THAAD Article 1 : North Korean Nuclear Threat and THAAD
http://www.heraldinsight.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=360

 

The decision to deploy THAAD in South Korea begs the question: why is North Korea so intractable in its effort to go nuclear? It appears totally illogical for such a destitute country to continue to threaten nuclear attack on the United States and South Korea, braving the ever-tightening UN sanctions. However, upon closer inspection of North Korea’s history, governing ideology, and political makeup, the Kim regime’s insistence on nuclear power is hardly surprising. What is surprising is the level of threat North Korea poses.

 

North Korea’s history, governing ideology and political makeup offer an explanation as to why North Korea is not, and has never been, willing to let go of its nuclear ambition. Ever since 1945, North Korea has never wavered from its core strategic objective—also written in its constitution—of unifying the Korean peninsula under its ideology and system of government. And yet, North Korea continues to share a border with South Korea and the U.S. and thus perennially feels threatened by democracy. What makes North Korea’s objective particularly dangerous is the sacred belief inculcated into the minds of all North Koreans that only the Kim family, the descendants of Kim Il Sung, shall rule North Korea. It the Kim family itself that desperately clings to the nuclear capability out of fear for democracy.

 

During the early years of the Kim family regime, North Korea enjoyed a relatively stable economy thanks to the aids from the former Soviet Union. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, North Korea experienced a total collapse of its economy. North Korea is now basically a ‘failed state.’ It has no economy to speak of; its GDP is 1/50th of that of South Korea. Its communist social structure also disintegrated as the North Korean regime became incapable of even distributing the minimum daily calories to its people. Any other nation with North Korea’s problems would have ceased to exist as a nation state long ago. However, North Korea is still standing. The only thing that keeps North Korea together at its seams is the fear imposed by the Kim family regime through propaganda on the imaginary U.S. design to destroy North Korea. This explains the Kim regime’s continued propaganda that the only available deterrence is nuclear weapons. In North Korea, the fear imposed by the regime and poverty is so widespread that the momentum of revolution is said to be unlikely. The world, then, faces a sad and frightening specter of a destitute nation trying to preserve its dictatorial regime by brandishing nuclear weapons. Can anything be done to stop them?
 

The past two decades have seen plenty of international efforts to dissuade North Korea from pursuing nuclear weapons. The ‘six-party talks’ convened among China, the United States, North and South Korea, Japan, and Russia for this very purpose. The basic idea behind the talks was a trade-off between North Korea’s nuclear disarmament and normalized diplomatic relations. Participants in the talks thought, naively as it turned out, that by providing North Korea with benefits the nation had yet to enjoy, it would discontinue its nuclear development. North Korea surreptitiously continued its nuclear program during the talks, however, and pulled out the six-party talks altogether in 2009. Afterwards, the UN imposed sanctions on North Korea in an attempt to use economic pressure to discourage nuclear weapons development. This also failed, as the nation continued to perform nuclear tests despite the sanctions. “In the case that North Korea has no nuclear WMDs (weapons of mass destruction), it will only be a matter of time before they lose against the South Korea-U.S. alliance. [. . .] This is why the nation continues to push for the development of nuclear weapons,” says Professor Boo Hyung-wook at Korea National Defense University. In the end, neither the carrot approach nor the stick approach ever made a dent in North Korea’s drive toward becoming a nuclear power.
 

Given North Korea’s intransigence, a closer examination of the North Korean nuclear threat is necessary. North Korea can target South Korea by using medium-range missiles like Nodong, Taepodong-1 and Musudan. These missiles can carry nukes that are sufficiently miniaturized. Furthermore, they are ideal for targeting a close country like South Korea. Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), such as Taepodong-2 (with a maximum range of 8,000 kilometers), on the other hand, have intercontinental strike capability.

 

North Korea’s ICBMs are said to be targeting the United States. Their considerable size and payload capacity render miniaturization less of an issue. However, experts speculate that North Korea has yet to fully master the metallurgy in developing ICBMs. Metallurgy is an issue with ICBMs because an ICBM’s trajectory takes it out of the atmosphere, thus requiring the perilous atmospheric reentry. This phase generates intense heat that can burn up the ICBM’s warhead. The metallurgy of the ICBM has to be sophisticated enough so that the warhead will not burn up during the reentry into the atmosphere. The inescapable fact, however, is that North Korea is inching toward the successful development of ICBMs. Experts also warn that an ICBM launched at a steep angle from the northernmost part of North Korea can target South Korea.  

 

The introduction of THAAD in South Korea is designed to protect the nation from land-based missiles such as the medium-range missiles and ICBMs. However, the limitation of THAAD or other anti-missile systems is that they are most effective when the direction of missile attack can be anticipated. This means that North Korea’s successful submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test in August 2016 poses a new level of threat. With SLBMs, South Korea’s missile defense can be breached by a surprise launch from a submarine whose location is not previously known to the anti-missile system. “Even if an advanced radar is in place, it is extremely hard to detect objects that move underwater,” according to Professor Boo. As a result, there is less time for the defense system to react.

 

Defense against SLBMs, unlike that against land-based missile launchers, also requires a submarine fleet capable of hunting and tracking down the enemy submarines. Professor Boo says that an anti-submarine operation should be launched by the South Korean navy in order to counter the threat of North Korean ICBMs; however, experts agree that South Korean anti-submarine warfare capability remains inadequate in number, if not the capability of its submarine fleet or the quality of its personnel. South Korea also lacks a comprehensive integrated underwater defense system and must rely on the U.S. Navy to make up for this deficiency.

 

Military experts agree that North Korean nuclear threat is now concrete and that South Korea is ill-equipped to deal with it. Experts also agree that North Korea’s Kim family regime is likely to come crumbling down without its nuclear weapons. It would, therefore, be unwise to assume that North Korea can be coaxed to give up its nuclear weapons any time soon. Unfortunately for South Korea, North Korea is inching closer to becoming a full-fledged nuclear power.

 

Andrew Chung

11th grade

Seoul Foreign School
 

THAAD Article 3 : Oppositions to THAAD Deployment
http://www.heraldinsight.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=383