Poly Prep SF October Negative

We negate resolved: Deployment of anti-missile systems is in South Korea’s best interest.

Our Seoul Contention is War, What is it Good For?

North Korea wants nuclear weapons to survive from the US Beauchamp 17 Zack Beauchamp, 9-8-2017, "The case for letting North Korea keep its nukes," Vox, https://www.vox.com/world/2017/9/8/16256880/north-korea-nuclear-weapons-test-containment //DF The most fundamentally important fact about North Korea’s nuclear program is that it is born out of fear — fear, specifically, of the United States. The Korean War began in 1950 when North Korea invaded the South and nearly conquered all of it. The only reason it didn’t was intervention by a US led-coalition, which in turn nearly took the entire North, stopped only by a Chinese counter intervention. After the war ended in an armistice in 1953, the US pledged to defend South Korea against future attack and left thousands of US troops deployed there — a constant reminder to Pyongyang that the world’s strongest military power was its enemy. Put another way, North Korea’s entire foreign policy and national identity has evolved around the threat of war with America. As a result, they’ve always been trying to improve their military capabilities in order to deter the US from invading. “They’re hyper-focused on our military and what we can do,” explains Dave Kang, the director of the Korean Studies Institute at the University of Southern California. The nuclear program, which began in the 1950s, was designed to be the ultimate answer to this problem. The thinking among three generations of Kim’s was that if North Korea had nuclear weapons, they could inflict unacceptable costs on the US if it were to invade the North. Nuclear weapons, in other words, would be the ultimate deterrent against regime change. This explains why North Korea has invested so many resources, and been willing to accept crushing international sanctions, in order to develop a nuclear bomb and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that could hit the US mainland. “There’s pretty broad agreement that Kim Jong Un wants a nuclear arsenal, including a nuclear-armed ICBM that could put cities and targets in the United States at risk, to deter an attack and to ensure survival and prevent regime change,” says Kingston Reif, the director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association. What this brief history suggests is that North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear missiles is fundamentally rational. North Korea is not a suicidal state; there is no evidence that it wants to blow up an American city and invite regime-ending retaliation. Its goal, according to every piece of evidence we have, is the opposite: to avoid war at all costs.

Poly Prep SF October Negative

Since nuclear weapons allow Kim Jong-Un to feel protected from his greatest fear, they reduce his need to act aggressively.

In an analysis of North Korea’s historical provocations, Anderson at Yale in 2017 found: Anderson 17 Nicholas D. Anderson [Department of Political Science, Yale University], 4-20-2017, "Explaining North Korea’s Nuclear Ambitions: Power and Position on the Korean Peninsula," Australian Journal of International Affairs, https://campuspress.yale.edu/nickanderson/files/2017/04/Anderson- 2017-Explaining-North-Koreas-Nuclear-Ambitions-website-1dcnbpz.pdf //DF However, a look at the data shows that this is not obviously the case. Figure 5 (below) tracks North Korea’s militarized provocations using new data from 1995 to 2016. 10 As is clear, there is no obvious uptick in its militarized provocations after its initial acquisition in 2006, nor even a general trend upwards. Between 1995 and 2005, North Korea’s overall military provocations (lighter line in Figure 5) averaged approximately 6.2 per year. Between 2006 and 2016, the annual average is 6.6. North Korea seems to have been just as militarily provocative before it acquired its nuclear arsenal as after. Separating North Korea’s missile tests from its other forms of militarized provocation casts even further doubt on this hawk argument. If the North’s nuclear and missile tests are seen as just that—tests to advance their technology and bolster deterrence—then it is worth examining its nonmissile, conventional provocations alone with respect to its nuclear acquisition. A look at its nonmissile provocations (darker line in Figure 5) indicates, if anything, a negative relationship between nuclear acquisition and militarized provocations. From 1995 to 2005, North Korea averaged 5.6 non-missile provocations per year. Yet after its nuclear acquisition, from 2006 to 2016, this number dropped to just 2.8. Thus, considering the North’s non-missile provocations alone, it is difficult to escape the strong possibility that North Korea’s nuclear acquisition has made it less militarily provocative, rather than more so.11 In short, revisionism does not seem to be a primary driver of its nuclear program

However, Missile defense systems destroy North Korea’s sense of security. Etzioni at George Washington University in 2017 explains: Etzioni 17 Amitai Etzioni [University Professor and professor of international relations at The George Washington University], 8-10-2017 “THAAD: Best a Barganaing Chip,” The Diplomat, http://thediplomat.com/2017/08/thaad-best-a-bargaining-chip/ //DF Poly Prep SF October Negative

Those quick to exclaim “Great, two for the price of one” should recall that nuclear powers hold each other at bay; that mutually assured destruction seems to be a major reason why the big powers have avoided war since 1945. To remind: The logic of nuclear deterrence presumes that if [a country] either China or the U.S. launches a nuclear attack, they must expect to be paid back in kind, to be devastated, making any major strike virtually suicidal. However, if one nuclear power can prevent a retaliatory strike (by an anti-missile defense system, for instance), the other nation must fear the possibility of a devastating attack without the ability to respond. As a result, mutual destruction is no longer assured, and the deterrence effect breaks down. Further, such concerns may well lead the newly vulnerable nation to put its nuclear forces on a hair trigger alert, ready to strike preemptively at any sign of preparation of an attack by the other. In short, if THAAD batteries are effective, they are highly destabilizing.

Missile defense takes away North Korea’s means to protect himself from the country he fears most. So, in order to protect himself, Kim has been forced to posture in two ways.

First, by leveling the playing field.

The North has tried to develop missiles that can get around missile defense. According to the ISDP in 2016: ISDP 16 11-2016, "THAAD in the Korean Peninsula," Institute for Security and Development Policy, http://isdp.eu/content/uploads/2016/11/THAAD-Backgrounder-ISDP-2.pdf //DF North Korea has viewed the decision to deploy [missile defense] THAAD as both a provocation and an act of aggression. Their response has been to continue missile development and invest in technologies that could bypass [missile defense] systems like THAAD. Correspondingly, one day after the announcement of THAAD deployment, North Korea tested a Pukkuksong-1 (KN-11) SLBM.41 This was followed by three short range missiles that were fired six days after the announcement and another two intermediate-range missiles in early August 2016.42 North Korea has also stated that they will retaliate with a “physical response.” 43 The continuous missile development by North Korea could be seen as tests for bypassing THAAD’s abilities, as it is possible to launch more missiles than a missile defense can intercept.44 So far, only one THAAD battery is planned to be deployed which could be a critical weakness. THAAD’s difficulty in intercepting missiles with irregular trajectories could also be used; in theory, North Korea's medium-range Rodong missiles would be able to bypass THAAD as they have an irregular trajectory.45 Recent analysis suggests that North Korea is developing a new submarine that would be larger than the previous GORAE-class experimental ballistic missile submarine.46 The improvement of SLBMs, could be considered another weakness of THAAD and would give a critical advantage to North Korea. In any case, North Korea have continued their nuclear development, conducting a fifth nuclear test in September 2016.47

Poly Prep SF October Negative

Mcintyre at the Washington Examiner in 2017 reports: Mcintyre 17 Jamie Mcintyre, 6-5-2017, "The hypersonic threat that keeps US commanders up at night," Washington Examiner, http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/the-hypersonic-threat-that-keeps-us- commanders-up-at-night/article/2624599 //DF The U.S. is in fact developing not just hypersonic weapons but also systems to counter them. The Trump administration, in its fiscal 2018 budget submission to Congress last month, requested $75 million for "hypersonic defense" as part of $7.9 billion overall funding plan for missile defenses. But critics in Congress complain that's a mere $379 million over last year's request from former President Barack Obama and well below the annual $9 billion funding level planned by the Bush administration. "These weapons present an entirely new capability we must counter as they are specifically designed to exploit the gaps and the seams in our existing missile defense architecture, thus defeating the systems we currently have in place," said Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz, on the floor of the House in March. Franks, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, is concerned the threat from high-speed maneuvering weapons is figuratively flying below the radar. "The threat has outpaced us," Franks said. "These new weapons are capable of traveling more than a mile per second and fly at flat or nonballistic trajectories to prevent our missile defense systems from tracking them."

This creates a vicious cycle where both countries feel pressured to gun up. Chellaney at the Japan Times in 2017 writes: Chellaney 17 Brahma Chellaney [a longtime contributor to The Japan Times, is a geostrategist and the author of nine books, including “Water, Peace, and War.”], 3-20-2017, “Averting an accidental war on the Korean Peninsula,” The Japan Times, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/03/20/commentary/world-commentary/averting- accidental-war-korean-peninsula/#.Wbp2KtOGNE6 //DF North Korea has a virtual artillery choke-hold on Seoul that THAAD cannot neutralize. This is why the U.S. lacks a realistic option to militarily degrade the North’s nuclear and missile capabilities without provoking Pyongyang to unleash its artillery power against Seoul or triggering an all-out war. The absence of credible techno-military options against North Korea is also underscored by the reported failure of the U.S. to undermine Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs through coordinated cyber and electronic strikes in recent years. In this light, THAAD’s political symbolism is greater than its military utility. The system, in any case, has never been battle-tested. But rather than enhance South Korea’s security, including by reassuring its citizens, the THAAD deployment threatens to make South Koreans more insecure through an action-reaction cycle. For example, the Stalinist regime in Pyongyang may now plan, in a combat scenario, to fire many missiles simultaneously so as to defeat THAAD.

Second, placing a finger on the nuclear button Etzioni 17 Amitai Etzioni [University Professor and professor of international relations at The George Washington University], 8-10-2017 “THAAD: Best a Barganaing Chip,” The Diplomat, http://thediplomat.com/2017/08/thaad-best-a-bargaining-chip/ //DF Those quick to exclaim “Great, two for the price of one” should recall that nuclear powers hold each other at bay; that mutually assured destruction seems to be a major reason why the big powers have avoided war since 1945. To remind: The logic of nuclear deterrence presumes Poly Prep SF October Negative

that if [a country] either China or the U.S. launches a nuclear attack, they must expect to be paid back in kind, to be devastated, making any major strike virtually suicidal. However, if one nuclear power can prevent a retaliatory strike (by an anti-missile defense system, for instance), the other nation must fear the possibility of a devastating attack without the ability to respond. As a result, mutual destruction is no longer assured, and the deterrence effect breaks down. Further, such concerns may well lead the newly vulnerable nation to put its nuclear forces on a hair trigger alert, ready to strike preemptively at any sign of preparation of an attack by the other. In short, if THAAD batteries are effective, they are highly destabilizing.

Kim putting his missiles on high alert raises the chance that one goes off. Narang at MIT in 2017 explains: Narang 17 Vipin Narang [associate professor of political science, MIT], 9-16-2017, "Thinking Through Nuclear Command and Control in North Korea," Diplomat, http://thediplomat.com/2017/09/thinking- through-nuclear-command-and-control-in-north-korea/ //DF Imagine that a crisis breaks out and Kim orders some nuclear weapons to be assembled and moved to assigned ballistic missile operating areas. First, units that may be inexperienced with handling nuclear weapons are being tasked to do so in the midst of an intensifying crisis, under incredible psychological stress. Second, even if Kim has nominal authority to release nuclear weapons, what physically prevents these units from simply doing so without his orders now that they are fully ready? Even if units do not consciously go rogue — a risk that exists during peacetime, should weapons exist in a mated state with some predelegation — the United States and its allies would presumably apply a range of measures to disrupt North Korean communications networks with electronic warfare assets. With communications disrupted, the Korean People’s Army units tasked with nuclear operation would come under intense use-it-or-lose-it pressure without knowledge of whether Kim and the Supreme Headquarters remained intact or had been decapitated. This brings us to the third point: The Kim regime has likely designed the wartime command and control system around fears of a decapitation strike by the United States and South Korea. How can the regime make sure the military is able to respond with nuclear weapons if Kim is killed during the onset of hostilities? Given Kim’s overarching concerns about regime change attempts, one has to assume that the system is designed to fail-deadly — making sure his units will launch nuclear weapons if the regime is believed to have been decapitated is the only logical deterrent posture. This means that the actual decision to use nuclear weapons in a crisis or conflict may rest no longer with Kim but with the commander in physical possession of the system. Thus, although North Korea may have centralized and assertive peacetime command and control, largely due to disassembled components and procedures that make it almost impossible for anyone to use nuclear weapons without Kim’s express authorization, all that may shift sharply in a crisis or conflict. This facet of North Korea’s command and control structure has implications for how and when Kim might have to consider using land-based nuclear weapons in a potential crisis. With the stresses and concerns about maintaining communication with the Strategic Rocket Forces command — surely one of the first things an attack would try to sever — and the concerns about decapitation and preemption, when an attack starts, does one really think Kim will wait to see whether his conventional forces can repel the United States and South Korea before considering using nuclear weapons? Almost certainly not. Given the time it takes to assemble, fuel (while North Korea relies primarily on liquid fuel missiles, at least), and move nuclear forces out to their operating areas, and their possible vulnerability as this is being done, if Kim wants to truly retain assertive control over his nuclear forces, weapons would have to be launched early in a crisis. Once the artillery shells start flying, Kim probably cannot be confident that he can retain control over, and communication with, his Strategic Rocket Forces units — forcing him to worry about unauthorized use. And if he waits too long, he may lose the window of opportunity to launch nuclear weapons successfully at all if they start getting destroyed. This was the concern with Pakistan in the early 2000s, and it is even more acute with North Korea today so long as it has a relatively primitive command and control architecture.

Ultimately, Lerner at the Washington Post in 2017 explains: Poly Prep SF October Negative

Lerner 17 Mitchell Lerner, 8-24-2017, “We won’t go to war with North Korea on purpose. But we might by accident,” Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by- history/wp/2017/08/24/we-wont-go-to-war-with-north-korea-on-purpose-but-we-might-by- accident/?utm_term=.84763b824825 //DF The great danger of the current crisis is thus not that decision-makers in Washington and Pyongyang will deliberately weigh the costs and benefits of another Korean War and decide it is worth pursuing. It is instead that a sudden and unexpected moment triggers a hasty and emotional decision that leads both sides down a tragic path from which there is no return. The 1962 Cuban missile crisis demonstrates how easily foreign policy crises can spin out of control despite the best intentions of those at the top of the decision-making process. Most Americans celebrate the wisdom demonstrated by President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who acted with restraint while working to avoid what surely would have been a devastating clash. Few Americans, however, understand how close to war we actually came despite their efforts, as the actions of less well-known figures and the inevitable chaos of unanticipated circumstances threatened to undermine their best intentions. On Oct. 27, 1962, Soviet forces shot down an American U- 2 over Cuba, killing the pilot, Maj. Rudolf Anderson. Khrushchev had given specific orders not to fire on American targets unless war had started, but the Soviet commander on the ground, Gen. Stepan Naumovich Grechko, decided to shoot it down on his own authority. American officials had earlier agreed that such an action would probably evoke an American military response against Cuba, but Kennedy wisely chose to delay such a response. That same day, American ships were harassing a Soviet submarine in the Caribbean. With no contact from Moscow and unsure of the current status of events on land, the captain, Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky, ordered the launch of a nuclear torpedo. Only the opposition of his second-in-command prevented an act that surely would have sparked massive retaliation. In the end, the Cuban crisis was resolved peacefully. But the fact that the world came perilously close to nuclear conflict because of actions taken by individuals outside of the world’s capitals and based on erroneous assumptions should be a sobering warning for those who minimize the current dangers. The path to other recent conflicts also demonstrates that the road to war seldom runs through an informed assessment of facts on the ground. In June 1950, North Korean forces swept over the 38th parallel, sparking the Korean War. Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin had earlier rejected Kim Il Sung’s request to launch an attack against the South. But he soon changed his mind, in no small part because of a mistaken belief that the United States would probably not intervene, and because of Kim’s unmerited assurances that massive indigenous backing from the South would ensure a quick victory before President Harry Truman could react if he chose to do so. Likewise, the American role in the Vietnam War exploded after the alleged second Gulf of Tonkin attack on Aug. 4, 1964. We know now that this attack never occurred, but American military and political leaders believed that it had, and President Lyndon Johnson used it as an excuse to obtain the functional equivalent of a declaration of war. In neither of these cases were the critical decisions for war made as part of a sober and thorough assessment of accurate evidence. And yet, war came nonetheless. The current standoff in Korea seems particularly ripe for such an unintended conflict. A long history of rivalry has predisposed each side to read the worst possible motives into the other’s actions. Official lines of communication between the two are virtually nonexistent; at the moment, the United States doesn’t even have an ambassador in South Korea. The two leaders are inexperienced and emotional, with a tendency to personalize strategic matters and unleash bellicose rhetoric that just heightens tensions throughout the region. North Korean defectors warn of Kim Jong Un’s desperate and unyielding commitment to his nuclear program, which he sees as critical to the preservation of his regime, and of the growing doubts about his government at home. And the North has launched a number of limited but deadly military operations against the United States and South Korea over the past decades, ranging from the attack on the USS Pueblo in 1968 to the attack on the Cheonan in 2010, but has never faced serious retribution for them, probably encouraging Kim to trust in the safety of a limited strike that could be a critical first step. Recent history thus suggests that the greatest danger we now face is not that Donald Trump and Kim will decide to go to war, but that isolated individuals who most have never heard of, operating within the inevitable chain of mistakes and miscalculations that are the by-product of human weakness and exigent circumstances, will decide for them. This concern seems particularly acute this week, as the United States and South Korea hold their annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills, which for the first time Poly Prep SF October Negative

might include a nuclear war game and which the North has condemned for “adding fuel to the fire.” “No one can guarantee that the exercise won’t evolve into actual fighting,” they noted ominously.

The deployment of missile defense systems has greatly increased the chance of a war. Just last week, Stavridis, the former head of NATO, predicted: Dreazen 17 Yochi Dreazen, 9-28-2017, "Former NATO military chief: there’s a 10% chance of nuclear war with North Korea," Vox, https://www.vox.com/2017/9/28/16375158/north-korea-nuclear-war-trump- kim-jong-un //DF Retired Navy Adm. James Stavridis spent 37 years in the military, including four years as the supreme allied commander of NATO. Hillary Clinton vetted him as a possible running mate. President-elect Donald Trump considered naming him secretary of state. He is a serious man, and about as far from an armchair pundit as it’s possible to be. And that’s precisely what makes his assessment of the escalating standoff with North Korea so jarring. Stavridis believes there’s at least a 10 percent chance of a nuclear war between the US and North Korea, and a 20 to 30 percent chance of a conventional, but still bloody, conflict. “I think we are closer to a significant exchange of ordnance than we have been since the end of the Cold War on the Korean peninsula,” he said during a panel I moderated Tuesday at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House. His estimate of the potential death toll from even a nonnuclear war with North Korea is just as striking. North Korea has at least 11,000 artillery pieces trained on Seoul, South Korea’s capital of 25 million people, and would be certain to use them during any conflict. The US would be just as certain to mount a sustained bombing campaign to destroy those artillery pieces as quickly as possible. The result? “It’s hard for me to see less than 500,000 to 1 million people, and I think that’s a conservative estimate,” he said.

A war with North Korea would be devastating for South Korea. Beauchamp at Vox in 2017 estimates that in South Korea:

Beauchamp 17 Zach Beauchamp, 8-1-2017, "Lindsey Graham: Trump "told me" he will bomb North Korea if it keeps testing missiles," Vox, https://www.vox.com/world/2017/8/1/16075198/trump-lindsey- graham-north-korea-war //DF The North Koreans are not stupid: They know they’re militarily outclassed by the United States and South Korea. So their strategy in the event of an out-and-out war, as far as outside analysts can tell, is to inflict overwhelming pain as quickly as possible: to bombard South Korea, US allies in Japan, and any American forces they can find with missiles and artillery to the point where their stronger enemies lose their appetite for a protracted conflict. The estimates of a conflict involving the North’s nonnuclear arsenal alone are hard to fathom. My colleague Alex Ward spells some out: South Korea’s capital city, Seoul, is a so-called “megacity” with a whopping 25.6 million residents living in the greater metropolitan area. It also happens to be within direct firing range of thousands of pieces of North Korean artillery already lined up along the border, also known as the demilitarized zone. Around 70 percent of North Korea’s ground forces are within 90 miles of the DMZ, presumably ready to move south at a moment’s notice. Simulations of a large-scale artillery fight between the North and South produce pretty bleak results. One war game convened by the Atlantic back in 2005 predicted that a North Korean attack would kill 100,000 people in Seoul in the first few days alone. Others put the estimate even higher. A war game mentioned by the National Interest predicted Seoul could “be hit by over half-a- million shells in under an hour.” Here’s an even grimmer statistic: A South Korean simulation conducted in 2004, before the North had developed nuclear weapons, estimated that there could be up to 2 million casualties in the first 24 hours of a conflict. Obviously, the death toll would be exponentially higher if North Korea used any of its nuclear weapons. Those could potentially destroy Tokyo (population 9.3 million), Seoul (population 10 million), or other cities in the two countries. It’s not clear how many working nuclear weapons the North has, though estimates suggest around 10 to 16. We do know that its missiles have enough range to reach Tokyo, and that the country has tested a nuclear weapon designed to fit on precisely such a missile.