James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
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North Korea Special Collection

An op-ed for the South China Morning Post.
Tuesday, February 18, 2003

As the crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons programme continues, one question is whether the United States might use military force to resolve it. Three key issues would be involved in successful military strikes against North Korean nuclear facilities: locating all facilities and fissile material stocks that could be used in a nuclear weapons programme; possessing the capability to destroy these targets; and preventing North Korea retaliating with missile strikes, chemical or biological weapons, an escalation to a full-scale conventional war, or nuclear weapons.

Each of these issues present considerable difficulties, but the problem of preventing or limiting North Korean retaliation is the hardest. The potential consequences make military strikes a very unattractive option compared with a diplomatic resolution.

A number of facilities involved in North Korea's nuclear programme have already been identified and located. These include the nuclear reactors and the fuel fabrication and reprocessing facilities. North Korea is unlikely to have additional undiscovered nuclear reactors, although it could have secret facilities to reprocess spent fuel into plutonium.

North Korean officials have admitted having a covert nuclear weapons programme, and while no uranium enrichment facilities have been located, three suspect sites have been identified. Uranium enrichment can be conducted in relatively small facilities, and even below ground. US intelligence officials believe that North Korea has enough plutonium to build one or two nuclear weapons and has probably already constructed them. However, the precise location of these weapons is unknown.

North Korea has reasonably capable air defences, including Mig-29 fighters, surface-to-air missiles and large quantities of anti-aircraft artillery. Nevertheless, above-ground North Korean nuclear facilities would be highly vulnerable to attack by cruise missiles and by stealth fighters or bombers.

Obviously, nuclear facilities that have not been located cannot be attacked. North Korean efforts to use underground facilities to provide protection against attack present an additional difficulty.

The biggest military concern in striking North Korean nuclear facilities is the threat of counterattack. North Korea has between 500 and 600 Scud missiles that could strike targets throughout South Korea.

North Korea could hit Japan with its 100 Rodong missiles. Seventy per cent of North Korean ground units are within 163 km of the demilitarised zone separating North and South Korea.

Finally, if North Korea does have one or two deliverable nuclear weapons, nuclear threats (or actual attacks) would also be available to its leaders.

Even if US strikes on North Korea's nuclear facilities are successful, North Korea would still have the capability to inflict massive damage against South Korea and the 37,000 US troops based there. Efforts to invade South Korea are less likely, but cannot be ruled out. Although the US would likely win an all-out war, the damage to South Korea would be tremendous and US forces would sustain large casualties.

Given these possible military responses, attacks against North Korean nuclear facilities would need to be accompanied by measures to prevent or limit retaliation.

But pre-emptive strikes could not destroy all North Korea's weapons before they inflict significant damage. Many North Korean artillery pieces are stored in caves and most missiles are mounted on mobile launchers. Missile defences would have only limited effectiveness and no real protection is available against North Korean artillery fire.

Because pre-emptive strikes and defences could not prevent North Korea inflicting major damage on South Korean and Japanese targets, the US would probably focus on deterring North Korea from a counterattack by threatening to escalate the conflict to an unacceptable level of violence.

This might include a statement of limited US military objectives in the initial attack on North Korean nuclear facilities, threats to use devastating conventional attacks in response to a major North Korean counter-attack and explicit threats to use nuclear weapons in response to North Korean retaliation with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

This would be a high-risk strategy that would use the threat of escalation to minimise the North Korean military response. If deterrence failed, the situation might escalate rapidly towards a major conventional war and the possible use of weapons of mass destruction. There is even a possibility of direct military conflict with China, which still has a security treaty with North Korea.

Given the high risks and limited ability of military strikes to destroy North Korean nuclear capabilities, it is easy to see why the Bush administration, like the Clinton administration, has decided that military means are an unattractive way to resolve the crisis.