by Stephen Bryen

Can the United States provide sufficient help to offset the growing North Korean and Chinese threat to the independence and security of South Korea and Japan? It can by putting Pershing missiles in both countries.

How should the United States respond to North Korea?  So far at least the US response has had little or no effect on the North Korean drive to test nuclear weapons, work on miniaturization of warheads, launch ballistic missiles in the Sea of Japan and move forward on a submarine launched ballistic missile threat.

North Korea is increasingly on the brink of becoming a real nuclear power which it will be once it has demonstrated a nuclear delivery system that works.  When that happens, which could be soon, South Korea and Japan will be in a very bad spot.  The North Koreans will then start making demands including reducing or removing America’s troop presence in both countries.  One can anticipate that leftist elements in both South Korea and Japan will come out of the woodwork in force pushing their governments to accept North Korea’s demands.

The problem for Japan includes China too.  If the US is asked to leave Japan that country will be hostage not only to North Korean pressure, but even more so to China.  Japan will shift from being a major US ally, to a neutral country within the Chinese orbit.  The political, economic and strategic consequences of such a possible shift is immense.  For some time, as US power in the Pacific dissipates and as China expands its influence, Asian countries are extremely nervous.  A combination punch from both North Korea and China could be all that is needed for Japan to fall away from the United States.

South Korea is also in a very bad situation.  Even without nuclear weapons and with an inferior air force, North Korea directly threatens much of the industrial heartland of South Korea.  With North Korea having deliverable nuclear weapons the threat becomes truly overbearing.

Is there an answer?  Can the United States provide sufficient help to both countries to offset the growing threat to their independence and security?

In the early 1980’s the United States was faced with the same sort of problem in respect to Europe and, particularly, Germany.  By then the Soviet Union had moved SS-20 mobile, multi-warhead nuclear tipped missiles in range of Germany.  As early as 1977 then German chancellor Helmut Schmidt called for a deterrent to the SS-20s.  The Reagan administration responded by offering the Pershing II missile.  Unlike the SS-20 the Pershing II had only one nuclear warhead, but the presence of the missile nevertheless was an effective deterrent to the Soviets. Eventually –by putting in place a real offset to the SS-20 threat– Russia and the US agreed to an arms deal that saw both the Russian and American missiles scrapped.

But, as we know, there was a big fight over the Pershing deployment in the early 1980’s.  A surging leftist movement in Europe, fed by the Communists, attempted through protests and political action to force the German government to refuse the missiles.  Had  the left won the fight it is unlikely the NATO alliance could have survived the political backlash.

Today the United States needs to deploy missile based deterrents on both Japanese and South Korean soil.  This is the only sure way to show determination to North Korea and for them to understand our intention  to actively protect the security of both countries.

Without showing a land-based deterrent, no amount of words from the United States is likely to act as a deterrent.

Tagged: Japan, North Korea, Nuclear Missiles, Pershing II