WASHINGTON – It’s no secret that the US military has been graduallyamassing firepower on the Korean Peninsula since Pyongyang began testing arange of ballistic missiles in April, triggering a US military buildupacross the border in South Korea. Now, it appears the Pentagon is preparingits forces there for a potential nuclear strike against North Korea.
The B-2 Spirit stealth bomber and B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber, thetwo planes comprising the “air leg” of the US’ nuclear triad, have bothbeen deployed to the Korean Peninsula. Furthermore, Business Insiderreported that the B-2s may soon be equipped with modified B-61 nuclearbombs.
The B-61 thermonuclear gravity bomb has been the US’ low yield strategicand tactical nuclear bomb of choice since the 1960s. Its compact design wasrecently modified to increase its penetrative potential so that it canbetter strike at underground targets — where most of North Korea’s nucleararsenal is believed to be.
The new B-61 also can be adjusted to greatly reduce nuclear fallout after astrike. One major point of contention behind an American nuclear strikewould be the untold ruin it would bring on North Korean civiliansfor generations to come. Geopolitical analysts have sought a wayfor Washington to have its cake and eat it too: to demolish North Korea’snuclear sites without damaging anything but those nuclear sites.
White House reports from earlier in January claimed that Trump wasconsidering a “bloody nose” strike against Pyongyang’s nuclear sites. Whenasked about this possibility, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson toldreporters that “we have to recognize that the threat is growing and that ifNorth Korea does not choose the pathway of engagement, discussion,negotiation then they themselves will trigger an option.”
Another Trump lieutenant, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, made a rare publicappearance for a panel hosted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)on Tuesday. When North Korea was inevitably brought up, Pompeo refusedto rule out the possibility of an American preemptive strikeagainst Pyongyang — although he insisted that diplomacy remained the US’first choice.
“The president is intent on delivering a solution through diplomatic means…We are equally, at the same time, ensuring that if we conclude that is notpossible, that we present the president with a range of options that canachieve his stated intention,” Pompeo told AEI.
However, while he wouldn’t take the option off the table, he also wouldn’texplicitly recommend it. Pompeo said that he would “leave to othersto address the capacity or the wisdom of a preemptive strike… we’re tryingto ensure that all the various options that the president might wantto consider are fully informed, that we understand what’s really goingon and the risks associated with each of those decisions as best we canidentify them for him.”
He added that he did not buy the argument that North Korean leader KimJong-un would only use his nascent arsenal to defend North Koreansovereignty — as North Korean military strategy states — but may also usethem to bully or even conquer South Korea. (North and South Korea, in themeantime, have recently engaged in high-level peace talks and agreedto march into the upcoming Winter Olympics under one pro-unification flag,events taken as signs of a serious thaw in relations.)[image: Chinese flag stands in the breeze as a loader moves coal at a coalmine near Ordos in northern China (File)]
While Pompeo added that Kim is a “rational actor,” it was his opinion thatKim “would use [nuclear weapons] beyond self-preservation.”
“This is a threat to the whole world,” Pompeo said of the North Koreannuclear program.
Congressional Democrats have announced that they would oppose any strikeagainst North Korea, limited or not; indeed, some reject the premiseentirely.[image: B-2 Stealth Bomber.]
“There’s no such thing as a limited strike, whether or not you use anuclear cruise missile,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), a retired USArmy lt. colonel, to reporters one day after Tillerson’s remarks. “You willhave massive, massive noncombatant injuries, casualties, as wellas military casualties.”
A 2017 paper published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’sInternational Security think tank claimed that modern US nuclear weaponsand guidance systems could obliterate North Korea’s nuclear infrastructurewith five strategic strikes — all while only causing around 100 deaths.
Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate at the James Martin Centerfor Nonproliferation Studies, slammed the MIT study as unrealistic andunfounded. Hanham highlighted the all-important point that the incrediblesecretiveness of the North Korean government means that there may benuclear sites or weapons that are unknown to their enemies, and thus wouldnot be eliminated by a presumed “bloody nose” strike.
There is also the concern of Pyongyang’s vast arsenal of conventionalweapons that most analysts agree could cause catastrophic damage to theSouth Korean capital of Seoul in case of armed conflict.