NORTH KOREA'S NUCLEAR THREATS AND COUNTER-STRATEGIES.

Samman Chung

North Korea's nuclear weapons program and its ballistic missile programs have developed compelling capabilities that can potentially threater South Korea and its neighbors even including the United States. But, due to Kim Jong Un's opaqueness and unpredictability, deterring the North Korea's nuclear threats is fraught with difficulty. Thus, U.S. needs to reaffirm its commitment so provide and strengthen deterrence for South Korea using the full range of military capabilities including its nuclear umbrella, conventional strike, and missile defense capabilities. South Korea also needs to make every effort to detect, defend, disrupt, and destroy the North's missiles throug hits Kill Chain and Korean Air and Missile Defense. In addition, despite the official desire to keep the Korean Air and Missile Defense (KAMD) system independent of U.S. missile defense (MD) system, South Korea needs to develop various options for reinforcing interoperability with the U.S. missile system.

BALLISTIC missiles; KIM, Jong-un, 1984-; NUCLEAR weapons; NUCLEAR engineering; GUIDED missiles

Journal of East Asian Affairs, 2016, Vol 30, Issue 2, p83

1010-1608

Academic Journal