Reality Check

For weeks, we have been told that North Korea does not have the ability to conduct a nuclear attack on the United States – even though it keeps claiming that’s its intent.  Yesterday, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel repeated that claim in congressional testimony.

This assurance, however, is misleadingly based on just one of the ways in which such a nuclear strike could be mounted on us.  But what if the North Koreans don’t have in mind using a long-range, nuclear-armed missile launched from their own soil?  It turns out, if other options are considered, a devastating attack is possible right now.

Weapons smuggled across our porous borders, ship-borne short-range missiles and possibly even the North’s orbiting satellite may constitute present dangers.  Official deceit about that reality provides false comfort, probably dangerously so.