North Korea is Not a Direct Threat?

We don't have the W.O.P.R. but we do have SDI.

Perhaps in an attempt to play down the seriousness of the situation in North Korea, U.S. Defense Secretary William Gates said:

He said the North’s nuclear program does not “at this point” represent a direct military threat to the United States and he does not plan to build up American troops in the region. But the North’s efforts pose the potential for an arms race in Asia that could spread beyond the region, he added.

With about 25,000 U.S. troops stationed next to the North Korean border, more troops within range of North Korean missiles, and even states like Hawaii within reach it is tough to see what would constitute a “direct threat” to the U.S.

Gates is not the only one playing down the North Korean threat:

As all this is going on, National Security Adviser and retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, in his first speech on the administration’s approach to national security, said North Korea had “a long way” to go to “weaponize” its missiles with nukes.

The only “imminent threat” it posed, Jones told the Atlantic Council, was in the area of proliferation of its missile and nuclear technologies.

Tough to see this as being a true statement, either.  Especially when a South Korean official said:

“What the North has launched this time appears to be different from what it had launched (previously). It is a new type of a land-to-air missile.”

How much do you trust him?

Did reality suddenly change as it crossed the Potomac River?  Good thing Republicans have stuck by missile defense even though Democrats dislike it.  But even though missile defense could save our bacon and has had a string of stunning successes, it seems as though Obama has different ideas about deployment.  From the same article above:

We now have 25 interceptors at Fort Greeley, Alaska, and three at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The administration plans to cap deployment at 30, with 14 additional interceptors put on hold. That decision was part of a recent gutting of missile defense, cutting $1.4 billion out of various programs and killing others, such as the airborne laser, altogether.

An ABL aircraft flying near the Korean peninsula would be quite useful right now. Unlike its fixed-site cousins, the ground-based interceptors deployed in California and Alaska and hopefully Europe, ABL aircraft can be deployed where needed and are reusable. Imagine them also patrolling the Persian Gulf or the Taiwan Strait.

“Cutting missile-defense funding at this critical juncture sends the wrong signal to both our adversaries and our allies,” [former Defense Secretary William ] Cohen said. “It would embolden North Korea, Iran and other rogue states to pursue missiles of increasing range. It would also confuse our allies and undermine their trust in America’s security guarantees.”

A layered defense against ballistic missiles was what President Reagan had in mind when he launched the Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983. It would include space-, sea- and land-based defenses as well as mobile theater systems, Patriot missiles and the airborne laser. Such a system could deal with all threats from all sources.

While we can only hope that Obama throws his support behind SDI and speaks softly but carries a big stick, his willingness to politicize issues such as terrorism and intelligence gathering techniques leaves little optimism that this situation will be any different, particularly when his defense secretary plays down a real threat into something that is of little “direct” concern.

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