Isle expert dismisses ‘barking’ by N. Korea, U.S.

North Korea has been famous for its hyperbole for years.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for the North Korean People’s Army said it was “carefully examining” plans for an “enveloping fire around Guam” with Hwasong-12 ballistic missiles after the “air pirates of Guam” (U.S. B-1 bombers flying over the Korean Peninsula) staged a “madcap drill simulating an actual war.”

On Wednesday, the North said that only “absolute force” would work on President Donald Trump, and plans were being drawn up to fire missiles targeted 19 to 25 miles from Guam.

In between, Trump said North Korea’s aggression would be “met with fire and fury.”

Ralph Cossa, president of the Honolulu-based Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies, called it all “much ado about nothing — or about very little.”

“You know that old saying, ‘Barking dogs don’t bite’? I just wish they would bark a little lower, because it’s starting to get very annoying,” Cossa said Wednesday.

“At the end of the day, no one is going to attack anyone else, and the North Koreans understand that if they were to launch an attack on Guam (or) on South Korea and Japan or anywhere in the U.S. — that this is the end of North Korea,” said Cossa, who has over 40 years experience with U.S. security policy in the Asia-Pacific.

The frenzy spread fears in Guam and rekindled an ongoing discussion over whether Hawaii needs missile interceptors in the state to better protect against a growing North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile threat. Ground-based missiles in Alaska and California that theoretically protect Hawaii have a 55 percent success rate in flight intercept tests.

Missile experts say North Korea’s two ICBM tests July 3 and 28 show that the rogue nation has a missile that can reach Hawaii and the mainland. It’s also said to have miniaturized a nuclear warhead, but may not have a working re-entry vehicle.

Riki Ellison, chairman of the nonprofit Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, said he believes that Pentagon contingency planning is underway for either activation of the Aegis Ashore missile testing site on Kauai for the defense of Hawaii or emplacement here of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery.

“Bottom line, Hawaii is defended today by (ground-based interceptors) in Alaska. Hawaii can be better defended,” Ellison said by email.

U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa disagrees with activation of the Aegis Ashore test site, which officials have said would interfere with its regular missile testing functions.

“I believe Congress has laid out the best way forward in the FY18 National Defense Authorization Act with additional missile interceptors in Alaska and the siting of a discriminating radar in Hawaii,” Hanabusa said in an email. That radar is expected to be operational in 2023.

Hanabusa said it is “overly simplistic” to think that missile interceptors physically located in Hawaii are the best, or only, way to counter a North Korean nuclear threat. Hanabusa alluded to the unmatched firepower of the U.S. military as a deterrent to a North Korean missile attack.

Adm. Harry Harris, head of U.S. Pacific Command, recently told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that Hawaii needs to have a “phased approach” for its defense.

“We have to have a defense-of-Hawaii radar first, and that’s in the plan. That’s being funded, and I think it’s a great thing,” he said. “And I’ve called for a study to determine what the follow-on should be to go with that radar (and) whether it should be an Aegis Ashore or THAAD” or some other defense.

Cossa said he doesn’t believe North Korea will fire missiles into international waters off Guam.

“If they are in international waters, they have a right to do it,” he said. “We also, I assume, have a right to shoot it down if we’re nervous about that. And they seem to be testing that. Quite frankly, with the accuracy of their missiles, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 kilometers, I think they would be very nervous about trying to shoot it that close to Guam, just because they might accidentally hit it. But I would doubt that they even are going to launch it.”

After North Korea twice successfully flight-tested an ICBM, putting Hawaii and part of the mainland potentially in range, state Rep. Gene Ward sent a letter to Trump on Aug. 3 seeking direct governmental talks with North Korea.

“In light of this situation, you well know the adage that ‘when diplomats stop talking, bullets start flying,’” Ward said in the letter. “My problem is that we have not been talking to North Korea for years, nor have we now even begun talking with the North Koreans about their aberrant and dangerous behavior with their missiles.”

Without question, the “best place in the world to sit down to try to reason with Kim Jong Un is in Hawaii,” Ward added. “We are the capital of soft power in the Pacific with two elite diplomatic institutions: the East-West Center and the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies.”