North Korea has the ability to launch nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, although they would likely be unreliable, a Pentagon spy agency has concluded, as the United States and South Korea kept watch on Thursday for a missile test-launch by Pyongyang.
The Defense Intelligence Agency study, dated last month, appeared to be the first time the agency had reached such a conclusion.
We must now consider preemptively attacking North Korea. I do not want to risk a city to the reliability of our missile defenses. They're better then nothing, but how sure are we that they'd work when called on?
And tell me again how we will be able to see when Iran is approaching whatever theoretical "red line" that you might think justify our attacking Iran's nuclear facilities.
Oh, and as I've noted, if you like North Korea's antics, you'll love Iran's when they get nuclear capabilities.
We're dealing with a dangerous regime. I guess now we get to argue missile ranges and what cities at risk should really worry us.
Have a super sparkly day.
UPDATE: No, this doesn't make me feel better:
“In today’s House Armed Services Committee hearing on the Department of Defense budget, a member of the committee read an unclassified passage in a classified report on North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. While I cannot speak to all the details of a report that is classified in its entirety, it would be inaccurate to suggest that the North Korean regime has fully tested, developed, or demonstrated the kinds of nuclear capabilities referenced in the passage. The United States continues to closely monitor the North Korean nuclear program and calls upon North Korea to honor its international obligations.”
Of course whatever North Korea has is not fully tested, developed, or demonstrated. The point is that they have put together something that might work and that given testing and development they can demonstrate it. And until then, neither they nor we know how well the nuclear delivery system would work, but North Korea does now have a nuclear capability.
Which means that we no longer have the luxury of letting North Korea escalae a crisis at will, safe in the knowledge that neither we nor our allies are not at risk. We must now consider preemptive action.
And our non-nuclear allies will have to ponder our extended deterrence when we are vulnerable to Pyongyang's nuclear missiles when North Korea demonstrates a longer-ranged missile that can reach across the Pacific.
