North Korean Missile Test offers Trump his biggest foreign policy challenge yet

On American Independence Day, North Korea took the chance to reassert their own growing strength with the successful test of an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile sending it into the Sea of Japan, 930km from its launch site. The particular missile involved had the potential to continue on further and reach Alaska roughly 6,700 km away thus allowing it to fulfill the definition of an ICBM as opposed to being merely an intermediate-range missile. Dubbed the Hwasung-14, the successful test presents Trump with the most difficult foreign policy challenge yet just days before the G20 meeting in Hamburg.

Within just a few years since his ascension to power, Kim Jong-Un has swiftly and decisively set about securing his position with the most recent ICBM test just the latest in a string of rapid advances in the nation’s nuclear capabilities with 2 nuclear weapons tests last year. However the ICBM test was especially worrying due to the rapid speed of its development that experts did not anticipate and in doing so poses immediate questions to Trump’s government with a development of a longer distance missile appearing to be an inevitability as opposed to a possibility in the coming years.

Trump has stepped up opposition to North Korea since being inaugurated, sending “an armada” to the peninsula, attempting to use dialogue with Beijing to curb illicit trade with North Korea to little success, and accelerating cyber-attacks upon North Korean missile launchers. However, regardless of America’s increasing attempts and North Korea’s many missile test failures, the Hwasung-14 still managed to succeed.

Kim Jong-Un was fully aware of the risk he was taking with his test having the effect of bolstering opposition against his nation (including their lifeline of China) with ever more sanctions, America increasing military presence in the South in addition to further attempts to sabotage their programme from the USA. Despite that, the benefits the 33 year old dictator has reaped are clear to see.

Any first strike from Kim Jong-Un is almost certainly out of the question since any such move would be suicidal with zero incentive, but the development of a way to strike back at America strengthens his position, thus enabling him to continue to survive with no fear of invasion. After watching Libya’s Gaddafi deposed from power after giving up his nuclear weapons by his own people with the support of the Americans and the Crimea annexed by Russia after Ukraine gave up their’s as well, it is unsurprising Kim Jong-Un has adopted this approach.

Any previous naive belief Trump had in mind that he could easily use his arts of negotiation to encourage Xi JinPing to exert China’s power over North Korea have been quickly dashed and now Trump’s hands are now firmly tied as North Korea increases their nuclear capabilities. With North Korea able to build up their stockpile of weapons over the past decade, any preemptive strikes from the US on North Korea would perform too little damage in order to justify the human cost of any immediate retaliation regardless of whether they possess working ICBMs with South Korea’s megacity capital, Seoul, lying in range of North Korean artillery. America are planning to ship more antimissiles to the peninsula and Japan including the new interceptors known as Block 2A that could be used to prevent any future missile tests and as a result curb North Korea’s programme, but this is opposed by both China and Russia. In addition, the new interceptors are still not close to being able to enter service.

A fourth option lies open separate to ones that involve Chinese cooperation, defensive measures or a preemptive military operation, that is negotiations with North Korea that would start to limit the American military on the peninsula in return for North Korea ending tests. This is an option favoured by both Russia, China and one the new South Korean President, Moon Jae-in, views as a potential possibility that could be considered. However such a move would severely reduce American power and influence in the Pacific and in doing so strengthen China and North Korea’s situation, something America will not be willing to concede.

As a result America’s only options are heavily limited, especially by this new development. Last week, the Trump administration announced sanctions targeting a China-based bank accused of laundering money for the North Korean government, and moved forward with an arms sale to Taiwan that Beijing opposes, with similar actions highly likely to be stepped up in order to put more economic pressure on North Korea as well as attempt to cajole China into applying more pressure upon their unruly neighbour. However with any previous attempts of economic pressure failing to have the desired impact since Kim Jong-Un cares little for the suffering of his people as well as historical and geopolitical factors making China extremely reluctant to act, any decisive change is highly unlikely to happen as pressure begins to build in the powder-keg of a peninsula even if war is almost certainly out of the question for now.

Meanwhile Trump remains President of the United States, an individual with no previous foreign policy or even any political experience lies in the oval office tweeting dissatisfaction at North Korea’s dictator. America’s own situation in the White House is simply adding more potential complications to an already volatile situation. Let’s maybe add one more item to Jared Kushner’s to-do list.

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