Too often, current tensions in Northeast Asia are seen through one of two dominant lenses: either the growing strategic competition between China and the US—‘destined for war’?—or the sharper and more immediate concerns posed by North Korea. But I want to focus here on a different point: namely, the specific effect that both the North Korean situation and the relentless modernisation of China’s military forces are having in spurring the growth of offensive strike capabilities in Japan and South Korea.

South Korea has recently been working on building its own ballistic-missile capabilities. It test-fired an 800-kilometre-range missile—a Hyunmoo-2B—on 6 April, and again on 23 June, albeit not to the missile’s nominal full range. Officials say the missile will be ‘ready to use after two additional tests’. South Korea apparently intends to deploy its own indigenous capabilities at least partially to offset the growing North Korean ballistic-missile arsenal. But it also seems to want to threaten Pyongyang—and in particular the North Korean leadership—as a deterrent to any North Korean attack on the South.

Meanwhile, some in Japan have begun to show new interest in strike capabilities. Back in March, a policy research group in the Liberal Democratic Party recommended that Japan arm itself with long-range offensive weapons. The group, headed by former defence minister Itsunori Onodera, argued that the country faces a new level of threat from North Korea, making the acquisition of those capabilities a matter of national urgency. Bringing such a proposal to fruition in Japan—a country which has shied away from deploying bomber aircraft—requires the successful clearing of many hurdles. Still, the broader discussion has clearly begun.

What, I hear you ask, do the Americans think of all that? Well, the evidence suggests a growing tolerance in Washington over recent years for its forward-based allies having independent offensive strike options. The Obama administration approved the extension in reach of South Korea’s ballistic missiles—from 300 to 800 kilometres—back in 2012. And in 2015, Jakub Grygiel (from Johns Hopkins University) used an article in the journal Parameters (PDF) to argue the broader case in favour of tolerance:

The desire of some US allies to rearm presents an opportunity to shore up a system of deterrence challenged by ambitious and disruptive powers. Given the nature of the threat (a limited war scenario) and the security environment of the region (A2/AD capabilities of the revisionists), frontline US allies should be armed with offensive arsenals capable of targeting our common rivals.

Itsunori Onodera visited Washington in May to argue in support of a recalibration of roles in the US–Japan security alliance—namely, a greater sharing of the ‘spear’ role between the partners, instead of the current division of responsibilities with the US as spear-carrier and Japan as shield-bearer. Onodera specifically proposed that Japan have better ‘counterstrike’ capabilities, clearly hoping to deflect concerns about possible pre-emptive attacks on North Korea. James Schoff, a former defence official now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, suggested that both Japan’s worries and potential regional concerns about Japanese rearmament might be met by ‘a measured investment in strike capabilities within the existing alliance framework’.

Japan’s inherent sensitivity to American and regional concerns means it will probably make only slow progress in acquiring ‘prompt-strike’ offensive capabilities—those intended to be used in situations that demand urgent action. Even the US finds itself constrained in that arena, because the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty bans the US and Russia from building, testing and deploying ground-launched ballistic (and slower-flying cruise) missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometres. (Indeed, some voices in Washington are now openly calling for the US to supply its forward-based allies with such weapons as a calculated response to alleged Russian violations of the treaty.) Still, if the US is looking for conventional-strike options in Northeast Asia, it already has plenty of those in its own kitbag. Aircraft carriers and B-2 and B-1 bombers seem to have been the instruments of choice recently.

Australia has long enjoyed Washington’s confidence over its deployment of offensive strike capabilities—it was America who sold us the F-111s, after all. But that previously made us something of an anomaly among US allies in Asia. As tensions grow in Northeast Asia, US allies there are increasingly arguing for a shift in roles and responsibilities in their own security arrangements. On the upside, the growth in offensive strike capabilities among US allies better reflects a more multipolar Asia. And, overall, it ought to strengthen deterrence of regional adversaries. On the downside, though, it’s another sign that the ‘tethering’ role which US alliances have long played in Asia is starting to weaken.

A hydrogen bomb fits North Korean nuclear strategy so perfectly that it’s likely to be a top priority program. Most discussion of North Korea’s nuclear effort focuses on matters of “can and when”. Can they miniaturise a nuclear weapon? Can they marry it to a missile? Can they build an ICBM that will reach the United States?

Those are obviously important questions. But they don’t cover another fundamental question. What difference would it make if North Korea was to get a hydrogen bomb?

A hydrogen (fusion) bomb is a lot more powerful than a fission weapon of the type the DPRK has tested to date. It’s more complicated to make, too. That complexity adds to the status of the achievement. An H-bomb is a significant technological accomplishment. It took the United States seven years after Hiroshima to achieve it, and it took the efforts of the country’s top scientists, including Edward Teller, Stan Ulam and John von Neumann. That gave it a star quality of national achievement.

It was also a reason China went all out to get an H-bomb too. It took them only three years following their first nuclear test in 1964 to get one. Given that the Soviets had cut them off from technology know-how years before, and the deterioration of Chinese science and technology during the Maoist era, it was an extraordinary achievement with significant domestic and international consequences. Think of how careful and risk averse that made the United States in Vietnam. Big escalation strategies were taken off the table.

What difference would a North Korean H-bomb make? My sense is that it would make a big domestic difference in North Korea, which would become the only country not in the official nuclear club of the NPT ‘haves’ and the Permanent 5 of the United Nations with a hydrogen bomb. It’d be quite an achievement for a small destitute country, and would certainly be touted at home as a sign of national accomplishment. It would provide some badly needed solidification for the regime.

An H-bomb would have big impacts on foreign policy as well. Strategies aimed at North Korea involving sanctions, blockades, financial warfare or cyber-attacks might look quite different with several hydrogen bombs in the mix. When the consequences of an eruption of violence become so stark, they also become crystal clear. With 20–30 fission bombs and a handful of hydrogen bombs, it becomes impossible not to ask the question as to where things might go in the event of escalation. What if sanctions drive North Korea into famine, or if financial attacks bankrupt the elite? What happens next? To a risk averse China, and even more cautious neighbours, bellicose demands by Washington to ’confront evil in Pyongyang’ will look even more dangerous than they do now.

Today North Korea has a nuclear force that’s objectively more powerful than China had in the 1960s. Add an H-bomb to its arsenal and the North’s potential for devastating attacks becomes unambiguous. No one is going to go too far to pressure this regime. Any plan to attack it with conventional precision strikes will always generate the question, ’What if we miss some of the nuclear missiles?’. Now add to that ‘What if we miss one of the H-bombs?’.

An H-bomb will have an especially significant impact on the North’s command and control. They’re now moving to a system of mobile launchers, on land-based missile carriers and submarines. Command and control of a mobile nuclear force is quite complicated. It requires marrying warheads to launchers, assurance that the ‘go’ order gets through, and backup command centres in case the original ones are destroyed. It also means pre-delegated launch authority disseminated in case the high command is destroyed.

There are several problems here. One is the ‘coup risk’, something we know has been a consuming issue for the Kim family for generations. There’s extreme compartmentation and surveillance to prevent it. A rogue group of North Korean officers that gets physical control of a hydrogen bomb would possess the premier symbol of national power. In the unpredictable circumstances of internal disorder it cannot be ruled out that this device might actually be used—or detonated to prevent it from falling into wrong hands.

That leads to a second command and control problem. The lack of experience in handling nuclear arms means that moving them around the country on mobile launchers could produce an accidental firing. It could be an accidental launch at Japan. Or, more likely, it could result in an accident on North Korean soil. Here’s where an H-bomb matters. A ground burst H-bomb would produce far more radioactive fallout than a small, fission bomb. A hydrogen bomb would rain fallout on Japan, South Korea, and, days later, the United States.

With its enormous killing radius, an H-bomb turns what is today a dangerous nuclear threat from North Korea into the powder keg of Northeast Asia. The image of the Balkans in the early 1900s was of a great game of grand strategy played by the big powers. That was replaced by one where the whole region became a keg of TNT, one with convoluted strategy risks that could spark the eruption. The game had changed, fundamentally, as diplomats saw in 1914.

Last week I spoke at the RAAF Air Power Conference in Canberra on the theme ‘Airpower in Australia’s future strategy’ (full text available here (PDF)) the essence of which I’ll set out over the course of two blog posts.

That there’ll indeed be air power in Australia’s future strategy isn’t in doubt. The Air Force has a relatively young fleet of aircraft and current acquisition plans that continue the technological refresh. Much of our air power future is the product of decisions already taken by past Governments and Defence Ministers.

That still leaves room to debate the types of air power we will deploy, the strategic circumstances and the purposes for which air power will be used. In my mind, there are seven key questions relating to air power. Read more

The puzzle that is the Chinese policy making process has been taunting analysts over the last few weeks. First, a handful of Strategist posts (here, here and here) discussed whether incidents involving China’s maritime law enforcement authorities in Indonesia’s EEZ signify that China is contesting waters it deems to be its own. And now a disagreement has arisen over the interpretation of China’s imposition of an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) over much of the East China Sea. Harry White argues that this action should be seen as a deliberate signal of China’s willingness to defend its interests, while David McDonough suggests that the action may have been driven by subnational political actors (the PLA) without the Chinese leadership fully appreciating the move.

It’s important to be careful when interpreting the relationship between actions and state intentions because individual actions, like China’s ADIZ declaration, can be seen to have bearing on the fundamental questions of global politics. For example, it caused Ben Schreer to question the possibility of China’s peaceful rise. In their clinical dissection of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Essence of Decision, Graham Allison and Phillip Zelikow present three models for understanding state actions, each emphasising the role of different actors and dynamics of interaction.

Read more

This morning, I read the first piece of sensible analysis that I have seen on the current escalating North Korean nuclear crisis. It’s an article titled ‘Rattling the American Cage: North Korean Nuclear Threats and Escalation Potential’ (PDF), co-authored by Peter Hayes and Roger Cavazos—two authors from the Nautilus Institute, both of whom have a deep understanding of proliferation dynamics and have been studying North Korean behaviour for many years. I hope everyone with an interest in defusing what has become a very tense standoff will read it, as a weighty and well-informed alternative to the otherwise shallow, hysterical and mostly counter-productive commentary that has appeared in the media in recent days.

Their argument goes like this: based on past patterns of behaviour, it’s most likely that the latest round of North Korea’s nuclear brinkmanship is calculated to consolidate Kim Jong Un’s charismatic leadership and demonstrate the country’s independence, in defiance of international condemnation, UN Security Council sanctions and the Obama administration’s (failed) policy of strategic patience. Accordingly, Pyongyang’s intention is not to attack South Korea, pre-emptively or otherwise, but to signal to the international community—and the US in particular—that the costs of what Pyongyang regards as a hostile and unjust US-led policy of isolation and intimidation are growing. Kim Jong Un’s ultimate goal is thus extortion rather than pure deterrence—to bring about a change in US policy that will bolster and legitimise his regime. Read more