Obama Administration: North Korea Not An Imminent Threat

Yes, you read that headline correctly.

President Obama’s national security adviser on Wednesday said that North Korea’s recent nuclear detonation and missile tests are not “an imminent threat” to the safety and security of the United States.

Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, in his first speech on the administration’s approach to national security, said that the “imminent threat” posed by North Korea is that of the proliferation of nuclear technologies to other countries and terrorist organizations.

North Korea still has “a long way” to “weaponize” and work on the delivery of its nuclear missiles before they pose a threat to U.S. security, Jones said in a discussion hosted by the Atlantic Council.

“Nothing that the North Koreans did surprised us,” Jones said. “We knew that they were going to do this, they said so, so no reason not to believe them.”

But the Obama administration is in a tough position with regards to North Korea and in the coming weeks administration officials will try to reach a “global consensus” on how to handle North Korea, Jones indicated. Two key players on the issue, Russia and China, both showed a much harder line against North Korea’s most recent nuclear tests.

One of the crucial conclusions drawn after North Korea’s tests early this week is that there is a growing consensus that states such as North Korea “should not be permitted” to have those nuclear capabilities, Jones said. North Korea’s nuclear ambitions will be on the list of discussion for Obama’s visit to Russia in July, Jones said.

Meanwhile, China’s foreign ministry this week said the country “resolutely opposes” North Korea’s nuclear test. China agreed with the U.S., Japan and Russia to work toward a U.N. resolution censuring North Korea for its nuclear test and missile launches.

I can only assume that the Obama Administration is preferring to ignore not only that North Korea successfully tested a nuclear weapon and launched multiple missiles in the past week, but that they've repudiated the 1953 cease fire agreement, which means that North Korea considers that they are at a state of war with South Korea.

Another possibility is that the Administration is hoping that Russia or China take the lead, particularly since the Chinese may have more influence over North Korea than anyone else. The problem is that the test appears to have taken China by just as much surprise as everyone else and they may no longer be in a position to influence Kim.

The shooting hasn't started, but the verbal jousting continues by the North, which sees the Administration's response as feckless and weak. The North will continue making provocative statements and pushing its own agenda at the expense of South Korea and the US. Ignoring the problem isn't going to make it go away.

How long before they weaponize the delivery of a nuclear weapon? No one quite knows for sure, and they could conceivably decide to stuff one into a shipping container rather than on top of a warhead, even as the North continues working to develop that precise kind of technology.

The North wants to influence the outcome of talks with South Korea - that include an endgame of reunification, and the military overtures are a scare tactic to win concessions. It might even work, given that the Seoul is within artillery range of the North's guns.

Still, the US and South Koreans are raising their surveillance alert status on the peninsula.

The "Watchcon" alert was raised to its second-highest level on Thursday, a government spokeswoman told CNN.

The last time the joint forces raised the surveillance alert was after North Korea's last nuclear test in 2006, according to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency.

The separate five-stage combat alert level, known as "Defcon," has not changed and remains at stage 4, South Korean defense spokesman Won Tae-jae said at Thursday's briefing, according to Yonhap.

"Additional intelligence assets, including personnel, will be deployed while reconnaissance operations over North Korea will increase," Won said, according to Yonhap. He declined to give specific details, the news agency said.

How big a threat is North Korea? Well, the threat is that he could drop a nuke on any major city and that city is pretty much vaporized. What exactly would South Korea or Japan or the US do in return? North Korea doesn't exactly have a robust infrastructure to attack. There's little deterring North Korea from attacking other than Kim's desire to remain in power for as long as possible.

Kim is using the threat of nuclear annihilation to extort concessions out of the Six Party talks (US, Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea).

The North could also use the threat of an attack on the US to make the US balk at backing Japan and/or South Korea in defending their interests. It would be a divide and conquer approach, which leaves Kim in a stronger position than he deserves.