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Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security

Would North Korea Drop An ICBM off the Coast of Hawaii or California?

North Korea
Image of North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un. Image Credit: North Korean State Media.

Here is something I would never have thought back in 2017 and into 2018 during the height of the North Korea crisis: no one in Washington really cares about the Kim regime and its missiles anymore. 

The reasons are easy to understand. Pyongyang won’t give up its missiles or nukes under any conditions and the Biden team won’t sacrifice the political capital needed to strike a compromise deal that Republicans and hawkish Democrats would attack the administration for. 

Oh, and this is really important: we don’t have Donald Trump tweeting about big buttons or threatening nuclear war on North Korea anymore.

All of that put together means that the Biden national security squad just hopes North Korea won’t escalate tensions enough so they would have to do something about the Kims. 

But, as they say, hope is not a strategy.

The Biden administration isn’t even practicing strategic patience like the Obama years at this point. I would call it giving up and accepting North Korea as a nuclear weapons state in a defacto sense and hoping no one calls them out on it. 

The Next North Korea Crisis

But they will soon enough if North Korea decides to escalate tensions and test fire an ICBM so it lands just outside of the Exclusive Economic Zone of say Hawaii or Alaska. Here’s why I think that could be possible. 

So far, North Korea’s ICBM testing dating back to 2017 has always been limited to lofted trajectory test fires that have the missiles landed in the Sea of Japan or East Sea. These particular missiles, designed to strike the U.S. homeland, have never flown over Japan and into the Pacific or near U.S. bases or territory. 

However, these days, North Korea keeps threatening over and over to respond to recent U.S.-ROK military drills – no matter the fact that they are no threat to the Kim regime at all. 

But this recent statement by Kim Yo Jong has me a little worried: “The frequency of using the Pacific as our firing range depends upon the U.S. forces’ action character.” 

Now, to be fair, North Korea has dropped missiles into the Pacific before. But never a modern ICBM like the ones being tested since 2017 with a moratorium on testing those weapons until last year.  

What if Kim Yo Jong is hinting that North Korea could start testing ICBMs at range and not just up in the air and down again – something they hinted at back on December 20 of last year?

Want more evidence? Remember this statement: “For several years, so-called experts have been saying that our ICBMs reentry into the atmosphere has not been recognized or verified…it seems obvious that they will try to disparage our strategic weapon capabilities with such a logic that it cannot be proven by a lofted-angle launch alone, and that it can only be known by firing at a normal angle…I’ll give an easy answer to that. We can try it soon and once you see it, you’ll know.”

What if her brother decided to up the ante and start firing missiles into the Pacific to test U.S. resolve? What if, knowing that Team Biden is a little busy with Ukraine these days, fired his ICBMs right into the Pacific? 

And to take this a step further, if he really wanted to start a crisis, why not fire one of those missiles so it lands outside of U.S. waters – like say off of Hawaii or California? 

This is North Korea we are talking about – and they are always looking for ways to get back into the news cycle. This would certainly fit the bill. 

Harry J. Kazianis (@Grecianformula) is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive and serves as President and CEO of Rogue States Project, a bipartisan national security think tank. He has held senior positions at the Center for the National Interest, the Heritage Foundation, the Potomac Foundation, and many other think tanks and academic institutions focused on defense issues. He served on the Russia task force for U.S. Presidential Candidate Senator Ted Cruz, and in a similar role in the John Hay Initiative. His ideas have been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, CNN, CNBC, and many other outlets across the political spectrum. He holds a graduate degree in International Relations from Harvard University and is the author of the book The Tao of A2/AD, a study of Chinese military modernization. Kazianis also has a background in defense journalism, having served as Editor-In-Chief at The Diplomat and Executive Editor for the National Interest.

Written By

Harry J. Kazianis (@Grecianformula) is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive and serves as President and CEO of Rogue States Project, a bipartisan national security think tank. He has held senior positions at the Center for the National Interest, the Heritage Foundation, the Potomac Foundation, and many other think tanks and academic institutions focused on defense issues. He served on the Russia task force for U.S. Presidential Candidate Senator Ted Cruz, and in a similar task force in the John Hay Initiative. His ideas have been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, CNN, CNBC, and many other outlets across the political spectrum. He holds a graduate degree in International Relations from Harvard University and is the author of The Tao of A2/AD, a study of Chinese military modernization. Kazianis also has a background in defense journalism, having served as Editor-In-Chief at The Diplomat and Executive Editor for the National Interest.

6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. 404NotFound

    February 21, 2023 at 4:23 pm

    It would simply be much better if russia could just provide rs-28 technology to pyongyang and thereby allow north korean ICBMs to splash down in the atlantic.

    On a regular basis. Instead of limiting splashdowns in the pacific as is now happening.

    Washington has shown it is now a fully fledged warmonger & warplanner without equal.

    Thus russia must wake up, dust its behind and rise to meet today’s harsh realities.

    Several splashes of missile warheads into the atlantic will force biden to either press the US nuke strike button or run to the nearest fallout bunker, or both.

  2. pagar

    February 21, 2023 at 6:25 pm

    Dropping an icbm or its payload off hawaii would only cause biden to up the tempo or temperature of current frenzied war fever which has already hit dizzying levels due to sheer non-stop war rehearsals and war drills.

    But dropping one beside the nearest coast of mainland USA will act as a punch to the forehead of joe biden and very possibly compel him to sue for peace instead of ratcheting up endless provocations & crass finger salutes against rivals and opponents.

    To force biden to sue for peace is a great noble mission but one near-impossible to accomplish.

    But that is done or made real, the world won’t have to worry about places like donbass, kosovo or taiwan or okinawa anymore.

    After biden is forced to sue for peace, the world will recognize and award FULL SOVEREIGNTY to donbass, kosovo, taiwan and okinawa (ryukyu archipelago).

    Right now, those places have exactly zero legal or legitimate claim to national independent & non-aligned sovereignty. They’re only being used as political pawns or political kicking balls by uncle sam for dark political objectives.

    Once those places are truly sovereign and independent and secure, they should be mandated to follow in the footstels of austria.

    In 1955, austria gained its true independence and genuine freedom after it openly declared full commitment and devotion to PERMANENT neutrality.

    Uncle sam was forced to swallow humble pie and withdraw all its military forces from the sacred soil of austria.

    Now, today, more than ever, the global torch of liberty needs the real or true strength of pyongyang’s hwasong missiles. AMEN.

  3. GhostTomahawk

    February 21, 2023 at 8:26 pm

    Why use an ICBM. It would be much easier to float one on a container ship to any port of their choosing. Completely undetectable and America would have no clue who did it. The the Tsunami would wash the evidence away

  4. ScottL

    February 22, 2023 at 9:50 am

    What if the guidance system malfunctions and it drops it on DC?

    Lions and tigers and bears, oh my…

  5. Blogman

    February 22, 2023 at 10:50 am

    China showed the world you do not need a missile to attack the US. All Kim Yo Jong has to do is launch a balloon off our west coast equipped with a EMT device. Suddenly the US would be thrown into the stone age for at least a couple of years.

  6. H.R. Holm

    February 23, 2023 at 2:44 am

    Forget CA or Hawaii, just go for the jugular and pop it on D.C. The Norks would actually be doing the Amerian populace the biggest favor. On the other hand, better not tell Kim or Sis. If they realized that, they’d likely think again. They don’t like Americans at all, except for some of their U.S. sympathizers that come for a visit, and if they thought that taking out
    their bureaucratic comrades in the Capital would result in the prospect of beginning to restore Americans’ liberties and freedoms, chances are they’d quickly reconsider. So the prospect of such a possible action is probably a wash.

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