When it comes to North Korea,
much digital ink as has been spilled by yours truly
on these very pages concerning the dangers and challenges
ahead—demonstrated by North Korea’s latest missile launch—when it comes
to dealing with and deterring the so-called “hermit kingdom.”
So, let me spare you hours of reading countless articles, op-eds, and tweets.
To be honest, there is only one thing you really need
to know: A war with North Korea—meaning a full-blown, all out conflict
where nuclear, chemical, biological and large amounts of conventional
weapons are used—would be a war like no other.
Such a conflict would be nothing like the First Gulf War, Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, the Second Gulf War or Libya.
One way to achieve such a result would be a North
Korean attack on South Korea’s vast civilian nuclear infrastructure.
Remember Chernobyl or the nuclear tragedy in Japan a few years ago? Well
Pyongyang could weaponize such a disaster with ease.
Oh no, this would be an epic conflict where millions
of people on the Korean Peninsula, in Japan and even in the U.S.
homeland could lose their lives in the most horrific of ways.
Some might call such talk fear-mongering. But I call it reality—and we need to face up to it. Now.
Imagine large cities like Seoul, Tokyo, and perhaps
Los Angeles turned to atomic ash before it’s all over. Imagine the
millions of internally and externally displaced refugees whose lives
would be destroyed from the sheer carnage. Then, imagine the trillions
of dollars needed to put back together the economics pieces, to say
nothing of the hopes and dreams of countless millions of people that
would be wiped out in a nuclear nightmare that seems almost unthinkable.
Accept this nightmare is all too real.
And thanks to administration after
administration—Democrat and Republican—who decided taking on North Korea
was just not worth the risk, who thought patience, appeasement or
bribery were better choices, we now face a crisis with no easy solution.
While I have already gone into specific detail over just how horrific just a conflict would
be thanks to war games I have conducted over the years, such a war
would be waged on many different fronts and have many pathways towards a
humanitarian disaster that this planet has not seen in decades.
For example, North Korea does not need to launch a
full-out nuclear attack on America and its allies to kill scores of
people—it just needs to get a little creative.
One way to achieve such a result would be a North
Korean attack on South Korea’s vast civilian nuclear infrastructure.
Remember Chernobyl or the nuclear tragedy in Japan a few years ago? Well
Pyongyang could weaponize such a disaster with ease.
Seoul operates 24 nuclear power plants that could all
come under North Korean attack. And while these plants are relatively
far from the north, Kim Jong Un does not have to be a military
mastermind to conceive of a way to destroy such nuclear reactors,
spreading atomic materials across the Korean Peninsula and into
Northeast Asia. With many of these facilities lumped together, Pyongyang
could fire a salvo of missiles at these plants with devastating impact.
Or, Kim could utilize his special forces who could
infiltrate the south from tunnels or who could already be in place,
launching terror attacks against such facilities. If North Korea were to
destroy just a few reactors, imagine multiple Chernobyl-style nuclear
disasters while South Korean and U.S. forces are trying to fight North
Korea’s other forces. With millions of people trying to flee the
inevitable radioactive fallout, fear might just be Kim Jong Un’s best
weapon.
Considering the dangers America and its allies face,
the Trump Administration needs to do all it can to contain the North
Korea threat. As I have said on a few occasions here, our best strategy
is to eliminate any possible funds going into North Korea, driving up
the costs for Kim to deploy his military assets and develop new even
more dangerous weapons of mass destruction.
Team Trump should begin by asking for a new and much
more robust sanctions package at the UN—something that makes Pyongyang
finally pay for its risky actions. As an oil embargo is unlikely to pass
and could destabilize the regime—
something that could be even worse
than a war—North Korea should be stopped from exporting its slave labor
that it uses to make important hard currency, currency that of course
goes into funding its military machine. Such a practice is nothing but
revolting, and should have never been allowed in the first place.
President Trump should also announce that any entity
that is caught helping the North Koreans evade sanctions, whether it’s
Chinese banks or businesses or any private firm or entity from any
nation, would be immediately banned from doing any business in the U.S.
In fact, President Trump should embrace a bipartisan
bill crafted by Senators Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Cory Gardner, R-Colo., Ed
Markey, D-Mass., Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, called
the North Korean Enablers Accountability Act. The bill, if passed, would
“ban any entity that does business with North Korea or its enablers
from using the United States financial system, and impose U.S. sanctions
on all those participating in North Korean labor trafficking
abuses.” The president should push for such legislation to be passed
without delay, but include a 30-day grace period so such entities could
be given a chance to halt their activities. But after that, it’s time
these entities suffer for enabling a regime that has as many as 200,000
in prison camps and treats their citizens like prisoners.
But whatever the Trump Administration decides to
do—they need to do it now. Letting North Korea slip off our collective
national security radar once again for whatever the other challenge of
the day is would be a big mistake. We could end up paying for such a
mistake with countless innocent American lives—a tragedy we have the
power to avoid.
Harry J. Kazianis (@grecianformula) is director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, founded by former President Richard M. Nixon. Click here, for more on Mr. Kazianis.