The old Axis of Evil, China, Russia, and North Korea, is back in business, partying hard, and setting their sights on new wars of conquests, that will include Taiwan.
How the circle has turned is illustrated by the key scene from the July 27, 2023, Pyongyang military parade celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the 1953 Korean War Armistice.
There on the parade dais were the inheritors of the three allied Korean War dictatorships: a beaming North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, flanked on his right by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, and on his left by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo member Li Hongzhong (李鴻忠).
They were saluting the passing of North Korea’s new Hwasong-18, its first mobile solid fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), most likely a copy of the Chinese Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) DF-41 10-warhead capable ICBM.
At the beginning of 1950 Mao Zedong (毛澤東) was on a course to invade Taiwan and crush the Nationalist Government of Chiang Kai Shek (蔣介石), but Stalin withdrew his support for such a plan that January while approving North Korean Workers’ Party leader Kim Il Sung’s plan to invade South Korea.
Consequently, Mao set aside his Taiwan invasion in favor of supporting Kim’s invasion and to gain Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s support.
Mao’s decision was richly rewarded by Stalin: a decade of massive technology assistance that ended with the 1960s collapse of the 1950 Sino-Soviet Alliance. Nikita Khrushchev balked at giving full nuclear bomb technology to Mao, hesitant to be dragged into a Chinese war over Taiwan with the Americans, who were rapidly expanding their nuclear weapons triad.
Now, 70 years later, the old Axis of Evil is ready for business again, but with a new hierarchy.
It is the global hegemony-seeking CCP that is now setting the agenda, having become the senior partner in a revived China-Russia alliance, making Moscow’s war against Ukraine possible by massive economic support and now covert military support, and having spent most of the last 20 years facilitating the full nuclear armament of North Korea.
In the late summer of 2011, American and Japanese surveillance satellites watched as large 16-wheel missile transporters made by the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) were shipped to North Korea, new generations of which carry the latest North Korean ICBMs.
While still a concentration camp masquerading as a country as it was in 1953, North Korea’s last decade and a half of nuclear and conventional weapons building has enabled it to become a powerful active ally and weapons reserve.
Shoigu’s visit to Pyongyang likely affirmed North Korea’s ongoing shipment of weapons Russia is using against Ukraine, which includes North Korean-made 122mm artillery rockets.
With full access to North Korea’s reserves of likely tens of millions of artillery shells and millions of artillery rockets, Russia could turn the tide of its Ukraine war and restock for wars against Poland and the Baltics.
But by the early 2030s North Korea may be able to offer decisive nuclear support for Chinese and Russian aggression, as it will offer for export a full selection of regional and strategic nuclear weapons and their satellite and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) targeting systems.
Their appearance in North Korean military parades suggest that the larger liquid fueled 15,000km range Hwasong-17, that could be armed with at least four multiple nuclear warheads, and the new solid fueled 15,000km range Hwasong-18, that could be armed with at least three multiple warheads, could both be produced by North Korea at a rate of four per year.
This “low” estimate could result in a 2030 North Korean nuclear force with 72 ICBMs capable of lofting over 250 warheads.
But North Korea’s March 28, 2023, revelation of its small 50-centimeter diameter Hwasal-31 tactical nuclear warhead suggest the potential to arm the 2.6 meter diameter Hwasong-17 with 10 warheads, and the 2.2 meter diameter Hwasong-18 with up to 6 warheads, with a potential 2030 total of nearly 600 warheads.
This points to a crucial threat to the American ability to offer “extended nuclear deterrence,” or to deter China, Russia, and North Korea from attacking Taiwan and allies Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines.
The US nuclear force only offers about 450 “targets,” to include 400 ICBM silos, five bomber bases, two nuclear missile submarine bases, and assorted missile defense, communication and support bases.
As it revealed its Hwasal-31 tactical nuclear warhead, Pyongyang also revealed that is was developing eight new tactical warhead delivery systems: five short range ballistic missiles; two medium range cruise missiles; and one large unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV).
But in the July 27 parade North Korea revealed another, larger, “Haeil” UUV that submarine expert H.I. Sutton estimates is 16 meters long and has a range of 1,000 kilometers with a diesel electric engine.
It looks just like the Russian “Poseidon” large nuclear-armed and nuclear propelled UUV, but it should be recalled that since its early export of solid fuel missiles to Pakistan in the 1990s, China has utilized unique designs for transporters and missiles to conceal its proliferation of nuclear-capable weapons.
This is likely the case for the July 27 parade revealed North Korean Morning Star-9 unmanned aerial vehicle, which is designed to resemble the US MQ-9 “Reaper-2” UAV, but is also close in size to the Chinese Chengdu Wing Loong-2, which has an endurance of 32 hours.
So North Korea will very soon have enough short and medium range tactical nuclear missiles, and the long-range UAVs needed to conduct dynamic tactical nuclear warfare against South Korea, Japan, and possibly against Taiwan.
It will also be able to sell packages of nuclear missiles and targeting UAVs to potential customers in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.
Washington’s response over the last decade to North Korea’s nuclear buildup does not spur confidence that it is willing to counter its potentially much larger medium-term nuclear threat.
On July 21, 2023, speaking at an Aspen Institute forum, Biden Administration Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated:
“And what I’ve shared with Chinese counterparts is this: We believe that you have unique influence, and we hope that you will use it to get better cooperation from North Korea. But if you can’t or if you won’t, then we’re going to have to continue to take steps that aren’t directed at China but that China probably won’t like because it goes to strengthening and shoring up not only our own defenses but those of Korea and Japan…”
Come on! Blinken has likely known that China had a “unique influence” since 2012 when he was Vice President Joe Biden’s national security advisor and should have been briefed on China’s shipments of CASIC ICBM transporters to North Korea.
Very likely, Chinese assistance expanded to include aid for North Korea’s new short, medium, and intercontinental range ICBMs, submarine-launched missiles, cruise missiles, surveillance satellites, UAVs, and UUVs.
But the Obama, Trump, and Biden Administrations have failed to sanction CASIC for its original export of ICBM transporters to North Korea.
China has turned North Korea into a well-armed nuclear weapons state that in the early-to-mid 2030s may be capable of a disarming nuclear first strike against the American nuclear force.
Against North Korea’s nuclear threat alone it would be logical for the US to be rapidly expanding its regional nuclear forces to include new nuclear armed ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and artillery, but the Biden Administration opposes even the revival of production of a tactical nuclear armed sea launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) attempted in 2017 by the previous Trump Administration.
In addition, North Korea’s growing nuclear threat logically would point to the urgency for Washington to be expanding its nuclear forces well beyond its 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads allowed by the 2010 New Start Treaty, as China is building up to well over 3,000 warheads by the early 2030s, while Russia may be building up to a similar number.
For that matter, China’s turning North Korea into a global nuclear threat while also building toward global nuclear superiority would logically justify a new American policy to help its allies and partners to build their own nuclear deterrent.
In the absence of a US tactical nuclear buildup in Europe, Russia has made almost weekly threats of tactical nuclear weapons usage that has in part deterred Washington and its allies from giving Ukraine effective weapons such as long range ballistic missiles and new fighter aircraft.
With a tactical nuclear weapons arsenal that likely mirrors North Korea’s, it can be expected that Beijing and Pyongyang will make increasing coercive use of their regional nuclear forces to prevent the US, Japan, and the Philippines from assisting Taiwan should they attack.
If their war against Taiwan succeeds, China, Russia and North Korea can be expected to launch many more wars of aggression in Asia and beyond.
Richard D. Fisher, Jr. is a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center.
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