US reportedly wants a limited strike on North Korea to give Kim Jong Un a 'bloody nose'
The US is reportedly considering a limited strike on North Korea to give Kim Jong Un a metaphorical "bloody nose."
The US has plenty of options for delivering a short, sharp strike against North Korea, and could potentially deny them the ability to test and perfect intercontinental ballistic missiles.
But if the US attacks North Korea, it's gambling that a limited strike won't turn into all out nuclear war.
After months of resolutely declaring the US cannot and will not tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea, the US is reportedly planning a "bloody nose" attack to send Pyongyang a message.
The Daily Telegraph cited "well-placed" sources within President Donald Trump's administration as saying they had "dramatically" stepped up preparations for a military solution to North Korea.
Those possible solutions include destroying a launch site before North Korea tests a missile or targeting a stockpile of weapons, according to the Daily Telegraph.
"The Pentagon is trying to find options that would allow them to punch the North Koreans in the nose, get their attention and show that we're serious," a former US security official briefed on policy told the Telegraph.
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Reportedly, the Trump administration has the April 7 strike on a Syrian airfield in mind as a blueprint for the move against North Korea.
Attacking North Korea would make the Syria strike look easy
But when US Navy ships fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield, Trump had the world's support in attacking a nation accused of using chemical weapons on its own people.
Syria's military was already stretched thin fighting a civil war and multiple Islamist terror groups. The strike went virtually unpunished.
If the US strikes North Korea, whose entire military posture is geared towards offense and has a massive standing army, it's unlikely the attack would go unpunished.
Additionally, there are practical reasons why the US can't just blow up a North Korean missile launch site. As Jeffrey Lewis, the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said on Twitter: "Mobile missiles don't need launch sites, Donald."
Instead of using designated launch sites, North Korea's missiles sit on mobile launchers, some of which have treads to launch from offroad locations. Lately, North Korea has varied its launch sites, likely to make it harder for the US to track and possibly intercept them ahead of time.
If the US wants to give you a bloody nose, nothing can stop it
The US does have tools to give North Korea the desired "bloody nose" effect. Short of blowing up a launch site, where launch officers may die and Kim Jong Un himself usually watches nearby, the US could attempt to intercept North Korea's next missile launch.
Not only have the US and its allies increased missile defense deployments to the region, it's also deployed F-35 stealth fighters that have some capability to shoot down missile launches.
Submarines like the USS Michigan, which has frequently visited South Korea during the recent North Korean crisis, could send a volley of cruise missiles at any military site in North Korea without ever surfacing.
Forward-deployed Aegis guided-missile destroyers in the US Navy could intercept the missiles as they launched, Sid Trevethan, a former US Navy specialist in ballistic missile defense and electronic countermeasures told Business Insider.
Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis recently said that although North Korea's last ballistic missile test demonstrated a very long range, he's not convinced the entire missile system works yet. US policy on North Korea explicitly calls for denying it the means to perfect its missile program.
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Destroying North Korean missiles during launch robs Pyongyang of valuable testing, and could ensure that North Korea never actually tests an ICBM shot at full range, meaning they could never be fully confident in their ability to hit the US.
Calling Kim Jong Un's bluff risks nuclear war
The US knows what capabilities it has to counter North Korea, but one thing it cannot know is how North Korea will respond. If the US attempts to strike a launch site with Tomahawk missiles, North Korea may interpret the incoming salvo of missiles targeted near their supreme leader as an outright act of war.
Immediately, Kim Jong Un could give orders for North Korea's massive artillery installations to open fire on Seoul, potentially killing tens of thousands in hours.
The bloody nose scenario comes down to a gamble. Is North Korea ready to enter into all-out war over a limited strike? North Korea has sunk US and South Korean ships without proportionate punishment in the past. It has shelled South Korean islands, captured Americans and South Koreans, and killed civilians without US retaliation.
North Korea, despite holding the weaker hand militarily, has often gambled that the US and South Korea value uneasy peace and prosperity too much to respond tit for tat to its military provocations.
If the US attacks North Korea, it might just call a long-standing bluff and bring the embarrassing realization that Pyongyang's bark is worse than its bite, or it might unleash nuclear war unlike any ever seen on earth.
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