Moon Chung-in, left, special security adviser to President Moon Jae-in, speaks at the East Asia Foundation in Seoul during a webinar, co-hosted by the Asia Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament and the foundation, Wednesday. / Courtesy of East Asia Foundation

'Washington missed golden opportunity to denuclearize Pyongyang'

By Kang Seung-woo

Although Bob Woodward's latest book, "Rage," disclosed last month that the Donald Trump administration had reviewed firing scores of nuclear weapons at North Korea in 2017, experts said Wednesday that such an attack would not be an easy option to implement due to various reasons including possible escalation involving other countries.

In the book, based on interviews with Trump, the writer said the United States studied "OPLAN 5027" for regime change in North Korea ― the U.S. response to an attack that could include the use of 80 nuclear weapons. OPLAN 5027 refers to a joint South Korea-U.S. military operation plan to respond to a North Korean invasion.

Experts on Korean Peninsula issues saw a low chance of the plan ever being carried out, because of concerns that a U.S. nuclear strike against Pyongyang could lead to accidental escalation in the region.

"The option to use nuclear weapons against North Korea is highly constrained. When land-based (intercontinental ballistic) missiles would have to fly over Russia, I actually find it inconceivable that American presidents get on the phone to the Kremlin and say don't worry about these missiles," Peter Hayes, co-director of the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, said during a webinar co-hosted by the Asia Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament and the East Asia Foundation.

"The United States might use a submarine-launched missile in the Pacific and that has a similar problem. You will be aiming missiles pretty much directly at Beijing."

Moon Chung-in, the special security adviser to President Moon Jae-in, also said the use of strategic bombers was not simple either because of the difficulties involving either a pre-emptive strike or a counter-strike due to the transportation of nuclear weapons from Hawaii to Guam and the evacuation of family members of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) and American citizens living in South Korea.

"If so, the North would find out what was happening," he said.

Moon also said the North does not have the capability to pre-emptively deliver intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) to the U.S. mainland yet.

"When tensions between the North and the U.S. were escalating between May and July of 2017, the former was not capable of deploying ICBMs. In addition, the Hwasong-15 was test-fired only once (in November 2017)."

The USFK believes that ICBM is capable of reaching most of the U.S. mainland, but Moon dismissed that assessment as "hype."

Meanwhile, Siegfried Hecker, a U.S. nuclear scientist who has been to the North's Yongbyon nuclear facility on four occasions, told the virtual seminar that Washington missed a "golden opportunity" to denuclearize the reclusive state at the Hanoi summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump in February 2019. Their second meeting ended without a deal and bilateral denuclearization talks have stalled ever since.

"From Woodward's book, much more important to me than the 80 nuclear weapons comment is 26 letter exchanges between Kim and President Trump…. Kim Jong-un actually not only said he was willing to get rid of Yongbyon but he actually said the Nuclear Weapons Institute. He actually specifically mentions in the letter, the Nuclear Weapons Institute," Hacker said.

Even though Hacker was not completely sure of the institute's role, he likened it to the U.S. Los Alamos National Laboratory that designs nuclear weapons.

"You still have bombs out there, but the bombs are no good without the scientists that designed them," he said. "That was an incredible offer. You combine that with Hanoi, and all I can say is we missed a golden opportunity."