A Threat We’ve Never Taken Seriously

For the past few decades, North Korea has always been the butt of a joke. Why do you think the movie “The Interview” with Seth Rogen and James Franco was a success? There’s a pattern to North Korea’s threats: they lack a necessity, they threaten war, and North Korea backs off when other countries give North Korea what it needs. But now Americans are starting to take North Korea seriously.

On July 4th, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un presented the U.S. a “gift” for its Independence day: a missile. According to the New York Times, the missile flew 578 miles from North Korea town Kusong to waters between North Korea and Japan. With a maximum range of around 4,160 miles, co-director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists David Wright declared that while the missile would not be able to reach Hawaii or the mainland 48 states, the missile would be able to land in all of Alaska.

However, in the next few months to a year, experts have told Business Insider that North Korea could build an intercontinental ballistic missile. This means the threat of North Korea bombing the U.S. has turned from meaningless mush to a serious global nuclear hazard, and the days where we laugh at North Korea are over. While South Korea and Japan have long lived with the possible reality of North Korean missiles bombing major cities, now it’s America’s turn.

Adm. James Stavridis, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO has said that the we’re “[a]head in terms of offensive ability” yet at the same time, “falling behind in defensive” capability.

America remains a step ahead of North Korea. However, it’s only a small step. To senior fellow on the Missile Defense Project at CSIS Tom Karako’s calculations, America has 36 missile interceptors to be able to stop the maximum number of 6 missiles that North Korea can launch. But suppose we estimated incorrectly and North Korea launches 10 missiles. Would we still be able to protect America and our people? Moving forward, we can only hope to work harder and faster than North Korea. President Trump’s response to North Korea implied that China should take strong action against its ally North Korea. While China disapproved of North Korea’s missile test launch, the country has suggested for diplomatic talks instead of taking action like President Trump hoped.

For as long as we can remember, North Korea has always been crying wolf. But unlike the villagers in the Aesop story, we must take care to be alert to North Korea’s cries-for one day, there might be a real wolf coming our way.