PETER LAYTON |

North Korea has the strategic initiative. Its plan to build a nuclear armed, long-range missile force is nearing completion. Other countries can do little – with China’s ongoing support, sanctions can be evaded and UN resolutions ignored.

Accordingly, many commentators now argue that the Trump administration’s angst will lead nowhere. Instead, a DPRK nuclear rocket force is inevitable, with deterrence the best policy in response, perhaps including anti-missile systems (one should be careful not to exaggerate the effectiveness of anti-missile systems in time of war, however).

There is much to commend this approach. Doing nothing does seem less risky. Moreover, the DPRK’s nuclear force may be at best boutique. The country’s intentions, at least at the moment, seems to be building a small road-mobile force equipped with several long-range liquid-fuel rockets armed with relatively low-yield nuclear warheads. This appears, at best, a rather minimal deterrent force. There are doubts a road-mobile liquid rocket is even sensible – being somewhat unreliable and inherently unsafe, this technology is not used by any other country.

On the other hand, the threat that, say, a 20 kiloton weapon (tested by the DPRK in 2016) may possibly strike Honolulu in some future nightmare scenario may well successfully constrain US actions in future Korean peninsula crises. Such a bomb might kill 65,000 and injure 110,000 more. A tiny DPRK force may be enough. Such a line of thought perhaps supports those who see the current US-DPRK stand-off as being as dangerous as the Cuban Missile Crisis – a rather worrying prospect.

Channelling John Lennon then, let’s imagine that the US and its allies were determined to prevent North Korea achieving its nuclear force ambitions. What could be done?

Please click here to read the full “How to complicate North Korea’s nuclear weapons plans” article in The Interpreter by Griffith Asia Institute Visiting Fellow, Dr Peter Layton.