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Former US Defense Secretary William Perry gives a keynote address in a seminar about ways to bring peace to the Korean Peninsula that was held in Washington under the joint auspices of the Institute for Korean Studies at George Washington University and the Korea Peace Network

On June 13, former US Defense Secretary William Perry, 89, said that the THAAD missile defense system would be little use for defending against North Korean missile attacks and that THAAD should be removed if the administration of President Moon Jae-in doesn‘t want it.

Perry made the remarks during a Q&A session following his keynote address in a seminar about how to bring peace to the Korean Peninsula that was held in Washington under the joint auspices of the Institute for Korean Studies at George Washington University and the Korea Peace Network. The Korea Peace Network was established on Oct. 3, 2015, by groups such as the American Friends Service Committee, Women Cross DMZ and the National Association of Korean Americans (NAKA) that have worked for private-sector exchange with North Korea and for peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Perry began by expressing his doubts about the utility of the missile defense system, mentioning that “there are very wrong views about the missile defense system as a whole.” “Worst of all, there are doubts about the only major reason for providing THAAD to South Korea,” he said.

THAAD is being deployed in South Korea, Perry said, because the previous administration under former president Park Geun-hye (2013-16) had accepted it. “It’s very unclear whether the current administration [under President Moon Jae-in] wants it [THAAD] or not. If they don‘t want THAAD, the US ought to be gracious and remove it,” he said.

Perry also made a few remarks about THAAD’s usefulness. “The US probably gave South Koreans a positive impression about THAAD’s defensive capabilities. But objectively speaking, THAAD probably wouldn’t be that good at defending against a North Korean missile attack,” he said.

The former defense minister explained why: “THAAD is known to have had some problems even in interception tests. In particular, it‘s completely defenseless against North Korean decoys.”

“We don’t know whether North Korea has developed decoys, but it’s really easy to make them,” Perry went on to say. “So if the South Korean government or public were to ask if THAAD could defend against an attack by a North Korean missile, I would say no.”

American missile experts such as MIT professor Theodore Postol have argued that THAAD and other American missile defense systems are fundamentally limited in their ability to distinguish an incoming missile’s actual warhead from its decoys. If powerful explosives placed in the missile were used to break it into multiple fragments at a high altitude, interceptor missiles that had already been launched and were approaching the missile would be completely unable to distinguish between the real warhead and the harmless missile fragments, these experts say.

“The North Korean regime may be reckless, but it‘s not crazy. North Korea’s first goal is the preservation of the Kim dynasty; its second goal is earning the respect of the international community; and its third goal is economic recovery. But North Korea can sacrifice its economy for the survival of the regime. Pyongyang has said it‘s developing an ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] that can reach the continental US. That [the development of an ICBM] is no longer a matter of if, but when,” he said, stressing the urgency of finding a solution.

“If we manage to combine a stick with a diplomatic approach through cooperation with China, we can successfully freeze North Korea’s nuclear weapons and long-range missile programs. The diplomatic approach means listening and listening some more. We first need to hear what North Korea’s primary interest is,” Perry said. “We need to create meaningful dialogue [with North Korea] and ultimately normalize relations with them.”

Perry served as Secretary of Defense from 1994 to 1997, during the presidency of Bill Clinton. After Clinton named him North Korean policy coordinator in 1998 with the goal of resolving the North Korean nuclear and missile issue, he visited North Korea in 1999 as Clinton’s special envoy. This and many other interactions with North and South Korea were the basis for a report Perry released in Oct. 1999, which calls for engagement with North Korea.

In related news, the Wall Street Journal reiterated its hardline stance on North Korea in a June 13 editorial titled “South Korea’s Defense Blunder.” “Mr. Moon wants to play a balancing role between the regional powers and convince North Korea to negotiate an entente. This naivete puts South Korea’s security in peril,” the editorial said.

It also stated, “Mr. Moon still has time to fix his mistake before he meets President Trump in Washington later this month. Environmental assessments can and should be waived when national security is at stake.”

By Yi Yong-in, Washington correspondent

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