North Korea Missile Launch: How Serious a Threat?

As North Korea preps a long-range missile for launch, we're seeing a lot of screaming headlines. Our friends at the Drudge Report are giving this one the bold, 36-point type treatment: OMG OMG North Korea has a missile that can reach the western United States! But is that, y'know, true? And how well prepared are we to respond to a missile launch, anyway?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned that a missile firing by North Korea would be a "provocative act"; Pyongyang has said it would consider an attempt to shoot down the missile an "act of war." And a launch test would probably mean the end of the six-party talks on nuclear disarmament as well: North Korea has vowed to restart plutonium production if the United Nations punishes it for a rocket launch.

But that assumes they can get it off the ground. The missile -- described by North Korea as a satellite launch vehicle -- is believed to be a Taepodong-2 derivative. North Korea has been developing the Taepodong-2 since the 1990s, but has yet to successfully launch the thing. Back in July 2006, North Korea fired off a Taepodong-2; the missile failed less than a minute after launch.

The response of the Pentagon at the time was instructive. In late 2006, Lt. Gen. Joseph Inge, then-deputy commander of U.S. Northern Command, confirmed that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system on full alert; interceptor crews at Fort Greely, Alaska, were in place to react to a possible launch; and Rumsfeld personally took part in training exercises meant to test the rules of engagement. When the launch was detected, conference calls with command authorities quickly got underway. But the "threat track" for the missile, however, disappeared before any decision to engage.

Back in 2006, the U.S. military had a very a good picture of what was going on at the launch site; the North Koreans started building up the site almost two months in advance. This time around, we should have plenty of advance warning about a possible Taepodong-2 launch. The missile's first stage uses a liquid propellant; the North Koreans would need several days to fuel up the rocket on the pad. A U.S. official told ABC News yesterday there was "no indication" they had begun the fueling process.

So if the North Koreans moved toward a launch, the U.S. military should have time to weigh the options. The U.S. Navy has at least two ships in the region that may be prepared to track and intercept a missile, including the USS John S. McCain, configured for ballistic missile defense; Japan also has two Aegis destroyers equipped with the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3). A reconfigured SM-3, incidentally, was used in the shoot-down of a disabled spy satellite by a Navy cruiser last year. So the bottom line seems to be: If we have a fair amount of warning, the odds may be pretty decent that we can shoot something down.