Playing blackjack at The Star Casino on Brisbane’s Gold Coast, I couldn’t help ponder if Trump was bluffing about blowing North Korea to smithereens. Walking on the golden sands at Surfers Paradise, I couldn’t help think about North Korea’s short-range missiles that Kim is certain to export to generate cash in the face of recent crippling sanctions imposed by the U.N.
I flew out of Hong Kong the night of August 9 — 72 years after America dropped its second atomic bomb on Nagasaki that killed 70,000 people – and arrived in Brisbane, Australia on August 10, one day after North Korea’s Kim Jong-un called President Trump’s “bluff.” Trump had threatened “fire and fury” if Kim made “any more threats.”
Well, the braggadocio bouffant in Pyongyang did – indirectly through a general. The general announced a “plan,” subject to Kim’s approval, to launch a pre-emptive strike with four missiles into the waters of Guam and produce a wall of fire by the middle of August. Guam, a U.S. territory since 1898, after the American-Spanish War, has a U.S. Air Force base that hosts B-2 stealth bombers, B-1 and B-52 bombers, a navy helicopter squadron, and Naval Base that is home port for four nuclear-powered fast-attack submarines and two submarine tenders.
America is “locked and loaded.”
The inflammatory trash talk continued daily during my Australian sojourn. From Trumps’ maybe the threat was “not tough enough,” to Kim’s “shameful defeat and final doom” of America.
“Let’s see what he does with Guam. If he does something, it will be an event the likes of which no one has ever seen, what will happen in North Korea,” Trump said.
I left Australia for New Zealand on August 15, believing Kim would not approve any plan to attack Guam because of his self-interest to preserve his family’s despotic dynastic leadership of the Hermit Kingdom.
If Trump’s words are seen as a hollow bluff, then U.S. foreign strategic credibility will be seriously eroded. North Korea is Trump’s defining foreign policy from hell that hellfire may be the only solution. A pre-emptive strike by America is therefore possible if North Korea doesn’t agree to denuclearize.
Trump apparently intentionally, echoed the words of President Truman who, before dropping the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki in 1945, told the Japanese “they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.”
There is another option. The Chinese might engineer a coup in Pyongyang or move in militarily to take direct control of North Korea. Such acts in the past would have been seen as acts of aggression and expansion. Today the world would be relieved if North Korea’s nuclear arsenal fell into Chinese hands because Beijing is viewed as a responsible nuclear power.
The Chinese saying that “a man with nothing to lose does not fear a man with something to lose,” comes to mind.
Let’s not forget China has in recent months bolstered defenses along its 1400km border with North Korea, realigned military forces in surrounding regions to prepare for a potential crisis resulting from a U.S. attack, been staging an unprecedented live-fire naval exercise to the west of the Korean peninsula – involving dozens of surface ships and submarines, aircraft and marines – a week after a huge military parade to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army, over which President Xi Jinping presided in a peaked hat and camouflage uniform.
Let’s also not forget about Kim’s short-range missile system that North Korea can export to any number of willing buyers – especially now after the Hermit Kingdom faces the most severe sanctions ever imposed by the U.N.
The missile is an advanced version of a Scud, a 185 to 620-mile-range missile that has been in use world-wide for decades. What makes North Korea’s just tested so different is that it has a maneuvering re-entry vehicle, or MaRV, which allows the missile’s warhead to maneuver late in flight both to evade missile defenses and achieve pinpoint accuracy. It has a highly accurate front-end optimized to knock out overseas U.S. and allied bases, Persian Gulf oil fields, key Israeli assets, commercial airlines and shipping.
North Korea has already sold ballistic missiles to seven countries, including Iran, Syria, and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
If Hezbollah, a North Korean arms customer, got its hands on the new system, it could make good on its threats to take out Israeli targets. If ISIS got its hands on this system it could take out American and allied warships, military bases and civilian targets.
While we are all concerned about the potential war over Kim’s long-range missiles, let’s not lose sight of its short term missiles which also pose an immediate threat to America and its allies.