North Korea’s threat against US aircraft is stupid

According to a BBC translation, Ri stated, “We have every right to take countermeasures, including shooting down U.S. strategic bombers even when they are not yet in the airspace border of our country.”

Ri was clearly referencing this weekend’s flight of U.S. Air Force B-1B bombers and F-15 fighters off the eastern coast of North Korea. That flight, the furthest north of the 38th parallel — which roughly demarks the North-South Korean borders, was designed to remind Kim Jong-un that the U.S. can strike his territory at will.

But in raising the possibility of “shooting down” U.S. aircraft, Ri is stretching North Korea’s threat potential in an unserious way. That’s because North Korean commanders know that the U.S. knows the North’s air force can’t challenge the U.S. military in the skies. While North Korea has a number of relatively advanced MiG-29 fighter jets, most of its fighter aircraft are relics of the mid-Cold War period. And even the MiG-29s are a poor match for the F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, or F-22s that form the U.S. fighter aircraft complement.

It’s not just that the U.S. has superior fighter capabilities to North Korea, it’s that the U.S. has an additional range of force-multiplying aviation-focused electronic warfare, intelligence, and airborne warning systems that the North Koreans lack. As such, were the North Koreans to launch fighter aircraft against U.S. flights, they would quickly be identified, intercepted, and very likely destroyed.

Indeed, they would probably struggle to detect U.S. aircraft with radar before being shot down. The best case scenario for the North Koreans would be for a large number of MiG-29s to somehow approach U.S. aircraft unchallenged and then engage in close-proximity dogfighting. Again, however, in this case the odds would be in American forces’ favor due to the MiG-29s confident maneuverability being offset by the superior skill of U.S. air crews.

In short, Ri’s threat is not a serious one.

This is not to say that the U.S. can be arrogant or dismissive of potential North Korean threats. On the contrary, as Sun Tzu noted 2,500 years ago, “He who exercises no forethought but makes light of his opponents is sure to be captured by them.” It is simply to say that President Trump has the credible basis to authorize aggressive U.S. air operations in proximity to North Korea. When it comes to credible threats, North Korea’s ability to target Seoul is far more of a serious U.S. concern than any threat to U.S. military aircraft. One caveat, however, is that the North Koreans might attempt to target a passenger airliner transiting near their airspace. Remember, nothing can be ruled out when it comes to North Korea.

Ultimately, I suspect this weekend’s U.S. Air Force flight wasn’t simply focused on Kim. Considering that China’s southern border and the Russian Pacific Fleet at Vladivostok are both just north of the 38th parallel, the flight was perhaps also intended to nudge China and Russia into tougher diplomatic pressure on North Korea. The Chinese and Russians detest U.S. military operations near their borders, so by sending a powerful aerial armada towards them, the U.S. sends a message of discontent about their current approach to Kim. As I’ve noted, that pressure will be crucial towards altering Kim’s ballistic missile strategy and facilitating effective diplomacy.