiles “on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis”. All-out war would ensue if the US took military action, he said.

There are many risks involved in shooting down a North Korean missile.

Experts and former officials said shooting down a North Korean missile during a test would risk an escalation that Washington might not be able to control, which would risk potentially devastating consequences to US allies South Korea and Japan.

With the THADD anti-missile system not yet in place, the US would likely need to use its Aegis system. But it’s not perfect, and a miss by the US could create problems as well.

Instead, both sources said the military was looking at attempting a missile shoot-down with an Aegis missile-defense system aboard a US navy destroyer; or by convincing Japan to use its own missile-defense capabilities against a ballistic missile test traversing Japanese waters.

The USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group, which includes Aegis-equipped destroyers, is headed for the Korean peninsula.

Several previous US administrations have considered shooting down North Korean missile tests, only to reject the option after considering the possible consequences of provoking an unpredictable and bellicose adversary.

Here’s where the possibility of an unsuccessful attempted shoot-down by the US could become a factor.

Another factor complicating a shoot-down would be the risk of embarrassment should Aegis interceptors miss a North Korean target, which might embolden Pyongyang and unnerve US regional allies.

Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, agreed that failure to bring down a missile would give North Korea a “psychological advantage”.

Cronin said the US was “far more likely to try to jam a missile test to ensure it does not fly far from the peninsula”.

Nobody expected any of this to be easy. Kim Jong-un with his massive army and obscure nuclear weapons and missile development programs remains a problem that impacts international relations — something the dictator no doubt delights in creating.

Source: The Guardian

Image: Navel Technology