North Korea will have the bomb unless the west changes tactics

The red line could be any successful launch with usable nuclear warhead-dummies on a missile. Such a test is already a direct threat to U.S. and Korean interests. A nuclear weapon could be put onto the missiles at any time and it may then be too late to stop its use as a tool for blackmail. It would be better not to wait too long for North Korea to acquire an operational nuclear missile, and it is much better for a credible deterrence to draw a sharp red line from the beginning. This should also be a well-known line for China and Russia.

The U.S. President must make clear now: If North Korea dares to ignore this red line, there will be no other outcome than a preventive airstrike by the U.S., which would target all his leadership structures, as well as the leader himself. For the first time during the U.S.-Korean military consultations in early October 2013, U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel officially agreed that a pre-emptive strike against the North is legitimate and necessary before a nuclear weapons capability is achieved.

We should be more optimistic as well: As Vietnam has shown, a small and militant communist country can reform itself, feed its people and integrate into the world.

German reunification proves that the collapse of a rotten communist system can happen overnight and is best organized by the communist secret services to reform the system from the inside. Do not forget: the KGB head Gorbatschow and the German Stasi general Michael Wolf started the transition to save the power of the communist parties. That could happen in North Korea as well.

We should therefore stimulate new thinking in the North Korean leadership and look for any – even tiny – dialogue and reform opportunities, based on a credible containment policy backed by credible deterrence and sufficient military power. We have to both use and talk simultaneously. This will surely not be easy, but it is not impossible. We saw the Berlin Wall come down, the USSR dissolved, the Russian SS-20 nuclear missiles aimed at Western Europe destroyed and Eastern Europe freed. Let’s be more optimistic and not self-fulfilling pessimists.

It is up to the young leader Kim Jong-un to decide whether he will cross the red line and be blown up before he has his bomb, or evolves into a reform leader like his recent Chinese counterparts. His bomb is an expensive dead-end road for him. Unfortunately, his vision is limited like a tunnel. He is still not well-established. But he could argue that the traditional Juche philosophy of his grandfather is best served by land reform. Juche in essence means to master things alone and be independent and self-reliant. That can be done in a more humane and capitalistic order in the North as well. One can even argue that Juche demands exactly this fresh approach in changing times. I belief the dictator could even stay in power as the people in the North have so differently developed than the Southerners, but only if he manages the transition wisely and does not wait too long. All communist leaders in the USSR and Eastern Europe missed their windows of opportunity for reform in the 1960s which were long gone by 1990. If they had reformed much earlier, there would perhaps still be socialist countries in Europe today. Kim Jong-un needs a soft landing or he is lost.

The best way to achieve a safe peace in the region and help the oppressed North Koreans is a combination of several elements in a clever Double Strategy Korea 3.0 from 2013 until 2023: Most of all, a crystal clear red line made public, combined with sufficient deterrence capabilities from South Korea, Japan and the U.S., a new friendship between Tokyo and Seoul based on real reconciliation by the Emperor and military cooperation, the integration of China and Russia in a reform process of the North and the economic development of  Northeast Asia, which best serves their interests, mixed with a fresh creative Korean Ostpolitik with incentives for Kim Jong-un under the umbrella of strong American leadership.