A report that North Korea is believed to have the capability to deliver a small nuclear warhead on a missile should be a wake-up call to President Park Geun-hye.
This is all the more so because these days Park seems more concerned with improving ties with North Korea than with dealing with threats from its weapons of mass destruction, which could threaten our very survival.
Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, the commander of the U.S. forces in South Korea, said recently that he believes North Korea has the capability to miniaturize a nuclear device, and the technology to potentially deliver it.
He said that as a military commander, he cannot afford the “luxury of believing perhaps they haven’t gotten there.”
“Given their technological capabilities, that the times that they’ve been working on this, that they probably have the capabilities to put this together,” he said.
Even though the general quickly added that the outside world has not seen such a capability tested, the possibility of the North flexing such a dangerous nuclear muscle simply frightens us.
It seems that South Korea shares the view of the U.S. general as it has not excluded the possibility that the North has the capability to launch a nuclear-tipped missile.
Foreign Minster Yun Byung-se said that he believes that having conducted three nuclear tests, the North will likely take steps to miniaturize the warheads. “I am worried that such chances are increasing,” he said.
These comments from U.S. and South Korean officials tell us that now we must brace for the worst-case scenario. Military bases, including those of the U.S. forces, and cities in South Korea could be an easy target of a nuclear attack, which can be as swift as an assault by a short-range missile or rocket.
Experts especially warn of the possibility of the North launching an attack from a submarine, against which even the “Kill Chain” preemptive strike system and the Korea Air Missile Defense would be useless. In short, presently we have no effective deterrence against an attack that could result in horrible consequences.
As Gen. Scaparrotti noted, it is difficult to find out exactly where the North stands in terms of nuclear device miniaturization technologies and missile delivery capabilities. What is certain, however, is that it has been fervently working to upgrade those arms technologies.
North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests, and early this year it threatened to test a “new form” of device. So far this year, the North has test-fired missiles and rockets on 21 occasions, including Scud-class missiles with a range of 500 kilometers. It should be noted that it fired the Scud missiles in July from near the Demilitarized Zone, apparently to boast that it could reach all of South Korean territory.
These latest developments show that we in the South will have to live with what we had least hoped for ― the specter of a nuclear attack from the North, which is led by a young leader who is as unpredictable as his father and grandfather were.
As Park has often said, real peace and reconciliation between the two Koreas and an eventual unification can only be built upon a foundation of solid security. She needs to put her words into action to, among other things, remove the nuclear and missile threats.
Talking about why unification would be a bonanza and why she named a presidential panel to prepare for unification simply sounds hollow in the face of reports that military threats from North Korea are real and they would be totally different from we have faced in the past.
