William J. Perry & Ashton B. Carter, former Defense Secretary and Assistant Secretary respectively, now Stanford and Harvard per-fessers :), profess the case for the pre-emptive wallop of Kim Jong Il’s Taepo Dong in a Washington Post op-ed piece today.
A sub-launched cruise missile will do the job nicely, say the boys. First we should threaten it; and then if the North Koreans don’t respond by Defueling their toy and putting it away, we just Take that mother right Out.
Since Our Good Friends the South Koreans will yell to Hell about this plan, they’ll be safe from any Red retaliation, add the lads. Well. Probably. But just in case, they hedge,
…it would be prudent for the United States to enhance deterrence by introducing U.S. air and naval forces into the region at the same time it made its threat to strike the Taepodong. If North Korea opted for such a suicidal course, these extra forces would make its defeat swifter and less costly in lives — American, South Korean and North Korean.
Perry & Carter also opine that if we wreck Kim’s rocket Japan will be pleased, but only Secretly so; whereas Russia and China will be “shocked” but won’t Do squat about it.
Interesting. (OKOK: Intriguing. :) Read the essay. And, as Kat Palmore asks below about the Other kind of global Warming: Thoughts? :|
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:31:43 am
Boys make very convincing points with that essay. Something instinctual, maybe leftover Cold War jitters, makes it seem a little scary having our missile take out there missile, but it is their one missile and will not be armed and is a key component in getting a real missile stockpile built.
Not sure if I think its a good idea, but Perry and Carter more than make the case of it being a logical and prudent one.
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:41:25 am
I was thinking carpet bombing North Korea into nonexistance if the launch the thing would be more fun.
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:50:16 am
Kick some fucking N.K. ass.
Beyatch.
June 22nd, 2006 at 12:03:53 pm
Ack … the op-ed is by the folk who brought us Mogadishu, is it not ?
Now, they may well know more about what North Korea may have gotten from China (that China got from the Clinton Administration thoroughness in protecting US military secrets - in which case, their proposing this may be based upon knowing more about the real risks that the rest of us know …
Reasons to be nervous, guys …
June 22nd, 2006 at 12:19:11 pm
Alasdair -
Despite the history of the previous administration, I think their points are good ones, though. At least they should be seriously considered.
June 22nd, 2006 at 1:12:13 pm
I’m not impressed. The authors spend the bulk of their essay arguing things that ought to be obvious to anyone. That NK in possesion of ICBMs and nukes is dangerous. That missile defense is not reliable. That we have the capability to destroy the missile and the launch complex. That for NK to start a war over such an attack would be irrational suicide.
Should we even expect a rational response from NK and its godhead leader, ‘Lil Kim? Much of the worry over the NK situation arises from not knowing the answer.
June 22nd, 2006 at 2:02:33 pm
Slightly off-topic, but whenever the subject of North Korea comes up I like to plug this Vanity Fair piece by Christopher Hitchens about his time in NK:
http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/050627roco03a
How ’bout an excerpt:
I was hungry when I left Pyongyang. I wasn’t hungry just for a bookshop that sold books that weren’t about Fat Man [Kim Il-Sung] and Little Boy [Kim Jong-Il]. I wasn’t ravenous just for a newspaper that had no pictures of F.M. and L.B. I wasn’t starving just for a TV program or a piece of music or theater or cinema that wasn’t cultist and hero-worshiping. I was HUNGRY. I got off the North Korean plane in Shenyang, one of the provincial capitals of Manchuria, and the airport buffet looked like a cornucopia…
Ok, one more, and this one is right on-topic. Hitchens is describing the so called “Mass Games” in May Day Stadium:
First, you have to picture the outcome of a 10-year collaboration between Busby Berkeley and Leni Riefenstahl… Every now and then, the sentimental and the folkloric are punctuated, to the accompaniment of massed searchlights and skull-splitting chords, by the image of a granite-jawed soldier with flamethrower and bayonet, orâ€â€?and this was the climaxâ€â€?by that of a great rocket lofting into the sky. It was at this point that Little Boy turned to [Madeleine] Albright with a smile and said, Don’t worry. We won’t test any more of them.
Was this a threat or a promise? Perhaps it was a bit of both…
Heh. Or, I should say: yikes.
June 22nd, 2006 at 2:23:12 pm
Go Hitch! Good man. :) Thanks Aaron.
June 22nd, 2006 at 2:29:00 pm
BAD Move.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13481845/
For Godsakes, even though your NOT going to make a pre-emptive launch, don’t ANNOUNCE your not going to make a pre-emptive launch.
June 22nd, 2006 at 3:30:08 pm
Lojo - isn’t it precious how the MSNBC article says that the missile could reach the US mainland - and just manages not to include in the text that it could reach *anywhere* in the US ?
I sure hope Ms Gregiore’s remaining nNational Guard has those cushions loaded and aimed ! And, of course, are practicing their synchronised chants - “Go away, nasty Taepodong ! Go away, nasty Taepodong !”
June 22nd, 2006 at 5:33:05 pm
Solid Vanity Fair article by Hitch. As with everything having to do with NK, extremely depressing.
June 23rd, 2006 at 9:31:19 am
I think bombing the missle would be disasterous, and would be playing with fire.
The reason Clinton could lob missles at Iraq on occasion was because that country wasn’t really strong enough at the time to cause much trouble - the big concern at the time was keeping it from getting WMDs. It lived in a neighborhood quite capable of defending itself against the army Iraq had, so they were stuck while we lobbed stuff at them.
North Korea, though, isn’t in such a neighborhood. South Korea would be unable to defend itself if the North invaded it at this time. The reason they haven’t is that the war would be costly, but if we lob a missle at them, suddenly the status quo ALSO becomes costly to the North Koreans, and they just might retaliate - and a bloody conflict on the peninsula would ensue.
The better course is to threaten China with Japan’s weaponry - if we threaten to give Japan something that China wouldn’t like pointed at them, they might shut the Koreans up right quick. China is much more reasonable than North Korea - they aren’t saints, but at least their moves make sense. To quote Family Guy, “Hallaluja, the lesser of two evils!”
The nice thing is that the Japanese are one of the more trustworthy governments out there, too, so if we give them missiles, we can figure they aren’t going to do anything rash.
June 23rd, 2006 at 10:34:02 am
I am pretty much with B. Minich on this one. I am against a preemptive strike on NK soil, but I absolutely think we should see if the missile defense system works. Long term, I also believe we should arm Japan to the teeth.
The only criticism of using the missile defense system is that, if we miss (which is likely), we’ll look stupid in front of the NK. Well, as the Hitch article demonstrates, NK is so full of indoctrination and propaganda, we really shouldn’t worry about what NK thinks and we should be far more intent on using this as a real-life test for our missile defense system.
June 23rd, 2006 at 6:02:06 pm
Perhaps it’s time for one of those asteroids that goes through a ‘near Earth orbit’ path to somehow manage to land on the NK Missile launching site ? Quite a coincidence, I know, but, after all, the Impreialist Lackey Running-dog US Scientists aren’t capable of making that happen, now, are they ?
(grin)
June 24th, 2006 at 6:55:14 pm
Intriguing, Alasdair. :) By God you CAN think Good thoughts when you put yer Lowland Republican (not to say, “repooblich’unn” :) mind to it. :) Hey, in “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress” Heinlein’s freedom fighters on Luna colony beat the Terran tyrants just by launching inert Rocks at them, right down the old Gravity Chute / helluvagood Bang fer the Buck by the time ya Get to Target :> I think a Bluewater-oceanic Demonstration strike was enough to the Settle the issue / dunno ’bout the presumably-ensuing Tsunami, been a long time since I read it :]
Actually it’s my understanding that our Missile Defense killvehicles operate on the Rock principle too / no chemical (or, shudder, nukular) detonation, just Kinetic energy, iow, Whammo / ‘course the Velocity isn’t Gravitational, not Hardly, that’s forbidden by Sir Isaac / it’s the Aiming that’s the Neat Trick, IMEO (Expert :) (waw haw :)
Speaking of Which, last I heard Bush has delegated the Taepodong-ABM Launch-decision authority to Rummy, owing to the critical Need for Speed / oy veh / Cross Fingers…Also the Bigfat General in charge of Missile Defense has expressed full Confidence in the operational effectiveness of the System…cross More fingers… (nervous grin :)
June 25th, 2006 at 11:27:12 am
Joe - I’m also one who believes that Heinlein’s idea of setting standards for a Legislative body is well thought out … such that it should take a successful 2/3 vote or higher to pass a given piece of legislation - a Good Idea … and it should only need a 1/3 vote of said chamber to repeal a given piece of legislation - another Good idea …
December 1st, 2006 at 8:02:01 am
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