South Korea’s Hawkish President-Elect Gets Early Test as North Launches ICBM

WASHINGTON – North Korea’s test of a new intercontinental ballistic missile opens a new chapter in the worsening confrontation of forces on the Korean peninsula.As a conservative government prepares to take charge in South Korea, one of the first questions is whether the South should increase its own missile defenses and even consider the most controversial option, that of “going nuclear.”South Korea’s military command answered the first question by responding to the challenge posed by the North Korean test with missile tests of its own.True, the South Korean missiles did not carry nearly the same threat as the latest North Korean ICBM, which came down in waters near Japan 600 miles from its launch site, but South Korean missiles are capable of reaching targets anywhere in North Korea.These missiles do not have to match North Korean ICBMs, capable of exploding anywhere in the U.S., to threaten North Korean missile and nuclear sites. Hours after North Korea launched its latest ICBM, presumably a Hwasong 17 model of the kind it showed off at a parade in October 2020, South Korea fired off missiles from land, sea, and the air.That response, as far as the South Korean military chiefs were concerned, was considerably more effective than the “condemnation” voiced by the South’s dovish president, Moon Jae-in. After spending much of his five years office looking for dialogue with the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, Mr. Moon is stepping down in May, giving way to the hawkish Yoon Suk-yeol.Mr. Yoon, having won election as president by a razor-thin margin earlier this month, is committed to improving ties with the U.S. that were wearing thin due to disagreements over the South’s efforts at reaching an “end-of-war” agreement with North Korea. Mr. Moon could not run again under South Korea’s democracy constitution, but Lee Jae-myung, the leftist nominated by Mr. Moon’s Minjoo (Democratic) Party, was all in favor of appeasing North Korea while opposing U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises.South Korea now is expected not only to cooperate much more closely on defenses with America, its ally since the Korean War, but also to consider developing its own nuclear warheads. Conservatives are pressuring for that level of defense while questioning whether President Biden would want to go to war for the South were North Korea to provoke Korean War II by ordering the invasion of the South, following his grandfather’s action in 1950.As it is, analysts believe Mr. Kim was testing the resolve of South Korea’s president-elect, Mr. Yoon, and also that of Mr. Biden by ordering the ICBM test, its first since November 2017.“They are trying to test Yoon Suk-yeol’s intentions,” a former member of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, Kim Kisam, who is now living in the U.S., said.Mr. Kim noted that North Korea failed last week when a missile exploded shortly after take-off from near Pyongyang. That missile presumably was also an ICBM. North Korea has fired several intermediate-range ICBMs in recent weeks, claiming each time that it was testing the gear for a satellite.Pyongyang made no such claim about its test on Thursday, apparently confident there was little or nothing America would do about it beyond the usual expressions of “condemnation.” Washington was also expected to ask the UN Security Council to impose new sanctions — even though both China and Russia are likely to veto.The test deepens a regional standoff that has Japan alarmed and pressing for strong measures against North Korea and possibly China, the North’s staunch ally and provider of food and fuel. The Japanese were expected to consider building up their own missile strength while elements in Japan, South Korea, and America work to improve cooperation between Korea and Japan, much strained in recent years.

South Korea’s Hawkish President-Elect Gets Early Test as North Launches ICBM

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