Photo released by North Korea's official news agency on August 26, 2017 showing North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un presiding over a target strike exercise conducted by the Korean People's Army at an undisclosed location. (AFP/KCNA via KNS and Getty Images) 

As the world battles COVID-19, concerns over the risk of rogue nations have been reignited. The health status of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un remains in question, while in the South China Sea, a Chinese Coast Guard vessel rammed and sunk a Vietnamese fishing boat, and in the Persian Gulf, armed Iranian speedboats provoked US Navy and Coast Guard vessels.

This week, Hudson was joined by Dr. Robert Soofer, the Pentagon's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy, and Dr. Miller, former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy for a discussion on the role of missile defense in protecting America and its allies against rogue threats in a time of competing national security priorities. 

Read key takeaways from their discussion below, and join us next week as former State Department spokesperson and Hudson Senior Fellow Heather Nauert leads a discussion on how the pandemic is threatening pro-democracy movements with International Republican Institute President Daniel Twining, and for a special conversation with the new British Ambassador to the US Dame Karen Pierce. 

As always, see our full round-up of analysis on Hudson's coronavirus homepage.

Rogue Threats in the Pandemic Era

Key takeaways from Dr. Robert Soofer, Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary, on how the US can prepare for rogue threats at a time of competing priorities.  

1. Protecting the US against rogue threats like North Korea and Iran:

The problem we face in the homeland context is the threat posed by rogue countries such as North Korea and potentially Iran.  Given the level of nuclear testing that North Korea has been conducting as well as the ICBM tests, we believe they have the technical capability to attack the homeland with an ICBM though the growth of that threat over the next 10 years is a little harder to predict. But clearly, they are increasing numbers. They have a combination of fixed and mobile ICBM launchers and we believe it's a threat that we have to reckon with.

Iran doesn't have the technical capability for an ICBM today, but they do have a space launch vehicle capability. If they improve that, they can convert the vehicles into potential ICBMs, so there's still a potential threat.

2. The role of the new Space Development Agency:

We need space-based sensors to improve the performance of our ground-based missile defense system, and so the approach we are taking is with the stand up of this new Space Development Agency. The SDA is looking at a new paradigm for doing missions from space. Rather than large single high-performance satellites, you have a proliferated low earth orbit architecture which makes these systems inherently more survivable, and probably even less expensive to field.

3. Protecting US allies against China and Russia:

The defenses that we're building in a regional context address not only the rogue states but also China and Russia. And it's in their context of their access of aerial denial and anti-access capabilities. If we end up in a conflict either in Europe or in Asia, the objective of Russia or China would be to deny us access; to keep us from reinforcing our allies. We need to overcome that strategy and, again, that's the purpose of deploying missile defenses for our forces, our allies, protect our bases, our ports so that we can reintroduce and reinforcements to turn the tide and win the battle. And that's why we include missile defense as a component of our overarching strategy for dealing with Russia and China.

4. Preparing for tomorrow's threats:

We are in an advantageous position vis-a-vis North Korea, with 44 ground-based interceptors. [Commander of NORAD and USNORTHCOM] General O'Shaughnessy has complete confidence that the system will work and we can address the threat. Then the question is, can we wait until 2028 [for the Next-Generation Interceptor system]? What's a threat going to look like between now and 2028? The first dimension of uncertainty is we don't know how quickly that threat is going to progress. You just don't know. The intelligence community has an estimate, but at the end of the day it's difficult to know how quickly it will progress, in terms of numbers and the sophistication of the threat.​

5. Bipartisan agreement on rogue nations:

There is a great deal of bipartisan consensus to address the threat posed by the rogue countries such as North Korea and potentially Iran. And to get on with improving our regional missile defenses so that we can protect US deployed forces as well as our allies and address this great power competition. I'm grateful that in Congress as well as in the broader strategic community, there is consensus on the current approach and maybe in the future we can have more divisive debates as technology matures, but right now we're in a good spot.

Quotes have been edited for length and clarity

Go Deeper: Hudson on Missile Defense