Forum News Service - Heitkamp: North Korea is Greatest Threat to World Peace

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By Eloise Ogden

The greatest threat to world peace today is North Korea, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp told members of a military affairs committee this past week.

Heitkamp just returned from an official Senate fact-finding trip to several sites in the Asia-Pacific Region and Alaska. The trip with other congressional members from both the Senate and the House looked at missile defense capabilities in Alaska, Japan, South Korea, Guam and Hawaii.

Heitkamp's group spent considerable time in South Korea, including visiting the demilitarized zone.

"Anyone who thinks that Kim Jong-un is crazy is wrong," said Heitkamp, referring to the North Korean leader. She said her dad used to use the phrase "crazy like a fox." That phrase means someone is seemingly foolish but in fact extremely cunning.

"He (Kim Jong-un) wants the whole world to think he's an irrational actor when all of his actions have been rational if you deal with the assumptions that he lives under. He clearly is very much a disruption agent in the region and he clearly is looking to create a capacity to endanger the homeland in the United States of America. He clearly wants that power, he wants that authority. We have to do everything we can to make sure he doesn't get it, and that we continue to support our ally," she said of her visit to South Korea. She said South Korea has an "incredibly talented military."

"Pushing back against North Korea is a day-to-day thing," she told the committee, a part of the Minot Area Chamber of Commece.

Asking the Minot committee, how many people have been to Guam, a number of the military members raised their hands. Members of the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot AFB deploy to Guam as part of the continuous bomber presence in the Pacific region.

Heitkamp, a co-founder of the U.S. Senate Defense Communities Caucus, said there's an incredible number of assets in Guam and those assets must be protected.

A number of U.S. Marines are moving from Okinawa to Guam following a U.S.-Japan agreement to reduce the presence of U.S. troops in Okinawa.

"The Japanese government unlike what you've heard in the media when people say Japan should just step up and pay, Japan pays every day. In fact, Japan's paying a great deal of the ticket to move the Marines from Okinawa," Heitkamp said.

"The real challenge here is protecting these assets, the real challenge is making sure that they're appropriately deployed and that we send the message that we stand ready to defend our country and we stand ready to defend our allies in the region and we have the ability to do it with the finest Air Force that has ever been deployed on the face of the earth," Heitkamp said.
Heitkamp said she met great North Dakota people in the military every place she went in Alaska and the other areas.

In addition to be sure there are the best active defense systems being used to address and deter threats from potential adversaries in these areas, Heitkamp said, "We've got to continue to do everything we can do to build relationships, to build our intel, especially as it relates to North Korea. I think the largest existential threat to United States of America is in North Korea and we need to have the resources to prevent injury to our allies and importantly, to prevent injury and mayhem on American mainland.

"We can't do it alone in the military," Heitkamp said. She said she has reviewed the TransPacific Partnership and that many people do not look at the partnership as a critical piece needed for national security, saying it's a trade agreement.

"As we look at the shift to China and as we look at growing China influence in the region, we know that a big part of that China influence is going to be economic and if we abandon the region economically without a trade agreement, without a trade relationship we will have lost ground militarily and lost ground for our national security," Heitkamp said. She said many admirals in the Navy have suggested that it's worth three destroyers. "That's how significant the TransPacific Partnership is," she said.

Heitkamp also pointed out to the group that the presidential election is about the national security of this country.

Noting the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, just visited Minot AFB and also many other top military brass have visited over the past months, she said those visits will continue.

"That doesn't just happen by accident. It happens because your leadership and DoD (Department of Defense) believes what you do every day is important and your senators in Washington, D.C., believe that everything that you do every day is important. And the men and women who do it, I couldn't be prouder of them," she said.

Minot AFB is the base with two nuclear-capable wings -- the 5th Bomb Wing with its B-52 bombers and the 91st Missile Wing with Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles in underground facilities in the Minot missile field.

Heitkamp also visited Minot AFB Thursday as part of November's Military Family Appreciation Month. She read to young children at the base's Child Development Center and then talked to elementary schoolchildren and parents at the David C. Jones Youth Center. She thanked them for their sacrifice and spoke with families about ways to strengthen defense communities and support military families.

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