North Korea’s Threat to Shoot Down Aircraft

Yes, it has happened before and you can read the whole story of North Korea shooting down a US aircraft in international waters.  The long, but detailed report by the National Security Agency is still somewhat redacted but has the entire story laid out, including the intelligence services conflicts over aircraft assignments, the delay in reporting the aircraft missing, and many more nuances of the missions to collect intelligence of different types close to the hostile North Korea.  It was certainly as dangerous in 1969 as it is now.

I read what I could find on that incident which was said to put Richard Nixon’s finger on the nuclear button.  There is little from official sources on that aspect, but the National Security Archives has some articles on it.  What I wanted to know was why he didn’t carry out that strike after considering it.  The Archives describes it this way:

• The early recognition that military strikes against North Korea, regardless of the provocation, carried serious risks of inciting retaliation by Pyongyang and the threat of escalation.

• The growth in the list of available options from limited strikes on selected North Korean airfields to, by the fall of 1969, at least two dozen plans, which targeted the full spectrum of North Korea’s military forces, and covered a wide range of scenarios to provide flexibility to the president in confronting future North Korean provocations.

• The emphasis on the need to neutralize North Korea’s air power, in any response to a provocation greater than the downing of the U.S. reconnaissance plane, in order to minimize the risks of retaliation and escalation. To this end the JCS drew up a plan codenamed FRESH STORM to take out Pyongyang’s military air power, but warned that carrying it out would carry some risk of sparking a major war on the Korean peninsula.

So, if this story sounds familiar, it is because history repeats itself now and again.  However, one item of note is the aircraft being flown over international airspace were slow EC 121s, not modern bombers.  Even the B-1 that flew with Japanese fighter escorts is not a modern bomber, being built in 1998.  Does anyone think that modern bombers are going to fly into North Korea and strike them?  They don’t have to do that anymore.