The Most Important US Signal to North Korea: Vice President Pence

Following several missile tests this year and anticipation of either a nuclear weapon or intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test (or both), tensions going into the Day of the Sun holiday in North Korea were high. April 15th is the anniversary of Kim Il-sung’s birthday and is the most important holiday on the North Korean calendar. Among other things, the day is marked by a massive military parade in Pyongyang, and previous holidays have coincided with weapons tests. Reports of a nuclear weapon being prepared and the gathering of foreign journalists leading up to the holiday bolstered expectations that the holiday would feature a nuclear test.

Amid this fear and uncertainty, the United States allegedly sent several strong deterrent signals to North Korea: a cruise missile strike against a Syrian airbase following the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime, the use of a massive 20,000-pound bomb against an Islamic State target in Afghanistan, and moving an aircraft carrier strike group off the coast of the Korean peninsula. Subsequently, none of these signals turned out to be effective or even real. Meanwhile, several actual military signals went barely reported and had uncertain, if any, effect on North Korean decision-making. The most important signal, however, was never reported as one: the presence of Vice President Mike Pence on the Korean Peninsula.

Following reports that Syrian government forces used sarin in an attack against civilians, the United States attacked the airbase home to the aircraft believed to have conducted the attack with a salvo of cruise missiles launched from Navy destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean. Secretary of Defense James Mattis said the cruise missile strike was intended specifically to deter any future use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and to uphold the international taboo and agreements barring their use.

While the reasoning behind the Syria strikes may have been restricted to Assad’s behavior, many have tried to draw a parallel with North Korea and argue that Kim Jong-un should consider the attack a warning against future provocations. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that the Syria strikes demonstrated President Donald Trump’s resolve and willingness to use decisive force, a sentiment later echoed by Pence.

But analysts like Bonnie Glaser of the Center for Strategic and International Studies have called statements like these mere posturing. The parallel between Syria and North Korea doesn’t work because of the fundamental differences in escalation risk. U.S. forces faced no serious threat of retaliation for the cruise missile attack on Syria, nor could Syria credibly threaten important U.S. allies or the United States with weapons of mass destruction.

North Korea is a different story, with thousands of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea within range of North Korean artillery, and allies like South Korea and Japan within range of North Korean theater ballistic missiles, even if not nuclear-armed. Many analysts believe that the lesson North Korea took from the Syria strikes was not the United States’ willingness to use force, but how important its nuclear arsenal is to deterring that use of force.

Then, two days before the Day of the Sun celebrations, the U.S. Air Force dropped a Massive Ordnance Air-Burst (MOAB) bomb on a network of ISIS tunnels in Afghanistan, reportedly killing over 30 fighters. Because the bomb is alternately described as either the largest conventional or the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal, some analysts and even Trump administration officials argued that the bomb sent a warning to North Korea’s Kim Jong-un about the United States’ resolve to use massive force.

But it’s a mistake to link the MOAB use to North Korea. As large as the MOAB is, it is still far smaller than a nuclear weapon – less than one-thousandth of the explosive power of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The MOAB itself would also have little utility against North Korean nuclear targets. Intended for use against surface or shallow underground targets as well as the psychological effects of its size, it lacks the penetrating force necessary to destroy North Korea’s hardened underground facilities. In any case, Defense Department officials since confirmed that the decision to use the bomb was made by the military commander in Afghanistan, and not in Washington D.C., after requesting authority last year, before Trump was inaugurated.

Then there was the curious case of the Carl Vinson strike group. The aircraft carrier and its destroyer and cruiser escorts arrived in the South China Sea from California in February for a western Pacific deployment that has already taken them up to the Korean Peninsula and back. A week before the Day of the Sun, U.S. Pacific Command canceled a planned visit to Australia by the strike group and ordered it to station in the western Pacific. This followed a North Korean missile test on the eve of the first summit between Trump and President Xi Jinping of China and the understandable speculation in the news was that this meant the carrier was being sent to the Korean Peninsula. Trump himself seemed to confirm this interpretation, telling a Fox Business reporter that he was sending “an armada” in response to North Korea’s provocations.

The carrier’s supposed presence off the coast of Korea the same weekend that North Korea was expected to possibly test a nuclear weapon fueled speculation that the United States might be preparing a preemptive or preventive attack against North Korean nuclear sites. As the weekend came and went with neither an attack nor a nuclear test, a reporter for DefenseNews assembled evidence from U.S. Navy public affairs releases that indicated the Carl Vinson and her escorts were in fact nowhere near the Korean Peninsula, but instead off the coast of Indonesia, over 3,000 miles away. Privately, Navy officials expressed wonderment at the intense press speculation around the carrier but did not issue any correction.

Ironically, each of these dubious signals received far greater attention than military signals that did appear to be sent intentionally, either as warning to North Korea or as assurance to allies in the region.

While most of the press speculated about a preemptive attack being launched by the Carl Vinson strike group, the U.S. Air Force in the Pacific staged a massive drill intended to show its readiness to conduct a large-scale attack. The 18th Wing, based in Okinawa, Japan, conducted a no-notice “elephant walk” exercise just three days before the Day of the Sun. Such exercises involve taxiing nearly the entire wing – Pave Hawk special operations helicopters, F-15 fighter jets, electronic warning aircraft, and airborne refueling planes – down a runway simultaneously at short intervals, like soldiers marching in formation, to then be able to get the entire Wing airborne in the shortest possible period to conduct mass strikes.

The day before the Day of the Sun, U.S. Pacific Command public affairs publicized a test of the Navy’s new Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR), which successfully tracked a ballistic missile launched from a test range in Hawaii. The AMDR is touted to be a major improvement to the Ballistic Missile Defense capabilities of the current SPY radars installed on U.S. destroyers and cruisers to guide ballistic missile interceptors like the SM-3 and SM-6 missiles. Since the test itself was conducted the month prior and was covered in more technically-focused outlets weeks earlier, the Pacific Command’s timing strongly suggests it was signaling U.S. preparations to counter North Korean missiles.

However, since the AMDR is itself still in testing, and the ships it will be installed on are not yet under construction, it was not a signal likely to weigh on North Korea’s decision whether or not to conduct a missile test that weekend. It is even conceivable that the prospect of this future U.S. Navy Ballistic Missile Defense capability would motivate North Korea to move up demonstrations or even limited attacks before the AMDR is operational under a use-it-or-lose-it logic.

Ironically, as Ankit Panda pointed out in an article for The Diplomat, the only U.S. signal that North Korea may have responded to with a counter-provocation is the supposed presence of the Carl Vinson. U.S. officials told Fox News that the failed missile test on Easter Sunday, the day Pence arrived in South Korea, was of a new missile called the KN-17, and that it might have – or be intended to have – an anti-ship capability. China’s anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) programs, the DF-21D and DF-26, have garnered attention as “carrier killers” capable of striking ships at ranges over 1,000 miles and at speeds too high to be defended against, designed to hold U.S. carriers too far offshore to threaten the Chinese mainland or operate in the first island chain.

Believed to be built on a medium-range ballistic missile body, the KN-17 would not have the range of China’s ASBMs, nor does North Korea have the long-range sensors and satellites that would be required to target ships at those extreme ranges. It isn’t clear that North Korea could even target U.S. ships out to the KN-17’s nominal ranges. North Korean officials said that the Carl Vinson’s supposed approach was “reckless” and warned its “nuclear sight” was set on U.S. and ally targets in the region. North Korea’s specific reference to the carrier’s presence and the subsequent unannounced test of a possible ASBM suggests North Korea was signaling a nascent anti-access/area denial capability of its own. In any case, the Pentagon now says that the strike group will be back up to the Korean Peninsula at the end of April.

But the most important deterrent effect on whatever provocations North Korea may have been willing to risk was the presence of Vice President Mike Pence in South Korea. The vice president’s 10-day, four-nation tour of Asia was announced earlier in April and he arrived in South Korea the day after North Korea’s Day of the Sun celebrations, and the same day as the failed ASBM test. He also made an unannounced visit to the Demilitarized Zone.

Aside from any remarks or warnings the vice president made, his mere presence on the Peninsula probably did more than any military signaling to ensure that North Korea’s reactions were more bluster than bomb. Since threatening the presidential succession would be an unambiguous act of war, it’s unlikely that North Korea would attempt a provocation that might be interpreted as threatening his safety and thus make a retaliatory U.S. strike more likely.

In that context, North Korea’s ASBM test into the Sea of Japan makes more sense. Had it been successful, the test would have served to signal that North Korea was unintimidated by U.S. naval posturing with the Carl Vinson, but in a way that couldn’t have been mistaken as threat to the vice president.

Pence’s scheduled trip to South Korea likely also provided reassurance to North Korea that, posturing and press speculation aside, no U.S. strikes were imminent. For the same reason that North Korea had no incentive for its provocations to be seen as a threat to Pence, the United States would not conduct an attack that might escalate into a wider conflict while the vice president was in South Korea, where he could be held effectively hostage to the North’s long-range artillery and nascent nuclear arsenal. In the end, the best deterrent and indication of U.S. intentions toward North Korea was not found in missing aircraft carriers or giant bombs dropped half a world away, but in the White House’s travel schedule.