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June 19, 2006

The Use of Force

Kevin Drum asks an interesting question regarding the 'use of force' doctrine. With North Korea probably preparing to launch a Taepodong-2 missile, likely in the direction of the United States, what are we justified in doing to protect ourselves? Is taking out the missile launch site justified? While Kevin didn't ask me, I'll answer the question anyhow.

Unless we've got some damn good intelligence (and I mean real stuff, not whatever Tenet used to declare Iraqi WMDs a 'slam-dunk'), that the missile was going to be carrying a warhead and was to be used as some kind of strike against the U.S., then we haven't a leg to stand on in taking out the test site. (And North Korea would have to be insane to make such an attack, since they would have little to gain and a great deal to lose, as an attack on the United States would almost certainly draw a counterattack.) We would doubtless prefer they not test a missile capable of striking the United States, but doing so is hardly grounds for war. And war is what we would have if we struck a target inside North Korea. Their ability to project power is limited, but it's not nonexistent, and they would doubtless attempt to strike us asymmetrically, which would likely mean terrorist-style attacks wherever they could get away with them. Giving them an incentive to do that simply to prevent a missile test seems foolish.

Preemptive use of force is a lot like torture. There are probably some extreme cases that justify it, but they're extremely unusual and uncommon enough that there is no need for any kind of policy for them. If a situation did arise justifying preemptive use of force, I don't think a lot of thought would need to go into the question. It would be a case where there was no question our enemy was about to strike us, and preemptive force was a means to reduce the force of that attack or possibly even prevent it. This hypothetical about a North Korean missile test doesn't even approach that level.

I do like James Robbins' suggestion to test our missile defense system on the missile test, however. It would be as close to a real-world conditions test as we're likely to get, it would allow us to see what we're getting for our money, and advocates of missile defense could use the North Korean test as fodder to maintain support for the program. Even if it failed, that would be a prime opportunity to demagogue the issue and argue that we need to focus more heavily on missile defense because the next missile might not be a test.

Update: James Joyner notes that a more accurate turn of phrase would have been 'When it fails' rather than 'Even if it failed,' a good point unless missile defense has made some quantum leaps in secret.