July 6, 2006 :: The Heritage Foundation :: Analysis
Baker Spring of the Heritage Foundation yesterday laid out a comprehensive set of military capabilities for countering North Korea’s growing missile threat. He noted that these capabilities should be seen as part of a larger “damage limitation strategy” that would lessen both the likelihood and potential impact of a military aggression by North Korea on the U.S. and its allies. The first capability would be a conventional defense of South Korea. Such a defense would encompass the achievement of air dominance to support precision air-based attacks, as well as the ability to destroy North Korean artillery, rocket systems, and armored columns. The second military capability would be a global, layered missile defense system, including the deployment of space-based interceptors and sensors. Spring noted that the U.S. should facilitate direct Japanese and South Korea participation in such an effort. The third capability would be a new nuclear deterrent adapted to the requirements of the post-Cold War world, in particular with respect to rogue regimes. Such a deterrent should be capable of holding targets at risk that are valued by the North Korean leadership as means for personal and regime survival, such as strategic weapons, personal security systems, intelligence services, and other instruments of domestic repression. The fourth military capability would be preemption, to be used if U.S. intelligence believes that a Taep’o-dong 2 long-range ballistic missile has been armed with a nuclear warhead. The U.S. should be prepared to preempt with attack aircraft, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles armed. The missiles should be armed with conventional warheads when there is high confidence of destroying the targets in question, or nuclear warheads if necessary.
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