South Korea discusses Defense Options after North Korea’s Missile Tests

• This year, North Korea has conducted dozens of missile testing, including an ICBM-test last week.
• These tests follow years of talks and sanctions to reach an arms-control agreement with the North.
• In South Korea, debate about defenses is intensifying — including preemptive strikes and nuclear weapons.

North Korea, Once again, Tested an intercontinental missile with ballistic technology last week. It is also another one among There were many missile testsThis year. This one stands out. Can strike the continental United States.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has pledged to continue this year’s celebrations aggressive testing regimen. And a Seventh nuclear testIs Widely expectedAlso this year. As always,We have several options for you to respondThe Northern testing is poor.

Can we reach an arms-control agreement with North Korea?

The Non-Proliferation Treaty of (NPT), and the International Atomic Energy Agency do not include North Korea. The number of warheads and missiles North Korea has is not known to outsiders. A negotiated agreement would be the best way to find out and slow down testing and building.

The record of such efforts is not good. Since the 1990s, talks between the two Koreas about nuclear weapons have been ongoing. Multiple protocols have been signed by North Korea that support a de-nuclearized Korean peninsula. Pyongyang, however, has continued to march toward better and more powerful weapons of mass destruction for decades.

In the same way, North Korea has been an untrustworthy party in previous negotiations. This includes the Agreed framework in the 1990s, and the Six-Party Talks 2000s. In 2012, President Barack Obama attempted a second effort. This agreement was immediately broken by North Korea. Donald Trump also tried, but failed to make it through three summits. It was a complete failure..

We should always keep talking to North Korea — it is too dangerous to ignore — but there is little realistic hope that North Korea will deal profoundly with its nukes or missiles at this point. Kim even stated it!They are not an area for negotiation.

Should we continue to sanction North Korea?

North Korea is already heavily sanctioned. The problem isn’t so much adding more restrictions as it is toThey should be enforced.

China and Russia let North Korea cheat on the sanctions. However, the world’s democracies struggle to get them to comply with the rules. Unsurprisingly, this situation has gotten worse since. The start of the Ukraine War. Russia has become deeply alienated from the West, and it is happy to ignore the bad North Korean behavior in order to annoy them.

ChinaIt is generally not willing to push North Korea far. It sees North Korea as a geopolitical threatmaker, much like Russia. Japan and the USA tend to focus more on North Korea in Northeast Asia than they do on China’s encroachments in Southeast Asia.

China is a signatory to a formal North-South treaty, and is happy to ignore North Korean sanctions-busting in order to support it and prevent a collapse of its regime.

Here is where the conversation is heading. This year, at conferences in South Korea, I saw very little talk about a deal. It is. All about defense now.

Trump and his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-InMade in a vast outreach effort — the biggest ever in the history of negotiation with North Korea, including six summits. But North Korea was very aggressive this year and offered very little in the talks.

It is not surprising that the conversation has shifted to increasingly risky kinetic options. Hawkish positions, previously too extreme, are now being discussed in the public eye.

Early last year, I argued that the failure of the Trump-Moon détente effort would push the debate toward more hawkish options. I speculatedA naval quarantine similar to the US Navy Blockade of Cuba during Cuban Missile Crisis might be the next step.

North Korean sanctions-busting depends heavily on water-borne shipping. China and Russia have refused to take action, but blocking North Korean ports would force them to enforce sanctions. This would be economic warfare with an edge.

Instead, the debate has moved to the right. The current South Korean president Yoon Seok-yeolAs a candidate, he suggested that South Korea might be considered. Air-strike preemptivelyNorth Korean missile facilities in crisis Außerdem a large debateThere has been a lot of controversy over South Korean nuclear weapons. South Korea’s conservative party suggested that South Korea withdraw from the NPT in the event of a seventh nuclear attack by the North.

This is the first step to a South Korean nuclear arsenal that is independent. For parity with North. The South does not need a large arsenal, but it is also well-equipped. up missile-defense efforts. Yet, it is important.

Kim Jong Un is responsible if it does happen. He has relentlessly forced South Korea into a position where discussion of more radical options seems almost inevitable.

Expert Biography: Robert E. Kelly (@Robert_E_Kelly; RobertEdwinKelly.com) is a professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science at Pusan National University and 19FortyFive contributing editor.