Time to reconstitute pressure on Pyongyang

Excerpt

A “saturation attack” describes simultaneous launches aimed at overwhelming an adversary’s defenses and crippling their capability and will to respond. Amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and Iran’s launching of ballistic missiles near a U.S. facility in Iraq, North Korea appears intent to pile on, having just launched another ballistic missile Tuesday.

The missile, which reportedly failed, may have been part of a larger intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) system that Pyongyang seeks to test.

The Biden administration cannot afford to let North Korea extort it while it is distracted by other foreign policy crises. The time to reconstitute pressure on Pyongyang is now.

Anthony Ruggiero is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (@FDD). He previously served in the U.S. government for more than 19 years, most recently as senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense on the U.S. National Security Council. Follow him on Twitter @NatSecAnthony. Behnam Ben Taleblu is a senior fellow at FDD, where he covers Iranian political and security issues as well as functional issues like nonproliferation and arms control. FDD is a Washington, D.C.-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.