WASHINGTON — U.S. military and intelligence officials tracking North Korea’s actions by the hour said they are bracing for an imminent test of an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching U.S. shores but appear resigned to the fact that President Donald Trump has no good options to stop it.
If the North goes ahead with the test in the coming days — Pyongyang promised a “Christmas gift” if no progress had been made on lifting sanctions — it would be a glaring setback for Trump’s boldest foreign policy initiative, even as he faces an impeachment trial at home.
U.S. officials are playing down the missile threat, though similar tests two years ago prompted Trump to suggest that “fire and fury,” and perhaps a war, could result.
Trump often cites the suspension of long-range missile and underground nuclear tests for the past two years as evidence that his leader-to-leader diplomacy with the North was working — and that such negotiating skills would persuade the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un, to give up his arsenal.
The administration’s argument has now changed. Should Kim resume tests, U.S. officials said, it will be a sign that he truly feels jammed and has concluded Washington will not lift crushing sanctions on his impoverished nation anytime soon.
Left unaddressed, however, is the challenge that a new missile test would represent and what that would mean for the sanctions strategy. Over the past week, Stephen Biegun, the North Korea envoy who was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday as the next deputy secretary of state, has traveled across East Asia to also try to stem new efforts by Russia and China to weaken those sanctions.
Military officials said there are no plans to try to destroy a missile on the launchpad or intercept it in the atmosphere — steps both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama considered and rejected. It is unclear if the military’s Cyber Command is still trying to sabotage the launches from afar, as it did under the Obama administration, with mixed results.
Instead, officials said, if the North resumes its missile tests, the Trump administration will turn to allies and again lobby the United Nations Security Council for tightened sanctions — a strategy that has been tried for two decades.
Beneath the recent threats is the onset of a cold reality: In the 18 months after Trump and Kim first met in Singapore, with declarations of warmth not seen since the suspension of the Korean War in 1953, the North has bolstered its arsenal of missiles and its stockpile of bomb-ready nuclear material.
New estimates from a leading authority suggest that Kim has expanded his arsenal substantially since Trump announced on Twitter after Singapore that “there is No Longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.”
Siegfried Hecker, the former head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and one of the few Westerners who has seen the North’s uranium production facilities, said he believes the country has fuel for about 38 warheads — double an earlier estimate that he and other scientists and intelligence analysts had issued.
In recent weeks, the North has conducted ground tests of what appear to be new missile engines that Pyongyang said would bolster its “nuclear deterrent,” suggesting that it has little intention of giving up its ability.
“I think part of this may be bluff on their part,” John Bolton, the former national security adviser, said to NPR on Thursday. “They think the president’s desperate for a deal, and if they put an artificial time constraint on it, they may think they’re going to get a better deal. We’ll just have to wait and see.
“But,” he noted, “this is all part of the North Korean playbook.”
A new element of the playbook could be that Kim is calculating that impeachment has weakened Trump, making him more desperate for a policy victory.
Senior foreign policy officials and military commanders are bracing for perhaps the most serious cycle of crisis yet.
“What I would expect is some kind of long-range ballistic missile would be the ‘gift,’” Gen. Charles Brown Jr., commander of Pacific Air Forces, said Tuesday. “Does it come on Christmas Eve? Does it come on Christmas Day? Does it come after the new year? One of my responsibilities is to pay attention to that.”
With no diplomatic progress between Washington and Pyongyang since the implosion of the last summit in February between Trump and Kim in Hanoi, Vietnam, administration officials are loath to see Trump leap into another face-to-face negotiation. While Trump’s initial diplomatic outreach to Kim raised hopes and generated positive headlines, the president accepted vague language calling for the “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” as an ironclad commitment by the North to rid itself of its own weapons.
The expected North Korean escalation will leave Trump with an unpalatable choice. He could reprise his alarming threats of military action from late 2017, infusing the 2020 election year with a sense of crisis, which could cost him votes — and risk real conflict.
Or he could endure the new provocation and double down, betting that greater sanctions could somehow force the North to abandon its decadeslong course toward a nuclear-tipped missile capable of striking the continental United States.
Hopes for a Disarmament, Dashed
When Trump emerged from his daylong Singapore summit with Kim, the first time the leaders had ever met, he sounded certain that progress would be swift.
“I think he will do these things,” Trump said. “I may be wrong. I may stand before you in six months and say, ‘Hey, I was wrong.’”
Roadblocks appeared almost immediately. The North refused to turn over an inventory of its weapons and delivery systems. However, there were signs Kim wanted to open up his nation’s economy, analysts said.
After exchanging warm letters, the leaders met again in Hanoi, with Trump offering a grand bargain — an end to all sanctions for full disarmament. The president even offered to help build hotels along North Korea’s east coast.
Kim said he would agree to dismantle the main nuclear site at Yongbyon, the heart of the North’s nuclear program, in return for relief from the most onerous sanctions, which Obama began in 2016 and Trump accelerated. Trump was tempted to accept, former aides said, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Bolton stopped him, arguing that important uranium enrichment sites of the North’s were outside the walls of the facility. The talks ended in failure.
In the months that followed, the administration debated whether it should soften its demand that the North dismantle all of its nuclear infrastructure before receiving substantial benefits. There was talk of negotiating an interim “nuclear freeze”; while that would keep the problem from worsening, it ran the risk of enshrining a nuclear arsenal already one-third the size of Pakistan’s and India’s.
It took until October for a new North Korean team to assemble and meet with Biegun. He thought the meeting went well until, at the end of the day, the North’s delegation returned to read a clearly prewritten statement denouncing the United States.
The teams have not met since.
Kim Plays His Hand
The recent threats from Kim come as he is preparing for two important political events: a year-end plenary session of the Workers’ Party of Korea and a New Year’s speech. Kim had declared at the start of 2019 that North Korea would not give up a single weapon until the United States lifts sanctions. He then gave Trump a year-end deadline.
Now Kim finds himself empty-handed, unable to stride into the party plenum in triumph or deliver a pronouncement of victory Jan. 1. Backed into a corner, he is trying once again to use his main leverage — the threat of weapons tests or military action — to coerce Trump into sanctions relief, analysts said.
“Things have not worked out the way he has anticipated,” said Jean Lee, a Korea expert at the Wilson Center. “I suspect that he will keep provoking President Trump to compel him to get back to negotiations, but try to avoid overtly confronting him because he wants to leave open an opportunity.”
On Sunday, North Korea said Kim presided over a meeting of the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party, where it said important issues had been discussed “for the sustained and accelerated development of the military capability for self-defense.”
The official Korean Central News Agency said the meeting was called to decide “important organizational and political measures and military steps to bolster” the armed forces “as required by the fast-changing situation.” But it gave no details about the discussions.
Kim could choose to launch a satellite rather than an intercontinental ballistic missile on the bet that might push Trump to loosen sanctions without inciting a violent reaction.
Kim could also coax China and Russia into further easing sanctions at the U.N. Both nations are eager to reassert a leadership role on the North Korea issue.
On Thursday, Luo Zhaohui, China’s vice minister of foreign affairs, said at a news conference in Beijing that easing sanctions, as China and Russia had proposed Wednesday at the U.N., was the “best solution” to “break the deadlock on the peninsula.”
Analysts said China does not appear to be forcing all North Korean workers to leave its borders as it is required by a U.N. resolution. China said it complies with the sanctions resolutions. U.S. officials said Beijing also must stop ship-to-ship transfers carried out by North Korea of energy products.
The U.S.’ efforts to maintain a common front against the North may be further complicated next week when President Xi Jinping of China hosts a summit with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea. Trump’s efforts to get the South to cover the full cost of U.S. troops based there has strained relations between the allies.
Containment or War
Trump contemplated attacking North Korea early in his administration, when officials floated the idea of a “bloody nose” strategy intended to signal that Washington would never allow the North to reach the point when it could hold U.S. cities hostage with nuclear weapons. “Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely,” Trump tweeted in August 2017.
More recently, Trump has shown a keen interest in winding down conflicts rather than starting new ones. Trump has also forced out hawkish senior advisers, including Bolton, who once argued for a preemptive strike on North Korea.
But Trump’s current approach — gradual diplomacy backed by the “boa constrictor” of sanctions, perhaps toward an interim freeze — is unfolding in the shadow of similar efforts by four presidents who failed to stop the North.
In signing a major defense bill Friday evening, Trump put into place new sanctions on North Korea, including the possibility of financial penalties on Russia and China in 120 days if they trade with the North.
“We will be keeping a very close eye on that,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who wrote the provisions, said in an interview. “It would be a huge mistake for the president to waive these sanctions unless he can certify progress on major issues.”
Trump has essentially shrugged off the 13 short-range missile or rocket tests that North Korea has conducted since May. An intercontinental missile launch would be more difficult to ignore, though, and it is unclear how he might respond, especially if such a test intensifies criticism that Kim has manipulated him.
Thus far, Trump is showing little appetite for a return to the “fire and fury” tensions of two years ago.
“I have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un,” Trump told reporters at the White House this month before adding, in what could prove to be wishful thinking, “I think we both want to keep it that way.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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