Nukes of Hazard: Vandenberg, Star Wars, and North Korea

This spring, as American warships and submarines gathered offshore, Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s baby-faced dictator, threatened to reduce the United States “to ashes” with “invincible Hwasong rockets tipped with nuclear warheads” if even a single bullet was fired toward his country. The threat, like so many from the Kim dynasty, felt empty and overplayed. North Korea was still years away from building a missile capable of getting anywhere near the U.S. Or so we thought.

On May 14, North Korea tested a new ballistic missile with what American analysts called “stunning success.” Shot nearly straight up, the Hwasong-12 reached an altitude of 1,312 miles above Earth before harmlessly splashing down in the Sea of Japan. Had it been fired on a flatter trajectory, it would have flown approximately 3,000 miles, putting the U.S. Air Force Base in Guam 2,200 miles away well within striking distance. The demonstration, wrote aerospace engineer John Schilling at Johns Hopkins University, “represents a level of performance never before seen from a North Korean missile.”

This fast-shrinking gap between Kim Jong Un’s bluster and North Korea’s true military might has thrown the Trump administration and our traditional Southeast Asian allies into a panic. And it’s heightened jitters among the American public, especially those living on the West Coast and in Hawai‘i, where echoes of Pearl Harbor are now reverberating at a higher pitch. But clear information, let alone assurances, is not forthcoming from the White House. Trump ominously warned reporters in April the U.S. might very well face a “major, major conflict” with North Korea. “Absolutely,” he said. Yet his cabinet continues to stress diplomacy over intervention. These contradictory approaches only add to an increasing sense of confusion.