The absurdity of the notion that North Korea poses a threat to Hawaii or Guam with nuclear missiles doesn’t mean that it should be laughed away.
The Obama administration’s policy of "strategic patience" over the past two years needs revision to end Pyongyang’s repeated provocations.
North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006, may have put a satellite into orbit in December and conducted a third nuclear test last month, but its capability of loading a missile with a long-range warhead reaching Hawaii is nil. Just in case, fortunately, the Pentagon announced last week it will spend $1 billion to add 15 interceptors to an Alaska-based missile defense system to protect the U.S. from any North Korean threat.
Earlier this week, North Korea said that its strategic and long-range artillery units "are assigned to strike bases of the U.S. imperialist aggressor troops in the U.S. mainland and on Hawaii and Guam and other operational zones in the Pacific as well as all the enemy targets in South Korea and its vicinity."
Kim Jong Un, the country’s young and untested dictator, reportedly ordered his soldiers to send the enemies "to the bottom of the sea as they run wild like wolves threatened with fire."
The U.S. has long urged China to put pressure on North Korea to end its nuclear and missile programs and begin economic reforms, but that hasn’t worked. The six-party talks hosted by China have not convened since 2008. But even China seems to be growing weary of the tiresome saber-rattling, drafting new sanctions against North Korea that were approved this month by the U.N. Security Council.
Three Security Council resolutions bar North Korea from testing or using nuclear or ballistic missile technology, and from importing or exporting material for these programs. They also condemn the North’s third nuclear test in February.
However, they stress commitment "to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution" to North Korea’s nuclear program and urge a resumption of the six-party talks involving the U.S., South Korea, North Korea, China, Russia and Japan.
The Obama administration’s policy in recent years has been to essentially ignore North Korea rather than renew the talks, responding to any provocations with new sanctions. However, North Korea has characterized sanctions as part of an "act of war" and this month declared the 1953 armistice null and void. That armistice was signed between North Korea and China with the U.S. and the United Nations to end three years of fighting that claimed millions of lives. The "Demilitarized Zone" between North and South is today the world’s most heavily guarded border, including 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea. Some 50,000 more American troops are in nearby Japan.
Clearly, the U.S. has a direct stake in stability in this region, the long-range empty threat to Hawaii notwithstanding.
America’s show of force during this week’s South Korean joint military exercises via the B-2 "stealth" bomber flyover sent a strong message. But the de-escalation of war-mongering needs to commence on all sides, with a refocusing toward the diplomatic goal of convincing Kim that his starving regime’s survival depends on abandoning its missile and nuclear programs.
