A prominent U.S. security expert has renewed his calls for a risky yet calibrated and stronger deterrence policy signaling the possibility of preemptive military action to counter North Korea's growing intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) threats.
In a recent interview with Yonhap News Agency, Victor Cha, senior vice president for Asia and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), made the case as the North is expected to attempt a third space rocket launch this month amid concerns about its burgeoning military cooperation with Russia.
On Washington's stepped-up export controls on China, the scholar said that the restrictions are requiring countries to "pick a side" as America is worried about "what the world will look like" if China dominates sectors related to artificial intelligence and other technological fields.
"If we know that North Korea is fueling an ICBM and we have a reason to believe that they will launch it not on a lofted trajectory but on a flattened trajectory in the direction of Hawaii, we should be very clear that we have the right to take out that missile either in the mid-course intercept or on the launch pad," he said.
Victor Cha, senior vice president for Asia and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), speaks during an interview with Yonhap News Agency at CSIS headquarters in Washington on Oct. 5, 2023. (Yonhap)
Victor Cha, senior vice president for Asia and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), speaks during an interview with Yonhap News Agency at CSIS headquarters in Washington on Oct. 5, 2023. (Yonhap)
Cha outlined the policy proposal during congressional testimony on Wednesday, describing it as a "declaratory" policy that signals the possibility of preemptive action against the North while reassuring American allies that the United States takes North Korean threats "seriously."
"It's a risky thing to do. But right now, there is nothing deterring North Korea from shooting missiles," he said, pointing to inaction by the U.N. Security Council, where the North's traditional partners, China and Russia, wield veto powers.
Asked whether his proposal includes a "left-of-launch" strategy using electromagnetic, cyber and other technologies to disrupt and defeat a missile launch at a prelaunch stage, the American academic said, "Whatever you need to do."
"It could be anything," he said. "It may not be realistic in the sense that North Korea now has mobile launches with solid fuel. It may be very hard to actually try to take it out before it takes off."
In a CSIS report in January, Cha's research team also advocated for a working-level "preliminary" dialogue about what would be infrastructure prerequisites for the possible redeployment of nuclear arms to South Korea in order to send a clear deterrence signal to Pyongyang.
"We are not talking about shipping the weapons right away. We are talking about what it would take if we were to do this ... what would be the preliminary, non-decisional working-level assessment of what it would take if we were to consider doing this," he said.
Cha's renewed call for such deterrence measures comes as the outlook for reengagement with North Korea remains bleak with the regime showing little interest in dialogue. In addition, the security prospects are muddled by the pursuit of stronger armaments by China and other regional players.
"The war in Europe, China's drive for a thousand nuclear warheads, Japan's military buildup, South Korea's military buildup and all the exercising ... This is not an environment in which North Korea is interested in disarming," he said.
The North's recent release of Pvt. Travis King, detained for crossing the DMZ, was another sign reflective of the regime's unwillingness to engage in dialogue with the U.S., Cha noted.
"They weren't trying to drag it out to get something out of this ... They didn't even do it with the U.S. They did it with the Swedes and the Chinese," he said, referring to the assistance that Sweden and China provided to help bring King out of the North.
In the face of North Korea's growing threats and China's increasing assertiveness, South Korea, the U.S. and Japan have been stepping up trilateral security coordination, which culminated at their Camp David summit in August.
The historic summit produced a series of landmark agreements, including their "commitment to consult" each other in the event of a common threat.
Cha said that the "best-case" scenario for trilateral cooperation would be South Korea and Japan issuing a bilateral security declaration -- similar to the one between Japan and Australia -- so as to lock in and promote progress in their tripartite security efforts.
"It is not a treaty but a political declaration between the two sides," he said.
Regarding an increasingly intricate web of U.S. export controls on China, Cha said that on semiconductors, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, the U.S. is trying to "decouple" despite its "de-risking" mantra.
"I think that in return for the U.S. granting waivers (from the restrictions), the Koreans have to commit to maintaining considerable distance between the technology they are working on with the U.S. and what they are willing to provide China," he said.
Commenting on the South Korea-U.S. alliance, Cha portrayed the decades-old partnership as one that does not just stand against a common threat but also stands for shared values, supply chains and other principles in a broader global context.
"By a global alliance, we mean an alliance institution that does not just benefit the U.S.and Korea, but it is benefiting the world through thins like cooperation on emerging technology, climate change, space exploration and public health," he said.
Cha also touted South Korea's transition from a country "on the margins" to one that is now "central." In particular, interest in Korea has surged, driven by the power of Korean cultural products like K-pop, he noted.
"To me, the important thing is how do you go from that interest in Korea to creating lifelong friendships with these people," he said.
"They often refer to K-pop popularity as being soft power, but that is not. Soft power is not just you are popular, but those people start to think about how to support Korea without you having to coerce them to support Korea," he added.
Source: Yonhap News Agency