North Korea Lacks Technology to Carry Out War Plans

Lousy North Korean Rockets Not Scaring Anyone

North Korea has been threatening massive attacks every day or two lately. Ripped off computer rendered footage of burning American cities, and threats to reduce Hawaii to cinders, while overwhelming South Korea with its enormous military.

Yet experts who analyze the threats note that North Korea may talk a good fight, but lacks the basic technology to even theoretically do many of the things it talks about in its “war plans.” Their best missiles aren’t even close to being able to hit the US mainland, and even landing a single hit on Guam or Hawaii would be a serious long-shot.

North Korea’s comparative lack of missile technology has been an important issue in recent years, with the Bush and Obama Administrations using the “threat” as a justification for huge spending on missile defense programs. Those missile defense systems don’t work, but luckily North Korea’s threat isn’t real either, so they sort of cancel each other out.

Even South Korea, though more realistically in range, doesn’t seem to be losing any sleep over the threats, with the public in the capital city of Seoul seeing the threats as empty and just the same old statements they make every so often.

Analysts say that North Korea could do considerable damage along the border with South Korea if a war did break out, but they also say that North Korea’s seeming inability to even feed their troops would mean any attempted invasion would break down pretty quickly.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.